Chapter Text
Izuku learned at a very young age that love is conditional. Love is a reward for following the rules, love is reserved for those who are worthy of it, for those who are loveable.
His father's love was always conditional, he’d love him if he weren't in his way, he’d love him if there were people watching, he’d love him if he was quiet, he’d love him if he wasn’t angry but he was angry a lot. He had fire on his tongue and he didn’t hesitate to spit vitriol.
So, Izuku learned to be small, he learned to hide and appease. He did his best to learn how to be lovable but he always seemed to come up short.
Looking back Izuku doesn’t think he was planned. It seems unlikely that someone like Hisashi would ever want kids, that would explain his contempt for his own child. Maybe Izuku was an accident or maybe Hisashi was just an angry man. Maybe Hisashi just used to pretend to love him but that was before the diagnosis. After the diagnosis Izuku wasn’t a child, he was a waste. He was a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of space, and Hisashi made sure he knew that.
Hisashi hated that Izuku was quirkless. He’d thought that Hisashi was an angry man before, but that was child’s play, when Hisashi was really mad he had very poor quirk control. He would scream burning reminders onto Izuku’s skin until one day he gave up. He gave up on Izuku and his family and he left.
Izuku used to think his mother’s love was the exception, Mama loved him no matter what. But that wasn’t true, Mama loved him when he wasn’t the reason Papa left, Mama loved him when he wasn’t useless, Mama loved him before he ruined her life.
Mama still likes him when he’s quiet; when he’s not in the way she’s happier. So Izuku learned to make himself scarce, he’d take the long way home from school on her days off and he’d stay in his room when he couldn’t stay out because Mama deserved to be happy. She fed him and taught him how to take care of his own boo-boos like a big kid, she was kind.
That’s what Izuku used to think, maybe he was delusional, or maybe he was just a child who didn’t know any better.
***
Izuku’s school days followed a routine, he’d get to school fairly early and hide away in some nook or cranny, and race to class just before the bell rang. He found that this was the best way to toe the line between avoiding his classmates and not getting punished for being late. He’d scramble to his desk and set aside the occasional spider lily or quietly buff out slurs written in scratchy graphite.
Throughout the day he’d take some insults or blows, dodging occasionally when he calculated the risk of retaliation and further violence to be low. He’d become very skilled at reading his classmate's emotions, he knew when they were already angry it was better to just let them take it out on him otherwise it would be worse later.
Izuku never had siblings or cousins the closest thing he had was Kacchan and well… that relationship was just further evidence to prove that he was unloveable. He’d still look to Kacchan whenever some of his classmates said or did something particularly cruel as if he would step in and save him but of course he never did.
He remembers the first time one of his classmates told him to kill himself in front of Kacchan and he looked up hoping he would finally step in and say that was too far.
He didn’t.
He just laughed along and it broke something inside Izuku that he didn’t know he had left, that was the first time Izuku ever actually considered following his classmate’s advice.
Izuku knew there wasn’t anyone who was going to swoop in and save him so the second the final bell rang every day he would bolt out the door to dodge his peers as best he could then he would start his usual wanderings; it was a habit left over from when Inko still spent time at home. He didn’t want to bother her so he’d spend a few hours after school wandering into the parts of Musutafu where no one knew he was quirkless. After Inko stopped coming home regularly Izuku would still go on these walks just in case she did, but now it’s more a reprieve than anything. Sure, it wasn’t really the nicest area but the people there recognized him and he’d wave and smile at them and they wouldn’t sneer at the cute little kid.
They didn’t know what he was, it was nice.
He’d pet the strays and mind his business. Well, he’d look like he was minding his business but he heard things, mostly harmless things but he was never very good at forgetting. So, he knew the names of all the store owners, he knew Fukuda-san’s cousin just got into their first pick high school, he knew Kato-san was a drug dealer who also had a soft spot for cats, and Iwai-san was a lady of the night. He knew this block was the territory of a gang but the next one over wasn’t, he knew where it was safe to stop and do his homework when the weather was nice, and more importantly, he knew where it wasn’t safe and he knew when to get the hell out.
It’s because of these wanderings that Izuku normally didn’t get home until just before sunset. And it’s why Izuku found himself with 12 rather than 16 hours to pack up his life and leave.
***
Izuku hasn’t seen Inko in over a month. This wasn’t too unusual, he was 12 years old he could take care of himself and she was happier without him, why would she come home? She’d been drifting further and further away from him for years no matter what he did. She’d work long hours at the hospital so he always made sure to leave leftovers in the fridge for her to warm up when she got home. She didn’t like things to be dirty so Izuku made sure to keep things tidy for her, she worked so hard to provide for them, it was the least he could do.
On the rare occasions he actually saw his mother these days he’d try to make small talk, he’d ask her about work or her friends. He’d ask how she was doing, if there was anything she needed but he was always met with short, clipped answers.
“Work’s fine.”
“My friends are doing well.”
“I’m fine.”
It was like living with a stranger, no, a ghost. This woman was the ghost of his mother, there was nothing left of the warmth she used to have, she was cold and gone in the blink of an eye.
She still left money for him so he could eat, there was still a roof over his head. Well, there actually hadn’t been money for food for a while now but that's okay, he could make do, and this pink slip on the door was definitely new…
***
Izuku sat at the kitchen table reading the notice for the nth time. Eviction. Rent hadn’t been paid since before he’d last seen his mother when she’d been packing for a trip to see a friend up north, or at least that’s what she’d told him.
She would be back, she had to come back, she wouldn’t just leave him.
Unbidden, his legs carried him to his mother’s bedroom, somewhere he’d dared not disturb for years. He knocked on the door gently, still holding on to the naïve hope that he’d gotten this all wrong, of course, his mother didn’t leave him. She must’ve just forgotten to pay rent, right?
Pushing open the door shattered his flimsy hope like glass. It was barren. The bed was stripped, the closet was completely empty, the vanity was void of his mother’s make-up and jewelry. Any sign that this room was ever lived in was gone.
She was gone.
“Kami, I’m an idiot.” The words seemed to escape his lips despite him.
He should’ve seen this coming, he shouldn’t have been so blindsided, of course, it was only a matter of time before she left too.
He was alone, not just lonely like he had been for the last few years, he was well and truly alone now.
The note in his hands started turning fuzzy as tears obscured his vision. He just let them fall, what else could he do? For the first time in a very very long time, he let himself fall apart, loudly, and obtrusively. Sobs wracked his body and the hands that reflexively went to cover his mouth did little to stifle the volume. He shattered and fell with all the resonance of a plane crash because there was no one left to love him any less for it.
***
Izuku trudged his way up the stairs to the roof of the complex, it’s where he’d go when it was too late for a walk and he needed to clear his mind. He’d sit on the ledge on the right side of the flimsy safety fence and look down at the city. He watched as the underground or twilight heroes went around their patrols. He’d watch people walking home from late shifts or walking to their night shift. Musutafu was a busy city, a city that would wake up and move on with or without him, a city that had no stake in any of his problems. Maybe it was morbid, maybe a bit unhealthy, but it was better than getting mugged.
The sun had set, there was no trace of it on the horizon as Izuku settled himself on the ledge on auto-pilot. Not for the first time, he considered pulling back the chain link that clung limply to the pole he was leaning against.
What was keeping him here?
Hope? Hope for what? The last 12 years of his life proved that hope was a fragile thing to place your faith in.
No one would miss him.
His eyes traced the cityscape trying to spot heroes like he always did, would they help him? Would anyone help someone like him? He wondered if there was anyone else looking out at the city wondering the same thing, he hoped not. No one deserved to feel like this.
That's why he wanted to be a hero, to save people like him.
He glanced down at his fingers tangled in the rusted chain links.
He can’t be a hero if he’s dead.
He let his hand drop to his side and stared unmoving at the skyline.
***
He needed to be out by morning, where was he supposed to go? Numbly, he made his way to his room and started packing anything he could fit into his backpack, duffle, and suitcase. Condensing his whole life down into three bags. He paused as his hand reached for an All Might action figure, this was childish, there's precious little space and he didn’t have enough room for frivolous things. Glancing around his room his heart sank as he took in all the things he would have to leave behind. He wouldn’t have room once he got to… where ever he was going.
Where was he going? The neighbors? The cops? His teachers? They’d all just send him into the foster system if they even cared enough to do that. No one wanted a quirkless kid, he was a punching bag at best he couldn’t leave school only to come home to more beatings he couldn’t hecould’thecould’thehecould’the–
No, never mind that, this stuff was important he couldn’t just leave it, this stuff was from when Inko and Hisashi were still Mama and Papa, when they still loved him enough to spend all this money to make him happy, this stuff was valuable. It was valuable and it was all nearly a decade old and in mint condition, Inko didn’t like it when he made stuff dirty, he could sell it and at least have money for food for a while, right?
He finally snapped out of his haze, a plan, he needed a plan. He can’t afford housing long-term, hell probably not even short-term, so he’s homeless… but that's ok there are homeless people living all over Musutafu so that's uh… doable… yeah maybe he could join a camp or make a hut there's several places he can think of off the top of his head that would be suitable for a makeshift shelter, after all, he had a extensive mental map of the city and all its side streets from his walks.
Okay, he could do this.
The suitcase is for clothes, blankets, hygiene equipment, first aid, and his sewing kit, the backpack is for school stuff and expensive stuff, laptop, phone, chargers, and books, and the duffle is for stuff to sell. The note said he needed to be out by 8 AM which he usually was for school anyway but he couldn’t exactly lug his whole life to class, that was a surefire way to get it all destroyed, so he needed to find somewhere to stash it before school, that’s okay, he’s very good at hiding.
Setting an alarm for 5 AM Izuku settled in for a restless night, his last night in a bed for Kami knows how long.
Notes:
There she is chapter 1. lmk if anyone wants me to finish this, I have a whole outline thru at least the stain arc sitting in my noggin. ik it's not super creative but I figured its one of those I want this again but different type of stories. ik I've prolly read a million of these and I will do it again.
Crits I'm looking for:
Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece.
Also, feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
Formatting. I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting. I'm currently fighting for my life just trying to post this bc I have the tech literacy of an 80 y/o, it's brutal out here.
I know there's not really dialogue yet but if I continue this there will be and I have never written dialogue in my life so that's prolly gonna be rough. So if anyone has tips for that hmu.also also, if anyone feels compelled to copy/paste and completely edit this feel absolutely free. I know there are a few fics I have read where I wanted to do that but I didn't know if the author would be offended. Just take it and gut it out like those good bones bitches on HGTV, y'know? Just do the writer's equivalent of red-lining a shitty sketch. ig that's prolly what a beta is, right? Post-posting beta this shit plz.
TYSM FOR READING BYEEEEEE
Chapter 2: First Day of the Rest of My Life
Notes:
The second chapter was way easier to write for some reason, but like I said last time this is my first piece of narrative writing EVER so critiques are welcome just keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
suicidal thoughts/ideation
implied physical abuse
emotional abuse
neglect
bullying
dissociation
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Waking up to the blaring of an alarm clock two hours earlier than usual after a night of sleeping far worse than usual was not what Izuku would call an ideal way to start the day but then again Izuku wouldn’t describe any part of his life as ideal. So, he figured this is par for the course on the first day of his new life.
The realization of why his alarm clock was going off two hours early hit him like a freight train. For a moment he lay there frozen his body propped up on an elbow with the other arm reaching to silence the offending noise. He stared blankly at the clock not realizing the numbers changing, too out of touch to realize how much the noise was grating on his ears until it turned off on its own after 10 minutes. The abrupt silence brought him back to reality and he forced himself to look away and breathe.
Sitting on the edge of the bed he allowed himself a moment to gather his hazy thoughts. He was on a time crunch, he could have a crisis later. Forcing himself to stand he grabbed his phone and set another alarm for a half hour and cranked the shower to its highest temperature and spent as much time as he could basking in the near-scalding hot cascade of water. This was a luxury he’s not sure he will be afforded again for quite some time. He scrubbed every inch of his skin as if he could stock up on cleanliness for all the showers he was sure he would miss in the future.
Once the second alarm of the day went off he wasted no more time packing up his shampoo and all the bars of soap he could find in the house, mournfully deciding the conditioner was unnecessary and would take up too much space. He packed his toothbrush and toothpaste after he brushed his teeth and looked dejectedly between his bedding and the space he had left in the suitcase. That was not all going to fit. Figuring the blanket was the most important he folded it long ways twice and then rolled it up as compactly as he could and after some not-so-gentle persuasion it made its way into the suitcase with his clothes and toiletries.
Having packed everything else he could last night he surveyed the apartment one last time, the place he grew up in, his home– No. Breakdown later.
Violently shoving his emotions down Izuku continued his final sweep of the place clinically. Once satisfied that he balanced his space-to-useful-objects ratio he slung his backpack across his shoulders, placed his duffle on top of his suitcase, and threaded their handles together. He placed his key on the table, put his shoes on, and didn’t let himself look anywhere but directly in front of himself until the apartment was well out of sight.
***
Strolling down the streets his feet took him down the familiar path to the southeast, to the slums of Musutafu. As he walked he went through his list of potential hiding spots, there was that weird crook in the alleyway behind the mini-mart but people were always fishing through the dumpster nearby, too risky. There was the abandoned warehouse on block 12 or the one on block 8… or block 5 there wasn’t a shortage of derelict and abandoned real estate on that side of town. Izuku figured this area must have been busy in its day but people go where the money is and the money surely wasn’t here anymore. The warehouses could be a longer-term solution to Izuku’s housing situation but as of now he didn’t have much data on the foot traffic in that area and the unknown was unsafe.
“Come on where’s somewhere no one would disturb?” He murmured to himself as he walked
A few years ago he might have said the trash but he knew, or knew of, too many people who relied on dumpster diving to get by. Something less interesting than a dumpster, that’s it! The dump, a place full of trash that’s already been sitting too long to house anything even moderately edible. Not a real dump, of course, trash there was getting moved around and compacted every day, it was monitored, that wouldn’t work. But illegal dumping grounds obviously weren’t monitored and Izuku knew just the one, Dagobah Beach. The biggest and stinkiest dump in the city. It had something to do with the tides and the shape of the land that constantly had trash from along the whole coast washing up on shore. The trash would ensnare fish and other poor sea critters and beach them daily. The constant state of disarray the beach was in was the perfect cover for people to dump things and eventually, the city stopped trying to keep up. The mixture of rotting fish and freshly dumped trash produced an aroma that no one messed with, it was perfect.
Setting his course Izuku made his way to the beach, so much for that shower lasting.
The beach was just as lovely as he remembered it which was to say not at all. Doing his best to touch things as little as possible Izuku tip-toed his way around the mountains of trash, the ones further from the water as they were less likely to get jostled by the tides changing. Eventually, he came across a refrigerator sticking out of the sand at an odd angle. The lower fridge portion was too buried in the sand to open but the freezer was at eye level. Izuku very much did not want to open the freezer. On one hand, it could be relatively clean and the seal would keep the smell of the beach from seeping into his clothes and blankets or far more likely given Izuku’s luck he would break the seal and his nostrils would be met with a condensed biome of rot that had been growing diseases not yet known to the human race.
Steeling his nerves, Izuku pulled his shirt collar over his nose and whipped open the door simultaneously taking several steps back. Looking up he was delighted to find that the freezer only had a few items of packaged food of which the seals had not been broken. He removed them carefully, shoved his suitcase in, and closed the door. It didn't fit the duffle bag but he was less worried about the stench lingering on plastic figurines and paper posters. As long as he could find somewhere that they would stay dry they would be fine. Looking around he decided it would be best to just rest it under a half-broken plastic tub nearby. There wasn’t rain in the forecast for at least another week and it was well out of the range of the tide.
He stood and brushed the sand off his clothes as he made his way out of the maze of trash taking note of the path he took so that he could find his way back later. Once back on solid pavement and away from the oppressive miasma that the beach exuded he checked the time on his phone, 7:30. He’d better get a move on if he was going to make it to school with enough time to hide away from his classmates, he was cutting it close. It might be better to wait and not risk giving up one of his hiding spots because too many students had already shown up.
Sighing he accepted that he used up his luck for the day finding that freezer and he took his sweet time walking to the hell hole of a school called Aldera jr. High.
***
Unable to arrive early and hide himself away Izuku was now left with two options; option one was to wait just outside of the school bounds until most of the students made their way to class and hope he could dodge the few students lingering in the halls. However this of course ran the risk of getting held up by people who wouldn’t get in nearly as much trouble for being late. This wasn’t ideal because they could drag him off to who knows where and do who knows what without a teacher stepping in when it went too far. High risk but this option held the tantalizing potential of everyone leaving him alone. Option two, he could go to class now and be forced to sit in a room full of people who seemed to live only to torment him for the minutes that stretched into eternities before the bell rang and the teacher was forced to stop pretending he didn’t notice anything in order to start class. This option pretty much guaranteed someone would mess with him but the likelihood of it getting physical was severely diminished with a teacher being present.
Option one had a good chance of working, Izuku had become quite fast and slippery over the years but in the off chance it didn’t work, Izuku would surely end up in detention after school and that was something he couldn’t afford. He needed to scope out potential shelters before it got too dark out and he couldn’t do that if he was stuck here.
Groaning, Izuku made his way to class, resigning himself to death threats and name-calling that had long since lost any real sting.
Surprisingly Izuku made it to his seat without fanfare, there were a few sneers and a foot stuck out in the isle that he had to dodge but he made it to his chair in one piece without being told to off himself so he counted it as a success. Of course, that didn’t last once Kacchan and a gaggle of his cronies strolled into the room.
Izuku heard them coming from down the hall and let a mask of indifference fall over his face as they rounded the corner through the doorway. Tsubasa-kun zeroed in on him immediately.
“Hey Deku, you’re here early! What’d your parents finally get sick of you and kick you out?”
Mask failing him Izuku couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. His parents didn’t kick him out, no he drove them away. Quickly remembering himself he clacked his jaw shut and looked down at his desk, but the damage was done. Izuku had laughed at them, Kami can’t save him now, he knew his luck had run up with that freezer.
“What’s so funny Deku? You think your mom’s too nice to get sick of a worthless Null like you?” Kacchan scoffed.
Izuku kept his eyes glued to his desk.
“Y’know, she only keeps you around ‘cause your dad had the good sense to dip first.” he continued as the other kids laughed.
The desk started to blur and at this point, Izuku wasn’t sure if it was because he was tearing up or dissociating. Having pushed his complete mental breakdown off for this long it could be either but he was compelled to think it was the latter when he looked up and realized nearly a whole hour had passed. At least Kacchan was leaving him alone, not much fun to taunt someone who’s not there.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of which Izuku was only partially aware of. His mind kept making plans on where to search for shelter first, what to do if x y or z went wrong, and worrying if his stash had been found or rendered inaccessible by another mound of trash burying it. Kami, he’s such an idiot he should have checked the structural integrity of the surrounding trash heaps he was just so focused on getting out of the noxious smell before it cemented itself into his clothes and hair. He should run back as quickly as he can after school lets out, or wait, no what if someone follows him? He should wait until he’s found somewhere to bring it all, right? But what if the place he finds is compromised, he should stake out the area for a while to make sure it's safe, better to keep his things spread out so he doesn’t lose everything all at once if things go south. So he’s going to really be roughing it for a few days, that’s probably the safest option, better to do that now when the nights didn’t get too cold than find himself out on his ass with nothing to his name in the middle of autumn.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he failed to realize the day was over until the bell rang and pulled him forcefully back to the present. Swiftly stuffing all his things into his bag he bolted out the door before he ran into any more hell to pay for laughing at Katsuki and his ‘extras’ earlier.
***
Izuku proceeded on his normal route much more nervous than usual with his laptop in his backpack. He felt like he had a neon sign on him that said, ‘mug me! mug me!’ It was stupid, he knew how to stay out of trouble here, in the daylight at least. He could settle himself into the tight embrace of paranoia when the sun set, right now he had an objective. He headed straight for the warehouse on block 8, it was closest to school and the beach which was ideal so unless something immediately set off alarm bells he would spend his first night there keeping an eye out for potential trouble in the future.
Block 8 set off several alarm bells. It looks like the local gang either shifted or expanded because out of the handful of people he saw he knew half of them to be gang members. Keeping his head down the changed course towards block 12.
It felt like He’d gone through the same process a million times before he found a suitably abandoned warehouse on block 15. Block 12 had no one around but too many footprints for Izuku’s liking and block 5 was already occupied with several sleeping bags and blanket nests visible from some of the windows and on and on and on. This warehouse was definitely abandoned and for good reason, it looked ready to fall if a light breeze hit it wrong. Izuku figured that there were worse ways to go than getting crushed in his sleep and the sun was setting so his choice was made for him.
Stepping carefully he found a corner that looked pretty sturdy and took out the pitiful notes he’d taken earlier drudging through the homework as best he could. Once the sun had dipped past the horizon he gave up on trying to see, not wanting to waste his phone battery for light. Packing his things away far more neatly this time he zipped his bag up and secured it to his front, curling his limbs around it protectively. He laid down using one arm as a pillow and closed his eyes not expecting to fall asleep but hoping at least to rest for a little while.
Notes:
Shout out to Habizuh Animations for telling me to keep writing on the last chapter!!
Crits I'm looking for:
Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece.
Also, feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
Formatting. I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting. I'm currently fighting for my life just trying to post this bc I have the tech literacy of an 80 y/o, it's brutal out here.
I know there's not really dialogue yet but if I continue this there will be and I have never written dialogue in my life so that's prolly gonna be rough. So if anyone has tips for that hmu.also also, if anyone feels compelled to copy/paste and completely edit this feel absolutely free. I know there are a few fics I have read where I wanted to do that but I didn't know if the author would be offended. Just take it and gut it out like those good bones bitches on HGTV, y'know? Just do the writer's equivalent of red-lining a shitty sketch. ig that's prolly what a beta is, right? Post-posting beta this shit plz.
TYSM FOR READING BYEEEEEE
Chapter 3: Oh yeah, it's all comin' together.
Notes:
100 HITS! WOOT WOOT! idk why I'm writing these chapters so much quicker, the first one took me several days and these last two took a few hours each. Anyway, I love putting off any real work and doing inane bullshit instead so expect more to come very sporadically!
As always, this is my first narrative piece of writing ever so crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind!
*****CW******
suicidal thoughts/ideation
implied physical abuse
emotional abuse
neglect
bullying
dissociation
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As he expected Izuku got very little sleep that night. It didn’t get too cold but every creak and breeze had him bracing for impact and it definitely wasn’t comfortable huddling in on himself on top of hard concrete for hours at a time. When the sun broke through the holes in the wall that used to be windows he decided to call it quits on trying to sleep. He dragged himself up into a sitting position and listened with mild horror as bones he didn’t know he had popped and creaked. He did a round of stretches and luckily his young bones recovered quickly from their night of abuse.
For all the noises he did hear last night people were not one of them, there were definitely some critters poking around but nothing big enough that their footsteps could have been a person. Glancing at his phone the time read 5:13 AM and the battery read 18%, wonderful. He knew one of his hidey holes at school had an outlet where he’d charged his phone before but the gates didn’t open until 7 anyway so there was no use leaving now.
Brushing the dust and dirt off he decided to explore, the place was much easier to navigate in the full light of day; there was a taller building to the west so the building was already shaded yesterday evening when he arrived. From the looks of it, the place appears to have been a brick factory, one that has been abandoned for a very long time, likely the factory full of workers was eventually made obsolete by a handful of people with material manipulation quirks. Izuku remembered reading somewhere that before the age of quirks, people were worried that everyone’s jobs would be taken by robots. They weren’t wrong but it seems silly now with the entire support industry devoted to making gadgets capable of what people with quirks could do.
The building had likely been out of use for almost a century and it looked it too, there were patches between support beams where the roof had caved in, and to Izuku’s horror, so had the floor, he’d been on top of a sub-level this whole time, not on solid ground. He’d have to find the stairs as they were generally made to be the most stable part of the building in case of collapse and evacuation.
Skirting around the outer wall and far from the crumbling holes in the center he eventually found a set of stairs which as he suspected would be in perfect condition if not for the layers of dirt and dust that lay undisturbed, further proof that no one was lurking around the place. However, he would not be going down there without a flashlight. No way in hell. He couldn't see past the first five steps. It’s not that he was scared of the dark it's just that this place was not somewhere he fancied stumbling around blindly, that wouldn’t lead to anything good.
He checked his phone again. 5:45, 16%.
He needed to find somewhere to charge his phone, the hour he had between the gates opening and class starting wouldn’t be enough for a full charge, what was open this early? A cafe? The library maybe? A quick search on his phone told him that the library opens at 6:30 and a cafe not far from school was already open, likely catering to early morning commuters. He decided that if the library was open when he got there then that’s where he would go, if not he’d see how long he could get away with loitering in the cafe without buying anything. They were both in the same direction so after checking everything was in his bag for the 10th time that morning he headed out.
The streets were far more barren than he was used to. It made sense, 5 AM to 6 AM wasn’t the most preferred time to be awake, and the unemployed and homeless population in this area was high so not many people had a reason to be up this early. He made his way uninterrupted through and out of the district and into the next which was much more lively. The scene changed abruptly from one block to the next, it's like he walked out of a ghost town. Luckily he didn’t have to walk through busy streets for long he could see the library a few blocks down so he ducked his head and charged forward.
***
He made it there only 12 minutes before they opened so he figured he’d just wait. He plopped down on the ground and leaned against the wall as time passed. Only about 5 minutes later a woman with dark hair that shone iridescent purple in the light came to open the door and let him in.
Izuku scrambled to his feet as she beckoned him in. “Y-you don’t have to open early for m-me! I-I can wait out here!”
“It’s not a problem kid, hardly anyone ever comes in this early it’s not like I’m letting in a horde of angry customers. You seem harmless enough to be around for–”
She checked her watch.
“–four and a half minutes without getting paid.” She said with a sarcastic smirk.
With a quick bow, he darted his way through the door she’d been holding open for him.
“T-thank you, um…”
“Shinso Kohaku.”
“Y-yes, t-thank you Shinso-san,” he said with another bow.
“It’s no problem kid, did you need my help with anything?” she said stifling a laugh about how obnoxiously polite the kid was, it was cute.
“N-no sorry for bothering you!” He said barely stopping himself from bowing a third time as he scuttled off towards the computers.
He stopped in his tracks when he rounded the corner to see a kid that appeared to be around his age already sitting at one of the computers. He had a plume of purple hair that stuck up at odd ends and he hadn’t seemed to notice Izuku yet. He didn’t know this kid so it was unlikely this kid knew of him, there was no reason to freak out like this he rationalized. Quietly he made his way to the computer furthest from the other kid while still keeping him in his line of sight, just in case.
He plugged in his phone and laptop mentally hitting himself for not remembering that he could have been charging his phone from his laptop this whole time. Whatever, that didn’t matter now. He booted up the library computer to make it look like he came here for another reason than to leach their electricity. He spent some time researching how much he could sell the pieces of his hero merch he could remember off the top of his head and it looked like each piece could sell for anywhere between ¥3000 and ¥20000! Hopefully, that wasn’t a scam, he’d have to keep an eye on that particular piece to see if it actually sold for that much.
After a while, he decided he should probably try to sort through his miserable attempt at his homework while he had the chance to look things up. The English needed some corrections, Kami he was out of it last night, but everything else wasn’t too bad. His best effort last night is the level he’d usually dumb himself down to in order to avoid the teachers accusing him of cheating so he left it as is. He was nearly fluent in English though, he did his best to teach himself after Hisashi ‘moved to America’ hoping to be able to visit with Mama so that she could be happy. It was a pipe dream but he was leagues ahead of his peers in English now so it wasn’t for nothing.
Packing away his things he glanced at the time, 7:17. He should make his way to school lest he have a repeat of yesterday morning. As he slung his bag across his shoulders he glanced up at the kid who had been sitting there when he walked in only to find him already looking at Izuku. Cracking the most awkward smile he could have possibly mustered he waved at the boy quickly before turning on his heel and marching off as fast as he could without tripping over his own feet. Kami, he was so socially inept it went right past funny and straight to just sad.
***
The first half of the school day passed with the usual amount of fanfare but when the lunch bell rang Izuku knew that was going to change. He hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours at this point, he’d packed as many nonperishables as he could but he’d yet to touch them as most of it was bundled up in his clothes at the beach. Izuku had grown accustomed to not eating for long stretches of time, the pang of hunger was familiar and easily ignored but the shake of his hands was not. He was getting clumsy from the low blood sugar and uncooperative limbs didn’t make for an easy escape. He’d usually spend his lunch break on the roof to avoid the crowds. He had a few granola bars, he could eat those on the roof and be fine, but he’d need to go to the lunch room eventually. He was homeless with no income and it was free food, he wouldn’t have a choice for much longer.
Deciding it was better to rip the band-aid off he followed the swarm of his peers to the lunchroom. Worst comes to worst his lunch ends up on the floor and he’s stuck eating his granola bars like he was going to anyway. He took his place in line with some of the students he didn’t recognize, hopefully, they wouldn’t recognize him either. He kept his head down as he made his way through the line. He got his food without issue now he just needed to make a clean break. Sticking close to the lunch monitors and custodians made it less likely for someone to outright slap his tray out of his hand–
CRASH
Izuku hit the ground as someone ‘tripped’ into him from behind.
“Oh, my bad Deku! I didn’t see ya there! You’re so little I musta walked right into you.” he said as his group of cronies giggled at a table nearby.
He wasn’t wrong, the boy was a good head taller than him it could have easily been an accident but he could tell by the amused expression on the boy’s face that it wasn’t. The boy turned on his heel not bothering to help Izuku up or clean up the mess he’d made. Both luckily and not so luckily Izuku fell chest-first onto his tray so most of the food was still on it. Unfortunately, the majority of what wasn’t still on the tray was now covering his chest. On the bright side that meant he had very little to clean off of the floor.
With a fist full of napkins he whipped up the mess on the floor and grabbed his tray before any more disasters could befall it. He ate his lunch in a single-stall bathroom on the other side of the school as he attempted to get food off of his thankfully black gakuran.
The end of lunch break found him back in class with a very wet and mostly clean jacket and a full belly so it could have been worse. He’ll need to find more reliable methods of escaping the cafeteria in the future.
***
When school let out for the day Izuku milled around taking several turns that looped in on themselves on heavily populated streets to make sure anyone who may have been following him would get bored of it before he anxiously headed to the beach.
Approaching the beach he noted several shifts in the scenery that worried him greatly. He tried to tell himself his spot was fine and these changes were just new trash people had left, the explanation made sense; it was closest to what could be called the entrance to the beach where people were more likely to dump things and make a quick getaway. However no amount of rationalization was going to calm him down, nothing but the sight of his stuff still intact would calm him down at this point. He’s glad he took note of every little detail of this place because he’s not sure most people could have made it back to his stash without a very precise mental map maybe even a physical map, this place was a maze. He made as much of a beeline for the fridge as he could without actually being a bee. The surrounding mounds had thankfully not buried all his things and upon opening the freezer he was glad to see it all still there.
It looks like the flimsy tub he hid his bag under had blown away, he really should have weighed it down, but thankfully the bag was still there. He set the duffle bag on top of the suitcase and threaded their handles together like he had the first time. And now came the interesting challenge of making his way through the rough part of town as a 12-year-old boy with two bags of luggage, one partially full of expensive collectibles and a backpack full of electronics without getting into any trouble.
Should he go now with everything while the sun was still up or should he take trips and risk being out too late? No, he should probably leave something here and come back for it tomorrow, that was the safest bet. Sighing he stuffed the duffle bag into the freezer and shut it. As much as he’d like to have the peace of mind of knowing all his stuff was in his home-like place he also very much like not being mugged of all his earthly possessions in one fell swoop.
Backpack and suitcase on hand he made his way across town to block 15 as quickly as he could without looking more suspicious than he already did. He made eye contact with no one and forwent his usual waves and smile in order to keep a low profile. He kept his head down but he was on high alert making sure no one was following him. A man followed him for a block or two but eventually let him be, hopefully deciding he had enough of a moral compass to not mug a child. It felt like he didn’t breathe at all until he’d finally hidden himself in his own home-sweet-derelict abandoned building.
He set his suitcase in the alcove that marked the opening to the stairs and dragged himself and his backpack over to a nearby hole in the wall window to work on his homework. When he completed that he rewarded himself with a granola bar, packed all his things into his bag, and strapped it to his chest curling around it like he had the previous night. Tonight, however, he wrapped himself up in his blanket and used his suitcase as a pillow.
Notes:
Crits I'm looking for:
Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece.
Also, feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
Formatting. I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting. I'm currently fighting for my life just trying to post this bc I have the tech literacy of an 80 y/o, it's brutal out here.
I know there's not much dialogue yet but if I continue this there will be and I have never written dialogue in my life so that's prolly gonna be rough. So if anyone has tips for that hmu.THANKS FOR READING YOU ABSOLUTE BABES
Chapter 4: The New Normal
Notes:
I've never written narratively before. Critiques are welcome but please keep them constructive and kind!
(250+ hits and almost 10K words lets gooooooo)
*****CW******
suicidal thoughts/ideation
implied physical abuse
emotional abuse
neglect
bullying
dissociation
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Maybe it was the blanket or maybe it was the bone-deep exhaustion finally setting in, either way, he was surprised to be woken up by his alarm, he’d actually slept through the night. Which was a full 10 and a half hours since he’s pretty sure he fell asleep promptly at sundown. Yeah, that would be the exhaustion catching up to him for sure.
Getting up, he cracked his joints almost as violently as yesterday which considering he slept for several more hours this time around was pretty good. He should probably set an earlier alarm now that he had a further commute but it’s not like he had anywhere to spend the time to get ready for school.
Finding somewhere to freshen up was quickly becoming a priority, his curls would not hide the grease build-up much longer. Maybe the showers at school? They were generally used more to just rinse off after gym than to take a proper shower but maybe he could sneak in in the morning. He decided to observe the comings and goings of the locker room today before class.
***
Izuku wasn’t often shoved in lockers but it had happened a handful of times. It seems like the underdeveloped minds of his tormentors didn’t realize that all lockers have a release button on the inside for safety and Izuku wasn’t all that scared of the dark. The restriction was the worst part, it reminded him of being pinned down, if he thought too hard about not having an escape route he would start to panic. He did genuinely panic the first time but every time after that he’d just put on a good show ‘struggling’ to get out until they left him alone. It was better than another beating at the very least.
With that experience under his belt, Izuku tucked himself into one of the lockers in the boy's locker room. It felt a bit skeezy hiding in a locker room like that but it’s not like he could see anything. Regardless of the situation’s morality, he needed to make sure he wasn’t going to literally get caught with his pants down if he tried to take a shower here. When it was two minutes til the bell rang and no one had shown up he slinked his way to class a little more confident about trying for a shower tomorrow morning.
***
After school, he made his way back to the beach to retrieve the rest of his things. As he made his way out after collecting his bag a flickering light caught his eye. Curious, he made his way over to the mound of trash where the light originated. The source was a heavy-duty flashlight that was flicked onto an SOS signal; cautiously Izuku picked it up and examined it. It definitely put the heavy in heavy-duty the thing weighed at least five pounds and was as long as his forearm. Maybe this place wasn’t as picked through as he’d thought because this flashlight was nice, perhaps he’d come back and poke around another time to see if there was anything else of use to him here.
The flashlight seemed to be waterproof seeing as it was still operational, and was that a solar panel on the side? That would explain how it was still on after washing up here who knows how long ago. Maybe it was from the Coast Guard and fell overboard. Well, it didn’t matter where it came from, finders keepers and all that. This was just the thing he needed to check on the structural integrity of the sub-level in his warehouse, his warehome? He chuckled wryly to himself at the thought. Humor sure was a way to cope.
With goodies in hand, he took a different route back to the warehouse than he did yesterday. Seeing a kid carting luggage through the bad part of town once was suspect enough, seeing it twice with different luggage would be enough to pique anyone’s interest. Maybe people would notice the trend and tail him, maybe he was being a little too paranoid either way he wasn’t about to take that risk.
***
As soon as he got ware home and checked that his things were still in the alcove above the stairs he opened the door, both flashlight and phone in hand in case the behemoth was on its last legs when he’d picked it up. It wouldn’t be fun to make his way into the depths only for his one light source to cut out, that type of thing was just his luck.
The space below echoed the creak of the door ominously; cautiously, he made his way down the steps, checking the stability of each stair before putting his whole weight on it even though they looked stable, better to be safe than buried under rubble with a broken leg until he starved to death.
Hmm, what a nice thought that definitely eased his nerves while walking into the void.
The stairs turned halfway down and there was a generously sized landing between the first and second half. Izuku guessed it was maybe six by eight feet. Rounding the corner and shining the light down the rest of the stairs revealed another door to exit, the stairwell was completely encased which lends proof to Izuku’s theory that it was the most stable place in the building. It was along the outer edge and each corner of the space was held up by hefty support beams that looked like they would hold strong for a while. Furthermore, being underground would regulate the temperature keeping him warm in the winter and cool in the summer. He could set up his nest(?) on the landing, there was plenty of space, and being able to sleep behind a closed door would do wonders for his peace of mind. The only problem is there was no light, no windows, and no power.
“One thing at a time Izuku.” He murmured to himself as he descended the rest of the stairs.
The air on the other side of the door was quite musty. It had the distinct aroma of water that had stagnated a very long time ago, like a bog. It wasn’t pleasant. The room was filled with huge pieces of machinery and conveyor belts leading to what looks to have been at one point a freight elevator judging by the four steel support beams around it and the light pouring through from above. The carriage lay half in the ground in the largest puddle of water and likely the main cause of the odor. The far wall was lined with massive industrial doors that lead to small bricked-in rooms with metal coils running through the walls. Spread out across the room were rolling tubs filled with what appeared to be, in Izuku’s professional opinion, goop. There were also bags of powder on shelves high enough off the ground to remain dry. He should do some research at the library to see if any of this stuff was useful or potentially hazardous. With that in mind, Izuku snapped a few pictures of the various types of mold growing all around the place, he should look into those too. He hadn’t had any issues breathing here but it seemed better safe than sorry was becoming his new mantra.
***
His days started to fall into a new routine, on Tuesdays and Fridays he’d sneak into the locker rooms to take a quick shower and on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays he’d spend his morning at the library analyzing fights from news clips or working through selling his collection. Every day he’d do his best to slink through the lunch line and so far he had a 56% success rate in getting food from the cafeteria without losing all or most of it to the floor. It wasn’t great, but things could be worse.
The purple-haired boy from the library, he learned, was the head librarian’s son and that's why he’d been there before opening. Izuku avoided him as best he could after making a complete fool of himself without even speaking the first time they met. He and his mother seemed to be there every weekday morning but thankfully for Izuku’s nerves, he’d yet to see them there on a weekend. He’d been spending his weekends in the library as it was the only place with free WiFi that wouldn’t chase you out for loitering if you couldn’t didn’t buy anything.
After a while, spending his whole weekend at the library grew dull so he decided to take to his habit of wandering the city with renewed vigor. Soon enough he knew all about local schedules from sun up to sun down but he still hadn’t dared to venture out at night. He kept going back and forth with himself on whether or not he should. On one hand, the city at night was the unknown and the unknown was dangerous. It’s not like he could scope out the lay of the land from the relative safety of the roof like he did before, there hardly was any roof, and the roof that was there couldn’t be trusted to hold his weight. But he needed to know what was out there because, on the other hand, knowledge is power so the more he knew about this place the safer he would be. What if this place crumbles down in the middle of the night and he needed to make an escape, he would be working with little to no knowledge of where, who, and what to avoid.
If he goes out should he arm himself? He’s got that flashlight which could definitely be a weapon the thing is more a technologically advanced metal bat than a flashlight but it wasn’t very threatening at first glance, it is just a flashlight and it looks the part. If he brought a knife that could possibly scare people off without even getting into a fight. However, a 12-year-old holding a knife isn’t the most threatening thing one could come across at night, only moderately more threatening than a 12-year-old without a knife. He should conceal any identifying features, a short person with a knife was more threatening than a child with a knife.
Either ‘weapon’ could easily be taken and used against him though. He knew how to evade, he was quite good at it after years of practice. He knew how to track an opponent's movements to anticipate the next blow, he knew when to dodge, brace, or roll with the punches to lessen the impact but he certainly didn’t know how to fight back. It was like being able to understand a language but not speak it, he might be able to stumble his way through a sentence but it would be rough.
Izuku did not want to stumble his way through a knife fight or any fight for that matter. He resolved to do some research on self-defense on his next trip to the library.
***
If you asked Hitoshi, the green-haired kid who kept coming into the library in the mornings was fucking weird. Though, he supposed he wasn’t one to talk given how much time he had spent studying the kid’s odd behaviors. At first, he thought the kid knew him because he looked so scared when he locked eyes with Hitoshi that first day. Fear was not generally the emotion he instilled in strangers, he was not an opposing figure, and anything remotely intimidating about his appearance he downplayed to the best of his ability. No, fear was usually the reaction of someone who knew him, someone who knew what he could do. Fear or anger, he’s not sure which was worse.
After a while he concluded that the boy did not know who he was, he was just that scared of everyone. It was kind of sad, the few times his mother attempted small talk with the kid he’d look like a deer caught in headlights.
That wasn’t the weird part though, the weird part was what the kid spent his time doing. The kid had a habit of muttering and Hitoshi’s curiosity usually had him straining to listen to what the boy was researching. There was no common denominator. Half the time the kid would be watching the news on mute and scribbling furiously in a battered notebook, sometimes he would just work on homework, but sometimes he would come in to do research on the most random things. It didn’t even seem to be for assignments because he never wrote anything down. he searched things casually like one would google what actor played a specific role, note the information and move on except he was tearing through what appeared to be advanced research papers.
One day the kid was researching deadly mold spores, iron oxide, and brick making, the next day he was looking into economics and browsing eBay for decade-old hero merchandise. Another time he seemed to be researching how to repair solar panels and build generators and today he was researching self-defense and specifically how to avoid getting disarmed in a knife fight. All of this bright and early at 6:30 AM. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for the past month or so without fail he would be there right when the library opened and he would leave promptly 45 minutes later leaving Hitoshi more and more confused each time.
Maybe one day he’d pluck up the courage to talk to him but given the boy’s current topic of research, he decided that today was not that day.
Edit:
People have asked about what the staircase looks like and this is the best approximation I could find bc I don't feel like drawing it 💃
So Izuku set up camp on the landing between the sections of steps in the dark part at the top of this picture. And this is the vibe of disarray it was in when he got there.
Notes:
Crits I'm looking for:
Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece.
Also, feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
Formatting. I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting. I'm currently fighting for my life just trying to post this bc I have the tech literacy of an 80 y/o, it's brutal out here.
I know there's not much dialogue yet but if I continue this there will be and I have never written dialogue in my life so that's prolly gonna be rough. So if anyone has tips for that I'd love to hear them.
Chapter 5: ♫ Shia Surprise! There’s a Gun to Your Head and Death in His Eyes! ♫
Notes:
Now we're cooking with gas babeeeyyyyy!!! Almost 350 hits, 30+ kudos and 12K words.
This is fun! Turns out writing is fun? crazy, fr fr.
Anyway, new author, yadda yadda yadda, crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.*****CW******
New:
-Non-graphic attempted SA
-Foul language
-GunOld but still applicable:
-suicidal thoughts/ideation
-implied physical abuse
-emotional abuse
-neglect
-bullying
-dissociationlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
That night Izuku practiced his knife skills as much as he could without a partner… or a knife. He didn’t have a knife but the plastic spoon he’d found in the street on his walk home was going to have to do for now, he hoped to find one at Dagobah Beach but he hadn’t had much luck yet.
Every once in a while he’d scribble down a new question he’d ideally ask a self-defense teacher in his notebook but they’d have to wait, his cell service had been cut off several weeks ago and his phone wasn’t much use for anything besides emergency calls when it wasn’t connected to WiFi. He’d ask the all-knowing internet-sensei his questions next time he was at the library.
***
Izuku was starting to think finding that flashlight was a fluke, maybe it was fate’s piss-poor way of trying to apologize for Izuku’s generally shit luck. Because he’d spent the last two pre-shower evenings sifting through refuse and he’d yet to find anything really useful to him. The best thing so far was an only slightly rusted screwdriver which was only potentially useful as he didn’t currently have anything to use it on.
He was about to give up when he finally spotted it, a kitchen knife! That would work! It was comically large and a little unwieldy and also slightly bent, but ideally, he wouldn’t even have to use it so its size worked to his advantage. Holding it in his small hand made it look even bigger; hopefully, the sight of someone wielding that would be enough of a deterrent for anyone looking to mess with him.
***
He’d spent the last week, including a full weekend at the library researching knife fighting techniques as well as Muay Thai and Judo. Each night he’d go through drills on his own with his kitchen knife in the warehouse. Izuku had always soaked up information like a sponge so, theoretically, he knew a lot about fighting. Theoretically, he knew how to disarm and take down a larger opponent but Izuku wasn’t stupid, he knew theory and practice are two very different things.
He was acting like he was going out to get into fights, he’s being paranoid again. He's not going to get any more prepared in a void, he knew the theory, practice was the next step anyway.
***
Izuku suited up and set out. The nights were starting to get chilly and he was glad for the hoodie he opted to wear. As he’d expected he heard no one around his warehouse, there were holes in the walls, if people were out here making noise he would have heard it from inside. He had heard some skittering and scuttling so he was hoping to see what types of critters were causing that noise. He’d checked the alley a few times but figured whatever it was must have been nocturnal cause he’d never seen it.
His first task of the night! He felt silly getting excited like this but he was 12 he was allowed to act like it sometimes. Creeping around the corner as quietly as he could he prepared to sit down and wait for the critter to show itself when a loud metallic BANG had him letting out an undignified yelp and falling back on his ass. Searching for the source of the sound as he scrambled backward he saw two big golden eyes staring back at him from on top of the dumpster.
The cat hissed and swatted at the air in front of it threateningly. Izuku urged his racing heart to slow, It was just a cat. Albeit it wasn’t a very nice cat but it was just a cat. He raised his hands placatingly as he slowly stood up and backed away. Once he was far enough away that the cat didn’t consider him an immediate threat it stopped hissing and just glared at him. Finally able to get a good look at it he realized this cat was huge, not like fat huge it was just really big. It looked to be at least a foot and a half tall. He couldn’t tell what color it was in the dark and he wasn’t about to shine the light on it to satiate his curiosity; he could, however, see that it was very fluffy and he very much wanted to pet it.
Backing around the corner and out of sight he vowed to pet that cat. It might not like him now but they were neighbors! He should be on good terms with his neighbors. He used to spend some of his food money on cat treats, that's how he won the hearts of the strays uptown. It may not be the most responsible way to spend his money but a cat that big had to be working itself to death hunting enough rats to eat out here in the warehouse district, surely treats would win them over.
The rest of the warehouse district had very little to offer. Someone was definitely up to something in the warehouse on block 8, he was glad he trusted his gut with that. He didn’t get too close but he could hear two people having what sounded like a drunken argument out back and he saw lights on through several windows.
Satisfied with the information he gathered on his immediate surroundings he started his way back to block 15. It was early September and the cool air had started to nip at his nose, he should get a mask if he was going to be galavanting around like this again. He made a mental note to stop at the mini-mart after school for a face mask and cat treats as he curled into his blanket.
***
The next night found Izuku creeping around to the alley behind his warehouse again, this time with treats in hand. He was only slightly more prepared for the resounding BANG as the cat jumped down from its perch onto the dumpster. He managed to only let out a little ‘eep’ but he did end up on his ass again when he tripped over a pipe half eroded out of the ground.
“Well good evening to you too Miss Dumpster Jumpscare.” He grumbled, as he stood up and brushed himself off. In all honesty, he was a little embarrassed and mad that a cat had knocked him on his ass twice with the same trick.
She only hissed in response.
“You know friendship goes two ways, you should be nicer to your neighbors.” He retorted with a bit of a scowl.
She glared back.
“I have brought a peace offering.” He said as he fished a couple of treats from his pocket and tossed them at the foot of the dumpster.
She glanced down at the treats seemingly uninterested and continued staring daggers into Izuku’s soul.
“This isn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped it would be, is it?” He asked the cat who again gave no reaction.
With a sigh, he turned away. His plan was to dip his toes into uptown past the warehouse district tonight. There was likely far more intel to be gathered there, he was fairly certain that the block 8 warehouse had become headquarters for the local gang but besides that, the district was pretty barren. This place was severely under-policed, it was practically a breeding ground for criminal organizations, he’d have to keep a watchful eye out. If a small-time gang can set up base there then who else could?
Uptown was a more residential area; it's where he would usually walk in the daytime so he knew the streets like the back of his hand. However, he had no data on the nightlife. That was something he was going to change tonight.
***
The nightlife was much like he’d expected it to be on a Wednesday, the bars were open and were housing a few drunks and there were some homeless people sleeping in alleys. He felt bad keeping his hidey hole a secret from them but it was quite literally all he had, they seemed to at least have some sort of community here. All he had was a cat that hated him.
It smelled strongly of weed but it smelled like that in the daytime too so that was hardly new information. At one point Izuku definitely saw someone buying drugs in an alley but he decided that was very much not his business and continued creeping his way through the shadows. He saw several scantily clad figures smoking on the corner outside a bar creatively labeled “Izakaya.” He may be 12 but didn’t spend the last few years wandering around the slums to not know what they were loitering around the bar for dressed like that.
So far he hadn’t seen anyone he recognized or maybe he just couldn’t tell in the low light. The further away from the bars he got the less populated the streets became. Looking down each alley he passed yielded nothing of interest so he figured he’d start heading home. He was about to do just that when he heard a muffled cry coming from the alley across the street.
He really shouldn’t check that out.
But what if someone was in trouble?
Clearly, someone was in trouble and if he went over there there would just be two people in trouble!
He could stay hidden, he was good at that, he could just go over there and see if he could help, right? If he could help he’d help, if he couldn’t he’d be on his way.
His feet seemed to have decided that was a good course of action and despite all logic telling him otherwise he made his way to the entrance of the alley. It was dark but it seemed that a large figure had a much smaller figure pinned to a wall, the muffled cries sounded like a woman. Oh, Kami, he couldn’t just walk away from this. He needed to do something and he needed to do it fast.
He crept further into the alley, hiding himself among the rubbish. The large figure was a man who looked to have a rhinoceros mutation quirk and he was big. Very big, like All Might big. This wasn’t a fight he could win by strength that's for sure, he needed to fight smart and use his surroundings.
He had to think, c’mon think, what do you know, what’s a weak point? If the man’s quirk adhered to a rhino’s capabilities then the man should have pretty poor eyesight, rhinos have terrible eyesight, that's what makes them so deadly, they charge at anything that moves.
Kami, this was a terrible idea he was going to get himself killed. Sending out a final ‘it is what it is’ to the universe he threw a can up and over to the other side of the two figures. When they both whipped their heads in the direction of the noise he stepped out from his hiding spot keeping low to the ground. This was the moment of truth when both of them looked in the other direction where Izuku actually was, the woman’s eyes caught his immediately but the rhino man’s eyes passed over him several times searching for movement before seeming satisfied by the stillness.
Once the man returned his attention to his previous task Izuku locked eyes with the woman again. Slowly standing up he pointed to the woman and mimed kneeing someone in the crotch and then stuck his thumb over his shoulder. Hoping she got the message to hit the man and run he held out three fingers, keeping them in her line of sight as he snuck into a position that left a path for her to run but stuck himself between her and the man once she got away. Bracing himself he put down one finger, then the next, then the last.
“HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOIN’?!” He bellowed in the deepest voice he could muster without risking his voice breaking. Simultaneously, he shone his flashlight in the man's eyes and, thank the gods, the woman took the distraction to knee him in the jewels.
The combination of stimuli set him off balance enough for the woman to push her way out and book it. The second she passed Izuku he turned to follow but a very distinct clicking noise had him stopping in his tracks.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, pipsqueak?”
Slowly turning around showed him exactly what he feared it might, he was staring down the barrel of a gun. He froze.
“I asked you a question, motherfucker!” he said shaking the gun in Izuku’s face as if he didn’t see it or needed a reminder.
“I’m-I-I…” He sputtered out pathetically.
“Oh you’re not so big and tough now, are you?” He taunted
The woman was gone, he took solace in that. He saved her! He actually saved her! That would have to be enough for him. He stood his ground and accepted his fate. It felt like he’d been standing there forever, he knew the man was talking or shouting at him but it was all just static, he seemed to be getting angrier with Izuku’s lack of response but he couldn’t force himself to do anything about it.
“HEY MOTHERFUCKER!” a shrill voice from the mouth of the alley cut through the fog in his mind. She was back.
Before he even knew what was happening he batted the man’s hand to the side and a shot rang out but Izuku didn’t stop. He lunged toward the wall and used it as a springboard to leap back at the man who was once again regaining his wits. With all the weight he could put behind it he slammed his flashlight down into where he hoped the man’s pressure point was.
Distantly he heard a “Run, you dumbass!” shouted from the direction of rapidly receding footsteps but all of his attention was taken up by the man falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
He just did that.
He just knocked out a man easily thrice his size.
He just knocked out a man thrice his size who had a gun.
A gun that was now laying on the ground of the grimy alley next to the man he just knocked out.
Gingerly, Izuku picked up the gun to get it out of the man’s reach should he suddenly rouse. His vision was starting to go a bit fuzzy around the edges and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath as he shakily backed away from the scene.
The crime scene.
The crime scene that he was a part of.
His mind was reeling, reaching out and trying to grasp onto something, anything.
Someone had told him to do something, he was supposed to do something right now. All at once his mind grasped onto the command, “Run, you dumbass!”
And run he did.
Turning on his heel he sprinted out of the alley in no particular direction, he just needed to get away, far away, and quickly. He ran until he could taste blood, he was somewhere in the warehouse district but he was far too panicked to tell where he didn’t even fully remember how he got here, much less where here was.
He collapsed in on himself against the nearest wall. He’s not entirely sure if he passed out or not but when he came back to his senses he was exhausted. He was exhausted and he had a gun and he didn’t know where he was. If he wasn’t too tired to have another panic attack he probably would have.
He had a gun.
He was very much not supposed to have a gun.
A gun covered in his fingerprints.
Fuck.
Alright, so, he had a gun now.
He needed to get back home and sleep off this fever dream.
Notes:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEP THANK YOU FOR READING!!!!!!
Anyway the cat dies, don't get attached.
Crits I'm looking for:
Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece.
Also, feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
Formatting. I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting. I'm currently fighting for my life just trying to post this bc I have the tech literacy of an 80 y/o, it's brutal out here.
I know there's not much dialogue yet but if I continue this there will be and I have never written dialogue in my life so that's prolly gonna be rough. So if anyone has tips for that I'd love to hear them.
Chapter 6: ♫ I get knocked down! Then knocked down again! ♫
Notes:
The amount of hell I put a character through correlates directly to how much I love them. Just my quirky little love language, y'know?
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-wound / wound care
-Gun
-suicidal thoughts/ideation
-physical abuse
-emotional abuse
-neglect
-bullying
-dissociation
-panic attackslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku’s not sure how or when he made it back to the warehouse but apparently, he did as he was now bundled in his blankets and being woken up by his alarm. He would be inclined to think that last night was an especially vivid fever dream if it weren’t for the fact that a.) he wasn’t feverish and b.) when he turned on his flashlight he could clearly see a gun laying on the ground on the far side of the landing. Sitting up he found a 3rd reason to believe last night wasn’t a fever dream when he felt a twinge of pain in his arm, point c.) he had a thinly scabbed-over gash on his left shoulder and blood was crusted into his hoodie sleeve.
When the hell did that happen? The man never got a hit on him, did he get it while he was running in a dissociative haze? With dawning horror, Izuku realized that he had batted the man’s hand to the left before a shot rang out. Was he grazed by the bullet without even noticing? If he’d hit the man’s hand with just a little less force that bullet could have gone through his heart.
Among the things one could do immediately upon waking up, realizing you had a bullet wound would not be at the top of Izuku’s list of recommendations. He felt himself starting to slip into another panic attack.
He was shot.
He would’ve been shot in the head if that woman didn’t come back for him.
He could’ve been shot in the heart if he moved a fraction of a second slower.
That situation could have ended with him or the woman dead in a million different ways and all of them were flitting through his mind at light speed.
What if the man’s eyesight was perfectly fine and he just shot Izuku where he stood before he could get that woman the chance to escape?
What if the woman hadn’t come back?
What if the man didn’t hesitate to shoot him while he was running away?
What if he had gotten caught? That guy was huge he could have just stepped on him a few times and left him for dead!
What if, what if, what if, what if–
He had to stop before he couldn’t think enough to even think of calming down. He pressed his palms down onto the slightly chilled concrete and did his best to force his breathing to regulate.
In for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Out for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Over and over he repeated it like a mantra in his head.
Yes, those things could have happened, but they didn’t. He was here and he was as safe as he could be.
That woman was safe too, and wasn’t that a nice thought? She was safe because of Izuku. Granted, he was also safe because of her so it’s not like he could say it was some sort of heroic act, but he stopped something bad from happening. The world was a better place than it would have been if not for him. That’s something he would tell himself on his worst days, he would think of the cats he fed or the people, so accustomed to being ignored, who he smiled and waved at. He would think of how those cats would be hungrier or those people would be lonelier if not for him and that would have to be enough for him to keep going some days.
After a few minutes, he had a better handle on his thoughts. He was still rattled but he was coherent, little victories. Alright, time to address the issue at hand, how the hell was he supposed to treat a bullet wound?
It wasn’t deep but it was gnarly. Thankfully, it was no longer bleeding. The blood on the sleeve was still tacky in some places and it had gotten on his blanket as well; it wasn’t an insubstantial amount of blood but he didn’t feel faint so it couldn’t be too bad, right?
Calling it a bullet wound wasn’t helping. For all intents and purposes, it was a scratch. A rather bad scratch that just so happened to be from a bullet… but a scratch nonetheless. Izuku knew how to treat a scratch, Kacchan’s friend with the ratty nails quirk had given him plenty of practice over the years.
Step one: clean it.
Was it too late for that? Should he risk disturbing the scab, it had been sitting for hours at this point. But he had been sitting on the dirty floor of an abandoned building with an open wound for hours at this point. Yeah, he should probably clean it. At the very least it wouldn’t hurt to try. Well, that wasn’t true it would hurt very much to try but that’s beside the point.
Gingerly, Izuku pulled off his sweatshirt and rolled up the sleeve of his t-shirt. He was thankful he had a first aid kit with all the bells and whistles, he would have preferred that his life up to this point hadn’t necessitated it but, well, beggars can't be choosers. Pulling out a pack of gauze and some rubbing alcohol he braced himself for the familiar sting as he gently blotted the wound and surrounding area.
Step two: dress it.
After inspecting the site thoroughly and deeming it free of any lingering blanket or hoodie fuzzies he used a cotton swab to spread antibiotic cream on the now sluggishly bleeding wound. Looking through the kit there didn’t seem to be a bandage big enough to cover the scratch but he really needed to keep it clean. He decided the best course of action was to Frankenstein two of the jumbo band-aids. He wiped down the scissors that came with the kit and cut the sticky side off of one end and placed it over the first half of the wound then he completed the seal by overlapping the fully intact bandage over the first bandage and the latter half of the wound.
Once he’d made sure that the edges had a good seal around the wound he gathered all the bloodied fabric and shoved it in the duffel bag with the rest of his dirty laundry, he’d have to bump up laundry day.
Out of tasks, his mind started to wander; he saved that woman. He took out a man thrice his size and saved someone. Izuku knew, in the depths of his mind, he had given up on his dreams of becoming a hero years ago. He’d just been lying to himself, what was that saying? Putting a band-aid over a bullet wound? Hah… yeah. He was drowning and dreaming up something to grab onto, but he knew it wasn’t real, it could never save him, it just delayed the inevitable. That dream was a lifeline but deep down Izuku knew that hope was a dangerous thing. Like a faulty harness, it would lift you up only to give you further to fall when it broke. Not if, when. Izuku spent his whole life falling for that trick over and over, but he saved that woman and the warmth that sparked in his chest terrified him. He couldn’t let himself fall again, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back up this time.
He shook his head to dispel the thought from his mind and checked the time, it was already past 6:30 he wouldn’t have time to go to the library today. Maybe he could find a laundromat with WiFi or find a way to bypass the school’s password protection during lunch, he needed to look up how to better care for the graze.
He still felt a bit floaty and he was like 80% sure it wasn’t because of blood loss. It’s just something that happened on bad days, he supposed getting shot was a good enough reason to have a bad day so he just let himself float. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
With a sigh, Izuku got dressed in his school uniform and prepared for another day in paradise.
***
Deku was acting really fuckin’ weird, more than his standard level of weird. He’d always been spacy; he’d sit down with his stalker notes and mumble to himself for hours if no one stopped him. But now it seemed like he was hardly ever present, he’d been steadily becoming less of a crybaby but for the past couple months, he hadn’t reacted to a damn thing. The extras would shout their stale insults and he wouldn’t give so much as a frown.
He wasn’t worried about the loser though, definitely not. He was pissed, that fucker was walking around like a robot, it was creepy and Katsuki was sick of it.
There were other changes over the last few months too, every couple of days he come to class looking like a wet dog and he’d started getting lunch from the cafeteria which he never did before. Katsuki didn’t know why he bothered when it ended up on the floor half the time. Hah, maybe his mommy stopped packing his lunch for him cause he was a big boy now, he bet the dumbass couldn’t figure out how to make his own lunch to save his life. His mom made him learn how to cook as soon as he could hold a pencil, the nerd wasn’t going to get far in life if he kept relying on hand-outs like a baby.
Every day he’d run out of the cafeteria like a dog with its tail between its legs with whatever remained of his lunch and today was no exception, stupid predictable Deku.
Katsuki stood just outside the cafeteria doors and waited and like clockwork, out came Deku who turned around and spotted him immediately. His face kept that creepy-ass blank expression that he'd been sporting around.
He slapped the tray out of his hands and onto the floor.
Deku just looked at the ground and then back up at Katsuki, expression stoic as ever.
“What the hell is your problem Deku?”
He quirked his eyebrow slightly as if he had no idea what Katsuki was talking about.
“Why are you walking around like a goddamn robot, you throwing a temper tantrum ‘cause mommy stopped making lunch for you?” He shot back.
His eyebrow lowered back into place and his face once again returned to that stupid lifeless expression. “My mother hasn’t c-cooked f-for me for several years, Kacchan.” He replied, with that stupid fucking stutter, ignoring Katsuki’s question entirely and calling him by that cutesy nickname again. This fucker just lived to piss him off, didn’t he?
Grabbing him by the shirt he slammed the smaller boy into a nearby wall. His only reaction was his eyes widening in surprise. “Answer the question Deku, what the hell is your problem?”
Seeing his face up close didn’t make it any less creepy. Now, less than a foot away Deku’s dull eyes just stared back at him, there were dark bags under them and he didn’t even look scared. Katsuki had him pinned and he didn’t even seem to give a shit.
“W-why do you care, Kacchan?” He finally responded flatly.
Was he too stupid to realize he was being threatened? Why wasn’t he scared? Oh, he’d give him something to be scared about. With no preamble, he let go and punched Deku square in the face. Immediately, he went tumbling to the ground. Pathetic.
“Hah, where’s the tough guy act now Deku?” He sneered as he looked down at him.
Katsuki searched his face to see his reaction, he looked scared. Good. But he wasn’t looking at Katsuki, he didn’t seem to be looking anywhere, he was just wearing a scared version of that creepy-ass face, staring unfocused at nothing. He kicked him in his stomach to get his attention but he just let out a yelp and curled into a ball. He kicked him a few more times but he didn’t give any sort of reaction again. Whatever.
“Stop walking around looking like a robot Deku, it's fuckin’ creepy.” He spat as he turned on his heel and walked away.
***
Izuku didn’t know how long he’d spent curled up in a ball on the floor after Kacchan left before the janitor found him. It couldn’t have been too long or he would have been trampled by the students leaving the cafeteria at the end of lunch by now but he wasn’t. He was being gently nudged by the janitor’s foot and he thinks he might have been talking to him.
Once his brain caught up to the situation he scrambled to his feet and bowed in apology. “I’m s-sorry s-sir! I-I’ll c-clean this up, I-I’m so s-sorry!”
The janitor narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. He nudged Izuku’s shoulder to try to get him to stop bowing and he couldn’t help but flinch away and bite back a yelp as his injury was jostled.
“You okay, kid?” he asked.
The question shocked Izuku enough to look the man in the eye. His expression looked somewhere between concerned and annoyed.
“Y-yes sir, s-sorry s-sir.” He managed to stammer in response.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened, son.” The man continued.
Oh, yeah, annoyed. He was definitely annoyed, why did he think he was worried? Stupid Deku.
“I-I know s-sir, I-I’m sorry.” He said as he looked back at the ground, preparing himself for a scolding.
Instead, the man asked, “D’ya want me to ask Anzai-san to bring your lunch to you at the kitchen door?”
Again Izuku was shocked enough to whip his head up.
“I-I- y-you don’t h-have to d-do that!” Izuku said even though he very much wanted to just say yes and possibly even kiss the ground this man walked on. This had to be a trick.
“It’d save us both the trouble of–” He gestured vaguely to the mess on the floor. “–that.”
Izuku searched the man’s face for some sign that he was joking, he even looked around as if a crowd was ready to pop out and laugh at him for thinking someone could care enough to do that for him. But the man just looked bored and the halls were empty except for the two of them.
“I-I- uh- y-yeah i-it- yes, I would l-like that if y-you could do that. T-thank you so much.” He couldn’t believe this was happening, there’s no way this was happening.
“No problem kid, like I said, saving us both the effort. Why don’t you get to class, bell’s gonna ring soon.”
“B-but the m-mess–”
“I got it, kid, it’s literally my job. Now scram.” He said in the same bored tone he’d had the whole time like he wasn’t shattering Izuku’s worldview.
He was going to argue more when the shrill tone of the bell cut through the air.
“T-thank you s-sir.” He said as he dashed back to class before his peers caused another scene.
The man just let out a noncommittal hum and waved him off.
Notes:
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR READING OR LEAVING KUDOS!!!!! WE'RE AT 50 KUDOS AND 500+ HITS?!?!?!?! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Look, I got a lot of thoughts on Bakugo. I think he's a little shit but I also realize he's just an emotionally constipated child who just so happened to be the benefactor of an unjust society. He was literally raised to be a little shit and I don't think most children have the introspective capabilities at that age to look at themselves and see the problem, other people need to point it out for them and almost everyone in his life is doing the exact opposite. In my mind, I don't think he realized what he was doing to Midoriya was abuse, I don't think he saw himself as a bad person or even meant to be a bad person but he was. He was an abuser but he was 12 and the people who were supposed to help him correct his mistakes didn't. Bakugo, just as much as Midoriya, is the product of his upbringing, the adults who failed to protect Midoriya also created the person he needed to be protected from. So just like Midoriya has to carry the burden of that trauma, Bakugo needs to carry the burden of what he did. They both just need so much therapy.
TL;DR I don't like him but there's only so much blame you can place on a literal child.
Yes, I know the janitor is Aizawa coded. I love him so much but he's not going to be in the story for a while so I cope how I can.
Crits I'm looking for:
-Pacing, I know nothing abt pacing, like I said, I've never written a narrative piece. Feel free to rake my syntax thru the coals.
-Run-on sentences, I use some of them on purpose but I also do it on accident a lot so lmk if it's an unreadable amount of run-ons.
-Formatting, I've never posted on a03 obvs so lmk if I did something stupid with formatting.
-Dialogue, idfk how to write dialogue I've only ever written essays lmk if it's dog shit.
Chapter 7: Shinso Family Trauma Hour
Notes:
Oh my God! Okay, it's happening. Everybody stay calm. What’s the procedure, everyone? What’s the procedure? Stay [bleep] calm!
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-physical abuse
-emotional abuse
-neglect
-bullying
-dissociation
-panic attacks
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi was going to talk to that kid today, he really was. He’d told himself that every day for the last few weeks but this time he really really was except he never showed up. For the first time in over two months, he didn’t show up. Maybe the fates were trying to tell him something.
He did his best to pretend he wasn’t lonely, he let himself adopt a lone wolf persona a long time ago, and he wrapped the pelt around him like a shield. He could pretend all he wanted, he could shrug off his mother’s concern but that didn’t change the reality of the situation.
He was lonely.
This year his mother had decided enough was enough, she couldn’t keep sending her child somewhere he wasn’t safe and have him come back beaten and bruised both mentally and physically. So every day he found himself here in the library taking online classes while his mother worked. It’s not like he had friends to miss, he should be happier he wasn’t getting his shit rocked daily anymore, but it wasn’t better it was just a different kind of bad.
He didn’t miss his classmates’ company but he did miss listening in on their jokes. A good portion of his peers simply ignored him and he could let his mind play into the illusion that they were his friends. Kami, he was a creep and he was doing the same thing to that green-haired kid. He just thought that maybe this kid could be different. He showed up to the library at opening and did seemingly non-academic research of his own free will and shied away from anything that moved. That didn’t really fit the profile of a bully and Hitoshi had let himself start to hope. He waved goodbye the last time he saw him and Greenie just nodded and scrambled out the door. He didn’t even know his name he’d just been calling him Greenie in his head and he’d probably scared him away and now he’d never know.
“Gah!” he exclaimed to the empty library as he not-so-gently rested his head on the desk.
His mother peeked out from around a bookshelf he didn’t know she’d been restocking.
“You okay, Toshi?”
Startled, he whipped his head around and hastily replied, “Yeah I’m fine.”
“You sure about that? ‘Fine’ people don’t normally bash their heads into tables.” She countered.
She raised an eyebrow at him when he ignored the snide comment by once again pressing his face into the desk.
“Is it about that little green boy?”
He was going to get whiplash because again his head shot up in surprise to face her. How the hell did she know that?
“He’s not here today and I know you’ve been psyching yourself up to talk to him.”
All he could do was sputter out vague denials that didn’t really form a coherent sentence.
“You’re not subtle, kiddo. I could feel how excited you get every time he walks in from the other side of the library.” She said with a wry grin.
Damnit, he really thought he was getting better at hiding things from her. Maybe he was, she hadn’t asked him about the worsening depression. Excitement is usually something that pops up suddenly, maybe he just kept projecting it for a moment before he had the chance to squash it down. Double damnit that means she just felt all that surprise and dread, uhhhgg. He said nothing and put his head back on the desk this time pillowed by his arms as if blocking her from his periphery would make the problem go away.
***
Kohaku was worried about the green kid, she’d never met anyone so young with such guarded emotions, and the only one she’d been able to parse out with any certainty was fear.
Shinso Kohaku’s quirk is called “emotional field.” This ability grants her access to a mental plane where everyone’s emotions are projected unless they made a conscious effort not to. It didn’t have a set range, the way she ‘sensed’ things was like sound, the louder the sound the further away it can travel, the stronger the emotion the further away she could feel it. This aspect of her quirk couldn’t be turned off, only ignored.
The second part, should she choose to use it, allowed her to reach out and manipulate the emotions she sensed.
She didn’t even know she could do that until she was in high school when one of her classmates was called to the principles office and told that her mother had passed away in an incident on the other side of town. The girl’s sorrow came out of nowhere and ripped through Kohaku’s mind. It was debilitating and she fell to the floor weeping in the middle of the classroom. She’d felt other people’s grief before but that time was too close, too fresh, and it came on without any warning. She couldn’t think of anything beyond ‘Make it stop, make it stop, please, Kami, make it stop.’ And it did, and in a room down the hall, the girl who just lost her mom stopped crying. She became unresponsive and just stared catatonic at the wall.
It didn’t take long for the teachers to connect the incidents and it seemed to take even less time for the news to spread across the school.
Before that day if you asked anyone about Kohaku they’d say She was the kindest person you’d ever met. She was always so in tune with everyone, she was the shoulder to cry on. She was friends with everyone. After that day if you asked about Kohaku they’d say,
“Kohaku could twist your mind and you wouldn’t even know it.”
“She’s probably been doing it to us this whole time. She tricked us all into liking her.”
“You can’t trust her, she can just make you feel however she wants.”
It didn’t matter to them that she didn’t mean to. It didn’t matter that she never manipulated anyone into liking her. Her reputation for kindness didn't matter, her actions didn’t matter. No one seemed to care about what she had done, only about what she could do.
It wasn’t until she was a full-grown adult that she’d managed to crawl her way out from under the oppressive weight of isolation. It took several years but she’d finally managed to find enough open-minded people who saw her beyond what she could do that she didn’t feel quite so alone. But Kohaku knew what loneliness felt like, it had clung to her like the persistent scent of cigarette smoke for years and she could feel it surrounding her son like a storm cloud.
She saw far too much of herself in that boy. She knew he was struggling and she knew that he was trying to hide it from her but she didn’t know what to do. Kids are cruel and easily frightened. If someone tells them something is scary, they’ll believe it. And Kohaku knew that once people judged you for something it was nigh impossible to make them change their minds.
She gave up trying to change people’s minds about her a long time ago, but looking at how people treated her son she wanted to grab the world, shake it, and say, “Look at him! Actually look at him! He’s so kind! You’ve been putting him down for years and he’s never hurt you! Just give him a chance!”
But she couldn’t and even if she could it wouldn’t make a difference.
How do you tell a kid that the only way he’s ever going to find people who treat him like a person is to break his own heart over and over? How do you tell a kid that he just has to find a way to pick himself up and put himself back together without letting his heart grow calloused?
She let out a sigh, well, here goes nothing.
“Toshi, that kid is far more scared of you than you are of him, just talk to him. You're never gonna know unless you try.”
She knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, it’s not what she would have wanted to hear but it was true.
“Friends don’t find people like us, we gotta find them ourselves.” She added.
She had to hope that would be enough.
***
Friday morning found Izuku dragging himself to the library doing his best to cover his black eye with overgrown curls. Before he even properly walked in the librarian was looking around with a worried expression. When her eyes locked with his he dropped his gaze to the floor and tried to hurry past to the computers. Before he could slip out of sight he heard Shinso-san call out to him.
“Kid, are you alright?”
Dammit. He was far too polite to ignore her. Turning around he plastered on his best fake smile and said, “Y-yes Shinso-san, I-I’m alright.”
She did not look convinced. She looked him up and down and said confidently, “No you’re not, your hurt–” She cut herself off and stood up quickly sending her seat spinning a little ways behind her. “–is that a black eye?! What happened?!”
He took several steps back as she approached him far too quickly for his liking. She seemed to notice her mistake because she stopped, still a few meters away.
She knew he was hurt before she saw his eye, she looked concerned even before she saw him at all. Was that a quirk? Could she sense pain? Could she not control it? Oh Kami, he should leave what if he’s hurting her?
“Kid, calm down, it’s okay. I’m not mad, no one is going to hurt you.” She said as she crouched down in an effort to look as non-threatening as possible.
“I-I’m fine. I-how did y-you know that before I e-even walked in?” He asked.
She dropped her gaze to the ground for a moment before she met his eyes again with an apologetic look on her face.
“Sorry, it's my quirk I can’t turn it off, I can sense emotions.”
That was the explanation she gave strangers, she always left out the second bit. She knew she had to bare her whole self to make true friends but that didn’t mean she had to go around letting every stranger she met reject her. But for Toshi, she added,
“and control them, if I choose to.”
She had felt many people’s responses to that sentence before. She’d felt anger, betrayal, curiosity, disgust, and confusion, but never awe. It was so vivid she could almost see it and suddenly the kid she had never heard say more than a 10-word sentence was firing questions at her faster than she could hear them.
“YouCanControlThem?That'sSoInteresting!HowCouldYouTellIWasHurt?PainIsn’tAnEmotion.What'sTheRangeOfYourControl?CanYouSeeEmotionsOrIsILikeAWholeNewSense?CanYouCalmPeopleDownFromAPanicAttack?ThatWouldBeSoHelpfulInHeroics!CanYouTrackPeople’sLocationWithIt?DoPhysicalObjectsInterfereWithIt?HowCanYouTellWhereEmotionsAreComingFromLikeCanYouTellWho’sFeelingWhatInACrowd?ThatMustGetReallyOverwhelming.DoYou–” He cut himself off abruptly when he finally registered her shocked expression. “–I-I’m so sorry Sh-Shinso-san.” He said as he bowed his head toward the floor.
Kohaku could feel the moment the kid’s amazement turned to fear and shame. Both emotions were so strong and so disparate that it nearly gave her whiplash. She didn’t even know how to respond, she was in shock. It wasn’t until she felt the boy’s shame turn into full-blown self-hatred that she snapped herself out of it.
“Hey! No! Kid, it’s okay! I was just surprised, I’m not mad at you! Honest.” She tried to reassure but she could feel that he didn’t believe her.
Somewhere amid all the theatrics Hitoshi had come over to see what was going on and from behind Izuku she could see him looking at the two of them with confusion. She tried to wave him away because it felt like this kid was on the edge of a crisis, but he stayed put. Little shit.
She turned her focus back to the kid. “I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t understand most of that but I can feel what your feeling so just calm down, take a breath, it's okay. I’m not mad at you.”
Oh no, he was hurting her.
Like flicking a light switch, she felt the boy’s swirling emotions turn off.
“I-I’m sorry Shinso-san, d-don’t worry about i-it or m-me. I-it’s fine.” He said with another bow before he turned on his heel and left for the computers giving Hitoshi a small nod on his way.
“What the heck was that?” Hitoshi said once he was sure Greenie was well out of earshot.
“When did you walk in?” She asked in return.
“During whatever he was ranting about. I didn’t know he could talk that fast.”
“Neither did I.” She replied trying to collect her thoughts enough to answer the question as he walked closer. “I don’t know, he just felt off and he was limping a bit then I saw he had a black eye and he asked me about my quirk. So, I told him and well, you heard the rest.”
“You told him about your quirk? All of it?”
“Yeah”
Hitoshi stared at her in shock for a moment, “What did he say?”
“I’m not entirely sure, he had a lot of questions, that's when you walked in. I hardly caught a word of it. He was so excited. I’ve never felt someone get excited about my quirk, I think he thought I was mad at him, he got so scared.”
She felt a tiny spark of hope rise in Hitoshi’s chest before he snuffed it out.
“You still think I should talk to him today?” He asked.
She thought of all the swirling emotions the boy was feeling and how he was able to push them all down in the blink of an eye. It was concerning, to say the least. She was inclined to let the boy get a handle on his emotions and leave him be but she was officially worried about this kid now.
She finally settled on a compromise, “Maybe just ask his name, introduce yourself. Give him a minute first.”
***
Eventually, Hitoshi made it back to his usual computer. Greenie wasn’t mumbling like he usually did but when he passed, it looked like he was reading about first aid which was concerning in conjunction with the black eye. He sat down in his spot and shot glances at the kid every few minutes. It was nearing the time when Greenie normally left when he finally plucked up the courage to say something.
“Shinso Hitoshi. That’s uh, that’s my name.”
He groaned internally, real smooth. Great job Toshi, ya really nailed that one!
“Oh, uh, um… hi, Shinso.” Greenie replied “M-Midoriya Izuku.”
Hitoshi couldn’t help but giggle but he stopped when he realized that was probably rude. “Sorry, I just– I’ve been calling you Greenie and I guess I wasn’t far off.”
Gre-Midoriya let out a little laugh, Hitoshi couldn’t tell if it was fake or not before they both fell back into silence. When Midoriya got up to leave at his usual time Hitoshi waved him off and actually got a shy wave in return.
Notes:
yay, frens!
Thank you so much for reading I'm so tired I'm going to bed now immediately, goodnight.
Chapter 8: What do you Have?! A Knife! NO!
Notes:
Sorry for the shorter chapter, my friends decided that I had to have a social life this weekend. Pray for me.
I might not upload daily this week because I'll be ~teaching~ so I actually have to do my job, unfortunately.
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Knife
-assault
-emotional abuse
-neglect
-bullyinglmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For the first time in years, Izuku was waiting for the lunch bell to ring in excitement rather than dread. The janitor told him Friday that the lunch lady had agreed to bring him his lunch to the back door of the kitchen. He’d been thinking about it all weekend and he’d even found a dirty and only partially broken bento box while rummaging through the trash, he cleaned it up and fixed it as best he could so that he could take home anything he didn’t finish.
By the time the metallic ring of the bell cut through the air, Izuku was nearly bouncing out of his seat. He shot out of the room ahead of all his classmates and headed straight for the kitchen. When he got there he knocked like the janitor told him to and waited.
And waited.
He was considering knocking again when the door abruptly opened revealing one of the lunch ladies looking down at him with thinly veiled distaste. She held out a tray barely giving Izuku enough time to grab it before she let go.
“Don’t drop it.” She said coldly before promptly shutting the door in Izuku’s face.
Well… that was… well that was probably to be expected. At least she agreed to bring his food out at all, it’s more than he ever would have asked for and despite the rudeness, he appreciated it immensely.
He took his tray to the roof so that he could eat in peace. It was kinda cold and a little dry. Honestly, it was not very good but he gobbled it down like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. Rationing his food at the warehouse had been difficult and the weekends often found him hungry, he was stretching his merch money as far as he could but he knew he would need to find a more long-term solution. Maybe he could find an under-the-table job somewhere or maybe he could try to fix some of the things he found at the dump and sell them. He’d seen a microwave and a few bicycles that didn’t look completely beyond repair.
Having a consistent source of food wouldn’t solve everything but it was a good start.
His stomach had likely shrunk due to his usually low food intake so he found himself full before he could finish the tray but he’d expected that and packed the rest into a bento to take home. It wouldn’t keep long so he’d have to eat it for dinner.
***
Izuku had put off laundry day for too long, he’d been sleeping on a crusty blanket since Thursday and it was Monday. He really should have gone during the weekend but he’d spent it digging through Dagobah Beach looking for generator parts to try to fix the busted one he’d found a while back.
As it stood Izuku was glaring daggers between the gradually setting sun and the dryers, this was taking forever. He’d run straight home after school grabbed his laundry and headed straight for the laundromat but he’d forgotten he hadn’t washed his blanket here before and it was taking forever for it to dry. It was early September so the sun was starting to set sooner and sooner and the nights were getting colder and colder. He needed this blanket to be dry to keep warm tonight but he also didn’t want to walk home in the dark and have a repeat of what caused him to have to wash his own blood out of his comforter in the first place.
As the seconds ticked by he only got more and more tense, there were only so many times he could go over his homework without losing the small bit of sanity that he had left.
He saw the streetlights flick on out of the corner of his eye and he willed the dryer to work faster.
When the dryer’s buzzer finally sounded he checked inside and, mercifully, everything was dry. Not even bothering to fold his school uniform he stuffed everything back into the duffel bag, threw on his hoodie, and flew out the door as the last traces of sunlight were starting to leave the sky. He pulled up his hood and face mask to both fight back the cool air and try to make himself as threatening as he could. Izuku was cursing himself for leaving his flashlight on the windowsill to charge. He didn’t expect to be out this long, it was pure chance he’d even brought enough pocket change to pay for the THREE WHOLE CYCLES it took to dry his stupid blanket.
He didn’t even have the kitchen knife, it was too big to properly fit in his hoodie pocket and he was scared it was going to cut a hole in it one day. So, here he was walking uptown by himself with the majority of his earthy possessions and absolutely no means to defend himself only four days after getting shot in a back alley in these very same streets.
Great great great great great great. Juuuuuust great.
It was a solid 15-minute walk back to the warehouse and 5 of those would be in the warehouse district, so it would be fine. Just keep your head down, stay alert, and keep walking. Of course, luck was hardly ever on Izuku’s side. He shouldn’t be surprised, he was an unarmed and unimposing figure walking through the slums after sundown with two large bags, he would’ve had to have more than just luck on his side to get through that walk unscathed. Only about two and a half minutes into his walk he noticed a gangly man had started to tail him.
That's okay, stay on the main streets where most of the streetlamps were functional and keep walking.
Five minutes later the man was only getting closer. They were skirting the edge of uptown and the warehouse district, he couldn’t just lead the guy back to where he lived, he had to do something. Should he run? He wasn’t confident he could outpace a full-grown man while carrying everything. Should he try to lose him in the alleys? He knew the streets well but he had no idea if this guy did too, plus Izuku knew quite well that he could just end up finding more trouble running around the back alleys.
The decision was made for him when the man grabbed the handle of his backpack and threw him just out of the glow of the streetlight behind a long-since abandoned cafe. Izuku spun with the momentum so that he was facing the man and took a few steps back to balance himself lest he end up on his ass. When he turned around he saw the man pointing a knife at him.
Of course, this would happen. This was Izuku’s life, of course, this was happening. He almost wanted to laugh.
“Hand it over, everything, now.” He commanded.
Slowly Izuku lifted the duffle off his shoulder, tossed it to the man’s feet, and put his hands up in surrender.
“Backpack too, shrimp.” he said as he used his foot to nudge the duffle further from Izuku’s reach.
He didn’t have the money to replace all of this stuff and it was only getting colder, Izuku was as good as dead whether he followed the man’s orders or not, it was only a matter of time. He wasn’t going to just hand everything over, not without a fight, not a chance in hell.
Making up his mind he shrugged his injured shoulder letting the strap fall off slowly, but as the bag swung he grabbed the remaining strap in his right hand and used the momentum to swing it forward striking the man’s hand with considerable force. The knife went clattering to the ground and Izuku kicked his assailant in the shin to distract him as he scooped up the knife turning it back on its owner who was cursing up a storm. When the man looked up and saw his knife now pointing at him he started to back away with his hands up. After a second he seemed to realize that he was the one who had cornered Izuku so there was presently nothing behind him to get in the way of his retreat. Idiot.
So retreat he did.
Izuku was left dumbstruck at what he’d just done for a moment after the man left. He just stood there pointing a knife at nothing and no one, his mouth would have caught flies if not for the mask covering it.
Did he just steal a knife? Was that considered stealing? Was accidentally stealing weapons from criminals becoming a hobby? Two’s a coincidence but three’s a trend and Izuku was not looking to connect those dots tonight, once his mind caught up with the situation he slung his backpack over his shoulders, picked up his duffel bag, pocketed the knife, and quickly made his way back to the warehouse district.
***
Izuku returned to the warehouse and checked the back alley for Dumpster Jumpscare, given the lack of dumpster jumpscares he assumed she was still asleep. He’d been tossing treats to her every night and she’d seemingly been ignoring them but they were always gone the next day. It could have been the rats eating them but Izuku figured she ended up eating the treats one way or another so he kept doing it. He didn’t have the energy to stick around and wait for her so he tossed the treats where he usually did and headed inside.
Once Izuku had retrieved his flashlight and settled his things back into their proper places on the landing he finally gave himself a moment to process what just happened.
He just reverse mugged someone.
What the hell?
Somehow, he was two for two on street fights, he saved someone and he saved himself. That realization had hope rising in his chest. Izuku promptly dragged that hope out back, shot it, then beat it bloody with a bat for good measure.
He was not going to let himself hope again, he couldn’t bare it.
Turning the light out he bundled himself up in his stupid clean and dry blanket and did his best to fall asleep but no matter what he did he couldn’t silence the thoughts that told him he had a shot. He could fight, he could save people, he did save people. He could be a hero.
Two instances were a coincidence, but three, three could be a trend.
***
Here he is, very Intimidating if I do say so myself 😂
I had to look through 3 tutorials to figure out how to embed an image. Whoever allowed me to have a computer should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Anyway, I'm taking critiques on writing not on art so no one say a single negative gd word abt this or I'll cry. I would link my website to prove I actually know how to make art but I'm not trying to doxx myself on A03 for clout.
Notes:
Thanks for reading and for all the feedback! I really appreciate it, I've been telling my partner that I have to quit my job because I have tens of fans waiting for me to upload every day.
❤️❤️❤️ y'all enjoy the rest of your weekends❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 9: UnLImiTeD PoWaaAAaahHhH
Notes:
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind!
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Gun
-Knife
-Nightmares/flashbacks
-dissociation
-panic attackslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The next morning Izuku found an unforeseen flaw in setting up camp in a stairwell when he woke up to the sounds of screams echoing off of the vaulted ceilings. It’s not the first time he had woken up to a nightmare since he moved but it was the first time he woke up screaming. He was tangled in his blanket and the cold sweat that coated his skin just made the fabric cling even closer; he was pinned down in a pitch-black echo chamber of his own screams.
It was hell.
He finally thrashed himself out of the confines of his blanket and his hands met the rough concrete floor. Blindly reaching out he felt the wall and the cool metal of the handrail. The shock of cold was enough to remind him where he was and realize he was the one screaming. The sound cut off as he gasped in a breath, it was just a dream but his overactive imagination had him feeling the phantom burn of fire and explosions where scars marred his flesh. It seemed his subconscious took it upon itself to remind him of his weakness in response to the hope burning in his chest that refused to die.
Distantly, he registered that tears were streaming down his cheeks and every breath felt like it was tearing his lungs apart but the sensations were too far away. The brief grounding moment the handrail provided had come and gone, he knew there was no reason to panic, there was no danger, but he couldn’t get the message to his body. Forcing himself to push through the disconnect he bundled himself up in his comforter and backed against the wall as his shaky hands went to flick on the flashlight, the oppressive darkness wasn’t doing much to calm his nerves. Once he proved to himself nothing was lurking in the shadows he rested his head on his knees and tried to calm his breathing.
Just a dream, it was just a dream.
Breathe in for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Out for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Rinse and repeat.
He didn’t know how long he sat there trying to regulate his breathing but by the time he got a hold of himself the time read 5:24 AM. He had a little less than an hour before his alarm was set to go off but there was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep. It was Tuesday so it was a shower day and there was no way he could skip it since he skipped the last one to research first aid at the library and then spent the whole weekend sifting through trash at Dahgobah. He smelled like shit and the cold sweat from the nightmare wasn’t helping.
He picked up the knife from the last step of the upper stairs where he’d put it last night (the gun was on the last step of the lower stairs, as far out of sight and reach as it could be). It was a nice knife, it had a leather-wrapped handle that fit well in his grip and it was much more reasonably sized than the kitchen knife. The blade was 4 to 5 inches long, It was balanced well at the guard with the hilt being about the same length as the blade. It felt good in his hand, it felt right.
His body was still buzzing with energy so he decided to run through his drills with the new knife, despite his hands still shaking the movements felt more fluid. Izuku supposed that made sense, a clunky unbalanced blade made his movements feel clunky and unbalanced, but this knife was elegant. He wouldn’t go so far as to call his movements elegant but they felt right. Lost in his own movements he was shocked when he heard his alarm go off, he’d been dancing around with a knife for 45 minutes like an idiot.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t bring a knife to school so he mournfully set it aside and slipped his soap into his bag. He’d run out of shampoo a few weeks ago and he’d been washing his hair with bar soap. His curls were in a sad state but it wasn’t a priority so he just had to make do. They were also starting to hang in his eyes but he couldn’t afford a hair cut and he didn’t trust himself to do anything but make it worse if he tried to do it himself. The bullies already had enough ammunition he didn’t need to fuel the fire by giving himself an absolute hack-job haircut. He had wanted to grow it out when he was younger but his parents always said he looked like a girl and dragged him to the barbershop. As annoying as it was now it felt like an act of rebellion and soon he would be able to tuck it behind his ear. For now, he could soldier through getting his nose tickled while he was working.
***
The route to school took Izuku past the former cafe he’d got attempted-mugged behind last night. It was surreal, it felt like that experience had happened to someone else, it just felt like there was no way Izuku disarmed and scared off a mugger. It seemed even more impossible that gangly little Izuku dropped a mountain of a man like a sack of potatoes last week but he did and he was here to… well… he didn’t have anyone to tell the tale to but the point was he could. He had gotten out of those fights relatively unscathed and he couldn’t seem to process that. He’d been weak and useless his whole life and the person who did those things was incongruent to what Izuku had always been.
He couldn’t be strong, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t help people, he couldn’t be a hero, but the person last night? They were clever and fast, they knew how to take control of the situation, the person last week was brave and skilled, they were strong. They were the antithesis of Izuku.
It was confusing, he felt like he was trying to jam two puzzle pieces together that didn’t fit.
He was Deku and Deku meant useless but that other person wasn’t useless. Izuku wanted to be that person more than anything, they just felt so out of reach.
***
Izuku had been trying to repair the busted solar generator he found at Dagobah Beach for nearly a full month but there was only so much he could do when the only tool he owned was a rusty screwdriver. He’d managed to take it apart but it had severe water damage and he was pretty sure the main circuit board needed resoldering in several places and the fuses were all blown. The problem with that was he didn’t have a soldering iron and even if he did he didn’t have anywhere to plug it in.
He’d been looking for replacement parts in the other abandoned electronics at Dagobah but everything there had so much water damage he had yet to find anything even remotely functional. The fuses were beyond repair and definitely needed replacing but he thought the circuitry might not be too far gone, maybe he should just look into how much the replacement parts would cost new. He didn’t have much money but getting this thing up and running would be such a huge quality-of-life improvement that, depending on the price, it would be worth cutting his losses.
It was mid-September now and he’d found a space heater at the dump that he thinks he fixed but he didn’t have anywhere to plug it in to test it. Being underground wasn’t retaining heat as much as he had hoped it would and it was only going to get worse as winter approached. Yeah, getting that generator fixed was becoming a priority.
Replacement parts would have to be the next topic of research when he went to the library.
***
Turns out fuses aren't too expensive, it would only be about ¥1,500. It made sense, they were made to break in order to protect the circuit from overflows in the electrical current, they were pawns to the circuit board king. Following that train of logic, it made sense that the circuit board itself would be much more expensive to replace, ¥20,000 was a lot of money for Izuku. Buying a soldering iron would only be ¥2,000, if he could find somewhere to plug it in he might be able to fix the circuit board himself. Possibly wasting ¥2,000 vs possibly saving ¥18,000 seemed worth the gamble so Izuku took a mental note of where the nearest hardware store was before he headed to school.
***
The next time Izuku went to visit DJ (short for Dumpster Jumpscare) he kept his eyes above the dumpster to see where she’d jumped out from. He had a feeling she spent all day sleeping in the sunshine up on the roof of the building, that’s certainly what he would do if he was a cat, and if he got this generator up and running he’d need to put the panel on the roof to optimize the amount of sunlight it captured. Leaving his flashlight on the windowsill all day might be enough to keep it going but a whole generator would require much more power.
He wouldn’t necessarily be able to take the same path to the roof as DJ but DJ was a huge cat so whatever footholds she used would have to be sturdy enough for a 20 to 25-pound cat to launch herself off of daily. So as he encroached on her hunting grounds he kept his eyes on the roof and as he got closer he saw her eyes peek over the ledge before she launched herself off and onto the dumpster in one leap.
Not fair! He couldn’t do that!
“Well, that explains how you make such a racket every time you jump on that poor dumpster, you’re reaching terminal velocity before you dent that lid every night.” He grumbled
That may be a bit dramatic there was no way she could reach terminal velocity from that height but he was really hoping to get some help from this cat who still steadfastly seemed to hate him despite him feeding her every night for weeks.
“You know, one day you’re gonna fall right through the lid and I’m gonna laugh at you.” he added as he tossed the nightly treats and went to leave, but just before he rounded the corner he saw her jump down to the ground and sniff.
YES! She had been eating the treats this whole time, not the rats! She just didn’t want to give Izuku the satisfaction of knowing she liked them, cheeky little shit.
Izuku resigned to having to find his own way up to the roof as he curled himself into ‘bed’ that night.
***
Izuku had a plan, he’d found an extension cord that probably worked and he was going to plug it into the outlet outside the front of the mini-mart, it was probably for if the owner wanted to hang lights during the holidays but they never did and Izuku had seen people charging phones there before. The owner, Shimamoto-san, was a very kind man and never cut the power to that outlet or chaced anyone off. He also heard through the grapevine that he would give away pastries at closing after they’d gotten too stale to sell but Izuku had been avoiding staying out at night as much as possible so he hadn’t gotten the chance to see if that was true or not.
So, the plan was to run the extension cord around the back alley and try to fix the circuit board as quickly as possible. He didn't want people asking questions and a 12-year-old attempting to fix circuitry in the middle of the street while mooching off the mini-mart’s electricity was sure to draw attention. He dropped ¥5,000 on the fuses, soldering iron, and the accompanying tools like a tiny wire brush, some replacement wires, flux, and the actual solder itself so he was really hoping it wouldn’t be for nothing. Dragging the whole generator to the mini-mart back alley wasn’t really the best idea so he would have to hope he got everything right the first time so he wouldn’t have to go back and forth to check if it was working a million times.
He’d never done this before but he’d done extensive research on the topic and he was confident he had found what the issue was and would be able to fix it. If this didn’t fix it the thing may be too far gone and Izuku was really hoping that wasn’t the case.
After practicing a few solder dots on the sidewalk he brought out the circuit board that he’d already disassembled and cleaned of the old busted wires and solder. Now there was nothing left to do but try his best. It only took 13 minutes for him to get all the wires in place and check his work about 1,000 times. Once he was sure that he’d done everything he could he packed everything away and all but skipped back to the warehouse, he was so excited for this generator to work.
***
It took him at least another half an hour to put all the pieces back together and a further five minutes to pluck up the courage to flick the switch on. He finally steeled his nerves enough to flick the switch with his eyes squeezed shut as if not seeing the moment he turned it on only to have it not work would save him the heartbreak.
He peeked one eye open and… nothing. It wasn’t working. He almost wanted to kick it down the stairs and then he realized he was an idiot. It was a SOLAR generator and it had been broken for who knows how long and then been sitting in a pitch-black stairwell for a month, of course, it wasn’t working.
With renewed vigor, he lugged the thing back up the stairs and into the back alley. Hopefully, DJ would scare away anyone who went poking around looking for hunks of junk to steal. He’d never heard the distinctive clang of her landing on the dumpster from inside the factory but it was very loud, if it happened he would hear it so either dumpster jumpscares were saved for him exclusively or no one ever went into that back alley. The latter option seemed far more likely given how desolate the warehouse district was.
Obviously, the alley wouldn’t get the most sunlight but Izuku hadn’t found a way up to the roof yet and he wasn’t about to just leave it out in the open. It should be able to get enough exposure if he left it here while he was at school, it couldn’t be cast in shadow all day so at some point it would get direct sunlight.
Uhhhhgggg. The next 19 or so hours were going to be the longest 19 or so hours of his entire life. He couldn’t help but drag his feet as he made his way back to the stairwell to do his homework by flashlight-light before he went to sleep.
***
He was right. Forget everything else that had ever happened to him, today was the worst day of his life. The anticipation was killing him. He would have ditched early if stepping a single toe out of line wouldn’t have hell raining down on him from his teachers. His eyes were glued to the clock and he was up and out of his seat within a nanosecond of the bell ringing. He was out of the classroom before the bell finished its toll and he shot home in a dead sprint.
All his experience in running was paying off, he cleared the three-and-a-half kilometer walk in record time and charged into the back alley kicking up dust. He quickly knelt down in front of the generator.
Come on, come on, this was it, it’s gotta work.
He flicked the switch and the interface lit up! He had to curb his excitement, it was just the interface, that didn’t mean it was fully operational. Whipping his backpack off his shoulder he fished out his phone and phone charger and went to plug it in, this was it, the real moment of truth.
His phone screen lit up with a notification, charging, 43%.
He couldn’t help but scream and jump for joy, “YEEEEAAAHHHHH!!!! HELL YES!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
He did it! He really did it! He had power again!!!
All his hoopin’ and hollerin’ must have been enough to wake DJ because he heard a merrow from the roof where she sat glaring down at him. He’d have to leave her extra treats tonight as an apology for waking her.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! As I said on the last chapter, I likely won't be updating daily this week, because of how my job is structured I've got a busier week this week so I won't have nearly as much time to write :[
We've passed 20K words and 1,000 hits!! Now let's just get this to 100 kudos :D
Chapter 10: Shinso Family Trauma Hour Pt. 2 (Electric Boogaloo)
Notes:
ONE HUNDRED KUDOS EVERYONE!!!! Just in time for 10 chapters! I shriek. TYSMMMMMMMMMMMMM
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Drunken assault
-Hate crime (for a fictional marginalized group)
-Murder (newly introduced OC, don't worry abt it)
-Mild flashback
-Suicidal ideation
-Foul languagelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It turns out that he had not fixed the space heater but now that he could test it he was more motivated to give it another go. He tinkered around with it for a while until he finally got it to hum to life.
Hell yes, he was two for two again! He felt unstoppable and wasn’t that a strange feeling? Confidence wasn’t something he was used to, he had to remind himself that two was a coincidence and three was a trend. These were probably easy fixes, he shouldn’t let it get to his head.
Izuku figured he would have to find a way to get up to the roof because he did not want to have to lug this thing up and down the stairs every morning and evening. The solar panel was detachable for this very reason but he still needed a way to connect it down to the stairwell. It had a cord but it wasn't long enough to run the whole distance, that cord in addition to the extension cord he found could be enough. It would at least be enough to get the outlet to ground level and Izuku could add another extension when he got his hands on one. He’d have to keep an eye out at Dahgobah it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra extension cord anyway, he wouldn’t put it past DJ to chew through the cable.
The best path to the roof or at least the safest path would be around the outside of the stairwell as it had the best structural integrity, it's also where DJ hung out so presumably there was enough flat area to lounge. He’d definitely have to set the panel up at an angle he could see DJ loafing on top of the panel and blocking out all the sun to spite him. It was the perfect size for her to loaf on and it was black so the sun would warm it up, which would be too tempting for even the most well-behaved cat and DJ was a menace.
Izuku could wait and try to find a ladder but who knows how long that would take, he wanted to get this done now. He thought about the twilight and underground heroes he used to see from the roof of his old apartment building jumping around rooftops and climbing up the sides of buildings like they were on a jungle gym.
This was a bad idea.
He thought about how he had jumped off a wall and launched himself high enough to hit a 7-foot-tall man in the neck.
This was a really bad idea.
He saw how the stairwell was built onto the outside of the wall so it stuck out and formed a small alcove with a nearby support beam. So, theoretically, Izuku could jump from wall to wall all the way to the top of the roof.
He was going to do it, wasn’t he?
Half of him was already exasperated with his own idiocy but the other half of him was a passively suicidal 12-year-old with no supervision. Izuku let the kid in him do the decision-making for once. He tied the solar panel to one end of the extension cord and tied the other end around one of his belt loops so that if he fell he didn't break the panel as well as his bones and if he didn't fall he could use the cord to pull the panel up to the roof.
He pushed the dumpster into the alcove both so he could get a head start on height and so that it could break his fall in the likely event he ended up eating shit. He kicked at either wall as high up as he could to check that they wouldn’t give under his weight. Once he was satisfied that they were sturdy he jumped at the wall and turned mid-air to kick off the other, he got two and a half jumps up before he fumbled the turn and sent himself careening into the dumpster.
His palms got scratched up and his bum was likely going to be sporting a new bruise but he wasn’t too worse for wear. The point is, he had proven his theory.
“MERRRROOOOOWWW”
And he’d woken up DJ again.
“Listen I’ll give you more treats tonight I just need to get this on the roof. I’ll even put the dumpster back so you can keep scaring the crap out of me.” He lazily placated her as he thought through the movements and where he went wrong.
He could do it, he did do it, he just lost the rhythm. All he could do was try again, and so he did.
Again
And again.
And again.
After falling five more times and gaining an innumerable amount of bruises and possibly a sprained ankle he found himself sprawled on the roof looking up into the eyes of a very unimpressed cat. She was only 3 feet away, this was the closest he’d ever gotten without getting hissed and swatted at. Maybe she was taking pity on him after watching that sorry display. Slowly he reached a hand out for her to sniff which she immediately slapped away but it was without claws so he’d take that as a win.
Not wanting to push his luck he skirted around DJ to the corner of the roof closest to the former-window-current-hole-in-the-wall that was nearest to the stairwell door and pulled the solar panel up by the cord. There was some sort of metal pipe that may have been an exhaust valve at some point but now it was going to be a solar panel stand. He tied the panel to the pole facing due south and tossed the other end of the cord over the side of the wall. The cord pooled in a circle on the ground, which would be enough length to at least get the generator in the building, maybe even to the top landing of the stairwell but definitely not all the way down it to the second landing, he was going to need another extension cord. Damnit.
Well, that was a problem for later, now he needed to get down. He didn’t think this through.
Would going down jumping from wall to wall slow his descent? It would add friction so theoretically it would slow the fall but would it slow it enough?
Izuku figured he’d fallen onto that dumpster enough times today that he didn’t really care if he was essentially just flat-out jumping off the roof at this point. So with not much forethought he just went for it. It definitely slowed him down and he landed on his feet but he lost a shoe on the second jump, he probably should have tied the laces tighter before doing that but you live and you learn and now Izuku had one slightly dirtier sock, there could be worse outcomes. He shot another apology to DJ as he collected his fallen shoe and dragged the generator inside.
Izuku was right, the generator couldn’t make it past the third step and the stairs weren’t wide enough to hold it so he had to set it on the first landing. This landing was smaller than the second landing it was square so it was only as wide as the stairs themselves. Izuku didn’t fancy sleeping in such tight quarters with a space heater so he moved getting another extension cord to the top of his priority list and headed down to the second flight to work on his homework.
Minus all the bruises that was actually pretty fun! It was like playing on monkey bars for big kids. It would be a good skill to have too, he could just wall-jump away next time someone tried to mug him. Maybe he could practice more and it could be a reliable getaway option.
***
Waking up the next morning had Izuku questioning if he really wanted to practice doing that ever again. Everything hurt and he was a walking bruise. He hadn’t broken anything but moving around was quite painful regardless, it felt like every muscle he had was sore. Whether that was because it was a full-body workout or because he’d managed to bruise every muscle in his body he wasn’t sure but both options seemed equally likely.
Maybe it was both.
It was probably both.
Today was Wednesday so it was a library day, maybe he could look into free running, he thinks that's what that was called. It seemed like the kind of skill that was built more from practice than study but it couldn’t hurt to look into it. It would certainly hurt less than falling off a roof 5 to 6 times in rapid succession.
***
Izuku was at the library looking into heroes who did a lot of parkour and free running when the purple-haired kid walked past him likely getting a look at his screen because he stopped and spoke to him for the first time since he introduced himself.
“So, you like heroes a lot, don’t you?”
The kid seemed to have surprised himself by speaking and Izuku nearly jumped out of his skin because he hadn’t realized he was behind him. He’d been starting to let his guard down here and he didn’t like it, he was easing himself into a false sense of security. Neither of the Shinsos had said or done anything even mildly aggressive to him but that was because they didn’t know what he was. He was never going to tell them but he knew they’d find out, eventually, he’d let it slip, or someone from school would see him in here and cause a scene. Nothing good ever lasted, not for him.
Izuku didn’t know how to respond and apparently, he was taking too long to decide because Shinso looked very uncomfortable and started trying to fill the awkward silence.
“I just mean you’re always doing research on old merch and watching the news and now this, I’m not trying to say you’re obsessive that came out wrong I know you research all types of stuff that goes way over my head you’re probably really smart and now I’m making myself look like a stalker, sorry, I’ll just go… um back to my spot,” he said all in one mumbled sentence.
Oh no now he’d made him feel bad he had to say something, “No, no i-it’s okay, I-I just I didn’t know what– I um– y-yes, I do like heroes, w-why do y-you ask? D-do you like h-heroes too?”
Shinso looked as uncomfortable as Izuku felt, Kami, what a pair they made.
“Haha, uh, yeah I like some of them. Uh, I like the ones with non-combative quirks, they’re really impressive but sometimes the limelights are too much,” he responded.
Izuku was nearly vibrating in his seat trying to hold back the urge to unload every fact and statistic he knew about heroes with non-combative quirks, normal kids didn’t care about all of that and they thought it was really weird that Izuku knew it all off the top of his head. Just because another kid likes heroes doesn’t mean they want to hear him rant, he’d learned that lesson the hard way too many times. Suppressing the urge to go overboard he responded instead by asking,
“Who’s your favorite?”
Most kids had a favorite hero, surely that was a safe thing to ask.
Apparently, that was not a safe thing to ask because the kid’s face went from nervous to grief-stricken the moment the question left his mouth.
***
Hitoshi remembered that night like it happened yesterday, he was out with his parents for his seventh birthday. The three of them had made it a tradition to go out for dinner on his birthday because he hadn’t had friends to invite to a party since he was four. It was a Saturday night, his tummy was full of ice cream, and his mom was holding both his and his father’s hands since the street wasn’t too crowded for them to all walk side by side.
He couldn’t remember what they were talking about but he knew he was happy, he may not have friends but he had two parents that cared about him and that was enough for him in that moment. But that moment couldn’t last forever, Kami, he wished that moment could have lasted forever.
He remembers how one of his father’s coworkers came stumbling around the corner, and when his eyes met the family he looked so angry. His words were slurred but Hitoshi could make out something along the lines of,
“They shouldn’t let you fuckers breed.”
Before he charged at them.
His father pushed him and his mother behind himself and tried to command the man to stop but he was far too drunk and angry to listen. Hitoshi couldn’t do anything but watch as the man’s fingers morphed into knives and embedded themselves in his father’s chest.
Just as the man turned on Hitoshi and his mother he was pulled back by tendrils of cloth and another man descended from a nearby roof, breaking his fall on the other man’s face and promptly knocking him unconscious. The hero left him where he dropped and rushed over to Hitoshi’s father quickly wrapping the cloth around his chest and applying pressure and calmly but firmly telling his mother to call an ambulance.
The hero did everything he could, he saved Hitoshi and his mother, he apprehended their attacker but despite his best efforts, Shinso Tsuyoshi bled out on the sidewalk that night in front of his wife and son.
***
The look was fleeting, Shinso tried to pretend it didn’t happen, and Izuku politely let him.
It took a moment for Shinso to respond but eventually he did with a sad smile, “You might not know him, he’s underground but he’s a local. My favorite hero is Eraserhead.”
Again, Izuku had to stop himself from going on another rant, because clearly, Eraserhead was Shinso’s favorite hero for a reason, and judging by the look that briefly passed his face he probably saved him from something horrible and now was not the time for excited word-vomit about how cool Eraserhead was.
“Y-yeah! I-I know Eraserhead! H-he patrols my old n-neighborhood! I used to b-be able to see him from t-the roof, h-he’s so cool! He’s one o-of my favorites t-too!” He replied, doing his best to restrain himself.
Izuku could go on and on about how Eraserhead was his biggest inspiration because from what little he could find of him online he knew that he practically fought quirkless! His quirk could erase other people’s quirks so all he could do was level the playing field, everything else was pure skill. The way he whipped himself around the city with his capture scarf was all him, he was living proof that people could do amazing and heroic things without the use of a quirk. If there were any up-close videos of him online Izuku would be studying them right now because that was exactly the type of thing he was trying to learn how to do.
That seemed to be the right thing to say because Shinso’s sad smile started to look a little more genuine as it met his eyes.
Notes:
I know I said to not expect daily posts this week and then I posted yesterday and today but that still stands. Continue to expect less lol.
For anyone curious Shinso's Dad's quirk was "Persuasion". He essentially was just supernaturally persuasive, kinda like hypnotism but the 'victim' could knock themselves out of it if they realized what was happening, unlike Toshi it didn't have an activation requirement. It was sneaky like his mom's quirk, no one would know if he was or wasn't using it so people always assumed he was and he was shunned just like Kohaku was so they kinda trauma bonded about that when they met and boom bang pow now there's a Hitoshi.
AHH I mentioned ⭐️him⭐️ I still won't get to write him for a while but he's here in spirit 👁👄👁
✨eraserdad approaches✨ I can hear him in the distance, sniffing out abandoned and forgotten children like a hound that caught a scent.
Anyway, I fucking love Aizawa and I'm feral, thanks for reading byeeeeeeee!!!
Chapter 11: He on X-Games Mode
Notes:
Okay, listen. Maybe I lied, maybe I can still upload daily this week. Idk, keep your expectations mid and best.
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Knife
-Suicidal Ideation
-Life-risking recklessness
-Vague mentions of neglectlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku had practiced throwing himself at those two walls for a few days and he now had a 92% success rate of getting to the roof without falling which was a vast improvement to the 16% success rate of the first day. Obviously, this was great progress but it was only ever going to be helpful here if he kept practicing on those same two walls. He didn’t really trust any other walls here to hold up to him jumping on and off of them repeatedly so, that meant he had to find somewhere else to practice.
Ideally, he would practice anywhere and everywhere, making this an actually useful skill depended on his ability to adapt to new environments and find unconventional paths just as much as it depended on the athletic ability to leap from foothold to foothold. But Izuku wasn’t too keen on galavanting around town making a fool of himself by letting the public watch him throw himself into various structures over and over again. He resolved himself to have to practice pattern finding in the wild by eye alone but he could try to find another warehouse that was less decrepit to work on landing different jumps. It would be good to have a backup warehome in case this one got compromised anyway.
He decided to scope out the warehouse on block 12 again, he only avoided it out of an abundance of caution because he saw a few footprints there. The building was much more structurally sound and he had yet to physically see anyone there day or night. The only reason he hadn’t moved was that Izuku was sure that the dilapidated nature of his current warehome would work to his advantage because no one in their right mind would enter that death trap of their own accord. Izuku was small and light and he knew how to recognize patterns, he could see where things were likely to crumble under his weight and where they weren’t. It was a good warehome, it protected him and, okay, admittedly, he’d grown a little attached. Sue him, it’s all he had.
The warehouse on block 12 was huge, it covered the entirety of the block. At first glance, Izuku’s best guess was that it was mostly used for shipping because cargo bays lined 2 of the 4 sides of the building. Each entrance had a garage-style door for trucks to back into and on either side of each door small half walls to prevent the trucks from running into the building itself, they would make a great low-risk practice jump. With enough momentum, he could probably clear the space between each wall.
Izuku had yet to get a glimpse of the inside of this building, it had huge windows but they were all at the very top, if this place had an open floor plan it probably got pretty good light during the day. Since the windows were far too high he had to push one of the cargo doors open in order to get in, all the normal doors were locked tight. With all his strength and the horrible sound of grinding metal, he was able to lift one of the doors up and prop it open with what looked like the metal bit from the inside of a truck tire. It provided more than enough room for Izuku to slip under without the heavy metal door smashing him in half like a dull guillotine.
Once he stood up and looked around Izuku knew he had hit an absolute gold mine, this place must have been a brewery or something because there were metal pipes going around every which way and catwalks lining the ceiling over gargantuan metal silos, this was a free running playground if he ever saw one. How the hell does a brewery go out of business though, especially one this big, adults are always drinking alcohol. Whatever, Izuku decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth.
This place was perfect, the only question was where to start. Ideally somewhere closer to ground level so he wouldn’t fall to his death before he could even learn how to do this. Izuku spent the rest of the day planning out routes to take around the brewery with steadily increasing difficulty and risk, once he mastered one he would move on to the next; that seemed like the best way to do this without killing himself. He scribbled it all down in a notebook until he ran out of light to map out new courses, it was probably for the best he didn’t start today as he’d yet to give his body the chance to rest and heal the bruises he’d gotten from his first attempts.
***
From that day forth Izuku started a new schedule. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings were still reserved for the library until he either found a way to get WiFi in his warehome or the Shinsos found out what he was and kicked him out. Usually, on Tuesdays and Fridays, he would sleep in a little longer and take a shower once the school opened its gates but now he was up with the sun. Tuesday and Friday mornings he headed to block 12 to practice his free running skills, it worked up quite a sweat even in the cool September air. He split his weekends between the library, his normal walks, and sifting through the trash at Dahgobah hoping for some diamonds in the rough.
***
Izuku was making progress in well, leaps and bounds. In the last few months he had progressed through seven of the twelve routes he’d planned out for himself in the brewery and thank his young bones, he hadn’t broken anything yet. He thinks he was becoming better at eyeing out the path of least resistance in his everyday life as well but he’d yet to test his skills in the wild because he didn’t want to make either a scene or a fool of himself. The draw of the city was becoming more and more tempting by the day, progressing in the comfort of his own jungle gym was fun but he wanted to prove himself.
He wanted so desperately to prove to himself that the person who ran off a mugger and one-hit-KO’d a mountain of a man wasn’t too far out of reach. He needed to prove he did that because the hope that he could be something more than Deku was festering in his gut, eating away at him from the inside out. That horrible burning hope was going to be the death of him one way or another.
Once he got through and mastered all twelve of the routes in the brewery, then he’d take it to the city under the cover of night. He shouldn’t get ahead of himself, once he was confident enough to leap from catwalk to catwalk 30 some-odd feet in the air then he could graduate to running along rooftops.
With a solid goal in mind, Izuku returned to his task with determination, he found himself in the brewery most days after school and on the weekends until the sun went down and the warehouse became too dark for him to see where he was jumping. He was spending every bit of daylight he could in that place but the slow progression was driving him mad. He steadfastly refused to let his impatience get the better of him; he wouldn’t move on to a new course or add a new move until he was completely confident in his abilities, he couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. They would ask his name and address and why he was there alone and where was his mother and– no. No, he couldn’t risk that. Inko wouldn’t take him back even if she could talk her way out of a child abandonment case and he wasn’t going to let himself be put in the system.
So, Izuku did things slowly and he learned how to break his fall above all else. He’d become exceptionally good at that, necessity was an efficient teacher.
***
Days and weeks came and went, Izuku hadn’t found anything too exciting in the mountains of trash at Dagobah. He’d taken to gathering every blanket or towel he found that wasn’t in complete tatters and cleaning them up as best he could to pad out his nest, the cold winter air had seeped its way into the foundations of the warehouse and the space heater could only help so much when he was lying on the cold ground. He’d found a few household items that weren’t beyond repair as well, he found a broom, a lamp, a radio, a mirror, and even some paint which he used to trace patterns along the dull walls by his landing. The stairwell was shaping up and with the space heater and the accumulating pile of random cloths, it was pretty cozy too.
He still hadn’t gotten to pet DJ but she rarely ever hissed at him anymore. She’d recently started to let him set the treats down in front of her on the dumpster lid and she’d eat them while he sat on the ground next to her and tell her about his day. Once he even got her to take a treat from his hand!
***
It wasn’t until early January that Izuku decided he was ready for the final test. He’d been practicing in every free moment he had for the last four months; he was going to jump from catwalk to catwalk in the brewery. There was a point where one of the catwalks turned at a 90° angle and ran parallel with another catwalk about 10 feet away and 6 feet lower. It was the perfect place to get a running start and leap from one to the other. He had practiced the jump on ground level and he could do it, now he needed to prove he could do it under the pressure of being over 30 feet in the air. If he missed he would either die or very much need to go to the hospital and honestly he would prefer the former.
Here goes nothing.
Sprinting full speed to the edge of the catwalk Izuku jumped up on the railing and pushed his foot off launching himself toward the other path below, and thankfully he stuck the landing with a heavy rolling crash.
He did it! He actually did it! He was high on adrenaline and for a moment he just laid on the cold metal laughing. He can't believe he just did that.
To prove it wasn’t a fluke he did it again and again and again until his aching muscles couldn’t even bring him back up to the first catwalk and the sunlight was rapidly receding from the windows.
He did it.
Now he could take it to the streets.
Well, not now now. Right now he was exhausted and he was going to go back to his warehouse and possibly just throw himself down the stairs and fall asleep wherever he landed.
***
Izuku was very thankful that he had pulled last night’s stunt on a Saturday because he didn’t wake up until 11 o’clock on Sunday. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. He didn't think planning his ‘public debut’ on a weekend was the best idea so he decided to use the day to walk around and plan a route. He’d passively been planning small moves and paths he could take but now he was piecing them together in a full circuit around Uptown. He wouldn’t be able to make the full round on rooftops but he’s pretty sure no one could do that without support gear or just a flying quirk.
Once he’d extensively planned a nearly 2-kilometer circuit around the southernmost part of uptown he made his way home. He found some leather scraps at the beach last week and he’d been meaning to make a sheath for his knife so that he wouldn’t be running the risk of either cutting a hole in his hoodie pocket or just straight-up stabbing himself while he threw himself around the city. He wasn’t even going to consider not bringing it with him, he’d learned that lesson the hard way once and he didn’t need a reminder.
Izuku ended up stabbing himself extensively with the needle, he knew how to sew, he’d been patching his own clothes up for years but leather was a whole different beast. He really thought the needle would go through it easier but after giving himself blisters he resigned himself to needing to use pliers to pull the needle through. Some basic hand tools were among the things Izuku had been scavenging for at the beach and that was currently paying off big time.
With all the decor he’d added working on small projects and things in the stairwell was becoming one of his favorite activities, he almost got excited when he found new holes in his socks. His nest was really starting to live up to its name and the soft yellow light of the lamp in combination with the radiant warmth of the space heater was so soothing. The radio he’d managed to fix up was the cherry on top, he used to stream all his music so he hadn’t been able to listen to it since his phone service got cut off. He didn’t realize how much he missed it until he got that radio working, he used to listen to Put Your Hands Up Radio all the time on his phone but it almost felt more genuine tuning in on an actual radio.
By the time the sun had gone down and his alarm went off telling him it was time to feed DJ he had constructed a passable sheath for his blade. There was a strap on the side so he could loop it through his belt, he didn’t want to risk it falling out of his pocket. It wasn’t the most elegant sewing he’d ever done but it was sturdy and functional and that's all it needed to be.
***
Tonight was the night Izuku was going to finally get the chance to run through all the paths he’d been eyeing throughout uptown… or he would die trying. Looking through it yesterday he realized why Eraserhead opted to use his capture scarf to maneuver around as well as fight, there was no way for him to go from a shorter rooftop to a taller one or even one of equal height without scaling walls. He would have to be an Olympic long jumper to clear the distance between buildings without dropping too much height; he was 12 and quirkless so that wasn’t going to happen. Rooftops were further away from each other than the catwalks in the brewery but he would have more room to gain momentum and if he was jumping from a higher to a lower structure he was confident he could clear the distance… hopefully.
Most of the route was just scaling up and down walls using fire escapes ledges and windowsills but toward the end of the run there were three buildings next to each other that decreased in height like a giant set of stairs and Izuku was gonna jump them.
Izuku suited up in a black pair of jeans and a black hoodie with his warmest long-sleeve shirt underneath, his shoes were still kind of a bright red but they were pretty dirty so he figured they wouldn’t catch the light too much. Donning his black face mask and pulling up his hood he looked himself over in the partially cracked mirror he copped from the beach. He looked good. His upper body had bulked up a considerable amount with all the climbing he had been doing, but his legs were always fairly strong by necessity, you can’t run away on noodle legs. After going through an extensive set of stretches Izuku placed the package of cat treats on top of the dumpster. If he didn’t come back he was sure DJ wouldn’t have trouble ripping it open and eating the rest. If he did come back hopefully she wouldn’t sniff them out and eat them all before he could put them back inside.
With nothing left to do, he ran.
The course started off simple in the warehouse district, he just ran down the sidewalk in a straight line vaulting over disused bus stop benches and misplaced dumpsters that he would usually walk around. Crossing into uptown he started to scale the walls, he would like to stay off of ground level in the more populated areas as much as possible thank you very much. He lept across alleys landing loudly on fire escapes and climbing back up to roof level. That was something he would need to work on, getting away didn’t help much if he broadcasted his location by causing a racket.
When he got to the foreclosed cafe he was almost mugged behind he climbed down to the ground level just to climb back up and prove to himself that he couldn’t be cornered there anymore.
This route definitely wasn’t the most efficient way to travel, he could run it on ground level several times faster, but no one ever looked up. He was invisible until he sent himself careening into another creaky fire escape and Kami, this was so much fun. Izuku didn’t even note how much time was passing, too engrossed in finding the next foothold or making the next jump, and before he knew it he was on the rooftop of the tallest building in the set of three at the end of his route. There were butterflies in his stomach for a minute but the adrenaline high overpowered any nerves that any sane person might have.
Without even taking a minute to catch his breath Izuku pushed his legs as hard as he could and ran full tilt to the far edge of the roof, hopping up onto the ledge and launching himself to the next roof over just like he’d done on the catwalks. The speed and wind blew his hood off and the cool night air flowed through his slightly tangled curls and that feeling was addicting. He hit the next roof and tucked into a roll and back onto his feet without stopping and ran to the next ledge. Just like the last jump he launched himself off and looked down to the city and roof below, he was so high up, this should be terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
He rolled to a stop on the last rooftop and let himself lay there for a moment laughing like the child he was. Izuku had never been on a rollercoaster but if it was anything like this he could see the appeal. He didn't let himself lay there for too long, he needed to finish the last leg of his route as a cool down and he needed to get out of Uptown before something disastrous happened to him for a third time.
***
Once he’d finally made his way back to his warehouse he checked in the back alley to grab the bag of treats only to see DJ finishing up the last of them. Bastard.
Notes:
Omg, I mentioned the other one kinda. Papa? Is that you? Present Mic, ilysmmmmmm
Thanks for reading! ✨toodles✨
edit: I forgot to put the chapter title, I fixed it, no one @ me lmao
if you saw that, no you didn't
Chapter 12: LaWS arE ThrEaTs mAde by THe DomINanT Socio-ecoNomIC EthniC GrOup iN A giVen NATion. It's JUsT A PRoMiSe Of viOlENcE ThAt'S enacTED AND…
Notes:
me: I won't be able to post every day this week!
also me: posts twice in one dayWhatever, I'm a lying liar who lies, here's a chapter. Might not post tomorrow because I was planning on drawing some fan art of my own fan fic but really who's to say at this point?
Crits welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Knife
-Gun
-attempted mugging
-Suicidal Ideation
-Life-risking recklessness
-Devastatingly low self-worthlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was losing sleep. He’d been throwing himself around the city like an adrenaline-junkie-monkey every night for the past week. He was absolutely exhausted but he’d never been happier in his life.
However, it was mid January. Izuku had been lucky that the brewery was still weather proofed enough to not have ice forming all over the place but the rest of the city was not spared from that. Ice and snow had become a slipping hazard and several times in the past few weeks Izuku had almost slipped and fallen off the sides of buildings. But these runs were his lifeline, he was addicted, he couldn’t give it up. Against his better judgement Izuku found himself out on a Saturday night looking down over the city.
He could see the nicer parts of Musutafu where he used to live from up here but he couldn’t find it in his heart to miss it. He had never been happy there.
He’d never really been happy anywhere.
It was strange to feel so content. He didn’t have much but he earned everything he did have all on his own, he didn’t owe anyone anything and he had somewhere to run away where no one could find him. He hadn’t been in actual danger in his old apartment since Hisashi left but he had never felt welcome there. He thought that place was his home but now he doesn’t think it ever was, home was somewhere you felt welcome, it wasn’t somewhere you had to fight tooth and nail to prove your worth as a human just to have a roof over your head.
No, that place was never his home. The rooftops, this city, and that warehouse was his home.
And right now he was looking down into the alleyway to someone getting mugged at gunpoint in his home.
Damnit that was Shimamoto-san from the mini-mart! Whether he knew it or not that man was the only reason Izuku wasn’t freezing to death at night, he was the one that let the homeless people charge their phones in the outlet outside his store, the same outlet where Izuku had been able to plug in the soldering iron he used to fix the generator. Shimamoto-san was a good man, he didn’t deserve this, he couldn’t let him get hurt.
Before he even made the conscious decision to step in, his body was scaling down the alley walls like a cat. The man with the gun was yelling, demanding that Shimamoto-san give him the money he was hiding and Shimamoto-san looked close to tears insisting that he didn’t have anything else on him.
It looked like things were about to escalate and Izuku couldn’t just let that happen.
Izuku lept down from a second-story window sill and disarmed the man with a flying kick. The weapon clattered to the ground and Izuku landed with a roll as the man clutched his possibly broken hand to his chest.
Oops.
Izuku didn’t let himself feel bad about it and jumped at the man hitting him in the pressure point the same way he had done all those months ago. It worked like a charm and the man went careening into the ground unconscious.
He bent down and took the wad of cash from the man's hand, presuming it was what he’d just stolen from Shimamoto-san, he turned around and handed it to him.
“H-here you go sir. T-this is yours, right?”
The store owner just gaped at him with an awed expression.
“You, um, you should probably call the cops, sir.” Izuku said, trying to snap Shimamoto-san out of his daze.
That seemed to do the trick because the store owner shook his head and blinked before speaking, “He, uh, he has my phone.”
Izuku felt a little dumb, he’d just gotten mugged of course that guy had his phone. “Oh, yeah that– hah– that makes sense. I’ll grab it for you. Did you see where he put it?”
“F-front left pocket.” Shimamoto-san responded still looking a little bit in shock.
Izuku fished it out and handed it back, “Here you go.”
Wordlessly, he took it and started to dial. Once he started to talk to the operator Izuku figured he should probably check and make sure the man didn’t have any more weapons on him. Turns out that was a good call, he found a switchblade in his right pocket which Izuku promptly transferred to his own pocket. It was just to keep it from this mugger guy, he’d give it to the police when they showed up. Next, Izuku found the man’s wallet, he opened it to look at the ID but upon inspecting the contents Izuku almost wanted to kick the man again. He had like ¥20,000 in there! What the hell was he going around mugging people for? Asshole.
Wait, he couldn’t be here when the cops showed up. He was 12 and he was in the red lights district at 1:30 in the morning, at the very least he would get in trouble for breaking curfew but there was no way he was getting out of that situation without them trying to call his mother and take him home.
Casting a glance over to Shimamoto-san to make sure he was still on the phone and distracted Izuku put the man’s wallet back, pocketed the money (sue him, he was starving and nearly out of funds and this guy was an asshole anyway), and ran, scaling the alley wall in record time. He could hear Shimamoto-san shouting for him to wait but there was no way in hell that was happening.
Okay, Izuku had definitely reverse-mugged someone this time. Haha… um… whoops.
***
Adrenaline-high Izuku was fucking insane. What the fuck was he thinking?! He just dropped down on a mugging, KO’d the guy, fucking looted the mugger's unconscious body, and ran from the cops. Oh shit, oh no, Kami, what was he thinking?
And he stole another weapon from a criminal!
…he stole another weapon from a criminal.
…he took down another criminal.
…for the third time.
Two’s a coincidence, but three? Three’s a trend.
***
Izuku sat confused in the corner of his stairwell. That burning hope that he could be something more was screaming at him. Izuku wasn’t that lucky, it wasn’t pure chance that he’d come out of those scrapes on top, that was him and all his hard work that got him out alive.
This was what he’d always wanted, it felt so right, like a piece of a puzzle clicking into place. All he ever wanted to do was help people, sure he got a hell of a runner’s high from his new hobby but nothing compared to knowing with certainty that you made a difference, a positive change. Izuku had spent his whole life being told he was worthless, no one’s life had ever been better off for having known him. Whoever he was when he saved those people was different.
The things they did mattered. Their being there mattered. They mattered. And that person was him, he’d never mattered before.
Izuku had spent his whole life not mattering and now at least some part of him did, it felt so close to being loved and he couldn’t let it go now that he had it. This hope was going to kill him. It had swollen to a bursting point and now it was a forest fire in his chest and it wasn’t going to go out until there was nothing left for it to burn.
***
The next morning found Izuku a little more level-headed.
Legally? Yeah, he kinda fucked up but, morally? He stands by that.
That guy was holding up a person who was known community-wide for his kindness just to get some more money to line his pockets, not cool. It’s not like Izuku took his watch and credit cards and anyway you don’t walk around uptown with that much money if you can’t afford to lose it, everyone knows that. He probably just came into town looking for cheap hookers and got a little too cocky, you learn your lessons. Plus, he was probably going to jail anyway, what's he gonna use that money for there?
Yeah, Izuku didn’t feel too bad about taking the money. DJ ate all her treats and he was gonna need to buy her more if he ever wanted to win her affection, the money was going to a good cause.
He was still a bit nervous, he had very much broken the law last night. He had a mask on so he’s pretty sure Shimamoto-san wouldn’t recognize him, all he had to go on was his voice and height and he didn’t seem the type to rat him out anyway. But Izuku was still a criminal now which was an uncomfortable thing to think about. What would they even charge him for? Theft was all they could pin on him, right? He didn’t use a weapon or initiate the fight. Well, he kinda initiated the fight but he was in an alley with an aggressive man who had a gun that’s a good enough reason to claim self-defense.
Izuku would have to do some research on the law to see what he could possibly get charged for in the event that Shimamoto-san both recognized him and ratted him out to the cops which seemed unlikely but it was good to be prepared.
Wait, shit, could they charge him for vigilantism? That had to be premeditated, right? He was just in the right wrong place at the right wrong time he didn’t go out looking for trouble! But he had no way to prove that, damnit. He was jumping around rooftops with his face fully covered and a knife strapped to his belt, that didn’t exactly paint a picture of innocence.
Oh dear, he had his research cut out for him.
***
Izuku was too paranoid to show his face in public for the entirety of Sunday but at the same time, it felt like his skin was crawling staying here.
He needed to feel that feeling again.
He needed to do something important, he needed to be something important. He needed to matter so badly it was tearing him apart, he felt sick with it. But it was stupid and reckless and illegal, he’d finally gotten this freedom that he never even knew he wanted and he wasn’t going to risk it all for something so trivial as feeling important. So, he stayed put.
When Monday morning rolled around he knew he needed to head to the library, he had to see just how much trouble he could be in. Teachers tried to pin the blame on him all the time, who’s to say the cops won’t do the same? Everyone loves to blame the quirkless kid and he was not about to get life in prison or something because he didn’t know his rights.
Maybe it was a bit too paranoid but knowing too much never hurt anybody.
Knowing too much was going to hurt somebody, it was going to hurt several somebodies, Izuku included. It turns out he couldn’t get charged for much of anything until he was 14; something about being a child and not fully responsible for his own actions, whatever, that's not what mattered. What really mattered was Izuku couldn’t get charged with vigilantism. Ever. He almost burst out laughing when he read the official government definition of vigilantism, it was “committing unlicensed acts of heroism.” ‘acts of heroism’ being defined as “The acts of a hero in the line of duty.” but that’s not the kicker, the kicker was that a ‘hero’ was defined as “Someone who is licensed to use their quirk in law enforcement.”
Under all those dry definitions it seemed like Izuku couldn’t even be licensed as a hero without a quirk but that was all semantics and poor wording, UA made the news a few years back when they publicly stated that quirkless individuals could be admitted to the hero course. They wouldn’t have made that announcement and gone uncorrected by the government for so long if quirkless people couldn’t legally be licensed heroes. But that poor wording made a loophole, heroes, acts of heroism, and by extension acts of vigilantism were defined by the use of a quirk. He didn’t have a quirk ergo he could not be charged with vigilantism.
So, as long as Izuku let the other person swing first, legally, he could go out and do that every night. Of course that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t face consequences if he got caught, he was a homeless 12-year-old, he would be put in the system but nothing could be pinned on his record.
Izuku had never been so glad that the government was run by bigoted quirkist assholes. Oh yeah, he was about to make this everyone's problem.
Notes:
HERE WE GO MOTHERFUCKERS GREEN BEAN HAS GONE OFF THE DEEP END LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Izuku starting his new ✨era✨
When I started this I did not think it was going to be a IzukuxBeingAVigilante 25k+ enemies to lovers slow burn but here we are. I really just be talking a lot ig. Anyway, the story's finally starting, get excited, for I have made it through half of the third bullet point in my 45-bullet-point long list that I wrote as an outline for this gd fic. Hopefully, it doesn't take another 12 chapters to wrap up my next point bc I NEED to introduce Aizawa b4 I start frothing at the mouth fr fr.
Y'all are gonna have to wait a good long while for PapaMic and DadMight tho, I'm sorry. They'll be here eventually, I promise. Lil Green Bean's gonna have more dads than he knows what to do with.
Chapter 13: Get in Loser, We're Going Shopping.
Notes:
Sorry for not posting yesterday but I ADDED FAN ART TO THE END OF CHAPTER 8 so go look at that NOW!!!!
I'll wait.
Anyway! As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Suicidal Ideation
-Devastatingly low self-worth
-Mallslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi didn’t think he’d ever seen Midoriya smile until today. He tried to parse out his mumbles but they were too incoherent to glean any information from. So, he took a peek at his screen; from what he was able to catch while Midoriya read through page after page at the speed of light, it seemed as though he was just looking through criminal law and more stuff about heroics. Why this of all things was the first thing to get him to smile was beyond Hitoshi but seeing Midoriya happy made him happy.
They weren’t exactly friends but they had successfully bumbled their way through a few more conversations. He felt confident in saying they had upgraded from painfully awkward to just normal awkward. It was mostly just Hitoshi asking him about what he was researching which more often than not was about heroes. One time he was looking through radio blueprints and when Hitoshi asked he said he was trying to fix one and then he started talking about circuitry and soldering and a bunch of other stuff that went right over Hitoshi’s head.
So, yeah, Hitoshi was right about his initial assessment of Midoriya, he was weird but he was also apparently a genius. He supposed that you can’t have the latter without the former, they were kind of a package deal.
Feeling more tired than he usually was he let a little bit of his snark out, “Midoriya, what about criminal law has you so happy at 6:42 in the morning?” He asked flatly.
Greenie’s head shot up and his eyes went wide looking at Hitoshi like a kid who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Interesting reaction.
“O-oh, it's n-nothing, I–uh–I was just– um– I was r-right about something. I–uh–I got into a d-debate with a friend and I-I couldn’t p-prove I was right, b-but I was…” He lied.
“Are all your friends geniuses too?” Hitoshi shot back, wondering how and why a kid his age was having debates with his peers that required scholarly backing to win.
Midoriya just looked at him confused.
“W-what?” He responded, looking completely genuine.
“Well if you're having debates that you need to have a full bibliography to win I assume they’re geniuses too.” Hitoshi elaborated.
Greenie was now confused and blushing.
“G-genius? I-I’m not a-a– w-what?” Midoriya sputtered out in reply.
It was too early in the morning for this. His mom had found out he was sneaking coffee from the library’s break room and changed the code on him. Hitoshi was exhausted so he just stared at Midoriya blinking slowly for a moment before deciding this was not a can of worms he wanted to open right now.
“Whatever you say, Greenie.” He replied turning back to his computer.
***
Izuku needed to be more careful about what he was searching with Shinso around. He was pretty sure that kid had some sort of mind-reading quirk because he always knew what Izuku was researching. It would make sense given his mother’s quirk. He wanted to ask but Izuku had long since learned that asking anyone about their quirk usually got the question turned back around on him and he wasn’t going to risk that.
He wouldn’t say Shinso was his friend but he was the closest thing Izuku had to one since Kacchan and he didn’t want to lose whatever this was. Izuku knew better than to get attached but somehow despite everything it seemed that he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t stop the hope bubbling in his chest and he couldn’t take his heart off his sleeve no matter how many times both of those things were crushed. He hated it.
Nothing good ever lasted and no one who knew the whole of Izuku ever loved him. Those were facts that weren’t going to change.
He should bump up getting WiFi in the warehouse on his list of priorities before the Shinsos found out about him, it was better to be left wondering than waiting around to get his heart broken again. There was no way they were going to keep being so nice to him once they found out what he was. He wanted a good memory to hold onto, he didn’t have many of those.
He had found a home and a goal, that needed to be enough. Izuku still didn’t believe he could ever be a hero, UA was the only school in the country that accepted quirkless applicants to their hero course and there was just no way he could get in. They had like a 2% acceptance rate last time he’d checked and Izuku was not in the top 2% of anything. He still wanted to try but that was still a couple of years down the line. Izuku wasn’t even sure he could make it that long and he definitely wouldn’t make it past opening a rejection letter from UA.
No, Izuku had an expiration date and he knew it. But if he could save people with whatever time he had left then he would hold onto his delusions as long as he could.
***
Kohaku had barely felt a single emotion coming off of that Midoriya kid since she had told him about her quirk. He was always guarded even before she’d told him, that's how she knew something was off before he had stepped into the library, he was emanating a violent nothingness. It was so odd and nothing like Kohaku had ever felt before, Midoriya was strange and difficult to read at the best of times.
That's why she was so surprised to feel a messy spike of emotion from the computer room. It was happiness but also anger and pride, what an odd combination. It was only there for a moment before he returned to his standard radio silence, she’d have to ask Toshi about it later. She was still quite worried about the kid.
***
If Izuku was going to do this then he needed to have a plan. Ideally, he would have a suit to wear when he went out like heroes did. They wore them for a lot of reasons after all, a signature suit made them recognizable so when civilians saw they would know who to turn to and who was safe, and when villains saw them they would either turn tail and run or focus their attention on taking the hero down rather than whatever nefarious deed they were doing. A suit could also hide the hero's identity so that they could still carry out normal lives when not on duty.
Izuku needed something like that if he was going to do this right. He could sew but he’d never made a garment from scratch, he’d tailored a few things, made some alterations here and there, and mended holes but he did not have the skill set required to make a whole outfit. Maybe he could use that money he…borrowed… to buy something to use as a base to build off of. Should he go out looking for something specific or should he get something and build the design off of that? Maybe somewhere in the middle, go out with a vague idea, get whatever he can afford, and then design alterations from there. Yeah, that was starting to sound like a plan.
Now he just needed to find where to go to get all the things he would need.
***
Izuku hadn’t been to the mall in… uh… had Izuku ever been to the mall? He can't remember having been to a mall.
Izuku had never been to the mall, he would remember this, why the hell were there so many people at the mall on a Tuesday afternoon? Why was this place so big? Why wasn’t it organized in any way that made sense? Completely unrelated stores were just strewn about, was he just supposed to know where everything is? Izuku’s pretty sure this was one of the rings of hell. How was he supposed to find anything here?
Picking a random direction he decided to just go for it, he was looking for clothing stores, preferably men’s clothing stores, sportswear specifically. He was hoping to find thermal wear as it would just generally be helpful and he could wear it under whatever costume he pulled together, it was frigid outside and he couldn’t stay out long because his limbs got too cold and unresponsive. So, thermal wear was a must, shoe spikes as well; he had come too close to falling off the side of a building too many times because of the ice and shoe spikes should help with that little issue. Next, he wanted some cargo pants that weren’t too baggy, something he could move in but would also hold a lot of gear; lastly, he needed a jacket, preferably one with a hood so he could hide his hair. He had a mask he could make do with for now but he had plans to upgrade that in the future. Maybe if he could find a visor or glasses that were tinted but didn’t affect his night vision he would get those but he wasn’t holding out too much hope for that.
Checklist in mind, Izuku went from store to store window shopping for a while until he found a place that sold sportswear. Holy shit, new clothes were expensive, he’d only ever shopped at thrift stores and he was starting to see why. Who in their right mind spends ¥10,000 on a pair of joggers? He couldn’t even find a clearance rack, maybe this was a ~fancy~ store and he’d have more luck somewhere else, he was really hoping that was the case.
After wandering around the mall for a while he actually got his hands on a map and from the looks of it he’d already ruled out one of three athletic wear stores in this place and the other two were on complete opposite sides of the mall. Great. Izuku had words for whoever decided malls didn’t need to be organized by store type, this was ridiculous.
He was ever so slightly closer to one of the two options so he headed there. This store seemed to have a wider range of prices there were some more ¥10,000 joggers but there was also a clearance rack so Izuku made a beeline for that. There was a perfect pair of black cargo pants on sale but they were a size too big. Maybe he could take them in a bit or maybe he could just grow into them. Besides that, there was little of note on sale, it was mostly warmer-weather clothing which made sense few people needed shorts desperately enough in January to pay full price for them.
Begrudgingly, Izuku made his way through the rest of the store. There was a good set of thermal wear, an all-black long-sleeve top and leggings that he could afford, given the price of everything else he looked at it looked like a solid average, but what if the clearance section in the other store had a better deal? GAH! It was on the other side of the building. What if it was even more expensive there and he just had to come back? WHO DESIGNED THIS PLACE??? And people come here for fun?? On purpose??? It was so crowded and loud! And hot! Why was it so hot?
He looked around for some shoe spikes but he couldn’t find any so he just hoped that the other store would have some.
Doing his best to keep his annoyance off of his face he went up to buy the cargo pants before he left for the other store. After a solid 5 minutes of weaving his way through crowds, he located the store he was looking for, this one was much bigger than the other two so hopefully he would be able to find what he needed.
He was walking around looking for the clearance section when he saw it. It was an asymmetric dark green jacket with a zipper going up the right side of the chest, it was lightweight but not so thin that it looked like it would become threadbare if the wind hit it wrong. The stitching hid several pockets on the sleeves as well as the body AND it had a hood. It was perfect and it was ¥9,000… If he got this he wouldn’t be able to afford the thermal wear and shoe spikes unless he found a hell of a deal here. He grabbed the jacket in his size and headed to the clearance section with his fingers crossed.
It seemed like that deal at the other store was the best he was going to get. The pants were ¥2,500 and the jacket is ¥9,000 so he only had around ¥7,000 left and he still needed to get shoe spikes AND treats for DJ. Regardless of the treats, he couldn’t afford the whole thermal set if he got the jacket but he could buy either the leggings or the shirt and have enough left over for the spikes and DJ. That sounded like the best deal he was going to get so he headed up to the register with the jacket, shoe spikes, and leggings because he figured he could layer under the jacket pretty easily but putting pants on over pants felt wrong for some reason.
After making his purchases he headed out the door and vowed to never return unless he was held at gunpoint and maybe not even then. He hid the bags in his backpack and headed back to the red-light district, he could stop at the mini-mart for DJ’s food and check in on Shimamoto-san before going home.
***
Back in his stairwell, Izuku put his new ‘suit’ together and took a look in the mirror. Knife in hand he looked downright imposing. The dim light and his hood cast a shadow over his eyes and the mask covered any other distinguishing features. The pants were only pinned to fit him so he still had some work to do but this was a good start.
Uptown better get ready.
Notes:
⭐️This writer hates malls⭐️
Yes, I am projecting. Deal with it, malls suck. I'm all for brick-and-mortar shops especially when it comes to clothes shopping but why they gotta be like *that*
GO LOOK AT MY FAN ART ON CHAPTER 8 IF YOU DIDN'T
Okay, thanks for reading byeeeeeeeee.
Chapter 14: Welcome to the Real World, Kid.
Notes:
~~THIS CHAPTER IS A *BIT* OF A DOOZY SO MIND THE CW~~
I forgot to mention last time that we are officially past 30k words and 2k hits!!! Let's get this to 200 kudos guys!!!!
I definitely will not be posting tomorrow, I want to draw Izu's vigilante get-up AND I'm hosting a friend's birthday party. I'll probably post another chapter Monday but idk if I'll have the drawing done by then, I want to put some actual effort into it this time and not just draw a silly little guy (check back to the end of ch 8 if you haven't seen my silly little guy)As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Murder
-Foul language
-Gun
-Suicidal thoughts/ideation
-Devastatingly low self-worth
-Gore (not described but implied)
-Dissociation
-Self harm (kinda)lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Izuku decided he was going to do something there was little anyone could say or do to stop him. As much as he got bullied he never stopped analyzing heroes and refining his notebooks, no matter how many times he fell off the side of a building he kept getting back up and trying the maneuver again, and no matter how many times people told him he couldn’t be a hero the harder he tried.
No matter how many times the world told him he was unlovable the more he tried to gain its affection.
It was exactly that stubbornness that had Izuku dressed in his fully fitted suit ready to go out looking for trouble, it’s also what had him stopping in the back alley before he left to feed DJ her treats. He rounded the corner to hear the customary BANG that announced DJ’s arrival atop the dumpster.
“Hey DJ, I finally got you some new treats!” he said holding out a couple in an open hand.
She’d been letting him get close more often since that day on the roof, maybe he proved to her that he wouldn’t cross a boundary she set or maybe it was a coincidence and she was just finally warming up to him. Izuku had spent the last few weeks just coming out here and talking to her and she never left even when he didn’t have food to offer, maybe she was just making sure he wasn’t messing with her hunting grounds or maybe she was lonely too. Cats weren’t necessarily pack animals but everyone could use a friend, right?
She stood up and walked over to sniff his hand and inspect the new treats. Apparently, they were to her liking because she gently took them straight from Izuku’s hand before stalking back to the other side of the dumpster.
Success!
He’d only gotten her to eat out of his hand once before and he was worried that the long stretch between treats was going to put her off, Izuku was very happy it didn't. Her little face was so soft and her whiskers were so long and tickly, what a perfect creature. It was nice to start the night off with DJ’s seal of approval.
***
Izuku had made himself a code of conduct, he wasn’t going to try and apprehend everyone committing a crime, not all crimes were bad anyway. Izuku also wasn’t stupid enough to try to split up gang fights or drug deals, no, he knew his limits and wasn’t trying to be on the wrong side of a gun again. He was just going to keep an eye out and help people if they were in immediate danger like Shimamoto-san or that lady from his first, uh, incident. He wasn’t going to drop down into groups, only isolated incidents.
Turns out Izuku had been lucky(?) to run into all of his prior encounters, he had been out for hours, and not much had happened. He saw someone littering but he didn’t think that was something worth confronting them about so he just threw the trash out himself. It’s not like he had anything better to do. The first bars were set to close at 2 AM which was in about 45 minutes and Izuku figured that forcibly ejecting drunk people from a bar and away from alcohol was probably a good recipe for people to make poor decisions.
With that theory in mind, he made his way over to the closest one and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. Before the bar even closed two men were literally kicked out and were already screaming at each other, Izuku didn’t even know what they were arguing about because at this point the conversation had devolved into insults and death threats exclusively. He can see why they were kicked out. The argument quickly turned into a fist fight but both men seemed to be too inebriated to land a solid hit, maybe they’ll just tire themselves out; drunk adults and toddlers functioned similarly, right?
Izuku was just gonna let them be, they were slowing down. He felt like a tired parent who had gotten to the point where they just let their kids fuck around and find out. Unfortunately, one of the men pulled out a knife aaaaand that was his cue. He didn’t even bother being stealthy as he scaled his way down the wall, the unarmed man spotted him but quickly directed his focus back on the other man, somehow just now realizing he had a knife despite the man yelling several times that he had a knife and was going to stab him. Izuku doubted either man had heard a single word that the other had said since they were kicked out here.
The unarmed man had started backing away in panic so Izuku simply walked up to the other guy and kicked the hand that held the knife letting it clatter to the ground. The two of them finally stopped shouting and just watched as Izuku picked up the knife and looked back at them. That was an interesting way to defuse tension, replace anger with confusion. Izuku was really expecting one or both of them to turn on him but they just kept looking at him confused and slightly scared. Izuku was just confused, he shook his head and broke up the impromptu staring contest, if they weren’t fighting then this was no longer his problem.
“Both of you just go home.” Izuku said, finally breaking the silence.
To Izuku’s continued confusion they listened, they both backed away from each other and started heading in opposite directions. That was anti-climactic. And he’d stolen another knife but it’s not like he could just give it back that guy clearly wasn’t responsible enough to have it. Whatever, into the collection it goes.
***
Izuku continued his route around the city and mulled over that experience. Why did they just listen to him, were they really that intimidated? They were both over a head taller than him and all he did is kick that guy’s hand and then pick up a knife and look at them. Isn’t being drunk supposed to make you less scared or something?
Wait, did they think he was a hero?
The thought occurred to him mid-jump and he almost fumbled the landing from laughing. They thought he was a hero! Oh, that’s too funny. Dagobah Beach isn’t the only part of this place that the city has let fall to the wayside, Izuku has never seen a hero in these streets and the cops only came around if they were called. No, this place was lawless, that’s the whole reason he was here. He couldn’t get away with this in his old neighborhood, some hero would have scooped him up on his first night out.
Whatever, Izuku couldn’t count on that ever happening again so he couldn’t let his guard down. He pressed on more determined and less distracted by the odd encounter.
It wasn’t until just past 3 AM that he heard or saw anything of note. He was making his way back up onto a rooftop when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Oh no, that couldn’t be good. Why did everyone have guns? Guns were illegal. Against his better judgment, Izuku followed the noise, the commotion was happening two streets over, there was a figure on the ground and another figure leaning over them going through their pockets.
Shit.
Izuku ran full tilt toward the pair and was within kicking range before the offender could get their wits about them. They were fumbling with the gun trying to point it at Izuku but he planted a foot in the center of their chest and knocked them back with the force. They were sprawled on their back and disoriented but they still had the gun in hand.
Double shit.
Izuku stepped forward and planted his foot on their wrist pinning the gun arm to the ground, he was going to wretch the weapon out of their hand but he couldn’t leave his fingerprints all over it. That moment of hesitation was enough for his opponent to punch the back of his knee sending him off balance and almost allowing them to free their hand.
Triple shit.
He really didn’t want to break another person’s hand but he also really didn’t want to get shot again. Making the necessary decision Izuku quickly regained his balance stepping off their wrist, pivoting, and stomping on their hand with the other foot. The woman, judging by the horrible scream they let out released the gun, and he kicked it away. While the woman pulled her injured hand to her chest Izuku foolishly shifted his attention to the man on the ground, he wasn’t moving. His attention was forced back to the woman when an unbearable burning sensation erupted from his ankle.
Looking down he saw the woman’s hand glowing red and clutching his leg, her hand had burned through parts of his pants and onto his bare skin in a second. Luckily her grip was no match for Izuku pulling back with his entire body weight and he pried himself free before she could burn him any worse. Izuku strategically backed out of reach, placing himself between her and the gun. He needed to take her out and it was much easier to use his signature KO while she was standing so he had to let her come to him.
Fuck that he wasn’t going to risk getting burned again, the second she was upright he charged, grabbing his flashlight from his pocket he brought it down at the junction of her neck and shoulder with all his might and she dropped like a brick.
Before she even settled into the concrete Izuku dashed over to the man who lay unmoving in the alley. There was a sluggishly growing pool of blood surrounding his head–
Oh, Kami.
His face was– Kami, Izuku was gonna be sick.
He had to look away. That man was dead, there was nothing he could do for him. He was too late.
His hands were shaking. He was too late.
He was too late and now a man was dead. Brutally dead. He must have been shot in the back of the head.
His face, Kami his face– how could she do that to someone?
How could anyone do that to anyone?
She couldn’t– how could she– he was– No. He needed to think clearly.
Cops, he had to call the cops. He could make emergency calls on his phone still which was the only reason he didn’t replace his phone with a watch because telling the time was all it was good for after being cut off from service. He was going to do that but he couldn’t let the call be traced back to him. He could use her phone but he couldn’t get his fingerprints on it. He really needed to get gloves. Whatever, he needed to call the cops, he could wipe the phone down as best he could when he was done with it.
He turned back to the woman lying on the ground and his gut roiled. He didn’t want to get any closer to her but he couldn’t let her get away with what she’d done. Steeling himself he fished around her pockets and pulled out her phone and bypassed the security code by making an emergency call. As it rang he cleared his throat and did his best to will his voice not to shake when the operator answered he lowered his voice as much as he could. He reported the bare bones of what happened leaving out his involvement entirely, gave them the location, and hung up.
He secured the woman’s hands behind her back with her own belt in case she woke up before the cops got there and climbed his way up to the rooftop. He stayed there until he heard sirens in the distance then headed straight home.
That was enough for the night.
***
When Izuku got back he just sat and stared into the darkness of the stairwell for a while. His ankle burned but he was used to burns, he could tune out the pain. He could tune out everything except the sight of that man’s disfigured face, the stairwell was pitch black but he could see it clear as day.
Izuku’s not sure how long he sat there but eventually, he was able to flick on the lamp and inspect the burn on his ankle. It wasn’t too bad. It would probably scar but he was more upset about the pants. Luckily they weren’t synthetic fiber so his skin wasn’t melded to melted plastic, but there was ash in the wound so he’d have to clean it out. He blotted it with alcohol and let the pain ground him, he held the rag there longer than was strictly necessary which probably wasn’t a healthy response but he couldn’t be bothered to care.
He let his hands carry through the familiar steps of dressing a burn while his mind drifted again. When there was nothing left to do he flicked off the light and laid down but didn’t close his eyes. He knew he should sleep, he had school tomorrow, but he didn’t want to see what awaited him in his dreams.
Notes:
Thank you so much for reading!
Dadzawa coming soon!!! Give it a few more chapters and he'll be here, my beloved. Izuku's gotta make a name for himself b4 Papa finds him <3
Chapter 15: Rock Bottom Version 2.0, Now Rockier and Bottomer!
Notes:
I'd give the fan art I'm working on a few days. I'm oh so very out of practice but it will be here eventually.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Murder (memory from the last chapter)
-Foul language
-Gun
-Suicidal thoughts/ideation (***WORSE THAN USUAL***)
-Devastatingly low self-worth
-Gore (not described but implied)
-Dissociation (worse than usual)
-Brand new freshly minted PTSD ('cause he didn't have enough)lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku didn’t sleep at all. He lay there as the minutes trickled into hours staring unseeing into the darkness until his alarm went off. It was Thursday, he was supposed to go to the library but he barely had the willpower to silence his alarm much less get up. He had to get up eventually, he knew that he couldn’t just ditch school because his teachers might call home on the off chance they cared enough to do their job properly when it came to him.
No, he had to get up. Just not right now.
He turned over so he could see the dim numbers glowing off the radio and watched the minutes tick away until he would be running the risk of being late for school if he didn’t get up Immediately. So, he robotically went through the motions of changing into his school uniform, grabbing his things, and trudging up the stairs without even turning on the lamp. Walking into the cool morning air the light was blinding it forced him to squint his eyes and keep his head down. It wasn’t until he was halfway to school that he realized that the white sole of his left shoe was the same dirty red color as the top. He’d stepped in that man’s blood and it was still there, crusted and more brown than red. The bottom was ‘clean’ from walking but the residue on the rubber banding around the side still clung tight. Izuku just walked over to a patch of grass not blanketed in snow and swiped his foot along the frost that was starting to thaw in the light of the sun. He either wiped it off or covered it with dirt. He didn’t really care, he would change into his uwabaki at school anyway.
When Izuku got to school he honestly couldn’t tell you if the people milling the halls shouted their customary greetings at him. No one hit him or tripped him, at least not enough to impede his progress toward his classroom because that's where he found himself in one piece. The teacher was already talking, how long had he been talking? How long had Izuku been sitting here? The time read 8:32 but Izuku had no idea when he got here.
Concepts like time felt distant, he had heard a man die mere hours ago. He had seen his lifeless disfigured body laying in a dirty alleyway and for what? His pocket change? Izuku never heard a struggle or shouting, nothing. That woman just walked up behind him and shot him in the head point-blank and Izuku was so close but he couldn’t do anything. It was over too quickly, the man was dead before he hit the ground, he probably had no idea what was even coming.
His life was snuffed out in the blink of an eye and Izuku was right there. He was right there! He was there but it didn’t matter and wasn’t that a familiar feeling? The person Izuku was when he was out at night was supposed to matter, they were supposed to make a difference but that person was still Deku, he was still Deku, he was stupid to think that could change.
The day passed in a blur. He got his lunch tray like he usually did but he just packed it all into his bento, hopefully, he would have the stomach to eat it before it went bad. Maybe he could give it to DJ. He’d have to check what human foods were safe for cats at some point.
***
Deku had gone off the deep end. The nerd was catatonic. Katsuki thought the look in his eyes was creepy before but he just watched one of the extras ‘accidentally’ elbow him in the back of the head hard and he didn’t even seem to notice. His head whipped forward but he just sat back up and kept staring at nothing.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
When the final bell rang Katsuki followed him out of the school gates and watched as he turned in the opposite direction of his apartment. The idiot was gonna get himself lost and mugged walking around like that in the direction he was heading. Why the hell did the nerd have to make this his problem? He thought as he stalked towards him.
“DEKU!”
Izuku kept walking.
“DEKU!”
No reaction.
Katsuki planted himself in his path and shouted one more time, “DEKU!”
Izuku just turned to walk around him but Katsuki grabbed his arm before he could get very far. That was the first thing that garnered any type of reaction. At first, he kept walking as if he didn’t feel the hand on his shoulder but when his feet stopped moving forward he scrunched his eyebrows like he didn’t understand why he wasn’t moving anymore. Slowly he followed the pressure on his arm to Katsuki’s hand, up his arm and finally, he looked him in the eyes. It looked like the nerd hadn’t slept in weeks and there was nothing behind his eyes, no emotion, hardly even recognition.
Something was wrong, really wrong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Deku?” Katsuki barked out elegantly.
Izuku opened his mouth like he was going to respond but then shut it again and dropped his gaze to the ground before closing his eyes entirely and shaking his head. He went to walk away again but Katsuki held firm.
“What the hell happened to you and where the hell do you think you’re going?” he said as he pulled Izuku to face him.
When he met Deku’s eyes again they were glassy and his lip was trembling, no he was trembling. His whole body was shaking and he looked like he was liable to fall over at any second. Oh hell no, this is not what Katsuki signed up for. He quickly released his shoulder with a light shove and Deku went sprawling onto the snow covered grass along the sidewalk.
“Whatever, just go home Deku. If you keep walking that way you’re gonna get yourself mugged.” He said over his shoulder as he turned on his heel and left.
Something was wrong with Deku but that wasn’t his problem, it's not like he gave a shit.
***
Izuku needed to get home, he was at a breaking point and he couldn’t let himself fall apart here in the middle of the sidewalk, he had to get up. He just had to get up and keep walking.
Just. Get. Up. His body was too far and it wasn’t listening to him anymore.
Fucking great, what the hell did Kacchan even want anyway? He didn’t even beat him up why the hell did he have to stop his momentum? He could have gotten home fine but now he was stuck in the grass because his limbs had turned traitor. Kami, he was so useless. What the fuck was he thinking going around like he could make a difference?
He felt tears threatening to spill down his cheeks and he shoved down any and all emotions with as much force as he could scrape up. He let himself fall into the liminal space he’d been in all day.
His legs knew the way home, he’d get there eventually.
***
Izuku came back to himself to a loud metallic BANG and the sound was so familiar he felt sick. He looked up to where the noise came from and two golden eyes stared back at him. Oh, he was sitting by DJ’s dumpster. He’d never had the pleasure of being dumpster jumpscared in the light of day, had he woken her somehow?
Oh, he was crying.
“S-sorry DJ, I d-didn’t mean to wake you.” He said between heaving breaths and violent sobs before he buried his head back into his knees.
DJ just looked at him for a while before jumping off the dumpster and standing in front of him. Izuku was too stuck in his own grief(?) that he didn’t even notice she moved until he felt her wet nose and soft fur bump into one of the hands curled around his shins. Izuku was so shocked that he let in a gasp and stopped breathing entirely. With tears still streaming down his face he just looked at DJ as she pressed her head into the back of his hand for a second time. Slowly, he uncurled his hand and held it out to her and she pressed herself into his palm.
He was petting her! She was letting him pet her!
Izuku didn’t know what to feel, he was devastated and gutted but this cat was finally letting him pet her! He was elated, he was proud but he was still drifting and distant; he was everything all at once, he was so overwhelmed. The sobs returned from their brief shocked sabbatical but Izuku kept gently sliding his shaking fingers along DJ’s soft and warm cheek and that was real. That soft fur was real and he was touching it, she was warm and the wall was digging into his back and the wind was cutting through his gakuran and Izuku was so cold. Kami, how long had he been sitting here?
Izuku stayed outside until his sobs subsided and DJ decided her work here was done and went back to the roof to nap. What the hell just happened? Frankly, Izuku didn’t know and didn’t have the energy to care. If he knew having one of his breakdowns within DJ’s earshot would be enough to let him pet her he would have done it ages ago. Eventually, his limbs came back online and he shakily made his way back to his stairwell and flicked on his space heater so he could huddle in front of it, finally giving in to the call of sleep.
***
Izuku woke up not feeling very rested at all but he didn’t feel like he was in a dissociative state of shock anymore. It felt like he just spent the last 12 hours rewatching that horrible memory on repeat in his dreams. His early alarm was going off telling him that the sun was up and it was time to go practice his free running in the brewery. Kami, he felt like a different person, that little hobby of his felt childish now, running around playing hero. He silenced the alarm and turned on his lamp, he needed to do his homework. Hopefully, he could do a passable job despite not remembering a single word spoken during lectures yesterday and no means to look up any questions he might have.
Whatever, it didn’t matter. If he turned in something he couldn’t get in trouble and it's not like his grades were stellar anyway. Any time he turned in a perfect paper he got it back with a zero on it for cheating even though he never did. They didn’t believe him. No one believed he could be competent enough to do anything remarkable and maybe it was time to come to terms with that.
Izuku felt that familiar and overwhelming sense of pointlessness settle into his gut because well, what was the point of stopping it? That feeling had long since made its home there and Izuku didn’t have the authority to evict it, he felt foolish to have ever thought he did.
***
The week went by in a blur and suddenly it was Monday again, he hadn’t had the energy to force himself to go to the library since last Wednesday when everything went down. But today he stood at the front door, he didn’t know why he was here, he had no real reason to be here and his dour mood was only going to bring Shinso-san down with him. It was selfish but he was so empty and he’d spent the whole weekend willing himself away from the bottom step where the gun he accidentally stole laid untouched. He knew the death of that hope would kill him and maybe he should let it. Maybe there were still a few smoldering embers left, he didn’t know what else could have brought him here or what else could have kept him from going down the second half of the stairs all weekend.
There’s got to be something, there has to be something, he couldn’t keep holding onto nothing much longer.
When Shinso-san came to open the door he gave her a polite nod and walked past. He settled himself down at his usual computer but he didn’t turn it on, there wasn’t any reason to. He just looked at the dark screen. Why was he here?
“Are you okay, Midoriya?”
The voice startled him and he turned his head to see Shinso with a face of unmasked concern. He actually cared, Shinso was so nice. Well, he was nice to the version of himself Izuku allowed him to see. Somedays that would be enough to warm Izuku’s heart, today was not one of those days. Today all he could think is that he was fooling this poor kid into caring about him and now he was worried.
“I– uh– y-yeah, I’m fine– I–” he cut himself off. His voice was horse and cracking from disuse even more than it normally did and he could feel tears filling his eyes. He wasn’t going to fool Shinso and there was no point trying. He let out a bitter laugh and continued, “Hah, no– a-am I hurting your m-mom? Should I l-leave?”
Shinso got up the moment the tears started to fall and rushed over to him grabbing a box of tissues on the way. He was too nice, Izuku didn’t deserve this.
“No! I mean actually, I don’t know she says she hardly ever feels anything from you, it's strange. I don’t know if she can feel this but it doesn’t matter she wouldn’t want you to leave like this anyway.” Shinso replied, handing him the box of tissues.
Izuku took the box. He still didn’t know Shinso’s quirk, he noticed something was off pretty quickly after he sat down. He could be hurting him too. Izuku wanted to ask but asking always ran the risk of them asking back. He almost wanted Shinso to ask, he wanted to tell him. Maybe he just wanted the Shinsos to turn on him, maybe he wanted to punish himself for not being able to save that man, maybe he was looking for a reason to give up, for someone to give him that final little push because he couldn’t force himself to take that step no matter how much he wanted to. Maybe he was self-destructing. Whatever, Izuku didn’t have much farther to fall at rock bottom.
“W-what about your quirk, am I-I hurting you t-too?” he asked, forcing himself to make eye contact.
***
Hitoshi wasn’t expecting that question. Well, he was, but not right now. Kids always asked about each other's quirks, it was only a matter of time before Midoriya asked him and their fragile friendship fell apart on the runway before it got the chance to take off. He had been expecting it for a while, especially given how much Midoriya seemed to like talking about quirks but he never did and Hitoshi wasn’t going to complain. But now he had, he was sitting here in his usual spot after missing the past two visits and crying and Hitoshi had let his guard down. Why now of all times? Should he just rip the band-aid off and tell him? No, he was already so upset he didn’t want to make it any worse, or maybe Hitoshi was just a coward. He gave the bare minimum reply,
“No, um, my quirks not like my mom’s. I, uh, I can’t feel your emotions at all.”
Luckily Midoriya seemed to accept that answer even though he looked like he was expecting more but Hitoshi wasn’t going to give in unless he was pushed. It felt sneaky and wrong but he was so lonely and he couldn’t lose whatever this was. Midoriya seemed kind, here he was, clearly distressed and he was more worried about whether or not he was hurting Hitoshi or his mom. He didn’t react badly to his mother’s quirk but Hitoshi was scared, he didn’t want to be alone again.
When Greenie finally looked away, accepting he wasn’t going to receive any elaboration Hitoshi asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Midoriya glanced back at him, the tears had stopped but he looked sadder than ever before his face fell into a neutral expression.
“No, Shinso. Thank you though,” he said, turning on his computer and looking up what foods were safe for cats to eat, effectively ending the conversation.
Notes:
Thank you guys for reading and thanks for all the comments on the last two chapters!
Don't forget to leave a kudo if you liked it, we're almost at 200!
Chapter 16: ♫ I GET KNOCKED DOWN, BUT I GET UP AGAIN! ♫
Notes:
ALMOST 200 KUDOS GUYS AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I'm basically a New York Times bestseller at this point.As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Suicidal thoughts/ideation (***WORSE THAN USUAL***)
-Devastatingly low self-worth
-Gore (not described but implied)
-Mentioned attempted SAlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was miserable. He hadn’t gone out on his rooftop runs or practiced in the brewery since his first disastrous ‘patrol’. He sat in his stairwell with the space heater and the lamp and the radio on, darning the holes left in his new pants from that hot-hand lady that had burned through them. This was one of his favorite things to do, it was Friday, the one night of the week when Present Mic was around to host Put Your Hands Up Radio and not one of his interns. This used to make him happy, it was supposed to make him happy, but that persistent hole in his chest remained sucking any small bit of joy out of his life.
He hadn’t been sleeping, he hadn’t been eating, and he hadn’t been running. He may be depressed but he wasn’t an idiot, he knew he wasn’t helping himself but this was supposed to help. It was a hobby! Hobbies were supposed to help depression even if they were ones born out of necessity. Izuku let his hands grow idle as he listened to the radio, call-in hour had started a while ago and a new caller just came through. They sounded like a young adult woman, maybe high school to college aged.
“Hey, Present Mic! I’m such a huge fan!” her voice crackled through the shitty radio speakers
“Aw, thanks, Listener. Always happy to hear from a fan! What question’s got you callin’ in tonight?” Present Mic responded smoothly.
“Oh, right, hah. My little brother just got into Shiketsu and I’m worried about him, I know being a hero is really dangerous so I wanted to know what you think the hardest part about being a hero is and if you had any advice.” The caller said.
“Awesome! Congrats to your little bro, Listener!” Mic said before pausing, actually thinking about the question. “The hardest part about being a hero huh…” he paused again before continuing in a much more somber tone.
“The hardest part, for me at least, is when you can’t save someone. I get to do a lot of good in my position, I’ve had the honor of saving a lot of people but the weight of my success doesn’t ever seem to measure up to the weight of my failures. I know this is something a lot of heroes struggle with, no matter how many people you save you can never forget the people who were too far out of reach. So, if I had any advice for your lil’ bro I'd say don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s important to take your job seriously and realize the significance behind every life you save and every life you lose but you can’t let that hold you back from doing more good in the world. No hero is capable of saving everyone so don’t hold yourself up to an unattainable standard, ya’ dig?” Present Mic said unaware that he was shattering the worldview of a fledgling vigilante on the other side of town.
Izuku couldn’t hear the rest of the call through the ringing in his ears.
“...you can’t let that hold you back from doing more good in the world.”
Those words kept playing in his head on repeat. That’s exactly what he was doing.
Every night he was going to bed thinking about all the people in the red lights that he couldn’t save but he wasn’t even trying! He just gave up! He was letting his failure stop him from even trying to do more good. No one else was out there trying, the city never allocated heroes to this side of town. If he wasn’t out there then no one was and he had just been sitting here moping in his stairwell trying not to kill himself.
The longer he stayed cooped up in here the more people would die, himself possibly included. All he had to do was be better than literally no one, that man would have died whether he was there or not but that woman would have gotten away with it if he wasn’t there. That was technically better than nothing and maybe he’d stopped her from ever doing that again. Maybe he saved a theoretical someone, maybe he could still save someone. Maybe he could save himself.
Izuku returned to darning the holes in his pants with renewed vigor. He can still try, where’s the harm in trying?
***
Saturday night found Izuku dressed in freshly repaired pants, the place where the holes used to be were hardly noticeable, no one would see it unless they were looking. Darning burn holes in fabric was his sewing forte after all. He was going through his old and familiar round of stretches while talking to DJ who seemed far more interested in whether or not he had more treats if the way her eyes were tracking his hands was anything to go by.
“I’m just gonna go out there and do it, all I have to do is not make things worse, right?”
DJ did not respond. She hadn’t let him pet her again since his breakdown, maybe she just wanted him to shut up or maybe she actually cared. She still stuck around whenever he came out here to talk to her even when he didn’t bring treats. Izuku knew cats could sense human emotions to a degree so he was choosing to believe she cared. Maybe next time he had a complete mental breakdown he could have a fluffy cat to cry to again.
Izuku had not exactly gained back his confidence but he had the confidence to try and that’s all he needed for now. Shooting a goodbye to DJ and one more treat because she was so damn cute, Izuku set off into the night. It was the first time he had gone out on a weekend expressly looking for trouble and he was admittedly a bit nervous. Weekend nightlife was always more lively and if a man got shot in the back of the head on a Wednesday night what kind of crazy shit was he going to find on a Saturday? He was a bit morbidly excited to find out, more trouble meant more people he could help, more bad things he could stop from happening.
***
Izuku set out at midnight and it wasn’t even 12:30 before he ran into a mugging in progress, yeah, weekends were definitely more lively. The guy didn’t even put up a fight, the moment he saw Izuku scale down the alley wall he booked it in the opposite direction. He was going to go after him but the woman he was trying to steal from was shaking and crying and Izuku couldn’t leave her like that. She didn’t look like she belonged on this side of town, that’s probably why she was targeted, she had nice jewelry and a long fur coat that might have been fake but it gave off enough of a wealthy air to make her look like a good target. She must be either lost, drunk, or stupid to be walking around uptown like that.
“Hey, it’s okay, he’s gone, and I’m not going to hurt you,” Izuku said as he approached the woman slowly with his hands up.
She whipped her head up as if she just realized he was there and stumbled with the sudden movement. Yeah, she was definitely drunk or on something. She took a step back and Izuku wasn’t sure if it was to catch her balance again or if she was trying to get away from him so he stopped approaching her and kept his hands up.
“Can I come closer?” he asked.
The woman looked him up and down, assessing if he was a threat for a moment, deciding that he wasn’t, she nodded. Izuku continued to approach her slowly keeping his hands in her line of sight. He telegraphed his motions giving her obviously foggy mind plenty of time to decide if she wanted to back away before he gently grabbed her gloved hand. She looked down at their joined hands looking confused for a moment before looking back at Izuku’s face.
“Are you hurt?” he asked once he got her attention.
Again she took a moment to ponder the question before shaking her head.
“That’s good, you aren’t from around here, are you?” he continued
Slowly she shook her head again.
“I thought so. It’s not safe to walk around here alone at night. Did you come here with someone?” he asked
“Yeah, m-my boyfriend, he– we got in a fight and I-I don’t know where he went.” She finally spoke.
What the hell? Who brings their girl to uptown on a Saturday night and leaves her there inebriated, alone, and dressed to the nines when they get into a little tiff? This guy sounds like a tool. Even if they could find him he didn’t trust whoever this guy was to not leave her again and she needed to get out of here.
“Okay, can I walk you to the train station? Can you make your way home from here on the J line?” Izuku asked.
The woman’s brow furrowed, she looked like a 7-year-old when presented with a particularly challenging math problem, it would be cute if that lowered brain function wasn’t liable to get her mugged again. After a while, she responded,
“I, uh, y-yeah, the J line takes me to my sister’s place.”
“That’s good, do you have your phone? You should call or text her and ask if you can stay there or if she can meet you at the station.” He responded already taking the girl’s arm and leading her to the closest station.
The woman took out her phone and, Izuku assumed, started to text her sister while they walked. She didn’t even try to look where she was walking. Great.
Izuku made sure she got a response from her sister before waiting for the train with the girl, he didn’t trust her to get on board safely and her sister said she would meet her at the other station. Izuku made her text the train number to her sister before she left so she could make sure that she got off at the right stop.
Good grief, adults are stupid. Why do they do this to themselves?
After sending the girl off Izuku took back to the streets.
***
By the end of the night, Izuku had another knife to add to his collection. He stopped 2 more muggings and a sexual assault and he actually apprehended 2 of the 3 offenders. He stopped that last one with great prejudice, Izuku can understand needing money, and he can understand how people can get desperate enough to do stupid things but that man had no excuse and Izuku did not let him walk away from that. He doubts the man even woke up before he was in the precinct or hospital, wherever they took him. Izuku didn’t care where he was as long as it was unpleasant and off his streets.
He felt good, he felt like he made a difference, like he did something that mattered. But Present Mic was right, no amount of lives saved can make up for the ones lost. The image of that man’s disfigured face still weighed heavy on his mind, it still soured the feeling of having saved the people he saved tonight and Izuku knew it would happen again. He wasn’t cocky enough to let one night of successes get to his head, he knew if he kept doing this he would continue to see the worst side of humanity and he wouldn’t always be able to help. One day he might have to hold someone as they died, he might have to watch someone take their last breath, HE might be left in these streets alone to take his last breaths.
He always knew heroics wasn’t just the bright limelight All Might saves everyone again side of things. He knew people got hurt, he knew people died but knowing something and living it were two different things. It was bittersweet but if he had the opportunity to save even a few people then he had the duty to try. He had to at least try.
Izuku got back to his stairwell as the first rays of light were starting to peak their way over the horizon and as he curled up in his nest of blankets he made a promise to himself, he was going to try. He was going to be out there in those streets as often as he could and he was going to do everything in his meager power to make a difference here. This place was his home, these people had been forgotten, ignored, and suppressed by their government like Izuku had been by everyone his whole life. They were his people and he vowed that he was going to protect them until he couldn’t anymore.
Notes:
*ahwoop* police are gonna notice you if you keep deliverin' criminals to their front door Izu ehehehehehheheheh
A NEW ERA APPROACHES GET READY FOR A TIME-SKIP BABY! ik I've been droning on and on for the last 37,231 words but I wanted to get his origins explicitly established, y'know? It's called world-building, sweaty. Anyway, the next chapter might be longer because I plan I telling a few stories over the span of a full year where Izuku establishes/makes a name for himself. He's already more confident as 'whoever' he is when he goes out (notice how he doesn't stutter? eep! lil' baby!) but I NEED to write a sassy insufferable and faux-confident green bean ASAP!!!
The next chapter might take longer to write so don't bank on my usual daily upload, it might happen, or it might not. Only time will tell.AND PAPAMIC IS HERE IN SPIRIT!?!?!? I did not plan on him having the first dialogue of the Dad Crew™ but here we are. Someone needed to kick Izu's ass into gear.
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING AND GET EXCITED FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!!!!!
Chapter 17: T-T-T-T-TIIIIIME SKIIIIIIIIIPPPP
Notes:
OVER 200 KUDOS I OFFICIALLY HAVE HUNDREDS OF FANS AND, HENCEFORTH, I WILL BE INSUFFERABLE ABOUT IT
Thank you all SO much ❤️❤️❤️As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Suicidal thoughts/ideation
-Vaguely mentioned SA (the CW is prolly more triggering than the actual content ngl but better safe than sorry ig idk)
-Devastatingly low self-worth
-Mentions of physical abuse/bullying
-Mentions of wounds/wound carelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
***PLEASE READ THE END NOTE***
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ever since his mental breakdown Izuku had been avoiding Shinso. He was embarrassed and the whole thing clearly made Shinso uncomfortable because he was also giving him a wide berth. They would nod or wave and exchange the customary pleasantries but it was all performative and surface level.
It was probably for the best. Izuku was a complete mess of a person even if he wasn’t a Null. Shinso shouldn’t get himself caught up in all of Izuku’s problems. He could put on a show and act as normal as he could but he knew he wasn’t. Normal people don’t eject their consciousness out of their body at the slightest inconvenience, normal people don’t wake up from nightmares screaming, normal people don’t have an empty pit in their stomach that they occasionally fall into and lose themselves for weeks at a time, and normal people don’t put on a little costume every night and become a completely different person.
No, it was better for Shinso to stay far away from him. Maybe his mom warned him that Izuku was crazy, maybe she could feel it, maybe that's why she couldn’t feel anything else and she finally figured it out when he had his little meltdown. He knew he shouldn’t have come into the library like that. He knew it was only a matter of time before Shinso decided he didn’t want anything to do with him but he was hoping the reason he left would be the quirklessness not just who Izuku was as a person.
***
Izuku was gaining a lot of new skills because of his nightly escapades, one of them being knot-tying. The better he got at this whole vigilante thing the more criminals he apprehended and he was getting really tired of having to strip them of their belts to tie them up to wait for their police chauffeur. They weren't even guaranteed to have a belt and the first time Izuku ran into that problem he decided to start carrying short lengths of rope to restrain them. Zip ties would have been easier but there was plenty of rope washing up on the beach from fisherman and zip ties were too easy to get out of anyway.
Plus Izuku took perverse joy in tying more complicated knots around the more violent or annoying criminals, it was very fun to watch them struggle with it from the rooftops if they woke up before the cops showed. So, yeah Izuku had learned how to tie a lot of different knots, and his work was becoming increasingly more absurd in its complexity.
Another skill that was more to be expected was first aid. Izuku was no novice when it came to first aid, he’d been tending to his own scrapes, bruises, and burns from bullies since he was old enough to open a band-aid but street thugs hit harder than middle schoolers. Middle schoolers also didn’t tend to have knives or the intent to kill.
Izuku had never needed to use the sterile needle and thread that came with his quickly diminishing souped-up first aid kit but, well, there's a first time for everything and necessity continued to be Izuku’s most effective teacher.
Izuku’s skills were improving but his supply was decreasing. He was going to need to start pick-pocketing people before he called the cops again. Izuku was all for making do with what you’ve got but that didn’t apply to medical equipment. While he preferred to not get stabbed in the first place he definitely preferred not rotting away from infection in the stairwell of an abandoned brick factory.
***
Midoriya had been pulling away from him ever since he broke down crying a few months ago and Hitoshi didn’t know whether it was his fault or not. He’d asked what was wrong and he’d been giving him his space ever since he brushed him off but he didn’t know what else to do. He seems to have gotten over whatever mood he’d been in but he still barely talked to Hitoshi and he couldn’t figure out why. Was he mad he didn’t tell him about his quirk? Kami, he was really smart he probably knows what it is already based on his mom’s quirk.
Should he try to talk to him more? Was he just giving Hitoshi space because Hitoshi was giving him space? Was he just not the type of person to start a conversation? Looking back Hitoshi realized most of their conversations started because Hitoshi had been curious about what he was researching and today he had a handful of loose circuit boards held together by wires plugged into his laptop. That seemed like a reasonable thing to question, maybe he should try again.
Wait, if he had a laptop why was he always here?
***
Izuku was sick and tired of people not taking him seriously every time he opened his mouth. He could jump off a two-story tall windowsill and knock a man unconscious but the second he turned to his buddy and told them to drop their weapon suddenly he wasn’t a threat anymore. He could cover his face and act as skilled as a grown man but he couldn’t not sound like a kid no matter how hard he tried.
Sometimes people would think he was a woman instead and if Izuku didn’t already have supreme respect for women in heroics he definitely did now. People took him more seriously when they thought he was a prepubescent boy than when they thought he was a woman. Kami, people are stupid. Being whoever this was was the only time Izuku ever got any respect so when people underestimated him like that he took immense joy in making them look like a fool. As fun as it was to play the girlboss card when people thought he was a woman he would rather them just take him seriously, plus his voice was just another way to identify him so Izuku decided to dip his toes into the support items industry a bit. He had no shortage of loose wires and circuit boards from his scavenging at Dahgobah so he figured using the little free time he had trying to make a voice modulator could be worthwhile.
He spliced together a little toy megaphone with the much better quality speakers from one of those pocket-size Bluetooth boomboxes. It took a lot of delicate soldering and even some programming that he had to do at the library (and boy did he have his work cut out for him dodging Shinso’s questions about that) but he only mildly electrocuted his own face a few times before he got the hardware and software to play nice and work properly.
That was all well and good, but he still needed to make housing for it. It was just a loose pile of circuit boards and wires he couldn’t just shove that in a cloth mask and call it a day. He needed something that would dampen the volume of his actual voice so he didn’t just sound like a child speaking with a man’s voice overlaid. He needed it to have a hard exterior with a soft interior so that it would both muffle his actual voice and not cut into his skin. It needed to be tough enough to stand up to a punch to the face but flexible and or fitted enough to move with him and it needed to be breathable but it also needed to not let his real voice out.
This was really hard, Izuku could see why people have to go to school for this.
It took several months of working on it on and off until he produced something even mildly usable. This project alone required him to at least double the size of his scavenged little toolbox, he had used a thick aluminum sheet from the side of some sort of kitchen appliance for the exterior and it took hours with a coping saw and metal files to get it smooth, he had a hammer it into shape and he kept breaking his cinderblock makeshift anvils.
He had to turn the lower landing into a workshop, it was bigger, spanning the length of the first set of stairs as well as the space directly beneath his middle landing. The only reason Izuku didn’t set up camp there originally was that the floor was damp and it was full of old storage from when this place was still in business but Izuku cleared that all out into the sublevel that he rarely entered.
He soldered all the pieces together which wasn’t nearly as strong as actually welding it but Izuku didn’t have a welder and if he did he doubts his generator had the power to run that kind of thing. For the padding, he sewed several layers of cloth together making sure the outermost layer was black both to fit the theme and so it didn’t show dirt as much. Sandwiching the mechanism between the shell and the inner lining was the last step and he actually bought some velcro strips to fit them together so that he could still access the inside for repairs if needed.
It was clunky, and it was obvious that it wasn’t his real voice, it was just a touch too robotic, but it worked.
***
Izuku was starting to get to know the nighttime comings and goings of this town better than he had ever known the daytime schedules. He knew when the ladies standing on the corners tended to call it quits for the night and he had taken to walking them home. He knew how skeezy men could be and these ladies were nice, he didn’t want them getting hurt. Even if catering to these men was generally in their job descriptions they didn’t deserve that, no one deserved that.
He hadn’t given anyone his name so the ladies took to calling him “short stack” which he didn’t much appreciate but it was done with a fond sort of teasing and Izuku had definitely been called worse so he let it slide. It was a bit strange that the people who he could most reasonably call his friends were hookers but beggars can't be choosers and they were nice to him. He would ask them about their non-work related escapades and they kept him updated on the latest gossip from their friend groups as well as the city. They would ask him about his ‘work’-related adventures and he would regale them with highly embellished versions of his victories against the scourge of the town.
Izuku had also become well acquainted with the homeless population, he continued to salvage any blankets or towels he found at Dagobah well past when he had completed his own ‘nest’ and he passed them out to anyone who looked liked they could use one throughout the winter and early spring months. Izuku was lucky to have carved out a space for himself but not everyone had that opportunity. He told them about some of the unoccupied warehouses far from his own but not many took him up on it, he saw a few new camps through the broken windows in his district but there was no mass exodus. It was somewhere to go if it was raining but there was no food to scavenge or passers-by to ask for spare change so most of them stayed put.
He learned that Shimamoto-san did, in fact, pass out day-old pastries to beggars at closing, and more than once Izuku let his sweet tooth make him a little bit selfish. They were delicious and technically he was homeless too even if he was guaranteed at least one meal a day… on weekdays. Yeah okay, maybe he should stop feeling bad and just take what he can get. Most of the homeless people around here dumpster-dived behind restaurants and fished out any food that wasn’t too far gone so Izuku followed their lead most weekends. He looked around on weekdays too but if he found anything he would pass it on to someone who hadn’t gotten to eat that day.
They knew that he had their backs and should he need it they would have his. He’d never had something like that, a community.
***
Izuku had been avoiding the gangs and drug dealers as much as he could, he didn’t want to bite off more than he could chew but all the small-time criminals led back to them. They were one of the roots of the systemic issues that caused crime in the first place, the real root was the government and the unequal distribution of wealth and resources but that seemed a little too nebulous for Izuku to target. He’d been stirring up a fuss, it wasn’t going to be long before the gang leaders caught word of him or he misstepped into one of their dealings himself. He couldn’t avoid them forever.
A gang was essentially a violently close-knit community, right? A stronger sense of community is just what this place needed anyway, maybe he could get on their good side. If he kept rival criminals at bay maybe in return they could like not kill people and sell hard drugs as much… Yeah, that didn’t seem likely they were gonna be on his tail sooner or later so maybe he should start picking off lower-hanging fruit, show them he was a threat. He was a slippery little thing he’d been at this for nearly half a year now and no one had caught him. Sure he’d gotten roughed up but no one knew these streets like he did, he always got away in the end.
As it stands he was just cutting off one of a hydra’s heads each time he brought someone in. Every thug he stopped had two more replacing them because of that Kami-forsaken gang. He needed to do something about it or he was just going to keep chasing his own tail until he finally slipped up and got himself killed.
So, Izuku did what he did best, he analyzed the opponent and found their weak spots. That gang had been running without opposition for a long time, uptown wasn't patrolled by anyone and it hadn’t been for a number of years, they didn’t know how to be stealthy and Izuku used that to his advantage. He eavesdropped on every conversation he walked past and gathered any information that the homeless or the ladies he walked home heard too. Izuku had eyes and ears everywhere. He organized small attacks on the lower-ranking members at random, and let slip any intel he’d gathered. If they didn’t know where he was or when he would be there they would have to assume he was always there and if he knew all the things he said he knew, what did he know that he wasn’t saying?
As he learned more about the gang and its members the higher up in the pecking order he started to strike, he had to make sure they knew anyone was a target. One man sting operations, in and out before they even saw him. He climbed along the walls and dropped down like a goddamn gargoyle whenever he saw them and he was out every single night so that was pretty often.
He built himself a reputation, there was no pattern to his routes, every evening he would roll a die and each number correlated to a different spot in the city for him to patrol. He could be anywhere and so he was everywhere. Nothing scared people like the unknown and nothing kept people in line like fear.
It wasn’t foolproof, if things really came to a head and they went after him they would realize he was all bark and no bite, he couldn’t really take them on but it would work until they called his bluff. Hopefully, he would be skilled enough or he will have thinned down their numbers enough to take them on by that point.
***
One night when Izuku dropped down to walk the ladies home they were all giggling to one another and looking at him. After a moment of whispers and non-discrete glances in his direction Izuku cracked,
“What? I got something on my face? What’s going on?” He asked with false confidence. This all felt a little too much like the girls at school for his liking.
After some more whispers and elbow nudges Iwai-san looked at him with a smirk.
“Oh, nothing, what about you, Ivy?” she said before falling into another bout of giggles.
That did not clear anything up.
“Ivy? Who’s Ivy?”
That just sent them all off laughing.
“You, short stack, you’re Ivy.” She took a break to laugh even more “You’ll never guess what Sakura overheard.”
“Somehow I doubt whatever it is is as funny as you’re making it out to be, what do you mean I’m Ivy?” He said, actually starting to get uncomfortable.
Once Sakura got a hold of herself, fanning her eyes trying to keep the tears from ruining her mascara even though it was the end of the night, she spoke,
“One of those new low-time gang members you told us to keep an eye out for, He–” she cut herself off with another laugh. “He was talkin’ to one of his lil’ gang buddies about you an’ he said “I’m sick of just callin’ him that lil’ motherfucker, it's gettin’ confusing–” She took another pause to laugh and Izuku was starting to get a bit impatient but he didn’t let it show.
Were they onto him? Were they finally going to come after him? Oh, Kami, this was it, he’s toast.
“He said “we gotta give ‘im a name there’s too many lil’ motherfuckers ‘round here” an’ the other guy– HAH! – the other guy looks at ‘im and says “we should call ‘im Ivy” an when his buddy asks him why he said, “cuz he’s green an’ always climbin’ up the walls n’ shit!” Once she finally got her piece out the whole group devolved into cackles.
Okay yeah, that was kinda funny, when the tension broke he let himself laugh with them. He can imagine those two meatheads thinking real hard about what to call him and yeah, that was pretty funny.
Honestly, it wasn’t a bad name either. Maybe the ladies would stop calling him short stack.
“Oh, short stack your makin’ a name for yourself ‘round here.” One of them said once they composed themselves.
Yeah, that was a long shot anyway. He’d been short stack to them for half a year at this point and they liked to poke fun at him, he’d be short stack to them until the day he died.
***
Hitoshi was convinced that Midoriya didn’t want to be his friend, he’d asked him about the project he was working on last month and he just skirted around all his questions. No, Midoriya didn’t want to talk to him, he was like 87% sure of that, he needed to stop stringing himself along. He should just talk to him and be 100% sure, just get the heartache over with.
He actually talked to his mom about it and she agreed with him. He knows she went through the same kind of things he’s going through before she found her own group of friends who accepted her how she was, she knew this cat-and-mouse game better than Hitoshi did. He knew what he had to do he just didn’t want to do it. He was being a coward again.
He just had to ask. Just fumble their way through one more conversation and it would be over and done with.
Midoriya was here today, he just had to do it.
“Hey, Midoriya?” he finally choked out after 15 minutes of sitting in silence.
Midoriya looked up at him a little startled before schooling his expression and raising an eyebrow indicating for Hitoshi to go on. Great, he wasn’t going to make this easy, was he?
“I, um, I was just wondering if– I mean it’s not like we ever talked that much and it’s not like you have to talk to me but for a while– ever since– um you– I mean– do uh, I could stop trying to talk to you– do you just want me to leave you alone?” Hitoshi elegantly forced out.
Greenie was just staring at him.
“...Midoriya?” Hitoshi piped up before the awkward silence became corporeal and actually killed him.
“I-I, no! Sorry I-I don’t want– y-you don’t have to– I’m sorry I-i didn’t mean t-to make you t-think that I didn’t want t-to t-talk to y-you! I’m– I just– I thought that y-you didn’t– a-after I broke down l-like a crazy person in t-the m-middle of a p-public library–” he cut himself off burring his blushing face in his hands.
Hitoshi was gobsmacked, there was no better word for it. What the hell was going on?
“Did you think I was mad at you for crying?” he finally responded incredulously.
Still muffled from his face being in his hands Midoriya responded, “N-no, well, I-I don’t know. I’m s-sorry.”
They were both idiots.
Well, they established that they both still wanted to talk to each other… now what?
Socially inept idiots.
***
This was a bad idea, he shouldn’t let himself get attached, it never ends well. It was different as Ivy. When he was Ivy being mysterious was part of the brand, he didn’t need to tell anyone anything about himself and they didn’t expect him to. He could keep people at an arm's length which was much closer than they usually want to get to Deku. Izuku didn’t have anything to hide behind here with Shinso. He could only leave out details and skirt around the truth for so long before it became suspicious and Shinso started asking too many questions.
No, this was a bad idea, it was doomed to fail. He was just going to break his own heart again, why was he doing this?
“So, um, d-did you want t-to be f-friends?” he asked finally pulling his face out of his hands to look at Shinso.
Shinso’s face lit up with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Yup, this was going to end poorly.
“Yeah! Haha, let’s be friends, it’s been like, what, a year? We might as well.”
Izuku was a masochist.
***
Using criminals’ phones to call the cops wasn’t always reliable. One time he kicked someone in the chest only to find out later that their phone was in their breast pocket and was completely busted, a couple of times he’d fish out their phone and it would be dead, and more than once he’d patted someone down to find absolutely nothing. Who doesn’t carry a phone these days?
Izuku had been pick-pocketing every would-be rapist and murderer he took down (they didn’t deserve that money anyhow) in order to fund his first-aid kit and occasional food costs, maybe he could cut back on a few things and pay for some minutes on a burner phone? He’d had to leave the scene to go borrow someone else’s phone several times now and it was really annoying to find someone he could convince to let him use their phone in the middle of the night in uptown.
He’d been going back and forth with himself on the issue but when he took down two phone-less thugs in one week he decided enough was enough and he got a burner. The second time he used his burner phone to call the cops he was transferred directly to someone called Tsukauchi, detective Tsukauchi.
Detective Tsukauchi was not happy with him. Something about ‘nearly a year’ and ‘vigilante’ and ‘untraceable’ Izuku didn’t really listen, he was paying for minutes so he just shouted the location over whatever the man was saying and hung up.
Well, that was probably going to become an issue.
Notes:
This chapter was a lot, it was all disjointed incidents that happened over the span of like 6 months, this fic started at the beginning of Izu's first year of middle school so it was August and he'd just turned 12 and now it's like April and he's still 12 bc that's how time works.
Anyway, let me know if any of it doesn't make sense and I might go back and edit some things, If it's like completely incomprehensible I might use this chapter as an outline and flesh things out better over the span of several chapters. Whatever, I'm not super confident about this one obvs, if I end up changing anything I will update you at the beginning of the next chapter notes.
THANK YOU ALL FOR READING BYEEEEEEEEE
Chapter 18: Izu's in his ✨Little Shit✨ Era <3
Notes:
Given the lack of complaints, I'm gonna assume that the last chapter was comprehensible so we're just gonna keep on truckin'
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Suicidal thoughts/ideation
-Vaguely mentioned SA
-Devastatingly low self-worthlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The red lights vigilante now known as “Ivy” had been stopping petty criminals and leaving them for the Musutafu police to round up for months and Detective Tsukauchi didn’t really give a shit. The city didn’t let them allocate resources to that side of town because it was “too far gone” and “not worth the infrastructure.” It was a load of bullshit and just a fancy way of saying they didn’t want to deal with it so they would ignore it until it snuffed itself out. It wasn’t going to snuff itself out, it had only been getting worse, and if some vigilante wanted to try to clean up the mess that the government refused to deal with then good on them.
Privately, he thought Ivy should be left to their business. Officially, Tsukauchi had been against this ‘criminal’ from the beginning and was avidly hunting them down to get them off the streets. The case landed in his lap from some higher-up who knew nothing about what actually went down in the red lights district and was unlikely to ever check back in on the case. He was getting conflicting orders so he followed whatever suited him, the city didn’t want him wasting his time on uptown? Okay, the vigilante isn’t his problem then. You want me to find this vigilante? Well, I won’t spend too much time on it since you said not to waste my time in the slums.
That's how he had been operating the case until several thugs got scooped up claiming a rabid child had jumped off a roof and handed them their asses. A couple claimed that they were a woman so Tsukauchi wasn’t really sure what to believe but if there was even a chance that this “Ivy” was, in fact, a child then Tsukauchi couldn’t just let this go on. They had started to bring in gang members and that was no doubt going to make them some powerful enemies.
Those conflicting orders went from a useful loophole to a red-tape prison. Sure, he could officially use police resources and time to track Ivy down but he still couldn’t get feet on the ground to actually look for them. Ivy always used the criminal’s or a passerby’s phone to call in their takedowns and they were always gone before police arrived on the scene. So Tsukauchi was stuck in the precinct interrogating random thugs and getting a whole lot of nowhere.
All he knew was Ivy was fast, agile, and cunning; more than a few people said they were a “snarky little shit” as well. They fought with a knife and flashlight-baton, they had no obvious quirk, and didn’t show any identifying features other than the fact that they were on the shorter side and had a lighter skin tone.
He had technically been going against orders for a couple of months now, he couldn’t get in trouble for where he spent his free time he could just go and scope things out in an unofficial capacity, right? Well, yeah, he could but still, nothing. None of the locals would say a word about Ivy, they pretended they had no clue who he was talking about even though it was clear they did, like keeping it a secret was some sort of inside joke. As ill-advised as it was, he even took to walking the streets at night but no matter how many nights he spent in those streets he saw neither hide nor hair of Ivy themself.
The first real lead he’d gotten was yesterday night when a call from Ivy was made from an untraceable number, likely a burner phone. It wasn’t much of a lead but Tsukauchi made sure all calls from that number were transferred straight to his personal phone just in case. He was glad he did because the very next night he got a call,
“Hello, this is Detective Tsukauchi, this is the second call we’ve received from an untraceable number, are you the vigilante I have been trying to track for nearly a year?” He said sardonically, hoping the “snarky little shit” comment was reliable and he could bait them into a conversation.
He could not bait them into a conversation.
They just shouted a location over him and then hung up. Well, at least the ‘little shit’ part was a reliable report.
***
Detective Tsukauchi, huh? That was probably the narc that had been asking about him around town. A detective, they had a detective after him… great. How come the city had funding to get cops on his ass but no one elses’? Looking at his phone he used his teeth to pull off one of his gloves and save the number under “Narc”
Ivy:
Thnx 4 the # texting is cheaper <3
Narc:
…seriously?
Ivy:
Yeah so make ur point in 1 text or less or I’ll block u
Narc:
I wanted a word, preferably spoken.
Ivy:
Well I’m on block 10 so why don't u come pick up this goon and maybe I’ll stick around to chat xoxo
***
Okay, yeah, snarky little shit. That wasn’t much of a lead and he doubted the vigilante would stay on the scene but it was worth a shot and someone had to go pick up whoever Ivy had just caught. Since that phone call was transferred directly to him then technically he had the jurisdiction to waste his own time rather than sending out some lower-ranking officers and using up their “less valuable” time. So, off he went.
As he had suspected by the time he showed up on the scene Ivy was nowhere in sight. No one except a thug tied up in the alleyway was there and they were still out cold, the night was silent so Tsukauchi took a gamble he hoped might pay off and not just get himself blocked.
Narc:
What happened to our little chat?
He heard a faint ding from the neighboring roof. Bingo. He whipped his head in the direction of the noise but he still didn’t see anything. Deciding it was worth the risk to end up talking to no one he shouted out,
“Look, Ivy, I just want to talk. I’m not trying to bring you in, you’re doing work that the city won’t let us do.”
No response.
“Officially, I can’t condone what you’re doing. I was assigned your case but we aren’t permitted to ‘waste time’ putting feet on the ground out here unless we’re called. So, unless you go off the rails no one is going to come after you and I’m not really expected to actually catch you.” he added hoping to gain some trust.
Still no response. The thug at his feet was starting to stir so Tsukauchi decided he’d better put proper cuffs on him. He was pretty beat up, usually, Ivy didn’t use excessive force unless the crime was particularly heinous.
“What’d this guy do anyway? I didn’t hear much with you shouting over me and hanging up and I can’t exactly arrest him just ‘cause.” He said giving it one last try before he gave up.
He felt his phone vibrate in his hand.
Ivy:
Attempted SA, victim is safe but not willing to make a report in person. I will contact u tomorrow morning, do not try to text me before then, I WILL block u.
Well, that was leagues better than the nothing he’d been working with before.
***
Izuku can’t believe he forgot to turn the phone to silent. In his defense, he wasn’t expecting anyone to ever contact him and the phone didn’t make a sound when the text conversation was already pulled up so it hadn’t chimed with any of the other texts Tsukauchi had sent.
He will admit, the detective intrigued him. He didn't trust him, not even a little bit, but he was intrigued. If he was telling the truth then he could be a very helpful ally but if he wasn’t, well, then that was a one-way ticket to an orphanage if Izuku let himself get caught and that was not worth the risk. He had made a name for himself out here, until the gang finally decided that he wasn’t a real threat and realized he was just a nuisance at best he could hold his own, he didn’t need backup.
He would test him tomorrow, he already had a plan, he just needed WiFi for it.
***
Tsukauchi didn’t know what to expect when the vigilante contacted him the next day but this was not it.
Ivy:
PayPal: Not_A_Vigilante
Pay for my minutes and we can talk tonight.
Narc:
Are you actually serious?
Ivy:
Yeah, Mr. Cushy-Job-Money-Bags I’m from uptown I’m not made of cash. Pay up or stop texting me.
Oh, Kami, they were serious. Okay, guess he’s doing this.
Narc:
I'm not sending money to someone called “Not_A_vigilante” these texts are bad enough. Change the username and I’ll send it. How much?
Ivy:
Ok fair. I did not expect that to work.
PayPal: thorn_in_ur_side<3
¥1,500 now quit texting me until I see the dough.
Well, at least they were self-aware. He sent ¥3,000; it was pocket change to him and Ivy had been doing the job of law enforcement without payment for nearly a year, he could spare it. Plus maybe he could buy his way onto Ivy’s good side. Hopefully, he’d actually get a call and not just be scammed out of ¥3,000.
***
Izuku had asked for way more than any reasonable length phone call would cost and Tsukauchi sent double. He was trying to buy himself into Ivy’s good graces and Izuku knew that but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t working… it was spring break and Izuku was hungry, he was taking anything he could get at this point.
He wasn’t sure he was actually going to call him but now he felt obligated to. His stomach wouldn’t stop grumbling and he was pretty sure it was getting loud enough for Shinso to hear it in the quiet library. Luckily, he was too polite to say anything if he did hear it.
***
Izuku had grown far more confident as Ivy; at this point, he had a mental map of every single foothold on this side of the city and he could maneuver around fire escapes and rooftops just as fast as he could on street level, he was quick and he was silent. Barring injury, he had been running around these streets every single night since his second patrol over ten months ago. He had lost track of how many people he brought in or how many people he saved but he couldn’t forget how many people he had lost no matter how hard he tried. He’s sure if he didn’t run himself to literal exhaustion every night that number would keep him awake.
So, he made sure to never take a break long enough to fall back into the pit in his gut that he fell into after his first disastrous patrol. It wasn’t healthy and he had permanent bags under his eyes but it was one of the only things keeping him going. The Shinsos and DJ wouldn’t be enough to save him from the pit in his gut, he knew that for a fact from the few times he was forced to take a night or two off because of injury.
No, Izuku couldn’t be left to his own thoughts for any length of time but Ivy could. Ivy was different so Izuku forced himself to be Ivy as often as possible. Ivy was confident and capable and funny but Izuku was just Deku. Ivy didn’t have to cling onto anything in order to keep going but Deku did.
As confident as Ivy was, he’d never had to make a call to a detective that was possibly trying to trick him into giving up identifying information in order to take him down and throw him into the system. He was a bit nervous. He climbed his way onto the tallest building in uptown, far away from any prying ears. Making sure his mask, both physical and metaphysical were firmly in place, he hit call.
***
It wasn’t until 1 AM that his phone finally lit up with a call from Ivy, he picked up on the third ring, “Detective Tsukauchi speaking.”
“Heeeey, Detective Tsuka! What’d you need from little old me?” Ivy responded, the voice was obviously fake so, unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get any answers on their age or gender without having to ask.
“Ivy, it’s good to hear from you. I have a few questions if you have the time.” He responded, leaving the disappointment out of his tone.
“I figured as much, why should I answer them? If you’re not trying to take me in as you said then what's the point of reaching out to me to begin with? I don’t know your motivations and I don’t have any reason to trust you, why take the risk? What's in it for me?” Ivy clipped back, they weren’t going to beat around the bush, he could respect that.
Tsukauchi thought before responding. He really wasn’t expecting to get this far and Ivy was right, they had no reason to answer any of his questions. What could he offer?
“I can offer my support, in an unofficial capacity, as well as any strings I can pull around here to make your job easier. I also don’t know your motivations, I don’t know the first thing about you. I’d like to trust you to take care of that district but I’m not giving you my backing until I’m sure about you.” Tsukauchi responded cooly, not rising to the bait of Ivy’s accusatory tone.
“Your support? That’s pretty vague, detective. I’m not looking for a cheerleader nor your approval.” they shot back.
“Well, should you ever find yourself caught I could do my best to bail you out, I imagine you don’t have much in the way of backup, do you? I can’t promise you a get-out-of-jail-free card but my word has some sway around here.” He said.
That must be worth something to someone who goes out breaking the law every night, right?
“Hah! Oh, silly detective, I’m not worried about jail, you couldn’t pin a damn thing on me even if you wanted to, try again.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? They had plenty to pin on them, hundreds of calls over the last ten months pretty clearly pointed to vigilantism. You don’t get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time that consistently. Whatever, putting that question aside for a different time.
What else could he offer?
“I know you’re paying for minutes just to make calls to us so, I could continue to fund that if need be.” He was really grasping at straws now, it was ¥3,000, how tempting could that offer really be?
“Hmm, alright. I’ll listen to your questions but I don't guarantee any answers.”
That worked?
Um, alright, Kami, he wished he could do this in person so he could tell if they were lying. Whatever, maybe he could get an age range based on how they answered the questions.
“Fair enough, Ivy. Can you tell me what your motivations for this vigilante act are?” start off broad, nothing too invasive, get them talking.
“My motivations? This place is a shit show, I live here, I’d like for it to be less of a shit show.”
That was not a helpful response at all.
“I’m sure a lot of people would like uptown to be less of a shit show, Ivy. what makes you different? You’re putting quite a lot of effort in for very little if any returns.” he pushed
“What are you gonna make me defend being a good samaritan? I do it out of the goodness of my heart, how about that? What more do you need to know?” Ivy snipped back
They were starting to sound a little irritated but that still didn’t answer his question.
“I find that hard to believe, Ivy. Most vigilantes do it for the publicity, to make a point, ulterior motives, and all that. You’re telling me you don't have any other reason to spend countless unpaid hours putting your life and freedom on the line besides being a ‘good person’?” Tsukauchi continued to poke hoping to get more of a reaction.
“Do you think heroes are all so altruistic, Tsukauchi?”
“No, but they get paid and they get recognition.” he countered.
“You can get paid to do a lot of things and underground heroes exist too, not everyone’s in it for the fame and money. Why do you do your job, detective? That’s not exactly the easiest career path. Did you end up in that position by mistake or did you do it because you wanted to?”
Oh, they were poking him right back. He could play into that.
“Of course, I didn’t end up here by mistake what–”
Ivy cut him off, “Well there you go, I do it because I want to. Now will this conclude our game of 20 questions or…”
Tsukauchi didn’t think that he was going to get any more out of them if he kept pushing. It’d be better to just let it be for now. If he was going to be paying for their phone then they would be able to talk again. He wanted them to trust him so he decided to be honest,
“Hm, I have a feeling you’re not going to answer my questions anyway, I’ll keep in touch.”
“Pleasure doing business with you, detective,” Ivy responded in a chipper tone before hanging up on him for the second time.
Kami, what was he getting himself into?
Notes:
lets goooo exasperated uncle has logged on!
I am so tired! Sorry the chapter was posted so late I was swamped at work today and didn't have any time to fuck around.
Chapter 19: You Are My Dad. You’re My Dad! ~boogie woogie woogie~
Notes:
50k 50k 50k 50k we're almost there, I can smell it *obnoxious sniffing noise*
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-I actually think that's it...lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tsukauchi was getting run ragged. He knew how active Ivy was in theory but in practice, it felt like his phone was buzzing off his desk constantly. How the hell did Ivy do this? He’d been working the night shift for the past two and a half years and his lifeblood was coffee because of it but at least he got paid. Ivy had to have some sort of day job on top of their vigilante-ing because being a vigilante obviously didn’t pay the bills if Tsukauchi had to pay for their phone. He was starting to wonder if Ivy was on drugs because that was the only explanation for that much energy. He hadn’t been able to operate on that little sleep since he was in high school pulling all-nighters just cause he could.
Oh shit.
So that left two options, one: Ivy was cracked out of their gourd, or two: Ivy was actually a child with boundless energy. Tsukauchi wasn’t sure which option was preferred at this point, he was very much hoping for a secret third option of Ivy somehow made it into adulthood with their child-like hyperactivity intact. It was possible but this just added credence to the reports of Ivy being a child. He really needed to see them in person but they weren’t going to show themselves and they clearly traveled by rooftops which is why Tsukauchi had never caught a glimpse of them on his trips to Uptown. He couldn’t exactly go running around on rooftops to look for them either but if they were a child he couldn’t just wait around trying to gain their trust. He needed to get eyes on them as soon as possible, they were bringing in more and more gang members with each passing day. They were painting a target on their own back and either they didn’t know the danger they were putting themselves in or they didn’t care.
Tsukauchi couldn’t follow them around the rooftops to make sure they were safe, but he knew someone who could.
***
Shota had been Patrolling the same district since he graduated, an old friend used to live around here so he kept an eye out on the area for them, maybe it was more than a little sentimental, sue him. If his buddy wasn’t around to watch the streets then he could do it for him, he owed him that much. So, when Tsukauchi called him asking if he could shift his patrol to a neighboring district he was not taking up the request with any sort of enthusiasm.
“Why, exactly, do you want me to do that?” he grumbled.
“The city has my hands tied along with all the local hero agencies and I know you’re a little more freelance. The place is run to the ground and, uh…” he trailed off.
“And uh what, Tsukauchi?” he had a feeling he wouldn’t like where this was headed, Tsukauchi wasn’t usually one to beat around the bush.
“Well, there’s a vigilante running around trying to clean up the place.” the detective continued.
“Okay, and why is that my problem? Sounds like you’ve already got someone taking care of your business,” he said rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too and they’re doing a pretty good job of it. It’s just, well, a few of the people they brought in claimed that they were a child…”
Yup, there it was. Shota did, in fact, not like where this was headed.
“What do you mean a child?”
“Reports say they are quite small and had a child-like voice though some people claimed they were a woman. We aren’t exactly sure and I’m not permitted to get feet on the ground out there and even if I was they seem to travel via rooftops so I was hoping that was where you could come in,” Tsukauchi responded rather sheepishly.
“So you want me to go out there and apprehend the only person keeping that district in line because they might be a child?”
“No, well officially, yes but unofficially, no. I just want to make sure they’re safe. They’ve been tackling the local gang and that’s going to paint a target on their back, whether they don’t know that or don’t care I’m not sure but either way, they are putting themselves at risk and if they are a child then I can’t just stand by and let them get themselves killed.”
Goddamnit.
“Yeah, okay, you owe me big time though,” he said with a groan.
“I already let you use the good coffee maker in my office, I’d say this makes us even, no?” Tsukauchi shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm.
He thought he was real funny.
“...”
“Yeah, okay I owe you,” Tsukauchi conceded.
“When and where should I look for them, do you have any sort of description to go off of?”
“They are short and wear a dark green jacket and a voice-modulating mask but I don’t think there's too many people throwing themselves around the rooftops so you’ll probably know when you see them. As for when and where I’m not sure, their patrols seem completely random, they could be anywhere in uptown but they are out every night so I'd say just poke around and you’ll run into them eventually,” He supplied.
Great, as little information as possible.
“Alright, I’ll shift my patrol starting tonight, you’re welcome,” he said hanging up without waiting for a response.
***
Izuku was pissed.
“Someone who is NOT ME is running along the rooftops at night scooping up criminals in MY STREETS and I bet it’s that goddamn narc’s fault. Ten months of patrolling without seeing another soul lurking on the same streets and now, a few weeks after I get in contact with this detective someone shows up. Nuh-uh. Nope. I’m not gonna let some ‘hero’ come in here and arrest every lawbreaker they see. There won’t be anyone left, you can't survive out here as a law-abiding citizen! Loitering, pickpocketing the rich idiots or assholes walking through town, dumpster diving, and stealing from chain stores are technically illegal but I’m not going to let some hero take my people in for that. They’re doing what they have to do to survive just like I am!”
He was pacing in front of the dumpster ranting to DJ. He’d been fuming like this for nearly a half hour and apparently, DJ was getting sick of it because she reached a paw out and hooked her claws into Izuku’s shirt sleeve forcing him to stop and look at her.
“Oh don’t give me that look DJ they could arrest all the ladies too and then there go most of my friends! Ahhhggggg!”
Izuku tried to continue his pacing but DJ held firm.
He glared at her.
“What?”
She glared back.
“I’m gonna chase them out of town,” he concluded.
“Meerrow,” DJ responded.
“I’m choosing to believe that was a merow of approval.” He said without breaking eye contact.
“Now let go of me, I’ve got some hero’s ass to kick out of town.”
She did not let go so Izuku grabbed her paw and unhooked the claws himself causing DJ to bap him with her other paw. She looked rather disgruntled about getting her paws manhandled but Izuku was out of baping distance by the time she could strike again.
“I’ve got to go DJ this hero could arrest you too for being a menace to society,” he threatened over his shoulder before setting out to the streets.
***
Izuku had only heard of this mysterious hero running around uptown from the locals, he’d yet to actually see them himself but that was gonna change tonight. He headed to the tallest building in the district just as night was starting to fall over the city, if there was anyone on these rooftops, Izuku would see them so he kept his post and waited.
Holy shit that was Eraserhead.
Holy shit that was Eraserhead and he was headed straight for the rooftop Izuku was on.
Izuku was freaking out, holy shit that was Eraserhead headed straight for him, holy shit, holy shit, holy sh– No.
No, that was the hero that was encroaching on his territory and he was headed straight for the rooftop that Ivy was on, not Izuku. Play it cool, there’s no way he’s spotted you yet, he’s not after you. He’s probably headed here for the same reason you did, to get a better view. Calm the fuck down.
Ivy hid themselves in the shadows. This is exactly what they wanted and Eraser was delivering himself straight to them. This was a good thing. They adopted a casual stance leaning against the shaded wall to the roof access stairwell and waited.
***
Shota had spent his last 3 patrols in the red lights district and saw no sign of Ivy. Tsukauchi said that he’d received calls each night and sent him the location immediately but he’d yet to have seen them. The wandering around until he bumps into them tactic was not working so tonight he was going to stake out on the highest vantage point he could find. That was the plan but it looks like someone had already beat him to it.
Thank Kami, this was getting annoying.
In the shadow of the stairwell, a short figure stood watching him despite his silent touch down. They’d likely been tracking his progress from up here because they didn’t look surprised to see him.
“Ivy, I presume?” he greeted
“In the flesh, Eraser. What are you doing in my streets?” a low robotic voice shot back.
That was odd, it’s not often he was recognized, though, it was also not often he confronted vigilantes on rooftops. He hadn’t been hiding for the past three patrols, maybe Ivy had done their research on him which was mildly concerning since they seemed to be using their knowledge to subtly threaten him. Hmm, he could meet that energy.
“Your streets, huh? Legally, I have more reason to be here than you do. What makes these your streets?” he jabbed back.
Ivy gave up on their relaxed posture and pushed off the wall glaring at him.
“Answer the question, Eraser. Why are you here? Did Tsukauchi send you?” they spat out.
They knew Tsukauchi? What the hell was that bastard not telling him about this case? Well, if Tsukauchi wouldn’t tell him, maybe Ivy would. He could play dumb,
“Who’s Tsukauchi and who says anyone sent me? I’m patrolling, that’s my job,” he replied drily
Something about that made Ivy laugh.
“Don’t lie to me, Eraser. You’ve been patrolling the neighboring district for a decade and a few weeks after that detective contacts me you just decide to shift into my territory? Unlikely. No one, hero or police, has patrolled here in ages and you expect me to believe you're just shaking things up for fun? I don’t buy it. So, tell me, Why. Are. You. Here?”
Okay, that was officially more than anyone should know about him and they were angry. He knew next to nothing about them and had no clue what they knew about him. Stupidly, he hadn’t thought for a second that Ivy would be a threat and he came up here with his guard down. Shota was meticulous about his online presence, he had the opposite of a standard PR team who made sure any trace of his hero persona was scrubbed from public record. So that meant that Ivy either got this information by word of mouth or direct observation.
Shota wouldn’t say he was fully threatened but he did have his guard up now. He wasn’t getting anywhere by riling them up.
“You’re well read up on me, aren’t you? You’re right, Tsukauchi sent me, said you were a kid and wanted me to check up on you.” he replied honestly hoping to gain a little trust.
“Hah! A kid? Awww does Tsuka care about widdol old me?” They said with mock endearment before their expression and tone turned on a dime, “How touching. Tell him I’m fine and scram.”
He could understand Ivy being wary of him for their own sake, he had every right to arrest them right now, but they didn’t seem scared, no they were just angry, a protective kind of angry. If they were trying to protect themself then they could have just kept up the cat-and-mouse game they’d been playing but they hadn’t, they were confronting him head-on, so, either they were confident enough that he couldn’t catch him or they weren’t worried about themself at all. They were hiding something they deemed more important than themselves.
They had no mutant quirk, that much was obvious. It was unlikely they had a quirk he couldn’t counter. His chances in a fight seemed favorable, they were tiny, the only thing they could have on him was speed. He could afford to poke the bear.
“You seem both threatened and brash, putting up a front, what are you trying to hide, Ivy?”
“I hide a lot of things, you’ll have to be more specific,” they responded cooly, not rising to the bait.
They were going to make him spell it out for them, vague questions were getting vague answers.
“There’s a reason you don’t want me here and given the fact that you were waiting up here for me, it doesn’t seem like it’s for your own sake, so what is it? If not for your own safety then, logically speaking, you should have no problem with me being here, we’re working toward the same goal, are we not?” He elaborated.
Ivy scoffed, “Working towards the same goal? I’m not here to enforce the law, Eraser. I’m here to keep people safe, they are not the same thing and I don’t trust you to know the difference.”
“And why’s that?”
“I’ve seen a hero take down someone shoplifting baby formula; I don’t exactly consider that justice. Things work different around here and I’m not going to let you run rampant arresting everyone you see breaking the law.” they shot back, he’d definitely riled them up again.
That was quite the nuanced take. That type of critical thinking was the same thing he had to beat into his student’s skulls. Maybe it was an issue of privilege or maybe Ivy was old enough for that type of wisdom. Maybe he could bait them just a bit more.
“Well, then tell me how things work around here. I don’t see things in black and white, kid, I’m sure I can catch on.” Shota said with a sneer.
“Alright just ‘cause I’m short doesn’t mean you can call me kid,” Ivy said back with cool anger in their tone.
“You’re not denying being a kid though.”
Shota set the trap.
“I’m not going to give you identifying information, Eraser. If you think I’m a kid that’s not my problem.”
And Ivy ran away with the cheese.
Damnit.
“Whatever, you going to tell me how things work around here then? I’m not leaving, so either I go out there with my own rules or yours, if they’re logical.” good cop and bad cop weren’t working so he might as well just tell the truth.
Ivy stepped back to the ledge of the roof and hopped up.
“If you’re not leaving uptown then you're also not leaving my sight so do try and keep up.” they said before dramatically stepping off the other side of the ledge.
Notes:
A;DJBFALJSBDFLQWERJBFPQUWBDCV;KWEJHFQERFIUBQWRDFOWRFBJO DAD IS HERE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Anyway, poor Tsuka needs someone he can call without getting hung up on :(
I'm not sure I'll be sticking to daily posts in the coming week. I will almost 4 sure be too busy to post next Friday and I'm not sure what this weekend has in store for me but we'll find out together ig. idk expect daily-ish rather than daily uploads
tysm for reading everyone ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 20: -- FANART -- NOT -- REAL -- CHAPTER --
Notes:
I finished the fan art and I didn't feel like writing today but I still wanted to post it. Sorry for possibly faking u out thinking there was a chapter upload...
Ima jus leave these here...
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Notes:
I just pulled a background from the actual show but I kinda drew Izu closer to my own style this time so idk if it still works. I dunno I dunno I dunno.
I know I could and should push the contrast with the rim lighting but, dog, I am so out of practice and I've always been afraid of contrast, this is the best I got rn. It ain't too bad for only having drawn like four times in the past *checks watch* full calendar year.I know WHAT I need to improve but if y'all have any feedback on HOW to improve I'll take it. I use Procreate btw.
Also, I forgot to draw his gloves but we're not gonna talk abt that. I realized that after I finished the line art and then I thought about drawing more fabric folds and I went brain dead.
I had a lot of ambitions with this piece I was gonna have the light source be his flashlight in his hand and have a lens flare and everything but then I had to draw a foreshortened knee and it went down hell from there...
Chapter 21: Ivy, The Man(?), The Myth, The Child(???)
Notes:
50k 50k 50k 50k 50k 50k 50k AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Sorry for not posting a chapter the last two days I had ~a slight mental breakdown~ just a cute little one, y'know? Anyway, I read all 4 volumes of Heartstopper in basically one sitting and now I'm fine so here's a chapter!
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-mentions of SA
-assault
-gun
-knifelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was freaking the fuck out. He literally just jumped off a roof because he was freaking out so much. Motherfucking ERASERHEAD was here talking to him and of fucking course he wasn’t intimidated by Izuku! Why can’t he just LEAVE??? Izuku wasn’t holding any of the cards and Eraser knew that. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why the hell is it that Izuku had never had issues keeping his Ivy mask firmly in place while facing down drug dealers, gang members, rapists, and murderers but Eraserhead shows up pretty much as unthreateningly as possible, and all the sudden widdol baby 13-year-old Izuku is shivering his timbers.
He needs to pull himself together, he’s Ivy right now and he needs to act like it. Making their way down the side of the building to a height more reasonable to jump to the next rooftop Ivy takes the reigns and falls into the familiar movements of their patrols keeping an eye on Eraser following closely behind.
***
Jesus fucking Christ Ivy just jumped off a 20-some-odd-story building and was already vaulting off the fire escape a few stories down to the next roof over. Either they had some sort of flying/agility quirk or they had no regard for their own life. He wouldn’t even do that without his capture scarf and he’s been throwing himself around cityscapes for almost a decade and a half. Ivy moved with grace not paying any heed to the drop below them and they rolled back up onto their feet on the neighboring roof glancing back to make sure he was following.
The kid(?) wasn’t kidding he was actually going to have to put in effort in order to keep up.
***
Ivy went through a normal patrol following no pattern and going wherever the wind or their whims took them, it was a Thursday night so it wasn’t too busy but Ivy kept a suspicious eye on Eraser every time they passed someone down below in an alley sleeping or rummaging through dumpsters. He made no move to tell them to stop or go somewhere else, good. Izuku knew as much as he could about Eraser’s quirk and fighting style but he didn’t know a thing about his character or values so tonight was a test. Ivy didn’t know how they could possibly drive Eraserhead out against his will but they would figure it out if Eraser stepped a toe out of line tonight.
It wasn’t until an hour later that they came across a mugging in progress. Some lady was holding another woman at knifepoint and demanding she hand over her purse. The woman was fumbling with the strap around her shoulder and Eraser looked to Ivy looking for a cue.
Interesting.
He was still following Ivy’s lead. Was it an act to get on their good side or were they actually going to default to their instructions? Curious to see how Eraser would resolve the situation and also very much wanting a chance to see him up close in action Ivy nodded their head toward the pair below indicating that Eraser should go handle it.
It was pretty low stakes, the first woman didn’t look like they knew how to handle the knife nor like she actually wanted to. From an outsider’s perspective, both women seemed equally afraid of the other. Ivy was sure they could handle it on their own so Eraser should have no problem. The situation would likely be resolved if they just revealed themselves, with no violence necessary. The perfect test. Would he go in and knock the ‘villain’ out and drag her to the precinct or would he see two scared people both down on their luck in the slums and have mercy?
Eraser seemed to realize the situation was unlikely to devolve into violence and this was a test because he took a moment to look at Ivy with a raised eyebrow before dropping down from the roof between the two women facing the one with the knife. With a firm backhand to the wrist, he disarmed her without injury and then quickly restrained her with his capture scarf.
The whole thing was over in seconds and both of them were staring at him with wide eyes but instead of calling it in to the station he just looked back up at Ivy again deferring to their judgment.
Very interesting.
Ivy followed Eraser’s path down to street level. So far so good, how about another test?
Ivy turned to the woman who was being mugged, “Are you alright miss?”
She responded with a shaky nod.
“Are you close to wherever you’re headed?”
Another shaky nod.
“Do you think you could make your way there alright?”
“Y-yeah, it’s just down t-the–” She took a breath to calm herself before continuing, “Yes, yeah. I’ll be fine. It’s just down the block and someone’s there to meet me, I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Alright, good. You can go, we’ll take care of this you don’t have to stick around.”
That wasn’t standard ‘hero’ protocol and Ivy knew that but Ivy also knew that this woman was from around here and she didn’t need coddling. If she said she could make it back safe then she could make it back safe. They were proven right when they watched her pull pepper spray and a shiv out of her purse as she walked away. She’d just been caught with her guard down and she wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Eraser didn’t argue and let her walk away.
The other woman was still in a panic and half-heartedly struggling with her restraints when Ivy shifted their attention to her.
“What’d you need that money for so badly?” Ivy asked
The woman didn’t look like she expected that question. Ivy didn’t recognize her, she must be new in town.
“W-what?” she replied after a moment.
“You obviously need money urgently if you’re out here pointing knives at people with no clue what you’re doing. So, what do you need it for?” They clarified.
The woman looked more confused than ever.
“I-I don’t understand, what do you care?”
“Well, I care because whatever you need you need it desperately enough to do this, clearly for the first time. You don’t want to be here anymore than she did, do you?”
“N-no I-I just–” the woman started to tear up “I’m so hungry I c-can’t– I–”
The woman cut herself off as she sank to her knees and Ivy shot a look at Eraser who unbound her without argument.
“Hey, it’s okay. I understand but you can’t go around taking from people who barely have any more than you do and I can’t let you go around threatening people with a knife. How long have you been on the streets?”
The woman buried her face in shame, “A-a few weeks. I-I haven’t e-eaten in days, I didn’t want to b-but I–”
Ivy knelt down and shushed her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It was pretty clear you didn’t want to, I know. Do you know the mini-mart on block 5?” Ivy asked
“Y-yeah?”
“Shimamoto-san, the man who runs it, gives out day-old pastries at closing. And the cafe on block 18, Mochizuki-san usually has the closing shift, and when she does she puts all the bread in a separate garbage bag in the dumpster because the manager won’t let her give it away. It’s not exactly fine dining but it’s better than nothing. A lot of businesses throw out perfectly good food.” Ivy explained
She looked like she was hanging on to their every word.
“You should find a group, it’s not safe out here on your own,” Ivy said as they picked up her fallen knife and handed it back to her. “There's a group that usually makes camp two blocks south of here you can try with them for tonight, okay?”
“Why aren’t you arresting me? I don’t understand.” She asked
“Well, we could. You’d get food that way, is that what you want?”
“No! No, of course not, I don’t– no.” she quickly denied.
“Then we won’t. Remember what I said though and if I catch you trying this again I will bring you in, got it? I’ve got eyes everywhere, don’t hedge your bets.” They took a stern tone.
“Yes, yes definitely, I won’t,” she assured
“Good, this is all I’ve got right now but you need to eat something.” They said handing her a smushed-up granola bar from their pocket.
She took it gratefully. Ivy gave her a nod before giving Eraserhead a look and jerking his head towards the opening of the alley indicating it was time to go.
Ivy left and Eraser followed without complaint.
Damn, okay. Maybe he isn’t so bad?
***
This was a test and Shota knew it, he wasn’t going to play into it and wait for Ivy to decide he didn’t pass and wasn’t worth their time. A logical ruse, Shota knew these kinds of games well so he defaulted to Ivy rather than letting himself do whatever Ivy deigned the wrong thing. If they weren’t going to tell him what to do then he’d make them show him.
The way they dealt with that situation definitely wasn’t standard protocol but Shota didn’t disagree, it was clear to him that the woman didn’t want to be doing what she was doing and Ivy was also perceptive enough to see that and deal with the situation accordingly. He seems to have passed Ivy’s little test and he was done playing mind games,
“Alright Ivy, I’m not gonna keep waiting for you every time something happens, just tell me what’s a permittable crime and what isn’t around here. I mostly agree with how you handled that but I’m not gonna wait and try to figure out your moral code incident by incident,” he told Ivy once they’d returned to the rooftops and left the earshot of street dwellers.
Ivy just eyed him with the same suspicion they had been all night.
“I passed your little test, didn’t I?” Shota shot back
Ivy took a moment to consider him before they spoke, “Violent offenders get no warning, attempted murder, sexual assault, or attacking with the intent to maim isn’t allowed regardless of circumstance. Loitering and dumpster diving are not crimes nor is stealing necessities from big chain stores.”
They took a pause to gauge his reaction. When he didn’t disagree they continued,
“Buying and selling hard drugs is not allowed but weed is fine. Pickpocketing rich assholes is fair game but pickpocketing from uptowners isn’t but it’s nonviolent so they get a warning–”
“A warning? How many warnings do they get? Warning people isn’t going to stop them if you never give them consequences.” he asked.
Ivy glared at them for the interruption.
“Three strikes for non-violent crimes of any kind before I involve the cops,” Ivy answered, not so politely waiting for him to ask another question without dropping the glare.
“What constitutes a nonviolent crime?” he asked
“Pickpocketing, stealing without force, and sexual harassment,” they answered plainly.
“Sexual harassment? You can’t really arrest someone for sexual harassment.”
“Arresting someone isn't the only way to teach them a lesson Eraser,” Ivy said with a smirk.
Shota got the message from that but unfortunately, he couldn’t make a practice of knocking someone's lights out for being a skeevy prick and keep his hero license.
“Right well I won't be doing that last bit but the rest seems reasonable.”
Ivy looked at him incredulously.
“You’re gonna turn a blind eye if you see someone shoplifting and selling weed?” Ivy asked clearly not believing a word Shota was saying.
“Well, are you gonna tell the cops I’m not doing my job?” he asked in a bored tone.
“No.”
“Then perhaps my observational skills just aren’t as sharp as they used to be, I can’t catch every single shoplifter and drug dealer that passes my line of sight, maybe I’m losing my touch,” he replied sardonically.
The look Ivy was giving him may have gone on indefinitely if they weren’t interrupted by the sound of a scream piercing through the crisp night air. Without hesitation they both went running in the direction the noise came from. They found the source quickly, three men had a woman cornered in an alleyway and one of them held a hand over her mouth to quiet her. There was a large man with a rhinoceros mutation quirk that seemed to be the ring leader of the operation and they were yelling at the woman about how ‘her husband owed them money’ and ‘she’d better go get him before they find him themselves and shoot the both of them dead.’
He couldn’t erase that one’s quirk, he might be a problem. But the other two looked harmless, the man on the right seemed to have a telekinesis quirk if the knives floating around him were any indication and the one on the left had no visible quirk which in Shota’s experience meant he had a nearly 100% chance of being able to nullify it. However, leftie was the one holding the woman’s mouth shut. He should take him out first and then go after the telekinetic, but that left Ivy with that mountain of a man who, if his threats were backed by anything, had a gun, maybe he should–
“You get the goons and get her out of here, I’ve got the rhino,” Ivy said not giving him a chance to argue as they crept away to get into position.
They glanced over to Shota and put up three fingers as a countdown before the two of them jumped down onto the group in sync.
Shota knocked out the first guy on impact, grabbed the woman by the forearm, and slung her as gently as he could behind him and away from the other two men. The second man barely had his wits about him after having all of his knives drop to the ground. He’d retrieved one of them and had it in hand when Shota turned on him. Sending out a loop of capture scarf he ensnared the man’s hand and pulled him toward himself delivering a knee to the gut. With the wind knocked out of him it was easy to disarm and knock him out and leave him on the ground next to his buddy.
Quickly Shota turned his attention to the third man who Ivy was supposed to be fighting, half expecting to see Ivy embedded in a brick wall with the rhino guy ready to charge again. Thankfully, that's not at all the sight that greeted him.
Turning around the man was on the ground and Ivy was pacing and cursing up a storm while unloading a handgun tossing the magazine in one direction, the bullet from the chamber in another, and the actual gun towards Shota’s feet. Once he was done with that he made a vague hand motion to the three men on the ground and their discarded weapons and turned toward the woman they had cornered. Shota had to assume the hand gesture meant ‘you deal with all this’.
Little shit.
With Ivy comforting the victim Shota was, in fact, left to deal with all this. He rounded up all the weapons and patted down the offenders to make sure they weren’t hiding anything on their person before cuffing them. Once he’d finished up he looked back to Ivy who was texting on some phone that looked like it was from a different century.
Sensing his eyes on them they looked up and said, “Tsuka’s on his way, you’ll be a dear and wait for him, won’t you?”
They did not wait for a response before scaling the alley wall and disappearing into the night.
Yup, little shit.
Notes:
I'm thinking of adding a bit of character analysis in the end notes for my interpretation of certain characters that won't get as much POV narration time so that you can understand their motivations for why they do what they do in the narrative without having to switch POV to spell it out each time. I might have time like I did with Shinso to add their tragic backstories or whatever in the fic itself at some point but I don't want to force it in if it doesn't fit the flow, y'know?
So, here's Aizawa:
Like common Fannon, I think Aizawa went through the same villain stereotyping that Shinso did but his parents weren't as supportive of his dreams to be a hero and he's since grown kind of estranged, they haven't talked in years. There wasn't a big falling out where he then decided to go no contact, they just drifted apart. His parents were never very loving, they prioritized their careers and each other over being there for Shota and so he did the same in return when he grew up and moved out. He has no siblings.
Because of the lack of human connection he had in his early childhood, I think he grew cold and distant and he didn't even know he craved that kind of connection until he went to UA and met Oboro, Hizashi, and the others. He was used to being ignored and alone and he didn't know how to handle someone actually wanting to be around him so he tried to push them away but obviously that didn't work. I think Aizawa had always cared for people more deeply than he ever let himself know but Oboro and Hizashi made him realize that. He was letting spite drive him up until this point but those two made him realize he wanted to become a hero simply because he cares about people even if he’d been trying to shut out that part of himself his whole life.
So, when Oboro died Shota took it hard. He hadn't even gotten the chance to fully remove himself from the devil-may-care shell he'd hidden himself in before he was forced to crawl back. I think he cares about others as much as Cannon Izuku does but he tries to pretend he doesn't so he can cling to the mental disconnect that keeps him safe when they inevitably die or leave him.
Aizawa and Izuku are similar in a lot of ways and I think that’s why their connection is so interesting in Cannon. Izuku wears all the emotions Aizawa feels on his sleeve and recognizing that Aizawa wants to protect him, he doesn’t want the crushing pain of what happened to him to happen to Midoriya even though, in this fic and to a lesser extent in Cannon, it already has.
I don’t think Aizawa has fully let himself heal from his childhood, he still has attachment issues and has developed a co-dependency with Hizashi and to a lesser extent Nemuri and Tensei. He still craves connection but he won't let himself grow attached to anyone new. He tried to push everyone away when Oboro died but it didn’t work and he’s accepted that losing any one of these three is going to destroy him no matter how it happens so he keeps them close and depends on them for all his human connection needs. It’s unhealthy but to him the more people he lets in the more people he is going to have the potential to lose so he generally doesn’t risk it.
He clings to those three and throws himself into his work with everything he has. He throws himself into being a hero so that he can save as many people from losing their loved ones as he can. He throws himself into teaching the next generation of heroes so that he can raise heroes that know how to prioritize their own survival just as much as civilians so that they don't die the same way Oboro did. That's the number one lesson he drills into his students' heads even if he himself doesn't always follow it. It's a do as I say not as I do type of thing because he doesn't know how to break the habit after so long but he can snuff out that attitude in his students before it festers into something that can't be stopped.Anyway, I fucking love Aizawa so much.
TYSM FOR READING BYEEEEEE
Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Chapter 22: hehheh… It’s raining cats and dogs innit?
Notes:
300 kudos is on the horizon, I've almost got my filthy little grippers on it tysmmmmmmmmmm
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Minor injury and wound care
-extreme amounts of fluff, literally and figurativelylmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was reeling. He was sitting in his stairwell going over the last few hours. He met Eraserhead, had a crisis, jumped off a roof, got pretty solid proof that one of his favorite heroes and biggest inspirations wasn’t, in fact, a dick head, he finally took down that shitty rhino man that started this whole vigilante thing, and then he ditched Eraserhead to clean up the mess.
That, honestly, could have gone worse but it was still a lot and he was fucking exhausted. He took the time to change out of his vigilante gear and splash some water on his face and pat it dry before finally curling up into his nest for the night. He plugged in his phone and turned off the light and he was just about to give in to the clutches of sleep when he heard a crash and a splash.
What the fuck?
***
Tsukauchi had some goddamn explaining to do. Did Ivy just text him? Ivy already knew who Tsukauchi was and had worked out that it was him who sent Shota here to begin with and none of that did Tsukauchi deem important enough to inform Shota of. A bit miffed, he took out his phone after asking the woman to wait at the front of the alleyway informing her that the police were on their way. She’d either stick around for that or she wouldn’t. He called Tsukauchi who picked up on the first ring and Shota could hear sirens on his end. Good.
“ETA?” he asked flatly
“Ah, so you’ve met Ivy. I was just about to call you, I’m three minutes out.”
“Why the hell are you on texting terms with a potentially pre-pubescent vigilante?” he accused.
“Okay, pre-pubescent is a bit of a stretch… right?” the detective said sounding suddenly unsure of himself
“They’re certainly small enough to be but I don’t know, they seem quite skilled,” he responded.
He hadn’t gotten to see them fight, he’d only heard it, but Ivy would have to know what they were doing in order to take out a man thrice their size not to mention the ease with which they disassembled the firearm. It didn’t seem feasible that a child was capable of that but they did seem young, younger than Shota at the very least.
“I expect you’ll explain yourself when you arrive,” Shota said before hanging up.
***
“…You’re paying for their phone plan?” was his first question after Tsukauchi explained his whole involvement in the case from beginning to present.
“Yeah, it’s like ¥5,000 a month. I might not have two full-time jobs but I am a detective, I can swing it,” he defended.
“You're a shitty sugar daddy to a possibly homeless vigilante is what you are,” Shota muttered under his breath just loud enough for Tsukauchi to hear.
“Eraser!– wait, possibly homeless?” the detective went from offended to concerned in rapid succession.
“They knew very specifically how to help a homeless woman, as I said, it's just a hunch, possibly homeless. That’s pretty much all the information I have that you don’t. Now let's get these guys in the car before I decide not to help you,” he said, effectively ending the conversation.
***
There was a loud crash that sounded like something falling from the ceiling into the sublevel and Izuku really did not want to go check it out.
“Come on Izuku, you’re a vigilante you go out kicking criminals’ asses every night, it's probably just a piece of the roof anyway, come on–” Izuku was in the middle of psyching himself up when a horrible yowl sounded out along with the sound of scratching at the lower door of the stairwell.
What the fuck was that?
Well, an animal clearly, it was an animal but how the hell did they end up there? Did they fall all the way from the roof– OH KAMI ITS DJ! The realization had him sprinting down the stairs and wrenching the door open and sure enough a DJ-sized blob of mud was standing at the door glaring up at him as if it was his fault.
She promptly invited herself in and started making her way up the stairs
“Oh hell no DJ you are not tracking that shit into my nest,” Izuku said as he went to scoop her up before she could get any further.
It went about as well as he’d expected it to. She immediately writhed around and started scratching at him. Little shit. Restraining the murder mittens as much as he could he went and grabbed a towel from his laundry pile and swaddled her up. If looks could kill Izuku would be a dead man. She seemed completely uninjured and given that she regularly jumps off the roof and her fall was clearly broken by water he wasn’t too surprised. Finally getting over his fear turned concern he couldn’t help but laugh.
DJ was a very fluffy and light-haired cat and she looked ridiculous with her fur all weighed down by muddy water swaddled up in a towel and glaring at him. Kami, he was going to have to clean her off, wasn’t he? With that realization, the situation wasn’t as funny. It was early April and it was still too cold at night to let her back outside to dry and who knows what is in the elevator shaft turned sinkhole turned nasty ass pond. DJ could get sick if she tried to groom all that mud out of her coat herself.
Shit.
Luckily Izuku had a pot of rainwater he regularly collected to rinse his face or hands with pretty often. It wasn’t potable given the pollutants of the city but it worked fine to rinse off and clean things with.
“DJ you’re not gonna like this but I promise you it’s for your own good.”
Famous last words.
Izuku stood rearranging things around so that DJ wouldn’t splash them while he held her under one arm and she valiantly fought to crane herself around into a position where she could bite him. He pushed his nest over to the far back corner and set the pot up in the far front corner, hoping that would be far enough. Once everything was cleared out of the way he gently unwrapped DJ who immediately started swatting at him. Doing his best to ignore or dodge the swipes he dunked her bottom half into the pot holding her upright with one hand by the scruff, her back legs were supporting most of her weight so he figured it would be okay. As fast as he could he cupped the water in his other hand and dumped it over the parts of her that didn't fit in the oversized pot.
By the end of it, he couldn’t say she was clean but she was a stray, she probably couldn’t have been considered clean a day in her life. She’d largely returned to her normal color so Izuku called that good enough and fished a cleaner towel out of his nest and dried her off as best he could. Once he was done he finally let her go and she stepped just out of arm's length, sat down, and glared at him.
Kami, she’s never going to let him pet her again.
Sheepishly, Izuku took the second towel and started soaking up the mess DJ’s thrashing had made of the floor but it was absorbent concrete so he couldn’t really do much but let it dry out on its own. Sighing, he flipped on the space heater to expedite the process. Izuku turned to rearrange his nest back into a sleepable configuration and grab some treats for DJ to hopefully regain some of the brownie points he’d just lost with her. When he turned back DJ was curled into a little ball right in front of the space heater.
Kami, she was so freaking cute.
He grabbed the phone he hardly ever used anymore and took a picture of her bathing in the warm light coming from the lamp and heater. It felt good to have her here, it felt right, it felt like home. All at once Izuku realized that this stupid cat was the only living creature he had ever bared his soul to and stayed. Sure it was just because she didn’t understand a word he said but she came to him for help and she was here now and she was warm and safe with him.
Oh, Kami, he was crying.
This is so stupid, of course she came here, it’s the stairs where the fuck else is she supposed to go to get back up?
With a sniffle, he wiped his eyes and tossed a treat that landed right next to her head but she didn’t eat it. She was probably still mad at him and he couldn’t really blame her. He went to turn the light off and as he reached out he saw the state of his arms, it looked like he got into a fight with an entire forest’s worth of paper.
“Damn DJ you beat me up more than patrol does,” he said with a teary, humorless laugh.
He needed to disinfect those at the very least. He definitely didn’t have enough band-aids to cover all of the scratches but disinfecting them and putting on a clean long sleeve shirt should be enough, his immune system had grown quite fortified in his months on the street and the cuts weren't that deep anyway. With a sigh, he pulled out a new shirt and the bottle of rubbing alcohol. This was gonna hurt like a bitch.
It did, in fact, hurt like a bitch. When all that was done he crawled back into his nest with aching arms and finally fell asleep.
***
Izuku was woken up by the standard screeching of his alarm going off. Izuku wouldn’t go so far as to call himself a morning person but he didn't usually have a problem getting up early but today he was just so cozy, getting up was the last thing he wanted to do. He was about to roll over and cover his ears for just a few more minutes when he was jolted awake by movement against his shoulder and a swift bap to the face.
DJ had been curled up in the crook of his neck and shoulder purring and she did not look any happier to have been woken up than Izuku was. That explains why he was so cozy, Kami, she was so cute and all dry and fluffy again and she was CUDDLING UP TO HIM WHILE THEY SLEPT?!?! Oh Kami, oh Kami, she’s so cute and perfect and she doesn’t hate him and– she bapped his face again. And she really wants him to turn off that alarm. Yeah, okay, that's fair.
Izuku leaned over her, silenced the alarm, and laid back down. DJ had closed her eyes again but kept her head upright, she was dozing (SO CUTEEEE). Cautiously he reached out a hand to gently pet the top of her head. She allowed it for a moment before she lazily opened her eyes and bapped his hand away. Okay, cuddles yes, petting no. Message received.
Getting up and walking away from this felt like a criminal offense but this morning was the last chance to get a shower in before the weekend. DJ didn’t seem to mind the stench he was accumulating but he sure did. Nuzzling his cheek into DJ’s side he snapped another picture this time of the two of them and stayed there for as long as he possibly could before he knew he wouldn’t have time to fit in a shower before class. He dragged himself out of bed, put his uniform on, and left the door cracked open so DJ could make her way out if she wanted to.
Maybe he could add a cat door to the top of the staircase?
Notes:
I'm thinking of drawing those two pictures Izu took but I've somehow literally never drawn a cat before? Don't know how that's possible but here we are I guess. I'll probably end up at least trying and I'll update this chapter with them and notify y'all in the beginning notes of whatever chapter I'm on at that point.
I have two other drawings besides the cat pics that I want to do but one of them is really ambitious and I'm ~afraid~ eeeeeep I'll keep the art coming tho, one way or another. I'm getting myself back in practice through the power of fan art of a fan fic.Thank you all for reading ilysmmmmmmmmmmm byeeeeeeeeeeeeee
EDIT: GUYS STOP GETTING TO ATTACHED TO DJ SHE AIN'T GON MAKE IT I TOLD U WHEN I INTRODUCED HER AND I'M NOT TRYING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING Y'ALL CRY
Chapter 23: Alright. Well, I guess this is Just my life now.
Notes:
300 KUDOS???!?!? *smashes gingerbread house* CAN WE GET THIS FIC TO 500 KUDOS??!?!??
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Vague mentions of violencelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So what do you think we should do, Aizawa? You’ve seen them up close, are they really a kid?” Tsukauchi asked.
Now that was the million-dollar question. Ivy seemed confident and their skills were nothing to scoff at but Shota couldn’t stop thinking about how small they were and those big round eyes screamed that they were a child. But people have all kinds of quirks and mutations to look all kinds of ways nowadays, you really can’t assume anything with certainty.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get to actually see them take that guy down but they did. Maybe they used a quirk? But the way they were throwing themselves around the city is something that took me years to master. So, there are four options, 1.) They had a quirk to help them do that and they are a child who somehow used an agility quirk to take down a 300+ lbs man. 2.) They have some other quirk and used that to take down the guy and they are just throwing themselves around rooftops without the assistance of a quirk as a child. 3.) They have some type of quirk that helped them do both those things as a child, or, 4.) They aren’t a child at all and we have no idea what their quirk is.”
“I really hope it’s the fourth option.”
“So do I Tsukauchi, so do I.”
“Can you keep an eye on them until we can say it’s option 4 with a little more certainty?” The detective asked with a grimace.
Shota just stared at him with tired eyes for a moment before speaking,
“Yeah, fine,” He paused and thought before adding, “Give them my number and tell them to text me a meeting location. I don’t want to spend another 3 patrols wandering around looking for them.”
“So it's a problem when I’m on texting terms with a ‘potentially pre-pubescent vigilante’ but it's fine when you are,” Tsukauchi said in a mocking tone already pulling out his phone and sending the message.
Again Shota just stared at him with a tired and unamused expression.
“Yeah, whatever, I sent the message, you can go. Let me know if they reach out.” Tsukauchi replied with an eye roll.
***
Friday afternoon found Izuku trying to saw through a metal door with a hand saw. He really wanted to install a cat door but he’d been at this for half an hour and he’d gotten about an inch into the cut. His flimsy little coping saw was liable to break before he finished this. He really needed a jigsaw or even a reciprocating saw to get through this because this dinky coping saw literally wasn’t going to cut it.
He knows he’s seen a lot of power tools around Dagobah but he was a little too afraid to mess with those. Shocking himself on circuitry was one thing but cutting his fingers off because he didn’t know how to use a tool properly was something he didn’t want to tempt. He’d do it for DJ though.
He was just about to head to the beach to poke around for a while before patrol when his phone vibrated in his pocket. The detective was the only one who had his number, what the hell was he texting him on a Friday afternoon for?
Narc:
(xxx)-xxx-xxxx Eraser wanted to pass on his number, said he wanted to meet up with you for patrol again.
What the hell? He just gave him Eraserhead’s number?!?!?! His life was so fucking weird, why did Eraser want to patrol with him again? He left him to deal with that whole mess in the alley last night and Izuku’s not sure what partner patrol etiquette is but he’s sure that that was not it. Izuku took a minute to think through last night trying to figure out why Eraser would give him his number so that they could patrol together.
Oh.
Yeah, he said he was sent here because Tsuka thinks he’s a kid which to be fair, he is, but he doesn’t need Eraserhead to be assigned babysitting duty. Whatever, he’s not going to pass up the opportunity to study Eraserhead in action because of his pride.
Ivy:
Papa Tsuka says you’re my new babysitter.
Eraserhead:
Somehow I doubt he said that. Ivy, I Presume?
Ivy:
Yes. I do appreciate the concern, Eraser, but I don’t need a chaperone. However, I do think that you need one. Meet me same place same time tonight.
Okay, maybe he’d let his pride get the better of him a little bit. It wasn’t entirely a lie, he still didn’t fully trust Eraser to follow the rules he set out and he did want to keep an eye on him but he definitely didn’t need a chaperone, especially not from Izuku.
Right. Well, looks like he’s patrolling with Eraser again tonight. That’s a normal and fine thing that he isn’t freaking out about at all.
He continued on his way to Dagobah to waste the rest of daylight looking for an electric saw of any kind. He still had a good 4 hours until nightfall when he had to meet Eraser in uptown so hopefully he’d get lucky in that time and find a perfectly functional reciprocating saw sitting atop a very structurally sound pile of trash.
Yeah, he wasn’t holding out too much hope for that.
***
When Ivy made his way to the rooftop he told Eraser to meet him at he was already sitting on the ledge waiting for him… drinking a juice box? Um okay, it’s not like adults weren't allowed to drink juice boxes but this definitely isn't what he expected to see when he made his way up here.
“Hey, Eraser I thought I was supposed to be the kid here why are you the one drinking the juice box?” Ivy taunted.
“Not a juice box, nutrient packet,” he replied after slurping down the rest of it in one go.
“Mmmmhmmm. A strawberry kiwi-flavored nutrient packet, *not* a juice box. Got it, my apologies.”
“They’re good and I’m a busy man.” he fished another one out of one of his pockets and tossed it to Ivy, “Don't knock it til you try it.”
Ivy eyed him suspiciously, did he think he was just gonna take his mask off and eat it in front of him? It was still sealed and Izuku doubted Eraser was trying to roofie him or something but there was no way in hell he was just gonna take his mask off so they raised their eyebrow at him and pocketed the packet.
“I’ll be sure to report back on that, Eraser. Uh, thanks,” they supplied awkwardly.
“Mhmm. Where are we headed tonight?” He responded, the perfect picture of nonchalance.
What was his angle? He was just pretending like this was a completely normal meet-up, like they’d been doing this for years. Was he trying to get them to let their guard down? Because it was having the opposite effect entirely.
Ivy simply shrugged in response
“What do you mean” *shrugs* “Where do you usually go?”
He was clearly fishing for more information, trying to get their patrol routes. What the hell was he after? If he were gonna bring him in he could have done it a thousand times by now but he hadn’t.
“What's your angle, Eraser? You’re clearly trying to gather information on me but you’re not bringing me in. What gives?” They replied with an accusatory tone.
“I’m not trying to fool you, Ivy. Tsukauchi and I are worried you’re too young to know the trouble you're putting yourself in here. I’m just keeping an eye out. If and when I decide you know what you’re doing I’ll leave you alone. The city has the police and local hero agencies steer clear of here for one reason or another but I work a little more independently so I can patrol where I want and this place clearly needs it. So if you’ll let me, I’d like to help.”
He didn’t look like he was lying, he gave no clear tells but the man hardly emoted at all so Ivy wasn’t sure what kind of tell they’d be looking for to begin with. Whatever, they didn’t have a set patrol route for this exact reason so they didn’t have anything to hide.
“I don’t have any set routes, makes me too easy to find.” They paused before adding, “Pick a number 1 through 20.”
They forgot to roll their die before they left for Dagobah to decide the night’s patrol but Eraser had no clue what the numbers correlated to so asking him should give a sufficiently random number.
“Uh, 17?” Eraser responded sounding confused at the apparent change in subject.
“Then we’re headed North East of here tonight,” Ivy responded turning on their heel and making their way in that direction.
***
And so on they went. Given that it was Friday it was a lot more active tonight than last night. They intervened in one drunken brawl, a mugging, and some guy jeering and following a woman around all before they even made it to whatever Ivy deemed sector 17.
It wasn’t the best showcase of Ivy’s fighting prowess but they were fast, very fast. That seemed to be the cornerstone of their fighting style. They were too quick and slippery for most people to land a hit on them which was a very helpful skill to have but it wouldn’t save them if they were backed into a corner. They relied heavily on the element of surprise and quick takedowns like Shota tended to but they couldn’t rely on that forever, they couldn’t be a one-trick pony. He’d have to gather more data.
When they finally reached the area Ivy was leading them to they had a moment of silence, nothing was happening yet but Ivy was studying the streets intensely, not letting their guard down. It seemed as good a time to ask a question as he was going to get.
“How’d you learn to fight, kid?”
Ivy glared at him for the nickname but answered regardless, “Necessity.” they stated bluntly.
Well, that didn’t ease his concerns but it did make a bit of sense if they grew up in the area.
“Not everyone around here can fight like that, you telling me you learned how to do all that on your own? You didn’t have a teacher or a mentor or something?”
“Oh, no Eraser, I assure you necessity is a very efficient teacher.”
Okay, gentle questioning clearly wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
“You get yourself into enough trouble that it was a necessity that you know how to take down a 300 lbs mountain of a man with a gun?” He prodded.
“Yes and no,” they paused before continuing as if unsure they should share the next bit, “I’ve always been a target and that taught me how to evade, I was sick of evading so I learned how to fight,” they stated it like it was the most obvious thing in the world and not a highly concerning bit of information. “And if I know how to fight, then I can help those who don’t.”
“What do you mean you’ve always been a target?”
“Sorry, Eraser, you don’t have the option of unlocking my tragic backstory yet,” they quipped before going back to studying the streets below, “try again once you’ve leveled up.”
The rest of the night went by without much fanfare. In most of the incidents they intervened in the offenders were inebriated to some degree and didn’t put up much of a fight. Ivy would drop down and either disarm or knock out their target before they even knew what happened. It was becoming more and more apparent that Ivy had survived this long because they didn’t let themselves get into something they couldn’t get out of, they always looked to Eraser before engaging with a group of three or more opponents. It was smart for them to not get involved with something they couldn’t handle but that wouldn’t save them forever. Things don’t always go to plan and Shota wasn’t sure that Ivy would be able to hold their own if a fight were drawn out or they were cornered or they were too outnumbered or they didn’t have the element of surprise.
That was a lot of blind spots to have. Ivy was very good at what they did but they needed to be able to do more if they were going to keep themselves safe in the long term. Especially with them making an enemy out of the local gang. It was only a matter of time before that gang came to the same realization that he did and went after Ivy as a group.
***
The night was winding down and it looked as though Ivy was getting ready to call it. Well, it was now or they’d have to wait until next time and Shota didn’t think they were going to take this well so he figured it would be best to give them time to cool off. It’d be better to get it over with now.
“You rely too heavily on the element of surprise, Ivy.”
As expected, they shot him a dirty look for the comment but they didn’t argue.
“You’re very good with stealth, sneak attacks, and evasion but you won’t always have that on your side. If someone spots you first or you’re cornered, stealth and speed won’t help you, they aren’t infallible,” he continued.
“Nothing’s infallible, Eraser,” they said clearly getting irritated with the unprompted critiques.
“True, but it doesn’t hurt to have more than one trick up your sleeve,” he countered.
“Well what the hell else am I supposed to do then? Just go around and announce my presence beforehand and hope I make it through enough fights to learn some new tricks?” They quipped back, they were definitely fed up now.
“No, that would be stupid. I could teach you.”
Ivy paused at that. They looked less angry and more suspicious but they didn’t respond.
“I’ve got a day job teaching brats how to fight and I’ve seen more potential in you then I have in anyone for the past 6 years I’ve been teaching. I don’t want to stand around and let someone take you down ‘cause you’ve got a few blind spots. It’d be a waste of potential,” he said truthfully.
Ivy looked at him dumbstruck.
After an uncomfortable moment of that Shota snapped his fingers in front of their face a few times, “Kid?”
They shook their head and blinked away the fog that had set over their expression.
“Um, sorry, yeah. O-ok,” they finally replied.
He’d never heard them sound or look so unsure of themselves. Interesting, he filed that bit of information away. The look only lasted for a moment before they returned to normal.
“I see you carry around a knife and you know how to disarm someone but I’ve never seen you use it. Do you know how?”
“Yes, to a degree. I don’t have much practice because I try not to resort to fileting people if I don’t have to, Eraser.” they snarked back.
“I’ll bring some blunted blades next time and we can spar just to see where you’re at. You’re good with mobility and hand to hand but you don’t have any ranged defense or offense. Have you ever tried throwing knives?”
“Uh, no I have not.” they said with a raised eyebrow.
“Right, well we can try those out too. They’d suit your current style well. Can I see your baton?”
They handed it over with a healthy amount of uncertainty.
Getting a closer look at it Shota realized, “This is a flashlight, kid.”
“Yeah, what of it?” they snipped back with their arms crossed over their chest defensively.
“Where did you even get this? It looks like it was made to be a baton as well, is this actual support gear?”
“Found it on the beach, figured it washed up from the coast guard or something. Finders keepers though, give it back,” they were starting to get antsy from being unarmed.
They only trusted him about as far as they could throw him which was probably further than the average person their size but it still wasn’t very far. Hopefully he could change that, he meant what he said. Ivy had a lot of potential and they were doing a lot of good around here and Shota didn’t want to see another young hero meet an untimely end because of one stupid mistake. He handed the flashlight back.
“Meet in the same spot tomorrow a few hours early and we can go through a few drills just to see where you’re at, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Um, thanks.” Ivy responded, some of their sheepishness from before seeping into their tone.
They did the same thing when he’d given them the nutrient pouch and praised them on their potential, they didn’t seem to know how to handle kindness directed at them. That was definitely another thing to add to the growing pile of concerns Ivy had brought up.
With a nod they made their way off the roof going wherever it is they went after patrol. Shota could only hope it was home and not some dirty alleyway.
***
Oh, Kami. Oh, Kami. Oh, Kami. Oh, Kami. Oh, Kami.
Eraserhead just offered to teach him how to fight. THE Eraserhead just told him he had more potential than anyone he’d taught in the last 6 years. THE ERASERHEAD just roasted him on his inability to hold up in a fight without the element of surprise. THE ERASERHEAD JUST OFFERED TO SPAR WITH HIM AND TEACH HIM HOW TO USE THROWING KNIVES.
What the fuck what the fuck what thefuckwhatthefuckwha–
He was so in his own head he didn’t realize he was home until DJ touched down on the dumpster in front of him knocking him out of his fanboy panic with her customary dumpster jumpscare.
“DJ you are not going to believe what just happened.”
Notes:
Thank you all so much for reading!
I don't have a character analysis for Tsukauchi bc I'm pretty much just making him the comic relief uncle. Sorry Tsuka stans <3
Chapter 24: Oh no, They’re Traumatized.
Notes:
Here's a long chapter to make up for the probably no chapter tomorrow! I got a lot of shit going on tomorrow and my car is valiantly trying to kill itself atm which is super fun and cute! I've had this car since I was 16 and I s2g if she dies on me I'm GOING TO CRY.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Panic attack
-Knifelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday morning found Izuku waking up bright and early and booking it to the library. Well, bright and early was relative, it was already 10 o’clock but he had been using Saturdays to try and make up for all the sleep he tended to lose during the rest of the week. Regardless of the time, he had a lot of research to do. He needed to read up and study as many videos of knife throwing and sparring as he could before he was due to meet Eraser later this evening. He was not going to go in there ill-prepared and make an utter fool of himself. Eraser already pointed out every flaw in his fighting technique after one and a half nights of patrol so even if he wasn’t expected to know anything about knife throwing he couldn’t let himself look completely useless.
Eraserhead said he had potential and he was not trying to change his mind even if the sentiment was under the misguided assumption that he wasn’t a Null. Eraser didn’t need to know that, and Izuku would literally rather die than tell him. Ivy was allowed to be mysterious so they could get away with not broadcasting their quirk or lack thereof indefinitely… hopefully.
The library was always busier when he went on the weekends, probably given that it wasn’t usually 6:30 AM when he went on weekends so he was pleased to see that his usual spot was still open.
Oh! Shinso was there too! He’s never here on weekends! As he walked over to his usual spot Shinso greeted him.
“Hey Midoriya,” he said with a wave.
“Hey Sh-shinso, what are you doing here on the w-weekend?” He asked.
“Oh, the lady who has this shift had to call off for something and my mom dragged me along. Are you usually here on weekends?” Shinso asked back
“N-not always but sometimes.”
Their conversation trailed off as Izuku went about the research he had planned to do and it didn’t take long for Shinso to ask about what he was researching.
It caused Izuku physical pain to not immediately tell Shinso that HE MET ERASERHEAD. He ranted and raved about the whole thing to DJ but she didn’t really match his energy level about the whole situation and he very desperately wanted someone to freak out with. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a casual way to tell Shinso he was a technically legal vigilante and Eraserhead had offered to personally teach him how to fight. No there would be a lot of concerned questions about that and he couldn’t risk it. He also couldn’t come up with another feasible reason why he’d met Eraserhead at all much less had him offer to mentor him.
“Oh, j-just some self-defense and o-other stuff like that,” Izuku replied trying to sound nonchalant.
“Do you really know how to do stuff like that,” Shinso asked looking at the video about knife fighting playing on mute over his shoulder.
“Oh, um, I-I know a little. I’m t-trying to learn,” he replied awkwardly.
“That’s pretty cool, you wanna be a hero or something when you grow up?” Shinso asked.
“Hah, uh, y-yeah. T-that would be n-nice, but I don’t t-think it’s in the cards f-for me.” He responded, doing his best to keep the melancholy from seeping into his tone.
“Yeah, I get that. I don’t think it’s in the cards for me either,” Shinso said looking down at his feet.
Not in the cards for him? Why not? He hadn’t told Izuku what his quirk was but he did say he had one and if it was anywhere as cool as his mom’s he could make a great hero!
“I b-bet you’d make a great hero, you sh-shouldn’t give up on yourself s-so easily,” Izuku said looking away from the computer screen so Shinso could see that he was serious.
Shinso tried but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. He looked sad.
“I-I mean that.”
Shinso’s face scrunched up somewhere between a grimace and a frown, he clearly didn’t believe him. Izuku probably shouldn’t push the matter but he couldn’t stand that look of defeat on his face.
“Y-you don’t have to t-tell me, but w-why do you think you can’t be a hero, Shinso?”
Shinso looked like a deer caught in headlights. He was finally able to meet his eyes but they were filled with fear now and that wasn't really preferable to the look of defeat from before.
Oh shit, he fucked up.
“Y-you d-don’t have to t-tell me, Sh-shinso. I-it’s okay! R-really!” Izuku tried to backpedal.
“No, it’s fine it’s just my quirk isn’t suited for heroics.”
Ah, okay. Shinso was just an idiot. He could work with that.
“Shinso, one of the t-top 10 heroes in Japan is a w-washing machine with a b-bubble quirk,” Izuku quipped flatly.
Shinso snorted at that but still didn’t look convinced.
“No, it's not like that. It’s different– I– ugh! It’s just not gonna happen Midoriya, I’ve accepted it. You have your reasons and I have mine, let's just leave it at that. For what it’s worth, I think you could make a great hero, maybe you shouldn’t give up on yourself so easily,” Shinso said, immediately turning around and going back to his spot without giving Izuku the chance to argue.
Well, he was going to have to convince Shinso he could be a hero one way or another but apparently not today. He had research to do anyway and he was on a time crunch.
***
Hitoshi was a stupid idiot coward. Why the hell did he say any of that??? He went in and set himself up for the perfect opportunity to tell Midoriya about his quirk with no intention of following through and then just walked away. Kami, he was so awkward he shouldn’t be allowed to interact with the general populous.
He went back to playing stupid flash games on the computer in order to resist the urge to launch his face through the desk.
There was something bothering him about that interaction though, why did Greenie not think he could be a hero? He was clearly a genius who apparently already had a headstart on knife-fighting capabilities, what could be holding him back? He’d been operating under the assumption that Midoriya had some sort of intelligence quirk but maybe not.
Maybe he was like him. Maybe he could understand.
***
Izuku had scheduled to meet with Eraser at 6 o’clock tonight and he had stashed some potentially usable power tools in the freezer at Dagobah yesterday that he wanted to bring back to the warehouse before leaving. He also wanted to go through some warm-up drills on his own before he left. So, he left the library around 4 with a wave to Shinso who had been avoiding him since their conversation earlier. Hopefully, things would be less awkward come Monday morning.
On the way to the beach, Izuku stopped by a big box drug store and swiped a single black eyeshadow compact, Eraser had only ever gotten to see him in the dim glow of streetlights with his features mostly cast in the shadow of his hood. Hopefully, this would make it hard enough to recognize any distinguishing features that would be on display in the full light of day. It would at least cover up any freckles that peaked out above his mask.
By the time 5:30 rolled around, there was a pile of junked-up power tools sitting in the lower landing of his stairwell and Izuku was suited up and inexpertly smudging black eyeshadow around his eyes with his index finger. It was messy and it looked a little too edgy for his taste but it was better than nothing. Deciding it was as good as it was going to get he set off, staying above street level and out of sight as much as possible. He’d never been out as Ivy in the daytime, it felt wrong.
Taking the long way around had him showing up on the rooftop just before 6 but he didn’t see Eraser around yet so he figured he wasn’t too late. Izuku sat on the ledge kicking his feet and keeping an eye on the time as he waited. It wasn’t until 6:03 that they heard Eraser touch down on the other side of the roof.
“You’re late, Eraser,” they taunted over their shoulder before lazily turning around.
“Had to make a stop,” he said gesturing to the large and slightly beat-up piece of cardboard he was holding. It looked like he fished it out of a dumpster. “I didn’t realize we were on such a strict schedule,” he snarked right back.
Ivy was just about to ask what the piece of cardboard was all about when Eraser turned to the wall of the roof access stairwell, held the board up to it, pulled out a knife, and with no insignificant amount of force, stabbed it into the top of the cardboard pinning it to the BRICK WALL behind it.
Well, that was a bit more than mildly threatening.
He turned around after he was done as if that wasn’t the most off-putting display of strength he’d seen from him yet. Maybe it was because it was so casual or maybe it was because there was no one else here, no common enemy. Whatever, they shook the image from their mind.
“It’s not ideal but it’ll do for now,” he explained as he pulled out a marker and started drawing messy concentric circles, oh… it was a target.
Okay, that's fine. Heh… hmm…
“I uh, I don’t think I can throw a knife with enough force to stick into a brick wall, Eraser,” Ivy pointed out awkwardly.
“I don’t expect you to. The cardboard’s just to show accuracy, that’s what we’ll be working on first. Building up the strength to throw a knife into a brick wall isn’t a skill I’d want you to have if you don’t have the aim to have it hit where you intended it to anyway,” he responded, nonchalant as ever.
Yeah, that made sense.
“I’ll bring a wood panel some other time when we start working on the power behind your throws,” he added.
“Okay, sounds good,” Ivy responded still feeling supremely awkward about the whole situation.
“We’ll get to all that later though, first I want to see your hand-to-hand skills,” he said as he shifted his feet into a fighting stance and faced Izuku.
Oh, Kami, never mind this was far more threatening than the knife thing, that wasn’t even directed at him. He could already taste the gravel that covered the rooftop, this was not going to end well. It was just flat open space up here except for the roof access thing. There was nowhere for him to get high ground or run away to without just throwing himself off the roof. Eraser was right, if he didn’t have the element of surprise he might as well just be little old Deku facing down Kacchan and his goons at school.
He was no doubt broadcasting his fear because Eraser relaxed his stance before speaking, “I’m not actually gonna hurt you, kid. It’s just a spar,” he said in a much more gentle tone than he usually spoke in.
Kami, he was supposed to NOT be making a fool of himself and now he no doubt looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“You’ve never sparred before have you?” He continued without waiting for an answer, “Right, let's set some ground rules. No head or groin shots and if you get the opportunity to land a hit that might actually injure your opponent then pull your punch and the match point will automatically be given to whoever found the opening. Is that agreeable?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. That’s fine,” he choked out after he’d got some semblance of a hold of himself.
“Alright, a pulled punch or pinning your opponent wins the match, you good to start?” He asked graciously ignoring their mini panic attack.
They’re Ivy right now, not Deku, and Eraser wasn’t going to hurt them. This was fine. They mirrored his fighting stance before replying, “Yes.”
Immediately Eraser charged at them and they dove out of the way, missing them by a hair. He made a few more passes before he brought out the capture scarf and Ivy wasn’t so good at evading that, less than a minute after they had begun Eraser had ensnared their ankle and sent them sprawling into the gravel.
Ouch.
“Ivy, I already know you can evade. I want to see if you can fight,” he said removing his capture scarf, releasing their ankle, and setting it aside. “Come on, you make the first move this time. I'm ready when you are.”
Oh, Kami, they’re fucked. How did he make disarming himself look threatening?
Come on, come on, you’re Ivy, not Deku. Ivy, not Deku. You know how to do this, you’ve done this, you can do this, just do it.
Getting up and taking a moment to shake out their nerves they thought about what they’d seen of Eraserhead’s fighting style, he was just another opponent, they needed to analyze him and find his weak points, he wasn’t anything special, just another opponent. They didn’t even have a quirk to worry about this time since his was useless on them. Alright, Eraser’s fighting style, whether consciously or not Ivy had built up a skill set pretty similar to his. He used the environment to his advantage, where most people saw barriers he saw tools but there were no barriers here putting them both at a disadvantage, that didn’t help. What else? Eraser said they weren’t supposed to be working on evasion but that didn’t mean they couldn’t use it to their advantage, it really was the only advantage they had against Eraser. Ivy was faster but Eraser was stronger so the only way they were going to win this fight was if they managed to get in close, land a hit, and retreat until they tired him out enough to take him down. However, if Eraser managed to get a hold of them or even just get one good hit in they were toast.
It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the only one they had.
Alright, here goes nothing.
Without warning Ivy charged at Eraser feigning a right hook but actually putting their momentum into a kick to his flank. Eraser still blocked but Ivy expected that and they were already on the retreat before he could land a hit in return.
Ivy continued to bounce around him forcing him to keep turning to keep them in his sight not giving him the chance to throw a punch or do much of anything besides dodge. This was not a viable method, it expended much more of their energy than his.
As expected they started to flag and Eraser managed to land a glancing hit to their ribs. It wasn’t enough to take them down but it definitely didn’t feel good. It was just a game of cat and mouse, if he had kept his capture scarf this fight would be over just as quickly as the first, he was going easy on them but there was still no way they were going to win this.
Eventually, one of Ivy’s punches was slow enough for Eraser to grab them by the wrist and wrench it behind their back pinning them to the ground.
Oh fuck, that was a familiar sensation, he was pinned down and defenseless. He was pinned down and they were going to hurt him, there was nothing he could do, they were gonna hurt him, no one was gonna help him, he was alone and he was too weak to save himself, they were gonna hurt him, he had to get out get out get out get out–
He thrashed around and the pressure released but his ears were still ringing.
He scrambled away and turned back to see his attacker, his– wait, no. Shit.
Ivy hoped that their quickened breaths could be explained away by all the running around they’d just done but if Eraser’s concerned look and raised hands were anything to go by they were guessing they probably couldn’t just brush that under the rug.
Fuck.
Shit.
Oh, great.
Goddamnit.
Kami, Eraser was right they couldn’t fight for shit. This wasn’t even the first time this happened, whenever Ivy got backed into a corner Izuku came out and fucked everything up. The last time this happened he had to learn how to give himself stitches because some thug left him to bleed out in an alley. He was lucky he walked away from that.
Eraser’s mouth was moving, oh shit he was trying to talk to them. Pull yourself together dumbass, you’re fine, you’re not bleeding out in an alley this time, you’re fine just fucking breathe.
Just breathe.
In for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Out for four counts.
Hold for four counts.
Rinse and repeat.
Once he got a hold of himself he shoved the Ivy mask firmly back into place.
***
Shota approached this situation poorly. That was pretty obvious in hindsight. He was operating on auto-pilot as he would with most of his students, a bunch of cocky self-righteous flashy-quirked toddlers that grew up on gentle parenting and the whole world as their cheerleaders. Obviously, Ivy was different. He didn’t exactly come in guns blazing threatening expulsion but he should have known given how they cringed when shown the slightest bit of kindness that they weren’t exactly the picture of perfect mental health. They already looked scared before they’d even started and when he squared up they froze. He should’ve stopped then but he didn't want Ivy to think he was coddling them. He had a feeling they wouldn’t take kindly to that either.
They had been doing well during the second round. He could hardly land a hit and they were forcing him into defense, it would have been a good strategy if they packed a little more of a punch but as it was they just tired themself out and gave him the chance to pin them. He shouldn’t have taken the chance, he should’ve pulled the punch and called it. Damnit.
Now Ivy was sitting on the ground looking up at him without seeing him and damn near hyperventilating. He put his hands up in front of himself to show that he meant no harm. There seemed to be a flash of recognition after a moment but they weren’t calming down.
“Ivy, you’re okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said trying to get their attention and or calm them.
Kami, this would really be a problem if this happened while they were on patrol. Freezing up like that would get them killed. He couldn’t let them go out alone knowing this was a risk and they really aren’t gonna want to hear that. Whatever, he’s getting ahead of himself, one problem at a time. The kid started to mutter something under his breath that he couldn’t fully make out, but what he did hear was enough,
“…you’re not bleeding out in an alley this time, you’re fine…”
Oh, fucking great. So, this has already happened to them on patrol. How were they still alive?
They appeared to be working their way through a breathing exercise now, the fact that they knew to do that was both reassuring and alarming. It was good that they knew what to do but clearly, this was a frequent enough issue for them to have learned how to deal with it which was less than ideal. He remembered what they said the other night,
“I’ve always been a target.”
That was a loaded statement and one that Shota desperately wanted elaboration on but he knew he wasn’t going to get it, not anytime soon at least.
For now, he just had to wait patiently and let Ivy get a hold of themself. He felt useless.
After a minute Ivy drew in one more deep breath and their expression dropped back to the jovial snarky little shit face they normally wore. It was unsettling the way they flipped on a dime.
“Right, we’re not gonna talk about that,” they said in their normal chipper tone.
He was not qualified to deal with this.
“I, uh, I think we’re gonna have to talk about that, kid. But we can save that for another day,” he was not equipped to have that conversation without talking to Zashi beforehand; this was their area of expertise, not his.
He knew how to talk to traumatized kids, it came with the job, sometimes both jobs, but this situation was beyond delicate and he wasn’t about to risk fucking it up by demanding answers. No, he needed to field some questions first. Maybe he should ask Hound Dog… never mind, he could psychoanalyze this later.
“You seem to have a good foundation to start from but I am a terrible match-up for you which, unfortunately for you, makes me the perfect teacher. We largely excel in the same areas, mobility, stealth, and strategy but I’ve got you beat on strength and experience. What we need to focus on is your strength and confidence, you hesitated too much, and if this were a real fight that could get you killed. Your strategy, however, could have worked if you could pack a bigger punch, the knife work could help you there but as you said, ideally, you don’t want to go around fileting people. I notice you were aiming for pressure points which is a good strategy as well but if you’re going against someone who knows how and when to block then that’s not going to help you. However, a block can only do so much against brute force. Your size will obviously limit how hard you can hit but you could still bulk up, a small frame helps with speed and agility but bulking up a bit shouldn’t impede those too much.”
Ivy seemed to take the spiel in stride but given how he’d just watched their expression change on a dime he’s not sure how much he trusted it.
“Do you agree?” he prompted.
“Yeah, yeah, I need to get more stronger, now, how about throwing knives?” they asked with a feral gleam in their eye.
He was going to regret this, wasn’t he?
Notes:
I'm working on cat pics, I've got the sketch done for the selfie pic Izu took in chapter 22 and I'm hoping to upload that by the 26th for @Habizuh_Animations' birthday ❤️❤️❤️
I'll let you guys know if I upload that bc I will be adding it to the chapter where it's discussed not in a new chapter just bc I think that makes the most sense.Anyway, tysm for reading ❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 25: This is Fine.
Notes:
*****EDIT: I have contracted an illness and I am brain dead, idk when I will have enough coherency to write again so just curb ur excitement ig I dunno I'm gonna go back to bed now
CAT PICS, CAT PICS, CAT PICS.
Check the end of chapter 22 for cat pics. I drew Izu and DJ ❤️❤️❤️As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Panic attacks/flashbacks
-Knives
-Mentions of stabbinglmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Alright, that didn’t just happen, pull yourself together, Ivy.
“Right, we’re not gonna talk about that,” they proclaimed cheerfully as they got back to their feet and brushed off their pants.
Kami, that definitely did just happen but they could cry about it later to DJ. Right now they were Ivy and Ivy was stronger than that.
Eraser was looking at them with concern, he looked more than concerned, he looked unsettled or even scared(?) but only for a moment, that was strange. What the hell did he have to be scared of, Ivy clearly wasn’t a threatening opponent when cornered, just like he had said. Oh, shit he was talking again.
Ivy managed to catch most of the analysis that he provided and they were thoroughly confused. He was praising their strategy? That was a shit strategy. Sure it could’ve worked if they were coming at him with a knife rather than unarmed but they wouldn’t do that in any non-dire situations. They’d yet to use their knife as anything other than a threat– well that wasn’t true but they’d yet to use their knife to stab anyone, only shallow slashes, and after having been stabbed they were even more hesitant. The whole process is extremely unpleasant and if they didn’t know exactly what they were doing they could end up hitting a vein or artery and actually killing someone which they weren’t too keen on.
The knife they’d lifted off that mugger was large, not as comically large as the kitchen knife they had before but a wound from that knife would leave someone in a bad state, it was a hunting knife with a serrated edge, it was designed to do a lot of damage. Throwing knives, however, tended to be much smaller. It’s not like they couldn’t kill someone but it seemed less likely to fatally wound someone on accident, plus throwing knives were generally a plural so they could just chuck it into someone and leave it since they’d have backups. They’d still be armed and their opponent would be less likely to bleed out if they could leave the weapon in place until they could receive medical attention. Did Eraser already think of all of this? He was right, throwing knives would suit them well.
They were very excited to both move on from what had just happened and potentially learn a new skill but Eraser was looking at them expectantly.
“Do you agree?” he prompted.
Oh, yeah, they should probably respond.
“Yeah, yeah, I need to get more stronger, now, how about throwing knives?” they asked letting their excitement show as they bounced on their feet.
Eraser looked back at them with an exasperated expression.
“Yeah, alright. Not that I think you’re stupid enough to go out and accidentally throw one of these through someone's eye but I’m not going to let you take these on patrol until I’m confident you know how to use them,” he said before pulling out a set of knives in a sleek leather carrying case and handing them to Ivy.
They took a minute to study them, they were essentially just a sheet of metal cut into the shape of a knife. The edges were fairly blunt but the tip came to a wicked point and if thrown properly they’d puncture just the same as a razor. At first glance, they looked black but when they caught the light Ivy noticed that they were actually a dark matte forest green color.
…did Eraserhead buy them a personalized set of throwing knives?
No, the color must just be a coincidence, definitely just a happy coincidence…
Awkwardly clearing their throat they asked, “Am I permitted to purposely throw them through someone’s eye then?” hoping desperately to clear the tension they’d created for themself.
“I’m not justifying that with a proper response,” he replied as he pulled out even more throwing knives, these ones however, looked more worn and they were definitely just black.
…did Eraserhead buy him a personalized AND matching set of throwing knives???
Ivy quickly shook the thought from their mind as Eraser lined himself up with the target.
“Right, so there are two different ways to throw a knife, with and without rotation. With either method, you’ll use the same foot stance, it's your standard fighting stance, feet off-set, and like you’d throw a baseball you lead with the opposite foot from your throwing hand.”
He slowly demonstrated the motion without throwing the knife.
“If you’re throwing with rotation then you need to be able to both judge distance and calculate how many rotations the knife will need to complete before meeting your target. This type of throwing is generally used in competition not in fighting but it’s still a viable method if you can get the technique down. I throw without rotation so I don’t have to bother with all that. I could teach you the theory behind throwing with rotation but I don’t have the practice to do it well so I’m going to show you without rotation today.”
So far this lined up with the research they’d done earlier.
“When throwing without rotation you’re essentially using the knife as a dart, hold it like this with your index finger straightened as the guide.”
Again he slowly went through the motion without actually throwing the knife.
“You release the blade as you point to your target and ideally the blade follows your direction, like so,”
This time he lined himself up with the board and slung the knife hitting the target dead center and embedding in the wall behind it.
Holy shit, that was so cool.
“I’m not gonna pretend to be a knife-throwing master, that’s all I’ve got but you could also throw underhand, like this,”
He said repeating the same motion mirrored but this time the knife just dented the outer ring on the cardboard and clattered to the ground. He just looked at it with a dissatisfied face and went to retrieve the knives he’d thrown.
That’s all he’s got? He just hit a bullseye from like 12 meters on his first try and he’s crinkling his nose up because he cant throw underhand into a brick wall like a goddamn anime ninja?
Alright well… that quickly just became their new goal in life.
***
When he looked back to Ivy after retrieving his knives the feral gleam in their eye had increased tenfold. He had to resist the urge to lunge out of the way of the target because they looked so eager to try their hand.
Once he’d returned to his starting point he looked at Ivy and nodded his head toward the target, “There’s not much left to it but practice, just don’t throw it even vaguely in the direction of another person until you know what you’re doing. Give it a try.”
Ivy’s eyes crinkled up like they were smiling as they lined themself up to the target like he’d just done moments ago. They shifted their feet into place, squared their shoulders, curved their arm in a mock throw a few times, and then finally released the knife.
It hit on the outer edge of the cardboard completely outside the target and clattered to the ground. Honestly, it was better than he’d expected, he was just glad they didn’t miss the wall entirely and sent the knife hurdling over the side of the building. They took the missed shot in stride and kept trying until they’d run out of knives. At which point they went and collected their blades and tried again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
This kid was so goddamn determined that it was exhausting.
They’d been at it for an hour and a half and the sun was starting to set. He’d been watching and correcting their stance every now and then but for the most part they had the form down well, they just needed practice and he had a feeling that wasn’t going to be a problem for them. He felt like Majima pulling the especially devout support students away from their workstations kicking and screaming when he told them they needed to call it quits for the night.
Why the hell couldn’t his students ever be this dedicated?
“UHG! Fine! But I’m keeping these, I need to practice,” they said petulantly.
“Yeah, kid, they’re yours, but if I see them on patrol I’m taking them back,” He responded.
They looked like they had stars in their eyes as they tucked the blades into their accompanying carrying case and stuck it in their pocket.
***
Ivy was loathe to admit it but patrolling with someone else was so much easier and more fun than doing it alone. They were never as concerned for their own well-being as they probably should be but being able to rely on someone else to have your back was so nice. It had been so long since they could rely on anyone for anything.
The thought left him with a warm feeling, the same hind he had when DJ settled down in front of the heater and, oh, that was dangerous. He could admit that he trusted Eraser with his life with no problem but admit that he trusted him full stop? That was another thing. No, he didn’t trust Eraser with anything but his life. He couldn’t go getting attached to someone he didn’t even trust with his name. Kami, he was pathetic, getting attached to anyone who showed him the slightest bit of kindness. DJ and the Shinsos were already pushing it and if he lost one more goddamn thing in his life he was going to go off the deep end.
No, this was all gonna end poorly and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it, not when he kept reaching out a hand to no one and everyone he met. Maybe he was a masochist but he couldn’t stop himself.
They ended their night perched back on their rooftop watching the stars start to wash out with the light of day. Saturdays were always exhausting but they usually faced it with half a day’s worth of sleep but they’d been out since 10 and they were just about dead on their feet.
“You look like you’re about to drop dead, Ivy,” Eraser quipped breaking them from their thoughts.
“You always say the nicest things Eraser,” they answered, sarcasm dripping from their tone.
“You gonna make it home alright, kid?” He asked.
Kami, he can’t just keep acting like he cares for them or they are going to start to believe it.
“Quit callin’ me ‘kid’, I’ll be fine,” they said blinking longer than was strictly necessary.
“Whatever, kid,” he replied.
He looked at them for a moment before adding, “What happened earlier has happened to you before on patrol, hasn’t it?”
How the hell did he know that?
“You know how dangerous that can be, I know you do,” he paused again as if unsure he should continue, “I don’t want you patrolling without me until I know that won’t happen.”
He kept his eyes on them, no doubt waiting for a reaction, a denial, or the general snark they usually doled out prompted or not. But they were tired, they didn’t have the energy to lie and pretend they still wanted to kick him out of town.
“Whatever you say, ~Dad~” they replied with an exhausted facsimile of their usual attitude.
They rubbed their eyes and let out an irritated humph when their hands came away covered in black eyeshadow. How the hell was he supposed to get this off? He hadn't had the chance to refill the rainwater pot since DJ crash-landed into the mud.
“You want me to text you and Papa Tsuka that I got home all ~swafe and sowund~?” They asked as they swung their legs over the ledge, getting ready to drop down to the fire escape below.
Eraser just rolled his eyes and said, “Just take the streets home you’re liable to fall asleep mid-jump. You shouldn’t push yourself so hard.”
“Whatever,” They replied with an eye roll.
They dropped down onto the fire escape ending the conversation swiftly. They actually took the stairs down rather than jumping to the neighboring windowsill and back until they made their way down like they normally did. He wasn’t wrong, they were liable to fall asleep mid-jump. When they touched their feet down on solid ground they looked back up to see Eraser still watching them as if to make sure they made it down alright. They weren't about to walk in the actual direction of home and give Eraser a compass pointing to their warehouse so they held up a hand using the one bit of sign language they knew he’d understand. They snorted when he returned the rude gesture and disappeared from view.
They took a wrong turn just to be safe.
***
The next morning Izuku woke up with an unread text from last night.
Eraserhead:
No patrol tomorrow, we both need the rest.
Ivy:
Speak for urself old man. Cant keep up with the young whipper snappers nowadays?
They sent back as they rolled out of their nest and realized they’d have to both brush their teeth and figure out how to remove the stupid eyeshadow with the remains of their water bottle since the rain bucket was still empty. Damn cat.
Eraserhead responded while he was finally starting to wipe his eyes and come away with a clean towel.
Eraserhead:
Ivy, I’m serious. Do you remember what I said last night or were you already asleep?
Okay, that was totally not fair, they agreed to not patrol alone, not to not patrol at all. He hadn’t missed a patrol in the last six months barring the time he got stabbed. He couldn’t just leave uptown to their own devices just because he was a little sleepy.
Ivy:
Yeah but I dont remember slacking off being a part of that agreement
Eraserhead:
It’s not slacking off, it's taking a break. You’re more likely to make mistakes and get hurt if you’re tired and then you’d need to take an even longer break to recover or an infinite break because you got yourself killed.
Stop arguing and rest.
Ivy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBWpzvJGTz4&ab_channel=DameDBE
***
With hesitation, Shota tapped the link Ivy had sent them and the audio started blasting out of the tinny speakers on his phone at the lunch table grabbing Zashi’s attention. What the actual fuck was that supposed to mean?
Zashi looked up from their food and raised an eyebrow at him as he stared at his phone in confusion. When he looked up he gave in to their silent request and handed the phone over. After he scanned the texts for a moment the audio played again and Zashi burst out laughing.
“I see what you mean about them being a little shit, Sho,” they said once they’d gotten their laughter under control.
He just looked at them with tired confusion.
“They’re saying you can’t tell them what to do since you’re not their dad you geezer,” He elaborated.
“Uuuuuuuhhhhggggg,” he dramatically grunted as he buried his face in his hands, “there’s not enough coffee in the world…” he muttered to himself before responding.
Eraserhead:
If I get a call from Tsukauchi saying you’re out tonight I’m going to kick your ass.
“How’d last night go then? Sounds like you had some sort of talk with them,” Hizashi prompted.
He took in a deep breath and let out a sigh before responding, “Yeah, we had a talk, kinda, but that’s not what I’m worried about.”
He paused and Zashi looked up from their food again to show they were listening so he continued.
“Well, you know how I said they told me they’d “always been a target”?”
Zashi nodded but he didn’t really know how to go from there.
“What happened, Sho?” They asked after a moment of silence.
“I don’t know Zashi, they’re not well, I can say that much for certain. I had them spar with me so they could work on fighting without relying on the element of surprise and they froze up before we even started. I know I should have left it but I knew they wouldn’t want me coddling them so I told them it was just a spar and I wasn’t going to hurt them. They did pretty well until I pinned them in the second round. They panicked after I let them go, it’s like they didn’t recognize me at all, they were clearly having some sort of flashback. They calmed themself down with some breathing exercise and then stood up, brushed themself off, and acted like nothing happened.”
Zashi was looking at him and their face looked just as concerned as he felt.
“They went from struggling to control their breathing to completely normal in a split second, I’ve never seen anything like it. Honestly, it was a bit off-putting. But they said something while they were trying to calm down, they were muttering to themself and they said something about not bleeding out in an alley this time. So, clearly, this has happened before on patrol and it hasn’t ended well.”
Not ending well was an understatement, they both knew it was pure chance Ivy even lived through that.
“I told them I didn’t want them to patrol without me because of that and they agreed and, well, you saw the rest,” He said gesturing to his phone.
“I don’t know what to do. I have no idea how old they are and I’m pretty sure they’re homeless. The only way I can reliably make sure they are safe is if I arrest them which I have a feeling would end poorly for everyone involved,” Shota lamented.
“Sho, I don’t think there’s much more you can do. Maybe bring them food once you’ve gained some more trust but you’re already there making sure they’re safe. I agree that arresting them would end poorly, they’d hardly be safer if they ended up in a prison surrounded by people they put in there and it definitely wouldn’t help their mental state,” Zashi soothed.
“Just give them time, I know you’re worried but it’s only been a week since you even started on this case, and look how much trust you’ve gained already,” he added before returning his attention back to their lunch.
Just give them time? This kid was going to be the death of him.
Notes:
👁👄👁 Papa has arrived with more dialogue and love for the smol green bean.
Thank you for reading and go check out my cat pics at the end of chapter 22 if you haven't already!!!
Just in case that video gets deleted at some point in the future, for context, it was the vine of that kid saying "You're not my Dad! You always want to hear something. Fucking ugly ass noodlehead."
Chapter 26: ♫ F is for Friends Who Do Stuff Together ♫ (and to pay respects)
Notes:
***UPDATES UPDATE: Hello everyone, I am ill. I have been brain-dead and unable to form coherent thoughts for the past 72ish hours so that's why I haven't been updating but ALSO I am about to go on vacation for a week so I don't really know what that means for updates next week. I will have more time to write but I both don't know if I will be using that time to write AND I will be somewhere without WiFi or cell service so even if I do write I'll only be able to upload if I bring my computer into town.
So, uh we'll see what happens. I have a few chapters written at a nebulous point in the future of the plot bc I couldn't get them out of my head until I wrote them and I hope I will be able to connect them to the story by the end of next week but idk man.
Just hang tight ig.EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to add the CWs bc I was brain-dead
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Description of depression/depressive episode
-Brief mentions of suicidal ideation
-Foul language
-Kniveslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was only like 65% sure that that was an empty threat. Maybe he should take the night off… He’d slept til noon and he had a lot of stuff to do today. There were a bunch of palettes in the basement and if he filled in the gaps between the boards with boards from another palette he could use some paint he had left over and make a pretty good target. He wanted to keep practicing his throwing skills and he also wanted to get started on fixing up those power tools so he could install a cat door for DJ AND he never finished his homework for the weekend.
Since the homework was the most boring and the only one with a due date he did that first. Once he was done with that he started ripping apart palettes and harvesting the nails carefully so he could put them back together with all the planks flush with one another. When that was done he lugged it up the stairs and set it up by the windows outside the stairwell door. It would be better to do it outside but he didn’t want the rare passerby to get nosy. He painted on a much neater target than Eraser had constructed last night by using a nail and a length of string to sketch out perfect circles.
He barely gave the paint time to dry before he sent the first knife flying, it hit the outer ring and actually stuck! Obviously, it was much easier to get a knife to stick into wood than a brick wall but he honestly didn’t expect to be able to get one to stick so quickly! AND it hit the target! As he fell into the rhythm of throwing the knives, retrieving them, and throwing them again he didn’t even notice the time pass until there was hardly enough light left to see the target.
Oh, Kami, He was hungry.
Maybe he could swipe some pastries from Shimamoto-san or if he was lucky Mochizuki-san would have enough bread left over tonight to fill him up, he could forgo the rolling of the die tonight and gun it straight for the cafe and… wait. No, Eraser said to rest tonight.
Rest tonight? He woke up like seven hours ago how the hell is he supposed to rest tonight? Stupid old people and their stupid lack of energy. He plopped down in his stairwell and perused his meager collection of food. There was the “nutrient packet” that Eraser gave him the other night and a granola bar. Great, dinner of champions.
Maybe he could spend his time trying to get the power tools to work without looking anything up. That would end well, surely.
UHG!
He needed to throw treats at DJ and complain about several things.
***
The next morning found Izuku more rested than he’d been in months, maybe the stupid geezer was onto something, not that he’d ever admit it. He wrote down the name and model of every tool he had stashed downstairs and headed to the library to do some research. Hopefully, things between Shinso and him will be back to their normal level of awkward today.
When he walked over to the computer Shinso waved at him like he always did but he didn’t say anything which wasn’t too unusual, it was Monday and he was not a morning person at all so Izuku let him be and went about trying to diagnose the issues with any of the things he’d found. He was pretty sure the only thing wrong with the drill was that the cord was busted so that should be an easy fix. But if he could get a look at the owner’s manual or even a blueprint that would help immensely if it still didn’t work once he’d replaced that. He was lost in his thoughts studying the mechanisms of the jigsaw he found when a voice startled him back to the present.
“Midoriya, I have a question if you don’t mind,” Shinso said from his computer.
He was still half-distracted trying to go through the repairs he was going to have to do in his mind when he responded with a “mmhmm?” before properly processing what he’d said.
“Why don’t you think you can be a hero?” Shinso asked timidly.
Oh shit. Any thoughts of repairs he had came to a grinding halt, this was not the way he wanted to start his week. He couldn’t just tell Shinso he was a Null with an expiration date creeping ever closer.
Vague, be vague. Don’t spin some lie and get yourself tangled up in it.
“I– I j-just don’t have the q-quirk for it, Shinso,” he replied.
Shinso’s expression softened and he wore a smirk when he said, “That's a bit hypocritical, Greenie.”
Izuku let out a humorless laugh and said, “Yeah, I-I guess it is.”
Shinso had no way of knowing that whatever issue he had with his quirk was nothing like Izuku’s but he couldn’t help the part of him that felt tickled with the implication that Shinso still believed in him.
“H-how about this, i-if I don’t give up o-on myself, t-then neither d-do you,” he said.
It was a lie but Shinso didn’t have to know that.
His smirk fell before it turned into a gentle smile and he looked away with a blush on his cheeks.
“Hah, yeah. Maybe if you teach me some of those ninja moves you’ve been researching,” he said as he picked at his cuticles.
Now there was a thought, Izuku had heard someone say that the best way to learn is to teach. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try.
“That c-could be fun! I-it’s hard to l-learn without h-having someone t-to spar with.”
What happened to not lying? He was lying through his teeth and possibly inviting Shinso to hang out outside of the library. This would definitely hurt to try and he was an idiot.
“Really?” Shinso asked excitedly.
He’s giving him an out, take it, just take it, just–
“Yeah, w-why not?”
Fucking dumbass.
Shinso sat straighter at that and his face split into one of his genuine smiles that Izuku didn’t get to see very often. Yeah, this wasn’t going to end well.
“Cool! Um, when do you get out of school? We could meet wherever you practice, you go to Aldera down the street, right?” Shinso asked.
Oh shit of course he worked out where he went to school, it was the closest one and he wore a uniform every day it wasn’t too hard to suss out but he couldn’t let Shinso anywhere near there. Kami, he can imagine how that would end, someone poking around the school asking for him. No, hell no.
“Uh, y-yeah but I can m-meet you somewhere closer to w-wherever you live, your m-mom works open to like t-two right? Y-you don’t have to wait a-around for me. I-I don’t g-get out t-til 3:30.”
“Yeah, we leave at 2:30 but it’s only an hour’s difference, I could wait–”
Izuku in his panic to keep Shinso as far away from Aldera as possible interrupted saying,
“NO! N-no, I-I mean, i-it’s f-fine. W-we can meet i-in the middle m-maybe? I-I don’t mind m-meeting w-wherever you w-want. I-I don’t even h-have anywhere to p-practice, d-do you know anywhere?”
Shinso looked at him strangely, real smooth, Izuku. Way to keep it cool and not look suspicious at all, uh-huh, great work!
“Oh, no that’s a good point. We’d probably get some weird looks if we just practiced in the park or something.” Shinso paused a minute as if he were considering whether he should say what he was about to say, “Um, I could ask my mom if we could meet at my house. We have a little backyard.”
Shinso was inviting him over. Him, Izuku. Shinso Hitoshi was inviting Midoriya Izuku over to his house. Yes, this was something he expected and definitely knew how to respond to, uh-huh, yep.
And he was gonna do it!
He was gonna respond!
Any second now, mm-hmm.
Any… any second now…
*GreenBean.exe has stopped working*
***
Maybe that was too forward, Hitoshi wasn’t really sure how this whole friend thing was supposed to work but he was pretty sure that hanging out at each other's houses was a normal thing to do so offering that option shouldn’t garner this kind of reaction, right? It looked like Greenie blue-screened.
He was about to start panicking in earnest when Midoriya shook himself out of the trance he was in and responded.
“Y-yeah, that w-would probably b-be better than t-the park,” he said before breaking off into an awkward laugh.
Luckily, they were saved by the bell when Midoriya’s phone went off, rescuing them from bumbling through the rest of this conversation. It was an alarm, probably informing him that he would be late to school if he didn’t leave right now because it was a full five minutes past when Midoriya normally left. Given the time, the way Greenie’s eyes widened, and his frantic scrambling to get all his stuff back in his bag Hitoshi figured that was probably it.
“I’ll ask my mom and let you know Wednesday, you free after school that day?” Hitoshi asked as Midoriya shoved the last of his things into his bag.
“Y-yeah! I–uh– I j-just gotta be h-home by dark,” He responded.
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” Hitoshi confirmed.
Midoriya nodded and waved as he sped out the door.
Kami, they were both so hopelessly awkward. At least they had something in common.
***
Izuku ran out of the library thanking his lucky stars that he had that alarm set just in case. He knew full well he probably looked like a strawberry with how much he was blushing. He tried to remind himself that Shinso didn’t actually know what he was and wouldn’t actually want to be his friend if he knew but that didn’t stop the stupid traitorous hope from bubbling in his chest. Kami, he was forever doomed to love things that couldn’t love him back. His parents, Kacchan, DJ, he was just setting himself up to be knocked down again and again and again.
One would think that He would run out of love to give after pouring it into so many broken cups, but he never did and he would never learn, would he?
For the rest of the day, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining the infinite amount of horrible ways Shinso could react to finding out he’s a Null as if parroting back every hateful word he’d ever been called would spare him the heartbreak of actually hearing them come from Shinso himself. He knew it wouldn’t but just like he couldn’t stop the hope bubbling in his chest he could stop his mind from trying to stomp it down.
By the time the final bell rang, Izuku was more than ready to jet out of there and go on patrol immediately, but the sun was still out and he wasn’t set to meet Eraser for another three hours. He was definitely not in the state of mind to try and fix the power tools so he spent the entire time slinging his knives at the target he’d made yesterday with extreme force and prejudice. Some of them hit hard enough to poke out the other side of the thin pine board and they were quite annoying to pull loose which did not help his mood. His accuracy was worse like this but if he put this amount of spite behind his throws he’d get them sticking into brick walls in no time flat.
When he ended up falling on his ass from using his entire body weight to dislodge a knife that had gotten stuck up to the hilt between two boards he decided that was enough for now. He lay there for a while before he noticed the shadows start to lengthen across the room. He should probably get ready to go, Eraser wanted to spar with him again. They’d planned to show up at the same rooftop two hours before sunset so they could work on his fighting skills together but he was already in such a piss poor mood and that plan ended in disaster last time when he got pinned and had a panic attack like the helpless little Deku he was.
Kami, nothing was going to make him feel better, was it? It was just one of those days when nothing he did would be good enough. It wasn’t the soul-crushing sense of pointlessness that came from the pit in his gut and had him looking at the ledge of each roof he came across with longing. No, it was just the run-of-the-mill apathy that washed over him from time to time, the kind that made him want to sleep the day away even though that never fixed anything, he’d always wake up feeling just as bad or worse than he did before. All he could do was go about his day and hope against all odds that something would knock him out of it. Eventually, something would or he would fall back into the pit in his gut and be forced to climb his way out of it on his own for the nth time. Right now he couldn’t be bothered to care which way it ended up. He knew he should, but he didn’t.
He kept lying there on the floor until his alarm went off telling him that if he didn’t leave soon he was going to be late. Reluctantly he peeled himself off the dirty cracked concrete floor and made his way to the stairwell to get changed. Other people were relying on him, this city was relying on him and Eraser was willing to waste his own time trying to help him, he had to take advantage of that before he got bored or fed up with him and left or arrested him or did whatever the hell it was he was planning with him. He was a Null with an expiration date, he didn’t have the time to waste on apathy.
Notes:
I brought my car to a transmission specialist and they're sending me to a different specialist and I'm gonna fucking lose it haha ok byeeee thanks for reading ahahahahahah kill me 🥲
Chapter 27: Getting Into the (mood)Swing of Things.
Notes:
400 KUDOS EEEEEEEEEEP
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Description of depression/depressive episode
-Foul language
-Knives
-Gun
-Bordering on suicidal recklessnesslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Ivy touched down on the rooftop Eraser was sitting on the ledge with a juice box nutrient packet like he had been the first night they met here. In lieu of a greeting, he pulled another one out of his pocket and tossed it to them.
“Uh, thanks,” they replied as they tucked it into their own pocket.
Eraser was right about them, they were good and they were packed full of nutrients, it was like a full meal in a convenient tasty little pouch. They were probably expensive so they weren’t gonna turn down free food.
After finishing his dinner(?) he flipped his legs around and stood up.
“I want to see where you are with your knife fighting skills. Like I said last time, your strategy would have been brutal yet viable if you were coming at me armed so, let me see what you’ve got,” he said tossing them what they assumed was a blunted knife before adding, “You can tap out at any time for any reason.”
Yeah, great. They didn’t expect him to forget what happened last time but they really hoped that he would.
“Whatever,” they responded with an eye roll.
“They are blunted but they can still hurt so don’t aim anywhere near the eyes and don’t put too much force behind it, got it?” he added as they both got into position in the middle of the roof.
“Yeah, got it,” they confirmed dryly.
“Same rules as last time, we’re not actually trying to hurt each other so pull your punches, ready?”
Ivy simply nodded in response, gave Eraser less than a second to process the confirmation then launched themself forward aiming a kick to his hand in an effort to disarm him. He evaded but just like last time, Ivy was out of reach before he could even attempt a counterstrike. They danced around each other for a while, Ivy had ‘slashed’ across Eraser’s side once and his arm twice and Ivy was sporting a ‘stab’ wound on their shoulder and a ‘slash’ to the ankle but the fight was largely following the same route as their unarmed fight had. They needed to change it up if they wanted to actually win. Come on, use the environment, what can you do? YES! The next time Ivy touched down they’d grab a handful of gravel and toss it into Eraser’s face forcing him to either shield his face and open himself up to another attack or blind himself.
Oh yeah, this was gonna work.
Okay, maybe Ivy was too confident in that plan because somehow they ended up with an arm behind their back and a knife to the jugular.
“Good tactic but I’ve had that trick pulled on me too many times and you telegraphed your movements too much,” Eraser explained as he lowered the knife and let them go.
With a grumble, they rolled out their shoulders and shot a glare in his direction.
“Quit complaining, you’re doing well, let's go again,” he said not entertaining their annoyance.
They went for a few more rounds but every single one ended the same, they’d be able to dance around him for a while but eventually, they would slip up and Eraser would take the point one way or another. They needed to figure something out. If the gravel trick didn’t work the first time it definitely wouldn’t work the second time so they needed to think of something else but they were beyond frustrated at this point, they were already in a piss poor mood and repeatedly getting their ass handed to them wasn’t helping. The third time they went to ‘slash’ at his neck they let their frustration get the better of them, that stupid scarf that he wasn’t even using was shielding his most vulnerable area, which yeah I guess that was the point but it was pissing Ivy off.
On the next pass, they grabbed a handful of it and pulled, hard. Reflexively Eraser brought his own knife up to cut himself free, obviously, nothing happened because the blade was blunted but that brief moment was enough for Ivy to slip their knife past Eraser’s guard and ‘stab’ him in the chest.
Eraser just looked at them with a raised eyebrow and tapped their hand prompting them to release the capture scarf.
“That would have killed me, you know,” he said dryly.
Oh, come on! They win the first spar in nearly a full hour and that's his response? Their manic grin fell to exasperation.
“Semantics, Eraser. You’ve been kicking my ass for the better part of an hour, let me have this,” they quipped back.
“It’s not gonna be “semantics” once you’re wanted for murder, Ivy,”
“That’s only if they found me out, you’d help me hide the body, wouldn’t you, Eraser?” they shot back.
Eraserhead just looked back at them with their trademark tired expression
“That wasn’t a denial!” Ivy said in a fake sing-song cheery tone.
They were exhausting themself, they could understand the eye roll Eraser shot back at them instead of justifying that statement with a response. They were slipping up and letting their frustrations get the better of them. The mask was gonna start failing them at this rate and they almost couldn’t be bothered to care.
He was starting to say something, probably another critique or correction of form, it was definitely something they should be paying attention to but being Ivy right now was just so goddamn exhausting. It felt like he had to force every witty retort up his own throat, he needed a moment to collect himself.
He did say they were allowed to tap out at ANY time for ANY reason. Maybe they should put that to the test. Walking away with little to no explanation seemed perfectly in character, right? Ivy put up a hand in the universal stop-talking gesture, closed their eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. Then they turned on their heel, walked off the edge of the roof, landed on the fire escape below, and sat down.
***
He was in the middle of explaining all the things Ivy had done right and wrong in their last spar like he had been doing for the last hour when they looked like they were starting to zone out. He was about to stop to ask if they were even listening when they put a hand up to silence him, turned around, and walked off the ledge of the building. If it was almost anyone else that would have been supremely concerning but they both knew the fire escape was directly below where Ivy had walked off and this wasn’t even the first time they’d done that.
He was pretty sure that he wasn’t meant to follow as he hadn’t heard anything that Ivy would be running after and when he peeked over the ledge he could see them just sitting there with their head in their hands.
That was… unusual, but then again when had Ivy ever done anything he could consider usual? Maybe they just needed a break? He decided he’d give them ten minutes before he went and bothered them. Maybe they got triggered again and they just needed to gather themself, he shouldn’t interrupt. He went over to the other side of the building where he’d sat waiting earlier and took out his phone.
Shota:
U busy Zashi?
Hizashi:
No, u ok? Aren’t u supposed to b with Ivy rn?
Shota:
Yeah, I am. We were practicing armed fighting and they finally won a match then when I started talking about it they zoned out then put a hand out to shush me, turned around, and walked away.
Hizashi:
OMG they won a match?! asdfjkl!!
Wait wym walked away, where r they now?
Shota:
Just sitting on the fire escape, I figured I'd give them a second but idk what happened.
Hizashi:
How’d the match go, what’d u say?
Shota:
Well they won with what would have been a fatal shot so I told them that would've killed me b4 I started talking about what they did right and wrong in the match like I always do with students.
Hizashi:
😐
Shota:
What??
Hizashi:
U have been there for an hour now and they finally won a match and the first thing u say is that would have killed me?
Shota:
Yes?
Hizashi:
Not great job kid, there you go, you’re getting it now or literally ANYTHING else?
Shota:
I’ve been telling them they’re doing a good job this whole time!
Hizashi:
Were you saying it in that dismissive way you always do or were you actually saying it?
Shota:
Wtf is that supposed to mean?
Hizashi:
U always say good job and then go into a whole spiel about what they did wrong
Shota:
Well why the hell do I need to explain what they did right? They’re the one that did it
Hizashi:
😑
I’m not saying that’s what set them off but I doubt it would hurt to spend more time going over what they did right Sho
Maybe they’re just having a bad day.
He was fairly confident that they wouldn’t want to hear over-the-top compliments, especially without prompting but he could change how he responded in the future. Maybe they should move on to knife-throwing when they came back, they were really excited about that last time and they’d been sparring for a while anyway, it was getting monotonous. He was about to turn around and go check on them when he heard them climb back up onto the roof. They looked a little worse for wear but it was nearly imperceptible, he wouldn’t have noticed the hunch in their shoulders if he weren’t looking for it.
“Let's move on to throwing knives, I assume you’ve practiced a bit since I last saw you?” He asked.
Their eyes didn’t light up like the last time he’d mentioned it. He hoped they would but he didn’t really expect them to. They just shrugged their shoulders and gave an affirmative hum before pulling out the knives he’d given them and walking over to the target. He had brought a new piece of cardboard and drawn a better target so he could more easily track their accuracy, the last one looked like swiss cheese by the time he managed to drag Ivy away from it.
They didn’t spare him a glance before they started slinging their knives at the target. They were alternating between throwing overhand and underhand and their accuracy didn’t seem to be suffering from it. Interesting, he supposed that would make sense if they practiced both methods in equal measure. He let them go through their stache of knives before commenting,
“Your accuracy has already improved, Ivy. Good job. Your form is great and alternating techniques is a good call but maybe try switching a little more randomly so you don’t fall into a groove. Other than that the only thing to it is more practice,” he praised.
Hopefully, it didn’t sound like he was putting it on too thick. He was being honest, the kid was doing remarkably well for a novice. All their shots hit the board and most of them hit somewhere on the target.
Ivy just gave another noncommittal hum, collected their knives, and tried again.
***
He knew that his act had fallen and Eraser was looking at him with thinly veiled concern; he knew he should care but he didn’t, he was too wrapped up in his own mind. It felt like the part of him that usually cared was caged and thrashing around violently trying to gain back control but nothing it did was going to free itself from under the heavy weight of apathy trying to crush it. Usually, whenever this happened he would just hide himself away until the feeling passed, usually, he didn’t have to try to pretend that he was fine, and usually, no one cared enough to even notice. He felt like he was under a microscope and the part of him that would shy away from the attention was smothered too.
The one emotion that didn’t seem to have an issue shining through was anger and it was bubbling higher and higher each time he missed his mark and each time the knife he threw clattered to the ground without sticking into the wall. Luckily throwing things was a good way to let out anger so he didn’t think he was about to let it get the better of him. Eraser had very little to say as he progressively shredded the new target to bits. He didn’t take breaks to do anything besides collect the thrown knives until he threw one knife with more force than he had been and he watched it sink into the target and stay.
Right in the bull’s eye.
He stood there in shock for a moment before turning to Eraser only to find him looking back at them with a bemused and surprised smirk.
“Where the hell did that come from, Ivy?” he asked incredulously.
They were still in a state of shock so they just shook their head and shrugged before letting out a surprised laugh.
“I don’t know, lucky shot I guess?” They responded.
Eraser just let out a scoff that turned into a genuine chuckle as they both whipped their head back in the direction of the target when they heard the knife dislodge itself and clatter to the ground.
“Maybe not too lucky,” they amended and they couldn’t help but laugh along, the comedic timing was just too perfect.
***
Ivy seemed to be in a little bit of a better mood after they shared a laugh and got into the familiar patterns of patrol. They were still kinda quiet and they kept their wisecracks to a minimum but they were definitely less deep into whatever funk they’d been in, enough that he wasn’t concerned that their mood was going to negatively impact their focus.
It was a quiet night for the most part, they stopped some dumb kids who were about to unleash spray paint on a storefront, they walked a few people home, and they had to call an ambulance on a suspected OD. He had to show Ivy how to use Narcan and gave them a few doses to keep on them. It wasn’t until half past two that they ran into anything violent because, of course, they couldn’t have a calm patrol.
He heard a gunshot ring out to the north and when he looked over Ivy’s eyes went wide as saucers, he was going to ask if they were okay when they started toward where the noise had originated in a dead sprint, if not for his capture scarf he wouldn’t have been able to keep up. When they got on the scene he had to hold Ivy by the scruff of the hoodie to keep them from just charging in. They sent a silent glare at him and batted his hand away but stayed put once they realized no one appeared to be dead or dying.
Kami, this kid had problems. They were simultaneously far too reckless yet somehow discerning enough to not get themselves in over their head. It's like they lead with their head or their heart with no middle ground.
In the alley below them, a man and a woman were cornering a third figure. From the looks of it the woman was able to superheat whatever she touched because the third figure was stuck in a small circle of concrete with a moat of molten lava surrounding him and the first man stood there pointing a gun because, apparently, the liquidized cement wasn’t threatening enough. The man with the gun looked to have a weird fish mutation quirk of some sort, that was an interesting pair-up. But the victim had no visible quirk.
“If I take out Tasselled Wobbegong can you swing down and get the victim out of there?” Ivy asked, interrupting his analysis of the situation.
Despite the dire situation he couldn’t help but look at them in confusion, did they mean the fish guy?
“Tasselled Wobbegong?” he asked.
“Yes! It’s a fish, they look like a Tasselled Wobbegong. Now can you do it or not?” Ivy spat back like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, I can. What about the lava woman?”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it,” they said as they lept off their vantage point not giving him any time to argue.
Yeah, ok tonight was a reckless idiot night apparently. He shot his capture scarf over a nearby fire escape in preparation to swing down to grab the man trapped in a circle of magma, guess they were both crossing that bridge when they got to it because he was not about to let Ivy stay down there alone a second longer than he needed to.
The moment Ivy had the gunman’s attention he jumped down erased the lava woman’s quirk and freed the man from the still-smoldering ring of concrete. Unfortunately he had to not so gently toss him to safety on the other side of the alley before he whirled around to erase the lava woman’s quirk just in time to save Ivy from a glob of molten something that they may or may not have had time to dodge as they finally knocked out the weird looking fish man and turned their attention to the woman.
The woman, now defenseless between the two of them, surrendered and he locked a set of quirk suppressant cuffs around her and Ivy looped rope around the unconscious fish man.
Ivy was too busy on his phone, likely sending a text to Tsukauchi, to catch the pointed glare he shot in their direction for their recklessness and as soon as the text went off they scaled the alley wall leaving him to deal with the victim and the police. Little shit.
Once he’d cleared everything with the responding officers he scaled up the same wall he’d seen Ivy scuttle up about 15 minutes prior but when he got to the roof they were no where in sight. He called out to no response. Where the hell did they go?
Eraserhead:
Where the hell are you?
Ivy:
I got bored. im 2 blocks north of u.
Eraserhead:
I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go patrolling without me?
Ivy:
Its 2 blocks i think ill b ok
Eraserhead:
Stay put, I’m omw.
He sent back with a disapproving head shake. Yep, it was definitely a reckless idiot night.
Notes:
Thank you for reading ❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 28: A Home, Not Just a House.
Notes:
Get ready for some goddamn fluff, bitches.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Vague mentions of physical bullying
-Devastatingly low self-worthlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was incredibly nervous and seriously contemplating whether or not he was going to have to get a second burner phone so he could give Shinso his number. It’s not like he could just give him Ivy’s number, what if that phone gets taken and then Ivy gets traced back to Shinso or something equally catastrophic? And it’s not like he could just say I don’t have a phone, Shinso’s seen him using it but that one only works when it’s connected to WiFi and he’s not about to try to explain to Shinso why he has a phone but not a service plan. There was no non-concerning way to explain that. The best-case scenario is that Shinso would just think he’s dirt poor which is true but he didn’t want his concern or pity or god forbid any follow-up questions.
Gah! Having a friend shouldn’t be this stressful! It was Wednesday and now he was potentially going to Shinso’s house that evening and what if he lives in an area Izuku’s never been to? He’s gonna have to look up directions in the library before he leaves and then what if Shinso sees that and then he has to explain away why he can't just use the GPS on his phone? And what if he can’t find his house or he gets lost and Shinso just thinks he ditched him?! What if his mom is the type of person who insists on picking him up or won’t let him come over without meeting his mom first? How’s he supposed to explain he doesn’t have a mom to meet anymore???
Kami, he should have just kept his stupid mouth shut and never talked to Shinso to begin with. There was no way this wasn’t going to end with questions he didn’t have answers to at the very least and complete catastrophic disaster at worst, and knowing his luck it was going to lean toward the latter. Standing at the front doors of the library a large part of him was yelling that he should just leave and never come back and save himself from the inevitable mess this was about to become but he didn’t have the heart to just stand Shinso up like that. Izuku had been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment too many times when the kids at school used to ask to hang out with him as a joke and then never show up. Eventually, he got wise to that trick so nowadays they fall back to the good old reliable method of just beating the shit out of him whenever they can.
Wait. What if that’s what Shinso was doing now? What if he found out he’s a Null and he was just messing with him? What if he was planning on giving him a fake address just so he could laugh at him the next time he showed up at the library?
Kami, he needed to pull himself together. Whatever happens, it won’t be the end of the world. They won’t be at school so even if Shinso does lead him to a fake address to beat him up he’ll be able to fight back and in any other worst-case scenario, this will just be the inevitable end of a good thing. He just needs to rip the band-aid off.
Walking into the library he didn’t see Shinso-san at the front desk so he figured she must be reshelving books somewhere. That's probably for the best, there's no way she wouldn’t have felt his mini-meltdown from such a close range. When he went back to the computer room Shinso was in his usual spot but his mom was there too. Oh no she was gonna be one of those I want to meet your mom moms, wasn’t she?
“Hey, kiddo!” she greeted him, cheerful as ever.
“Oh, h-hi Sh-Shinso-san!” he called back with a wave.
Shinso was sitting at the computer looking rather embarrassed as he greeted him with a nod.
“Toshi says you wanna come over to our house and beat him up out back!” she said just as cheerily as she greeted him seconds prior.
Shinso buried his face in his hands and all Izuku could do was sputter out sounds that had far too many consonants to be anywhere close to being considered words. Shinso-san burst out laughing at their reactions and tousled her son’s hair affectionately.
“I’m just messing with you two!” She paused to laugh again, “I’m fine with it as long as you two don’t end up maiming each other but I know Toshi couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to and you seem responsible enough to not send him to the hospital, are you gonna stay for dinner? I was planning on katsudon, is that okay?”
Izuku was still a little shell-shocked and ended up spitting up a few more non-word sounds before he could form a coherent response, “Oh, um, y-yeah! I–uh–I’ve n-never had k-katsudon, b-but I’m n-not p-picky. T-thank you, Shinso-s-san.”
“Oh, it’s no problem, kid. I always end up making too much anyway,” she said with a sad smile, “Are you gonna need a ride?”
He quickly denied the offer, “Oh, n-no Shinso-san. Th-thank you though.”
“Alright, Toshi said we should expect you around 4, right?” she asked.
“Uh, I– uh– I don’t know, i-it dependents– I d-don’t know where y-you live s-so I d-don’t know how l-long it w-will take to g-get there,” he answered honestly.
“Toshi!” she exclaimed as she playfully whacked the back of his head, “You never gave him our address?”
“I was about to if you’d quit talking,” he shot back with no heat, “We live a little less than a half hour’s walk from here or a 10-minute train ride so I figured it was safe to say you’d be there by four,” he said as he scribbled down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to him.
Luckily Izuku knew the area, unluckily it was the neighborhood just past Kacchan’s. He’d have to watch and see if he took the train or walked home today so that he could do the opposite in order to avoid him.
“Y-yeah, I-I know the n-neighborhood. I-I should b-be there b-by f-four,” he confirmed.
“Great! Well, we’ll see you then,” she said as she turned to go back to whatever she’d been doing before he’d arrived.
Shinso waited a moment until he was sure that she was out of earshot before speaking up.
“I, um… I might have told her you’ve been taking lessons for a long time so she would let you teach me,” he said sheepishly, “I didn’t think she’d agree to let us spar if both of us had no clue what we’re doing…”
Izuku couldn’t help but snort at that.
“T-that was p-probably a g-good call. T-this does sound like an e-exceptionally s-stupid plan w-when you say it l-like that,” he responded under his breath so that there was no way Shinso-san could overhear it.
Shinso let out a genuine laugh at that.
Right, so far so good. Maybe this wouldn’t be catastrophic.
Maybe.
***
By the time school let out, it was lightly raining so Izuku figured that Kacchan would take the train home, his suspicions were confirmed when he saw him walk briskly out the gate with an umbrella in the direction of the station. The rain really wasn’t too bad so walking should be fine.
Walking was not fine. It started pouring halfway through the walk and Izuku looked and felt like a dog that had just been dunked in a swimming pool. Hopefully, the Shinsos had a patio with an awning or something because he doubted Shinso would want to have their first lesson in the pouring rain.
Kami, he was about to show up to the Shinso’s house for the first time looking like a drowned dog and shaking like a chihuahua to boot. It wasn’t exactly a first impression but it felt like a bad one anyway. He’d been shielding his bag on his chest and walking hunched forward so he was hoping that the spare set of clothes he always carried wouldn’t be too wet. He didn’t know what he would do if those were soaked too. Though, if those were soaked then that would mean his notebooks would be soaked too and he would be more worried about that anyway.
He made the walk in good time since he was power walking fast enough to rival Ingenium in an attempt to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. It was a nice house. It wasn’t as big or extravagant as the Bakugo’s but it was a stand-alone house which was pretty rare in the city even if they were on the outskirts at this point. There was a small lawn in the front and a fenced-in backyard that he couldn’t really see into, hopefully, some of it was shielded from the rain. He stood at the front door checking that it was the right address about 50 times before he worked up the courage to knock. After a few tense moments of waiting the door opened to reveal Shinso whose smile quickly fell after giving Izuku a once-over.
“You’re soaked, do you not have an umbrella? Get in here,” he said quickly beckoning him inside.
“N-no I d-don’t. S-sorry,” he replied as he stood dripping water all over the genkan.
“Stay here, I’ll go grab you a towel,” Shinso said, already halfway down the hall.
Izuku just watched the puddle of water accumulating on the floor beneath him feeling supremely awkward until Shinso returned.
“I can grab you some spare clothes and we can throw that stuff in the dryer but let's make sure you're not tracking water everywhere first,” he said as he handed him the towel.
“I-it’s fine, I h-have a change o-of clothes that h-hopefully aren’t t-too wet.”
Shinso’s hand brushed his as he passed off the towel.
“No way dude! You’re freezing, we’re not letting you sit around in damp clothes and catch a cold, are you shaking?” Shinso said as he got a better look at him.
Just then Shinso’s mom walked around the corner.
“What’s taking you so long, are you gonna let him through the door Toshi?” She asked not seeing the state he was in since Shinso was standing between them.
In response, he simply stepped out of the way and gestured.
“Oh my goodness! You’re shaking, you must be so cold, Toshi go get him some dry clothes and warm up the shower,” she said already taking his bag and holding a hand out for the gakuran he was almost done unbuttoning with his shaky uncooperative fingers.
“I-it’s fine Sh-Shinso-san, I-I don’t need t-the shower,” he tried to deny.
“Like hell you don’t, I’m not sending you home with a cold,” she snapped back leaving no room for argument.
Izuku simply shut his mouth, handed over his jacket, toed off his shoes and socks, and tried to dry himself enough to not drip all over the floor on the way to wherever the bathroom was. Shinso-san gathered up his shoes and socks along with his jacket.
“I’ll throw these in the wash the shoes should be fine, right? I throw mine and Toshi’s shoes in there from time to time and I’ve never had an issue, is that alright with you? They look like they could use a wash anyway,” she quipped amicably.
“I–y-you don’t h-have to d-do that! T-they c-can just a-air dry, i-it’s fi–”
She cut him off with a raised hand.
“I’m at least washing your clothes I might as well throw the shoes in, these definitely won’t air dry by the time you leave anyway.”
Again her tone left no room for argument.
She turned on her heel, presumably toward the laundry room, and over her shoulder she said, “Toshi will show you the bathroom and grab the rest of your clothes. Do you want to throw your backpack in too?”
“N-no that’s o-okay. Th-thank you Sh-Shinso-san.”
He heard her reply with a noncommittal hum before she rounded the corner and he was left once again to stare at the much more slowly accumulating puddle beneath him. He might as well use the towel to mop up as much as he could, right?
Shinso came back as he was shuffling his feet around on top of the towel trying to dry the floor as best he could. It wasn’t working very well and Shinso seemed to notice that as evidenced by the small chuckle he let out at the sight.
“I can get that, let me show you the bathroom, there’s a change of clothes in there already. Come on,” he said gesturing him forward, “Just leave that there,” he added when Izuku shot a concerned glance at the towel on the floor.
Kami, they were so nice and he was so awkward.
“S-sorry about a-all this,” He said as he followed Shinso around the corner and up a set of stairs.
“It’s fine, Midoriya. Why didn’t you just take the train?” He asked
“I– uh– I f-forgot my p-pass,” he lied.
“We really should have checked the weather beforehand. My mom said we weren't allowed any “hooliganry” in the house so we’re not even gonna be able to do anything today,” Shinso said apologetically.
“T-that’s okay!” he quickly placated as Shinso held open a door to what he assumed was the bathroom given the sound of running water and the steam already billowing out of the open door.
“You might want to turn the heat down a little, I cranked it so it would heat up faster. Toss your clothes by the door and I’ll grab them once you get in the shower.”
“O-okay, th-thanks Shinso.”
The heat was so heavenly that he almost forgot to tell Shinso he could grab his clothes once he closed the curtain. He was always in and out of the shower at school before it properly heated up just in case someone came in and caught him showering in the locker room an hour before school started. That would prompt questions he didn’t have answers to or just get him beat up depending on who wandered in.
The warm water washed over him and soothed muscles he didn’t even know were tense, he’d just taken a shower yesterday but they had conditioner and Izuku just couldn’t resist. It’d been nearly two years since he’d used conditioner and it had been nearly as long since he’d been able to wash his hair with anything besides bar soap, this was a luxury he was too weak to pass up. He lathered and rinsed his hair and stood basking in the heat and letting the conditioner soak in for as long as he thought he could reasonably get away with before he rinsed it out and turned off the faucet.
He got out and dried himself off with the fluffiest towel he could ever remember touching then donned the sweatpants and t-shirt Shinso had left for him. They were far too big and he had to pull the drawstring tight in order to keep them from falling right off. Towel in hand he followed the sound of voices downstairs where he found both the Shinsos in the kitchen bickering as Shinso-san made her son chop vegetables.
He stopped at the sight. It was so nice and domestic. Those two clearly loved each other and it filled the whole house with this inexplicable warmth, he couldn’t remember his home ever feeling like this even before he was diagnosed quirkless. He felt like an intruder stomping into somewhere he had no right to be. He stood at the edge of the kitchen awkwardly clutching the towel he didn’t know where to put for a moment before Shinso-san noticed him.
“Hey, kid! Oh, you can drop that in the laundry room, first door down the hall to your left,” she said before returning to the task of prepping dinner.
Izuku followed her instructions and as he was looking for the best place to place the towel he noticed his hands were shaking again but not because of the cold. No, it was because of the warmth. It was so foreign, it was so lovely, it was something he didn’t deserve and something he would become addicted to if he didn’t watch himself.
Kami, he was pathetic. He needed to pull himself together.
When he returned Shinso was freed from his task of chopping vegetables so that he could entertain their guest. He sat at the table as Shinso set out glasses, napkins, and chopsticks while repeatedly refusing Izuku’s offers to assist. After he finished that he led him to the living room and sat down on the couch promptly sticking a controller in Izuku’s hands which he eyed with a confused expression.
“You never played Nintendo?” Shinso asked in response to his confusion.
“Uh, no,” he replied.
He knew what it was but he doesn’t remember ever having seen one in person.
“You never played Nintendo?!” Shinso repeated in disbelief.
Izuku just shook his head.
“Oh well that’s gotta change immediately, we’re playing Mario Kart right frickin’ now,” he said grabbing his own controller and pulling up the game on the TV.
He couldn’t recall how many rounds they played before Shinso-san called them for dinner but he did know he never placed higher than 8th, but Kami, it was so fun anyway. He threw a blue shell at Shinso at least once per round and his increasingly ridiculous expletives had Izuku laughing so hard he feared he would choke himself.
That warmth he felt walking downstairs hadn’t dissipated when Shinso-san noticed him nor did it when they left her to prepare dinner and as they all sat down together he realized that it wasn’t going to. They weren’t shunning him, they didn’t stop their playful bickering because he was there, and their mood wasn’t going to sour because of his presence. This home was warm and happy and he was a part of it for however long they would allow him. It was something he didn’t know he was missing until all of the sudden it opened a gaping hole in his chest and took his breath away. He was sitting at a dinner table with people who wanted him to be there and there was a warm meal that was made by hand for him and his hair was all fluffy and dry and 10 times curlier than it normally was and he wasn’t alone and the floor wasn’t cold and damp and… and Shinso-san was looking at him with a concerned expression.
Goddamnit.
He shoved all of that down as quickly as possible.
“Th-thank you for the d-dinner Shinso-s-san,” he said with a bow.
“Oh, none of that, it’s no problem,” she replied her worried expression gone for now.
He waited for the other two to start eating before he picked up his chopsticks and followed suit. Oh sweet Kami it was delicious. Maybe it’s because the only even vaguely warm food he’d had in nearly a year was cafeteria food that was baked with hate by Anzai-san, the lunch lady at school who must have owed a favor to the janitor because despite her clear disdain for Izuku she kept bringing his lukewarm lunch to the back door of the kitchen so the other students didn’t have the chance to slap it out of his hands. Or maybe it was just that good, he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had something this delicious and had to stop himself from gobbling the whole bowl down quicker than he could chew.
“I’ll take the quiet as a compliment,” Shinso-san said with a giggle.
Oh Kami, he hadn’t said a word since he sat down, had he? It was just so good that he was entranced. He nodded vigorously with a mouthful of pork.
“Y-yes it’s delicious Shinso-san. W-what did you s-say this was?” he asked once he’d finished chewing.
She looked at him with a fond smile that filled him with that same warmth that filled the house before responding, “Katsudon.”
He had no idea how he was ever going to get his hands on this again but he vowed that he would, it was so freaking good. Nodding he committed the dish’s name to memory before stuffing his face again.
Shinso-san giggled at his antics, “It’s not going anywhere kid, you can slow down. Do you want to take the leftovers home? It’s not enough for a full meal but it’s a good snack size,” she asked.
Apparently, Izuku’s hesitation and full mouth were enough of an answer for her because she chuckled and told him she’d pack the rest in a tupperware for him before he could argue.
When dinner was done Izuku had managed to eat a little over half his bowl before he felt full enough to vom but Shinso-san just added the rest of his bowl to the tupperware and handed it back to him. If his stomach capacity was small enough to concern her she didn’t let it show. Izuku insisted on helping with the dishes before Shinso and him went back to the living room so he could get his ass kicked in Mario Kart a few more times.
Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do but it was nearly seven and the sun was bound to start setting soon. He’d already had to cancel his pre-patrol training with Eraser for this so he couldn’t show up late for actual patrol, he wouldn’t live that down after poking fun at Eraser for being late the first time. Reluctantly, he bid the Shinsos goodbye. The rain had long since stopped falling and his clothes were fresh out of the dryer, donning them felt like he could take a little bit of the warmth from that night with him but it faded all too quickly as he walked away in the brisk spring air.
Notes:
Thanks for reading ❤️
Chapter 29: Home Sweet Warehouse.
Notes:
MY LIFE IS FALLING APART ON VACATION HAHAAHAHAH MY CAR IS DEAD, HERE'S A CHAPTER.
It's a short one but I'll upload another one in a second. They could have been one but the tonal shift didn't work in my brain so you get two baby chapters for the price of one.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Mentions of hunger/starvation(?)
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Settling into his nest that night after patrol felt particularly cold and flipping the space heater on didn’t do much to remedy that. Feeling the warmth of an actual home was intoxicating, this must be similar to what it feels like to come down from a high, shivers and everything. Or maybe he was just dramatic and cold. He vowed to put more effort into installing that cat door because having DJ down here filled the same pit in his chest that the Shinsos did. Maybe he could make his own home.
Over the past two years he’d managed to make the stairwell pretty cozy but this weekend he decided he would spend some time to make it a home. He had plans to turn the nonsense patterns he painted on the wall into strands of ivy and maybe he could get his hands on some string lights, that always made a place feel more cozy, right? But the first order of business was the cat door. That was gonna get done first whether he had to saw the rest of the way through the door by hand or not. He might not be able to cook up some katsudon down here but he could do something, it might be a cheap facsimile but it’s not like he could make it any worse.
***
When Saturday finally rolled around and he had a few hours on his hands he spent some time fiddling around with the inner mechanisms of the jigsaw. It took a few hours but he was eventually able to get it vaguely functional. Functional enough that it only short-circuited the generator twice before he could complete the small cut-out right in the center of the door; AND he kept all ten fingers in place so it was a success as far as he was concerned… even if the saw smelt like electrical burning every time he switched it on.
He’d need to pick up some duct tape or something though because the edges of the opening were damn near razor sharp and he didn’t want DJ cutting herself on it. He could make a trip to the hardware store again, hopefully, they would have some string lights as well, it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to spend his money on especially now that it was running low. He wasn’t able to pickpocket the shitty street thugs he brought in as often with Eraser breathing over his shoulder. Worst comes to worst he would just have to swipe some pre-made sandwiches from some big box store that wouldn’t even realize they were stolen.
He was becoming more and more lax with his stance on thievery but he couldn’t be assed to care, morals don’t often win when your stomach is eating itself from the inside out. Weekdays were usually fine since he got lunch at school but the weekends often found him dumpster diving and breaks from school were especially rough, his stash of nonperishables had just been depleted over spring break and he never wanted to feel that kind of hunger again. It was awful.
Shaking his head to clear his mind of the memory he grabbed the meager amount of cash he had left and headed to the hardware store.
***
The hardware store didn’t have a very big selection of string lights which made sense given that it was mid-April but they did have a few different choices for duct tape, there were a bunch of different colors and he opted for the black one because it seemed the most versatile. Now that he had it back at the warehouse he realized that it didn’t really help the color story going on up here. Everything was grey and adding black wasn’t exactly giving much variety. Though he should probably keep the outside as neutral as possible on the off chance someone is stupid enough to wander into the dilapidated building.
He tried to place the duct tape as evenly as he could in order to make it look less like it was a shoddily cut hole in the door covered in duct tape but at the end of the day that’s what it was, and it was gonna look like it no matter how nicely he laid the tape. He told himself that it didn’t hurt to put the effort in, like everything else he was doing to make this place more habitable, it wasn’t going to not look like the staircase of a dilapidated building but it could look better; it wasn’t going to be good but it could be better and he owed it to himself to try, didn’t he?
When he finished he closed the door and sat down in his usual spot on the middle landing to admire his work. With the hole in the door cut out he felt oddly exposed, he supposed that’s why most cat doors have flaps that shut, it would help regulate temperature too. Rifling through his nest he pulled out one of the smaller bits of fabric he had, it was a pillowcase and it looked like it had seen better days, it was pretty threadbare but it would do the trick in the warmer months. He pleated it artfully and taped it above the inside of the cat door. It still looked jank but it was nicer than it was, the washed out pink fabric added a nice pop of color to the otherwise drab grey door and surrounding cement but it shouldn’t be too much to draw attention from the outside.
Ripping the duct tape in half down the middle he prepped a bunch of thinner strips of tape to hold up the string lights he had bought. They were plain white lights that leaned a little bit yellow, a nice warm tone on a dark green cord that would go nicely with the strands of ivy he wanted to paint on the walls. He draped the lights around the perimeter of the landing and wrapped the excess up the hand rail. It was nice. The yellow glow of the lamp in combination with the string lights actually gave off a pretty significant amount of light and if he flipped on the flashlight and pointed it at the ceiling the harsh LED light would refract and blend with the oversaturated yellows evening it out to a more neutral tone.
He spent some time sketching out the Ivy pattern he had pictured on the walls but nothing he did was coming out quite how he wanted it. Maybe he could look up some reference pictures next time he went to the library. Practicing doodling ivy in the margins of his notebook would be a good way to pass the time at school anyway so he decided to call it quits on home renovation for the day, though he should probably sweep up the metal bits left over from cutting the hole in the door and put the half functional jig saw back downstairs. Honestly, the whole place could use a round of tidying, just because it would never really be clean doesn’t mean it couldn’t be tidy.
By the time he was done with that work it was just about time to go meet Eraser. They’d been meeting (almost) every night to patrol together for over a week now and he’d been coming two hours before hand to help Ivy work on their combat skills. It had been going well and Izuku was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Though, he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, his life was one slip up away from crumbling and he was painfully aware of that. Zhuzhing up the stairwell was his way of trying to distance himself from that fact. Treating this place like a home implied a permanence that he knew it didn’t have but he could pretend, for the sake of having something to tether his fragile sanity to, he could pretend.
Notes:
Okay, my life isn't actually falling apart but my partner got stuck in Colorado when he was supposed to be meeting me in Michigan but he's here now so it's alright. My car is dead though and I am in fact screaming and crying and pissing and shitting.
Chapter 30: We Need to Talk
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Suicidal ideation
-Devastatingly low self-worthlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Ivy climbed their way up onto the roof that evening Eraserhead was already waiting for him like he had been every day after they’d poked fun at him for being late. He must have really been slowed down by that piece of cardboard. Honestly, they wished they were paying a little more attention, it probably would’ve been pretty funny to see him trying to scale the side of the building with an unwieldy sheet of cardboard. How did he even manage that?
He was sitting on the ledge slurping down a ‘nutrient packet’ like he had been every evening, and like every evening, he tossed one to Ivy. He’d never seen them drink it and they never asked for one but he always had one for them. Whether he knew it or not they were a life saver for Ivy, they’d been squirreling them away most of the time to pad up their stash of nonperishables but the few they had actually eaten were delicious. They weren’t exactly filling but they had a good portion of their daily nutrient requirements and they were leagues better than another granola bar for dinner.
***
It had only been a week but the kid was already making marked improvements. They couldn’t quite win in an unarmed fight yet but they were lasting longer and longer in each round and aside from not using his capture scarf he wasn’t going easy on them. They had a very productive patrol for lack of a better word but it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Tsukauchi’s phone was surely blowing up with the amount of times they’d called him to send someone out. Ivy seemed to be in good spirits by the time they normally called it for the night and he was loathe to bring them down but they needed to talk.
They’d been out every night for the last ten days barring the one night where he’s pretty sure Ivy listened to him and took a break. They at least didn’t call anything in to Tsukauchi but that doesn’t mean they didn’t go out. He hadn’t worked this much since he was fresh out of high school and he was too old for this shit now, he learned his lesson about taking breaks and he didn’t need a reminder. He had spent years patrolling religiously until one night he was exhausted and he slipped up, and he ended up getting shot in the chest. Two inches to the right and the bullet would’ve gone straight through his heart. Coming to in the hospital and seeing Zashi’s exhausted and tear-stained face was a wake up call, he couldn’t keep going like that. He was going to get himself killed and he couldn’t do that to Zashi. He couldn’t be the reason for those tears again.
After that he pulled back on his patrols and went to college part time until he got a teaching degree and he’s been teaching at UA ever since; but if he never got that wake up call he wouldn’t be here. He was lucky, incredibly lucky, and now he had to teach Ivy the same lesson he teaches all his students and still has to remind himself every day, you can’t save someone if you don’t save yourself.
“Ivy, we can’t be out here like this every single night. It’s not sustainable,” he started.
As expected Ivy glared at him before snapping back, “Well who the hell else is gonna be out here, Eraser?”
“Uptown survived without you for years they can survive without you for one night a week, that’s all I’m asking. We can take Sundays off,” he suggested.
That clearly wasn’t the right thing to say, they looked even more offended.
“That might work for you in your old cushy neighborhood patrol but there’s no one to take our shift out here Eraser. People are gonna die AND people are gonna notice us taking off, crime is going to spike if we keep a schedule like that,” They countered.
That was a good point, they didn’t hold a set patrol route both so that they would be harder to pin down if someone was after them and so that criminals never knew when they were close by forcing them into paranoia. Taking the same day off every week would turn into the purge once people caught on
“What if we took a random day off each week then?” He paused because the admission was painful even after all these years, “You can’t save everyone, kid and you’re not gonna be able to save anyone if you run yourself into the ground. I honestly don’t know how you’ve even lasted this long working every day for ten months.”
“Built different,” they replied blankly.
He couldn’t help the exasperated, “What?” That slipped out of his mouth unbidden.
“I’m built different, simply get good you geriatric—“ their sentence was cut off by the end of his capture scarf whipping them in the forehead.
“What the hell!” They exclaimed as they rubbed the small red spot just above their left eyebrow, “You could’ve hit me in the eye!”
He just stared at them nonplussed before continuing, “I’m serious Ivy. I don’t care when, but we are going to take off one day per week and if I hear from Tsukauchi that you’re still patrolling I’m taking you in. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed,” he said sternly.
Their face fell and they looked like they were stuck between furious and terrified at the threat and he couldn’t really blame them. Saying that wasn’t going to do wonders for their trust but he knew that going into this. Unfortunately, their safety was more important than their trust.
After a moment the fury seemed to overpower the fear.
“What the fuck, Eraser? Are you gonna take me in or not? Do you just want to hold the threat above me whenever it suits you? What are you playing at? What are you even getting out of this?” They spat back, their volume rising with each question.
He took a deep breath before responding honestly, “Nothing. I’m not playing at anything and I’m not trying to get anything out of this. I just want you safe, that’s it. I haven’t lied to you and I don’t intend to. I don’t want to bring you in but if you’re safer in custody then that’s where you’ll go.”
Their eyes went steely and for the millionth time in the last ten days he wished he could see their whole face because he couldn’t read their expression at all.
They looked and sounded completely void of emotion as they responded, “I can tell you with 100% certainty that I will not be safer in custody.”
It almost sounded like a threat.
Why the hell did that sound like a threat?
“Ivy, you can’t save everyone. You’re not stupid, I know you know that. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I can tell you from experience that going on like this won’t end well,” he admitted.
Ivy paused at that but he still couldn’t read them.
“There’s no world in which this ends well for me, Eraser,” they finally replied.
Their voice betrayed no emotion but he swore that he saw a flash of sadness in their gaze. The wind ruffled their hood as they maintained eye contact for a moment before looking down at the ground.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” they said with finality before turning and walking away.
Nothing about that conversation went well. Every word they said was vaguely concerning at best. Why did they say they wouldn’t be safer in custody like that? Did they know that people in prison would be lining up to get revenge or did they mean… oh that didn’t do well to think about. Ivy’s mental health was already concerning, it would line up if that’s what they meant and in conjunction with their apparent resignation to die in these streets it seemed all too clear that Ivy meant they would kill themself before they let themself get caught.
Fuck.
Kami, he needed to talk to Zashi about this. Maybe he really did need to get Hound Dog involved.
He couldn’t get them sent to a mental institution on vague remarks, and even if he could Ivy was far too slippery for him to trust anyone to keep a proper eye on them, arresting them wouldn’t help, and the kid was going to run himself into the ground no matter what he did.
Fuck.
Maybe he’s reading into this too much. Kami, he hopes he’s reading into this too much.
***
He knew it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. Eraser probably had a family or friends or something else waiting for him at home. Eraser had a home, of course, he wouldn’t want to go galavanting around on patrol every single night, he knew last Sunday wasn’t gonna be a one off but EVERY week? How many people were going to die because he took a night off every week? What they hell would he even do with a night off every week? He knew he was right about needing to rest but he was going to die in these streets whether he took a break or not, but more people would die after he was gone.
If he died he wouldn’t be able to save anyone. He knew that’s what Eraser meant but how was he supposed to just live his life knowing every night he didn’t go out someone could have died. He wasn’t sure which was more selfish, working himself to death so he wouldn’t have to live with the guilt or taking breaks and preserving himself for as long as he can while people he could have saved die in his stead.
There was no winning in this situation but he couldn’t let Eraser make good on that threat, he would die before he gave up his freedom.
Notes:
I have another chapter in the works and It's much longer, I might split it up bc it's already at like 3k and I'm like halfway through but I also need to do some research to make sure I'm not just writing complete bullshit that doesn't make sense. I have no clue when I'm gonna have enough time with WiFi to fact-check myself so y'all might have to wait til Sunday when uploads return to normal but I'll have a back-log at that point so I'll prolly upload regularly for quite a while after that ❤️
Chapter 31: Katsuki, You Bitch.
Notes:
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
I now have an internet connection AND cell service! The break from online was nice but damn is it good to be able to google things and receive phone calls again. lol
Anyway, I've got the next 3 chapters done so hopefully I can maintain a bit of a backlog for a while. I've been writing and posting chapters in the same day up to this point which is probably ill-advised but whatever.As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Descriptions of injury (not vivid but not vague either)
-Wound care
-Mentions of neglect
-Mentions of past abuse
-Physical abuse/bullying
-Unsafe medical treatmentslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku had been trying to lure DJ through the cat door with a line of treats to no avail since the night he’d finished it. She would follow the treats, eat all of them, peek her head through the door, and turn around. That was until Monday night when he woke up to her screaming at the bag he kept the treats in. Of course, she would invite herself in to interrupt his standard three hours of sleep to demand more treats.
“I don’t know what I expected,” he said groggily as he unzipped the pocket of his backpack that he kept the treats in.
After she scarfed down her handful she curled up next to him and fell asleep. What a little shit. There were only like 40 minutes until his alarm went off but he felt like he slept another two hours by the time it woke them both up.
Tuesday morning rolled around and Eraser had yet to make another comment on taking a break night and he wasn’t going to complain. He gathered up all his stuff and headed to school, another day in paradise.
***
Izuku’s day was going on with its usual amount of bullshit until gym class. They were playing soccer out in the field today and Izuku stood through the customary ritual of being picked absolute last which, unfortunately, was on the opposing team from Kacchan. Kami, he hates it when this happens, Kacchan always plays offense and Izuku always gets stuck in defense because no one trusts him to do anything else. When they’re on the same team it’s much easier to avoid him but now he’s got to be the one to try and stop Kacchan from scoring directly and there was no way in hell he was about to do that. So, at best, the entire team was going to yell at him for being useless, and at worst they were going to beat him up for making them lose. There was absolutely no winning in this situation.
He really liked soccer too, it was fun even though he was never allowed to do much, he thought he could even be good at it if he was allowed to try but that was never gonna happen so it was best not to even entertain the idea. Right now he had to focus on not getting his shit rocked before the end of gym class because he really didn’t want to have to go to the nurse’s office.
It went well for about twenty minutes before shit hit the fan. He was standing off to the left of the field trying to toe the line between participating enough so that the teacher wouldn’t get mad at him and staying out of the way as much as possible so his classmates didn’t turn on him when all the sudden the ball was headed straight for him, likely on accident, because no one ever passed to him if they could help it. Kacchan was sprinting after it and, not that he ever looked not angry, but he looked especially angry right now, small explosions were popping off in his hands and he glared at him just daring Izuku to do anything but the ball was already at his feet before he could even get out of the way and all he could do was brace for impact.
Kacchan’s hand connected with his side and before he could even react a blast went off and he hit the ground. He thought he let out a scream but he couldn’t be sure, his ears were ringing and his right side just at the bottom of his ribcage was in agony. The smell of his own flesh burning was familiar and something he didn’t miss in the slightest, it reminded him of his father. He had to force himself back to the present, he wasn’t safe right now, he didn’t have time to lick his wounds. Kacchan had burned him before but never this bad, he hadn’t been burned this badly since the last night he’d seen his father five years ago. He did his best to forget that night but the memory of that kind of pain stuck to him like rust clings to an old car, the longer he thinks about it the more it eats away at him, both the physical pain and the pain of knowing that he mattered so little that his father didn’t think twice about putting him through that. His shirt was in tatters and his flesh was pink around the edges and blood-red in the center. Shit shit shit shit this might be a third-degree burn; he had to go to the hospital the last time he got a third-degree burn.
It hurt when it happened but he’s not sure if that was from the pressure or the burn itself, it should probably hurt more than it did right now, his shirt was melted into parts of his flesh. Yeah, it should definitely hurt more than it did, the center of the burn didn’t hurt at all despite having been blasted open and cauterized shut, he definitely had nerve damage. However, the pain from the surrounding area made up for the lack of feeling in the center. The wound was centralized around the bottom right side of his ribcage and the surrounding lesser burnt area spanned halfway up his pec and nearly to the waistband of his shorts. If someone saw this they wouldn’t let him deal with it by himself, if a teacher saw this they’d call his mom or send him to the hospital and they would call his mom.
The teacher was coming over right now. Fuck.
He pulled the intact part of his shirt over to cover the damage. If he could just get sent to the nurse he could get out of this, the nurse hated him and knew his mom was a nurse. She’d sent him home with injuries for his mom to deal with and not checked up on it before and, Kami willing, she would do it again. As the teacher made his way over Izuku looked around to see if anyone had seen, if someone was going to rat him out he needed to make a new plan. When his eyes met Kacchan’s, he knew he’d seen what he’d done but no one else was close enough. He was trying to act cool but his eyes gave him away, he kept looking back at him. He almost looked concerned.
Good, maybe he could learn that his actions actually hurt people. Hopefully, his pride would hold out long enough for him to keep his goddamn mouth shut though.
“Midoriya, are you alright?” The teacher asked as he made his way to the incident, “Let me see,” he commanded as he knelt down beside Izuku.
Shit. Okay, you can get out of this. He already thinks you’re pathetic, just play it up.
It wasn’t a challenge to get the tears to fall, it hurt like a bitch but crying wasn’t gonna fix that so he’d been pushing it back but now he just let them fall as he curled in on himself in order to look smaller. Sniffling, he shook his head and looked down like a little kid too scared to rip the band-aid off.
He pressed the shirt into the wound, it wasn’t bleeding anymore but if anyone that was any level of competent saw the blood they would know how serious the burn was and send him to the hospital and he would literally rather die from this than let that happen. He just got DJ into the stairwell, he’d just carved a home out of that heaping pile of rubble and the only way he was going to let that out of his grasp was if someone pried it from his cold dead fingers.
“Come on Midoriya, I need to see how bad it is,” the teacher pushed.
He was at risk for getting in trouble if he refused a second time but it was a risk he didn’t have the choice but to take. He kept his head down and shook it again.
The teacher just sighed and knelt next to him for a moment before he spoke, “Someone’s going to have to look at it, it’s either me or the nurse,” he threatened.
The nurse wasn’t particularly nice to anyone so the threat wasn’t empty but doubly so for him. The thought of actually letting that woman treat this wound was horrifying, she’d probably just throw alcohol on it for fun. She was not known for her gentle nature and Izuku had no clue why the school even hired her to begin with much less kept her around.
It didn’t matter though, she was the only one who could dismiss him because of an injury. His only hope was to keep milking this pathetic act for all its worth until he was passed back to his ‘mother’ to deal with his whining.
“Midoriya, come on,” he prompted once more.
Izuku just kept sniffling and praying to gods he didn’t believe in that this plan would play out and it would play out quickly. The wound was smaller than any of the wounds Hisashi had given him but it was still agonizing and cleaning it out was only gonna hurt more. He had gauze and burn cream and everything he needed back in his stairwell he just needed to get out.
After asking a fourth time his teacher’s patience seemed to have run out.
“Alright, just go to the nurse, she can deal with it,” he said with a smug, satisfied, I-told-you-so tone.
He got up as quickly as he could given the injury and started shuffling his feet back toward the main building making sure to keep up the only semi-false act of being pathetically agonized. No one was assigned to walk with him, so he was free to make his way to the nurse’s office as slowly as he pleased. Hopefully, he could think of some contingency plans on the way.
***
As he had hoped the nurse had even less patience for his childish act, but she was about to call his mom,
“N-no! S-She’s at w-work! I-I’ll text her! S-she has h-her r-ringer o-on for e-emergencies but I-if her ph-phone k-keeps going off w-with a c-call her b-boss will get m-mad!” He lied through his teeth.
She never answered his calls or texts no matter how urgent. He’d been locked out of the apartment for a whole night shift and slept on the front stoop once when the kids at school stole his bag. He woke up to her accidentally kicking him in the dark hallway and she yelled at him for being so irresponsible.
He pretended to type away on his phone and waited for a few minutes while the nurse practically breathed down his neck.
“She— um— s-she’s l-leaving in a m-minute. Sh-she’ll be h-here in f-fifteen,” he said after weathering her gaze for what felt like eons.
“Good, go wait outside,” she said bluntly before opening the door and gesturing him out.
Thank Kami that worked, he did not come up with a single contingency plan. The pain of moving around clouded his thoughts too much and now he had to walk all the way to the warehouse district. Great.
***
The walk with the added weight of his backpack was damn near unbearable but he didn’t let himself take a break, he knew if he stopped he wouldn’t be starting again. Goddamnit, there was no way he was going to be able to patrol like this.
He was looking into the windows as he passed by the mini-mart when he realized he didn’t have any sterile water. He was going to have to buy a gallon of distilled water and then lug it the rest of the way home. Resigning himself to his fate he entered the store like a man walking to the gallows. Shimamoto-san made some witty remark about him being parched, or at least he hoped he did because he forced out a fake laugh as he gave him a handful of change.
Kami, a gallon never felt so heavy. The ten-minute walk stretched out for over fifteen minutes and he stumbled his way down the stairs. Sweat was pouring down his brow despite the pleasant mid-spring weather as he started prepping all the things he was going to need.
He wiped down his bento box with alcohol on a paper towel before pouring some more into it and dropping a pair of tweezers in. He rolled out a clean towel and set the rest of what he would need out before he sat down and let himself take exactly one deep breath before peeling off his top. The gakuran and dress shirt weren’t difficult to remove but the half-melted gym shirt he kept on underneath to keep them clean was not. The jacket and the shirt both buttoned up so they slid off his shoulders but this was a t-shirt, he was going to have to lift it over his head. Looking at the tattered remains of what used to be a t-shirt he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, he could just cut it off.
With that done he finally got a good look at the damage. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, it looked like the blast initially broke the skin but it was immediately cauterized which was honestly preferable; better to just have a burn than have to figure out how to do stitches over burnt flesh, right?
There were bits of melted polyester stuck to him and he was going to have to pluck them out. Kami, this was going to suck so bad, fuck Kacchan. Resting his back against the cold rough surface of the wall, he got to work.
It felt like years but when he was finally sure he got all the bits of shirt out of his flesh it was time for the best part, cleaning it. It already hurt so bad he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t just pass out before he finished so he made sure to set up a pile of blankets to his left, the opposite side of the wound, and leaned that way slightly so that if he fell he wouldn’t brain himself on the concrete or fall on top of the burn.
Using his right hand he held some gauze just below the burn to catch the runoff water that he poured onto the wound with his left hand, after it ran over the area he used the gauze to blot at any place he might have missed.
He checked the wound again to make sure there weren’t any lingering particulates before he prepped to repeat the process with alcohol and, oh, sweet Kami, that BURNED. There’s nothing quite like burning a burn and the pain had him screaming out against his will. His vision went white but he didn’t pass out, after giving himself a second and steeling his nerves he used the gauze in his right hand to pat down the burn again and it didn’t hurt any less the second time.
He poured fresh alcohol over it once more just to be sure. An infection later would hurt far more than some alcohol now. He gave himself another minute to let it evaporate off the area before he sterilized his hands and spread the burn cream over top.
His vision was blurry with tears so he didn’t notice his audience until she let out a little chirp. He almost jumped out of his skin but he realized it was just DJ. Did she hear him scream from all the way up on the roof? She started to walk toward him and, oh, that wasn’t going to work, she was definitely not sterile and no matter how cute she was petting her was not worth dying slowly of infection so he pushed her away with his foot. Surprisingly, she seemed to get the memo because she stayed perched at his feet until he was finished taping fresh gauze over the ointment to keep it clean.
She didn’t get the full memo though because once he let her come closer she immediately pressed her head into the pad of gauze.
“OW, FUCK! DJ no, please don’t do that. You’re very cute but that did not help,” he exclaimed.
She jumped back at the volume but stayed close so he held out a hand to her which she sniffed and promptly gagged which sent him into a fit of laughter that hurt just as much as her shoving her face into the wound.
“I’m sorry DJ, my hands are covered in alcohol,” he said between pained laughs.
She just stood slightly further away looking very confused so he thoroughly rinsed his hands off and threw a few treats her way. Hopefully, that would be enough to forgive him for the sensory experiences he just put her through.
It seemed to be to her liking because once she ate them she came over to sit next to him and when he held out his hand this time she pushed her face into it and let him scratch her under the chin.
“I’m sorry I woke you up, DJ.”
She didn’t seem to care as she sunk her head lower and lower to the ground into his hand.
“I can’t keep scratching you if you keep pushing me away.”
The logic he provided had no effect on her actions because she kept leaning into his hand until she was just lying on the floor at which point she apparently remembered that it was still bedtime because she promptly curled up and shut her eyes.
“That’s a good idea, DJ, I am *so* tired.”
She just flicked her tail around to complete the little ball she’d curled into and he settled down beside her.
“The hell am I supposed to tell Eraser?” He asked her.
She did not respond beyond the calm purring she’d been doing since he started petting her.
“Hah, I’ll tell him we’re taking a break day, he’ll like that won’t he?”
Ivy:
Break day, I’m not going out tonight.
He sent the text before promptly falling asleep.
***
Katsuki fucked up. He did not mean to do that, he just meant to scare him and maybe burn his shirt but Deku’s skin was mangled and discolored, and the smell, oh Kami the smell almost made him want to vomit. No one else was close enough to see how bad it was and the teacher just sent him to walk to the nurse by himself and he did??? How did he even do that? How did he even get up? Could he not feel it? Was he in shock? He was gone before Katsuki could even think to do anything. The pained scream Deku let out when he hit him was echoing in his head and he couldn’t see anything else but his burnt discolored flesh and the smell was still stuck in his nostrils.
Fuck, he didn’t need the nurse, he needed the hospital. Kami, he didn’t mean to make such a big explosion, his hands were just sweaty from running around and he couldn’t control it as well as he normally did, he even let off a few small sparks before to dissipate the power but obviously, that wasn’t enough.
The teacher didn’t even chastise him, he just walked off the field and blew the whistle signaling for them to start playing again, like nothing happened, like Katsuki didn’t just maim someone. Deku was gonna get sent to the hospital and then Auntie would hear about it and tell his mom and then he was gonna be so fucked. The teachers would always take his side but his mom definitely wouldn’t. It wasn’t even fully a lie to say it was an accident but that wasn’t going to be enough to save him from his mother’s wrath. The hag was always asking about stupid Deku, recently more so than usual now that she’s barely been able to talk to Auntie. She loved him like a second and secretly favorite son and Katsuki just sent him to the hospital.
He could barely participate in the rest of the game because he was watching and listening for the sirens that were going to come barreling down the street but they never came. He kept glancing at every car that passed in the direction of both the hospital and Deku’s apartment but there was no ambulance and none of the cars were Auntie’s.
Maybe they went another way or maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. The smell of burning flesh still clinging to his nose said otherwise though. He was right there, he saw it. It was bad. Kami, it was bad.
He spent the rest of the day waiting for the teacher to tell him his mother had called and he was being sent home or for the teacher to send him to the principal’s office because the nurse told them what he did but it never happened. He got home that night and his mother greeted him like nothing was out of the usual but the guilt was eating away at him. He couldn’t sleep, his mind just kept playing the moment on repeat.
Kami, he needed to get a hold of himself. He needed to control his thoughts and his quirk, he needed to get better. He had to get better. He couldn’t lose control like that again.
***
Shota was halfway through a lecture when his phone pinged and vibrated in his pocket. Ivy, Nem, Zashi, and Tensei were the only contacts he had notifications on for while he was working, he needed to check that. The whole class was looking around waiting to see who was about to incur his wrath but they let out a sigh of relief when he fished his own phone out of his pocket.
“Pardon me a moment,” he said as he opened the message.
Ivy:
Break day, I’m not going out tonight.
What the hell? They practically threatened to kill themself when he brought this up last Saturday and now all of the sudden they’re on board. Something didn’t line up here. He forgot he was in front of a class as he took a moment to stare at his phone in confusion before responding.
Eraserhead:
Not that I’m complaining but why the change of heart?
Usually, Ivy responded within seconds or hours with no in-between so he wasn’t too surprised to not get a response but he was concerned. He had a few different theories on what could have happened for them to change their mind so quickly and none of them were good.
Notes:
Thank you for reading and bearing with my nonsense uploads ❤️
Chapter 32: Oh, sOmeBoDy! Oh, He Need Some Milk.
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Vague mentions of wound care
-Mentions of neglect
-Mentions of past abuse
-Unsafe medical treatments
-Foul languagelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku woke up to his alarm the next morning to DJ loafed in the same spot he remembered her being yesterday afternoon. Kami, he’d slept for over 12 hours, whether DJ had stayed there the whole time or she left and came back was impossible to tell. Either way, it was incredibly adorable so Izuku grabbed a few treats and set them in front of her.
Was she watching over him to make sure he was alright? Kami, she was so precious. There was no reason for her to be down here right now, the heater wasn’t on, spring was in full swing, and it wasn’t cold outside at all so unless it was raining she was just here of her own volition. He almost didn’t want to go out and check but he needed to go to the library. He needed to send a fake email from his mom to the school either excusing him for the whole day or from gym until further notice, hopefully, it worked and they wouldn’t look too far into it. The pain radiating from his side told him he was gonna have to excuse himself for the day. Fuck, he couldn’t go out tonight like this. What was he gonna tell Eraser, wait, what did Eraser say about last night?
Eraserhead: (2:42 pm)
Not that I’m complaining but why the change of heart?
Eraserhead: (3:01 pm)
You alright kid?
Eraserhead: (6:36 pm)
I’m not gonna find you dead in some back alley, right?
Eraserhead: (10:43 pm)
I’m choosing to believe you’re asleep. Please confirm that you’re not dead at your leisure.
Kami, he could sense the sarcasm in that last message. Was he worried about him? Why the hell would he be worried about him?
Ivy: (6:05 am)
Yes im alive. I was sleeping, thought thats what u wanted
He shot off a message to assuage his concern before he prepped himself for the long trek to the library. His side ached with every movement and his back hurt from lying down for so long, it was probably for the best he moved around a little so the wound didn’t heal too tightly. He didn’t want the scar to affect his mobility but that didn’t make it hurt any less right now.
Eraser didn’t get back to him until he was over halfway to the library.
Eraserhead: (6:17 am)
For 15 hours?
Ivy: (6:17 am)
Maybe I was, what’s it to u?
Kami, he was asleep for 15 hours, that had to be a new record. He needed to come up with a story because he wasn’t going to be able to go out for a few days at the very least. He couldn’t even make it to the library without sweating buckets there was no way he could patrol like this. The injuries he got as a child had him bed-bound for a week and that was with professional medical treatment.
Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck Katsuki. What the hell was his problem and why did he have to make it Izuku’s problem as well? Why couldn’t he just leave him the fuck alone?
Eraserhead: (6:19 am)
Are you alright?
Kami, he just had to keep asking. What the hell was he supposed to tell him? What do people normally call off ‘work’ for without raising suspicion? He’s not about to text back, oh yeah no, I’m sporting a new third-degree burn courtesy of my childhood best friend and I don’t have access to any medical treatment so I’m gonna be down for the count for a bit or maybe forever depending on if it gets infected or not but don’t worry, there’s like a 89% chance I’ll see you next week.
GAH, FUCK KATSUKI! Fuck him and his stupid fucking quirk and his stupid fucking attitude and his stupid fucking anger issues and his stupid fucking obsession with making Izuku’s life a living fucking hell.
He needed to calm down before he got any closer to the library. Apparently, he’d been doing a good job of concealing his emotions before he even knew it was an issue so he shouldn’t be so worried about it but he really didn’t want Shinso-san asking questions nor did he want to make her feel the anger that was currently burning in his chest. Anger was an awful emotion and he had it in droves; lately, he’d been channeling that anger into running around the city but now it was just festering.
He took a moment to sit on a bus stop bench to collect himself. Kami, how was he already exhausted? He should’ve taken a break earlier. Whatever, too late now.
What should he tell Eraser? He’s sick? That was close enough to the truth but the man was starting to act like a goddamn mother hen with all his insistence on breaks and following him around like a babysitter every night. He wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to track him down bust open the door and force-feed him chicken noodle soup or something. It was nice but the less Eraser knew about him the safer he would be.
Ivy: (6:28 am)
Im fine. Family emergency, gonna b out of town 4 a few days. I’ll lyk when I get back.
There, shift the concern to a third party that he can’t fact check.
Eraserhead: (6:31 am)
Alright, I’ll patrol as normal until you’re back. I’ll keep you updated if anything major happens.
Oh, that was— that was. He didn’t even realize how stressed out he was about uptown until the weight was lifted off his shoulders. He really didn’t have to do that. He could go back to his old cushy neighborhood patrol. It was probably much easier but he was gonna stay and he was gonna let him know if something went wrong, that— Kami, he felt like he could breathe again.
The ladies wouldn’t have to walk themselves home and, goddammit. Since when did he trust Eraser enough to look after his district for him?
Ivy: (6:32 am)
Thanks
He was too tired to deal with people right now.
***
Midoriya was late. He was usually at the library a bit before it opened but it was five minutes past and he was nowhere to be seen. The last time he didn’t show up to the library he was gone for several days and when he came back he broke down crying and then hardly talked to Hitoshi for months. He still had no clue what caused that to happen and he was too afraid to ask. Their friendship was strained given how socially inept they both were and he didn’t want to make it any worse.
Hopefully, he was just running late and everything was fine.
Everything was not fine. At 6:43 Midoriya strolled into the computer room pale and sweating. It was early in the morning in spring, it couldn’t be more than like 68 degrees out, he shouldn’t be sweating that much. He looked like he was about to pass out.
“Midoriya, are you okay?” He asked before he had the chance to think better of it.
Greenie looked up at him with wide eyes.
“I—uh— yeah, I’m f-fine. I t-think I m-might be a l-little s-sick,” he said without making eye contact.
That was an understatement. He looked like a ghost.
“What are you doing here if you’re sick, Midoriya? You should go home. Do your parents know you’re sick?” Hitoshi asked
Midoriya let out a soft laugh as he sat down in his usual spot.
“Th-they don’t c-care. ‘M gonna use the c-computer to send a f-fake email to school and go back home,” he said with a dazed look before snapping his mouth shut like he didn’t mean to say that.
That was, um, concerning.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t you get in trouble?”
Midoriya buried his face in his hands for a moment before sighing.
“Problem f-for later me,” he responded as he typed away on the keyboard.
Hitoshi was at a loss for what to do. He should do something, right? This wasn’t good, Midoriya shouldn’t have to trick the school and his parents in order to stay home, why don’t his parents care? Were— oh no, where they the reason he came in with a black eye all those months ago? Is that why he was always so jumpy and afraid?
This was not painting a good picture. He needed to say something, he needed to do something.
“Um, Midoriya? Are—uh— are you safe? At home I mean,” he blurted out inelegantly.
Greenie looked over at him and shot him a sad smile.
“Yeah, Sh-Shinso, I-I’m safe a-at home, my p-parents a-are just n-never around,” he replied before going back to crafting a fake email.
Never around? What does he mean by that? The way he said it implied that they hadn’t been around for a while but they were just barely old enough to be left home alone. Still, leaving a kid home alone is better than actively abusing them, right? Kinda? Well, neither were good but it’s the lesser of two evils.
He should tell his mom, he shouldn’t let Midoriya go back to an empty house like this. What if they didn’t have the medicine he needed? Was he gonna have to go to the store by himself? And was he gonna have to make his own meals? He needed to rest, he needed help, he looked like he was about to keel over.
An uncomfortable silence fell for a few moments before Hitoshi made some bullshit excuse and went to go find his mom.
He found her back in the stacks on the other side of the library and she was already looking around with a worried expression as he approached. Concern must have been radiating off of him because he was making no effort to force it down.
“What’s the matter Toshi?” She asked, abandoning her task.
He stood there for a moment running his hands through his messy hair, unsure where to start.
“It’s Midoriya, he’s sick, like he looks awful and I don’t think he meant to— well I asked him— he said his parents—gah!” Struggling against his words he took a moment to collect himself, “he said he’s sending a fake email to his school to excuse him from classes because he’s sick and his parents don’t care and so I asked him if he was safe at home because I was worried that the black eye was… well he said he’s fine but his parents are quote ‘never around’ but he really doesn’t look well and if no one’s at home I just— I don’t know—I don’t want him to—I want him to be okay.”
Kami, that was a mess of an explanation.
He was wringing his hands together and his mom was already leading him back to the computer room.
Maybe they could let him sleep in the back room or maybe his mom could call someone else to cover her shift and they could take him back to their house or maybe he could at least go to the corner store and send Midoriya home with the right medicines and some microwave soups or something. He was devising several plans at once, he didn’t know what his mom wanted to do but they had to do something.
Turning the corner into the computer room his heart dropped. Midoriya was gone. Damnit! He should have known, he’s not stupid of course he knew Hitoshi was going to start fretting and go get his mom, and of course, he wouldn’t want to feel like a burden and of course, he was going to run away from help, he was Midoriya, he’d never once comfortably accepted kindness in any form, Kami, what was he thinking. It all made sense now too, how would he know how to accept help or kindness if he never got it?
He didn’t even have his number and he had no clue where he lived. There was nothing they could do except wait for him to come back. After peaking out the front door and looking for the familiar mop of green hair to no avail he resigned himself to living in a constant state of worry until he saw Midoriya again.
***
Well, he just made a royal mess of that. So much for not tipping off anyone’s concern. He’d sent an email saying he ended up in the hospital and he was excused for the rest of the week or until he felt well enough to return. He was really hoping no one cared enough to hound him for documentation for any of those claims because he would have absolutely no clue how to fake that. This entire plan was dangling off a hope and a prayer but he was so goddamn tired and in so much pain that he didn’t care. He was going to need to stop by some store and pick up some gauze and alcohol with a five-finger discount. He clearly didn’t have it in him to not look like he was about to pass out given Shinso’s immediate reaction so this was going to be really difficult. If he was attracting attention as is shoplifting was not going to be easy but he didn’t have a choice.
Once again dangling by a hope and a prayer he walked into the store with his head down. He went through several isles making an effort to look as casual as possible before he slipped the things he needed into his pocket and leisurely strolled out of the store. If the teenaged cashier noticed anything they didn’t care enough to stop him. Thank Kami, at least something could go right for him.
***
The subsequent days were an agonizing cycle of undressing, cleaning, and redressing the burn. He spent most of the time sleeping waking up only long enough to tend to the wound and slurp down his quickly dwindling stash of nutrient packets. He really needed to get more food if he was going to heal properly because sleeping clearly wasn’t going to replenish his energy. It was only going to get worse if he let his blood sugar completely plummet on top of his exhaustion and he only had one more packet left.
It was around four p.m. on Thursday when he came to this conclusion. He couldn’t afford to buy any food and no one would be passing it out until places started closing down but he didn’t want to be caught out in the dark. With his luck Eraserhead would swoop down and insist on walking him home, he’d yet to get any updates from the man so he assumed everything was carrying on as it normally did in uptown.
With all other options ruled out he needed to find some food to steal. That was one downside of squatting in the warehouse district, he had to walk so far to get any food. Resigned to his fate he got dressed and let the sun fall on him for the first time in days. The walk made him realize how much better he felt already. Sure, he was tired but he wasn’t panting and sweating through his hoodie like he was a few days ago when he’d walked to the library.
Hopefully, he’d be back by Monday.
Notes:
Thank you for reading ❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 33: MotherTrucker, Dude. That hurt Like a Butt Cheek on a Stick.
Notes:
AHHHHHH 500 KUDOS AND 10K HITS ARE YOU GUYS KIDDING ME???????? TYSMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Anyway, I'm posting at 8 am bc I'm a slut for feedback ahahahaha
*****CW******
-Vague mentions of wound care
-Big time ouchies (temporary)
-Vague mentions of past abuse
-Foul languagelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
By the time Monday rolled around Izuku was just about losing his mind. He hadn’t talked to anyone but DJ in nearly a whole week and he hadn’t been able to run at all. Getting actual food in him did wonders for his ability to not sleep for most of the day but that only made him more stir crazy. He’d been well enough to practice throwing knives for a few days but that’s all he could do. He’d pace around the building throwing knives in an attempt to stop himself from going too far. He knew he needed to let it rest but it was becoming increasingly more difficult by the day. He told himself Monday, he could stay here until Monday. He reeked to high heaven and he needed to at least go to school and get a shower and assuming another catastrophe didn’t strike he should be fine to go on patrol too.
The burn was far from fully healed but it was to the point where the pain wasn’t debilitating and it would probably do it good to move around while it healed so the scar didn’t heal too firmly in a resting position, he didn’t want to deal with feeling his skin pull every time he lifted his arms for the rest of his life because of this. Regardless of whether it was medically recommended he was going to go insane if he stayed cooped up for much longer.
The second his alarm went off he got dressed, scooped up the bag carrying everything he would need to shower, clean, and redress the wound, and bolted out the door. This shower was going to take longer than it usually did both because it had been over a week since he’d last properly bathed and because of the burn. He got to the gate a few minutes before it opened and headed straight for the shower.
The stream of water felt both heavenly and agonizing. Washing the built-up grime from his skin made him feel like he was a new man but the process took long enough that the water had heated enough to irritate the burn. Reluctantly, he finished up and dried off. He wrapped his towel around himself and headed to a bathroom stall to dress the burn because he really didn’t need anyone walking in on that.
***
When he entered the classroom no one commented on his absence, nothing had changed, it was like he never left. The teacher wordlessly handed him a stack of work he needed to catch up on and he took a seat at his desk.
He spent his day half listening to the teacher and half working through his missing assignments. Filtering through everything, he’s pretty sure he got the hang of most of it but he might have to look some stuff up at the library tomorrow to make sure.
He was counting the minutes waiting for school to let out. He was itching to check in on uptown, to verify with his own two eyes that everything hadn't gone to shit in his absence, but the seconds were dragging on into eternities and Kacchan would not stop staring at him. It was uncomfortable, he couldn’t place the emotion behind his eyes and he wasn't about to ask.
Hopefully, he would get over whatever guilt or concern or whatever the hell he was feeling by tomorrow because it felt like he was going to start boring holes into Izuku’s skin with that glare.
***
Deku had been gone for nearly a whole week but Katsuki had yet to hear a word about his condition or any sort of punishment and it was starting to become difficult to deny his worry. Worry about his consequences, of course, not for Deku, why the hell would he be worried about stupid Deku?
He was considering ways to ask the teacher or something about him without rousing suspicion when Monday morning rolls around and Deku just strolls into the class like nothing happened. The ever-present bags under his eyes looked a little worse but other than that he just looked normal.
Weakling probably got healed up by some fancy quirk and spent the week being waited on by Auntie. Kami, he spent the whole week being worried– er um, not worried over nothing. The idiot was fine, maybe that’d teach him not to get in Katsuki’s way again.
***
Izuku got dressed for patrol the minute he got home and texted Eraserhead that he should expect him back tonight despite the fact that he wouldn’t be heading out for another few hours. He used that time to practice with his throwing knives a bit and scaled the walls up to the roof by the dumpster over and over again. It hurt but it was manageable, he would be fine.
When DJ got fed up with his noise-making and yowled at him he decided it was close enough to when he would usually leave and he could just take a bit of a longer route to their normal meet-up spot.
Even though they took the long way ‘round they still ended up 15 minutes early but Eraser was already sitting there with his customary nutrient pouch. He eyed them up and down before tossing them one. Yes, liquid gold. These things saved his ass last week.
“Thanks, Eraser,” he said with some snark even though he meant it genuinely.
“Mmhmm,” he replied in his usual monotone drawl, “Everything alright with the family emergency?”
Was this small talk or did he actually want to know? They studied his face to look for an answer but his expression was as flat as his tone.
“Yeah, it’s fine now. Anything burn down while I was gone?” they asked in return.
Eraser did say he’d tell them if something went wrong but they still needed that confirmation.
“Not as far as I know, the ladies have been asking where you were though. Word’s gotten around about your sabbatical but nothing’s come of it yet.”
That was concerning.
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m back then,” they replied with a smirk.
“You haven't gotten rusty while you were gone, have you?” Eraser asked with a sadistic smile as he tossed him one of the blunted practice knives.
Well, shit. Looks like they’re gonna be working on their defensive moves today.
“‘Course not, can you still keep up old man?” they shot back with false confidence.
Their spars ended as usual with Eraser winning but it was good practice to work on their defensive skills so it wasn’t a complete loss. They were definitely tiring faster than they normally did but they hoped he wouldn’t notice. They had made sure the burn was dressed extra securely before they left so the bandaging wasn’t dragging on it but it still hurt as the skin stretched and moved with them. It hurt but it felt so much better to finally be moving again.
The sun set quickly and before they knew it it was time to start patrol. It was a Monday, so it should be pretty slow going but they weren’t about to let their guard down. The minutes trickled into hours and very little of note happened, they stopped some muggings, helped some people home, and broke up a drug deal. It was going too smoothly so Ivy wasn’t surprised when it went south.
They were intercepting the second drug deal of the night when Ivy was knocked to the ground. It would have been fine but the man they were fighting stomped down on their ribs to pin them down. Any other place and in any other situation it would have been fine but of course, the man’s heel hit dead center on the burn. It hurt for a moment and they couldn’t help but let out a yelp. They were about to punch or slash the back of the man’s knee, do anything to get that awful pressure off of them when all of the sudden their vision whited out and the pain became unbearable. It was like nothing they had ever experienced before.
It hurt more than when he was initially burned, it hurt more than when he had to clean it, it hurt more than what his father did to him all those years ago. They were screaming, they knew they were screaming but they couldn’t stop themselves. Through the roaring in their ears, they faintly heard Eraser shout out to them and suddenly the pain was diminished, it wasn’t gone but it was lessened, it was bearable.
Quickly, they took their knife and buried it in the back of the man’s calf and he went careening to the ground, his head hit the pavement and he stopped moving. It must have been a quirk that magnified the pain, even though it was gone their mind was still reeling from it. Kami, they were gonna be sick.
They could hear Eraser running up behind them but they were not about to vomit into their mask. They held one hand up behind them attempting to signal to Eraser to stay back and dragged themself as far as they could before ripping the mask off and spewing up their meager lunch on the side of the dirty alley. Putting the mask back in place as quickly as they could they took a moment to collect themself lying on the ground panting with their eyes closed and the sour taste of bile lingering in their mouth.
Before they were fully coherent again Eraser was at their side saying something and running a hand over the spot the man had just dug his heel into.
“Gah, fuck off,” they groaned out, slapping his hands away.
They finally tuned into their surroundings as Eraserhead was talking and trying to probe their ribs again. They only caught the last half of his sentence.
“–need to make sure you’re okay,” he said half annoyed half concerned.
“I’m fine,” they grumbled slapping the hand away a second time.
“The fuck you mean you’re fine, you just screamed like you were being tortured, stabbed a guy, and threw up, let me see–” Ivy cut him off.
“It was a quirk, he’s got a pain quirk or something, it stopped when you looked at him. Is he okay?” They asked as they pushed Eraserhead out of the way to check on the man lying prone on the ground.
Their limbs still felt a little disconnected after that so it took them a moment to stumble to their feet but the man appeared to be fine. He was breathing and where he hit his head wasn’t bleeding too much so he should be alright. He did however have one of Ivy’s knives buried in his calf.
“Of course, you’re checking him over before yourself,” he heard Eraser mumble under his breath before speaking up, “I’m calling an ambulance, either they’re going to check you over or I am.”
Ivy was getting deja vu, that's the same damn trick the gym teacher tried to use on them when he first got burned.
“Stop coercing me into taking my shirt off Eraser, it’s not a good look for you,” they quipped back.
They could swear they could see his eye twitch in the low light before he spoke, “Ivy, go WALK two blocks that way and sit down. I will meet you there when this is dealt with, DO NOT go any further, understood?”
Oh, he was angry. His tone left no room for debate so Ivy just raised their hands in mock surrender and walked theatrically slow out of the alley and in the direction Eraser pointed. They could hear him start talking to an operator as they turned the corner.
As they sat in an alley two blocks away their body returned to its normal function, their mind no longer felt like soup that had just been vigorously stirred and they were getting bored. Why the hell did they even listen to Eraser? Sirens had raced to the scene like 15 minutes ago, he was taking forever.
They’d gotten up and started pacing and were considering just continuing patrol despite Eraser’s ‘command’ when the man himself rounded the corner.
Upon seeing them he stopped and took a deep breath.
“I told you to sit down, Ivy,” he reprimanded as he approached.
“You were taking forever, be glad I even waited for you. Let’s go,” they said turning on their heel and preparing to scale the wall to get back on the rooftops.
“Ivy stop,” Eraser commanded again before resting a firm hand on their shoulder.
They quickly turned around and wrenched their shoulder out of his grasp.
“Quit touching me! I’m fine!” they spat back.
“If you keep running around with a possibly broken rip you could end up with a punctured lung,” he warned, “just let me check and we can–”
“I know what a broken rib feels like, Eraser. It’s not broken, I’m fine now stop fretting over me like a worried housewife,” they interrupted.
Eraser took another deep breath and looked them over one more time before he relented.
“Okay, fine. Just let me know if it gets worse. I’ve got a friend with a healing quirk and she can be discreet, she won’t ask questions,” he replied.
Oh, that was, that could be… that could be really helpful, but not right now. They were already on the mend. The risk of infection was decreasing by the day but that was something to keep in mind.
“Thanks, I’ll let you know if I ever need that,” they said scaling the wall before Eraser could argue anymore.
Notes:
THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!!!
Chapter 34: Papa’s Worried About His Lil’ Green Bean.
Notes:
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Description of pained screams (?) It's kinda upsetting, idk.lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota was worried. The kid was clearly hurting but they wouldn’t listen. It went against every instinct in his body to let them walk away but he’d already messed up the trust between them enough. He told them the risks and he needed to let them decide for themselves.
Nothing major happened for the rest of the night but Ivy’s screams were still echoing in his mind. They were screaming loud enough to overrule their voice modulator so it was higher pitched than their voice normally was but it was guttural. It was the kind of scream that shreds your throat and it couldn’t have felt good to vomit right after that. They were a little wobbly on their feet for a moment but they just walked it off like nothing happened. If the screams weren’t concerning enough then that surely was. He could blame it on adrenaline but most people don’t just get up after being in that much pain regardless of whether the sensation lingers. Pain that powerful should be disorienting and Ivy snapped themself out of it with practiced ease.
Can they just go one day without doing something incredibly concerning? Kami.
When they bid each other farewell for the night he shot a text to Hizashi telling them that he’d be home late before making a stop at the precinct. He barged into Tsukauchi’s office without warning but the man remained completely unphased. He just looked up from his computer with a raised eyebrow.
“Have you gotten any word on the perp that was sent to the hospital earlier?” he asked.
It was too late or rather too early depending on how you looked at it to be beating around the bush.
“Yes, Nakano Takeshi, 37 years old, prior record with narcotics, he’s likely looking at a life sentence because of that. Why do you ask?” Tsukauchi asked.
“What’s his quirk?” he answered with another question.
Tsukauchi shuffled around some papers before responding, reading off a file, “‘Quirk: Pain Magnification.’ He can magnify the amount of pain someone feels in a certain range but it’s generally pretty weak and the results vary based on the amount of pain the victim was already experiencing. Now, are you gonna answer my question or–” Shota cut him off
“It’s weak?” he asked sounding unconvinced.
“Yes, generally, as I said it–” Shota cut him off again.
“Did they find any quirk-enhancing drugs in his system?” he asked.
“No, he was a little high off his own supply but no quirk-enhancing drugs. Can you please explain what’s going on?” he asked starting to get fed up with being interrupted.
Shota ran his hands through his hair for a moment before taking a seat in front of Tsukauchi’s desk and letting out a groan.
“The guy pinned Ivy and used his quirk on them and they let out this awful scream it was like they were getting tortured but they wouldn’t let me check them over. Kami, I knew something was wrong. They wouldn’t be in that much pain if they weren’t injured, would they?” he asked not sounding hopeful for the answer.
“Um, no, not unless we missed something on our end but this guy’s been processed a few times so that would have had to be a repeated error on our part,” Tsukauchi replied with a cringe.
“Fuck,” he bit out harshly before standing up to pace the room once again running his fingers through his tangled curls.
He knew he shouldn’t have left them, he knew it in his gut and he’d learned to trust his gut a long time ago. This whole situation was so frustrating and he just wanted a clear course of action but there was no right way to go about this. Kami, he could just offer up his life as the next ethics debate for his students.
He couldn’t take them off the streets, it may be good for their physical health but from what little he knows about them their mental health would suffer greatly. Not only that, but uptown would suffer greatly, he had been scrambling for the last six days trying to manage that place the way Ivy does so seamlessly. Until that gang was taken care of that place and those people relied on Ivy, taking them off the streets would damn the rest of them. But leaving them be wasn’t any better. He still had no clue how old they were and regardless of that they were clearly not safe, they needed help, more help than he could give them.
The situation was a ticking time bomb and every little thing that went wrong would fall on his shoulders because he refused to take them off the streets but if he did take them off the streets whatever became of Ivy and uptown would be his fault as well. Fucking hell, why did Tsukauchi have to bring him into this?
The man in question was watching him pace back and forth in front of his desk with a concerned expression.
“Okay,” he offered as an end to the conversation and turned to leave.
“Wait! What are you going to do, Aizawa?” he called after him.
“I have no goddamn idea,” he responded before closing the door behind him.
***
Hizashi was woken up by a text telling him that Sho would be home late and not to worry. So, of course, they were worried. They tried to get back to sleep because, rationally, he knew that he should listen to Sho, there was no logical situation he would be in where he had the time to send that message and not be fine; but the brain did what the brain wanted to so after a half hour of tossing and turning they decided to go make some tea. Hopefully, Sho would be back in time to share a cup with him before bed.
Shota, in his impeccable timing, walked through the door just as they had finished preparing their tea and sat down. Rolling their eyes but still relieved he stood up again to make a second cup.
“Tea, Sho?” he called down the hall as he set the kettle back on because they already knew the answer.
“Yeah, Zashi that would be great, did the text wake you? I told you not to worry,” he said as he dropped his scarf and goggles around the back post of one of the dining room chairs.
“I know but you know I never listen to you, dear,” he replied with a tired smile.
Sho returned the gesture and wrapped them up in a hug resting his head on their shoulder until the kettle went off.
“Thanks for the tea, ‘m gonna go change and wash off, I’ll be back in a minute,” he said with his face still smushed into the junction of their neck and shoulder.
They planted a kiss on his head and pushed him away.
“Alright Sho, tea should be the perfect temperature when ya get back, did something happen?” he asked him before he left.
“Yeah, everything’s fine, just worried about Ivy,” he replied
“So nothing new?” he poked back with a smile.
Sho let out a humorless laugh at that.
“I’ll fill you in when I get back,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the bedroom.
Sho had been worrying about his “Problem Child” since the night he met them, he had always had an attachment to strays but usually, that only applied to cats, apparently it applied to stray vigilantes too. He’d been pulling his hair out stressing about whether he should bring them in to keep them safe or risk them getting hurt in the time it took him to gain their trust. He’d kept telling them to wait, that they would come around but he was removed from the situation, he didn’t have to see all the red flags and will himself to ignore them in the hopes that things would turn around soon. He knew that and Sho knew that too but they both worried too much. No amount of logic or rationality would trump a chronic over-thinker but Kami, did Sho try.
They could hear him bustling around in the shower as he stirred some honey into his tea, it was lavender and chamomile so hopefully it could help both of them get some sleep. He set the tea down at the head of the dining table and took his seat next to it. Maybe Sho did have good timing because his tea had just cooled down the perfect amount by the time he could finally take a sip. They were halfway through their cup when Sho walked out in a pair of sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt.
They sat there patiently as he took a moment to sip his tea before starting.
“We were splitting up a drug deal and Ivy went after the dealer, I thought they had it handled but I heard them yelp; I was taking the other guy down and by the time I could look over they were screaming. It was awful,” he paused for a moment staring into his tea cup before looking up to meet his gaze, “It was guttural like they were being tortured. The guy had knocked them down and had a foot on their ribs and I didn’t know what was happening so I activated my quirk on him and they stopped screaming and stabbed him in the leg. He knocked himself out when he hit the ground and I was already running to Ivy but they put a hand, up and dragged themself away from me, and puked.”
He knew Sho told him everything was fine but he was becoming increasingly concerned the more he explained and Sho looked uncomfortable just recounting it.
“By the time I got over there, they had their mask back on and they were just laying down trying to catch their breath. I tried to look them over but they wouldn’t let me. They just said the guy had some kind of pain quirk and they went to go make sure he was alright because, of course, they did. They wouldn’t let the paramedics look them over so I told them to wait a couple blocks away but when I got there they still wouldn’t let me. I told them they could end up with a punctured lung if they ran around with broken ribs but they said they knew what broken ribs feel like and that they weren’t broken,” he said and took a sip of his tea.
“Well, I see how that’s not ideal but I think you just have to trust them when they say they didn’t break anything Sho,” they replied assuming that was the end of the story.
“No, that’s not it, Zashi. I knew something was off, I knew I shouldn’t have just let them go,” he said as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms before dragging his hands through his still-damp hair.
“I stopped by the precinct to check in with Tsukauchi about it, that's why I was late, and he said the guy’s quirk only enhanced already existing pain and it was weak. The amount of pain he can cause directly correlates to the amount of pain the person was already in so for Ivy to have been in enough pain to vomit means that they had to have been injured,” he said finally finishing his explanation.
Ah, yes, that made more sense. That was much more concerning. Damnit.
“How long did you patrol afterward? Did they seem alright then?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s part of the problem Zashi, they acted completely fine. They were a little shaky when they first got up but otherwise, nothing. One second they’re screaming in agony the next they’re making fun of me for acting like a ‘worried housewife’” he said as he carded his hand through his hair again.
Kami, he really must be stressed, he only does that when he’s in the thick of it. Slowly they grabbed the hand fidgeting in his hair and held it gently.
“You're worried about how they can compartmentalize pain that well?” he asked to verify.
“That and whatever injury they were hiding,” he confirmed.
They both sat there in silence for a moment before Sho spoke up again.
“I have no clue what to do, there’s no right way to deal with this,” he said as he picked up his tea with the hand not currently being held.
“Yeah, Sho, I think you’re right. There’s no right way but you’re doing what you can. You’re dealing with this as ‘right’ as you can be. It’s just a shit situation,” he supplied.
They wished they could say something else, they wished that they could fix this and they knew Sho felt the same way, he was a bleeding heart no matter how well he hid that fact from the world. Usually, he did his best to stop himself from getting attached to begin with but Ivy seems to have weaseled their way through his rough exterior with ease. Hizashi also cared about the kid but in a detached way, in the way he cared for anyone he’d never met. But he did care about Sho, and he could see the way this kid was going to break his heart if something went wrong. Kami, did they wish they could do something other than hope that things would work out, they couldn’t bear to see Shota cry.
“We’ll figure it out, Sho. somehow, we’ll figure it out,” he offered, “Let's go to bed, okay?”
Shota took a few more sips of his tea before nodding, taking both their cups, setting them in the sink, and following him to bed.
Notes:
ZASHI POV! ZASHI POV! ZASHI POV! M Y L O V E
Y'ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!!~ C H A R A C T E R A N A L Y S I S T I M E ~
Hizashi Yamada:
I think Zashi falls into a lot of stereotypes, he’s a loud dumb blond with a flashy quirk perfect for limelight heroics, right? Well, it's Cannon that he is actually just a touch feral which, personally, I love for him. It’s also Cannon that he’s had his quirk since birth and, in my mind, because they’ve had it for their whole life, they’ve been treated as a loose canon. (Because even the average child can’t control their volume, imagine what Zashi was like when he got excited)
I think they were always likable but they never had close friends because everyone was kinda scared of them. He didn’t gain real control over it until mid to late junior high and that on top of his bubbly personality made people assume he was just stupid even though he’s not. I think they’ve got a slightly above-average IQ but a really high EQ whereas I think Aizawa has a higher IQ and an average to below-average EQ (but he kinda makes up for that with the lessons he has from leading a shit life and Zashi’s emotional intelligence rubbing off on him).
I think after a while he had just given into the dumb blond stereotype and played it up for laughs even if it was at his own expense and I think he weaponized those stereotypes in his hero persona. I think Oboro was his first real friend to see past the front he put up and actually get to know him. Obviously, Tensei, Nemuri, and Shota did too after he joined the heroics course.
I think losing Oboro hurt Hizashi just as much as it hurt Shota but the difference was they allowed themself to feel it and work through the grief whereas Shota just bottled it up. I think Zashi feels things just as much as Shota but since he had more human connection with his family and to a far lesser extent his classmates as a child he’s built up the emotional intelligence to work through his problems rather than avoid them. He lets himself feel but he doesn’t let that debilitate him.
I think he still has his issues, he hasn’t like ~reached enlightenment~ or anything like that. He still has setbacks and insecurities but he’s built himself a support system that he can fall back on when he needs to. He has a tendency to go non-verbal when he’s upset/overwhelmed because his childhood trained him that he shouldn’t speak when he’s not in full control of himself and I think he has issues letting himself deal with anger in a healthy way (which is where the touch of feral energy comes from).Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Chapter 35: Return of the Dumbass (affectionate)
Notes:
get ready for some fffffffffffffffluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufff
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Mentions of neglect/bullying
-Mentions of burn wound (not in-depth)lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
By the time Izuku had collapsed into his nest he was dead on his feet. He’d meant to check his burn before he fell asleep but the moment he wasn’t supporting his own weight he was out like a light. He woke up to the grating sound of his alarm and pain radiating from his side.
Shit, he really needed to check that. Quickly he silenced the alarm and flipped the lights on, he was still in his vigilante get-up, black eyeshadow and everything, he really needed to get a mask because that stuff was really annoying to take off. Unzipping his hoodie, pulling up his shirt, and peeling back the bandages he was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn’t too bad. It hurt quite a bit and he probably had a bruise that he couldn’t make out under all the burned tissue but he was largely okay. Or at least as okay as he was previously.
He went through the familiar motions of redressing the burn before he got ready to go to the library. He was gonna have a lot of questions to answer today after he ran off last Tuesday but he’d come up with a story, he’d keep up the lie that his father worked in America, it had worked for years so Izuku figured if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if Shinso asked about his mom he’d say she was a traveling nurse because that wasn’t too far from the truth. All the best lies were rooted in some sort of truth. His mother IS a nurse and she DID travel, she just didn’t come back, but Shinso didn’t need to know that.
If Shinso asked why he had to go to the library to send a fake email, well… he’d have to come up with something. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask about that.
***
Hitoshi hadn’t seen Midoriya for a full week now and he was getting more concerned with each passing day. He looked incredibly ill last time he’d seen him and then he ran away when Hitoshi asked if he was safe at home like a bumbling idiot. There wasn’t even anything he or his mom could do, they had no grounds to get the police involved and he didn’t have his number or know where he lived. The only identifying information he had about him was his name and where he went to school and they couldn’t exactly waltz in there asking about him, they had no clue who they were and they wouldn’t tell them anything.
He’d stalked through every social media he could think of looking for a way to contact him but he couldn’t find anything so for the time being he was just left to pull his hair out. It was almost time for the library to open and like he had been every day since Midoriya had run off he was sitting in his usual spot bouncing his leg and biting his nails with his eyes trained on the door.
Unlike every other day, at 6:30 on the dot Greenie came strolling in. He couldn't have stopped himself from shooting to his feet if he tried.
“Midoriya!” he exclaimed as he all but ran over to him.
He looked much better than he had the last time he saw him. The color was back in his cheeks, he wasn’t sweating buckets, and he didn’t look like he was one strong breeze from falling over.
For all the worrying he did he didn’t put any thought into how he would broach the topic once he returned, he stopped a few steps away and stared at him dumbly for a moment. Luckily, he was saved by his mom peeking out from the stacks to see what the commotion was.
“Midoriya! You’re back! We’ve been so worried, are you feeling better?” she asked across the room at a volume she would tell anyone else off for using at the library.
“I– sorry, I didn’t m-mean t-to worry y-you guys. I-I’m d-doing m-much better n-now, t-thank you,” he said with a small bow.
His mom gestured the two of them over to some lounge seats and they followed obediently. She glanced at Hitoshi for a second before she started.
“I wanted to check in with you, dear,” she said to Midoriya with a reserved tone, “Toshi told me some of the stuff you said but don’t be mad at him, he just wants to help, we both do, so I just need to make sure you’re alright at home.”
Midoriya looked like he was expecting this talk because he didn’t freak out like Hitoshi thought he would.
“Y-yes Shinso-s-san, I’m f-fine at h-home. My p-parents just work a l-lot,” he explained as he fidgeted with his hands.
His mom frowned at that but didn’t push it.
“Okay, just know that we’re here if you ever need anything, I mean that,” she said with the utmost sincerity.
Hitoshi may not have been able to feel her worry over the past week like she could feel his but he could see it. She would come peek into the computer room every morning to see if he was back and would ask Hitoshi if he’d heard from him daily.
“It would make me feel better if you had our numbers,” she said as she ripped a piece of paper from a notepad and scribbled down the digits, “You can call or text us at any time, okay?”
Greenie hesitantly took the paper she held out to him, he looked incredibly uncomfortable now.
“Th-thank you Sh-Shinso-san,” he said with another bow.
She smiled at him and ruffled Hitoshi’s hair before dismissing them back to the computer room.
The two of them sat in silence for a few awkward moments before Hitoshi spoke up.
“Are you really okay, Midoriya?” he asked because something still didn’t sit right.
Now that he had spent a week percolating on all the ways Midoriya’s odd behavior would make sense if he was being abused he couldn’t get the idea out of his head. All the pieces had fallen into place and the answer fit too well for him to be convinced that everything was fine.
“Y-yeah Shinso, I’m f-fine, I swear,” Greenie said back without meeting his eyes. “I-I’ve got some h-homework to catch u-up on though,” he said, shutting down any follow-up questions Hitoshi might have had.
***
Fucking hell, he was going to need to get a second burner phone, goddamnit. The Shinsos were far too kind to him for him to turn around and ignore their request but he didn’t have a cent to his name right now. If he didn’t get the chance to pickpocket someone tonight he was screwed. Honestly, he was screwed regardless. Pickpocketing around Eraser wasn’t a reliable income. He had to figure something out.
Maybe he could try to sell some scrap metal from Dahgobah. He couldn’t lug heavy metal around right now but once he healed up it would be a good way to work on his muscle mass as well. In the meantime, well, he could worry about that tonight.
***
He managed to swipe enough money for the cheapest burner they sold at the 24-hour store in uptown. Whether or not Eraser noticed was hard to say but he said nothing about it, he didn’t say much of anything the whole night. He tended to be a man of few words but today he was quiet to the point that it was off-putting. Not that it mattered, whether he was lost in his thoughts or not he didn’t let it get in the way of his work and the night went off without a hitch.
They walked into the store forgetting they probably looked ready to rob the place in their full vigilante garb so they were a bit confused for a moment when the cashier hastily handed over the phone and took their money without saying a word. Mmm that probably wasn’t the best play but he didn’t see any security cameras so it should be fine. They’d have to tell the Shinsos that they paid by the minute/message so they didn’t blow up their phone because the amount they pre-paid wasn’t going to last long regardless.
After he got home and changed out of his vigilante garb he took a moment to set up the phone and add the two numbers he’d gotten earlier then sent off a quick message.
Midoriya: (4:29 am)
Hey Shinso, sorry for the late text but I wanted to send you my number b4 I forgot again. (Also, please don’t blow up my phone too much, my plan is paid by minute/message)
Shinso: (4:30 am)
Don’t worry about the late message I never sleep anyways. I’ll let my mom know too.
What the hell was Shinso doing up at 4:30 am? Whatever, he figured Insomnia’s a bitch and Izuku was too tired to ask.
***
The next morning when he walked into the library there was a bagel with cream cheese sitting on the desk where he normally sat. He glanced over at Shinso who was munching on a matching bagel, so he furrowed his brows in a wordless question.
“My mom was worried and she’s insisting that she brings you breakfast from now on, sorry,” he answered with a grimace.
She made him a bagel? That was so nice, and she was gonna keep doing it? Oh, Kami, he didn’t deserve this. They were so nice and he was lying to them about everything but even so, his heart melted at the gesture and again he was overcome with the overwhelming knowledge that this wasn’t going to end well.
“She also wanted me to ask if there’s a day of the week you could come over for dinner,” Hitoshi said as he put his bagel down and started picking at his nails, “You don’t have to but I thought we could try and work on those martial arts moves you were researching, maybe we could learn together.”
Kami, how can he not flinch when someone points a gun at him but the second someone does something nice he’s a blubbering mess? He felt like he was about to cry and given Shinso’s reaction he probably looked like it too. He took his seat and nodded, not trusting his voice. He took a bite of the bagel and let himself calm down before responding properly.
“Y-yeah Shinso, that w-would be nice, th-thank you,” he choked out.
Shinso looked concerned but, blessedly, he didn’t mention it.
“Yeah, of course. Hopefully, you can make it to my house without looking like you took a surprise swim next time,” he teased back with a chuckle in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Izuku let out a good-natured scoff at that.
“Yeah, the r-rainy season’s g-gonna end s-soon so h-hopefully that w-won’t happen again,” he replied.
They made plans to meet that Thursday and Izuku made sure to thank Shinso-san profusely before he left.
***
On Thursday, after he verified that the weather was set to remain clear, he stood partially hidden by the front gate after school and watched as Katsuki turned to walk home. Yes! If he ran he would be able to make the 3:45 train and save himself a half hour’s walk. The burn on his side was healing nicely but it was still draining his energy so he took breaks wherever he could.
The ten-minute train ride took him to a five-minute walk away from the Shinso’s house. When he knocked on the door Shinso answered it with a towel in hand and they both burst out laughing. He clearly inherited his mother’s humor and Izuku was glad he was finally letting it shine. After greeting Shinso-san Shinso led him to the backyard. It wasn’t massive but there was room for a patio, a good patch of grass, and a large tree in the back corner. The tree had one large branch that cast nearly the entire yard in spotted shade and a swing hung crooked off of it with one of the ropes no longer connected and dragging on the ground.
“Alright, Greenie-sensei, where do we start?” Shinso asked with a theatrical bow.
Izuku giggled for a moment before lightly hitting his shoulder to get him to stand up straight again.
“W-well I guess we s-should start with the b-basics,” he replied, “You need to have a g-good fighting stance, l-like this.”
He squared his shoulders, offset his feet, and brought his arms up in front of himself defensively.
“Y-you want to make s-sure you’ve got g-good balance but you’re not t-too stiff b-because you need to m-move with the h-hits rather than t-trying to keep your g-ground and getting knocked o-over.”
Shinso mirrored his stance pretty well but his feet were still too close together so Izuku corrected him before proceeding.
“You should a-always protect y-your head but I-I’m not t-trying to brain you s-so I won’t aim above the shoulders.”
“Oh, thanks Midoriya, go easy on me, you’re too kind,” Hitoshi quipped back with a smirk.
He stopped himself from making a snide comment right back like he would with Eraser before he realized he didn’t need to. If the banter he’d heard between Shinso and his mother was anything to go by he knew that Shinso could take a joke.
“Mhmm, I’m getting you back f-for beating me in Mario Kart last time,” he said before promptly sweeping Shinso’s legs out from under him.
Shinso looked up at him sprawled in the grass in confusion for a second before exclaiming, “Midoriya! What the hell was that, how did you do that?!”
Izuku gave a shy facsimile of Eraser’s sadistic grin before offering up a hand and pulling Shinso back to his feet.
“I-I’ve been practicing.”
“What, while you were on death’s doorstep with the plague?” Shinso shot back.
“No! I’ve b-been practicing for y-years k-kinda but more so in t-the last like 10 months,” he said with a bit of a blush.
“You really did come over to beat me up out back, didn’t you?” Shinso asked seeming to resign himself to his fate.
“M-maybe. You can crush m-me in Mario K-Kart later if t-that makes you feel b-better,” Izuku replied trying his best to stifle a laugh.
Shinso rolled his eyes and got back into the fighting stance he’d just been knocked out of.
“I’ll hold you to that, Greenie. Now show me how you did that.”
Izuku got into place again.
“SLOWLY!” he added as Izuku went to sweep his legs out from under him for a second time.
Izuku had to get over a bout of laughter before he slowly went through how he did what he did a few times over. By the time Shinso-san called them in for dinner Shinso was probably sporting a few new bruises but Izuku was no worse for wear.
Notes:
THANK YOU FOR READING EVERYONE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Chapter 36: Turning a New Leaf (Giving in to the Inevitable)
Notes:
On that 100k word creep, only to 90k here but with the backlogged chapters I'm almost at it!
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
No CWs for this one I don't think. Just awkward bbs.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Days turned into weeks and the burn on his side was finally in the clear. It still hurt a bit but for it to get infected now would have to be an act of god. Eraserhead had been periodically bullying him into taking a day off and his weird bout of erie silence had come and gone but he was still watching him like a hawk; other than that things had been going well. Shinso-san had been making good on her promise to bring him breakfast every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday as well as abducting him for dinner once a week. As he got his strength back he’d been sorting through scraps at Dagobah in hopes that he could get enough pocket change to maintain the payments on his second burner phone.
Since the days were getting longer he was considering using the nights he went over to the Shinso’s house as a break day so that he could stay later. He knew he shouldn’t, he knew getting involved was a bad idea but at this point, it was too late. There was no way he wasn’t going to get his heart broken when everything went to shit so he figured he might as well enjoy it while he can. After playing around with the idea for nearly a full week, he texted Eraser.
Ivy:
Alright, I relent. We can take one break day a week but its gonna b randomly generated every Sunday night.
Eraserhead:
I was beginning to think you were taking a very roundabout way to try and kill me.
Ivy:
Sorry u cant keep up old man. This week is Tuesday.
Eraserhead:
Noted
***
“You need to work on y-your strength. You can’t take p-people down with those noodle arms.”
Hitoshi gasped in mock offense
“You need to work on your height, you can’t take people down being four foot nothing,” he taunted back under his breath.
“Oh, r-really? You want to b-bet on that, Shinso?”
“AHH no! I'm sorry! You’re terrifying! It was just too easy– ack!” Hitoshi cried as he ran away only for Midoriya to trip him with the rope dangling off the broken swing.
Hitoshi glared up at him after tasting dirt for at least the 10th time today.
“That was low,” he said with a disgruntled face.
“You’ve got to use y-your environment t-to your advantage,” he defended, “Also you s-should watch where you’re g-going.”
For at least the 10th time today, Midoriya offered him a hand and pulled him back to his feet.
“What’s the d-deal with this swing anyways? You guys ever gonna f-fix it?” Midoriya asked.
Hitoshi looked at it with a sad smile before responding, “My dad made it and one day it just broke. It’s been like that ever since.”
“Oh, um, well, do you want m-me to fix it?” Midoriya offered, looking guilty for bringing it up.
“No, it’s fine. We don’t have a ladder, we have no idea how he even got it up there to begin with,” he said with a rye laugh.
Greenie paused for a moment to study the rope and then the tree and he took a few seconds seemingly trying to decide if he should say what he was going to say.
“I-I don’t need a ladder, I c-can fix it if y-you want me t-to.”
He sounded anxious about it, his stutter always got worse when he was anxious.
“You don’t have to do that, Midoriya,” He placated.
“I-I know, b-but I want to– I m-mean if y-you want m-me t-to,” he chewed at his lip before continuing, “y-you guys d-do so m-much for m-me and I c-can’t– I don’t have a-any way to p-pay you back so if I c-can help with this I w-want to,” he sputtered out inelegantly.
“You don’t have to ‘pay us back’ Midoriya. We’re friends, right? That's just what friends do… I think. But you can fix it if you want– wait what do you mean you don’t need a ladder?” Hitoshi asked.
In response, Greenie just looked at him with one of his rare shit-eating grins, looped the end of the rope around his belt, and took a running start toward the fence. A few strides before he was about to run into it he he lept up and used it as a springboard to launch himself back at the tree. He jumped off the tree and landed back on top of one of the fence posts and then swung himself up and off the nearest branch and climbed over to where the other rope was still attached to the tree. Straddling the branch he casually unlooped the rope from his belt and started tying it back around the branch where it belonged.
Hitoshi stood there for a moment with his jaw practically on the ground.
“What in the ever-loving hell was that?! How did you do that Midoriya?!” he exclaimed after he got over the initial shock of realizing his best and only friend was apparently part monkey.
Midoriya just threw his head back laughing then finished tying the rope.
“G-give it a good yank, make s-sure it’s secure,” he called down to Hitoshi.
Hitoshi did as instructed and even went so far as to step up onto it and give it a few test swings. Looking back up at Midoriya he gave a thumbs up.
“I-is it level? P-probably should’ve ch-checked that first,” he shot back.
Hitoshi stepped off the swing and walked a few paces away to check.
“It’s level enough, I wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t looking for it,” he shouted up, “Now how are you gonna get down from there, oh, great ninja master?”
Midoriya threw a twig at him for the shit joke and it landed right in his hair.
“What the hell, why are you so good at everything?” he asked as he attempted to extract the twig that was thoroughly tangled in his locks.
“It t-takes practice to b-be this insufferable and I t-take my job very seriously,” he quipped back managing to keep a straight face for all of two seconds.
After verifying that the swing was where it needed to be he climbed back over to the fence and dropped down, landing squarely with one foot on the 4x4” top of the 6’ tall fence post. After pivoting on one foot he jumped down to the ground landing with a roll and springing seamlessly up to his feet.
After watching that it occurred to Hitoshi that despite hanging out with Midoriya for at least an hour three to four days out of the week for nearly the past two years he knew next to nothing about him. He had no clue how he learned to do that, he had no clue where he lived, he had no clue what his family or other friends were like, he didn’t even know his favorite color. They got along well but they never talked about anything. How do you spend two years around someone and not talk about anything of importance?
In all fairness, Hitoshi hadn’t been much more forthcoming in his own personal information either but Midoriya never asked so he never told. Maybe that went both ways, was he supposed to ask about that stuff? It seemed like the kind of thing that would just come up naturally but, clearly, it hadn’t and it looked like it wasn’t going to.
“How the hell do you know how to do that, Greenie?” he asked again.
He just shrugged and said, “Practice,” like that explained everything
“You’re telling me you just taught yourself how to do that for, what? Fun?” he pressed.
“Pretty much, y-yeah.”
Midoriya was a never-ending font of questions, he could spell out his entire life’s story and Hitoshi would probably still be left scratching his head.
“What’s your favorite color?” He blurted out.
“Huh?” Midoriya responded, understandably confused by the non sequitur.
“We’re like best friends and I don’t know the first thing about you, so, what’s your favorite color?” he asked again.
Midoriya looked a little surprised and uncomfortable at the call out but he answered regardless, “Oh, um, i-is it too cliche t-to say g-green?” he asked with a strained laugh.
“Well, is it too cliche to say mine’s purple?” he asked before amending, “It's actually black but that’s a really boring answer and purple’s probably my second favorite anyway.”
Greenie let out a little exhale from the nose kind of laugh and said, “I like red too, that’s probably my second favorite.”
“Alright, now you ask a question,” he said as he sat down in the plush grass.
“A-are we p-playing an icebreaker g-game?” Midoriya asked as he sat down across from him.
“That was a terrible question. Yes, we are, now ask a better one,” he said with a sly grin.
Midoriya just looked at him with an exasperated expression.
“Come on, we’ve been friends for like a year, we’re supposed to know stuff about each other, ask a better question,” he prompted again.
“Uh, o-okay, hmmm… do, uh, do you have any h-hobbies?”
Well, at least they both asked equally shit questions.
“I play video games and I read a lot when I can’t sleep which is most of the time,” Hitoshi answered
“What k-kind of books d-do you read?”
“Hey, that’s two questions, plus you didn’t answer your own yet,” he argued.
Greenie made a face and put his hands up in mock surrender before answering, “I– well aside from that,” he paused to gesture vaguely at the tree, “I like t-to draw b-but I’m not very g-good at it.”
“You draw?! Can I see?!” Hitoshi responded with enthusiasm.
“Th-that was two questions,” Greenie shot back in a high-pitched mocking tone.
Hitoshi pulled up a handful of grass and threw it at him.
“Fine! The rules are stupid anyways, I read a lot of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Now show me your drawings!” Hitoshi exclaimed.
After seeing Midoriya’s wide eyes and faint blush he added, “If you want to.”
“N-no it’s o-okay it’s just um…” he trailed off and started fiddling with the hem of his shirt.
He looked like he was thinking about how to finish that sentence so Hitoshi gave him a moment.
“I normally d-draw as p-part of a-another hobby and–um– well, uh– p-people don’t n-normally like it m-much,” he finished.
“What do you mean people don’t normally like it? What is it?” he asked but Midoriya didn’t look like he wanted to answer, “I’m not actually going to make fun of you, Greenie, only as a joke and I promise I won’t even joke about this.”
He studied his face for a minute like he was trying to suss out if he was being genuine or not, and, ow. Okay, that kinda hurt. He told himself not to take it personally though, Midoriya didn’t seem to trust anyone so he shouldn’t be surprised by his hesitance.
After a few seconds of strained silence, he nodded his head, got up, walked over to his bag, and brought it over.
“I-I like t-to do um– q-quirk analysis, a-as well as c-costume a-analysis s-so I d-do my b-best to draw o-out different h-hero’s and their g-gear to s-supplement my n-notes,” he said as he rifled through his bag and pulled out a beat up notebook labeled “Hero Analysis pt.10”.
He handed it to Hitoshi like he was passing him a loaded gun pointed straight back at him. He gently took it out of his hand and set it in his lap to give Midoriya the opportunity to change his mind. When he didn’t he started flipping through the pages.
The drawings weren’t elementary but they definitely weren’t professional, they were a solid intermediary level and leagues better than anything Hitoshi could do. Each drawing was clearly recognizable which was the point so they served their purpose. The front said it was the tenth volume but the drawings at the end were already better than the ones at the beginning, he had no clue how long this took Midoriya to do but if he kept on this track he’d be drawing photorealism in no time.
After flicking through the pictures he stopped on a random page and started reading, the entry was on a hero he’d never heard of before but there were three full pages analyzing not only their quirk and costume but the reasoning behind their persona and changes they could make to improve their public image. It also went into detail about their strengths and weaknesses as well as what kinds of opponents would be a good match for them and what kinds would be the worst. Most of it was things he would have never thought of and a good bit of it went over his head entirely. If he had had any doubts about Greenie being a genius they were thoroughly assuaged by this notebook.
He didn’t realize how absorbed he was in the notes until he noticed Midoriya’s furious fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. Oh, shit, he probably shouldn’t leave him hanging like that.
“Midoriya, this is amazing. Where do you even get all this information?” he asked.
Midoriya blushed even harder at that, with his hair and freckles he was doing a pretty stellar impression of a strawberry right now.
“Oh, uh– t-the news and p-people post stuff t-to YouT-Tube and other s-social media a-all the t-time,” he replied.
“You get all this information just from watching them fight?!” Hitoshi asked incredulously.
Somehow, Greenie’s blush deepened.
“Y-yeah, m-mostly.”
“Midoriya! That’s incredible! I would have thought you’d interviewed this guy directly with all the information you’ve got here, holy shit!”
Oh, he said that a little too loud. He quickly glanced over his shoulder back toward the house to make sure his mom didn’t hear that. When she didn’t come bursting out the door wielding a spatula and empty threats he turned back to Midoriya.
“What do you think you could do if you actually got to interview someone, you’d probably know more about them than they do,” he remarked as he continued skimming through other entries.
“Hah, I d-don’t think that’s t-true.”
“Do you only do analysis on heroes? Maybe you could do one for someone you know so you can ask them questions like one of your friends or something,” he said without thinking.
Oh shit that sounded like a request, shit shit shit shit shit.
When he made hesitant eye contact with Midoriya he just looked sad. Oh, yeah, he said people don’t like his analysis, damnit. Can he just have one real conversation without fucking it up royally? He can see how people wouldn’t like all their flaws being laid out in front of them.
“N-no I o-only really d-do heroes. Did, um…” he trailed off.
Oh great, here it comes.
“N-nevermind.”
Oh, thank Kami.
“Dinner should be ready soon, did you want to beat me up some more or should we head in,” he joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“L-let’s head in and s-see if your m-mom could use a h-hand,” he said as he stuffed his notebook back in his bag and headed toward the door.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!!
Chapter 37: Chris, Is That a Weed??? I’m Calling the Police!
Notes:
Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I had to work on a gd Saturday and then I went and bought a car. Can I get an F in the comments for my good ol' 2012 CR-V? Lost but never forgotten ❤️
Anyway, I'm in so much debt.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Drugs (mentions of not the taking of)
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As spring was coming to an end Ivy and Eraser had been splitting up more and more drug deals by the day. They were all small-time deals to individuals rather than large transfers to other sellers but their increased frequency was troubling regardless and Ivy didn’t like it one bit. This was only going to become a bigger problem if they left it, they needed to find the source and snuff it out and they needed to do it quickly.
All the people they’d caught selling were locals so Ivy figured the source was also local and that was not going to fly, not on their watch. They’d yet to see anything in uptown but, despite living there, they hadn’t been keeping as close of a watch on the warehouse district. There was generally not much traffic around there and Ivy figured they would be more useful where there were more people to be in trouble in the business and residential areas. They couldn’t just abandon the more populated areas for Kami knows how long to wander around aimlessly trying to find something in the warehouse district, they were already taking one night off each week, leaving uptown to its own devices for any longer than that didn’t sit right with them so they decided to dedicate the next weekend to recon.
Generally, they spent that time sleeping or sifting for scrappable parts at Dagobah for pocket change but they could skip a weekend for this. This was far more important. For the rest of the week, they used any of the downtime they had at school to draw out a map and plan the most efficient route, they wanted to cover as much ground as possible several times over in case activity changed throughout the day.
By the time Saturday rolled around they had a route that would cover the entire warehouse district that they could complete in just under four hours meaning they could run through it twice in one day while still getting a good amount of sleep and patrolling at night like they usually did. If they found anything of note, they would centralize Sunday’s route around those areas; if not, they would repeat the process again.
Alright, this was gonna be exhausting.
There were fewer people to hide from but there were also fewer places to hide both in the differing landscape and in the light of day so it was a unique challenge. Maybe they should do this more often to keep their skills sharp.
The few homeless camps that they knew of were around and still going strong and, unfortunately, the local gang still had their stronghold over on block 8. They probably held some sort of squatter's rights at this point and there were far too many of them for Ivy to do anything about it and it taunted them daily. They’d been keeping an eye on that area but nothing had changed and they doubted they’d be dumb enough to turn their headquarters into a drug farm anyway so they moved on quickly.
They were about two and a half hours into their first sweep when they stumbled across an absolutely noxious smell. It coated their sinuses and made them want to spew immediately. It was like rotten eggs on steroids and it appeared to be coming from one of the many abandoned buildings to the west. There was smoke rising from somewhere on the roof and, beyond that, there were clear signs that people had been coming and going. There were muddy tire marks and footprints going in and out of two different doors, it’s like they weren’t even trying to hide.
Kami, this place is so under-policed it's not even funny.
They continued on the rest of their route just to make sure they didn’t miss anything then spent the rest of the day watching for anyone coming or leaving. There was a car parked there when they first arrived and another one had replaced it when they got back so they made sure to note the make model and license plates. The more information they could get, the better. Maybe they could get Eraser’s advice later tonight.
***
Ivy had been acting weird, or at least weirder than normal. They seemed agitated and the route they were leading him on was one they’d never taken before. They were skirting along the outer edge of the residential district and toward the graveyard of decrepit warehouses. It seemed completely derelict but Ivy was walking with a purpose so he decided not to question it.
After 12 minutes of walking along street level, Ivy led him toward a disused and repurposed warehouse that had a very distinct smell coming from it. It smelled of ammonia and rotten eggs mixed with something sweet and there was steam rising from the roof. Ivy silently jerked their head in its direction with an eyebrow raised. Were they asking what he thought of it? Shota had participated in enough drug busts to know what was going on in there.
“It's clearly a meth lab, either a very large or extremely poorly insulated one given that I can smell it from here,” he responded quietly with a grimace.
“Goddamnit! That’s what I thought. I knew it had to be coming from in the city,” Ivy said, looking very frustrated.
“What do you want to do about it?” Shota asked.
Ivy’s frustration turned to exasperation as they looked at him.
“Oh, I was thinking of baking some cookies to welcome them to the neighborhood! What do you think, chocolate chip or snickerdoodles?” they shot back in an overly cheery tone.
Their eyes scrunched up as if they were wearing a shit-eating grin beneath their mask but they quickly fell back to the irritation they held before.
“There are too many potential exits for me to cover alone or even the two of us. If we go in there there’s no way we catch them all and they’ll just set up shop again in a new location. Do you think Tsuka could send some people in if you pushed for it?” they asked sounding a bit uncertain.
Hmm, this was another test, wasn’t it? They wanted to know if he was willing to put his name and backing behind uptown on a more official level. These guys couldn’t be more obvious if they tried, the smell alone was enough evidence to round up enough officers for a raid but that in conjunction with increased reports of meth dealings in local streets definitely sealed the deal. It felt wrong to gain Ivy’s trust like this but it was very low risk and high reward for him. There was practically no way for Ivy to know that there was no risk in this for him but regardless he thought it better to be honest.
“Yes, the smell alone is enough to warrant feet on the ground. The cops will come if they’re called and I can easily call a raid in for this,” he replied.
“Oh, thank Kami. I did some recon and I’ve got information, there’s a few names and some plates I saw around here earlier but I want to keep an eye out for a little bit longer so we can catch as many of them as–” He cut them off.
“You were out earlier?” he asked
Ivy gave him a look for the interruption but answered regardless, “Yes, I didn’t want to waste patrol time looking if there was nothing to find.”
“I thought you agreed to not patrol without me, Ivy,” he chastised.
“I wasn’t patrolling, I was just walking around,” they defended.
“You just said you were doing recon, kid.”
“What is recon if not just walking around with a purpose,” they shot back without even looking away from the warehouse in front of them.
This kid was going to be responsible for him going grey before 30.
“There's a difference between taking a walk and poking around a meth lab, Ivy,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
Ivy continued without paying him any mind, “I live here, I’m not allowed to walk around? Who's to say I didn’t just stumble on this?”
“You, Ivy, you’re to say that, you literally just said that you were doing recon.”
“Semantics, you can’t prove anything,” they dismissed with a wave of their hand.
“I’m gonna kick your ass,” he muttered under his breath.
“You already do that, get a better threat,” they quipped back as they stood to turn back to their patrol route.
Once they were back on the rooftops and well out of earshot of the warehouse he spoke up, “You’re not doing recon on a meth lab alone, Ivy. When are you planning on going, I can clear my schedule.”
Ivy shot back a glare before responding, “Tomorrow, all day up until patrol,” they said tauntingly.
Well, that certainly wasn’t ideal but he knew Ivy would go out regardless of whether he was there or not so he had to be there. He was going to have a lazy day with Zashi, they weren’t gonna be happy about this.
“Alright, I’ll meet you on the northeast corner of block 16 at, what? 7 am?” he asked
Ivy narrowed their eyes at him before responding, “6 am.”
“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, “That’s only 5 hours from now.”
Ivy just looked at them with a smug expression and crossed their arms.
“Fine, but we’re calling it early tonight, and we're taking meal breaks,” he relented before adding, “AND we’re not going out Monday.”
Ivy’s eyes went wide at that.
“Say that louder why don’t you?! Goddamn, okay,” they replied as they looked around for anyone who might’ve overheard.
He let them even though he knew no one was around, he wouldn’t have said that without checking.
“Alright, northeast corner of block 16, 6 am, sound good?” he asked to confirm.
Ivy gave him another look for broadcasting their plans again but nodded anyway.
“I don’t need a babysitter but, yeah, sure, if it makes you feel better,” they added.
“Okay, go get some sleep, Kami knows we’ll need it,” he said as he rubbed his eyes.
This kid was trying to kill him, he’s sure of it.
“Whatever old man, you already look like you live off of three hours of sleep and a caffeine addiction. Quit whining,” they shot back before they turned and jumped off the roof without another word.
Either this kid was gonna kill him or he was gonna kill this kid. Right now both options were equally tempting.
***
Great, they just signed up to be around Eraser for nearly a full 24 hours straight. Keeping up the Ivy persona was exhausting enough on their 6-8 hour patrols, how the hell were they gonna manage this?
Well, on the bright side, he didn’t need to wash off the eyeshadow tonight. He didn’t even need to change, he could just go home and collapse into his nest until his alarm went off. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan, he was tired just thinking about tomorrow.
Stupid Eraserhead and his stupid mother hen ass behavior.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING (I really like this 'arc' so get excited 😊 )
Chapter 38: *Dials 911 on Microwave*
Notes:
I started some fanart for this chapter, you'll see what for when you read the chapter. It is very cute in my head so far so I'll let you know when I finish it because I will post it here at the end of the relevant chapter like always.
*****CW******
-Mentions of drugs
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
6 am rolled around far too soon but they couldn't even blame anyone but themself, they should’ve known that Eraser was gonna be too stubborn no matter the time they chose. 6 am was too early, who the hell’s cooking up meth at 6 am? When they rounded the corner where Eraser said he’d meet them they almost burst out laughing. He was just standing there holding a lunch box in each hand, he looked like a little kid about to get on the school bus.
They held off as best they could but they still let out a little snort to which Eraser raised a challenging eyebrow.
Okay, he was asking for it now.
“Did youwr mommy pack you a wunch bowx Ewaserw?” they taunted.
“Alright, and just like that, you’re not getting yours,” he said after rolling his eyes.
One of those was for them? That’s so nice. Oh, they definitely had to be an ass about it now.
“Wait! No! What did Mama Eraser pack me?!” they said as they half-heartedly forced him into a game of keep away by lunging for them.
He just held them both in one hand above his head, why the hell was he so tall?
“You’re built like a goddamn tree, you freak of nature,” they said as they looked up at him with the most severe stink eye they could muster.
“Not my fault you’re both built and act like a little shit,” he quipped back in his ever-present monotone drawl.
Alright, switch tactics; Time to bring out the puppy dog eyes.
Eraser just looked at them making grabby hands and sighed.
“It’s too early for this shit,” he said as he lowered his arm and handed them one of the bags.
“Ahhaha, works every time,” they said with a smug satisfied grin.
“Rule number one of stake outs, always bring snacks. Coming here empty-handed was a rookie mistake,” he said as he shook his head at them, no doubt hiding a grin under his scarf.
Ivy started rooting through the bag as they walked, there were some onigiri and chips and even some sweets in there, and in the little side pouch was a water bottle. This was so nice, did he really pack this himself? In the other side pouch that didn’t have a water bottle in it, they found what looked like a Bluetooth earbud.
“What’s this?” they asked, holding it up to Eraser.
“It’s a comm, it’s already paired to mine, thought we might end up needing to stake out different points of view,” he replied.
Holy shit, this was a real, genuine, 100% authentic piece of hero support gear and Eraser was just letting them use it? Okay, maybe today wouldn’t be so bad.
***
Never mind, today was awful. They’d been here for 3 hours and nothing had even happened yet. At one point someone turned a light on inside the building but that was it. This was easier when they were by themself, they could just kinda zone out and just like turn their brain back online whenever they heard or saw movement but with Eraser here they had to actually be aware of themself. They’ve been told on more than one occasion by classmates how creepy they looked when they did that and they didn’t need Eraser to think they were any more of a basket case than he already did.
Spending half their attention on making sure they weren’t being weird wasn’t helping their focus either, and Eraser was just sitting there eating like one chip every 15 minutes, never mind Eraser was the weird one, not them. Who the fuck eats chips like that?
“You eat chips like a psychopath,” they said after he ate his fourth chip of the hour.
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” he shot back after he washed it down with coffee.
Wait, why didn't they get coffee?
“Hey, wait. Why do you get coffee but I get water?” they complained.
“You’re like four feet tall, I have no clue how old you are, and you're already insufferable as is, I’m not adding coffee to that equation,” he replied without looking away from the warehouse.
Okay, fair. Rude, but fair.
“You think I’m not old enough to drink coffee? What am I, 10?” they shot back.
“See, already insufferable. No coffee,” he said deadpan as ever.
They picked up a piece of gravel from the rooftop and threw it at his shoulder and he finally tore his eyes away from the complex across the street.
“I was kidding but you’re not making a good case for yourself,” he said with a disappointed look, “I didn’t know if you liked it or not, do you?”
Okay, that was another fair point.
They just shrugged and Eraser let out an exasperated sigh, rolled his eyes, and went back to watching the warehouse.
***
At 11:30ish Eraser started packing up his things and stood to leave.
“Where are you going?” they asked.
“You haven’t touched your food, I’m going to go find another lookout station on the other side so you can eat. Put the comm in, left ear, we should make sure it's working before I go,” he responded.
That was so nice, why was he being so nice? They practically forced him out here at 6 am on less than 5 hours of sleep and they were truly insufferable at the best of times; why was he being so considerate?
“You d-don’t have to do that!” they said hurriedly with that damn stutter, “I can go find somewhere else. Really, you already brought me food, just stay here.”
Eraserhead looked back at him with an arched brow, clearly surprised by the sudden change in character.
“Alright, you know the area better than I do anyway. Hit the button on the side of the comm there, yeah, that one. Is it working?”
It was strange to hear his voice twice over.
“Yeah, it's working,” they confirmed.
“Alright, let me know when you’re in position. Hit the same button to turn it off otherwise, it will just stay on and I’d rather not hear you chewing directly in my ear.”
“Chew directly in your ear, got it,” they said as they turned and scaled down the side of the building.
“Your dramatic exits don’t work when I can still call you a little shit, Ivy,” they heard Eraser say through the comms as they made it back to street level.
“I dunno, it was still fun for me.”
They couldn’t see him roll his eyes but they were sure that he did.
***
When they settled into position on the opposite side of the lab from Eraser they let him know and turned the comm off. Digging through the bag a little more thoroughly they noticed that the bento was one of those double-layered ones and the bottom one held some sort of Western-style stew. It probably would've been better when it was still hot, oh well. It was still going to be much better than the nothing they were planning on having for lunch.
They dug in and it was delicious, with the second bite still in their mouth they put their mask back in place and turned their comm on just to annoy Eraser.
“What's this stuff in the bottom of the bento, did you make this?” they asked with their mouth audibly full.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full you cretin. It’s beef stew and no, I didn’t,” he responded.
“It’s good, is it homemade or from a store?” they asked.
“Homemade.”
“Homemade but not by you? You got a boo or was it really Mama Eraser?” they poked.
“I am not answering that,” he stated with finality.
Oh, damn. Alright, they made it awkward. Backpedal, backpedal.
“Mmmmkay, well, uh, send my compliments to the chef, I guess.”
Yup, real smooth, they really nailed that.
“Will do,” he said before the comms fell back into silence.
They turned the comm off to finish their stew. Alright, note to self, don’t ask Eraser about his personal life.
***
That was probably a bit calloused but he didn’t even let his students know about his personal life. It’s not that he didn’t trust Ivy it’s just that the smaller the pool of people who knew about him and Zashi the safer they’d be and he was not about to trade Zashi’s safety for just the slim possibility of gaining more of Ivy’s trust. Ivy had a lot of enemies, he had a lot of enemies and if any of that ever got back to Zashi he’d never be able to forgive himself. Zashi felt the same way; They agreed to keep their relationship a secret a long time ago, before they even got married. So, as far as the general public knew, they had nothing to do with one another.
The comms were quiet for another 15 minutes before Ivy piped up when a car pulled up to their side of the building.
“Car just pulled in toward the northwest entrance, same car as yesterday,” they said.
“Alright, can you make out the passengers?” he asked.
“Gimme a sec, they haven’t gotten out yet,” they responded.
The line was quiet for a moment until he heard the car’s doors open and close.
“It's Tsuyoshi and Takeo Mochizuki, they're brothers, they’re from the east side,” they said matter-of-factly.
Well, damn, that was helpful.
“Alright, do you know if–” Ivy cut them off with a shush.
“Someone’s coming out to meet them,” they paused for a moment, “Oshiro Yori, mutant quirk, you should avoid him, he’s got poisonous tentacles like a jellyfish.”
He waited a moment to make sure he wouldn’t interrupt them again.
“Alright, they went inside,” they said.
“How do you know them, are they affiliated with the gang?” he asked.
“No, they’re not, Oshiro’s got like a cousin in the lower ranks but that's all I know for sure. They’re all locals though,” they said as if that answered the question.
“You just know all the locals then?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yeah?” they answered sounding confused.
“You know ALL the locals?” he asked again incredulously.
“Yeah, at least their faces, I live here, we’ve been through this, Eraser.”
What the hell? How? No wonder they managed this place so seamlessly, they’ve got their nose in everyone’s business.
“Ivy, thousands of people live here,” he pointed out.
“Yes, I’m aware, I am one of them,” they shot back.
“And you can recognize all of them on sight?” he clarified.
“If I’ve seen ‘em, yeah. What part of I live here isn’t clicking?”
Alright, Ivy’s a genius idiot. They wouldn’t be telling him this if it was part of their quirk and they didn’t even seem aware that this ability wasn’t normal.
“Ivy, do you have a photographic memory?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“No, I forget shit all the time.”
“Having a photographic memory doesn’t mean you never forget things,” he corrected, “it’s not normal to be able to recognize that many people after only having seen them in passing.”
“...What?” they said after a moment of silence.
“What flavor nutrient pouch did I have last Friday?” he asked.
“Banana and you hated it so you’ve been pawning them off on me ever since, that doesn’t prove anything,” they shot back.
Damn, he was hoping they didn’t notice that.
“Less talkie, more lookie, I don’t have time for 20 questions,” they declared, clearly getting uncomfortable with the topic.
“Kid, literally all we have is time, nothing’s happening. But okay,” he relented.
Ivy was an enigma that he didn’t think he could ever hope to suss out, not even if he was given all the time in the world. Every single thing they did or said left him with either a headache or 10 more questions that he had no hope of ever finding answers to.
***
It wasn’t until 2 pm that anything else of note happened.
“Ivy, 3 men exited the building, southwest entrance, they are headed east. Stay out of sight but get eyes on them. The more names we can put to faces the better. One of them looks like the Oshiro guy you mentioned earlier.”
“On it, you stay put.”
“Staying out of sight is more important than getting their names, Ivy. If you’re seen it doesn’t only affect your safety, it could blow the whole operation, okay?”
“Yeah, I know. Out of sight, now shut up or I’m turning off the comm.”
Little shit. He watched as they scaled down the side of the building they were perched on and out of view. Keeping his eyes on the three men he was poised to jump into the fray at a moment’s notice. He was so focused on his surroundings he nearly startled when the comm went off in his ear.
“The man with the blond hair is Kanda Hajime, I don’t know the other one, I’ve never seen them before, I’m back on rooftops south of you. Should I tail them?”
Damnit they should tail them but they can’t just give up their post and he can’t let them go after them to Kami knows where by themself.
“No, I can blend in easier, I’m leaving my scarf, goggles, and belt here, come back and keep your comm on, and do not go anywhere without letting me know first.”
“Fine, but I’m only listening to that because you’re right, I need to get a damn mask. I think I know where they’re headed. If they go to block 8 come back and do not follow them. What’s the range on these comms?”
“Range spans the whole city, we’ll be fine. What’s on block 8?”
“Gang territory, I’m keeping an eye on it but there’s not much more I can do. They have squatter’s rights at this point and we’d need more evidence, a warrant, and a team to take them down.”
“Copy.”
He followed them for about 15 minutes and Ivy was right, they were headed for block 8, another disused and repurposed warehouse, likely the gang territory Ivy referenced.
“You were right, they just entered a warehouse on block 8, looks like the gang is outsourcing drug work to locals.”
The second he finished that sentence Ivy let out the most colorful array of curses he’d heard in quite some time. It was almost impressive, must be a skill acquired from spending their time around the red lights.
After they calmed down they finally let out a string of coherent words, “Alright, get back here.”
***
That goddamn gang was going to be the death of them, probably literally, but also in the sense that they were getting on their last goddamn nerve. They were hurting his people, getting them hooked on drugs, and roping even more of them into their fuckery. Kami, they wanted to storm that stupid warehouse so badly.
They needed to calm down. Anger was not productive, they knew that well. It never got them anywhere good. After telling Eraser to head back they took a seat next to all his stuff and tried to take some deep breaths as they fiddled with the gravel that covered the roof. They were still seething when their hand brushed over something among the stones.
Oh, that was Eraser’s capture scarf… and he just left it here… unattended.
They really needed to channel this anger into something and if it had to be channeled into being even more insufferable, then so be it.
***
As Shota scaled up the wall back to his lookout he begrudgingly held a little more respect for Ivy, running up and down buildings without his scarf to aid his mobility was a pain in the ass and Ivy did it like it was nothing. He should probably do this more often so his skills didn’t get rusty because there was no way in hell he’d be able to keep up with Ivy as is.
Any respect he gained for Ivy fell the moment he made it to the roof. They were sitting there taking selfies while wearing his scarf and goggles.
“If we weren’t on a stake out right now I would throw you off the roof,” he said as he approached them from behind.
They shot off another picture with him in the background as they flicked him off.
Little. Shit.
“If that ends up on the internet I'm bringing you in,” he threatened as they laughed at him.
“Oh don’t worry Eraser, I’m not stupid enough to post either of our faces, we’d lose our ~mystique~ this is just for me. It’s going straight into the scrapbook. Oh! Or maybe a frame, I could hang it by my bedside and gaze at it lovingly before I fall asleep each night,” they teased in a theatrically wistful tone.
“I’m only saying this once, give those back,” he warned as he held out a hand for his things.
“You’re no fun, Eraser,” they said casually but they passed his things back quickly; they clearly caught the threat in his words.
After he settled his gear back into place he turned to Ivy, “Head back to your post, unless something else happens we’ll leave at nightfall.”
“Whatever you command, Master Buzzkill,” they proclaimed as they bowed to him and took their leave.
Insufferable brat.
After Ivy informed him that they were back in position his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Ivy:
(image)
In case you want a matching one to hang at your bedside.
Absolutely insufferable. He saved the picture regardless.
Listen, I was gonna draw a background. I really was...
"Was" is the key term there... I don't wanna hear it about the background, I know. It's just been weeks and I figured if I ever actually draw a background, I'll just update the pic but there's been an empty promise of fan art for weeks and I needed to do something about it.
I'm still in an art rut and backgrounds are currently not within my capabilities lol. I don't think they'll ever be as long as I'm working a 9-5 that doesn't involve illustration tbh but a girl can dream.
Here's my lil baby lil shit and his papa ❤️❤️❤️
I took artistic license with the color of Izu's hair, ik its black at the roots but I like green so I made it green. Also, his eyes are so big that they would be bigger than the goggles but I simply ignored that fact lmao.
Notes:
Thanks for reading, don't forget to check back for the fan art when I post it. (It's the selfie, obvs. Just ignore the fact that there's like no way you'd be able to take a picture on a shit burner phone like Ivy's)
Chapter 39: 911, What’s Your Emergency?
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Mentions of drugs
lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It wasn’t until the following Thursday that Shota was able to successfully negotiate a raid on the warehouse, the suits were far more hesitant to ‘waste’ resources uptown than he thought they’d be and Ivy bugging him about it daily wasn’t helping his mounting annoyance with the situation. When Ivy shot their way up and over the ledge of the roof they always met at he held a hand up to stop them before they even started asking.
“Yes, I’ve gotten approval for the raid. I have all the information we gathered here, if you could go over it before we set a time and date that would be helpful,” he said as he pulled out the folded-up sheets of paper from one of his pockets.
They immediately snatched it out of his hand and started reading so quickly that Shota had a hard time believing they even gleaned any information from it at all. But he trusted that the kid cared enough to take this seriously, maybe they just read that fast. It wouldn’t be the first weird ability they’d revealed and it likely wouldn’t be the last. His suspicions were confirmed when he watched them read through it a second and third time at the same speed before handing it back to him with a nod.
“Yes, that’s all correct,” they stated in a way that made it sound like they had more to say.
He gave them a second and they didn’t meet his eyes. He could already feel the oncoming headache.
“Okay, let me finish before you chew me out. I’ve been keeping an eye out for their comings and goings and I've got 3 more names and 2 more faces that aren’t from around here. I don’t know what the traffic around there looks like from 6-4 on weekdays but there’s consistently been a shift swap around 4:30 every day, I think that’s the best time to strike, we’ll get the most people that way,” they explained as they fidgeted with their gloves.
One rule, he gave them one rule. He rubbed his hands over his face and massaged his temples before letting out an exasperated groan.
Ivy already looked uncomfortable. Good.
“Write all of that down on the back of the last sheet,” he said in a clipped tone as he pulled out a pen and handed it to them along with the file.
They took it sheepishly and walked over to the ledge and used it as a writing surface. When they returned he glanced at it to make sure it was legible, the kanji was neat and orderly despite the lack of lines on the paper so he folded it back up and stuck it in his pocket. When he looked up Ivy looked like a man preparing for a walk to the gallows.
“I’m using my capture weapon in our spars today,” he stated with no inflection.
There wasn’t much skin showing on Ivy’s face but he could tell that the color drained from it by the way their eyes widened. They turned on their heel with a squeak but Shota just let out a loop of his scarf and tripped them.
“Better get used to the taste of gravel, kid,” he called out as Ivy lay on the ground groaning.
***
Ivy had a face full of rooftop for the umpteenth time in the last half hour and they were sweating buckets in the early summer heat when Eraser piped up sounding no worse for wear.
“Why don’t you know the traffic from 6-4, you got a day job?” he inquired casually.
Of course, he’d be making small talk while beating their ass relentlessly, he was probably playing mind games, the sick sadistic bastard.
“This doesn’t exactly pay the bills, Eraser,” they shot back.
It wasn’t a lie, but unfortunately going to school didn't pay the bills either.
“You said “we” would get the most people if we struck at their shift swap, you know you can’t come with, right?” he said far more gently as he gave them a moment to get back to their feet.
Oh. Yeah, that– that made sense. Obviously, they couldn’t go with, not with the police there. Shit. They were still technically a ‘criminal’ and just because Tsuka and Eraser were turning a blind eye doesn’t mean that an entire raid squad would. Fuck. They were leading a bunch of cops into their district and they wouldn’t even be around to make sure everyone not involved with the lab was safe. They should be far enough away in the warehouse district but it still didn’t sit right with them. They couldn’t even warn people to stay away from there. Damnit.
Eraser was giving them a moment to process, when they looked up he was studying them intently. He was going to be there, they had to trust him.
“You’ll keep them in the warehouse district, right? Keep them away from these streets?” they asked, almost pleading.
“There’s no reason for them to come over this way unless they have to chase someone down and even then their focus won’t be on people up here. I can’t promise anything but I’ll do my best to make sure no one but the people involved with that lab get taken in,” he claimed and as far as Ivy could see, he meant it.
Okay, they can trust Eraser with this.
As soon as they made up their mind their legs were somehow above their head and they were sprawled out on the gravel again.
“What the hell was that for, you ass!” they cried.
“For being a reckless idiot,” he shot back.
***
The raid was set for Friday at 4:30, just as they had suggested to Eraser. As soon as he got back from school he shot up to the roof and started pacing circles around DJ. He wouldn’t be able to see what was going on from here, not by a long shot but he would be able to hear sirens leaving, and if Eraser didn’t contact him the second he heard that he might actually die.
Everything about the situation felt wrong, like over half the people in uptown, he could be arrested for any number of things and he was leading the enemy right into his territory. It was different when Tsuka came to pick up perps or he sent an officer or two to round them up, Eraser said there were going to be upwards of 20 armed officers. This lab had been transporting to regions outside of uptown, so this was going to be a major drug bust and he couldn’t be there to help or protect people who weren’t involved.
After maybe his 30th circle around DJ he felt something pull at his leg. She was lazily staring up at him with her claws looped through his pant leg.
“DJ let go, if I don’t keep moving I think I might explode.”
She just blinked at him slowly.
“You are so goddamn precious.”
She let out a small ‘mmerp’ at the compliment and closed her eyes again, keeping her claws embedded in his pant leg.
Relenting, Izuku plopped down next to her.
“I really hope everyone there today is actually involved in the lab, I don’t want them bringing bystanders in. I saw Kanda bring his girlfriend by once but she stayed in the car,” he recalled as he fiddled with his shoelace.
“They have the grounds to take in everyone there but just because someone knows about doesn’t make it their fault. If someone ratted them out the gang could put a hit on them, they shouldn’t be arrested just because they didn’t risk their lives to take them down,” he explained.
DJ opened her eyes for a moment and started bapping at his shoelaces as he twisted them around his fingers.
“See, you get it.”
He let her continue to half-heartedly bat around his laces as he buried his hands in his hair.
“This is going to be the longest hour and a half of my life,” he groaned into his shirtsleeves.
He rested his elbows on his knees as he sat crisscrossed and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. His hair was down and the breeze had it tickling his face but he paid it no mind. Seconds ticked by into minutes and DJ settled herself against his left leg so he started carding his left hand through her fur as she purred. It was nice to have her here, she had a way of making everything seem manageable. Besides messing with her hunting grounds or her beauty rest nothing short of the end of the world would upset her. Well, maybe falling through the roof into a pit of muddy water would upset her too but she was always so calm, even when she was bothered she was lazily bothered and it made everything seem less urgent than it usually did. Izuku’s mind had a way of making everything seem incredibly urgent and DJ’s calm purring helped him find a middle ground.
“Whatever happens, happens. We need to get these drugs off the street,” he said and took some deep breaths in time with DJ’s purring.
He managed to lull himself into an almost meditative state following DJ’s lead, maybe this is why she’s always so calm, but the sound of sirens snapped him out of it immediately. DJ’s ears twitched and Izuku fumbled through his pocket for his phone. Nothing from Eraser yet.
“Come on, come on,” he chanted at the phone as if that could make the update come any faster.
A few minutes passed before his phone lit up with a message.
Eraserhead:
Raid went well, no major injuries and no deaths, 11 people are in custody. I’m heading back to the precinct and I'll give you a full brief when I see you later.
He let out some nonsense mess of consonants and fell back to lay on the roof. DJ made her displeasure for the outburst known with a ‘merrow’ and nuzzled back into the warmth of his side.
***
For the first time since they started meeting here, Ivy showed up before Eraserhead. He was probably still at the station so they pulled out their knives and started slinging them at the poor butchered target still pinned to the roof access stairwell wall. Over the months their aim had improved significantly and they were able to get about one in every five throws to stick into the brick. They could probably get a better ratio with new knives because all the practice they’d been doing had dulled their points significantly. Maybe they could grind them back to shape? That would mess with their balance though, they’d have to ask Eraser.
They’d been hurling knives for nearly a full hour by the time Eraser showed up.
“Sorry I’m late, had to tie up some things at the station,” he said after touching down on the roof.
They threw the last knife in their hand and it sunk into the wall pretty close to the center of what used to be the target before walking over to him and demanding he elaborate on his message.
“You were right about the shift changing, we got all the names you listed and then some. I believe everyone there had a role to play either in production or distribution, so no bystanders got caught up, I have a list of names here if you want to look through it, I can get their mug shots once everything’s fully processed if you don’t recognize them by name,” he said handing him a small slip of paper with names scrawled over it.
Did he copy down classified information for them by hand? Aw, how thoughtful.
When they looked back up Eraser was looking back at them with a serious expression, not that he ever looked anything but serious but Ivy was becoming quite skilled at reading the microscopic movements of his brow so they could tell he had more to say.
They lifted an eyebrow in response.
“Everything went off without a hitch but we just made ourselves a lot of enemies, kid. I know you know this place and these people but don’t let your guard down, okay?” he warned as he looked them in the eye.
Yeah, this was gonna make the gang mad, like really mad and they were gonna know who to blame immediately. Law enforcement never got involved around here unless one of them called them in.
The target on their backs just got a lot bigger.
Notes:
thanks for reading!
Chapter 40: Just Because It’s Better Doesn’t Mean It’s Good.
Notes:
Alright everyone, that was cute and all but back to the angst.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-hunger
-mentions of past neglect
-mentions of past abuselmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As summer descended upon the city in full force they had yet to see any consequences for their actions, maybe the gang was still trying to recoup their losses. Despite the radio silence, they remained vigilant. Summer break was coming up soon and as of July 15th, it had officially been two whole years since the last time he had seen or heard from his mother.
Last year his birthday had come and gone without him even noticing. He was too absorbed in his work in Uptown and the melancholic air that settled over him tonight made him wish that he’d forgotten this year too.
His mother didn’t stay around for his birthday but she usually left him a cupcake in the fridge, a strawberry shortcake with cream cheese frosting, every single year until two years ago. She had already packed up to go ‘visit a friend up north’ by then and that was the last he saw of her. There was no cupcake in the fridge on his birthday so July 15th, in his memory, was the first date he was sure of that his mother had been gone.
Kami, how things can change in just a couple years, hell, even just a single year.
He was not the person he was this time two years ago, not by a long shot. Sure the circumstances that led him here were shit but he’d never been happier. His mother never loved him, at least not after the diagnosis. If she loved him she wouldn’t have let Hisashi hurt him, she would have kicked him out far sooner than he decided to skip town. He missed the simplicity of what his life used to be, sure, but he wouldn’t go back if he had the choice. Even with summer break approaching again and the threat of over a full month with no guarantee of food he wouldn’t go back. It was nice to not have to worry so much about food or a roof over his head but the freedom of being able to come home to a place where you were welcome was worth it in his mind.
As much of a menace as she was DJ welcomed him here. Sure, she was a cat and didn’t understand the complexities of quirkist human society but he had told her everything about himself and she still cuddled up to him in the wee hours of the morning when the sun’s absence left a chill in the air, she still trotted over to him whenever she heard him cry. She was there for him more than his mother ever was so the anniversary was bittersweet. He would be lying if he said at least some part of him didn’t miss his mom but he knew he didn’t really miss her, he just missed what he used to pretend she was, he missed being able to pretend that someone who knew and fully understood what he was could still love him.
He was sitting in his stairwell giving DJ treats and snacking on his own strawberry pocky as he watched the minutes on the clock tick by until midnight.
“Woo, happy birthday to me,” he cheered with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
This wasn’t fair. He was happier now. Things might not be ‘better’ technically speaking but he was happier, why was he letting her ruin this for him? The pocky tasted like sand in his mouth and he felt tears start to brim in his eyes.
DJ seemed to have developed a 6th sense for whenever he was upset because the moment a tear fell silently down his cheek she looked up from her own snack with a “merrrp” and walked over to him. She was so much better than Inko, Inko had stopped caring about his tears years ago, she had stopped caring about him years ago. Why the hell did he still care about her? It wasn’t fair! She didn’t deserve to be missed, she didn’t deserve even a passing thought in his mind but here he was crying about her on his birthday.
He was angry that she still had this control over him, that she could still make him cry. She left him, she didn’t deserve to hold this power over him, she didn’t even know that she held this power over him and even if she did she wouldn’t care. He couldn’t help but wonder if she ever thought about him, if she ever regretted what she did. Part of him hopes she did, some vindictive part of him hopes the guilt is eating her alive but another part of him couldn’t care less and a third part hopes shes happy. It hurt to think about her starting over, making a new family, one with a husband who was kind and with children that she loved, the image left a bitter taste in his mouth but his mind was never one to conjure up soothing images, no it was never that kind to him. It would be better than the alternative though. He hopes she’s grown like he has. If she did run away to start over he hopes that she’s learned how to not hurt anyone the way she hurt him ever again. It was so confusing, to love and hate her in equal measure all the while knowing that she didn’t care enough to feel so strongly about him one way or the other. It was confusing to wish he could go back to a life he didn’t want, he was happier now, things were better now, why was he crying over someone who never loved him?
As angry tears fell down his cheeks despite him DJ pushed her face into his side. At her insistence, he detangled one of his hands from where it was fisted in his hair and ran it over her soft fur. Things were better now, he had to remember that things were better now. With DJ’s soft fur between his fingers, he let himself go, he let the sobs he was forcing down bubble up to the surface. He cried his heart out and DJ let him. She stayed by his side softly purring until the tears ran dry and he drifted off to sleep.
When he woke up in the morning she was still there curled up into his side.
Yeah, things were better now.
***
Izuku had been sifting through salvageable bits of metal at Dagobah and bringing them into a scrap yard for change for a few months now, both to pay for his second burner and in preparation for summer break. He wasn’t above shoplifting food but there was only so much he was willing to risk, he’d gotten quite good at it but shoplifting every day for over a month would be pushing it. He couldn’t count on handouts from Shimamoto-san and Mochizuki-san, other people relied on those too. There were only 3 more days left in the term and he knew he didn’t have enough money to last him the whole break. Kami, this was going to be hell.
***
Izuku was right, this was hell. After only two and a half weeks he was living off of bagels and breakfast sandwiches 3 days a week from Shinso-san. He’d been taking as much as he dared to from various different places and peeking into every dumpster he passed but his stomach was still sending him hunger pains like he didn’t already know the issue.
He was getting slower and Eraser was gonna start noticing. Before every patrol, they would eat the nutrient packet Eraser had given them the previous night but even so their aim was suffering from the shake in their hands. They were looking out over an alleyway when someone left out the back door to throw out a large bag of trash. That was the sandwich shop… they probably had food in that bag… maybe just some day-old bread or some chips or…
They looked over to Eraserhead who was looking out over the other side of the building. It was a slow night. Kami, they didn’t care if he noticed at this point. They jumped over the side of the ledge and scaled down the wall landing near silently in the alley below. Immediately they started rifling through the bag.
YES! BREAD! So much bread!
They ripped off a piece and shoved it under their mask. It was stale and the ambient stench of the dumpster wasn’t exactly appetizing but they were so hungry they didn’t care. They were too busy stuffing another piece under their mask to notice Eraser had just touched down behind them.
“Ivy?” he asked to get their attention.
“Jesus, fuck! Why are you so damn quiet, what?” they shot back, startled.
He looked concerned, he was looking between them, the open bag in the dumpster, and the bread in their hands. If he didn’t see the whole thing happen he was definitely putting the pieces together now.
***
Shota had been going back and forth with himself trying to figure out if Ivy was homeless. When he asked about them having a day job they had said that being a vigilante ‘doesn't pay the bills’ so, he’d been hoping for the best. If they had bills to pay then that meant they had somewhere to go, right? They always seemed fairly well put together and clean but lately, well lately not so much. He’d been blaming it on the summer heat but after what he just saw, he’s not so sure.
They had just rifled through a dirty dumpster and started eating stale bread. That's not generally something one would be willing to do if they were well off. They were paying him no mind and tearing off bits of it to shove under their mask.
“Ivy?” he asked cautiously.
They nearly jumped out of their skin before cursing him, “Jesus, fuck! Why are you so damn quiet, what?”
They continued to casually stuff bits of dumpster bread under their mask as they looked at him. They had been so odd about the food he brought to the stake out a few months back, there was this moment where they were so uncharacteristically sheepish about it when he tried to leave so they could eat. He didn’t know what to make of it then but now he’s starting to think that they were grateful, they did the same thing the first time he’d given them a nutrient packet.
Whether or not they were homeless was still up for debate but they were clearly not well off, enough that they had to worry about food to this degree. They still hadn’t added an eye mask to their getup even though they kept saying they would, he’d figured it was just procrastination.
“Do you need food, Ivy?” he asked as gently as he could.
They held up the piece of bread in their hand and looked at him, “No, I just got some,” they replied as though he was stupid for even asking that.
“Ivy, I’m serious. I can bring you some food if you need it, I–” Ivy cut him off
“I don’t need your damn handouts,” they snapped defensively.
They looked to the ground as if they immediately regretted the outburst but they were too proud to apologize.
“Kid, I know you’re capable but you can ask for help…” he trailed off for a moment and Ivy steadfastly refused to meet his gaze, “If you need anything you can just ask, okay?”
Pushing the issue wasn’t going to get him anywhere, he knew it wouldn’t, so he let it drop. When Ivy turned around and scaled back up to the rooftops after stuffing their dumpster bread into their pocket, he let them. He could just bring them more food, either they’d take it or they wouldn’t.
***
It wasn’t hard to get Hizashi to start packing him some extra bentos during meal prep days, they had been trying to convince them for years that a nutrient pouch was not an actual meal and didn’t count as dinner but he had been steadfastly ignoring their very valid points. They used to prep lunches and dinners to go for the week together every Sunday since they couldn’t find it anywhere in their busy schedules to actually prepare and sit down for meals together throughout the week but even though Hizashi had three jobs to Shota’s two they had much more regular hours so the meal prep had been falling to them a lot more since he started patrolling with Ivy.
He felt like a dad trying to set a good example for his kid by eating an actual dinner but he was hoping that Ivy would feel more comfortable taking food if he was also eating. So, with that in mind, he headed for their usual meet-up place with two bags strapped to his belt. When he got there he sat down on the ledge like he always did and took out his dinner but this time he placed Ivy’s food on the ledge around the corner from him. It was a clear offer, Ivy could sit down by them on the corner with their mask off and eat because they would be facing the other direction, and Shota wouldn’t look. He would stay here and eat his own food. They wouldn’t have to hide or squirrel their food away. They could just sit and eat together.
When Ivy showed up he picked up another bite of food with his chopsticks and nodded his head towards the other bento waiting for Ivy. They looked at it and then back at him considering the silent offer. It was hard to tell what they were thinking with most of their face covered so he just waited patiently.
Eventually, Ivy took the offered seat and before they took their mask off they choked out a shaky “Th-thanks.”
He didn’t make a big deal of it, he just gave a noncommittal hum to acknowledge them and went back to his own food. It didn’t fix everything, it didn’t do much to assuage his worry for the kid, but it was something. It was a step in the right direction.
Notes:
100K WORDS BABYYYYYYY
THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!!!!!!!
Chapter 41: 'Tis But a Flesh Wound
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Gun
-Knife
-Mentions of wound
-Foul languagelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota should have known something like this would happen, it was always one step forward and two steps back with Ivy. As soon as he stopped worrying so much about them getting food they go and get themselves stabbed. Forget going grey by 30, he was going to go bald by 30 because this little shit was going to make him tear his hair out.
A band of drunken dumbasses had decided that it was a good idea to parade around one of the gang’s most active blocks shouting profanities and making threats to them and their mothers and their sisters and well… you get the picture. They were alerted to the sounds of their slurred shouting and before they could even get there a gunshot rang out and Ivy started booking it, leaving him in the dust.
When he was finally able to catch up Ivy was already in the thick of it standing over a man on the ground and ordering him to keep pressure on his stomach while simultaneously fighting off three different guys who were seemingly trying to finish off the man with what he presumed to be a gunshot wound. Thankfully, Ivy had already managed to disarm whoever had had the gun but it was still 3v1 with a hostage of sorts and there were still fights between other groups going on throughout the alley.
Goddamnit, Ivy.
As quickly as he could he swooped down and introduced one of Ivy’s assailants’ faces to his knee. The guy went down in a heap before he turned away to deal with the mess that was the rest of the alley. Ivy could handle a 2v1.
He was too caught up in his own fights to realize Ivy’s 2v1 had turned into a 4v1 when a couple of guys took down whatever poor drunken bastard they were wailing on and joined the fray. He had already taken down 3 of the people on the other end of the alley and the rest were starting to realize this wasn’t a fight they were going to win and had started making hasty retreat.
He contemplated going after them but decided against it when he heard Ivy let out a strangled yelp before flipping a guy twice their size over their shoulder head-first into the ground and they still had two others after them. He turned to run to their aid but by the time he got there they’d already taken another one down and the last of them gave up without a fight.
As he cuffed them he looked over to Ivy to make sure they were alright, they were breathing heavily and they looked fine until he glanced down to their leg. There was a knife sticking out of their thigh and they had their hand around the hilt like they were about to pull it out.
“IVY DON’T,” he tried to warn them but it was too late.
They flinched a bit before saying, “It’s only gonna cut me up more if I move around with it there,” they explained as they took the belt off of one of the guys laying next to them and sinched it around their thigh like a tourniquet.
They snapped twice and pointed at the man lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his abdomen as they started to limp away. Coming out of his brief moment of shock he started to help the man apply pressure to the wound and sent out a ping to get an ambulance to his current location.
“Ivy where the hell are you going, you need medical attention,” he shouted after them.
“I don’t do hospitals, Eraser. I’ll be fine. I texted Tsuka, he’s on the way,” they said as they clumsily made their way up the fire escape.
“Ivy, are you insane, get back here,” he demanded but it had no effect.
“It was a glorified pocket knife, it was tiny, I can take care of it,” they called down already most of the way to the roof of the building.
If he weren't currently keeping a man from bleeding out he would go up there and kick their ass. What the fuck were they thinking?
***
As soon as Tsukauchi and the paramedics showed up he gave the most bare-bones explanation he could and shot up to the roof after Ivy. If he weren’t so pissed off and worried he would have laughed. Ivy was sitting up against the roof access stairwell wall in a pair of All Might boxers with their flashlight pointed down to their leg sandwiched between their cheek and shoulder as they stitched themself up.
He was about to chew them out but he couldn’t even be mad, there was a small container of alcohol next to them and he could see the sterile packaging that they took the needle and thread out of, they were doing everything right which was concerning in and of itself. As he walked closer to get a better look at the wound he realized they were right, it really wasn’t that bad but they were still neatly stitching up their own leg without flinching.
What the fuck is wrong with this kid?
“Not a damn word about the boxers, be a dear and hold the light, would you?” they asked as casually as one would talk about the weather.
“If you don’t get yourself killed I'm gonna do it myself,” he threatened as he took the flashlight.
“Mmmmhmm,” they replied, clearly not threatened at all.
***
Aizawa burst into his office without so much as a greeting and made a beeline for the coffee maker. He swore he heard the telltale hum of the machine spitting out a shot of espresso four times before he watched the hero tip the mug back and down it in one go.
“You, uh, you good, Aizawa?” He asked in a worried tone.
“Peachy,” he responded flatly before setting the mug down under the spout and brewing a standard mug of coffee.
“Students driving you mad again?” He asked with a grimace.
“No, it’s your problem child driving me mad Tsukauchi,” he said before amending the statement, “Actually, no, it’s all of them.”
“Well, they’re not really my problem child anymore, I told the big wigs that you’re on the case and they seemed pretty happy about that. They actually gave me another high-profile case to work on. I think I’m seeing a raise in my future if I play my cards right,” he taunted.
Tsukauchi would have laughed at the face Aizawa pulled if he didn’t think he’d get himself killed for it. He could swear he saw the bags under his eyes double in size as he glared at him.
Clearing his throat he continued, “So, I am still the head on your problem child’s case. Is that what brings you in tonight or are you just taking advantage of my coffee machine?” He asked with a smirk.
Eraser was going to kill him one of these days and he was probably going to deserve it. He’d still leave him the coffee maker in his will, maybe that would make up for it, the man was just too fun to taunt.
“Kid’s been nagging me because I won’t let them patrol with self-preformed stitches still in their leg,” he said bluntly.
“WHAT?!” He replied with a healthy amount of alarm.
Aizawa just looked at him likely unwilling to elaborate on such a straightforward sentence. Tsukauchi felt less bad about taunting him, he always pushed his buttons right back even if it wasn’t always so overt.
“Eraser, for the love of Kami, give me context,” he pleaded.
With an eye roll, he plopped down into one of the plush armchairs in front of his desk. After settling himself he set the freshly brewed mug of coffee just to the left of the coaster on the side table while making eye contact with him.
Absolute bastard. He no longer felt an ounce of remorse for his prodding.
Aizawa just glared at him.
Returning the glare in full force Tsukauchi said, “Answer the question and use the goddamn coaster, you animal.”
He rolled his eyes again before shifting the mug into place and explaining, “We got in the middle of a gang fight with the guys I just brought in. The fight went south and Ivy got outnumbered then stabbed in the leg and not only did they finish taking down the guys after them, they then climbed their way up onto the roof while I waited for you and the ambulance and when I went back up to check on them they were sitting there in their boxers with a flashlight between their shoulder and cheek finishing up the last of the stitches they did on themself.”
Tsukauchi took a moment to process that before responding, “Right, okay, that is insane but why does that have you downing near-lethal doses of caffeine at midnight?”
“The only way they would agree to go home and rest is if I took over their patrols,” he said leveling a glare at him as if Ivy’s insanity was his fault.
Tsukauchi just leaned back in his chair, let out an exasperated sigh, and ran a hand through his hair.
Aizawa hummed in agreement while taking another swig of his coffee.
“So, how old do you think they are?”
He groaned shoving his face into his hands, “I have no idea. Going purely off looks they could be as young as 12 but that’s illogical given what they’re capable of. Their appearance could be due to a number of things, if they are, in fact, homeless they could have stunted growth from malnutrition, or they could look young due to a quirk, or it’s simply in their genetics.”
He shifted his face out of his hand and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before pinching the bridge of his nose and continuing, “Going off what they are capable of is a different story, their skills could be due to a quirk though I have erased their quirk several times during spars and they had little to no reaction so either my quirk doesn’t affect them or their quirk doesn’t factor into their skills at all. If that’s the case then the skills they’ve built up would take many years to master and I can’t imagine they're less than 18-20 years old. Any younger and they would have to be a prodigy, practicing straight out of the womb, or both, honestly.”
After letting out a dramatic sigh he looked back up
“Any combination of age or quirk doesn’t make sense. They’re anomalous and at this point, I think it’s for the best to give up on trying to understand them. They’ve agreed to not go out without me and they take the food I give them, I can keep them safe. Worrying any further isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he concluded sounding no more energized than he did before slamming the four shots of espresso he just piled into his mug.
Notes:
❤️Stupid idiot dumbass❤️
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 42: ♫ What Time is it? Summer Time! ♫
Notes:
*Announcer’s voice*
AAAAAND here comes seasonal depression coming’ in HOT with an elbow to the solar plexus! Will they recover from this??? They’ve got the next major arc completed all they have to do is fill in the gap with a few smaller arcs to keep the flow of the story, CAN they do it??? OH NO, they’re down! They’re down! AND SEASONAL DEPRESSION IS COMING IN WITH A METAL CHAIR!!!hahahaha I'm suffering! You guys are about to catch up with my writer's block, I've only got one more chapter to post after this one, just a heads up. The sun is allegedly supposed to show itself today so hopefully that will help. I'll post tomorrow but it might be a few days after that b4 I post again.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Mentions of past abuse
-Vague mentions of stab woundlmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was still summer break and Eraser wasn’t letting them go out on patrol until the stitches were out of their leg. He met up with them once, gave them a metric fuck ton of nutrient packets and protein bars, and told them to “sit the fuck down until it healed.” He couldn’t even do anything because the more he moved around the longer it would take for the damn papercut on his leg to heal. He futzed around Dahgobah as much as he could but he couldn’t move around anything too heavy so he hardly got more than a handful of pocket change each time he went to the scrap yard
Three days into his forced sabbatical he decided to go to the library. He was so bored and he was hoping Shinso would be there. Since he didn’t have any school work to do he didn’t always come in to work with his mom but Shinso-san would let him know if Shinso had decided to sleep in. She hadn’t texted him so he could only assume Shinso would be there.
When Izuku walked in he saw a few people milling about and Shinso wasn’t in his normal spot, he figured he must be around here somewhere though because Shinso-san would’ve told him if he wasn’t. With that in mind, he started wandering around, he knew Shinso liked to read so maybe he was looking through the books or maybe he was in the back, it was around lunchtime so he could be eating.
After a few minutes of aimlessly walking around, he found him in one of the lounge areas. He was sitting practically upside down in one of the plush worn-out loveseats with one leg draped over the back and the other slung over the armrest. He couldn’t see what he was reading but he had his nose buried in a book. Izuku let out a little chuckle at the sight and Shinso ripped his eyes away from his book at the noise.
“Midoriya!” he exclaimed a little too loudly for the library before he almost fell out of his seat trying to extract himself from the position he’d been lounging in to greet him properly.
Izuku let out another giggle at the display before responding, “Hey, Shinso.”
“Sorry I haven't been in much since break started, it’s just I’ve finally been able to get some rest when I don’t have to wake up like 3 hours after I fall asleep so…” he trailed off with a faint blush to his cheeks.
Oh, did Izuku know that feeling. Yeah, that was the reason he never got up before 10 on weekends, going on patrols all night and then going to school in the morning was brutal so he could understand the sanctity of rest, he could imagine Eraser was the same way. He said he had a day job teaching, didn’t he?
“Oh, don’t w-worry Shinso, I get it. I hardly sleep e-either,” he soothed.
“Yeah, I figured,” he replied as he pulled at the bags under his eyes that mirrored Izuku’s own.
He scoffed and batted his hand away as Shinso gestured to said matching bags to drive the point home.
“Have you been able to catch up on ZZZs over break?” he asked.
Hah! Sleep? No, Izuku had been spending every second he could rooting around the beach trying to build up the funds to feed himself. Sure, maybe he was getting a few more hours of sleep but it definitely didn’t feel like it, he was more exhausted than ever and now that Eraser had benched him for a few days he was going absolutely out of his mind. He’d been lying in his nest trying to sleep but his mind would wander to uptown and his restless limbs would shout at him for all the running around he wasn’t doing.
No, it was safe to say Izuku had not been catching up on his “ZZZs” over break.
“Hah, n-no. Not at all. I’ve been t-trying to but nope,” he said popping the ‘p’ at the end for dramatic effect.
They spent some time catching up and laughing over nothing and everything before Shinso-san came out from the stacks and greeted him.
“Hey Midoriya!” She said with a smile, “Did you want to come over for dinner tonight? I’m making katsudon again,” she sang in a tone you would use to lure in a cat with a treat.
Shinso and his mom both laughed at him and he would’ve been grumpy about it but the thought alone had his mouth watering so he just laughed along.
“Y-yes Shinso-san, t-that would b-be lovely, thank you,” he replied with a small bow of his head.
“You two should get out, break is almost over and you haven’t done anything but sleep Toshi,” she admonished.
Shinso shot her a half-hearted glare at that.
“Why don’t you go to the beach?” she offered, “you can walk from here, and it's a nice day to swim.”
“We don't even have our trunks, Mom,” Shinso argued.
“Oh there's always sales on that type of stuff at the end of the summer, I’ll give you guys some money and you can pick up the things you’ll need. Come on Toshi, live a little. Right, Midoriya?” she goaded before looking over to him.
He must have looked like a deer caught in headlights because he was kinda freaking out trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation without lying through his teeth. He couldn’t go to the beach, he still had stitches in his leg not to mention scars lining most of his body that he very much did not have a cover story for. Thankfully, Shinso-san bailed him out herself.
“Or maybe you could go to the arcade? That’s not too far a walk from here either,” she offered.
Shinso looked over at him with a raised brow, wordlessly asking what he thought about that plan. He was up for anything that didn’t require stripping, the whole reason he came here was because he was bored out of his mind. Sure he didn’t have any money but watching Shinso play games was way better than staring at a brick wall trying not to pull his own hair out.
“S-sure! That sounds f-fun. I’ve n-never been to the arcade,” he admitted.
“Then it’s decided, you boys get out of here and go have some fun, that’s an order!” Shinso-san said in a mockingly stern tone as she handed Shinso some money.
“Thanks, Mom!” he called over his shoulder after pocketing the money and dragging Izuku out the door by the arm.
***
“How have you never been to the arcade or played Nintendo Midoriya? Are your parents the kind of kooks that think video games are the work of the devil or something?” Shinso asked as they walked along.
It was a thinly veiled fish for information. It was obvious that the Shinsos were still concerned about his home life after that whole fiasco with coming into the library looking like the walking dead and accidentally admitting that he needed to send a fake email from his mom in order to get out of school. He couldn't even blame them, because honestly they should be concerned; the reality of his ‘home’ life was arguably worse than a mildly abusive household but they didn’t need to know that. He could just keep letting them think that they were crazy and neglectful, it would be easier for everyone.
“Y-yeah, they’re a l-little weird a-about stuff l-like that,” he lied.
Shinso frowned a bit at that but quickly tried to pick the conversation back up, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to continue being a bad influence, corrupting your mind with my dark ways! I’ll introduce you to the horrifying world of Space Invaders or even, Kami forbid, Pac Man.” he declared with a dramatically deepened and ‘spooky’ voice.
Despite not knowing what the hell he was talking about Izuku laughed at his theatrics. He pressed his palms up against his cheeks and raised his eyebrows in mock fear.
“Sounds terrifying, I’m s-shaking in my b-boots just thinking about it,” he replied with an equal amount of showmanship.
They both burst out laughing, their shoulders bumping together as they walked down the street. It felt so casual, so normal. It felt like something Izuku wasn’t allowed to have, a friend. His laughter died down at the thought and he let Shinso talk about the book he was reading, only half paying attention. His mind was too wrapped up in the knowledge that he was lying to his friend, that he wasn’t really his friend, he was the friend of the person Izuku allowed him to see but that person wasn’t real. It was close to Izuku but it wasn’t really, it was a manufactured and polished part of himself, one that was more easily digestible, one that wasn’t so broken, one that wasn’t Deku.
One day the act would slip, one day Shinso would find out what he really was, he’d been having nightmares about it. Dreams in which Shinso looked at him with disgust and slurs fell from his mouth as easily as water rolls off a duck's back. Dreams where Shinso sneers and laughs and remarks how it makes sense that his name is so close to the word useless. He always wakes up from those dreams crying. He doesn’t think that Shinso could actually be so cruel, he thinks he knows him well enough by now but there’s only one way to be sure and he was not going to take that risk, not a chance in hell. Even if Shinso doesn’t mock him he’ll still look down on him, treat him like a piece of glass like the old lady from the corner store by his old apartment. He couldn’t stand to have Shinso look at him with pity any more than he could stand to have him look at him with disgust.
He didn’t realize how lost he was in his thoughts until Shinso grabbed his shoulder to stop him from walking.
“Hello, earth to space cadet Midoriya, we’re here,” he taunted snapping his fingers in front of Izuku’s face.
“S-sorry Shinso! I spaced out t-there, I d-didn’t mean to,” he apologized.
“Yeah, I noticed, Greenie. It’s fine, come on,” he replied, beckoning him into the building.
The inside of the building was kinda stuffy and very loud. There were kids of all ages running around with candy and tickets or standing at machines yelling about how they got cheated. There was a small crowd gathered around someone playing some sort of music game that required jumping around on arrows on the ground. That looked pretty fun but it would definitely work up a sweat and he probably shouldn’t do that with the stitches still in his leg; it’s not like he had the money to try anyway.
Shinso escorted him over to a machine where he put some money in and tokens poured out into a little cup. After grabbing the cup he looked to Izuku and said, “Alright, where to first?”
As if he had the faintest idea.
Izuku just looked back at him with an exasperated expression.
“Haha, oh, right. Forgot you’ve never been to an arcade,” he said sheepishly.
“Let's go for a classic claw machine, nothing to start off your day quite like the refreshing feeling of disappointment!” he said far more enthusiastically than the sentence seemed to necessitate.
Shinso led him over to the machine full of plushies, he knew what a claw machine was but he’d never tried one. There was an off-white cat plushie in the back corner with gold eyes that looked just like DJ. He needed it.
“Oh, Shinso! G-go for the cat!” he said pointing to the one he was talking about.
“Don’t get too excited Greenie, these things are rigged, we probably won’t win anything,” he warned.
“I-if we don’t get it I’m c-crawling in there myself,” he shot back.
“Damn, Midoriya, them’s fightin’ words. Let’s try the right way first before we get kicked out of the arcade,” he joked back.
After a moment of adjusting the claw just right over the cat, Shinso let the claw drop, it fell into place perfectly and it shifted the cat up just a bit before dropping it back.
“Dang it! See? That’s what I mean, these things are rigged. The claw’s not strong enough to pick anything up properly!” Shinso cursed. “I might have dislodged it a bit though, I’ll try again,” he amended after seeing the disappointed look on Izuku’s face.
Izuku helped him maneuver the claw back into place by looking through the other side of the machine and directing him. Once satisfied Shinso let the claw drop down again and grab onto the cat’s oversized plush head perfectly. The claw jerkily lifted it up and up and they both watched it with bated breath as it started moving back to the drop box. After a brief eternity, it came to a stop and dropped the cat down into the cubby at the front.
“YES!” they both shouted in perfect unison.
Shinso opened the little door and grabbed the toy from inside and handed it to Izuku. With stars in his eyes, he whispered, “She’s perfect.”
Shinso let out a laugh at that and Izuku solemnly handed it back to him.
“Nah, Greenie, you keep it. You’re the one who spotted it,” he said while shoving the cat back into Izuku’s hands.
Before he could even argue Shinso gestured back to the machine, “You wanna give it a try?” he asked.
“I, uh, I d-don’t have any, uh m-money,” he replied with a blush.
Shinso looked at him like he was stupid before responding, “My mom gave this for the both of us, did you come here thinking you were just gonna watch me play games all day?”
Izuku could feel the blush on his cheeks spread as he gripped the plush cat in his hands but Shinso just laughed at him, put another token in the claw machine, and manhandled Izuku toward the controls. Hesitantly, Izuku lined up the claw over another cat plushie, this one was black with white marks that looked like cute little cat socks and green eyes. When he was satisfied with the positioning he let the claw drop down and grab the plush by the head just like Shinso had done. Again they watched with baited breath as the claw raised up higher and higher all the while keeping the cat in its grasp. When it dropped into the cubby it nearly bounced out but thankfully it fell back in.
“No fair man! That was beginner’s luck!” Shinso scoffed with a grin.
With a giddy smile, Izuku snatched the second cat plush from the bottom of the machine and handed it to Shinso.
“There, now we’ve got m-matching ones. It’s your f-favorite color and everything!” he beamed.
Shinso’s grin morphed from his ever-present smirk to a genuine smile as he took it.
“Thanks, Greenie. Now let's go waste the rest of our money,” he declared as he dragged Izuku behind him by the arm again.
***
Midoriya was absolutely shit at video games it was almost sad but Hitoshi still laughed at him anyway. They walked around giving most games they saw a try, Midoriya would go first and fail epically then Hitoshi would take over and make fun of him while failing marginally less. They weren’t getting many tickets but they were still having fun, or at least Hitoshi was up until they heard some kid yelling at a game on the other side of the arcade. Hitoshi ignored it because their voice just drowned in the cacophony of other kids yelling at rigged games but Midoriya’s face drained of all its color and the smile that had graced his features all day fell as he grabbed onto Hitoshi’s arm instinctively.
When he looked up to see what was going on Midoriya was staring over to the other side of the arcade where the shouting had come from and he looked terrified. He heard the game over sound come from the machine in front of him but he paid it no mind.
“Midoriya, what’s wrong?” he asked cautiously.
Midoriya didn’t answer he just kept looking over in the direction of the kid and started backing away.
“Midoriya, do you know that kid?” he tried again.
He just stuttered out some incomprehensible response so Hitoshi just gathered up the tokens, tickets, and plush cat that were sitting on the game and let Midoriya drag him away. Hitoshi guided them toward the door and away from the other kid. On the way out he wordlessly stuffed the rest of their tokens and tickets into a random little kid's hands and he didn’t even stick around to see her look at him like he’d personally just hung the stars in the sky for her.
Once they were outside he dragged Midoriya around the corner and tried to force him to sit down but he wasn’t having it. He looked around at every single person passing by before he pulled the both of them into an alleyway and walked so fast that, despite his longer legs, Hitoshi was practically running behind him. They kept making seemingly random turns into different side streets and if he wasn’t confident that he could find his way back if they got to a major street he would have stopped him because he was thoroughly lost at this point.
When they finally emerged on a road he recognized he was surprised to find that they were right across the street from the library, how the hell did they get here so quick? Hitoshi mentally added ‘keeps a mental map of all of Musutafu’s backstreets’ to the list of weird shit Midoriya was capable of.
Once they came to a stop Midoriya dropped his arm like it burned him.
“S-sorry th-that was s-stupid I–” Hitoshi cut him off
“Midoriya, it’s okay, we were almost out of tokens anyway and we probably made that little girl’s whole week,” he tried to soothe but Midoriya just looked at him with confusion.
“Oh, I gave our tokens to some little kid before we left,” he explained.
His panic seemed to ease for a moment as he smiled at that but his expression quickly dropped as he started chewing at his lip. His gaze was steadfastly aimed at his shoes and he looked very uncomfortable or like he was trying to think of a way to explain his actions.
“Midoriya, it’s really okay, you don’t have to explain yourself. I get it, or at least I think I do. I’m guessing that kid isn’t very nice to you and I don’t need to know any more than that,” he said.
It wasn’t a lie, he didn’t need to know any more than that but he desperately wanted to. Hitoshi himself had run away from kids like that before, he’d felt that fear of being hunted like an animal, and as much as he wished that Midoriya didn’t have to deal with that he desperately wanted someone besides his mother who could understand him. He wanted to know for sure but he knew it was selfish to push, if Midoriya wanted to tell him then he would.
That seemed to be the right thing to say because Greenie’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly as he nodded.
“Y-yeah, he’s, uh, h-he’s not very n-nice,” he agreed and left it at that.
Hitoshi didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse knowing that Midoriya probably got that black eye at school. On the one hand, it would be nice for him to be at least physically safe at home but on the other hand, that meant that school wasn’t any better than home was for him. He needed to tell his mom about this, it wasn’t doing anyone any good to try and make sense of things now.
“It was actually pretty good timing, my mom’s off the clock in like a half-hour so we can all ride back home together,” Hitoshi proclaimed as he led Midoriya back into the library.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 43: Presidential Alert: The Boys are Bonding.
Notes:
✨ the horrors are persisting ✨
I probably won't post tomorrow, maybe Monday. We'll see.I might get the art for chapter 38 done so check back for that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shinso didn’t push him to explain, he didn’t ask, he just got him out of the situation and let it go. He could tell he wanted to ask more questions but he didn’t and he gave all their tickets and tokens away, he was so nice.
He was currently sitting on the train holding onto his cute little DJ plush on the way to the Shinso’s. The two Shinsos were engaging in their usual banter but Izuku hadn’t said much since they left the arcade. Sometimes he just got into these moods where speaking felt like he had to drag every word up his throat but he knew it would pass and neither of the Shinsos brought it up, they were too kind.
For the second time today, he couldn’t help but feel that he didn’t deserve their kindness but he told himself that didn’t matter. For the time being he had it and he might as well enjoy it while it lasted. It wasn’t fair to them anyway to let himself fall into the gloom in his head when they invited him over for dinner so he did his best to pull himself out of it.
By the time they got to the front door, he was feeling a little more himself.
“Alright boys, I’ll be in my office if you need me. You gonna go beat up my son again?” she asked Izuku.
Shinso piped in, apparently getting tired of the running bit, “He’s not beating me up! I’m learning!” he insisted, “Right, Midoriya?”
Izuku did his best to force back a laugh and bite down on a smile. He kinda was just beating him up out back but that’s all part of the ~learning process~. Still biting down on a grin he let out a very non-convincing “mhmm,” and nodded his head.
“Oh, come on! Not you too!” he whined.
He couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore when Shinso-san started cackling. The defeated look on Shinso’s face was priceless.
“N-no you are, you are!” he insisted between laughs. “B-but I am still k-kinda just b-beating you up.”
Shinso shot him a half-hearted glare and shook his head as he walked inside.
“Gently! I’m b-beating you up gently!” he clarified.
At that, Shinso-san started laughing again.
“Aw, you're too sweet Midoriya,” she cooed.
Once Shinso gave up on giving him the stink eye he asked, “Did you wanna go out back? We could keep our shoes on and just go through the gate,” he offered.
Did he want to? Yes, yes he did. It was a lot of fun to teach Shinso and it kept him in touch with his fighting fundamentals but he did still have stitches in his leg…
He thought a moment before deciding it wasn’t fair to uptown to risk prolonging his recovery.
“We c-can go through some simple d-drills but I h-hurt my leg and I’m not supposed to m-move it around too much,” he admitted.
“Midoriya! We’ve been walking around all day, why didn’t you tell me?!” Shinso exclaimed.
“It’s f-fine! I’m not d-doing anything that would hurt it, w-walking around is f-fine!” he tried to assuage but Shinso wasn’t having it.
“No, we’re sitting down,” he declared as he started taking off his shoes, “What’d you even do to it?”
Oh, well… um…time to lie!
“I, uh, I f-fell and s-sliced my t-thigh, had t-to get a few s-stitches,” he said with an awkward laugh.
That wasn’t too far from the truth.
“Oh, damn dude. You’ve been walking around all day with stitches?! Doesn’t that hurt?” Shinso asked incredulously.
“A l-little but not n-nearly as m-much as it did. It’s b-been a few d-days, they’ll be out s-soon,” he tried to reassure.
“You’re crazy Midoriya. We’re taking it easy for the rest of the day, Dr. Shinso’s orders,” he asserted as he led them up the stairs, “I prescribe television and at least 3 hours of vegging out before dinner.”
“Yes, sir doctor sir,” he shot back coyly.
Shinso rolled his eyes as he held open the door to his room.
“Welcome to my humble abode, mi casa su casa, et cetera,” he proclaimed with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
The room was mostly shades of black and grey but there were artful splashes of color in the posters and string lights lining the walls. Shinso tossed his new cat plushie onto the bed next to an oversized Gengar plush. It wasn’t too tidy but it wasn’t a mess either, it fit Shinso well.
He flopped down onto the bed and scooted over to give Izuku some room and turned on the TV.
“Whaddya wanna watch, Greenie?”
“Uh, I dunno.”
“What, do you not watch TV either?” Shinso asked sarcastically.
“...”
“Seriously?!” he exclaimed, “Midoriya, what do you do?”
“J-jump around and s-slice my l-leg open a-apparently,” he offered.
“Incorrigible, absolutely incorrigible,” Shinso said as he shook his head and then buried it in his hands.
“H-hey I watch the n-news at least!” he defended.
“You’re not helping your case Greenie, you need some brain-rotting pointless entertainment Immediately,” he said as he turned on some cartoon Izuku had never seen before.
They sat there for hours watching nonsense and making fun of all the stupid things the characters did and how none of it adhered to real life in the slightest. It felt so strange to be so normal, to be so relaxed in the presence of someone else. The darkest corners of his mind tried to tell him he didn’t deserve it or it was all going to come crumbling down around him any day now but he did his best to shove those thoughts down. He was happy, even if he had to fight himself for the right to feel it properly.
Shinso-san had gotten caught up in whatever book she was reading so they had a late dinner. The dish was as delicious as it had been the first time and by the time they’d put all the bowls and cups away, the sun was starting to set. It was time for him to go. He didn’t want to go.
He must have broadcasted his hesitance because as he stood in the kitchen after handing Shinso the last dried dish Shinso-san piped up.
“Midoriya, it’s already pretty dark out, do you want to ask your parents if you could stay the night?”
He looked over to Shinso to gauge his reaction, he perked up like a meerkat coming out of their burrow. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face, It felt so nice to be wanted.
“Y-yeah, I’m sure they w-wouldn’t mind, I’ll, uh, t-text my m-mom,” he offered.
He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a moment pretending to send a message.
“Alright, I would say don’t stay up too late but I know there's no point with this one around,” she said as she gave Shinso a playful shove, “I’m an old lady so my bedtime is promptly at 10:30 so just don’t make too much of a racket after that.”
She left back upstairs, probably to go bury herself back in whatever book she’d been reading, and bid them goodnight.
“Okay Greenie, now that we’ve got the time, I will be forcing you to participate in one of the greatest and laziest pastimes I know, watching bad movies. We will be staying up until we can’t keep our eyes open and making fun of bad scripts and even worse special effects,” Shinso declared as he brought his fist down into his open palm to drive the point home.
Izuku giggled at his antics and resigned himself to his fate.
“Could I, um, c-could I take a shower f-first?” he asked tentatively.
He hadn’t had a proper shower since school let out. He’d been washing his hair with hand soap in gas station bathrooms and rinsing off as best as he could at the beach just north of Dagobah but it wasn’t enough and he felt filthy.
“Yeah, of course, I’ll get a watchlist set up for us while you’re in there. You wanna borrow some PJs?” he asked.
“Yes, p-please.”
He must have soaped himself up and rinsed himself off 5 times before he finally felt clean. He didn’t have a bandage to replace the one he had covering the stitches so he just patted it dry. The PJs Shinso left for him were a little too big but they were so cozy that he didn’t care. When he puttered back to Shinso’s room the main light was off and the purple string lights were on, it made for a spooky atmosphere but Izuku didn’t mind it.
When Shinso saw him he patted the spot next to him on the bed and pressed play of the first movie of the night with no preamble. Izuku’s not entirely sure if it was meant to be a horror comedy but the two of them were laughing far more than they were flinching at the cheap jumpscares. He played shitty movie after shitty movie as they both lay sprawled out on Shinso’s bed with blankets haphazardly spread across them. He doesn’t remember even falling asleep but he woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking and Shinso’s foot in his face. He’d never been so content in his life. They futzed around until midday when Izuku finally left with a tummy full with breakfast AND lunch and arms full of leftovers.
***
“Toshi?” Kohaku asked.
He was turning up the stairs to leave back up to his room after they saw Midoriya out.
“How’s he doing, do you know?” she asked.
His face fell at that.
“Oh yeah, I meant to tell you about yesterday but then he stayed the night so I didn’t get the chance. I don’t think he got the black eye at home, I think he got it at school. There was this kid at the arcade and when Midoriya saw him he just froze and started pulling me away. That's why we were back early. He was still freaking out so I didn’t want to push him, all he said was the kid wasn’t very nice to him,” he explained
“Hmm,” she trailed off taking in the new information.
She’d noticed the spike of panic when they’d gotten back to the library and she didn’t need her quirk to tell that something happened. He was damn near silent all the way home but he seemed to get a hold of himself somewhere along the way. His emotions were always so guarded which was troubling in and of itself but especially so for someone so young, even more so given the tidbits they’ve been able to uncover about his life. She always felt him more here at home, he was calmer, he felt happy along with a mess of other things she couldn’t quite parse out. It warmed her heart to know he felt safe here. She made sure to tell him he was always welcome and she could only hope he’d come to them if he ever needed something.
“Did you, um, did you notice anything off with him?” he asked shyly.
“No, Toshi, no more than usual. He’s happy here though, he’s happier when you’re around,” she said with a smile.
Her grin widened at the blush that spread across his cheeks, her boys were precious. Precious bumbling idiots.
***
When Izuku got home DJ was waiting for him at the hole in the wall where he usually entered. She looked at him and yowled before pressing up against his legs. He felt like he was being scolded for missing curfew.
“Sorry DJ, I’ll tell you next time I leave for the night,” he laughed.
She planted herself firmly on top of his feet and curled up.
“Oh come on DJ you’re being dramatic, get off my feet I can’t stand here forever.”
She paid his pleading no mind.
Notes:
thanks for reading
Chapter 44: ♫ Guess Who’s Back, Back Again.♫ (My depression, it's my depression that’s back… but also Ivy!)
Notes:
✨ tHE hOrrors PERsIst ✨
The sun was out for a day and a half and now it is gone again for the rest of the week. I feel like I moved to Washington or some shit wtf is going on? Give. Me. Sun. I need light for to make brain do chemicals, PLEASE. NO MORE RAIN PLEASE!!!
I spent the day and a half of sunshine writing another 3 chapters that won't happen for another in narrative 3 months so I just have 14k words and two nearly full arcs that I can't post because they're further ahead in the story! I super love what my brain allows me to do, it's soooooo helpful. Anyway, if I get a bout of depression then so does Izu, we can suffer together!!! I love projecting!
⚠️🆘Read the end notes if you want to help me brainstorm (there will be VERY vague spoilers)🆘⚠️
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
This was getting ridiculous. He stayed home from patrol for only 6 days when he had a 3rd-degree burn spanning half his torso and he was on day 4 of being benched for this dinky little pinprick. The skin had been healing up fine, his flesh was no longer in twain and he could probably use the extra support the stitches provided for a while yet but he was going to lose his mind at this rate. He was taking them out tomorrow and that was that, if Eraser didn’t want him back until the stitches were gone then he’d have his wish. He could throw some butterfly bandages over it for insurance.
Ivy:
Expect me back, I’m taking the stitches out tomorrow.
Eraserhead:
Isn’t that a bit early? It's only been 4 days
Ivy:
And it will have been 5 tomorrow, the recommended time that stitches should remain in place.
Eraserhead:
Yeah, the minimum recommended time. You got stabbed, Ivy.
Ivy:
It’s happened before and it will happen again. I will be back tomorrow.
Eraserhead:
That does not make it any better.
Ivy:
Don’t care. See you tomorrow!
How did people just take breaks all the goddamn time? This was exhausting.
***
Shota was sitting across the table lesson planning for the upcoming semester with Hizashi when he checked his phone and groaned before dropping his head onto the table. Well, that had to be Ivy then didn’t it?
“You good, Sho?” he asked politely.
Shota just continued groaning into the table.
“I’m guessing that was Ivy?” they pushed.
Shota gave an affirmative grunt.
“What’d they do this time?”
“They’re taking the stitches out tomorrow, told me to expect them back,” Sho responded directly into the tabletop.
“Are you surprised?” he poked back.
“That they waited this long, yes. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it,” he responded as he picked his head back up and downed the remainder of his coffee.
“Sho, I know you don’t want to hear it but they lasted nearly a whole year without you, that doesn’t happen on pure luck, especially not in the red lights. They’re still kickin’ after that, they can handle themselves, and with you around they’re only getting better. Have some faith in them and calm down,” he tried to soothe.
Sho just glared at them and went to go brew himself another mug.
“Get me one too Sho!”
Despite the glare, he still took their cup.
***
Usually, Shota left straight from UA to meet with Ivy. He’d stay late and do some work around the school or take a nap and head out, there wasn’t really enough time to justify going all the way home so he usually didn’t bother. It was in the opposite direction from uptown so he’d have to double back and with travel time he’d only spend like a half hour at home before he had to leave again, but consequently, he’d usually show up like a half an hour early and just wait around. He didn’t mind, it was nice to have a moment to himself, UA was never really quiet, not that the city was either but distant car horns were easier to ignore than students screaming and setting the training gym on fire for the third time in a single semester.
Now that it was summer he was showing up at a more reasonable time and today Ivy was there waiting for him, passing the time by throwing their knives into the brick wall that now only had loose shreds of cardboard clinging to it, he really should bring a new piece to put up there. Actually, he should bring an actual target because Ivy was going to start chipping straight through the wall at this rate.
“Evening, Ivy,” he greeted
“Hey geezer, didya miss me?” they shot back without even turning to look at him.
“Mmmhmm,” he replied as dryly as possible, “How’s your leg?”
“Restless, it’s a syndrome, kind of rude of you to bring it up, I'm sensitive about it you kn–”
“Ivy, answer the damn question,” he interrupted their prattling.
They finally turned to face him just to roll their eyes.
“It’s fine, Eraser, It’s been fine,” they replied sounding as exasperated as he felt.
“Can I check it?” he asked.
“If I had a nickel for every time you asked me to take my clothes off I’d have two nickles which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice, especially coming from someone who thinks I’m a kid, seems a little suspect if you ask me.”
Yep, that's about the response he expected. Regardless he still had to take a deep breath to keep himself from throwing an already injured child (?) off the roof.
“Kid, you better hope you don’t split that open ‘cause if you do I’m dragging you to a doctor,” he threatened.
“Reopening the wound doesn’t help me or uptown, Eraser, I’m not trying to fuck up my own leg. If it splits I’ll go to your cryptic little doctor friend but it won’t, ‘cause it’s fine. My leg, my problem, so butt out of it. If it becomes something I can’t handle I promise I’ll come crawling back to you, ‘kay?” they quipped with so much sass that it was almost impressive.
They ran through a few spars and Ivy’s skill didn’t seem to be suffering. They guarded their leg more carefully and a practiced fighter might be able to pick up on that but otherwise, they seemed fine. Maybe he was just being overprotective, they clearly knew how to care for the wound when they got it, pushing the topic and treating them like they couldn’t handle themself wasn’t going to help anything. If he wanted them to trust him then he was going to have to trust them. They took the food he offered when they needed it so he had to trust that they’d take the aid he offered if they needed it.
Not that he would admit it but Zashi was probably right, the kid could handle themself.
***
Ivy was definitely aware of the half-healed wound in their leg during patrol, it pulled and that didn’t feel great but it was fine. Eraser had his panties in a twist about it just like they knew he would and honestly, it was exhausting. They can understand the concern but they knew what they were doing, if they can get themself through getting stabbed in the gut and left to bleed out in a dirty alleyway on their own then they can handle a little letter opener to the leg.
He offered them a fancy healer; if they needed it, they’d take it, their pride didn’t come before Uptown, and Uptown’s well-being was heavily contingent on their well-being. True, they might be a little reckless with themself but only when it could save other people and it doesn’t help anyone if they put themself out of commission again.
It was niggling their mind on the walk home that night, Eraser worried about them too much and they didn’t know how to feel about that. Was that how people were supposed to be? Is that how everyone else was treated? It felt like they’d been jumping through hoops to dodge everyone’s concerns lately. Well, just Eraser and the Shinsos, not everyone. No, everyone else couldn’t give two shits about his well-being, it was just those three that cared and they were the only people in his life that didn’t know he was quirkless.
One or two is a coincidence, but three? Three’s a trend…
The thought hit him with force and stopped him mid-stride. It’s not something he didn’t already know but for some reason, it found its way through a chink in his armor and struck him like a dawning realization. He had put the pieces together long ago but it’s like he was only now seeing the whole picture. It was so stupid, he was never under any disillusion that they actually cared for him, for the real him, maybe he just lost himself in pretending for a moment.
When he got back to the warehouse he heard DJ pounce down onto the dumpster and he felt her brush against his legs as she followed him inside but he paid her no mind. He just kept walking and sat down in his nest of blankets, he didn’t even bother to turn the lights on. He didn’t bother to change into more comfortable clothes or take the eyeshadow off, he just sat there and stared into the darkness. He felt DJ settle down against his leg and rest her head on his thigh, absent-mindedly he carded his fingers through her fur. He could feel himself slipping into the familiar pit in his gut but he couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it right now. It was almost funny, the things that tipped him over that edge, it could be something so small, something so inconsequential, just one domino falls and suddenly he’s back here.
He didn’t remember falling asleep but he must have because he woke up to a face full of DJ fluff.
Notes:
Sorry for the short chapter. I'm trying! Don't tell me I don't need to post tho guys, I know I don't but I need to do something otherwise I'll lose my damn mind. If you guys feel like my writing quality is taking a hit let me know though, I'd rather force myself to do other things than ruin the story by using it to try to beat my brain into making chemicals. I know the plot line points to me being a lil' suicidal but I'm not, I swear lol, I'm just blah so REALLY DO NOT HESITATE to tell me if my writing is getting worse, I won't be offended. I know there's less quantity but I don't want there to be less quality, y'know?
Thanks for reading! Your guy's nice comments and feedback really make me feel better ❤️
⚠️VERY vague spoilers below⚠️
The next chapter I'm trying to write is gonna be about Toshi's 'training' so if you can think of any sort of cute or funny thing that could happen during Beat Toshi Up Out Back Time™️ I am all ears. (Not trying to do anything angsty with this but if you have a compelling idea I’ll listen) (No Toshi quirk reveal yet tho)
I’m looking for ANYTHING, like the description of a 2 second interaction or a single line of dialogue would help, just anything for my brain to latch onto.
Chapter 45: PRESIDENTIAL ALERT: THE BOYS ARE BONDINGGGGGGGGGG
Notes:
NEWWWWWW CHAPPPPPTTEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR.
I cried my eyes out, waited 2-3 business days, and now I have one (1) serotonin. I cannot guarantee it will last but I'm doing alright for now. Continue to expect less.
Thanks for all your support and suggestions in the comments last time, they sparked a lil sumthin' sumthin'.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shinso invited him over to spend the last night of summer break at his place and his excitement was conflicting. He felt like he was using them for their hospitality, for their food and their shower, for their kindness, and for Shinso’s soft cozy bed. Part of him wanted to stop paying for the burner he used to text Shinso and never go back to the library again, but the selfish part of him replied to the message in the affirmative. So that’s why he found himself packing a spare change of clothes into his backpack and leaving DJ a few extra treats. He told her that he wasn’t going to be back tonight but she seemed too sleepy to get the memo. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get mad at him again, he was stuck in cat prison for at least half an hour last time before she finally conceded to his toe wiggles and set him free.
The Shinso’s house was about an hour’s walk away and his transit card didn’t work over the break but it was a nice day so he didn’t mind. The time passed quickly and before he knew it he was knocking on the front door.
“Midoriya!” Shinso greeted excitedly.
“Hey, Shinso!”
“How’s your leg doing?” Shinso asked as he held open the door for him.
“All b-better!” Izuku happily informed, slapping a hand over the new tender scar tissue to drive the point home.
“Nice, you wanna head out and get in some practice before the heat sets in? It’s supposed to get up to like the mid-90s from 3:00 to 6:00,” he asked.
“Ugh, yeah. That’s t-too hot,” he agreed.
“What happened to your leg, Midoriya?” Shinso-san asked as she poked her head out of the laundry room down the hall.
“He gored it while failing at parkour,” Shinso responded quickly.
“H-hey, no! That’s I was…” he sputtered out.
Shinso just laughed at him floundering but Shinso-san looked concerned. Great.
“I was-” he cut himself off with a groan because Shinso was still laughing at him. “I was climbing on t-top of a dumpster and I f-fell,” he lied.
“Dare I ask why you were attempting to climb a dumpster?” she shot back with a raised eyebrow.
He did his best to look guilty and embarrassed which wasn’t hard considering that he was but only because he was lying not because he was a bumbling idiot who fell off a dumpster. Well, he was also that so it wasn’t really a lie, right…?
“Um, t-there was… there w-was this c-cat…” he trailed off and let them draw their own conclusions.
Shinso burst out laughing again.
“You ate it in a dumpster and had to go to the hospital because you were trying to pet a cat??” he asked through bouts of laughter
Izuku just let his shame color his face, it would sell the story better anyway.
It seemed to do the trick because Shinso-san just rolled her eyes and shook her head with a fond grin before going back to her task.
“No goring yourselves in the backyard,” she called out from the laundry room.
“Yes ma’am, but I can't promise anything for Greenie if the neighbor’s cat climbs up our tree again,” Shinso taunted.
Izuku lightheartedly narrowed his eyes and sneered at him for that before Shinso ushered the two of them to the backyard.
***
Izuku was working with Shinso on finding openings today. He was pretty good at dodging hits, his skill set wasn’t too dissimilar to what Izuku’s was when he first started which painted a pretty grim picture but he thought better than to ask about it. They’d been going on and off for going on two hours as Izuku telegraphed his movements and left openings for Shinso to pick up on. He really wasn’t doing too bad but Shinso telegraphed his movements even more than Izuku was, he was good at finding the opening to land a hit but not as good at following through. It was something that would come with practice. He could probably hold his own against someone who didn’t know how to fight as well as Izuku did but unfortunately for Shinso, Izuku knew how to fight.
Izuku blocked and countered Shinso’s latest attempt and sent him sprawling into the lawn again.
“How the hell did you learn how to do all of this Greenie? There’s no way you did all this without a partner to practice with and it sure as shit wasn’t me,” Shinso asked a little exasperated from his spot in the grass, he did not seem all that motivated to get up this time around.
The question sent a spike of shame through his heart. He was going to have to lie to him for the second time in as many hours.
“I, uh, we– we have this f-family friend that b-both my parents used to w-work with when they w-were still in school. He d-does martial arts s-semi-professionally so, uh, he’s b-been teaching me a b-bit,” he said.
“I would say you’re lucky but I don’t want to go against whoever taught you to do all that,” Shinso remarked sounding a little horrified.
“I would, however, love to see you go up against him. My morale would probably increase tenfold if I saw you eat grass just once,” he added.
Izuku couldn’t help but laugh at that. He would love to eat grass, eating grass sounded much more pleasant than eating gravel which Eraser still made him do on a near-daily basis.
“Shinso, I’m b-being much more gentle t-than he is. Really, you s-should thank me,” he taunted just to see the look on his face.
It was worth it. Shinso remained starfished on the ground but lifted his head to look at him with wide eyes.
“D-did you want me to go all o-out, 'cause I could, maybe you’d learn faster if I knocked it into your head a bit. It w-worked for me after all.” he offered with mock pleasantness.
“NOPE! Nope nope nope, I’m good. Love the gentle teaching, no complaints from me! I never want to meet your mystery Sensei either, I take it all back!” he rushed out as he scrambled to his feet.
Izuku laughed at the display before amending his taunts, “Shinso y-you’re doing good, really. I was j-just joking. I’m adjusting as y-you pick up on things so that’s why it doesn’t s-seem any easier.”
Shinso grumbled a bit but didn’t argue as he got back into a fighting stance.
“You need to work on not telegraphing your m-movements. I can see you plan out what you’re going to do b-before you do it every time. You need to l-learn to strike as quickly as you can think. W-which is easier said than done, but you’re getting there! You’ll m-make me eat grass all on your own one day!” he encouraged.
Shinso just rolled his eyes and signaled that he was ready to go again.
***
Kohaku had been watching the boys on and off from her office window since they started. She watched as Toshi ate shit for the nth time in the last couple of hours, she was proud to see him get back up each time. Midoriya was a brutal but patient teacher, he’d go through the same movements as many times as Toshi asked and he never got annoyed. She could feel both of their emotions completely, that's why she’d started watching, it was rare to have both of them completely unguarded. They were starting to do that more often around each other, especially when they were here. Midoriya tended to keep things under wraps in public and it was nice to know he felt safe here whether it was conscious or not.
Every time Toshi got knocked down she could feel his frustration then she’d see Midoriya say something and he’d get back up again after scraping up a little more determination. Midoriya was so proud every time Toshi did something right, he was never annoyed when Toshi messed up, he was never disappointed when he fell for the same fake-outs. From what she could discern Midoriya was an excellent teacher, the things Toshi was already capable of were impressive, to her at least, but she’d never tried to fight someone a day in her life.
Toshi got knocked into the grass again and just laid there spread out, he was getting really frustrated. She saw him say something to Midoriya and she felt him shut down but he started laughing just a few moments later.
That was strange. She didn’t think she would ever stop worrying about that kid, he had such a short leash around his emotions at all times, he could shut her out so effectively and look no different, no change in facial expression, no change in body language. It's like he could just slide a mask into place and become a doll, something cold and unfeeling but invisible to the naked eye.
She wondered what happened behind closed doors at the Midoriya household, It wasn’t a crime to leave your kids home alone and that’s all the abuse she knew for sure that he suffered. Neglect at home and bullying at school. She couldn’t do anything but be there for him. He was such a sweet kid, just like Toshi, why did the world have to beat down the kindest souls? It was hard to watch and just sit by while it happened. She had no idea what sort of reason Midoriya’s peers had for hating him but every time she felt him slide that mask of indifference over his face she felt the same way she did when Toshi used to come home with another bump or bruise and tears in his eyes. She wanted to slap some sense into everyone who had ever wronged those boys but she couldn’t. The world was unfair and she couldn’t force open a closed mind no matter how much she wanted to.
She felt Toshi’s surprise and muted fear as he scrambled back up to his feet. Midoriya must’ve threatened him, hah, that was cute! Despite his clear skills, she couldn’t imagine Midoriya hurting a fly. He probably apologized each time he won a match.
Toshi got back into his fighting stance and she watched them dance around each other for a little while longer before Midoriya sent him into the grass again. She could hear the resulting exasperated groan through the window as Toshi kicked his legs like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Kami, he was such a drama queen.
She was glad they had each other.
***
“How long has your family ninja friend been teaching you?” Hitoshi asked after getting thrown on his ass again.
“Less than a year, w-we started last spring,” Midoriya responded.
“So am I gonna be a ninja in a year’s time too then?” he mused.
“Not if you k-keep laying on the ground like t-that,” Greenie shot back
Hitoshi glared at him as he got up. There was no way he was gonna be as good as Midoriya in a year’s time. Midoriya was insane, he was so smart it was stupid. He could probably learn a language in a month or something just by reading about it and it was honestly infuriating sometimes. Helpful, but infuriating. He’d explained algebra to him more times than he could count before his final last semester, he probably would have bombed it if not for him. Learning without a real teacher there to ask questions was hard and waiting for online office hours was the bane of his existence.
No, he had no real hope of catching up to Midoriya any time soon but it didn’t hurt too much to try, he hadn’t broken anything yet but again that was probably more of a testament to Midoriya’s skill than it was to his.
“Greenie, I’m not catching up to you regardless of whether I lay on the ground forever or not. You’re too good,” he countered.
Greenie scrunched his brow at him for the comment before responding, “We’re both only getting better Shinso, I j-just got a head start.”
“Yeah, a head start and the ability to learn anything in two seconds flat,” Hitoshi shot back.
“T-that’s not t-true! I t-took me y-years to learn t-to fight!” He countered.
“You just said that guy’s been helping you for less than a year, Greenie,” Hitoshi pointed out.
Midoriya’s gaze dropped at that and he started to chew at his lip.
“W-well that doesn’t mean p-people weren’t s-still trying t-to fight me,” he admitted shyly toward the ground.
“Yeah, I get that Greenie. We got a head start on dodging though, don’t we?” he asked trying to lift the mood.
He knew Midoriya wasn’t above a little dark humor so he wasn’t surprised when he let out a snort, shook his head, and agreed.
“Yeah, I g-guess that’s o-one way to look at it,” he conceded.
“That’s me, ever the optimist!” he replied with fake cheer.
Midoriya rolled his eyes and swept his feet out from under him with no warning.
“I take it back, I live here now. This is my grave, just pile dirt on top of me,” he said as he lay there with his eyes closed.
He heard Midoriya laugh and then heard quickly approaching footsteps, he opened his eyes just in time to roll out of the way of Midoriya jumping at him bony elbow first.
“What the hell Greenie?! Are you trying to kill me?!”
Midoriya just laid next to him laughing.
“Keeping y-you on your toes, Shinso. You gotta expect the unexpected!” he defended.
“Right, I’ll make sure to be ready for you to suplex me at my own funeral,” he jabbed back before giving into Midoriya’s infectious laughter.
Notes:
THANK YOU FOR READING!!!
I have ordered a fake sun lamp thing so hopefully that will get me through the rest of the gloomy week, we will see. I didn't even know I had seasonal affective disorder until last winter after I graduated and started a 9-5. In the winter I left my house at sunrise and came back at sunset so that was fun, looking forward to that again. It's nice that I've been not depressed enough to realize that I get more depressed when the sun is gone though, a double-edged sword I guess. It's still gloomy as all hell here I truly have no idea where this motivation came from but I welcome it wholeheartedly.
Chapter 46: You Mess With the Spider, You Get the Web... Er... the Net... (Nailed it, Great Title)
Notes:
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Mentions of past abuselmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the school year started up Izuku found himself in the delightful predicament of having too much food. He was getting breakfast from Shinso-san 3 days a week, lunch from school 5 days a week, and dinner AND a nutrient packet from Eraser 6 days a week. The days that Eraser didn’t have dinner for him, he usually spent over at the Shinso’s and Shinso-san would make him dinner instead. He was guaranteed at least dinner every single day, he was going to need to see if he could find a mini fridge to fix up at Dahgobah because right now he had to force himself not to leave leftovers because they wouldn’t last long enough for him to save for weekend lunches.
Things were going too well for him. He had food and Kacchan had been physically leaving him alone ever since the soccer incident and everyone else was too easy to outrun now that he had experience running from actual criminals and not moronic middle schoolers. He had friend(s?) ((Was Eraser his friend? A work friend?)) and DJ finally gave up her tough guy act and conceded to his love. She would wake up when he got back from school and putter around with him until it got dark enough for her to sneak attack the rats in the alley and then when Izuku got back from patrol she would call it for the night and snuggle up to him. He hung out at Shinso’s house one day each week and taught Shinso how to fight. Izuku had written out all the drills he used to do on his own when he was learning and Shinso had been running through those on his own time and he was getting better every day; Izuku still kicked his ass 10 times out of 10 but he was getting better. Yeah, things were going too well for him; it made him uncomfortable, like the calm before the storm.
Were they still surprised when someone shot a net gun at them though? Yes, yes they were. Where the hell did they get a net gun? How the hell were they supposed to combat a net gun? They had so many knives but they couldn’t even move enough to get one out. This sucked and Eraser was laughing at them. The man hardly ever laughed but when he did it was always at their expense.
“Eraser quit laughing and get me out of this,” they whined.
He took his phone out and snapped a picture of them so quickly that they almost didn’t have enough time to stick their finger up at him. They were keeping calm for now but they really didn’t like being restrained or cornered or confined in any way. They were constantly keeping watch for ways to get out of a situation, they had been since they were four years old so not having at least one clear avenue of escape sent them into fight or flight quicker than anything and this was pushing it. Eraser had already restrained the perp, no one was gonna hurt them but this was really pushing it.
They shot him a look and he seemed to get the memo because he stopped laughing long enough to pull out his own knife and they knew he was going to cut the net, they knew that. They just had to stay still and then they would be fine but their stupid monkey brain was slamming the panic button because they couldn’t move and someone was walking toward them with a knife. It must have shown on their face because Eraser’s grin disappeared entirely and he started telegraphing each step.
“I’m gonna cut your right arm free so you can cut yourself out, alright?” he explained before getting too close.
They nodded and he did exactly what he said he was going to do. The serrated edge of their own knife cut through the rest of the net like butter and they sat for a moment to catch their breath. When they collected themself they looked back up at Eraser, he was watching them closely. Apparently, he determined that they were going to be fine because a grin crept back over his expression and he snorted at them.
“Don’t fuckin’ laugh at me! What the hell am I supposed to do against a net gun?” they demanded.
“Dodge better,” he stated after theatrically rubbing his scruff for a moment like it was some sort of sage advice that required deep thought to come up with.
“Oh piss off! I’d like to see you dodge a net gun, the spread on that thing was massive,” Ivy shot back.
Eraserhead just rolled his eyes at them but they got their wish less than a week later. They dropped down on some guys that Ivy recognized from the gang when they were trying to mug some poor schmuck. The two of them touched down on either side of the altercation thus sealing off all exits when one of them pulled out a gun and fired it at Eraser. They freaked out for a split second before they saw the net but once they did they were almost laughing too hard to take down the perps. Almost. They were still a goddamned professional… kinda.
The two guys were cursing up a storm tied to both each other and a fire escape as Ivy walked over to where Eraserhead was lying on the ground looking like he was about to take a nap despite being tangled up in a net in a dirty alleyway at 2 am. Of course, the motherfucker had to be so unbothered. Ivy walked over calmly and knelt down by his head.
“Hey, Eraser,” he drew out the last syllable to be extra annoying, “looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle there,” they taunted.
“Ivy, I’m gonna kick your ass,” he said as he glared at them through his perpetually half-lidded bored expression.
“Oh my! I’m quaking in my boots, just one quick question before you do that, if you don’t mind,” they paused as if waiting for a response but really it was just to push his buttons even more, “How? How you gonna do that you seem a bit, well, tied up at the moment,” they droned on, “Y’know, I was in a predicament not too dissimilar from your own a while back and I got some great advice from a very wise man, maybe it could help you out. Oh, let’s keep things exciting, I’ll give it to you in the form of a question! How about that? Have you– so sorry if this sounds patronizing– but have you, considered, perhaps, dodging better?” they asked with a shit-eating grin.
Eraserhead’s expression did not change from the bored and vaguely dissatisfied glare since they walked over but Ivy couldn’t help but cackle at him now. They snapped a picture of him as revenge before they cut him free.
However, the smile fell from their face when the thought occurred to them that they were 2 net gun wielders away from ending up in the obituaries. Sure it was funny but it wouldn’t be funny if they were both caught, no that would be a death sentence. The previous guy also had ties to the gang, loose ties but ties nonetheless. He looked over to Eraser who seemed to have come to the same conclusion if they were reading the minute change in his expression correctly; his eyebrows were 1 to 2 millimeters lower than their resting position so he was either mildly troubled or pissed, it was difficult to tell between those two.
They were leaning towards pissed if the way he was stalking over to the two guys they tied up was any indication.
“Where’d you get the gun?” he demanded.
“The fuck I’d tell you that for,” the chattier one barked back.
He let them stew under his glare for a moment before responding, “Possession of illegal support gear items is a serious charge, we’ve already got you for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted theft but I’d imagine your sentence would be a good number of years harsher with all three crimes on your record. Tell me where you got it and maybe we could just forget about this whole mess, you’ll get a few years for the other two charges but you’ll be back on the streets soon enough.”
The two meatheads looked at each other for a moment but the quiet one seemed to be the smarter of the two because he was the one that piped up.
“Piss off jackass!”
How eloquent.
Ivy dragged Eraser far enough out of earshot that they could murmur without the men overhearing them, “Just call Tsuka, the fact they didn’t immediately take the deal means that whoever they’re ratting out is more of a threat to them than an extra 5 years in prison which practically confirms that it’s the gang. If it’s somewhere else Tsuka can at least get that info out of them.”
Eraser eyed them suspiciously, “What do you mean he can get that info out of them?”
“Well if they lie, he’ll know,” they responded, looking at Eraser like he was an idiot.
He raised an eyebrow at them for that, “How exactly do you know that, Ivy?”
“Do you know how many times I’ve seen that man cringe as he drags away people shouting about how ‘I didn’t do nothin’ that lil’ fucker jus’ jumped me!’ He couldn’t be more obvious if he tried,” they explained.
Eraser just looked at them with a blank expression.
“I also pickpocketed his wallet and checked his ID so that helped too but that was just to confirm the theory. He didn’t even notice, I put it back and everything!” they added after a moment of silence.
At that, Eraser let out a long-suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.
“I’ve also stolen your pen like at least six times. I’ve been waiting for you to notice; it’s getting boring and I’ve got so many pens now. I don’t even write with pens, I prefer pencils. Y’know those nice mechanical ones with the extendable erasers, you should start carrying those instead cuz I’m running low,” they chirped with a smile.
Without warning he went to sweep out Ivy’s feet just like they did to Shinso when they got bored and wanted to mess with him. They were wise to that trick so they didn’t fall for it but they did fall for the capture scarf to the ankle. That thing was still so hard to dodge.
“What the hell man?! No infighting in front of the criminals!” they cried out from the ground.
Eraser didn’t even look at them as he tapped at his phone screen and held it up to his ear before responding, “Stop stealing my goddamn pens then,” he mumbled before the call went through, “Tsukauchi, send someone to pick up two perps on the southeast corner of block 28. I want you to interrogate them personally, I’ll send you the details,” he waited enough time for a confirmation then hung up with no preamble.
“Meet me at the northeast corner of the next block over, they’re on their way,” he said as he continued to tap away at his phone, likely typing out a quick written report to send to the detective.
The illegal support gear trade was no joke. Net guns were fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things but the support gear industry has been booming for decades, the best scientists around the world have been working to replicate all kinds of quirks through machinery for generations. Eraserhead’s quirk would be useless against them, and that’s the only quirk they had between the two of them! They were well and truly powerless against this shit and they had no idea what else could be in store for them.
This was about to become a real issue, wasn’t it?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Anyway, looks like I'm back to writing and uploading a chapter on the same day, let me know if it's like absolute ass or something, idk.
Chapter 47: Good Afternoon Sharks, Have You Ever Wanted a Gun, But Worse? With Our Groundbreaking Tech…
Notes:
20,000 HITS?????? AHHHHHHHH TYSM!!!!!!
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Vague mentions of domestic violence
-Non-vivid descriptions of gore and injury
-Vague descriptions of wound carelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Tsukauchi got back to me about the net gun guys. They both got them from the gang but they don’t know anything about the supplier. They didn’t give up any names or locations so it’s a dead end for now,” Eraser said in lieu of a greeting when Ivy crested the roof.
“Great, that’s just great,” they replied as they plopped down on the ledge beside him to eat like they did every night.
“I had a colleague make these for us,” he added as he passed something to them without looking at their unmasked face.
It was a knife with its own sheath connected to a bracer. They waited for him to explain rather than asking because they didn’t have their voice modulator on and they were currently stuffing their face.
“It goes on your wrist and if you bend your hand back the latch will disengage and push the knife up into your hand. If anyone asks I didn’t give this to you but this should help with the net gun epidemic going on around here. I’ve got one too,” he elaborated.
That was… that was really nice. That was so thoughtful. They knew it obviously helped him as well but he got one for them too. They fumbled their mask back into place to respond.
“That’s a good idea, uh, t-thanks,” they sputtered out.
Eraser just hummed in response as he shoveled his own dinner into his mouth.
***
It was another week before they saw anything else come of the illegal support gear going around the city. One of the ladies had told them that they heard from someone else that some guy was messing around with a “freeze ray” which they weren’t too excited to hear about. It had passed through several degrees of separation so they had no way of knowing how exaggerated the story had become but apparently, it incased anything it was pointed at up to 50 feet away in a thick layer of ice which was just great!
They remained hypervigilant and kept an ear out at all times for any bit of information they could but the gang was learning from their mistakes. Everything was kept under wraps aside from that one incident and it had them thoroughly on edge. Eraserhead seemed more tense than normal too, everything had been too calm, too normal.
The two of them were going about a standard patrol when they came across some sort of altercation, some man was shouting at a woman in a different language that neither of them could place. It hadn’t gotten violent, it appeared to be a domestic dispute but the moment he grabbed her arm and pushed her to the ground they stepped in. Eraser swung down and kicked the man in the opposite direction of the woman as Ivy checked in with her.
They were leading the victim away as Eraser went after the perp on the ground. He wasn’t nearly as dazed from the blow as either of them had expected and Eraser was still a good six paces away when they saw him pull out some sort of gun. No one reacted fast enough to stop him from taking aim and firing right at Eraser. They couldn’t see anything from behind him but judging off Eraser’s pained grunt and staggered footing they could only imagine that he hit his mark.
Ivy’s stomach dropped and they wasted no time shoving the victim behind a dumpster and charging. The man was fiddling with the gun as they ran at him but they were too fast; before the man could finish whatever he was trying to do with the weapon Ivy delivered a swift kick to the side of his head. He let out a pained noise but seemed no worse for wear after just a split second.
He should be out cold from that, it must be a quirk. Some sort of resiliency or shock absorption perhaps? Whatever it was it clearly didn’t stop him from feeling pain. He went to go back to fiddling with the gun but Ivy didn’t give him the chance, with the quirk theory in mind they kicked his hands with all the force they could muster. The gun went clattering out of reach and the man yelped but he just started scrambling after it on all fours. Definitely a quirk, that would have shattered some phalanges if it wasn’t.
Eraser was still standing and was well enough to kick the weapon behind himself and further away from the perp but he was gripping his left shoulder and blood stood out in stark contrast to his pale hand. It looked like there was a knife sticking out from between his fingers. A knife gun? Really?? What the hell was even the point of that??? It was just a worse gun, especially if it had to be reloaded after each firing.
Ivy signaled to Eraserhead to activate his quirk on the man as they took out their flashlight and brought it down at the junction of the man’s neck and shoulder. He dropped from his hands and knees and fell face-first into the dirty asphalt which Ivy took sick pleasure in. Unfortunately, he could suffocate if they left him like that so they kicked him not too gently over to his front. They gave him a few kicks foot nudges to see if he was really out cold.
“Ivy! That’s enough!” they heard Eraser bark over their shoulder as he dragged them away with his good arm.
They looked around for the woman but it seemed that she took the moment of distraction to leg it out of there. Whatever, she didn’t seem violent nor injured so if she didn’t want to stick around for the cops then that wasn’t their problem.
“Oh, come on, you’re gonna call the paramedics for yourself anyway, why not make their trip worth it?” they quipped back glaring at him.
His face fell and he let out an uncharacteristically dramatic groan.
“What the hell was that for?” they questioned.
He looked so tired, more so than usual which was an impressive feat.
“Nothing, just paperwork for this,” he gestured to his shoulder, “not looking forward to it.”
“Why do you need to fill out paperwork for that? The government punishing you for not dodging good enough?” they taunted.
He rolled his eyes at them, “No, it’s to keep a record in case the injury puts me out of work either now or in the future from complications so I can get compensation, however, I’m going to be fine by tomorrow ‘cause of that friend I mentioned before with the healing quirk so I have to fill out a mountain of paperwork to get stitches that will be out by tomorrow afternoon,” he explained.
That did sound like a pain but it was such a privileged problem that they couldn’t not make fun of him.
“Aw, poor Ewasewr! You have access to helwf carwe that’s toow good and the gowvernment dowesn’t give you a speciawl loop howle?” they said as obnoxiously as possible.
“I have a knife in my shoulder and you’re making fun of me?” he shot back with no intonation.
“Mmhmm yes, yes I am,” they confirmed with a smile.
“Asshole,” he accused with no real bite.
“Damn, okay. I was gonna offer to stitch that up myself to save you the paperwork but I guess I won’t now ‘cause I’m such an asshole,” they said as they theatrically pretended to inspect their nails through their gloves.
When they looked back up at Eraserhead he was wearing the most expressive scowl they’d ever seen him pull and they couldn’t help but laugh. They really didn’t think he’d take them up on that offer but he was looking at them now like he very much wanted to and he was having a hard time giving up the dignity to ask. Goddamn, how bad was that paperwork?
“Kami, man, is the paperwork bad enough that you’d rather get back alley stitches with no painkillers from an unqualified amateur?” they asked incredulously.
His scowl only deepened but that was enough of a response for them to get the memo.
“Damn, okay. I’ll text Tsuka to take care of this jackass,” they announced as they pulled out their phone and sent off the message, “Alright, I’ll go set up my ~office~ around the corner then. Good luck hiding or explaining—” they gestured to the sluggishly bleeding wound in his shoulder with a knife still sticking out of it, “—that to whoever shows up!” they said as they skipped away.
They went around the corner to an adjacent alleyway and took a moment to calm their nerves. He was okay, it was just a knife to the shoulder; it would have to be a very lucky shot for it to have hit anything, the brachial artery was protected more toward the underside of the arm, so he was going to be fine. Eraser certainly wouldn’t be so nonchalant about it if he thought there was a chance it nicked any major veins or arteries.
After collecting themself they set up a few crates for him to sit on then propped up their flashlight on the dumpster, they might have to adjust when he got there but it looked like it would provide fairly good light at that angle. They fished around their pockets and pulled out the sterile packaged needle and thread and the small bottle of rubbing alcohol they kept with them when on patrol. It’d already come in handy once so they made sure to keep it stocked in one of their pockets at all times. They were pretty sure this was their last needle though, they should pick up more.
They’d just finished sanitizing their hands when Eraser rounded the corner with his capture scarf sagging suspiciously lower on his left shoulder than it usually did.
“Pffftt, a master of disguise there Eraser, I’m sure they didn’t suspect a thing,” they poked.
He rolled his eyes again for the millionth time that night and gingerly sat down on the crates they’d stacked for him. He removed his capture scarf and set it on his knee before unzipping his jumpsuit enough to slip his arm out but they were gonna have to pull the knife out for him to finish that. Communicating with a glance and a nod Ivy unwrapped a package of gauze, held them in one hand, and pulled the knife out with the other. Eraser winced but quickly shrugged his shoulder out of its confines and they applied pressure with the gauze.
It took them about 15 minutes to finish everything up and tape a bandage over the top and Eraser didn’t say a word the entire time, he just sat still with his jaw clenched and his eyes closed. He was probably trying to distance himself from the pain but it was a little off-putting so once they were done they pulled out a pen and signed the bandage with their name with as many hearts and xoxos as they could before he opened his eyes to question what was going on.
“Ivy, is that my goddamn pen?” he asked calmly but they startled nonetheless.
They didn’t even notice him turn his head, they were too busy putting the finishing touches on a rudimentary portrait of the two of them in a heart.
“Haha, what? No! I’ve had this pen for like months, couldn’t be yours,” they claimed with obvious insincerity in their tone.
It was his pen, they just took it out of his pocket like less than a minute ago when his eyes were closed.
He snatched it out of their hand with his good arm and they let him cause they figured they’d poked enough fun at him for the night. He did get stabbed after all (or would this be considered getting shot?) they could afford to be a little bit nicer. Just a little bit though.
“Right, let’s just call it for the night, it’s nearly 3 anyway,” he said after he shrugged his jumpsuit back into place, “Thanks for the uh, that,” he added awkwardly.
“Oh sure, any time. Well, not any time but you know my office hours. I’d prefer you avoid getting shot-stabbed in the future though,” they said in an insufferably cheery tone, “Did you tell the officers about the gun? As shitty of an idea as it is I think it’s still considered support gear even if it is just a gun but worse.”
He snorted at that before responding, “Yeah, I turned it in to the responding officer, Tsukauchi is taking charge of the support gear case so I’m sure the info will get back to him but you can text him if you want,” he replied as he settled his capture scarf into place, frowning when he saw the blood stain on it.
“I’ll text him, the sooner we can get information the better,” they said as they fished their phone out of their pocket.
“Go home, kid,” Eraser said sounding as tired as he looked.
They supposed getting shot-stabbed would take the wind out of your sails.
“Yeah, yeah, I will. Try not to get jumped on your way home,” they dismissed as they waved him away while finishing up their message to the detective.
“Will do,” he said with the laziest mock salute they’d ever seen before he walked away.
Aww poor Eraser couldn’t swing back home tonight, he had to walk. Poor thing. They would’ve made fun of him again if he wasn’t already out of earshot.
Seeing Eraser get shot at for the second time in as many weeks was not great for their nerves. They did their best to play it off in the moment but their hands still had his blood on them, it was underneath their fingernails, and they were going to have to scrub it out. They’d seen people get shot, technically they’d been shot before. It wasn’t a pretty sight; they couldn’t help but remember the man they had seen after being shot in the back of the head, the way his face was broken and distorted, the smell of blood was sharp in their nose from the memory. No, they were not going to sleep well tonight, that was practically a guarantee.
Hopefully, Tsuka could get some more information out of this guy at the very least.
Notes:
Welcome to the rant corner, feel free to ignore it!
Don’t ask me about my upload schedule. Idfk man, idfk. I’m in a real rut atm. The depresso has abated for the time being but I’m still not overflowing with ideas. I’m at a point in the story where my outline is just sorta like ‘idk some character development happens here’ b4 the next major arc so I kinda pranked myself with that. I foresee that it’s gonna be a little more slow-going for the next week or so. I was on some crazy hyper focus shit when I was updating daily idk but I’m down to normal focus now ig. I’ll prolly have 2-4 chapters each week and hopefully I’ll have the motivation to shade the last fanart thing I was making bc it’s almost finished but I’m just,,,,, meeeeeehhhhhhh idk.
I have car payments now and student loans payments just started up after Biden paused them for awhile and I just sat down and looked at my finances and found out that I make -$175 per month now! Currently live, laugh, loving this art degree I’ve got! I live with my partner so they’re just gonna be paying more of the rent now bc I have negative money so its *fine* but OOF. Love not getting a living wage from a full time job that requires a bachelor’s degree, love the government, love the country and the state of things. Its super cute and fun! 🤩
Also, I just got some bloodwork done and it turns out I’m anemic and my kidneys aren’t getting enough blood flow or something? Idk! I’m fine probably! Haha just some hot bitch shit ig!
Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and don’t forget to ✨eat the rich✨ it's a good way to get more iron in your diet! Ta ta for now, my lovely guys, gals, and non-binary pals!
Chapter 48: ~Training Montage~ (with a sprinkling of playing the devil's advocate)
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-⚠️FAIRLY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF GORE⚠️ (like literally right away, you have been warned)
-Vague description of a panic attack
-Tonal shift whiplash 😂lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
An explosion slipped out of his hand before he could stop it and he couldn’t do anything but watch as Deku flew backward and fell into a mess of limbs on the ground several feet away. He didn’t scream or cry out, nothing. The only sound was the ringing in his ears from the blast. Deku wasn’t moving either, he rolled away when he fell and he was laying in the grass with his back to Katsuki and he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving. The smell of burning flesh was clinging to his nostrils and he had to force himself to go see if he was okay. No one else was here, no one saw what happened, no one was going to come help. Willing his legs forward one step at a time he made his way over to Deku, he still hadn't moved. He was only a few feet away but he still hadn’t moved.
“Deku?” he called out.
No response, not even a twitch.
“D-Deku?” he tried again but his voice was starting to shake.
Nothing.
He could see his face now, his eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at anything, his expression was blank. Katsuki knelt down beside him and rolled him onto his back and the sight that greeted him had him scrambling backward and fighting back the urge to vomit. Half of Deku’s face was mangled, it was burnt and bloody and unrecognizable. His flesh was charred black and peeling all the way down to his chest and his blood was soaking the grass, it squelched beneath his shoes as he scrambled away. His blood was all over Katsuki’s hands and knees, It was bubbling out of the gaping hole in his throat as his heart valiantly tried to keep pumping but it kept getting slower and slower and slower. Katsuki just watched petrified until it stopped altogether.
He couldn’t look away, he couldn’t make a sound, he couldn’t move a muscle. He was horrified, horrified at what his hands could do, horrified at what they’d done, at what HE’D done. Deku wasn’t moving, he wasn’t moving and he wasn’t even bleeding anymore, there was no steady rise and fall to his chest, he—
“KATSUKI, BREAKFAST!!!”
He shot up from his bed in a cold sweat. The smell of bacon cooking downstairs was nauseating and his hands were shaking. He was heaving in breaths that didn’t seem to fill his lungs no matter how hard he tried. He went to bury his hands in his hair but he paused at the sight of them. It was just a dream, he didn’t actually do that, he didn’t… he couldn’t, no.
But he did.
He did. He hurt Deku enough for his mind to be able to recognize the scent of burnt flesh. He hurt him badly enough for him to be able to imagine so vividly what it might look like if his skin was charred like that. He did that with his own two hands he—
“KATSUKI!!!”
No, no, it was only because Deku was such a weakling, it wasn’t his fault. He would have gotten in trouble if it was his fault. Everyone saw that he was out for the rest of the week after that, the teachers had to know what happened, if it was his fault he would’ve gotten in trouble. It’s not his fault that Deku was fragile. The rest of the world wasn’t going to baby him like Auntie did and he wouldn’t be doing him any favors if he started coddling him too. No, it wasn’t his fault.
“KATSUKI DON’T MAKE ME COME WAKE YOU UP!!!”
“I’M COMING, HAG! QUIT YELLING!”
The smell of bacon was even more pervasive in the kitchen, it was sitting on his plate waiting for him and the thought of it made him want to puke but he pushed down the nausea and took his seat. His mom cooked up a Western-style breakfast like she did every Saturday since he could remember, Deku used to love it— No, now was not the time to think about that.
Silently, he ate his eggs and toast. He pushed around the bacon for as long as he could before someone was going to notice. He took a bite and suppressed the grimace that tugged at his face. His stomach was roiling but he choked it down without complaint. This was stupid, it was bacon. Bacon was delicious.
“You going to the gym today Kats?” his mother asked before she took a sip of her coffee.
He grunted in the affirmative in lieu of a proper response.
“Alright, text us when you get there and when you leave and please leave your location on,” she added.
He rolled his eyes at her, “Whatever you say, hag.”
She smacked a hand towel across the back of his head as she went to get started on the dishes. They were too much, he could go to the gym on his own, he wasn’t a baby.
He helped his dad collect the rest of the dishes and he wiped down the table as his father kicked his mother out of the kitchen and took her place at the sink. After he pushed all the chairs in he left to go get changed into his gym clothes. The dream was still lingering in his thoughts no matter how much he tried to shake it. The gurgling sound of blood rushing out of Deku’s body, the coppery sent was so sharp he could almost taste it; splashing cold water in his face did little to dispel the images from his mind. He needed to get out of here, he needed to work off this energy.
***
Katsuki had been going to this gym since he was old enough to, it was a state-of-the-art facility and a membership was all he ever asked for for his birthday. One of his parents used to have to come with him but now that he was 14 he was allowed to go by himself. There were several rooms in the back where you could practice quirk usage, the walls were super-reinforced and everything was waterproof and fireproof and practically everything proof. Both he and his parents had to sign a waiver for him to be able to use it but he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t gonna hurt himself with his own damn quirk. He had more control over it than that.
He’d spend an hour and a half going through the various machines and weights they had on the floor and finish up with some cardio to work up as much of a sweat as he could before he went to the practice rooms in the back. Once he was drenched in sweat he’d sit down and focus on making the smallest little sparks he could. He sat there until the sweat had long since dried on his skin. He needed to have perfect control over his quirk regardless of the conditions if he ever wanted to get into UA.
He needed to have better control.
He needed to do better.
He needed to be better.
***
Shinso had been improving steadily since the two of them started meeting every week to practice, it had been on and off for a while but they hadn’t missed a week since summer break had started and it was already September. The days had been flying by lately, Izuku had so much on his mind between the support gear epidemic in Uptown and his general everyday life. He tried to put that out of his mind for the evening as he led Shinso through some spars and drills.
He only had about a 67% success rate when he went to sweep Shinso’s feet out from under him when he got bored now and he couldn’t be more proud of the progress he was making. He quite literally used to fall for that move every time. He was starting to bulk up too, he was still lanky as hell but his hits had more power behind them than they used to. Maybe he was just more confident that he wasn’t going to break Izuku but he couldn’t tank a kick from him anymore, kicks were strictly dodge, not block. He had a hell of a bruise on his right arm to prove that he learned that lesson the hard way.
Izuku wouldn’t trust his skills enough to throw him into the throng of Uptown but on the off chance someone tried to mess with him over here he wouldn’t be completely defenseless, and he was only getting better. He’d even managed to trip him up once when he started zoning out mid-spar! Sure that wasn’t the greatest achievement and Shinso still lost the round but it was something! He elected not to tell Shinso he was zoning out when that happened…
“You should ask your mom if you can join some classes at a dojo or something Shinso,” he remarked after they wrapped up for the day.
“Why? Am I too hopeless for you to fix?” he sighed dramatically.
“N-no! How many t-times do I have to tell you you’re getting better? If you sign up f-for classes you’d get to fight people at a similar skill level as well as learn how to fight different kinds of opponents, you’re gonna fall into some bad habits if you only fight against me. Plus getting practice more than once a week would help,” he corrected.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say Greenie-sensei,” he shot back with an eye roll, “I’ll ask. Maybe I can learn some new moves and finally get you chompin’ on grass.” He teased as they walked through the door.
“Why are we making Midoriya eat grass?” Shinso-san piped up from the kitchen with a raised eyebrow.
“Retribution for the abuse he puts me through,” Shinso quipped back without missing a beat.
Shinso-san giggled, “Oh you mean eat grass like— okay, I get it! How exactly are you gonna manage that Toshi?” she teased.
“No one has any faith in me,” he lamented dramatically.
“Shinso! I told you you’re d-doing well!” Izuku interjected and shot him a look and nodded toward his mother to prompt him to ask but Shinso just pulled a face at him.
“I’m just kidding Toshi, I’m sure you could kick my butt,” she paused when she saw the look Izuku was shooting at Shinso, “Am I missing something here?” Shinso-san asked.
Izuku gave Shinso another look.
“Uggghhhh, Midoriya says I need remedial lessons ‘cause I’m so hopeless,” he said with a smirk.
“I did not!!!” Izuku exclaimed realizing too late that he was rising to the bait and now Shinso was laughing at him.
“Nah, he said I should try lessons at a dojo so I can beat up toddlers who are at the same skill level as me,” he amended through his laughter.
Izuku didn’t rise to the bait this time he just shot him an exasperated expression and took his seat next to him at the dining table. Shinso snorted at him anyway.
“That could be fun Toshi, which one do you go to Midoriya?” she asked over her shoulder as she stirred something on the stovetop.
The two boys shot each other a look as they got caught up in the lie they fed her in order to convince her that Izuku was in any way qualified to actually teach Shinso how to fight.
Izuku recovered quickly, “Oh, I, uh, I have a p-private teacher b-but I can ask if he has any r-recommendations,” he replied.
That wasn’t too far from the truth but they definitely wouldn’t be asking Eraser for his recommendations on local dojos.
“That sounds like a good idea, it’d get you out of the house to somewhere that isn’t the library, what do you think Toshi?” she asked
“I think anything that can get me closer to finally serving Greenie a fresh meal of lawn clippings sounds like a good idea to me,” he spat out as he gave Izuku a glare that had no real heat behind it.
Both Shinso-san and Izuku rolled their eyes at his theatrics.
“Good luck with that kiddo, we can look into it tomorrow. Go wash up boys, dinner’s almost ready.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 49: *Plays Yankty Sax*
Notes:
We're getting close to 1,000 Kudos!!!! omg tysm!!!!!!
Play this in another tab while you read the first, second, and fourth sections of the chapter, it will enhance the experience tenfold. 👇
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jn-vt1M9as&ab_channel=MikelPhillipsAs always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Vague mention of drugs
-Foul languagelmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Things were starting to get out of hand around here. Ivy and Eraser had been running into more and more support item wielders and even though most encounters ended with some degree of success on their part it was starting to get really fucking annoying.
Last Tuesday they came across this woman trying to rob a convenience store.
It was nearly 2 am and luckily, the convenience store was closed so there weren’t any bystanders to get in the way. When they were passing by the storefront below Ivy noticed that the glass door was shattered, it was pure chance that the perpetrator was still inside rummaging around. When they got closer they saw that the floor was glistening, not like clean glistening, it was wet or slimy or something. Silently, they shared a look and Ivy cautiously went to poke at it with their boot. Immediately their foot shot forward and they ended up in an imperfect split on the floor.
Fucking ouch, Kami, they were flexible but not that flexible.
They’d managed not to make a noise while they did that somehow and Eraser had his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. Fucking bastard. The floor was completely frictionless but the woman inside was rummaging around without issue and she hadn’t spotted them yet. They would have to wait until she left, it must be her quirk. Eraser must have come to the same conclusion because he helped them up with his lips pressed into a fine line still holding back laughter and signaled for them to watch the back of the building while he got the front.
Ivy waited around for a while until they heard a commotion from the front of the building, looks like she left the way she came in. They rounded the corner to find Eraser with his capture scarf around the woman’s midsection as she was climbing up the wall like a lizard, her hands were sticking to the brick like it was nothing. She hadn’t gotten far and she couldn’t go any higher with Eraser’s weight attached to her but she sure was trying. She looked like a toddler on a leash and Eraser was the exasperated parent trying to reel her in.
“Support gear, climbing gloves,” he stated bluntly and nodded his head for Ivy to go deal with it while he held her in place.
“Alright, cool, you just stand there then,” they jabbed as they started scaling the wall after her.
She wrestled with them as they wrenched her hands out of the gloves and let her fall back down directly onto Eraserhead, that was revenge for laughing at them earlier. They elegantly broke their landing with a roll next to the two of them laying in a heap on the ground.
“Aw, Eraser. You’re such a gentleman, breaking her fall like that,” they cooed.
He shot them a glare as he restrained her arms.
“I’ll text Tsuka, you have fun with your leash toddler,” they called over their shoulder as they walked away.
***
On Thursday they rounded the corner to find what looked to be a drug deal gone wrong if they shouting about ‘give me my money you fuckin’ junkie’ was anything to go by which sounded a bit hypocritical coming from a dealer.
They only got halfway down the alley when the dealer spotted them, without hesitation he grabbed what looked like a grenade out of his pocket and threw it at the ground, they were immensely relieved when the thing just shot out smoke that shrouded the entire alley in seconds. Smoke they could deal with, explosions? Ehhhhhh… been there done that, not too fun if you asked them.
They heard Eraser reach out blindly with his capture scarf and catch someone but they could hear the other person running away. Luckily they knew these streets like the back of their hand, a little smoke wasn’t going to stop them so they darted over to where they knew the fire escape was. The smoke was starting to irritate their eyes and they couldn’t see anyway so they just closed them as they scaled up and just hoped that the structural integrity of the railings hadn’t changed since the last time they’d seen it. They got to the roof pretty fast, they would’ve stopped to give themself a pat on the back if they had the time because that was pretty good for going in blind. Looking around from their vantage point above the cloud of smoke they saw the dealer retreating so they shouted down to Eraser.
“Perp headed Southeast, en route to intercept.”
They heard a distant “What the fuck?” but they paid it no mind as they charged after the man from the rooftops, he didn’t even get a block away before Ivy used him to break their fall off a 2 story building. If it worked for that lady a couple of days ago it could work for them, right?
“Yeesh, that had to hurt,” they remarked to the very dazed man lying on the ground.
They pulled him to his feet, tied his hands behind his back, and started leading him stumbling back to the alley. When they got there Eraser was already standing at the mouth with the buyer tied up and his phone in hand.
“There you are, Tsukauchi is on the way,” he greeted as he put his phone back into his pocket.
“Cool, got you a present!” they said as they shoved the dealer forward, “he probably has a concussion…”
Eraser stared at them with an exasperated expression for a moment before responding, “I’ll ask my questions later, he should be here soon and I don’t know if he’s bringing backup so beat it. I’ll meet up with you in a minute,” he dismissed.
***
“That was far longer than a minute, Eraser,” Ivy said as obnoxiously as possible about 10 minutes later when he found them waiting on top of a dumpster on the adjacent block.
“It’s a figure of speech and you know that,” he quipped back.
“You don’t know what I know, what if I didn’t know that? You’d look like a real ass right now,” they replied with mock offense.
He wasn’t going to dignify that with a response, “What even happened back there? How’d you end up on the roof?”
“Fire escape,” they responded as if it was obvious.
“The one in the alley?”
“No, the one in the middle of the street,” they snarked back.
“You scaled the wall blind?” he asked to clarify, ignoring their snide remark.
That didn’t seem plausible, he didn’t hear them fumble around and they got up there way too quickly.
“Yes, yes I did,” they replied looking awfully smug about it.
“How’d you even reach it, short stack?” he sassed back with the nickname that some of the ladies around town called them.
“Oh fuck you! There’s a few bricks that stick out a bit, enough to get a grip on a little lower down you shady bastard,” they exclaimed.
“How’d you find those if you couldn’t see?” he challenged.
“I already knew they were there, dumbass.”
“You just remembered the location of some random bricks in a random alley?”
“There isn’t a sticky-outie brick in this city that I don’t know about, Eraser,” they sneered.
They didn’t sound like they were joking.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, some of us can’t rely on fancy little scarves to swing us around and we actually have to use our big kid brains and remember where shit is,” they mocked.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” he admitted.
“What do you mean, joking about what? Your scarf? Yes, I am making fun of you, thought that was pretty clear, you’re losing your touch, Eraser.”
“No, about knowing where every brick that sticks out is,” he clarified.
“Well there's probably some I don’t know about but yeah, if I don’t know possible routes already I wouldn’t be able to move nearly as fast, it’s easier just to keep a mental map,” they acquiesced.
“You’re not kidding,” he stated, a little dumbstruck.
“No! How many times do I have to say it? Did you loosen some screws up there since we last spoke?”
“You do have a photographic memory,” he asserted with confidence.
“No I don’t!” they tried to deny.
“Without looking, tell me how many paths there are to get up the wall behind you,” he challenged.
“Three but that doesn’t prove anything, I’ve been sitting here for like an hour,” they complained.
“It was 10 minutes, Ivy but fine, what about the alley we were just in?”
“Theoretically two but realistically just the one, I don’t trust that rusty ass dumpster,” they responded without hesitation.
He shot them a look for proving his point.
“That doesn’t prove anything either! I could’ve just made that number up, you clearly wouldn’t know,” they jabbed.
“Well did you?” he jabbed back.
“…No.”
“Then my point stands.”
“The district is only like 3 square kilometers and I’ve lived here for… an amount of time you need not be privy to, I just know the area,” they tried to justify.
“That’s not generally knowledge people just pick up,” he pointed out.
“Well people aren’t generally throwing themselves around rooftops, I’m built different,” they countered.
“No I mean–” he cut himself off, “You know what, never mind, you’re so smart that you’re stupid and I’m not arguing this point any longer.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” they demanded but he just walked away.
***
The very next night they came across a lady trying to start a fight behind a bar while flailing around two electric whips. They would have assumed that it was her quirk but she appeared to have a snake mutation quirk and it seemed unlikely that she could electrify things as well, the point was only proven when he saw Eraser’s hair fly up but the whips still crackled.
Kami, this was so fucking annoying.
They couldn’t get in close, they had no idea what the voltage was on those things and they did not want to find out. The woman was clearly drunk but she also clearly knew how to use those things, because not a single spark hit her as she was whipping them around. Great, she was drunk and skilled.
“Eraser, just–” they whined as they mimed him throwing out his capture scarf.
“I can’t, it’s a metal alloy. I’m not about to do a field test of its conductivity,” he countered.
They shot him an exasperated look. This was exhausting. Everyone had cleared out, the woman wasn’t currently a threat to anyone, she was just yelling at no one and anyone challenging them to fight her so Ivy looked around trying to come up with an idea.
“Hm, conductivity, good idea,” they said with no explanation before walking away.
They went over to the row of bins lining the wall behind the bar and dumped one of the emptier ones out into another one. It was all rusty and beat up but it was metal, hopefully, it wouldn’t cut her. They walked into her line of sight and she turned to them and started to challenge them but they just whipped the trashcan they were dragging behind them at her. It was heavy and metal, they figured she wouldn’t be able to just whip it out of the way.
Their theory was correct, the trash can hit her whip and then her. She zapped herself and fell to the ground immediately.
“Well, that works I guess,” Eraser remarked behind them.
“Add rubber to your stupid little scarf and do some conductivity tests,” they shot back, “and tell Tsukauchi to figure this shit out faster, I’m so tired of this,” they groaned as they walked away and let Eraser deal with the aftermath.
***
“Tsukauchi has an update, he wants us to meet him on block 22 in 15 minutes,” he called out as soon as Ivy made their way up onto the rooftop they always met at.
“Fucking finally!” they exclaimed turning around immediately to head toward the meeting location.
“Oi! Eat this first!” he shouted at them and whipped a nutrient pack at their head which they unfortunately managed to catch.
“Whatever Dad,” they sneered and shoved it half under their mask, “let’s go,” they asserted, though it was heavily muffled through the packet hanging out of their mouth.
“If you choke and fall I’m not catching you,” he threatened.
They just hummed in acknowledgment as they flung themself over the side of the building.
Luckily they managed to make it there without asphyxiating and Tsukauchi was already waiting for them.
“Good evening gentlemen…?” the detective greeted and trailed off at the last word giving it an upward tilt in tone like it was a question as he looked at Ivy.
They just looked at him and refused to clarify.
After an uncomfortable moment, he just continued, “…alright, anyway, we’ve got a lead, or a lack of a lead that is also a lead in and of itself. None of the people you brought in this week got their stuff from the gang or at least not directly, the last 4 you caught weren’t affiliated with gang activity at all. However, the first couple of guys were. So, either the people buying don’t know they’re buying from gang members, the gang is using a third party to distribute, or the gang is only tangentially involved.”
“That’s nothing Tsuka, why the hell did you come up here for this?” Ivy piped up.
The detective shot them a look before responding, “I figured you’d want to be in the loop you jerk. Why don’t you just get properly licensed already so we can just have these meetings in my office like normal people?” he jabbed back.
Shota could see the way Ivy’s face fell at that comment but Tsukauchi just continued.
“I want you to keep your eyes and ears out for any dealings, I’ve got a feeling that they’re going on behind closed doors but you know people talk, let me know if you find any locations and I should be able to organize a proper stake out, this case is becoming a big enough issue that the higher-ups want it taken care of so I can get feet on the ground out here for this,” he finished explaining.
Ivy didn’t have anything else to say about that, they just nodded and continued not to say anything as the detective bid them farewell. That comment really seemed to strike a nerve so he was hesitant to bring it up but it really would make things so much easier.
“You know you could get licensed, Ivy. None of this is on your record, we don’t know who you are and we aren’t going to try to stick it on you if you come back certified. A full high school program is the traditional route but there are other ways, especially if you have an established pro recommend you for them,” he offered.
That didn’t seem to entice them at all, they just looked sad.
“No one’s gonna let me get a hero license, Eraser. It’s not worth even trying,” they said sounding resigned to their fate.
“You got a record already? As long as it’s not too bad I’m sure it could be overlooked,” he asked.
They scoffed at him like his guess was way off the mark.
“No identifying information, Eraser. It’s just not gonna happen. No one in their right mind would license someone like me,” they said before scaling up the wall and ending the conversation.
Someone like them? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Notes:
Thanks for reading! and double thanks for all your comments, I love reading them!
Chapter 50: The Risks and Consequences of Falling off Buildings
Summary:
⚠️⚠️⚠️ I AM GOING TO GO BACK AND DO CONSTRUCTION ON PAST CHAPTERS THIS WEEK. I WILL UPLOAD A NEW CHAPTER WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11TH AND FRIDAY OCTOBER 13TH BUT THE NUMBER OF CHAPTERS MIGHT CHANGE⚠️⚠️⚠️
Whatever the newest chapter is on those dates at like 9:00am CST will be a new chapter regardless of what the chapter number is.
I am going back and changing the order and point in the timeline that things happen but I will not be adding any more plot points so you will not have to re-read. I will upload the old timeline and the new timeline next to each other so you can take a look and see what I changed without going back.⚠️⚠️⚠️CONSTRUCTION WILL BE DONE BY MONDAY OCTOBER 16TH IF NOT SOONER, I WILL LET YOU KNOW⚠️⚠️⚠️
Notes:
Sorry for the break in uploads! I had to help my friend move and also I realized a major issue with my timeline, more at the end of the chapter about that if you're interested/ can help me out.
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Major-ish injury (not graphic)lmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was early November and the nights were getting cold. Neither of them visibly changed clothes to fit the climate but Shota hoped that Ivy had some thermal wear to throw on under their usual get-up like he did. Surely they would be shivering if they didn’t, once the sun went down and took any of its lingering warmth the temperature dropped to freezing point or lower. Well, it had to at least be freezing because ice was starting to form on the rooftops, he’d need to switch over to his winter boots that had retractable spikes in the soles, Ivy was going to need something like that too if they didn’t already, they’d already been active for nearly two years at this point so they must have some way of combatting the slippery ice.
This was all running through his mind as they traversed across the rooftops. Ivy was right ahead of him and they were about to jump off the ledge of the roof they were currently perched on. As they bent their legs and pushed themself over and out above the sheer 10-story drop below he saw their foot slip out from beneath them and they started falling fast.
Shit shit shit shit.
Shota dashed to the ledge and shot out a length of his capture weapon and his heart didn’t start beating again until he felt the tension pull him forward. Then there was a loud bang, an even louder crack, and a scream.
Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.
He’d been leaning away from the ledge to brace himself for the pull of Ivy’s weight on the end of the line so he couldn’t see what had happened but when he looked over he saw that he had them hanging by the ankle and they were half draped over the railing of a fire escape. It sounded like they were biting down on their lip to keep themself from screaming out again. Oh, oh no, their leg wasn’t supposed to be bent that way.
“Fucking let go Eraser,” they choked out between deep breaths and strangled moans.
“Kid, let me get down there fi–”
“I’ve got the railing and you’re holding me up by a broken leg, LET GO!” they interrupted.
That didn’t seem like a good idea at all, the pain of being suspended by a broken leg was probably going to make them pass out soon, and letting it drop might be the straw that broke the camel's back. Before he could figure out a good way to get down there and help them himself Ivy unsheathed the wrist-mounted knife he’d given them and slashed themself free. He hardly even had time to freak out before their weight dropped and they stayed put dangling by one hand gripped tight on the railing. By the time he got down there, they had already resheathed their knife and started pulling themself back up.
What the fuck is wrong with this kid??? They’re going to give him a heart attack one of these days. Once he helped them up onto the fire escape they collapsed into the corner against the wall and glared at him.
“I’m gonna fucking kill you Eraser,” they declared with no preamble.
“You’re gonna kill me? You’re the one that just fell off a roof, that’s not my fault!” he shot back.
“I would have been fine if you didn’t grab me by the ankle and throw me shin first into the goddamn fire escape!” they argued through gritted teeth.
“My apologies, I’ll be sure to take the chance next time,” he bit out.
They were gonna need Recovery Girl for this, they can’t set a bone themself and even if they could they’d be out for months, neither of them could afford that right now, Uptown couldn’t afford that right now. As much as he didn’t want to admit it with all the support gear still going around the streets he didn’t think he could patrol alone safely. He needed someone to have his back and so did Ivy and Uptown wouldn’t fare well with out them. With that in mind, he pulled out his phone to start setting a plan into motion.
Eraserhead:
Need a ride to RG, broken leg not life-threatening, can you spare the time?
Tsukauchi:
Shit, yeah omw. You or Ivy?
Eraserhead:
Ivy
He closed the chat with the detective and pulled up Chiyo’s contact. Ivy was breathing through the pain but they didn’t ask about what he was doing yet, they seemed suitably distracted. That was probably for the best, he didn’t need them fighting him on this.
Aizawa:
Sorry for the late message. Non-life threatening but it’s an emergency, broken leg but they can’t go to a hospital and we need discretion.
He knew that she always left her ringer on full blast when she slept but as the seconds passed by he was tempted to just say fuck it and leave a message warning her that he was going to show up on her doorstep. Tsukauchi wasn’t even here yet, they had to wait anyway so he took a deep breath and turned to check in on Ivy. Their eyes were closed and they had their head leaned back against the wall, still taking controlled breaths.
They weren’t going to like this.
“Ivy, I’m gonna carry you down to street level, okay?” he phrased it as a question but he wasn’t really asking.
“Like hell you are,” Ivy argued anyway.
“I’m not actually asking your permission, that was a warning, not a request, come on,” he insisted.
He turned his back to them so they could loop their arms around his shoulders.
“You are not giving me a fucking piggyback ride Eraser,” they growled.
“It’s either this or I scoop you up like a petulant toddler, your choice,” he shot back.
They let out a frustrated groan before conceding and grabbing onto his shoulders.
“Alright, up in 3, 2, 1,” he warned before jostling them up into position and looping his arms under their legs.
He both heard and felt the muffled scream they let out into his shoulder. They had to be in a lot of pain because he didn’t hear another wisecrack for the entire journey back to street level. He could hear their breath hitch with each step though, fucking hell he didn’t have time to feel guilty about it. When they got there he set them down on a bus stop bench and started looking out for Tsukauchi’s car.
“Where the hell are we even going? Busses don’t run this late over here,” they finally spoke up.
“Going to that friend I talked about, you need proper medical attention for that, I don’t care how proficient you are I’m not letting you set your own bones,” he tried to shut down their arguments before they could start
“Yeah, that's– that’s prolly for the best, never set a bone on my own,” they surprisingly relented.
On their own? So they’d had help before? Did they go to a hospital or did they have some buddy jury rig them a splint? Were they already running around on poorly healed fractures?
“Not your first broken bone I take it?” he asked, doing his best to subtly probe for more information.
They let out a pained laugh before responding, “No, no it's not. Wish I could say it was, those casts get so damn itchy. It’s been a while though.”
Well, on the bright side, it was good to know that they received medical attention when it was needed in the past. It seemed unlikely that they would have gotten a proper cast without having seen an actual doctor. Again the kid seemed to have a way of both being far too reckless and knowing when they were in over their head, it was all or nothing with them and he never knew which it was going to be.
Finally, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Shuzenji:
I’d prefer you not to bring criminals to my house, should we meet somewhere else?
Aizawa:
They’re not dangerous and I’ll make sure we’re not followed. We can meet somewhere else if you’re more comfortable with that but I don’t think it will be an issue.
Shuzenji:
I’m too old to be out this late, if it won't be an issue then just bring them here.
Aizawa:
Thank you Chiyo, we will be there in 30.
“What are we waiting for if not the bus then?” they asked.
“Tsukauchi,” he responded bluntly.
“I’m not getting in that narc’s car!” they exclaimed.
“Well, are you gonna walk then?” he shot back with a raised brow.
Just then he saw headlights round the corner. Upon spotting them the detective turned their lights on and let the siren let out a single whoooop. It was almost impressive how irritating the man could be, the way he jabbed at Shota’s patience transcended language and most other forms of communication. This car ride was going to be hell on earth with the both of them, wasn’t it? He muttered some expletives before turning back to Ivy who was glaring at him so intensely that it was almost unnerving. Fortunately, he was used to Ivy’s bullshit so he was largely unaffected.
“Come on, I’ll help you into the back,” he said as Tsukauchi pulled up.
“If we start going even vaguely in the direction of the precinct I will tuck and roll, I swear to–”
“Yeah, I get it just get in the damn car,” he cut them off.
They sent another glare at him for that but they let him support most of their weight and walk them over to the car and help them situate themself before getting into the passenger seat. He took a moment to plug the address into the detective’s GPS and then they were off.
Once they started driving Tsukauchi spoke up, “Didn’t think I’d ever live to see the day that you were in the back seat of a cruiser, Ivy.” he taunted.
Ivy just glared at him through the rearview mirror and gave him a double one-finger salute.
“So am I allowed to ask what happened, or is it for the best that I don’t know?” he asked cautiously.
“Eraser broke my leg,” Ivy piped up from the back seat.
Tsukauchi shot him a look and when he didn’t argue his eyes went wide.
“Seriously?!” he squawked out incredulously.
“They fell off the damn roof and I caught them,” he defended.
“I would have been fine!” they argued through gritted teeth.
“No, Ivy, you could have been fine, you also could have been dead, I’d rather you have a broken leg than be a stain that someone has to scrub out of the concrete,” he barked out a little too harshly.
The car was silent after that. Tsukauchi kept alternating between looking at him, the road, and the rearview mirror back to Ivy until they pulled up to Shuzenji’s house and Shota got out of the car.
“Do you guys need help,” Tsukauchi asked from the driver’s seat.
They both chorused a firm no in perfect unison so he put his hands up in mock surrender and kept his mouth shut. After a few moments and a lot of cursing, he got Ivy out of the back seat leaning against him and standing on their good leg.
“Thanks for the ride, Detective,” he called over his shoulder as he led Ivy to the front door.
He owed that man a coffee or something. A good one from that shop on block 36 or maybe something stronger than that, he could use something stronger than that right about now, he didn’t see this ending well.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Edit: sorry that the timeline uploaded so crispy, idk why it is like that... lmk if it's still legible. (Not the bottom part that's intentionally crispy bc it's spoilers lol)
Chapter 51: Trust Fall
Notes:
construction update: the fix is going to be a lot easier than I thought it would be but I still need to go back and edit and then re-read the last like 40 chapters so bear with me lol. I'm halfway through the first comb-through.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Okay, so what's the drawback?” Ivy asked him.
“What?”
“The healing quirk, they always have a drawback, what is it?” they elaborated.
Goddamnit couldn’t they just wait to get in the door to ask that? They were almost there! They were most definitely going to be knocked out for several hours at the very least and they were not going to like that.
“Fatigue,” he said after a while.
Keep it vague, they just had to get in the door, he felt like he was setting a trap for a skittish stray cat to get them to a vet. The walk from the curb to the door felt like it was endless and he may or may not have rushed them a little to get them there before Ivy could ask any more questions. Shota knocked on it as soon as it was within arm’s reach.
“What do you mean fatigue? Is this gonna knock me out?” they pushed.
Blessedly, the door opened before he was forced to answer that but as the door swung open he felt Ivy go as stiff as a board beside him. Before he could even stop them they bowed as low as their broken leg and their arm slung over his shoulder would allow them.
“Recovery Girl! Thank you for agreeing to this!” they squeaked out.
What the hell?
Shuzenji whacked them on the shoulder with her cane before chiding them, “Stand up sonny, none of that with a broken leg,” she snapped much more harshly than the sentiment required.
“Set up on the couch there I need to grab some things, I’ll be back in a minute,” she said before walking off.
The moment she disappeared around the corner Ivy turned to him with a glare and whisper shouted at him, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were taking me to Recovery Girl’s fucking house???” they demanded.
“What’s it matter, what the hell is wrong with you? Did you hit your head too?” he shot back with genuine confusion.
“What the fuck do you mean what does it matter? Recovery Girl is the most well-renowned rescue hero Japan has ever seen, she has more documented saves than any other non-combative hero in the world in the past 37 years! Why the hell didn’t you warn me?” they continued to whisper-shout at him as they hobbled over to the couch.
What the hell was going on? Were they actually freaking out because she’s famous?
“Your leg has a complete fracture and you're worried about making a good impression?” he asked incredulously as he eased them down onto the couch.
Before they could answer Chiyo came back into the room with a glass of water and a few energy gummies and Ivy slapped their hand over his mouth to keep him from talking as they shot her what he could only assume was a nervous smile if the way their eyes crinkled up was any indication. Chiyo just raised a brow and shot him a look.
“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got now, Sh- Eraserhead, would you hit the lights just over there,” she requested.
She started pulling at the laces of Ivy’s boots and they just sat there with their back ramrod straight. What the hell had gotten into them? They were acting like a little fanboy at a meet and greet. Oh Kami, they were, weren’t they? Hah! If he didn’t feel so bad about being the reason they were there in the first place he would make fun of them. What an interesting bit of information, he filed it away for later.
He turned on the light she requested and left his own shoes in the genkan, once he’d gotten back she’d already worked their boots off.
“Okay, we’ll need to do away with the pants as well, Eraser would you give them a hand?” she instructed.
He could see the kid panicking a bit at that which was understandable, he was pleasantly surprised they’d gotten this far without much argument. They let him carry them down the fire escape, they agreed to get in Tsukauchi’s car and allowed them to take them to an unknown location to meet with someone they didn’t know all with a broken leg. They couldn’t do much to fight back right now, stripping them down any further at this point was probably a lot to handle.
“Just cut it Shuzenji,” he responded.
“Wait now, I–” they tried to protest.
“I broke your leg I can buy you new pants, Ivy,” he insisted.
“You did this?!” Shuzenji asked, shooting him a glare.
“It was an accident, they fell off the roof, I caught them by the ankle, and they swung into a fire escape,” he explained.
Ivy must really be freaking out, they didn’t have anything to say about that, no assertions that they had everything under control or underhanded comments about him worrying too much. Shuzenji accepted the explanation and tottered off to get a pair of scissors.
The room was silent after she left.
“I actually am sorry, Ivy,” he admitted.
They moved their near rigor mortis stiff posture enough to look up at him. They didn’t respond right away, they just took a moment to study him as if they were assessing his sincerity.
“Well I won’t say it’s alright because it’s not, it hurts like a bitch but I would have done the same thing. It IS your fault but I don’t blame you,” they said gently after they determined he was being serious. “If it makes you feel any better I do have spiked shoes for the winter, I just didn’t expect to have to break them out so soon.”
That did make him feel much better. He was already going to get them new pants he didn’t want to push a boundary getting them new shoes as well, they were already so skittish about the food he gave them.
Shuzenji walked back into the room with the scissors so he just nodded in response.
The room was quiet as she snipped a line up their pant leg to just above the knee. The bone didn’t break through the skin but it was bleeding a little from the impact and the whole length of their lower leg was bruised and swollen. Damn, that looked painful.
Shuzenji eyed the injury carefully before she spoke.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any morphine around here but I have some less aggressive painkillers, they’re still prescription grade but not quite the good stuff and I am going to have to set this before I can heal you,” she warned.
“Oh, yeah, I figured, that’s fine,” Ivy said after a moment.
They responded after a long pause as though they didn’t realize she was asking permission or even waiting for confirmation that they understood. That was… troubling.
“Alright, I should’ve had you take this earlier,” she said.
She shuffled around her supplies, pulled out a bottle, shook a few pills into her hand, and held them out to Ivy. they didn’t reach out to take them and they glanced nervously back over at him.
“It’s just Tramadol, dear, is that alright?” she asked having caught on to their hesitance.
She offered them the bottle as proof, it was a prescription pain medication so it was reasonable to be hesitant of someone offering them that but they recognized her, they knew she was a doctor and they clearly held her in high regard but they still didn’t seem to trust her. Maybe they had a bad history with opioids? That didn’t seem likely but it was possible, there certainly wasn’t a lack of places to buy that shit in the red lights. But then why did they keep looking at him?
“It’s fine Ivy, it’s just pain medication. It’s still gonna hurt but that’ll help,” he reassured.
Apparently, that’s what they were looking for because, after a moment of contemplation, they took the offered dose, slipped it under their mask, and swallowed it dry.
“Oh, dear. Did you want some water?” Shuzenji offered.
Ivy just shook their head. They looked incredibly uncomfortable and not just because of the broken leg. Was it Shuzenji or the pills or was it the whole situation? It was probably everything, he rarely saw them look so unsure of themself, it was off-putting
“Alright, that should take a half hour to properly kick in. I really should have had you take that sooner, it slipped my mind. These are energy gummies, you should eat these too. My quirk draws on the patient's own energy to expedite the healing process so the more energy you have the more I can heal you,” she explained.
Shota had a sneaking suspicion that Ivy already knew that though. They gave an affirmative nod and slipped those under their mask as well.
“Right, well you’ve got water right here if you want it, would you like a glass dear,” she asked turning her attention to Shota.
He shook his head.
“What about tea? Would either of you like some tea?” she offered.
Ivy shook their head again, he could tell that they were really freaking out but they were hiding it well, he could only tell by the tension in their shoulders. They should give them a minute.
“Yeah, Shuzenji, that sounds good, why don’t I give you a hand,” he offered and stood to leave without waiting for a response.
He ushered the two of them to the kitchen but kept his ears perked up for any noise coming from the living room, any movement or breathing, anything to show that the kid was either calming down or having a panic attack but it was dead silent. Shuzenji gave him a questioning glance but he just shook his head and kept moving forward.
When they got to the kitchen down the hall she spoke in a hushed tone, “What’s going on Shota? I’m guessing this is the vigilante you’ve been working with, they’re far more timid than I’d expected.”
“Yeah, they are the vigilante and they are acting off. They aren’t usually this skittish but I can see why they’re uncomfortable, it’s not an ideal situation to be in but they recognized you. They were chewing me out for not telling me I was taking them to THE Recovery Girl when you left earlier, they seemed to respect you a lot but I’ve never seen them so uncomfortable. I can only assume it’s because they are giving us far more trust than they’d like to but something just isn’t sitting right with me about it,” he explained.
Chiyo started the kettle while Shota fished out some cups from the cupboard
***
Izuku was freaking the fuck out, no they were Ivy right now, they needed to calm down. This was Recovery Girl, she wasn’t going to hurt them, she gave them pain medication, she wasn’t trying to hurt them. She wasn’t sneering at them for being too fragile, she wasn’t going to be like his mother, she wasn’t going to be like the other doctors he’d been to as a child, she wasn’t going to be like the school nurse, she didn’t even know he was a Null. Eraserhead said she would be discrete, she wasn’t going to ask and if she did he didn’t have to tell her, no they didn’t have to tell her, they were Ivy right now, they didn’t have to tell her anything.
No one was going to ask them, Eraserhead trusted her and they trusted him, right? They trusted him, he wouldn’t betray that trust. They had to believe he wouldn’t. They took some deep breaths and tried to calm down but whenever they managed to get out of their own head the pain radiating from their leg hit them again in full force and they were stuck in an awful cycle of freaking out, calming down, tuning back into the searing pain, and freaking out again. They kept going through that until they started to feel woozy. Damn, were the meds kicking in? How long had those two been gone? They had absolutely no idea what time it was, it had been somewhere around 1 to 2 am when they fell but they couldn’t say how much time had passed since then.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before, surely he must have had pain meds when he was in the hospital for the burns he got as a child, right? He couldn’t remember, all he could remember of that week was the pain and exhaustion but surely the staff wouldn’t have been so negligent as to not give him pain medication… right?
It felt like they were dissociating but they weren’t, their brain felt soupy; they were trying to hold onto thoughts but they kept slipping out of their grasp. Oh, they did not like this at all, their hands were shaking and they knew they were panicking but it was so distant. The pain had definitely abated, it was just as distant as everything else. Fucking hell, this was worse than just being in pain, they were completely defenseless right now, where the fuck did Eraser go? Tea. He went to get tea, did he go that way? They think he went that way, they couldn’t remember, not that it mattered, they couldn’t check anyway. They knew where the exit was at least, not that that mattered either, they wouldn’t get far like this. Fuck, they couldn’t get far like this at all, was the door locked? They couldn’t remember, Did Eraser lock it while they weren’t paying attention? Where even were they? They were probably on the better side of town, right? It was Recovery Girl’s house she could afford the good side of town.
They tried to crane their head to see if they could see the door’s lock from where they were sitting but the movement pulled on their leg and oh fuck, yeah that still hurt. Not nearly as much as it did before but that definitely wasn’t pleasant.
***
Shota was halfway through his cup of tea when he finished explaining Ivy’s situation in depth. He’d mentioned them before when he had to explain why he came into her office with stitches covered in a heavily ornamented bandage signed by Ivy. He’d discussed the possibility of bringing them to her before to make sure she was okay with it as well in the event that they got hurt but he didn’t really explain more than he had to at the time. But she was curious and they had some time so he acquiesced.
“Yes, dear that does seem like quite the moral conundrum. I’m afraid I don’t have much more advice for you than what Hizashi’s already said, assuming they’re old enough to take care of themself. They do look quite small, how old do you think they are?” she asked
“I can’t say for certain but they definitely seem to be able to take care of themself, except for that brief stint over the summer. My best guess is late teens early twenties, or maybe that’s my hope, I don’t know. They’re very skilled and it has nothing to do with a quirk unless my quirk doesn’t affect theirs. I think they have an intelligence quirk or something unless they’re hiding a mutation quirk that helps them with agility under that disguise. All evidence and logic point to that age range but my gut’s telling me they’re in over their head, I really don’t know. I have nothing to base it on besides their size but I just can’t shake the feeling,” he admitted.
“Hmm,” she sat thinking for a moment, “A gut feeling isn’t nothing, Shota. You shouldn’t completely dismiss it just because it's not logical.”
“Yeah, I know I just–” he cut himself off at the sound of a yelp coming from the other room.
He was up and out of his seat before Chiyo could even ask what was going on, her hearing wasn’t quite what it used to be. As he briskly walked into the living room Ivy flinched away from him and let out another pained noise at the sudden movement.
“Hey, Ivy it’s fine, it’s just me,” he tried to soothe.
It had only been a little over 15 minutes since Chiyo gave them the meds but their eyes were already kind of unfocused and they looked like they were panicking. He left to give them a moment to calm down but that didn’t seem to have helped. Their initial shock had abated now that they recognized him but their hands were still shaking.
“The meds kick in, kid?” he asked with a laugh to try to lighten the mood.
They just nodded.
“Well that's a good thing then, it’s helping with the pain, right?” he asked.
They nodded again.
Were they scared because of the situation as a whole or had they never taken pain meds like this before? Or was it both?
“Ivy have you taken pain medication before?” he asked.
They shrugged.
Well, shit. How had they broken bones, multiple if the way they phrased it was anything to go by, without ever having taken prescription-strength pain meds before? He sincerely hoped they just didn’t remember.
“Okay, well everything is alright, the meds are doing what they’re supposed to you just might feel a little woozy but that’s okay,” he explained
They nodded and calmed down a little bit before the sound of Shuzenji entering the room had them flinching again.
“Kid, it's okay, that’s just Recovery Girl, you know her too,” he reminded them.
They relaxed again but kept turning their attention over their shoulder at the door. Were the drugs causing paranoia or were they always this paranoid and the drugs just lowered their inhibitions? Chiyo was staying back and letting him handle the situation but he felt like he was floundering.
“The door’s locked Ivy, if someone wants in they’ll have to kick it down and I made sure no one followed us, everything’s fine,” he attempted to soothe.
They nodded again and visibly forced themself to relax. Chiyo gave them a moment before speaking.
“Alright dearie we really ought to get this done with before the meds wear off, are you ready?” she asked gently.
They looked at her for a moment before nodding again.
“I’m going to have to feel around the break before I set it, but I’ll warn you before I do anything, okay?” she spoke just as gently as she approached them.
They nodded again, it was eerie to see them this quiet. Usually, they always had something to say.
She started feeling around their leg and they didn’t react at all.
“Can you feel that dear?” she asked
They nodded.
“Does it hurt?”
They nodded again.
She spared a questioning glance at Shota but all he could do was shrug. This was all very strange, Ivy hadn’t been acting like he would’ve expected them to since the moment he opened the front door.
“Okay dearie, I’m going to set it in a moment and then I’m going to use my quirk and you’ll probably fall asleep right after that,” she explained and Shota cringed.
Ivy wasn’t going to like that, he knew they weren’t so he waited for their reaction but they didn’t do anything but look back at him. The shake in their hands was getting worse and he could see their chest moving as their breath accelerated.
Damnit.
He slowly moved closer to them and when they didn’t flinch away he sat next to them around the curve of the L-shaped sectional. They didn’t react beyond following his movements with their eyes.
“I’m not gonna go anywhere, okay? You’ll probably be out until morning but I’ll be here too,” he assured them.
They looked at him for a while before they nodded and finally took their eyes off him to look back at Shuzenji and nodded again. They looked so scared, they’d never acted so much like a child.
“I’m going to set it, feel around to make sure it’s set properly, then I’m going to use my quirk and let you rest, okay?” She asked for a final confirmation.
When they nodded again she continued, “Make sure you don't bite down on your tongue or mouth, 3, 2, 1.”
Ivy let out another pained yelp but it was nowhere near as bad as the scream he heard when they first fell. They moved their hand and tangled it into the loose fabric on his knee. Before he could think better of it he laid his hand over theirs as they forced in deep breaths. Shuzenji felt around the wound for a moment before pressing a kiss to their shin and they immediately went slack against the couch. The tension that he didn’t even realize was in his shoulders fell as they sank back into the cushions.
After checking that everything was in order Chiyo looked up at him and said, “That kid seems to trust you a great deal, Shota.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He knew that they had to trust him to some degree but tonight was a lot. They were so scared and they kept looking to him like a lost kitten, it would have been adorable in any other situation but right now it was bittersweet at best.
“You don’t mind if we stay here til morning, do you?”
“Of course not, dear, they’re still not fully healed anyhow. I’ll need to do another session when their energy is back up. Would you like me to grab the futon?” she offered.
He should really get it himself, she shouldn’t have to lug the big roll out to the living room herself after he barged into her home at nearly 3 am but Ivy’s hand was still fisted in the fabric of his pant leg, they were so scared, and he promised them he wouldn’t leave. It was stupid and selfish but he found himself nodding anyway.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING
Chapter 52: Catch and Release
Notes:
Sorry for uploading late, I lost track of time!
Check out the timelines at the end of the chapter! I haven't gone back and edited the text but I did draw out the changes and I will be fixing the chapters tomorrow after I comb through them again and make sure everything is correct.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku woke up to the sound of arguing coming from another room… another room? He shot up quicker than he had in a long while, for a terrifying split second he had no idea where he was or who he was with, the fear didn’t abate much once the memories of last night flooded back to him. His hands shot up to his face, oh fuck, ow. Their mask was still on and they were starting to develop pressure sores where it pressed into their face. Well, as uncomfortable as it was that was a good sign, it likely hadn’t been removed while they were sleeping. Their leg was in a splint and it still hurt but not nearly as much as it did last night. It looked like it had been propped up before they whipped themself practically off the couch. Wait what was going on down the hall? They did their best to tune into the conversation,
“... barged into your house last night, let me cook breakfast for you, woman!”
That sounded like Eraser, what the hell was going on?
“No one visits me unless they’re on death’s doorstep, I never get the chance to cook for anyone, get your panties out of a twist and sit down, Shota!”
And that sounded like Recovery Girl. Hmmm, Shota? Was that Eraser’s name? Eraser was on a first-name basis with Recovery Girl? What the hell was going on? Their life was so fucking weird. They heard noises that sounded like Eraser was getting hit with a spatula, oh they had to see this. Checking that their mask was still in place they hobbled over to what they assumed was the kitchen and sure enough Eraser was getting bullied into a chair by a spatula-wielding old woman a third of his size. They couldn’t help but laugh at the sight and both of them whipped their head up at the sound.
“Oh good morning, dearie, please take a seat you shouldn’t be walking around quite yet,” she greeted and pushed them toward a chair far more gently than she did with Eraser.
Eraserhead shot him a glare from across the table before he spoke, “How long have you been there?” He asked.
“Couple seconds,” they responded honestly.
“What did you hear?” he asked eyeing them suspiciously.
“Stop interrogating guests at my table, Shota. You told me you weren’t bringing dangerous criminals to my house, they’re not going to kill you by knowing your first name,” Recovery Girl called over her shoulder.
Eraser shifted his glare toward her.
“And quit glaring at me,” she added.
Eraser just scowled and turned away and Ivy couldn’t help but laugh again, it was like he was being chided by his mother.
“Will you eat Ivy? I’m making enough for all of us,” she offered.
Suddenly the situation wasn’t so funny.
“I, uh…” they trailed off.
They didn’t want to be rude and refuse her food and it smelled delicious but they couldn’t just take their mask off and eat in front of them no matter how much they wanted to, it was nice here, it was comfortable. It had the same kind of warmth in the air that the Shinso’s house did.
“You can eat in the living room, kid,” Eraser piped up.
Recovery Girl whipped her head around to argue but let out a giggle when she saw them.
“Oh, yes I forgot about the whole secret identity thing. You can do whatever you're comfortable with dear,” she conceded as she went back to cooking.
“Uh, yes, that would be nice, thank you Recovery Girl-san,” he said with a bow even though her back was turned.
“Oh just call me Chiyo or Shuzenji dearie, there's no need for all of that in my own house, I get enough of it at work,” she dismissed.
Okay, never mind, this wasn’t funny at all anymore. They’d never been more uncomfortable in their life. They glanced over to Eraser who was looking back at them with an amused smirk. When they shot him a look he laughed at them.
Fucking asshole.
They kicked his shin under the table.
The slight flinch he gave was incredibly satisfying.
“I’ve got rice and miso cooking, is that alright with you Ivy?” she asked.
Oh Kami she was so nice they felt like they were gonna vomit.
“Y-yeah, that s-sounds great!” they stuttered out.
Godddamnit that fucking stutter was gonna blow their whole act.
Eraser was still wearing an amused expression so they kicked him in the shin again even harder and the flinch was no less satisfying the second time.
Suddenly Eraser’s expression dropped, he went stiff, stood up, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. It must have been ringing because he answered a phone call before making to exit the kitchen, they could hear vague shouting on the other end of the phone from the other side of the room and Eraser winced and pulled the phone away from his ear. That’s all they heard before he rounded the corner out of sight but Recovery Girl was giggling to herself over at the stove.
“Um, what was– what…” they floundered trying to ask what the hell was going on.
Recovery Girl just started laughing harder and said, “Don’t worry about it dear, everything’s fine.”
***
“SHOTA WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?!?!?!” Hizashi screamed over the phone.
Goddamn, his ear was ringing from just the little phone speaker trying to imitate their actual volume. He walked out of hearing range from the kitchen as quickly as possible before responding.
“Zashi, I’m fine, everything is fine, I’m at Chiyo’s–”
“WHY ARE YOU AT CHIYO’S IF EVERYTHING IS FINE?!” they demanded.
“Zashi quit yelling the neighbors are gonna file a complaint. I’m sorry I didn’t text you, last night was a mess and it slipped my mind,” he admitted.
“Sho, that doesn’t explain what happened,” he barked back at a more reasonable volume.
“I, uh, I might’ve broken Ivy’s leg…”
The line went deathly quiet.
“It was an accident, they fell off the roof, and I–”
“THEY FELL OFF A ROOF?!?!” he interrupted again.
“I said everyone’s fine! Calm down! Yes, there was ice on the ledge and they slipped. I didn’t know there was a fire escape below them so I looped my scarf around their ankle and uh, I swung them shin-first into the railing… but they’re okay! Chiyo’s about to force-feed us breakfast. I don’t know when I’ll be home they still need another round of healing, she said it probably won’t knock them out again but I need to stick around, the kid’s really uncomfortable here. Or at least they were last night they seem better this morning.”
The line went quiet again after the explanation.
“You’re sleeping on the couch,” they threatened in a deadpan voice.
“Mmhmmm, whatever you say Zashi,” he replied sarcastically.
They never followed through on that threat.
“If I ever wake up and you’re not there with no explanation again you better hope that you're in the hospital because if you aren’t I will put you there,” they amended their threat.
That was only slightly less of an empty threat, he hadn’t seen Zashi truly angry many times but when they were it was a sight to behold and he had no desire to be on the receiving end of that wrath.
“Yeah, ok that’s fair. I gotta get back though I don’t want to leave them alone too long,” he replied.
***
“So, um, how did you two meet?” Ivy attempted to make small talk.
“Oh Shota’s very secretive about his personal life, I don’t know how much he’d want me telling you but I’ve known him since he was a teenager and we’ve been colleagues of a sort for many years now,” she explained.
They couldn’t imagine Eraser as a teenager, they couldn’t imagine him as anything other than what he was. In their mind, he just spawned into existence one day exactly as he is.
“Since he was a teenager, hah, you got any embarrassing stories?” they badgered.
She scoffed and shook her head, “Of course, I do, too many to count. That boy was always throwing himself around and breaking his bones with that Kami-forsaken scarf of his, he’d come puttering over to me at least once a week for something or another,” she reminisced.
Ivy couldn’t help but laugh at that, Eraserhead was always so graceful, they’d never even seen him stumble. Of course, he had to practice to get that good at things but picturing him eating shit and then crying to Recovery Girl was very funny.
“What the hell are you two laughing about?” the man in question asked from the doorway.
“Nothing, dearie.”
“Nothin’”
They responded at the same time before glancing at one another and laughing even harder.
“What did you tell them, Chiyo?” He demanded.
“Nothing you need to worry about dear, go take your seat, I’m nearly finished,” she dismissed with a final chuckle.
Eraser eyed both of them suspiciously but headed toward his seat regardless.
“Was that who I think it was, Shota?” she asked.
“Yes,” he responded, giving no further context.
She giggled like they just shared an inside joke that Eraser didn’t find all that funny.
“Well, they’ve got impeccable timing, breakfast is ready. Did you want to eat in the living room Ivy? It would do you good to get your energy up, I’ve still got to heal you fully but this round shouldn’t take quite so much out of you,” she explained.
“Uh yeah, yes please,” they said awkwardly but at least they did it without stuttering again.
They got to their feet and both Recovery Girl and Eraser cringed and stepped forward like they were actively falling over. They just froze and looked back and forth between the two of them with wide eyes.
“Dear, you shouldn’t be putting weight on that yet! Shota help them to the living room,” she commanded as she set the pots of miso and rice she was carrying on the dining table.
“I’m f-fine, guys,” they tried to assuage their worries.
“You’ve still got the equivalent of a hairline fracture, you are certainly not fine!” Recovery Girl insisted and she shooed them out of the room.
It did hurt a bit still but their level of concern was making them uncomfortable. They got here fine, they could get back fine but they had the feeling arguing with Recovery Girl wasn’t going to get them anywhere so they let Eraser pull their arm over his shoulders and lead them back to the living room. This was too much but the less they argued the sooner it would be over.
They settled back onto the couch without complaint and thanked Recovery Girl profusely when she brought their breakfast to them herself. Kami, she was so nice and they didn’t know how to respond, it was like when he first met the Shinsos, unbearably awkward.
They waited until they heard the two of them settle down in the kitchen before looking around the room, giving a thorough sweep to make sure that there were no security cameras or anything, they even went so far as to shine their flashlight around to look for a reflective lens. When they were satisfied that there was nothing they turned their back to the direction of the kitchen and took off their mask. The miso was lukewarm at this point but it was still delicious, they scarfed down as much as they could as quickly as they could and rubbed at the pressure sores developing on their face for a minute before shoving their mask back into place.
Looking at the dirty bowl in front of them was driving them mad. Every manner they had ever been taught was screaming at them to go wash it or bring it to the sink at the very least but they had a feeling Recovery Girl wouldn’t appreciate them hobbling over there again. It was taunting them, just sitting there on the coffee table while they stared at it as if they could will it clean and back into the cupboard. They just sat there bouncing their good leg incessantly while they stewed in their anxiety.
“You done Ivy?” Eraser called from down the hall.
They nearly jumped out of their skin because they were so hyperfocused on their stupid dishes.
“Y-yeah!” they peeped out.
Goddamnit, with the fucking stutter again. They needed to pull themself together it was just some dishes.
“You okay kid?” he asked as he walked into the room.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” they replied quickly.
He must have seen the way Ivy’s gaze kept getting caught on the dishes because he scooped them up without a word and turned back to the kitchen.
“Th-thanks,” they stuttered out as he left.
Fucking hell. He could deal with a hostage situation with more social grace than this, his brain is so busted.
A few minutes later he came back with Recovery Girl in tow.
“Okay now, I’m going to check and make sure that everything is still in place after all your walking around. It’s going to hurt but only for a moment then assuming everything’s in order I’ll finish you up and you’ll be right as rain but probably a little groggy for the rest of the day. You two had better stay home and rest tonight but by tomorrow you can go throwing yourselves around the rooftops like lunatics again,” she explained and poked with no real heat.
She paused and looked at them after that so they quickly nodded.
“Alright, I’m going to feel around and then use my quirk, why don’t you sit back,” she suggested.
It certainly didn’t feel good to have her prodding around their leg again but they just sat still. They shouldn’t make this any more difficult than it needed to be. She planted a smooch on their leg and suddenly it felt like they’d just run a marathon. Kami, that felt strange. They’re pretty sure they just passed out immediately last time, at least they hoped they did because they couldn’t remember anything past the simultaneously dulled and searing pain of their bones grinding back into position.
Their eyelids felt like they weighed 10 tons and they were thoroughly slumped back into the couch.
“Everything feel alright dearie? It should be fully healed now,” Recovery Girl asked.
They flexed their leg around, it felt fine, incredibly heavy, but fine.
“Yeah, feels fine,” they confirmed.
“Could you stand up and walk around on it for me just to make sure? I’ve done this plenty of times in the field without an x-ray but it certainly isn’t ideal. If it feels off you might have to get an x-ray to make sure everything’s in place. It felt like a clean break but there’s no way to be sure without a scan,” she explained.
They got up with a yawn and a muffled groan and Eraser had the audacity to laugh at them. Recovery Girl decked him in the shin with her cane faster than Ivy could even think about retaliating.
They tried their best not to laugh hysterically at the face he pulled when she did that but it was ultimately a fruitless attempt. Holy hell how much of a punch did she pack with that thing? Eraser hardly even flinched when they kicked him under the table earlier.
“You did this Shota you don’t get to laugh at them!” she chided.
After a couple of laps around the couch and assuring her that everything was fine she only made them promise twice that they would have Eraser bring them back if something started to feel off before she bid them both farewell and slipped a bag of sweets into their hands. Where did those even come from?
The second the door closed behind them they shot him a look.
“How the hell are you and Recovery Girl on a first-name basis?” they demanded.
He just rolled his eyes at them as they walked towards the nearest bus stop.
“She said she’s known you since you were a teenager, you weren’t even a pro yet, wait–” they cut themself off with a dramatic gasp, “Did you go to UA???” they asked, aghast.
When he just continued to walk without answering they grabbed him by the arm and shook him.
“Oh, you totally did, didn’t you? You fancy-ass bastard, what year did you graduate? You had to have competed in the sports festival, right? I’m finding that immediately. Did you make it to the 1v1s? Did someone kick your ass on live television???”
“Well you certainly got your energy back quick,” he finally spoke up.
“WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!!! She said you’ve been “colleagues of a sort” for years now and YOU said you’ve got a day job “teaching brats how to fight” ERASER DO YOU TEACH–” they were cut off by a swift open palm to the mask.
“Ow, fuck that hurt this thing’s been on for like over 18 hours dude!” they whined but lowered their voice anyway, “You work at UA don’t you???”
His lack of response was all the confirmation they needed.
“Oh, Kami, you do! What do you teach? Heroics obviously, right? Damn, I’m getting some Ivy league education over here!” they paused and gave him a look to let the joke really sink in.
He did not laugh.
“You get it? ‘Cause in America, the fancy schools–”
“Yes, I get it, it was just a terrible joke,” he interrupted.
“And my name is Ivy…” they continued explaining as if they hadn’t heard him at all, “You have a terrible sense of humor,” they finally gave up.
“So I’ve been told,” he said as they made it to the bus stop.
“You’re not going North, are you? Southbound isn’t gonna be here for another 45 minutes,” they pointed out.
“No I’m just gonna walk, do you have enough for fare back to Uptown?” he asked.
They very much did not. They didn’t have a single yen on them, in fact.
“No, I uh, I was just gonna walk…” they trailed off.
“Ivy that would take hours,” he shot back.
“Got nothing better to do,” they claimed.
“Just because you have the energy to be obnoxious doesn't mean you have the energy to walk clear to the other side of the city. Bus is coming around the corner right now, I’ll tap you in,” he said.
Before they could argue the bus pulled up and he bullied them through the door. They didn’t even get their wits about them enough to say thanks before the doors shut and the bus started to drive away. They just sunk into a seat at the very back in an attempt to draw the least amount of attention they could which was difficult considering it was like 10 am on a Sunday and they were wearing a clunky metal face mask, black eyeshadow to rival a raccoon, and a pair of pants that were split up the leg past their knee but only on one side.
Yeah, they were definitely going to get some weird looks.
Notes:
Thanks for reading
Chapter 53: LORE TIME!!!
Notes:
Okay everyone, I fixed everything up (I think). I’m gonna post this week today (Monday Oct. 16th) as well as Wednesday and Friday like I did last week at 9:00 (ish) CDT. That’s the schedule I’m aiming for going forward but I’m not gonna promise anything past this week because that’s all that I already have written.
If anyone is reading back for whatever reason and notices something that doesn’t make sense with the timeline just lmk and I’ll fix it. I read through chapters 10-present THREE FREAKING TIMES but I’m sure I still missed some things. Same goes for if y’all ever see any typos, I found two when I went back :’)
As you can see from the blurred out timeline on the last chapter I only have up until the show’s canon timeline starts mapped out at this point so when I get to that I’m going to take a little break from posting (prolly a week idk) so I can map out the last half(ish) of the fic and avoid plotholes bc I don’t wanna go back and restructure shit like that again.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku elected to ignore Recovery Girl’s recommendation to spend the following day resting. Well, that's not entirely true, he was resting far more than he would be if he were actually going out on patrol but he was still suiting up and heading out. He put on a pair of black jeans and threw on his Ivy hoodie before applying some black eyeshadow a little more artfully than he usually did. Conservatively enough that he wouldn’t get too many people staring at him but heavy enough that it still altered his appearance drastically. He topped the look off with a simple black cloth mask that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion and set out for the library. Well, not THE library, but A library. He was determined to find a video of Eraser in the UA sports festival and he didn’t want any pinged searches to get traced back to him.
The next closest library was nearly an hour’s walk away but it was a nice crisp autumn morning and he didn’t mind, especially with the tantalizing potential of seeing a pubescent Eraserhead eat shit on live television on the other end of his lengthy walk.
When he got to the library bypassed the log-in with a little trick he’d learned a while back and immediately started searching for VODs of past sports festivals. He had no clue how old “Shota” was but he had to be around 30 something, right? He called him a geriatric old man but in reality, he couldn’t be past 40 at the very most so Izuku spent his day sifting through the last two decades of UA sports festivals. It was actually really fun. He had caught a good portion of them live but it was entertaining to go back and see so many chart-topping heroes in their high school days. He had analysis on a great deal of them and it was crazy to see how far they’d come since graduating.
He went back a full 12 years before he saw him. He barely even peeked his head out in the first round, he didn’t even look like he was trying but it was so hard to tell because his performance was so completely uninteresting that he never got more than a glancing background shot from the cameras. He was disqualified in the second round and didn’t make it to the 1v1s. Izuku was rather disappointed but he figured that it made sense if he already knew he wanted to be an underground hero.
The sports festival from 13 years ago played out in the same fashion but his first year, 14 years ago (Kami, he was ancient) was a different story. Well, not for the first two rounds it wasn’t, he kept a low profile but he was putting the effort in, and when it came time for the 1v1s Izuku’s jaw dropped as he was introduced as “General Education’s Underdog: Shota Aizawa”.
Holy shit! He was in gen ed??? He had so many questions but all of them had to wait because right now he was watching a widdol babyface Eraser beat the shit out of his first opponent in less than a minute. It was far less graceful than he was used to seeing from Eraser but he totally demolished that poor other kid! He almost felt bad for them but he found himself stifling back laughter instead. No one could figure out how he was doing it, the kid in the second round tried to float away from him on a cloud but he just erased their quirk, sent them sprawling on their ass, and dragged them out of the ring before they could collect themselves.
The other kid who was demolishing the competition was the hero now known as Present Mic and they're the ones who made it to the final. Poor Mic didn’t stand a chance, they ran around each other for a while, Mic kept trying to blast Eraser off stage but it wasn’t working, and eventually, Eraser knocked him on his ass and pinned him until Mic tapped out. He was a blushing mess, he looked so embarrassed. Izuku would have felt bad again if he hadn’t just watched him win his 3rd-year sports festival.
Kami, this was comedy gold! How had this not gone down in history as UA’s best sports festival? It was probably because they were first years, no one ever cared about the first-year festivals except for recruiters, it was also probably for the best that it didn’t because Eraser would be out of a job right now if it did, you can’t be a very good underground hero if you get recognized on the spot.
Hmmm, so Shota Aizawa was what, 28 years old? 28 or 29. Damn, he really thought he was older than that, he looked so damn tired all the time, poor guy wasn’t even 30. He went to UA’s website to try and see if he could snoop any more but the directory was blocked by a log-in
…technically the library’s computer was blocked by a log-in… that didn’t stop him…
He spent the rest of the day researching coding and website building to try and find a way to bypass the log-in but it was much more challenging than the library’s security was. The library was about to close by the time he made it through.
Ooooo looks like Eraser is a huge fucking nerd too, he had a master's in teaching with a focus on law and ethics from the University of Musutafu and, wait, was that his address? Shit, looks like he got a little further into the system than he’d meant to… haha whoops. That was probably going to raise some security issues, he clicked through a bunch of other things to throw anyone watching tracking his progress off the trail of what he was looking for and gave the computer a hard reboot before booking it out of the library.
Right, okay, he’s never going back there again… whoopsies…
Maybe it was for the best actually, if he could figure out how to get that information in an afternoon on accident then their security needed revamping anyways. Maybe he should tell Eraser it was him tomorrow so they could stop sounding the alarms.
***
Monday morning saw Izuku back at his usual library at his usual time.
“So I went and joined a dojo like you told me to,” Shinso said as he walked into the computer room
“Really? How’d it go?” he asked back excitedly
“It actually went pretty well, I wasn’t put in a class full of toddlers so that was nice. Most of the students are around our age plus or minus a few years and I experienced winning a fight, which might I just say, is much more fun than losing,” he sneered at him.
Izuku laughed at that, “That’s great Shinso! I told you you’re actually doing well, I just d-don’t go too easy on you.”
“You’re telling me, Greenie, you're telling me. The sensei asked who taught me how to fight an’ I told her a friend did. She says she wants to meet you because apparently I “fight like a rabid dog,” she thought I learned on the streets,” he laughed, “What’s your sensei’s name, she wants to know if she knows him, he’s from around here, right?”
Well, shit.
“Oh, he’s n-not from around here, no, and he hasn’t been involved in the c-community much since he moved here. He’s from up north and he was more active there when he was y-younger, your sensei p-probably doesn’t know him,” he lied quickly.
He was getting far too good at that, the thoughts came to mind far too readily and the words slid out of his mouth far too easily. It made him feel sick.
“Hm, okay. Do you think you could make it to the dojo with me sometime? My sensei actually wants to meet you. I have a class Friday evening, you could drop by towards the end and then we could have dinner at my house,” he asked.
Izuku sat there stewing for a moment, this sounded like a bad idea. This had to go wrong somehow, right? It’s his luck that's being brought into question, surely something was going to go wrong.
“Come on, Midoriya! I wanna see you kick someone else’s butt for a change. Maybe you could fight my sensei! If you best her in combat you can take over the dojo, I’m pretty sure that’s legally binding, you could be a business owner at 13, Mido! Come ooooon!” he pleaded dramatically.
The Shinsos did so much for him, there was no way this wasn’t going to end in at least a minor catastrophe but he couldn’t say no.
“This Friday?” he asked.
Shinso’s face lit up at even the possibility that he could make it, Kami, he really couldn’t say no.
“Yes, this Friday, I’ll be there from 5-7!” Shinso confirmed.
“Yeah, okay. I should be able to m-make it, I’ll let you know for sure on Wednesday,” he replied.
Their day off of patrol was supposed to be Sunday this week, they were going to have to ask Eraser if they could switch it.
***
“Heeeeeyyyy Eraser…” Ivy greeted in a theatrically awkward tone as they crested the roof.
“What did you do?” He immediately shot back.
“Oh, nothing, nothing. How was work for you? Anything, um, interesting happen over the weekend?” they replied.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” he asked with exasperation coloring his tone.
“What was me? I didn’t do anything… but if I um if I were to have accidentally done something… it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have caused a catastrophe… would it?” they asked.
“Ivy, how the fuck do you ‘accidentally’ hack into UA’s mainframe?”
“I dunno! It was an accident!” they cried, “I was just snooping around and then I got bored and all the sudden I was looking at things I shouldn’t be. Really, I think it was a public service! It shouldn’t be that easy to get that information, what if I actually wanted to hunt someone down? You’d all be screwed, so you’re welcome, actually,” they concluded and crossed their arms over their chest.
“Remind me to never let you and Nedzu in the same room,” he responded as he scrubbed his face with his hands.
“The sentiment is mutual, I can’t imagine a good scenario in which I end up face-to-face with him…” they shuddered at the thought.
There was something about intelligence quirks that freaked them out, you never know what they know or what they could do, it was like mind reading. Cool in theory but not if you had as many secrets to hide as they did.
“Anyway, can we move this week’s break night to Friday?” they said quietly just in case someone overheard.
It would have to be a hell of a hearing quirk to hear them up here and lowering their voice at that point probably wouldn’t help much but it made them feel better about it anyway.
“Yeah, why?” he asked casually.
“Don’t know why you bothered asking, I’m not going to tell you,” they replied as they sat down next to him and grabbed their dinner.
“You know my goddamn home address and I can’t know vaguely what you’re doing on Friday?” he challenged.
“Oh calm down, the worst that's going to come of this is a glitter bomb in your mailbox,” they taunted.
“I’m moving immediately,” he declared.
“Gonna need to set up a forwarding address anyway, dumbass,” they pointed out.
“Ivy I swear to–”
“Oh calm down, calm down I’m not sending you a glitter bomb, microplastics are bad for the environment,” they said in a hoity-toity tone, “I’m going out with a friend if you must know and no I will not be elaborating further.”
“Wow, kid you got friends?” he asked sounding mockingly impressed.
“I’ll doxx you, don’t test me,” they shot back with no heat.
“I’m sure you will, here’s your pants by the way. Did you stitch that pair up yourself?”
“Oh, yeah, uh thanks. And yes, I did. Didn’t feel like showing up in my boxers,” they joked but they were actually serious. The only other option they had was their school uniform and jeans which they were getting close to growing out of, those weren’t great for mobility.
“Let me know if those fit right, I can get you another size if you need me to,” he offered.
Ivy just hummed awkwardly with a mouthful of soup in response.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! Y'all are gonna like these next couple chapters 🙊 or hate them idk. Ur gonna something them for sure.
Chapter 54: Cat's Out of the Bag
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Mentions of blood
-Past trauma
-Flashbacklmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku showed up at the address Shinso gave him a little before 6:30 and paced around nervously for nearly another 15 minutes before he built up the resolve to walk in. Beyond the entrance there was a modestly sized studio with about half a dozen kids and an instructor at the front, she looked to be supervising spars because everyone was paired up and fighting. Shinso was doing pretty well against the beefy kid he was paired up with until he caught sight of Izuku and got a kick to the stomach for the distraction.
Izuku just slapped his hand over his mouth in shock as Shinso let out a pained grunt and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on him.
“Midoriya!” Shinso greeted excitedly after brushing off his opponent and sensei’s concern.
“I-I’m so sorry Sh-Shinso,” he sputtered out inelegantly.
Shinso just laughed it off, “No, that was my fault for getting distracted. Koizumi-sensei, this is Midoriya,” he introduced.
“Midoriya! It’s nice to meet you, your talent proceeds you,” she said as she gestured to Shinso.
Both of them went beet red at that.
“I– um, t-thanks,” he squeaked out.
She laughed kind-heartedly at his timidity, “You’re sure this kid’s the one who taught you to fight like that?” she poked at Shinso.
“Oh yeah, I think it’s all part of an intimidation tactic, you’d never see him coming, he’s playing mind games with us all,” Shinso joked with a nervous laugh.
She nodded theatrically at that, walked over to Izuku, and offered a hand out to shake which he took. Kami, she had a hell of a grip.
“So, Midoriya, wanna show us what you’ve got?” she challenged.
His face must have mirrored his stomach dropping to his feet because he heard Shinso snort at him from behind his sensei.
“You don’t have to kid, but I must say I am curious,” she amended in response.
“N-no it’s– yeah, okay. Um, what-what are the uh r-rules?” he asked
Her pleasant smile turned a touch feral at that.
“What are the rules?” she repeated, “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”
She gestured him over to one of the mats and he dutifully followed.
“Alright, no quirks, no head or groin shots, and avoid sending anyone to the hospital. Who wants to go first?” she asked turning to her class.
When no one volunteered Shinso snorted out a laugh and stepped forward.
“Okay, Greenie. I hyped you up, don’t make me look bad,” he said as he stepped across the mat to stand in front of him.
Once he got into position he bowed and looked at Izuku expectantly until he did the same. The second he straightened his spine Shinso lunged at him, he was already so on edge that he just reacted, and before he even realized what was going on he had Shinso pinned to the floor.
“Yeah, okay I guess I asked for that,” Shinso’s reply was muffled by a face full of mat.
Koizumi-sensei’s grin had turned full-on feral when he looked back up at her.
“Anyone else wanna go?” she offered to the class who all resolutely stayed in place.
When no one stepped forward she clenched her hands into fists cracking all her knuckles at once and turned her attention to him. Oh, sweet Christ…
“May I?” she asked politely.
Shinso laughed at him again from where he’d rejoined his peers to the side of the mat and Izuku shot a glare in his direction.
Izuku was wringing his hands but he nodded regardless. This was fine, just act like Ivy. If you can disarm random street thugs with a gun you can fight this probably very talented martial artist and get a face full of mat like a champ, come on, it’s better than gravel and she looked nicer than Eraser anyway. Or at least far less sadistic… hopefully… maybe… Oh, Kami…
Koizumi-sensei stepped to the place Shinso had just been standing and bowed, Izuku got the memo and bowed back to her and braced for a strike the moment he stood up but she was just studying him while adopting a fighting stance.
She wanted him to make the first move? Nooooo not fair! He didn’t know her fighting style at all and he had nothing to go off of! That was a dirty trick but he took the bait anyway. He threw a punch but she caught him by the wrist and tried to twist it up behind his back but he just twisted with the motion and wrenched his arm free while simultaneously using the momentum to aim a kick to her flank but she dodged out of the way, and so started their dance.
Izuku didn’t know how long they were throwing strikes and dodging around one another but he was starting to relax and this was actually fun. It was nice to fight against someone who you knew wouldn’t hurt you, not that Eraser ever really hurt them but he definitely wasn’t gentle. Was she going easy on him? He wasn’t going easy on her, should he be? No, she was a professional and clearly she could hold her own.
After Kami knows how long she called for a time out which Izuku was very grateful for. Both of them were panting and sweating but she was still smiling ear to ear.
“Jesus, kid,” she forced out between labored breaths, “it’s seven, I need to end class,” she explained.
Oh great, she didn’t time out for her own sake she timed out because they ran out of time. Great, Izuku definitely wasn’t about to keel over or anything, nope.
“Did you guys catch all that?” she asked with a smirk as she faced her class.
The whole class was staring at the two of them with wide eyes and Shinso’s mouth was agape. Kami, he’d forgotten they had an audience, he was so focused. He felt a blush creep back onto his cheeks, hopefully, he was already sweaty enough that it wasn’t noticeable.
“When you said you were going easy on me you weren’t kidding,” Shinso finally piped up.
His blush definitely had to be noticeable now.
Koizumi-sensei laughed at that before dismissing the class but Izuku wasn’t listening too closely because he was still trying to catch his breath. Shinso stayed back so Izuku followed his lead as the rest of the class shrugged on jackets and shoes and filed out.
“You’re a real talent, kid,” Koizumi-sensei finally said after taking a swig from a water bottle and offering one to Izuku which he gratefully took.
“Yeah, Greenie, you were really holding out on me. How did you get that good in less than a year of lessons?” Shinso asked.
Koizumi-sensei looked at him incredulously, “Less than a year of lessons?!” she demanded.
“I-um yeah, I’ve been on an o-off practicing for a f-few years b-but I’ve only h-had a teacher f-for the last y-year,” he stuttered out
“I have got to meet your teacher,” she declared.
“He, um he’s uh… he’s not very um he’s not a people p-person. I d-don’t think that's a g-good idea,”
“So he’s a hard ass? That’ll get you learnin’ quick for sure but damn kid, you’re good,” she relented as she offered her hand out for another shake.
He took it and stuttered out thanks and goodbyes as quickly as he could and waited for Shinso to finish lacing up his hightops before blessedly being able to leave. Once the door shut behind them he took in a dramatically large lung-full of air and huffed it out.
“You good, Greenie?” Shinso asked
“Mmmm,” he hummed in response as he took a few more deep breaths, “N-not a people p-person either,” he admitted.
“You did great Midoriya, that was awesome,” Shinso soothed.
He took a moment to shake out his limbs and take another deep breath before responding, “Yeah, okay, um, t-thanks Shinso. Let's go, it’s getting dark,” he prompted before heading in the direction of Shinso’s house.
Shinso fell into step with him and started talking about the classes and how they’d been going so far, how he was pretty nervous at first too but he really liked Koizumi-sensei and she was actually really nice once you got past the brash exterior. The mindless chatter was soothing and he shook off the nerves quickly.
***
Hitoshi was halfway through a story about how he managed to trip up the star pupil of the class on his second day when Midoriya interrupted him.
“Shinso, do you have cash on you?” Midoriya asked
He had just been joking around with him a few seconds ago but now his tone was unusually tense, it was out of place.
“Yeah, a couple hundred yen, why?” he responded.
“I need you to stay calm, okay?”
Well, he was relatively calm but he very much wasn’t anymore.
“…Why?” he asked with trepidation.
“There’s someone following us, I can handle it. If he asks for your wallet, just give it to him, okay?”
He was not staying calm, not at all. The last time a shady figure ran into him walking in the streets at night his father died right in front of him, he bled out on the concrete and there was nothing he could do. No, he was not staying calm at all. That couldn’t happen again.
“Shinso, I can handle this, do not get involved. We’re just going to keep walking, he might leave us alone but if he catches up to us, I need you to run,” Midoriya stated calmly.
He wasn’t stuttering at all. Hitoshi had noticed it less and less lately but there wasn’t even a hint of it in his voice right now and somehow that was even more off-putting.
“I am not leaving you Midori–” his words were cut off as something pulled the back of his jacket and tossed him to the ground.
Something was dragging him backward and he scrambled around to see Midoriya still on his feet and jumping off the wall of a nearby building dodging an elongated arm trying to grab at him. Shit, that guy must have some sort of stretchy quirk or something, he had him by the collar of his jacket and he was not letting go. Hitoshi tried his best to claw and punch at the skin but his short nails didn’t do much and the hand still held firm. He could feel himself getting road rash on his lower back where his shirt had ridden up as he was dragged toward a nearby alley.
He heard a pained shout from the direction he was being pulled in and the grasp released; he turned around and got to his feet quicker than he ever had in his life. It looked like Midoriya had stomped on the arm dragging him away cause he could see the vague imprint of a dirty shoe on him as Midoriya charged forward.
“SHINSO RUN!” he shouted over his shoulder.
It was like everything was moving in slow motion, Midoriya was getting closer and closer to the man by the second. What if he had a weapon? He probably did, no one goes around trying to mug people without a weapon. All the sudden the only thing he could hear was the horrible slicing sound of his father being skewered, the sight of the blood dripping down that man’s blades clouded his vision, and the metallic smell as he bled out on the sidewalk filled his nostrils… that smell was something that he would never forget as long as he lived. He couldn’t let that happen again.
“HEY DICKHEAD!!!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, fighting through the fog in his mind and praying to gods he didn’t believe in for a response.
“Who the fuck you c–” the man responded and froze.
“Midoriya don’t touch him!” Hitoshi warned and Midoriya immediately stopped in his tracks.
Midoriya was looking back and forth between Hitoshi and the man who had attacked them with his jaw agape.
Goddamnit.
“T-tie your arms up behind your back,” He commanded, his voice shaking.
The man followed his instructions and Hitoshi didn’t look back at Midoriya, he couldn’t bear to. He could feel his hands shake but he focused on maintaining control over the guy that was after them.
After a moment of tense silence, Midoriya spoke up, “Shinso, can I tie his hands up properly?”
That was not what he had expected.
“Gently,” he responded.
He watched Midoriya strip off his belt and bind the man’s hands together, he wove the strip of fabric through his arms in a complex pattern before buckling it. That would certainly be difficult to escape from, both his limbs and the belt were in a tangled mess. The man stayed under his control and Midoriya slowly backed away. He took a moment to study Hitoshi and positioned himself between the man and Hitoshi before pulling out his phone.
“Southeast corner of block 37, attempted mugging, perp has an elasticity quirk. He is currently restrained, send the closest responding officer,” he barked into the phone before hanging up and pocketing it.
He turned his focus back to Hitoshi, “The cops will be here soon, are you alright, Shinso?” he asked calmly.
How was he so calm? They just got attacked, the guy was still there, and he just barked out orders to the operator like he was reporting the weather, and he… he’d just seen Hitoshi do that.
Hitoshi just stared at him owlishly, his hands were still shaking, he could still smell the blood– no, not that, there was no blood, well there might be, his back got pretty scratched up but it wasn’t… it wasn’t–
“Shinso.”
Midoriya’s voice pulled him back to the present, he was standing right in front of him now. When did he get so close?
“Shinso, I’m gonna grab your hands, alright?” he asked calmly as he slowly extended his own hands forward.
He didn’t get too close until Hitoshi nodded.
He held Hitoshi's shaking hands between his own and looked him in the eye before speaking again, “Everything’s alright, okay? Can you hear the sirens? The cops are almost here,” he soothed
How was he so calm? Why was he holding his hands so gently? He still had a vice grip on the other man’s mind, he was standing there like a lifeless doll awaiting another order, why wasn’t Midoriya afraid?
His vision was a blur of red and blue and his ears were ringing, all he knew for sure was that Midoriya hadn’t left, his hands were still holding his own. Half of him wanted to push them away, wanted to run, to hide from what he knew was going to happen but the other half of him was 7 years old again and paralyzed with fear and grief.
He wanted his mom.
“–oshi, Hitoshi.”
Midoriya’s calm voice brought him back to the present again, he blinked away tears and his vision came into focus.
“You can let go now, they’ve got cuffs on him, you can let go.”
He didn’t even realize he was still holding onto someone’s autonomy, the thought made him sick. He dropped his hold like it had burned him.
“–allin’ a dick head you little brat?!”
He heard the man scream before looking around in confusion as he was shoved into the back of the cruiser. He must have looked as scared and disgusted as he felt because Midoriya squeezed his hands to get his attention again.
“It’s okay, Shinso, I already told them what happened, you’re not in trouble and your mom is on the way to pick us up, she’ll be here any minute,” he explained.
As if on cue he heard a car come to a screeching halt on the side of the road next to them and when he turned his head he saw his mom still in her house slippers running towards them. Midoriya let go of his hands and started to back away but he didn’t get far because as soon as his mom reached them she pulled both of them together in a crushing embrace.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. It’s alright, you two are alright, right?” she asked sounding frantic.
“Y-yes, Shinso-san. We’re fine,” Midoriya responded.
She pulled back and put one hand on each of their cheeks and looked back and forth between them like she couldn’t take Midoriya’s word that they were fine, like she needed to check for herself. Once she was satisfied she pulled them both back into a hug.
“Oh, thank Kami,” she let out with a sigh of relief.
“Are you Mrs. Shinso?” one of the officers asked from behind them.
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Alright, you can take your son home. We may be in contact to get a statement from him later,” he responded.
Both his and his mother’s gaze flicked over to Midoriya who was starting to look a little bit on edge.
“I’m also taking care of Midoriya here while his parents are unavailable,” she lied
“Unavailable?” the officer inquired.
“They uh, they are overseas at the m-moment,” Midoriya piped up, “I won’t be able to contact them until like 4 am tonight.”
The officer looked hesitant to accept that but thankfully he had mercy on them and conceded, “Alright, I don’t want to keep us all here until then anyway. You boys should go home. I have your contact information Mrs. Shinso; Midoriya has already given a statement but if we need more information we will reach out.”
His mom quickly shuffled them back to the car but before they left she turned around in her seat to look back at Midoriya, “Did your parents actually leave the country and leave you home alone?” she asked.
Midoriya seemed to have gone back to his usual nervous stuttering.
“Um, y-yeah. My d-dad works in America and my m-mom is visiting him but a family f-friend checks in on m-me most nights so it’s f-fine,” he said as he picked at his nail beds.
It didn’t sound like he was fine with it but Hitoshi couldn’t find the wherewithal to speak much less emotionally comfort his friend right now so he remained silent in the front seat as his mom sighed and turned around before starting the car and heading back towards home.
Notes:
👀
Chapter 55: The Aftermath
Notes:
I am struggling hardcore with these next few chapters. A lot is going on and hopefully I can figure it all out over the weekend and let you guys know if I can post M/W/F next week when I post on Monday.
So, Monday chapter guaranteed but Wednesday and Friday are tbd.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was reeling, he was feeling so many things that he didn’t know what to think and he did his best to stomp all of it down for Shinso-san’s sake. She was worried enough, she shouldn’t have to deal with him as well. The short drive back to the Shinso’s house was painfully silent and Izuku spent the entirety of it in the back seat looking back and forth between the Shinsos. He couldn’t see either of their faces from back here but Shinso hadn’t moved a muscle since he sat down and he could imagine his face still held that blank expression it had since the cops showed up.
He was worried about that. Izuku will admit that his definition of a traumatizing event was probably skewed but barely anything happened and Shinso did not look very, uh, present. He looked like he was lost somewhere else and Izuku knew far too intimately what that felt like. Something like this had happened to Shinso before and he wasn’t seeing things clearly but that wasn’t any of his business so he kept his mouth shut. It wouldn’t help anyone to prod for information anyway.
When they pulled up to the Shinso’s house Shinso-san guided both of them through the door before kicking her dirtied house slippers off and helping Shinso with his laces. She kept glancing over to Izuku and he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what she wanted. She shot another look at him before turning her attention to Shinso.
“Toshi, baby, why don’t you go take a shower, okay?” she said as she gently nudged him toward the stairs.
Shinso looked back to Izuku with a concerned expression, he was worried about him. Izuku offered a reassuring smile and nodded for him to go up the stairs. Shinso-san watched him go and listened closely until she heard the water turn on before she looked back to him.
“Are you alright Midoriya?” she asked.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine. We had it under c-control,” he assured.
He wanted to ask her about Shinso, about what happened, but he held his tongue.
“Do you mind telling me what happened? The officer gave a very brief overview so I don’t really… and Toshi seems…” she trailed off.
“No, I d-don’t mind um, I-I noticed the guy was following us and I t-tried to tell Shinso I could t-take care of it if he g-got too close but he had an elasticity quirk, and he grabbed Shinso and tried t-to grab me from l-like 30 feet away. He h-had Shinso by the j-jacket so I stomped on his arm and he let g-go. I told Shinso to run and I was about to um… take him d-down but Shinso… um, he took control and stopped him himself and then he j-just. He looked like he wasn’t r-really seeing what was happening, he um…” he didn’t want to pry but he was worried, “has something l-like this happened to him before? He l-looked like he was h-having a flashback…” he trailed off.
Shinso-san had a hand pressed over her mouth, she looked like she was halfway to a crisis. But she rubbed her hand over her face and regained her composure.
“Um, yes, it has… Kami, you’re sure you’re alright kid?” she asked again.
“Yeah, I’m f-fine, honest,” he reassured, “I’m just w-worried about him.”
***
Of course, he was just worried about Toshi, he was Midoriya. She was also worried about Toshi, she’d never seen him like this, even when he was a little kid and woke up screaming from nightmares he would just cry and curl up next to her in her bed. She’d never seen this.
And he used his quirk right in front of Midoriya, that probably wasn’t helping him but Midoriya didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the quirk. She knew he wouldn’t but Toshi was always so worried about it and now all of this at once. Kami, that poor kid.
Both of them, her poor babies.
“Midoriya, is that family friend of yours going to be over tonight?” she asked.
“N-no, not tonight, I’ll s-see him tomorrow,” he replied.
“Why don’t you spend the night then, I don’t want you alone. I know you said you’re fine, I just…” she trailed off.
“T-that’s fine, I c-can stay,” he soothed.
Why the hell was he trying to calm her down? This kid was something else.
“Why don’t we order some takeout? I ruined dinner by dropping half of it on the floor after I got that call,” she said trying to lighten the mood.
“T-that’s alright, why d-don’t I help you c-clean it up,” he offered because of course, he did.
She’d noticed that the kid seemed far less tense whenever she let him help with things. So, with a sigh, she let him help and as they were soaking up broth and gathering rice off the kitchen floor she tried to convince him that the katsudon from the restaurant up the road was 10 times better than hers but he wasn’t having it. He kept insisting that that was impossible and she couldn’t help but laugh, he looked so determined about it.
“Well why don’t we get some to settle the debate, Toshi likes their ramen and they deliver super fast since they're so close. I think I just heard Toshi get out of the shower, why don’t you go swap with him? I’ll grab you some clothes in a minute.”
After he awkwardly shuffled out of the kitchen she took a few deep breaths and got to work. She went and grabbed all the futons and blankets around the house as she sandwiched her phone between her ear and shoulder and placed their order. She tossed everything on the living room floor and went to go grab Midoriya some clothes and check in on Toshi.
“Hey Toshi,” she said after lightly knocking on his door.
He was sitting at his desk chair in his PJs still looking a little bit distant.
“I’m gonna grab some PJs for Midoriya and I got you some of that ramen from the place up the road, okay?” she said.
He only nodded in response.
“Why don’t you come downstairs? I’m setting us up for a movie night in the living room,” she added.
He gave another shaky nod, got to his feet, and shuffled past her down the stairs.
Well, at least he was present. A little shaken but present. She’ll take what she could get.
***
He saw.
Midoriya saw everything and he was staying the night.
Why was he still here? Why wasn’t he afraid? He was scared shitless the whole time he was at the dojo but when they were getting attacked? Nothing, he was as calm as could be and now he was staying the night over at the house of someone who could make them feel however they wanted him to and someone else who can use their body as a puppet. They could do anything to him, why was he still here?
He just trusted them? Just like that?
He kept this from him the whole time, nearly two years and he’s just fine with that?
There’s no way he could just be fine with that.
He sat on the couch stewing in his disbelief while his mother arranged a sea of blankets on the floor.
He couldn’t help the tension that settled on his shoulders as he heard Midoriya come down the stairs. He forced himself to look up when he entered the living room but he just shot him a smile and sat down next to him.
He just sat down in the spot he always did, like nothing happened at all.
Hitoshi felt like he was going crazy.
***
The three of them curled up in their own little cocoons on the floor and ate their dinners as they watched movies. Shinso-san didn’t even make it to the end of the first one before she passed out, but that was to be expected of someone who went to bed promptly at 10:30 every night. Shinso stayed up for the next movie but he looked exhausted, his eyelids kept drifting downwards and he looked like he was fighting against them.
By the time the second movie ended he had also fallen asleep so Izuku just turned off the TV for them and finally allowed himself a moment to process things.
He crept out the back door and sat on the swing he’d fixed when he first started coming over here. It was frigid out in the mid-november night but he didn’t want to wake up Shinso-san with whatever was going on in his head.
He was worried, and impressed, and angry, but more than anything he felt useless. He had spent the last two years of his life putting everything he had into playing hero but Shinso did what he was going to do with two words and a thought. And no one even got hurt! He didn’t have to train he didn’t have to fight, he just had a quirk. He just had a quirk and he could do anything Izuku could so much easier and so much better. He thought about how Shinso was so ashamed of his quirk, of how he said it wasn’t suited for heroics and it just made him angry, it was selfish, he’s sure Shinso had his reasons for thinking that but he couldn’t help it.
Shinso had the potential to be something amazing, he was just born with it, it was a part of him. He had inherent worth that Izuku could never even dream of and it made him sick.
It wasn’t fair.
It’s not the first time the thought occurred to him but it still tasted like bile on his tongue. The thought that he could be angry at Shinso right now only made it worse. He was being selfish, Shinso had clearly gone through something awful, he was traumatized but he still saved them, he should be grateful but instead he was just mad.
He tried to put himself in Shinso’s shoes, he could imagine people who knew about his quirk didn’t trust him, he could imagine that people would be afraid of him, but he couldn’t stop thinking that at least he had something . At least he had a mother who still loved him, at least he had a home, at least he had a friend who learned about his big ol’ secret and stuck around anyway!
He was crying now, he felt the hot tears roll down his wind burned cheeks and he just felt so much worse for it. It wasn’t fair, it had never been fair. He needed to accept that, he needed to move on because all this misplaced anger wasn’t fair to Shinso either.
He stayed out there on the swing until he couldn’t feel his limbs anymore, until his anger melted away into grief and he was once again left to mourn the life that he could have had. He stayed there until he could pack up that familiar sorrow in a jar and screw the lid on tight, he stayed there until he could will his weary soul to be thankful for what he had and then he stood up on shaky frozen legs and stumbled back inside.
***
When Hitoshi got up that morning it was to the sound of Midoriya and his mother talking in the kitchen the next room over. The smell of breakfast cooking was delicious and he went to go join them but the before he could even throw the blanket off of himself he remembered why he was down here in the living room, what had happened last night, what Midoriya had seen.
He acted no differently last night, he was a little more quiet but otherwise, nothing. And now he was in the kitchen arguing with his mother about how her katsudon was superior to what they’d ordered last night.
They were laughing.
Midoriya knew about them, he knew what they could do and he was just laughing and trying to bully his mom into letting him help with breakfast. Part of him was waiting for the other shoe to drop but another part of him felt stupid for ever thinking that Midoriya could ever think less of him for what he could do. That part of him made him feel like a real asshole, how could he know Midoriya this whole time and still think there was even a possibility that he would be so cruel? He would never begrudge him for something he couldn’t help, right?
The first part of him both craved reassurance and kept him rooted in place.
Midoriya was still here. He didn’t care about what Hitoshi could do. He wasn’t afraid of him, he wasn’t going to leave.
He chanted that like a mantra in his head as he forced himself to stand. When he walked into the kitchen Midoriya looked up and smiled at him and said good morning like nothing happened at all.
Like nothing happened at all.
Notes:
Thank you for reading!
Please don't kill me! haha...
👀
Chapter 56: Freeze Ray Panic
Notes:
(Author's note: make sure you read the chapter title to the tune of Jukebox Hero, ty)
I have the next two chapters written but I'm not in love with them, I ret-coned like a third of them over the weekend and re-wrote a lot of it so I will upload Wednesday and Friday this week as well but unless I get to work today and tomorrow they might be a little shorter than usual.
idk I'm rambling, there will be uploads W/F
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind.
*****CW******
-Foul language
-Vague descriptions of panic attacks/flashbackslmk if I should add anything here or in the tags
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Weeks passed by and Izuku still had to quash down that niggling anger from time to time. He didn’t ask Shinso about what had happened and Shinso didn’t tell. They just moved on as if nothing happened at all and that was probably for the best. If he asked Shinso about his quirk like he was dying to then Shinso might ask about his; not to mention if Shinso started trash-talking his quirk Izuku might just suplex him through the floor. Yeah, the anger was definitely still there but it was manageable, it sat neatly compartmentalized next to all his other bits of burning rage behind a locked door and it wouldn’t do anyone any good to poke at it.
No, pretending like nothing happened was for the best.
***
Izuku had FINALLY caught wind of an upcoming support gear dealing and it was by pure fucking chance too. He was rifling through the dumpster behind the hardware store trying to find any bits or bobs that might be helpful when he heard someone enter the alley. He didn’t pay it much mind but he definitely did when he started to actually listen to what they were saying.
They were so stupid, he wasn’t even being that quiet. Did they not hear him or did they just assume he was a cat and start yapping about their top-secret criminal activities? This was the hardware store! What the hell would a cat be after in this dumpster anyway? Whatever, thank Kami for idiots.
He had to sit in the dumpster waiting for them to finish smoking or whatever the hell it was they were doing for over 20 minutes before he could creep out. He didn’t catch a look at their faces and he didn’t recognize their voices but this information was too valuable to risk exposing himself for. So he waited patiently and didn’t even peek out until he heard their footsteps recede and five minutes of silence had passed. The two men, he assumed, were long gone by that point but he had already gotten all the information he needed, there was going to be a deal tonight with “the supplier” at 12 on block 24 and Ivy was going to be there.
***
“ERASER,” they yelled as they climbed over the wall.
They watched as he startled enough to drop the bit of food he had between his chopsticks over the edge of the roof and look down with a frown before turning to them with an exasperated expression.
“I’m right here. What the hell are you screaming for?” he asked as he shot them a dirty look.
“Information, I finally have information!” they chirped, ignoring the glare entirely.
He gestured with his empty chopsticks with a raised brow and waited for them to elaborate.
“I overheard some boneheads talking about a deal with “the supplier” that's going on tonight at 12 on block 24!” they whisper-shouted with a feral grin.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Yes, seriously! I was in an alley they didn’t know I was there and they just started talking over a smoke. Either they’re playing some 5D chess level mind games and this is a trap, which I highly doubt, or we’ve actually got a lead!” they exclaimed.
Eraser actually smiled at that, he never smiled! Well not never but only when he was being a sadist and that smile was creepy as hell but this one looked genuine and soft. It was infectious, if Ivy wasn’t already grinning ear to ear they would be now.
“Good work, kid,” he praised before turning back to his dinner.
Ivy literally skipped over to where their dinner was set on the ledge next to him and he shook his head with a good-natured laugh, “Don’t get your hopes up too high, this might not lead us anywhere,” he warned.
“Too late!” Ivy shot back before they took their mask off and dug into their meal.
***
The minutes ticked by as slow as molasses as their patrol went on. They stayed centralized around block 24 but they still had a few hours to kill before the deal was set to go down. Eraser chewed them out for not warning him about this sooner so that he could bring the comms again but it was too late for that now so at 11:30 they split up and started circling the block looking for any sort of suspicious activity.
At 11:56 Ivy saw a man with a briefcase enter an alley so they shot a text off to Eraser and got closer. There were two men waiting for him under the awning of a garage. They got as close as they dared to on the lowest rooftop overlooking the area. The group wouldn’t be able to see Ivy from where they were but their voices echoed up the alley walls, it was perfect. It was the same two men from before, they recognized their voices, they’d seen one of them around town before but they didn’t know his name and they had no clue who the other guy was. They also didn’t recognize the supplier.
Eraser settled down next to them just as the group had finished their pleasantries and got down to business. The supplier propped the case open on his forearm and opened it to face the two men, as he did he looked around suspiciously like he was double-checking that they weren’t being watched. Ivy would have laughed at the irony if the man’s eyes didn’t lock onto them the moment he looked up.
Both of them froze, unsure if the man had actually seen them, it should be impossible. They were barely peeking out between the ledge of the roof and a satellite dish but even so, the man slapped the briefcase shut and pulled the other two guys attention toward them as well.
Shit.
Neither of them hesitated after that, they both lept out from their hiding spots and threw themselves down into the alley. One of the buyers started shooting sparks at them from his hands like they were finger guns but Eraser canceled out his quirk and Ivy made quick work of him. The other buyer was trying to run away but Eraser sent out a loop of his capture scarf to grab him as Ivy went after the dealer.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as the man opened the briefcase again pulled out a gun and pointed it straight at Ivy, well, at both of them since Eraser was directly behind them. Ivy was much closer but not close enough and they didn’t have time to disarm the man before he fired. They shouted for Eraser to dodge because they had no clue what the gun was about to do but they’re not sure how much good that did because, in a split second, their left arm which was stretched toward the wall in an attempt to grab and pull themself out of the way was frozen solid to the brick. They tried to shift their weight to pull it free but their feet were frozen to the ground as well.
The dealer took that moment to book it down the alley away from them. Ivy could only assume that Eraser had gotten caught in the freeze as well and the buyer had either gotten away or been neutralized because they saw Eraser run past them down the alley after the dealer with only one boot on. He wouldn't have left them if the buyer was still a threat, they craned their neck around as much as they could and sure enough, no one was there, damnit. They whipped their head around looking for the first buyer that they had knocked out but they were gone too. When did that happen?
Damnit!
They had to hope that Eraser caught at least one of them because they were well and truly stuck. They pulled out a knife to try and pick away at the ice but it wasn’t doing much and every second that ticked by had them falling further and further into a panic. The exposed ring of skin between their jacket and glove was so cold that it felt like it was burning and, Kami, that was not helping. It felt like a scalding hot hand grasping his wrist and pinning him in place and that was not bringing back pleasant memories.
They were getting frantic and they were liable to start stabbing themself with the way they were trying to chip away the ice. Where the fuck was Eraser? Their breath was becoming shallow as they thrashed around trying to dislodge something, Kami, anything.
They heard uneven footsteps behind them and they whipped around again only to find Eraser shuffling toward them with one boot because the other was still frozen to the ground. Their panic must have been evident because he walked in a large circle until he was in front of them.
“Ivy, Ivy, you need to stop, you’re going to dislocate your shoulder if you keep doing that,” he warned as he slowly approached them with his hands up.
They really tried to calm down but their breath wasn’t cooperating, Eraser stepped forward and firmly placed his hands on their shoulders, forcing their attention back onto him.
“Ivy, it’s okay, I’m going to get you out of there but you need to calm down.”
They stopped moving but their breaths were still not filling their lungs properly, they were shallow and erratic. It was December, this wasn’t going to melt and Eraser was walking away, why was he walking away? They couldn’t find the words to ask and their vision was starting to get spotty.
Their wrist burned.
Suddenly, Eraser was back and stilling their thrashing again. His mouth was moving, he was talking. Shit, he was talking to them. What did he say?
They managed to force out a mumbled “Wha?” so he repeated himself.
“I can break the ice, it’s not going to melt out here, but if I do that it might break your arm too. We can wait for someone to come melt this or we could possibly be making another trip to Recovery Girl,” he explained.
When they looked down they saw that he was holding what looked to be a broken-off piece of railing from a fire escape.
“Y-you have a thing f-for br-breaking my limbs w-with fire escapes, Eraser?” they tried to joke but it came out a stuttered mess.
He snorted anyway.
“Do you want me to break it?” he asked.
“My arm? No n-not really,” they poked.
“The ice, Ivy,” he clarified as he rolled his eyes.
They looked at the ice and the practically nonexistent progress they’d made in chipping away at it then looked at the long rusty piece of metal in Eraser’s hand before nodding.
***
He looked at them, studying their shaking form and uneven breaths before nodding back at them. He sent off a text to Tsukauchi telling him to meet them there because they were going to need to make a report regardless of whether they also needed another ride to Chiyo’s house so if their arm was fine the trip would still be fruitful.
“Alright, okay, this is an awful idea and Chiyo’s gonna kill me,” he muttered under his breath as he stepped back and lined himself up for the swing.
He made a few practice swings to make sure he didn’t just wack Ivy’s arm without breaking any of the ice before asking them for a final confirmation and giving a countdown before swinging the bar over his head and down onto the junction of ice and wall. There was a sickening crack that reminded him far too much of the sound of Ivy’s leg breaking in half but it wasn’t accompanied by a scream this time.
Their arm had been detached from the wall but it was still encased in a large chunk of ice and their feet were still rooted to the ground. Before he could ask if they felt anything break they took their club of an arm and sent it crashing into their left foot. The ice splintered off their arm and the ice holding their foot cracked enough for them to wretch their boot free. They immediately took out their baton and started wailing on their other foot.
Right, okay, looks like they’ve got this under control.
He took the metal bar and went over to break his own shoe out of the ice while Ivy attacked their foot with extreme force and prejudice. He was whacking his boot against the brick wall trying to get the last bits of ice off of it as he saw Tsukauchi pull up to the mouth of the alley.
“Ivy, Tsukauchi’s here,” he called back over his shoulder at the kid who was currently kicking their own feet also trying to break off the last lingering bits of ice, “ I’m assuming your arm is fine?” he asked to make sure, it would have been quite impressive if they did all that beating the shit out of ice with a broken arm but honestly, this kid had done worse, he wouldn’t put it past them.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” they confirmed.
They still seemed a little shaken, their tone was clipped and there was no witty retort but they weren’t freaking out anymore so he’d call that a win for now.
The detective was out of his car and walking to meet them. His sock was wet and he couldn’t feel his toes, he imagined Ivy wasn’t doing much better on that front.
“Get back in the car and turn the heat on,” he barked over to Tsukauchi as he headed toward the car with Ivy in toe.
The detective made a face at him for the demand but listened regardless.
“I’m not getting in his car again, Eraser,” Ivy called from behind him as they hustled to catch up to his much longer stride.
He looked them up and down, they were shivering.
“Alright, well I am, you can freeze your ass off out here,” he said as he opened up the passenger’s seat and closed the door behind him.
He knew they hated being vulnerable in front of him and they just had another panic attack, the last thing they were going to want is being coddled right now and he knew their need for answers would outweigh their continued mild distrust for the detective.
Sure enough, they were knocking on the back door as Shota was turning the vents onto his feet and throwing his boot on the ground.
“Dude, you can’t turn the heat on your rancid wet toes in my car what the hell?” Tsukauchi complained as Ivy got into the back seat.
“I will pour your coffee on your shoes if you turn that off,” Shota threatened.
He clearly saw that that wasn’t an empty threat because he lowered his hand and left the vent on with a look of disgust as Ivy snorted at him from the backseat.
“Am I just here so you can warm your feet and laugh at me?” he asked
“No, we just broke up a support gear deal,” Shota quipped back.
The detective looked excited for a moment before remembering that they were both empty-handed. His expression fell quickly after that and he scrubbed at his face with his hands.
“What happened?” he groaned.
“They had a freeze ray and stuck Ivy to the wall and ground as well as getting one of my feet. I pursued the dealer after I got my foot free but they were gone. The buyers got away in the commotion as well,” he explained curtly.
“Well did you get a good look at them? Buyers or seller?”
“I got a good look at one of the buyers but not the seller, Ivy did you recognize any of them?” he asked turning around in his seat to face them.
“Yeah, at least one of the buyers is a local but I don’t know his name, I can find that out by tomorrow though, maybe his buddy too but I doubt they’re gonna stick around their usual haunts waiting for you to pick them up, they know we saw them,” they grumbled.
“Great, so I really did come up here so you could warm your feet?” Tsukauchi complained, “Did you get a good look at the seller Ivy?”
“Uh, yeah, a little too good,” they replied with a grimace, they were still shivering.
Tsukauchi looked so tired at that response, “How the hell are we supposed to sit you down with a sketch artist?” he groaned into his hands again.
He looked back at Ivy who was fidgeting uncomfortably like they wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if they should or not. He gave them a minute to percolate while the detective rested his head in his hands on the steering wheel.
“Do, uh, do you have a paper and pencil, or a pen I guess but preferably a pencil?” they finally asked.
The detective sat up at that and took a second to think, “Um, yeah I got paper, Eraser open the glove box there should be a notepad in there, might have a pencil tucked into the spiral,” he prompted.
He found the notepad but not the pencil, luckily it had just fallen out and onto the bottom of the glove box. He passed both of them back to the kid through the bars separating the front and back of the vehicle. Ivy took them and scooted up with their back against the door and their legs propped up in front of them and set the book down on their thighs before starting to scribble away on it.
Tsukauchi and him shared a glance but decided not to question it. Shota was enjoying the heat and he was sure Tsukauchi wasn’t in a race to get back to the office and sit in front of a computer screen so he sat back and rested his eyes.
He was roused from his light dozing by the sound of the notepad thunking down onto the center console, Tsukauchi looked like he was responding to an email on his phone so he picked it up and took a look at it. The first page had a pretty detailed drawing of the man, it was well done and it had labels and descriptions pointing to various spots, it listed his approximate height and weight as well as Ivy’s best guess of his hair and eye color. The next page and a half was filled with writing about the encounter and theories about what the man’s quirk could be in the order of how likely Ivy thought they were.
Holy shit. Did he actually fall asleep? He checked the time but, no, it had only been a little over 15 minutes. He must have looked as shocked as he felt because the detective was asking what he was looking at and grabbing the book out of his hands. He watched as Tsukauchi’s eyes went wide at the first page and his look of bewilderment only increased as he read through the rest.
“It’s been 18 minutes Ivy how did you even write all of this legibly in that amount of time?” Tsukauchi asked as he finished reading the last of it.
Ivy looked uncomfortably back and forth between the two of them and shrugged, “I uh, I guess I write fast, I dunno.”
“Kami, okay well if you ever want a job as a sketch artist or profiler you’ve got my number,” he said with a laugh as he flipped through the pages again.
Ivy just looked even more uncomfortable at that, “I tried my best you don’t have to be such an ass about it,” they mumbled as they crossed their arms over their chest and threw the pencil at him through the bars.
The detective seemed too wrapped up in going over the commentary again to hear Ivy’s complaint. He scrunched his nose up when the pencil hit him but he just picked it up and tucked it back into the spiral.
“Kid, I don’t think he was joking, this is really good,” Shota clarified.
The detective finally looked up at that to see Ivy’s furrowed brow and crossed arms in the back seat. He glanced at Shota trying to figure out what he missed before speaking, “No, Ivy I wasn’t kidding this is really helpful, it doesn’t get much better than this unless you managed to snag his ID.”
The kid looked less offended but no less uncomfortable at the clarification.
The detective seemed to have picked up on that though because he gave them an out, “Alright, I should get this back to the station and see what I can do. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Shota frowned at that. His sock was still wet but he figured he couldn’t just stay in the detective’s car all night anyway. His boots were leather so at least the inside wouldn’t be wet but wearing leather boots without a sock was going to give him blisters. Great, that was something to look forward to. Ivy was already out of the car and once he finished adjusting his boot he bid the detective farewell and joined them.
“Are your clothes wet?” he asked.
They had stopped shivering in the car but if their jacket was wet that warmth wouldn’t last long in the biting cold winter winds.
They went to put a hand on their arm to see if it was wet but they were wearing gloves. He just scoffed and shook his head at them and grabbed their arm himself.
“It’s a bit damp, do you have another layer on under that or are you so cold that you can't feel it?”
“I’ve got another layer, I’m fine,” they clarified as they rolled their eyes at him.
With a sigh, he looped his wet sock to his belt. Maybe it would dry out here? No, it was just going to freeze. He resigned himself to his fate and nodded at Ivy to continue their patrol.
Notes:
Skilled little green bean!!! Thank you for reading!!!
Chapter 57: A Little Birdie Has Some Info on Your Case
Notes:
As always, crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It wasn’t for another two days that they heard anything back from the detective. They had just apprehended a couple of guys trying to loot a convenience store, they caught them on their way out and one of the guys took to the wall climbing, and the other jumped up and started floating off. Eraser caught the guy floating off and was currently holding him like a balloon with his capture scarf while Ivy knocked the guy climbing away off the wall. They were getting deja vu, this was just like Eraser and his leash toddler from a couple of months back, right down to the sticky climb-y glove things.
He was sending a message off to the detective with one hand while Ivy tied the other guy up and took his gloves. They heard Eraser groan behind them as they finished their task so they turned a questioning eyebrow toward him.
“Tsukauchi has an update and he wants to meet us here but he’s currently on the other side of town,” he explained.
They mimicked his groan with perfect intonation.
“At least there’s an update. Hopefully it’s not as useless as the last one. What’s his ETA?”
“Half hour,” he replied dryly.
Ivy groaned even louder at that.
“Think the charge on those boots are gonna hold out that long?” Eraser asked casually as he looked up at the guy still trying to struggle free of his capture scarf about 30 feet in the air.
“I sure hope so, we could just tie him to the back of Tsuka’s car like a parade float!” they chirped.
Eraser snorted out a laugh at that as he reluctantly started to pull the guy down.
***
Both of the perps were awake, grounded, and bitching by the time Tsukauchi showed up and they were more than happy to introduce them to the back of the cruiser and shut the door before Tsuka even got out. The detective raised a brow at them but quickly lowered it once he got an earful. He got out of the car and shut the door pretty quickly after that.
“Alright, I’ve got good news and bad news and possibly even more bad news. The good news is we found out who the seller is, Seo Masayuki, and Ivy, your best guess of his quirk is actually what helped us find him, it is heat vision.”
Eraser gave them a congratulatory arm punch at that. It was a little too hard and they definitely could have done without it so they shot him a look while the detective continued.
“He’s already a part of an active investigation in Tokyo for support gear dealings and your witness account finally gave the proof they needed to put a warrant out for his arrest and search his properties, however, the bad news is that by the time we put all the dots together, he’d already cleared out and left town.”
Ivy and Eraser looked at each other and let out a tired sigh.
“Mhm, my thoughts exactly,” the detective agreed.
“Do we have any leads on where he might have gone? Who’s in charge of the case up there?” Eraser asked.
“Yes, this brings me to my second point of potentially bad news–” he started before he was cut off by a gust of wind and a red blur.
All of the sudden there was someone standing in front of them bracing themself with their hands on their knees and panting.
“Hey, I–” he started but quickly realized he had not caught his breath enough to speak so he just waved his hand and put up a finger in the universal ‘gimme a sec’ gesture.
Eraser shot them a look before they both turned to the detective who had his face in his hand.
“Hawks, I presume?” Tsukauchi greeted.
The new arrival just nodded.
“Alright well, this is what I was trying to tell you anyway. The information you gave was enough for me to find the seller’s identity which linked me to another open investigation that Hawks here is manning over in Tokyo,” he summarized.
Eraser glanced uncomfortably between Hawks and Ivy for a second as the former finally caught his breath.
“Hey, I’m Hawks, ‘tective already said that–” he paused to breathe again, “I’m guessing you’re Detective Tsukauchi?” he asked.
Tsukauchi nodded and Hawks turned his attention to Eraser, “And you’re Eraserhead, right?”
Eraser eyed him critically before nodding.
“But you, I don’t know, who are you?” he asked shifting his focus to Ivy.
Both Tsukauchi and Eraser slapped a hand over their mouth before they could respond.
“My mask’s speakers are on the side you fucking dumbasses,” they quipped, only slightly muffled but otherwise still entirely scrutable.
Hawks looked between the three of them. His eyes had a fierce intelligence to them, it was off-putting and they weren’t sure that they could trust it. Before any of them could come up with a cover story Hawks piped up, “Okay, the less I know the better, what should I call you?”
Interesting. That was very… interesting.
“Ivy, you can call me Ivy,” they responded after studying him for a moment, “Did you just fly here from Tokyo?”
Hawks let out a self-conscious laugh at that before replying, “Yeah, I was listening to the police scanners and I heard a call about the case so I got here as quick as I could.”
The three of them exchanged glances with each other again.
“Hawks that's like 200 kilometers from here,” Tsukauchi pointed out.
“Hah, no, it's only like 150 kilometers, ‘s why I was out of breath. Anyways, what’s the deal, give me the low down,” he said clapping and then rubbing his hands together with a smile, his chest still heaving.
“Uh, perps are in the cruiser already, tried to break into the store here. They had some anti-grav boots and climbing gloves, haven't gotten the chance to question them yet,” Tsukauchi replied after staring at him dumbly for a moment.
“Alright, so what's the plan? I go with you to the station or bum around the streets with these guys?” Hawks asked with a practiced nonchalant grin.
Ivy eyed him critically. He seemed to have worked out the situation between the three of them seconds after meeting them and he was giving them an out. He seemed equal parts awkward and unsure as he was confident in his skills and assessments like he was trying to figure out where he stood in the power dynamic, like he was well versed in this dance of acting flustered on purpose so that people would overlook him until he could find out what his standing was; like he was afraid of something but trying his best to not let it show.
Hawks was looking at them the same way they were looking at him and it made them uncomfortable, they wanted him out of their streets. They shot a look at the detective in hopes that would communicate their thoughts on the matter.
“Why don’t you come with me? There’s no guarantee you’ll get any more info on this case out here anyway,” the detective prompted after catching their glare.
Good.
The sound of the car door opening was deafening in the silence of the night and they all shot their heads up to see one of the perps trying and failing to escape with his hands still behind his back. Before any of them could react a small flash of red was pushing him back into the car and locking the door behind it before rolling down the driver’s side window, flying back toward Hawks, and settling itself back into the plumage of his wings.
Ivy’s mind was reeling, they had so many questions, could he control all of his feathers like that? How far can they go? How many can he keep track of at once? How durable were they? How much weight could they carry? What happens if they’re lost or damaged? Could he– Eraser cut off their line of thinking.
“Did you not lock the door?” Eraser asked dryly
The detective blushed at that, “Well I thought I did but obviously not…”
Both of them snorted at him.
“Listen, we were right here it’s not like they could’ve gotten far anyway!” he defended.
Hawks was studying the three of them again and steadfastly keeping his mouth shut. When he caught Ivy’s gaze he let out a huff of air through his nose and smirked. It was performative, he only did it when he realized they were looking. What was he playing at?
Ivy continued glaring at him as they bid their goodbyes, shuffled into the car, and drove away. Something about him didn’t sit well with them and they didn’t have enough information to say what yet. They’d need to look into this guy, they didn’t like having unknown variables in their streets.
“Well that was interesting,” Eraser remarked after they drove away.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it,” they shot back.
“You don’t trust him,” he stated plainly.
“No, no I don’t. Everything about him is fake, all of it is an act but I don’t know to what end.”
“You seem sure of that.”
“Who does he work for? He’s a hero obviously but I’ve never heard of him, have you? What agency is he with?” they asked ignoring his comment entirely.
“No, I’ve not heard of him either, I have no idea but he seems fine with you being here. What’s got you so against him?”
“You can’t tell me you trust him, that was weird, I know you noticed it too,” they accused.
“I’m not saying I didn’t. There was definitely something off with him but I don’t think you’re going to figure it out if you keep being so hostile.”
“Hostile? I wasn’t being hostile,” they argued.
“Ivy you glared daggers into his skull until the car was fully out of sight,” he countered.
Okay, that was fair, they did do that.
“Well, I don’t want him in my streets! I don’t trust him!”
“Sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t want to, kid. I’m not gonna let him take you in but I don’t think he’s even going to try, I know his type. He’s a young hero shooting for the limelight, all he cares about is establishing a name for himself. Bringing in a vigilante no one outside of Uptown has heard of isn’t going to get him there but bringing down a support gear syndicate spanning over two prefectures will. He could be helpful, I wouldn’t write him off so soon,” Eraser explained.
“Quit playing the devil’s advocate, that guy was off!” Ivy shot back
“Yeah, he was a bit weird but maybe he’s just awkward, he’s young, give him a break. Neither of us are very ‘approachable’ and your glaring certainly didn’t help the situation,” he said before walking off and effectively ending the argument.
“Since when are you self-aware enough to realize how ‘unapproachable’ you are?” Ivy sneered under their breath as they followed.
Eraser shot him a look that said he definitely heard that and was not amused before ascending the nearest building to get back up to the rooftops.
Notes:
ope here he is, time for chaos!
thanks for reading
Chapter 58: The Other Shoe Has Dropped
Notes:
30,000 hits??? Girl, what? That's stupid! I can't even conceptualize that amount of people. Thank you all so much!
I got another character analysis in the end notes so check that out!
Also, I uploaded the art I said I was gonna do for chapter 38. It's not a completed piece but I figured I could just update it if I ever decide I'm capable of drawing a proper background so check that out if u feel like it idk.
These next few chapters are killing me, I'll do my best to get them done over the weekend but no promises. Get excited though, we're reaching the end of like act 1 I guess idk how story structure works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As always crits are welcome but keep them constructive and kind!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The next morning saw Izuku stalking to the library with a purpose, he was going to find everything there was to know about Hawks. He gave the Shinsos his usual greetings and got down to business.
Hawks, real name unknown, agency affiliation unknown, 21 years old, it was only his second year on the hero scene and he had already breached the top 100 but there were barely any news articles or clips of him online. How was that possible? It was a ranking of public opinion, how could he be ranked that highly if the public hardly knew anything about him? Something didn’t add up. Too much of his personality was an act, not that Izuku had much room to judge on that front but he still didn’t trust him one bit. There were too many unknowns and too many equations that didn’t add up. Though, again, it’s not like Izuku had much room to judge.
The one thing that he couldn’t shake out of his mind was the fear. The longer he thought about it the more he was sure whatever was driving him to cover up his personality, whatever made him construct this persona was rooted in fear. Izuku was well acquainted with the art of using faux confidence to hide how scared you were, he just had no clue why Hawks was doing the same. He had the perfect quirk, the things he could do with it were endless, it could be long or short-ranged, it could be offensive or defensive, it was perfect. So why was he so afraid?
“Midoriya?”
He was having a crisis staring at his sparse collection of news articles when Shinso called his name. He looked serious, like he needed to talk.
Godfuckingdamnit.
“Y-yeah, Shinso?” he replied trying his best to pull himself together.
“I, um, I wanted to ask you if um–” he cut himself off and scrubbed his face with his hands before continuing, “Why haven't you asked about that night, about me?” he finally blurted out.
Kami, he knew this talk was coming, Shinso had been antsy ever since it happened, he knew he was going to want to talk about it but why now? He already had so much shit going on.
“I just, you seemed uncomfortable and I-I didn’t want to make it w-worse,” he responded.
It wasn’t a lie but it definitely wasn’t the full truth.
“I was, I mean I am but I– you’re just acting like it never happened and I feel like I’m going crazy. I know you saw and you’re not stupid, I know that you know–” he cut himself off.
“Shinso, I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said honestly.
Shinso looked at him like he was lost, like he didn’t really know what he wanted either.
“I don’t know…” he finally conceded, “I just… you’re not mad at me, are you?”
Well… he just had to ask that, didn’t he?
Yes, Izuku was mad but not for the reasons Shinso was probably worried about, he wasn’t mad that he hid this from him, he understood that and he wasn’t mad that he could do what he could do, Shinso had no control over that. No, he was just jealous. Just plain old jealous but Shinso didn’t need to know that, he couldn’t know that.
“No Shinso, I’m n-not mad at you,” he asserted.
Shinso looked at him with his brow furrowed like he couldn’t quite believe him.
“You’re not scared?” he asked so quietly that Izuku barely heard him.
The way he said it broke Izuku’s heart. He knew that people must have mistreated Shinso because of his quirk, he knew they must have either hated or feared him, he knew there were probably very few people who knew what Shinso could do and still trusted him but the way Shinso looked so afraid and unsure of himself really drove that point home.
“No Shinso, I’m not scared of you,” he stated with finality, “I trust you.”
Shinso looked like he was about to cry. He was biting his lip to stop it from shaking and looking down at the floor and Izuku had no idea what he was supposed to do so he just sat there as each awkward second passed by.
“Your quirk is amazing Shinso, you can do s-so much good with it. You could stop a hostage situation with a single word! I can see why people might think it’s scary but m-maybe they’re just not creative enough to see the good you could do, that you will do,” he added when the air got too stiff with silence.
Shinso looked up at that, his eyes were glassy and he looked shocked, he looked like he was studying Izuku’s face to see if he was lying. When he seemed satisfied that he wasn’t his shoulders untensed and his expression softened.
“You know, I wouldn’t– I won’t be mad at you either,” He said.
Oh fucking hell.
“You can– I mean I understand how people get about quirks,” he added.
Izuku felt his stomach drop down to his feet.
“You can tell me...” he finished awkwardly as his gaze met Izuku’s.
Izuku was frozen, his hands were shaking, he knew they were. He had to say something, Shinso was looking at him with concern, he looked like he wanted to say something else, he kept opening and closing his mouth like he was going to speak before deciding against it.
He was supposed to say something now, he had to say something.
“I don’t– I can’t– I-I…”
He had stood up, he doesn’t remember standing up. Shinso looked frightened? Or concerned? He couldn’t tell through his own panic.
“I c-can’t— I should— I-I need to g-go,” he stuttered out before grabbing his bag and booking it out of the library.
***
Jesusfuckingchrist what the fuck was that? Why the fuck did he just do that? Why did Shinso have to ask that? His shuddering limbs took him to an alley not too far from the library before they collapsed under him. He backed against the wall and hugged his knees to his chest and tried to suck air into his lungs with little success. He was curled in on himself hyperventilating in a dirty alleyway and, fucking hell, that wasn’t the best place for him to lose control like this, he didn’t have a good track record of coming out of alleyway panic attacks unscathed. He tried to remind himself that this wasn’t Uptown and it was broad daylight but whenever that fear subsided the memory of what had just happened came creeping back and that wasn’t any more relaxing than being left to bleed out in a pile of rubbish beside a dumpster.
FUCKING HELL he fucked up, he fucked up everything. He could have lied, he could have made up some useless quirk, something, Kami, anything but what he did. There was no cover story for that, he couldn’t lie his way out of that. Shinso probably thought he had some sort of heinous quirk now, he couldn’t justify that reaction with something benign.
He stayed shaking in that alley until his phone’s alarm went off telling him he needed to get to school and he let his limbs guide him on auto-pilot.
***
Hitoshi stood in place dumbstruck after Midoriya darted out of the room. What the fuck was that? He didn’t know what to feel, part of him was angry that Midoriya looked so scared of him but another part understood that fear completely. He was in the same situation as Midoriya, he was scared of his reaction too but he had literally just said with full confidence that he was not afraid of Hitoshi, that he trusted him. Clearly, that was a lie. He looked terrified and didn’t trust him enough to tell him shit.
But Midoriya didn’t owe him an explanation, did he? Was that fair for Hitoshi to ask? It had been two years, it seemed like a fair thing to ask at this point, especially if Midoriya already knew about him. What was he so afraid of if he trusted him? It didn’t make sense, either he didn’t trust him and was afraid of him or he trusted him and wasn’t afraid of him, right?
“Toshi, what just happened?” He heard his mom’s voice ask from the entrance to the computer room.
Hitoshi was still standing in the spot Midoriya had left him.
“Is he okay? Are you okay? I…” she trailed off as he looked at him, studying his face trying to understand the emotions she was feeling.
Against his better and more empathetic judgment, his mind seemed to have settled on anger. It didn’t make sense, Midoriya had to have lied to him, he wouldn’t be that scared if he trusted him. He looked like he was running away from someone revving a bloodied chainsaw at him, like Hitoshi was going to do something awful if he stayed a second longer. Hitoshi knew that apprehension, he understood being scared of how Midoriya would react to him but he was never afraid like that. Hell, Midoriya was less afraid when someone was actually trying to attack them in the street, what did he think Hitoshi was going to do? Why would he think he would do anything at all? Didn’t he know him well enough by now to know that Hitoshi was his friend? That he wouldn’t scorn him for something he couldn’t control?
“Don’t worry about it, we’re fine. He had to leave early today and forgot,” Hitoshi lied.
It was an obvious lie but he didn’t care, he didn’t want to hear his mom tell him that Midoriya was just as scared as he was or that he’d come around or he probably had his reasons, Hitoshi already knew that but she didn’t see the fear in his eyes. He was scared of Hitoshi just like everyone else and he didn’t want to tell her that, he didn’t even want to think about that much less talk about it. So he sat back down at his computer and stuffed his headphones back into his ears and started playing the math lecture he’d barely been listening to and would continue to ignore.
He saw his mom linger in the doorway for a moment but eventually, she left. It didn’t make him feel any better.
***
The rest of Izuku’s day was a blur of panic, fear, and worry. If he could get his mind to stray from how royally he had just messed up everything then it just fell back to Hawks and Uptown. Kami, it was too much, it was all too much. Everything was going to hell in a handbasket and he was just watching his life crumble around himself and he couldn’t do anything but watch.
He couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t save himself from his own mess, he couldn’t save Uptown from that piece of shit supplier that was ruining his streets, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about Hawks.
He couldn’t remember a damn thing anyone said to him all day and when school let out he let tired limbs carry him home.
As he walked into the stairwell and flipped the lights on he watched DJ blink up at him, slowly letting her eyes adjust like she did every day when he got back from school. Numbly he let his backpack fall to the floor and shrugged off his jacket before flipping the space heater on and sliding his back down the wall until he was sat next to her.
“DJ, I finally fucked up everything,” he said with a humorless laugh, “I’m surprised it took this long.”
She slowly blinked at him looking unimpressed.
“I can’t lose them. I can’t, I–”
Tears were starting to form in his eyes
“I told him I trusted him, I do trust him, I just– gah! It can’t be a coincidence, it can’t be! There’s no way I went my whole life never meeting anyone who gave a rat’s ass about me only to stumble into not one, not two, but THREE people who actually give a shit and they’re the only ones who don't know I’m quirkless. I just– there’s no way!”
The tears were spilling down his cheeks in earnest now and DJ had forced herself into the hollow between his arms and legs as he sat resting his elbows on his knees with his face in his hands.
“It’s – there’s just no way. Even if I do tell them, they still don’t know the half of me, they don’t know what I’ve done, they don’t know who I am, no one does! …And it should stay that way. It needs to stay that way.”
No one could love this, at least not anyone who understood. DJ could love him, she did love him but she was a cat. She didn’t understand how broken he was, she didn’t understand that he was fundamentally flawed. His shortcomings were hardwired into the very fabric of his being, into each and every strand of his DNA; he was born wrong and there was nothing he could do about it. No one could love that and he had a decade of evidence to prove it. He was a relic of the past that should have been weeded out, he just slipped through the cracks. He wasn’t supposed to be here, he shouldn’t be here but, oh, it had felt so good to pretend.
“What the hell am I supposed to s-say? What the hell do I do now? There’s no f-fixing this,” he choked out as the tears turned to messy sobs.
DJ went from pushing her head against his stomach to fully invading his lap forcing him to sit back to make room. She had her front paws on his chest and was seemingly trying to physically push the tears back into his eyes by shoving her face into his and he couldn’t help but laugh at that. She was so silly but that didn’t stop the tears from falling, it just piled good onto the bad. Izuku supposed that was better than nothing though.
By the time he composed himself, it was time to leave for patrol. He still hadn’t gotten a text from Shinso. Kami, he really fucked this up but he couldn’t worry about that now, they needed to meet Eraser and figure out if he got any information that they couldn’t on Hawks. They had other people counting on them, they couldn’t sit here and dwell on their own inevitable relationship failures.
Notes:
Izuku Midoriya
Mmmmkay, this analysis isn’t super necessary but I just wanted to outline some of my thoughts behind why I write him the way I do. I think Izuku has both a very high EQ and IQ and as a result, he intellectualizes his emotions, of which there are a lot. I think he is very in tune with other people’s emotions both out of a traumatized necessity and because of how he naturally is as a person. He has had to be in tune with the emotions and mannerisms of everyone around him from the age of four to avoid getting hurt; that along with his high intelligence has combined into the skill of being able to read people very well (hence why he clocked how off Hawks was right away). However, this skill was built around the core idea that everyone is somehow out to get him. He only knows how to read people because it protects him so when people genuinely care about him with no ulterior motive he can logically pick up on that but emotionally it doesn’t make sense. So he rationalizes it by saying 'Oh, they only care about this part of me, this facade I have crafted specifically for them to like.'
The thought of being abandoned again terrifies him more than anything so he will do anything and everything within his power to make sure no one knows the whole of him because, in his mind, it is an indisputable fact that the whole of him is unloveable. He grew up alone with his only constant being the knowledge that he is fundamentally flawed.
He is smart enough to realize that the way he’s treated is wrong but his emotions hold just as much sway in his mind and that side of him has been told time and time again that the way he is is his fault and he deserves to be punished for it. The fact that he was so consistently mistreated by EVERYONE in his life chips away at the logical part of his brain that tells him he doesn’t deserve this and that’s what keeps him from telling Eraserhead or the Shinsos about what he’s going through.
Due to the abuse and disconnect from his primary caregivers he has suffered he has an anxious and avoidant/disorganized attachment style meaning that he doesn’t know how to grow and maintain healthy relationships, he tends to shy away from being overly emotionally intimate, and has a higher likelihood of commitment issues.
TL;DR: There are two wolves inside of you, one of them knows shit is fucked up and is angry about it and the other was kicked a lot as a puppy, and now you have trauma-induced brain damage.
Anyways thanks for reading haha!
Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Chapter 59: Birds of a Feather
Notes:
I'm not uploading M/W/F this week, this chapter is all I have written atm. I'm shooting for M/TH/SAT(?) but idk. I don't know why I'm struggling so much with these chapters, I have them all outlined and everything 😞
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Any info on Hawks?” they asked bluntly as they walked over to Eraserhead.
Eraser had long since gotten used to their non-greetings so he answered without hesitation like they’d already been talking, “Not much, he’s ranked pretty high but I’m sure you found that out yourself. He’s not affiliated with an agency like me, he works freelance with the police which is strange for a limelighter but I assume he’s just trying to avoid falling into the sidekick rut for the rest of his career. It’s an unorthodox approach but it seems to be working for him.”
They responded with a hum and sat down with their food. Eraser seemed convinced that there was nothing off with him but they could see through the cracks in the facade. Hawks was afraid of something, they knew it, they just didn’t know why. Eraser was right about one thing though, none of the information or lack thereof was overly suspicious, nothing pointed toward ill intent and Ivy could think of at least a thousand ways that his quirk could be useful. From simple surveillance to a full-on raid, depending on his limits, Hawks could do it all. Together they could get this supplier out of the equation and his gear out of their streets.
However, if they were going to do that it would require Ivy to give him some trust.
They very much did not want to do that.
***
The kid seemed off tonight. They weren’t usually one to exchange pleasantries but they had been here for at least 15 minutes and they hadn’t said anything even mildly sarcastic or insulting. They just sat down and ate their food. He knew they wouldn’t respond to him without their mask on so there was no use in asking until they finished but they were taking their time. He could hear them pushing their food around and when they finally handed it back it felt just as heavy as when he handed it to them. He’d brought the same thing yesterday so he knew it wasn’t because they didn’t like it, well, maybe he didn’t know that for sure. The kid never complained about anything he gave them.
“You wanna take this home?”
“Um yeah, maybe. I dunno, guess I just wasn’t that hungry, sorry,” they mumbled as they stared out over the city.
“You alright, kid?” he asked.
They breathed in and let out a heavy sigh before answering, “Yeah, I’m fine. We need to get in contact with Hawks. You were right, nothing points toward ill intent and if he’s going to be snooping around here I'd rather he do it when we’re here to keep an eye on him.”
They were deflecting the question, they seemed tense. There was an irregular tightness to their shoulders and their stance was too stiff, something was off but he couldn’t imagine anything good would come from pushing the question.
“Alright, so you want to invite him over for a patrol? Three people is a bit much, don’t you think?” he asked. He’d only ever patrolled with a partner or solo, trying to coordinate with a third person sounded like too many cooks in the kitchen.
“Well, you’re free to leave but I still don’t trust him so I’m not letting him fly around my streets without my supervision,” they shot back.
He just rolled his eyes.
“Alright, tell Tsukauchi, I’m sure he can pass the message along.”
They let out a defeated sigh even though it was their suggestion and started typing away on their phone.
“I told him to tell him to meet us on the roof of the apartment building on block 28 in an hour.”
“He’s not allowed to warm up with us?” Shota teased as he got up to stretch.
Ivy just shot him a look and started running through their own stretching routine.
***
45 minutes later they were stood together on the rooftop on block 28 waiting with their eyes trained up at the night sky. It didn’t take long until they heard the telltale woosh of large wings displacing the air around them.
“Hey guys!” Hawks greeted cheerfully as he touched down on the rooftop.
“Evening,” Eraser greeted back.
Ivy simply nodded.
“So what’s the plan? Where we headed?”
“We’ve got a set patrol route we’re following tonight so just follow our lead and stay in sight, but first, may I see a feather?” Ivy requested.
“What?”
They held out their hand expectantly, “You can control them, right?”
“Uh yeah, I can,” he replied as a small feather hesitantly shot out from his plumage and over to Ivy.
When it reached them they put their hand up signaling for Hawks to stop and leave it hovering in front of them. Then they looked to Eraser and gave the signal they used for him to activate his quirk on someone. He gave a disappointed look and rolled his eyes but acquiesced and the feather started drifting downward into Ivy’s hand.
Hawks looked startled at that but he didn’t make a move to say or do anything about it.
“Can you move them?” Ivy asked.
“No, clearly not,” he said frowning.
“Your wings, Hawks,” Ivy clarified.
“Oh, OH… no, I can’t,” he replied with a grimace.
Eraser dropped his quirk and immediately the feather in their hand darted back to Hawks who was shaking out his wings like a limb that had fallen asleep and doing his best to repress a shudder.
“So your quirk is primarily a specialized form of telekinesis with a secondary mutation, interesting,” Ivy surmised aloud as they pulled out a pocket-sized notepad and started writing.
They could feel eyes on them but they paid them no mind.
“Why exactly are you taking notes on me?” Hawks asked cautiously
“Trust me, it’s more for your benefit than it is for mine, prove yourself trustworthy and you can have them,” they chirped as they glanced up with a self-satisfied grin.
“We constructing new hazing rituals now?” Eraser quipped.
“Sure, you want me to rip you a new one too?” Ivy shot back without missing a beat.
“Like you ever miss an opportunity to insult me anyway.”
“Mmm, ‘s my love language,” They mumbled as they continued to scribble furiously on the tiny notepad.
“How touching,” He replied dryly.
“Fire. Stay away from fire,” they said looking up at Hawks as they concluded their first notes, “Alright, let's go,” they said moving on without elaboration on the ominous tip.
“Um, noted,” Hawks remarked with a slightly furrowed brow.
Without waiting for confirmation from anyone they ran to the ledge and jumped off landing in a roll on the building next to it. They heard Hawks let out a surprised noise as Eraser touched down next to them.
***
This guy was freaking Keigo out, they’d been hostile since he first showed up on the scene which he will admit, he did not do with much grace but still, give a guy a chance, right? He was quite surprised to hear from the detective that Ivy had requested his presence, he was half convinced that the vigilante (?) would kill him on sight if he stepped foot in their streets again but here he was on a personal invite and they were taking notes on him which was… interesting.
Eraserhead was here too thankfully, he wasn’t much less off-putting but at least he didn’t look like he wanted to stab him, plus he was a hero, which gave a little more reassurance that he was a law-abiding citizen who wouldn’t take him out like a rabid territorial animal. Okay maybe that was dramatic but Ivy gave him the heeby jeebys, they looked at him like they were looking into his very soul and they didn’t like what they saw.
The two of them fell into their practiced banter and it put him more at ease, he wished he had someone like that. The two seemed so familiar with one another and that only became more apparent as the night went on, they moved together with a synchronicity that they had clearly been building up for ages. They ran around as a perfect unit throwing signals back and forth to one another that meant nothing to Keigo. They clearly didn’t need him here but he helped where he could.
Neither of them handled things to standard protocol and he found himself very grateful for it. He knew what it was like to have nothing to your name and they clearly had empathy for that. They were good people. Eraserhead was handing out nutrient packets to hungry beggars and Ivy was pointing lost or inebriated wanderers in the right direction and they both paused toward the end of their patrol to walk the ladies of the night home safely.
They didn’t find any more information on the support gear case but Keigo wasn’t even upset about it. He had a nice night and he hoped that he would be invited back again; those two yapping at each other had him holding back laughter all night and there were a lot of people who needed help around here so he wanted to stay as long as he could have a viable excuse to give to The Commission.
***
Hawks stayed in his lane the whole night. He observed more than anything but helped when he could and he didn’t comment or try to stop them running this place the way they did. By the end of the night, his smile seemed actually genuine.
“Alright Hawks, what do you think about this case then? We’ve seen your casework but I want to hear it from you,” Ivy asked as they were wrapping up patrol.
Oh sure, yeah. I caught wind of the case when he was selling to people in Tokyo, it was a small operation at the time but he always used third-party sellers. Me and all the other heroes in Tokyo were keeping a pretty good eye on it so things didn’t spread too far. I think that’s probably what drove him down here… so uh sorry for that I guess,” he laughed awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his neck, “I knew he was still in business, that he was exporting somewhere else but we didn’t have enough evidence to search him or his properties, well, until you two saw him that night. I assume he’s laying low at a temporary location until he can rebuild a new base of operations…”
Oh fuck. Oh goddamnit, that made sense. They were so caught up on Hawks poking around their city that they didn't even stop to think about where the supplier ran off to. If Uptown is his main buyer it would make sense for him to retreat here among allies and there certainly wasn’t a lack of places to set up shop for a while. The warehouses were like hermit crab shells for criminal operations, vacant and unsupervised with a plethora of shapes and sizes to suit anyone’s needs. One would think they’d learn their lesson and keep a closer eye on where they actually lived but there was just so much going on and–
“IVY!” Eraser shouted as he snapped his fingers in front of their face.
They immediately slapped his hand away and shot him a glare.
“Don’t look at me like that you’re the one staring off into the distance and muttering in tongues or some shit. What’s going on?” he snipped back at them.
“Nothing, I need to look into something, it might be nothing,” they dismissed.
Hawks was glancing back and forth between them again but he didn’t look as uncomfortable as he had at the beginning of the night. Maybe he was getting used to their bullshit.
***
“Anyway, it’s too bad we didn’t get any more info on the case but I’d be happy to tag along with you guys again. I have a feeling that things are gonna start up again soon. You two threw a wrench in their plans and they’re probably still scrambling to get things back to the way they were but that won’t last forever,” he warned.
“Yeah, you’re right. Meet us same time same place tomorrow, and Hawks, this is for you,” they declared as they passed him the notepad they’d been scribbling on all night.
Several of the small pages were filled with neat kanji. As he flipped through the pages he was shocked. He had answered a few miscellaneous questions that Ivy asked him throughout the night but this was simultaneously the most concise and in-depth analysis of his quirk that he’d ever gotten and the commission had given him several.
Hawks
Name: Unknown
Age: 21
Agency: N/A
Quirk: Fierce Wings
Fierce Wings is a telekinetic quirk that allows its wielder to control each feather of their wings (a secondary mutation of the quirk). The user can individually control feathers simultaneously to a large and unknown range. User can control each feather down to a molecular level, he is capable of hardening them by not allowing the particles to be moved meaning that the feather no longer has its usual flexibility and give while still retaining its mass and density.
- Potential for user to use feathers as knives/swords
- Very accurate projectile weapon
The user can feel feathers even when disconnected from their body meaning they can sense vibrations of speech as well as air disturbances caused by movement.
- Ideal for surveillance
Feathers are capable of lifting many times their weight and even more than the user themself could lift on their own, limits are unknown but presently the heaviest weight attempted is about half a ton per feather, other feathers do not suffer if one is carrying more.
- Rescue potential; can evacuate civilians extremely fast.
Lost or damaged feathers regrow in a few days depending on their size and the amount of feathers lost therefore taking out his feathers will make him an easy target. Fire is his biggest weakness as it would be able to destroy many feathers very quickly.
- Try coating feathers in something flame-retardant? (testing required)
Current costume is an aviator jacket, cargo pants, goggles (when in flight), and a black shirt. Casual and approachable, good for public relations but it’s too unremarkable to be iconic, it doesn’t look like a hero’s suit. Add embellishments/logo to shirt (gold?) and replace goggles with a visor (completely see-through so eyes are still visible; more approachable).
He never thought about using his feathers as knives or swords, that could be really useful if he started to run low on usable feathers or just for close-quarters fighting in general, and how had no one ever thought of a flame retardant coating? That seemed so obvious! Fire was always his biggest weakness there had to be something that could help that, right? And he had never even thought about how he could make his feathers harden like that, he never thought to question it but that made sense, he had to put more focus into the control of his feathers when they were hardened.
Most of it was stuff he already knew but he was amazed that Ivy had sussed it out so accurately and even pointed out things he had never thought of after just one night of watching him and a few questions here and there. It was also a bit off-putting to know that they knew that they could just bust out a flame thrower and end his whole career… especially with how much they had seemed to not want him here before.
He was speechless, he looked back up to Ivy like a gaping fish.
“That’s a bit surface level, I have more critiques on your public image but that seemed a little too rude to tell someone you hardly know,” they added when he looked up at them.
“…Uh what?” he spat out dumbly.
Eraserhead was looking at him with a raised brow and he reached out his hand in a silent request to see what they were talking about. In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have given a notebook telling anyone how to take him down over so easily but it’s not like Ivy couldn’t just tell him anyway nor did he think Eraserhead would use it against him so he figured it would probably be fine.
“Your public image, how you present yourself, your persona and how it all ties together with your skills and rank. You’re looking to climb the ranks, aren't you? It just seemed a little too personal to critique that but I can if you want me to,” Ivy elaborated.
This guy was very odd. They didn’t want to be rude? They looked ready to slit his throat during their first meeting and they weren’t much better at the beginning of the night; they didn’t seem to give a damn about what Hawks thought of them as long as he was threatened by them but now they didn’t want to be rude? And they just gave him 2 new tips they would have never thought of and explained how he did things he had already been doing and for what? Just because?
“Uh, sure, I don’t mind, you gave me some pretty good tips already, I can swallow my pride if you’ve got more to share,” he said confidently but in reality, he was a bit scared of what they were going to say, he really just offered himself up on the metaphorical chopping block.
Ivy looked hesitant for the first time since he’d met them but they continued anyway.
“Your skills aren’t enough to get you up in the ranks, they’re a good jumping-off point but getting into the top 50 is all about marketing. You need to act more confident, waiting around to see who’s in charge isn’t going to get you far in the ranks, if you want to be number one you’ve got to act like you’re number one. A little bit of cockiness will get you far but if you go overboard you’ll just look like an asshole so be mindful of that. Acting like a narcissist won't get you anywhere but confidence is sexy and sex sells. Lean into that, you’re young and conventionally attractive. Get an agent to get you in contact with modeling or brand deals, the more people see you the more people recognize you the more they trust you, and the higher your rank goes. The casual look is a good approach but you need to be suave enough to not just look like a bum, that’s why Eraser here isn’t even on the board,” they poked.
Eraserhead looked back up from the notes and pulled a face at them, “You’re like two-thirds my age, I don’t need your commentary on my sex appeal or lack thereof,” he quipped as he handed the notebook back to Kiego.
He couldn’t force back a laugh this time, their banter was so endearing, he wanted to be a part of it and Ivy was right, he could use a little more confidence.
“Oh c’mon I wouldn’t be so critical,” he said as he shot a suggestive wink over to Eraserhead.
Ivy immediately burst out laughing and made fake puking noises as Eraserhead mumbled something along the lines of ‘Oh, Kami, I can’t handle two of you’ under his breath. Kiego let out a full-bellied laugh at that and, Kami, did that feel good.
Eraserhead seemed to have had enough of them because he rolled his eyes and swung away without any sort of goodbye while they both laughed at his expense. When they got their cackling under control Ivy gave them a mock salute and similarly threw themself over the ledge of the roof they were perched on without a proper goodbye leaving Kiego to wonder what the hell just happened.
***
Izuku’s opinion of Hawks had changed very quickly. He acted like someone who didn’t think they belonged there and, Kami, did Izuku know what that felt like. He was kind to everyone he talked to, he handed out two protein bars to people rifling through dumpsters, and he was actually pretty funny. He couldn’t help but wonder why Hawks was still so scared, why he held back so much of himself, he had the perfect quirk, he was nice and funny but Izuku figured he didn’t know anything about his personal life. Maybe he’d just been through the wringer.
As the laughter and camaraderie of the night faded Izuku’s mind drifted back to Shinso. It seemed like such a childish thing to worry about in the wake of his work in Uptown but he couldn’t help it. He wandered around random streets for a while just in case Hawks was tailing him, he didn’t think he would, he had no reason to but he'd figured he’d be better safe than sorry.
When he finally got back to his stairwell DJ was curled up on his pillow waiting for him. Little shit, getting her dirty paws all over his pillow. It was a good thing she was too cute for him to be mad at her so he just shooed her away and smiled as she grumpily stalked over to her favorite blanket and curled back up.
He checked his phone but Shinso still hadn’t texted him. He wasn’t surprised by that. He scrubbed away his eyeshadow as sadness rested its familiar weight back onto his bones like he was shrugging on an old heavy winter coat, one that was worn and coming apart at the seams but still fit him perfectly.
It always seemed to fit him perfectly no matter how much time had passed.
Notes:
thanks for reading!
fyi if I end up uploading on Saturday it won't be in the morning bc fuck that, I'm not getting up at 9am on a weekend plus I'd prolly be using the day to write so expect that upload at the end of the day or maybe even Sunday idfk.
Chapter 60: Oh no, There's Two of Them.
Notes:
I will upload tomorrow as well. I'm almost done with the next chapter! (woot woot)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi was really trying to chill out about what happened with Midoriya but he just kept getting angrier and angrier. When he didn’t show up to the library on Wednesday that anger festered into white-hot fury and nestled itself neatly in his gut. He was avoiding him, he was really avoiding him. He hadn’t reached out to schedule their weekly dinner so Hitoshi did the same in return and now he wasn’t even coming into the library at all. Hitoshi was so angry and he was angry with himself for his anger, he knew Midoriya was scared, he understood that fear but he was scared of him , he was scared of Hitoshi and Kami, and that hurt more than he thought it would.
His mom kept trying to ask about what had happened but he kept brushing her off because he didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Maybe he just wanted to be angry, he had given up on trying to understand how he felt about the situation at this point. If Midoriya didn’t care enough to talk to him then it wasn’t worth Hitoshi’s time to sort through the mess of feelings he had about it.
***
Izuku was going to lose his mind, he was sure of it. Hawks had been tagging along on patrols for the past few nights, he was such a big help and he was a riot too. Eraserhead was always so fed up with the two of them by the end of each night, it was actually fun. Plus they caught like 3 times more people each night because Hawks had his “eyes” on everything. Honestly, it was kind of exhausting, the normal downtime they had between arrests was becoming shorter and shorter which was probably for the best because it saved him from laying awake once he got back to the stairwell thinking about how royally he had fucked up with Shinso.
He still hadn’t texted but neither had Izuku and he was too much of a coward to go into the library. He was avoiding him and Shinso was doing the same in return and he couldn’t even blame him. The more he thought about it from Shinso’s perspective the more he felt like an absolute prick. He told him that he wasn’t scared of him, that he trusted him and he meant it… in a way. He wasn’t scared of Shinso for the reasons he was worried about, he was just scared of losing him and he did trust Shinso, he trusted him more than pretty much anyone but that didn’t really mean much at the end of the day. So, from Shinso’s perspective, he lied straight to his face about trusting him and not being afraid of him then he ran away like a dog with its tail between its legs and has been avoiding him ever since. Kami, he never should have tried to make a friend to begin with, he was clearly shit at it. What was he thinking?
***
Friday night came around and it was their scheduled break night. Usually he would be having dinner at the Shinso’s tonight but… well… not this week. This week, against Eraser’s prior requests, he was suiting up and sweeping the warehouse district. They told themselves that they wouldn’t interfere with anything unless someone’s life was on the line but that didn’t make them feel much less guilty about betraying Eraser’s trust, but well, apparently that was his specialty.
They could have done this search on patrol with Hawks and Eraser but Ivy didn’t want Hawks anywhere near their stairwell. If they gave him free rein to search the area there’s no way that he wouldn’t find it and while he wouldn’t necessarily know that it was Ivy’s stairwell that was still a little too close to home for them to be willing to risk it. No, they definitely couldn’t risk that.
So here they were on a Friday night going out alone. It had been such a long time since they did this, it felt strange and off-putting to walk around knowing that no one had their back. They didn’t like it but they pushed on regardless. This had to be done.
They conducted a very thorough sweep of the area directly surrounding their warehouse, they went inside each and every dilapidated building and searched for any signs of life. Thankfully, there was nothing. Most of the buildings around his weren’t in much better shape, it must be the oldest part of the district. Moving out further there were a few people camped in the less decrepit buildings, while the windows were still almost all broken they still provided much more reliable shelter than something that looked liable to fall over at a moment’s notice. They did their best not to disturb anyone and moved along.
With Eraserhead not there to tell them to go home and get some sleep they stayed out until the sun started to peek its way over the horizon. They had thoroughly searched a full quadrant of the warehouse district and they were certain that there was nothing of note to be found there except for a tiny little marijuana farm being cultivated on the roof 4 blocks down from their place but they didn’t really care about that.
When they finally got back to their stairwell DJ gave a disgruntled merrow and glared at him for being late.
“Sorry DJ, I got work ta do,” he mumbled out in explanation.
Before he collapsed into his nest he pulled out the map of the warehouse district he had drawn up the last time he had to sweep the place and traced over it twice. On one sheet he highlighted a large area furthest away from his stairwell for Hawks and on the other sheet he highlighted a smaller area still as far away from his warehouse as possible for Eraser, leaving him with a small perimeter to search around the area he had already combed through closest to home. He felt bad giving the two of them so much more ground to cover since he’d already been through most of his area but if he made his area of search any bigger then Eraser would get suspicious and he did not want to try and explain why that area didn’t need to be searched so thoroughly.
In all reality, he was going to be sticking near to his stairwell to make sure no one got too close.
Plan planned, he texted Eraser before he passed out.
Ivy:
We’re splitting up to search tonight, bring comms.
***
Izuku didn’t wake up until 2 pm that afternoon and he only woke up then because DJ, in her 20-some-pound glory decided that loafing ass end to Izuku’s face right on his chest would be a very comfortable place to sleep. He was slowly drawn back to consciousness by the fact that he was definitely not getting an appropriate amount of oxygen in his lungs and there was something very fuzzy and tickly invading his nostrils with each flick of DJ’s tail.
He earned another disgruntled merrow from her as he spittled and spat cat fur still connected to her tail out of his mouth and pushed her off of him.
“DJ, what the hell? Are you trying to kill me?” he complained as he rolled over and took a deep breath or two, “Don’t look at me like that! You’re heavier than a goddamn bowling ball you can’t just lay directly on my diaphragm while smothering me with your tail and expect me to be chill with it!” he complained groggily when he turned on the lights to see her glaring at him.
She was not impressed by his excuses for disturbing her sleep if the way she stalked to the far end of the stairwell and laid back down all the while giving him the stink eye was any indication.
“You’re such a drama queen,” he shot back as he rolled his eyes at her.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and groaned when his hands came back black. He didn’t wash it off last night but he was going to go out again tonight and he didn’t have anywhere to be so he figured he’d just leave it and reapply before he left. Pulling out his phones he still had no messages from Shinso but there was one from Eraser, just a simple ‘ok’ to confirm he would bring what they asked for.
He had 8 hours to kill. His homework wouldn’t take nearly that long plus then he would really have nothing to do tomorrow. Usually, he’d hang out with Shinso… Kami, this sucked so much but what the hell was he supposed to do? How was he gonna talk himself out of this one? Maybe he should just go back to the library on Monday like nothing happened, maybe Shinso would play along.
That didn’t seem likely.
“DJ why does my life have to be such a goddamn mess literally all the time?” He asked as he laid on his back staring up at the ceiling.
She didn’t have an answer for him.
He spent a few hours trying to figure out why the jigsaw still smelt like electrical burning every time he turned it on but after he flipped the breaks on the generator for the third time he decided it wasn’t worth it, it would work until it caught fire or exploded and that was a problem for later him.
At some point during the flickering lights show, DJ forgave him for waking her highness up and curled up next to him as he worked on his homework. He ended up finishing it even though he wanted to save something to occupy his time tomorrow but that was a problem for later him as well.
After getting bored of dozing with DJ he decided he might as well practice with his throwing knives. He was getting very good at it, the palette board target he had constructed was a good halfway through the process of being turned into woodchips and he had to add a new board in the center because his aim was getting so good that he had chipped away the bull's eye completely. He had started practicing his throws while moving and jumping around for the past few months and his aim was still pretty damn good. He’d stopped practicing with Eraser there because it was just a waste of his time, Izuku hadn’t needed corrections on his form for ages so he practiced on his own time. He should probably check back in with him and see if he was ‘approved’ to start taking them on patrols because the way Hawks used his feathers gave him plenty of ideas on how to use his knives. They weren’t nearly as versatile but they would still be extremely helpful.
After a very long 8 hours of ignoring his own thoughts to the best of his ability, he headed out shooting a goodbye to DJ before he left.
***
“Why we calling a search party now? Did you get a lead?” Eraser asked Immediately as they crested the ledge onto the roof.
Of course, he had to ask.
“No lead, just had a feeling they might have set up shop in the warehouse district like the meth lab last June. There’s too much real estate and not enough supervision or even random traffic to deter people from setting up shop there, if I needed somewhere to crash in a hurry that would be the place,” he explained leaving out the fact that they did, in fact, need a place to crash in a hurry and that was, in fact, the place.
“Mmm, probably a good bet, we can cover a lot of ground with Hawks too,” Eraser thankfully agreed without question.
“Exactly my point,” they said trying not to sound too relieved as they handed him his map, “This is the ground I want you to cover, I’ll be getting the quadrant south of you and I figured Hawks could cover the other half by himself.”
“We could probably just ask Hawks to do the whole thing and go home,” he joked as he looked over his assignment.
“Yeah, probably, but I figured if he found something it would be better if we were all here.”
“Mmph,” was the only answer Eraser had for that as he stuffed his mouth full of onigiri.
***
Hawks touched down at their secondary meeting location on block 28 (they may trust him a bit more now but they didn’t trust him that much) exactly when he asked him to show up like he always did. It was practically teleporting with how fast he could fly.
“This is for you Hawks,” Ivy announced as they handed him his map, “We’re sweeping the warehouse district for any signs of either a temporary or permanent base of operations, Eraser has the Northeast quadrant and I have the Southeast, I figured you could cover that much ground on your own, right? If not we can redraw our bounds.”
“No, no, this’ll be fine I’m not as slow as you two,” he poked with a smirk.
“Whatever, hot shot,” Eraser shot back with an eye roll.
“Alright, we good to go?” Hawks asked already bracing for take off.
“Wait! We need to make sure the comms are connected first, bird brain!” Ivy interrupted before he could leave.
“Real original, Ivy, I’ve never heard that one before,” Hawks said with mock congratulations.
Ivy mimed going to grab something out of their pocket and pulled their hand out with their middle finger up at him in retaliation. The comm Eraser brought for them was already connected to his but he had to fiddle with Hawks’ for a few seconds to make sure he was on the right frequency before they left. After checking that everything was functional they all headed to their respective search areas, which for Ivy meant that they were going to check on the outskirts of their quadrant for maybe a half hour and then spend however long it took for the other two to either finish or find something bumming around their own block. Maybe they could dumpster jumpscare DJ as revenge, that could be fun.
***
They covered their small section of ground left unchecked in just over a half hour and there was nothing to be found beyond rats and decades-long abandoned buildings. He did his best to dumpster jumpscare DJ but she saw them coming from a mile away, nothing got past her watchful eye plus she could probably smell that it was him so she didn’t even try to scare him away.
“You’re no fun, how come you get to scare the shit out of me constantly but I couldn’t spook you if my life depended on it?” he asked as he scratched her between the ears.
“What the hell are you talking about Ivy?” Eraser’s voice came over the comm.
Oh shit, they forgot that was on.
“Oh, uh… wasn’t talking to you, forgot this was on,” they explained awkwardly, their face beet red.
“Who are you talking to? Did you leave us to search while you bum around having social visits?” Hawks chimed in.
Yeah, that’s kind of exactly what they did…
“No! I didn’t I was just… I just uh…” they were floundering, “…I was talking to a cat,” they admitted with a sigh.
They heard Hawks snort at them and they could have sworn they heard Eraser mumble something about not having seen any cats, he sounded rather disappointed.
“So cats are your true weakness? Nothing can shake the unshakeable Ivy but cats,” Hawks declared dramatically.
“Oh piss off she’s a sneaky little shit, I don’t wanna hear it,” they spat back with no heat.
“Would you two shut up, this is meant to be a stealth operation,” Eraser cut in.
“It isn’t hard to be stealthy when there’s no one here,” Hawks countered.
Ivy was surprised they couldn’t hear him roll his eyes through the comm but they fell into silence for a while after that until Hawks piped up with no warning or explanation about 45 minutes later.
“Block 16, I found them and they're mobilizing, I’m going in.”
Notes:
It's reckless idiot night again!
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 61: ~Reckless Idiot Night~
Notes:
Cinched it for the Friday upload, let's go gamers.
CW
-blood
-vague descriptions or injury
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“HAWKS NO! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!” Ivy demanded, scrambling up from their sprawled-out position on the roof watching DJ hunt for rats in the alley below.
“There’s a meeting of some kind, there’s tons of people and they’re wrapping it up. This is dumb luck, we’re not gonna get a chance like this again and I’ve already got the place surrounded,” he explained.
“Hawks, DO NOT go in, we’re both en route, I’ll be there in under 6 minutes. Ivy?” Eraser piped up over the comms
“5 minutes,” they responded as their feet pounded across the concrete.
“I’m not leaving my post, they’re gonna notice when their buddies walk out and start getting snatched up by feathers,” Hawks warned.
“Hawks you have no idea what kind of gear they could have in there, we both know one flame thrower and you’re DOA. It’s not worth it, we found their base, if a few people get away it won’t be the end of the world,” Ivy asserted, their breaths coming up short already from how fast they were booking it.
“Jesus Christ you know it’s bad when Ivy’s telling you not to be reckless,” they heard Eraser mumble under his breath.
“I heard that, jackass!”
“You were meant to,” he deadpanned.
“Piss off. When we get there Eraser and I will focus on infiltration, and Hawks I need you to keep your post, catch any runaways, and maintain the perimeter. Do not leave your post unless we need backup and do not engage directly. We need you as backup, no one else can get here in time so if you go down and we need someone we’re shit out of luck, do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. Focus on getting here not yapping,” Hawks complained.
“Eraser, alert Tsuka if you haven't already and Hawks, I got a big ask for you,” They said ignoring his jab entirely.
“What?”
“If I’m not gone when the cops get there I’m gonna need a ride,” they explained with a cringe.
“I didn’t hear you say that and I am not saying yes,” he responded curtly with a subtle knowing edge to his tone.
“Brilliant, I’ve got eyes on the building, coming in from the South.”
***
These stupid idiot kids were going to be the death of him. They shouldn’t give hero licenses out so young. Granted, that was hypocritical because he was a licensed reckless 19-year-old once too but that just meant that he had the first-hand experience to know what a bad idea that was and the longer he taught the more that idea cemented itself. He wondered if Ivy started younger than he did and why the hell the (probably) youngest of them all was the voice of reason that Hawks listened to. Those two got along like a house on fire after Ivy got over their initial violent disdain for him, they went from mortal enemies to thick as thieves in under 24 hours and Shota just decided not to question it.
“I’m primed to enter from a window on the south-facing wall, building is almost completely open floor inside. Eraser report to the mirrored window on the North side. I’ve got eyes on at least 18 people in the main room though more may be in a store room where I assume most gear is being held in the Northwest corner of the building. Hawks, once Eraser is in position send in some feathers as a distraction while we take down as many as we can. I will focus on the main room, Eraser you stand guard and take down people by the storeroom to make sure no one can arm themselves any more than they already are,” Ivy instructed.
“Got it.”
“Roger.”
Hawks and him replied in unison.
Well, as young as they may or may not be they knew how to lead and strategize. Their plan was as sound as it could be given the circumstances and their command left no room for argument. They really needed to get a license, that kid could go far in underground heroics at the very least.
“Tsukauchi’s ETA is 13 minutes, his backup will be less than a minute behind, I see the building, I’ll notify when I’m in position,” Shota subtly warned.
“Understood,” Ivy called back.
Kami, this was a bad idea. A lot can happen in 13 minutes but he could already see people leaving the building with red feathers following them from above, he needed to get to his post now . Swinging up into place he surveyed the interior in a split second and looked across over to Ivy. The window was already cracked, it wouldn’t be hard to get through. Flashing a signal that he was ready to Ivy they started a countdown.
“3, 2, 1.”
Ivy dropped down from their already broken window and separated the remaining occupants from the main exit as Shota broke through the thin pane of glass and dropped down as close to the storeroom as he could. There was a split second of stillness before chaos broke out. Several people lunged toward him at once and feathers started flying every which way, scooping up people left and right leaving them suspended in the air high enough off the ground that they would hesitate to try to struggle free. Good lord, that kid’s quirk was helpful, Shota was less and less surprised by how highly he ranked every time he saw him work. He had at least 5 people out of the fight and he didn’t even have eyes on them, he wasn’t even in the building! That level of control and talent with such a complex quirk was something he had never seen in someone so young. Shota was honestly impressed even if he was as much of a little shit as Ivy; maybe being obnoxious was a prerequisite for prodigies.
Now was not the time to be pondering that thought though because he currently had about 6 people going for his throat and one of the guys Hawks was holding up was shooting electricity out of his fingers.
“Hawks you need to take down the guy you’ve got nearest to Ivy, he’s shooting out sparks, it’s a quirk but I can’t keep eyes on him,” he barked over the comm.
“Got it,” Hawks confirmed and he saw the man start to drift kicking and screaming toward the window Ivy had come through.
He’d taken down 2 of his 6 assailants but he just heard the door open behind him. Being cornered was one thing but being surrounded was another. Shit. Whipping around he saw the man with the heat vision quirk and the freeze ray they had encountered a couple of weeks ago, and goddamnit, he still had the freeze ray. Wait, no, this could work, he had the thing pointed straight at him so he slung his scarf up and over the rafters and pulled with all his strength, and sure enough, ice erupted forth trapping the last 4 people after him but also, unfortunately, both his legs from mid-thigh down. That was much preferred to the poor shmucks that had been lying on the ground where he’d knocked them out. They were completely encased, if someone didn’t break them out soon they were liable to asphyxiate but that was a problem for when he wasn’t half immobilized and getting aimed at again. Swinging the now very considerable heft of his legs he took a leap of faith, hopefully the ice would break on impact and not break him as well. He missed getting his hand frozen to his capture scarf by centimeters and thank Kami, the ice on his legs shattered off as he touched down on the ragged concrete floor.
He was down a capture scarf and still had bits of ice clinging to him but he could move so he charged forward at the man already fumbling to aim and fire at him for a third time. But Shota was too close and too fast and the gun went clattering to the floor as the man let out an awful scream when Eraser’s foot connected with his hand hard. His pained groans were cut off after a swift blow to the back of the head.
Turning back to the rest of the room he was relieved to see Ivy still standing, if his quick math was correct Ivy had similarly been up against 7 people but only 3 were still in the fight. They looked to be doing well but they had their knife out, they only ever brought that out as a last resort so Shota joined the fray as quickly as he could. Not realizing that their second assailant was freed from his own fight the first guy went down easy, no one saw him coming. Hawks was dealing with at least 10 people outside, he could hear them screaming but he didn’t hear fighting so he assumed Hawks had them under control.
The man with some sort of mirage-based quirk was no match for Ivy and the other woman’s water-based quirk wasn’t doing her much good on dry land but once he activated his quirk on her the conglomeration of whatever beverages had been in the room dropped to the floor and her split second of shock was more than enough time for him to take her down. Just in time for him to hear sirens approaching from the South.
“Ivy, injuries?”
“Minimal.”
“Actually minimal or your definition of minimal?”
“Actually minimal, Hawks get me out of here,”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, who even said that?” Hawks replied over the comms.
At the same time, a large feather came through the South window, scooped Ivy up with an undignified yelp, and dragged them out the North window but not without hitting their shoulder on the side.
“Ow, you fucking dickhead there’s broken glass there!” they grumbled.
“Sorry, that was actually an accident!” Hawks replied sounding genuinely remorseful, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll live, now put me down, this is far enough.”
Shota ignored their bickering and ran back over to the two people cemented to the ground and covered in ice. Thankfully one of them had their back to the blast and their airways were left unobstructed but the other guy’s face was covered in a substantially thick layer of ice. Kami, this was gonna hurt but it was better than dying… probably. He brought his boot down hard on the side of their face and the ice shattered. Their face was bloody but that was a good sign, it meant their heart was still beating enough to push blood to the surface. Their nose was probably broken but their mouth was unblocked and they were blinking around in a daze as they pulled air into their lungs. That was too close for comfort.
Officers and paramedics started flooding into the warehouse and Shota directed them to the back room and the most injured people respectively. Anyone still conscious was screaming profanities but he ignored them and went to debrief the detective. He was about to leave when he heard one of them shout him out by name.
“Eraser you piece of shit! You and that fuckin’ rat are gonna pay for this! You’re a dead man, you hear me?! You’re fuckin’ dead!” he screamed violently enough for spittle to fling out of his mouth as an officer dragged him away.
Outwardly Shota gave no reaction, he just watched as he was stuffed into the back of a cruiser but he recognized that guy as the other buyer who got away. He was the one Ivy said was a local, affiliated with the gang. That wasn’t an empty threat. Kami, if they didn’t have a target on their backs before, they certainly did now. He needed to warn Ivy, this was a massive bust and time would tell how much money they had just cost the gang. They weren’t going to be happy and they knew exactly who to blame.
Hawks had no reason to ever come back to this side of town, Shota went home at the end of the night, but Ivy lived here, they were really going to have to watch their back.
***
It was a solid half hour before all the perps were cleared out, it turned out that Hawks was juggling 13 people outside, Eraser took down 9 if you count the 4 that got caught in friendly fire, and Ivy got 5. 27 people meant a lot of cruisers and a lot of cops, the place was crawling with them and Eraser hoped that Ivy really had gotten far enough away but he was too busy with all the chaos to check in and Hawks was similarly tied up.
Kami, he really hoped they meant minimal when they said minimal.
It was a full hour after Ivy had left before he could check in with them.
“Ivy, report back. What’s your current location?”
“About halfway home, you guys were taking forever. Do these things have trackers in them?”
“Yes, Ivy, yes they do.”
“Hmm, well good thing I was joking, I’m on the roof of the warehouse two blocks South of you, if you’re still at the scene that is.”
“Alright, I’m on my way.”
“Wanna ride?” Hawks asked as he walked up behind him.
“Absolutely not,” he shot back with a grimace.
“Suit yourself,” he said with a sneer before taking off in the direction Ivy pointed them.
Shota caught up with them a little over a minute later because he did not have the energy to be in a rush but the conversation he dropped into made him regret that decision.
“Well that's a lot of blood for something that’s ‘completely fine and taken care of!’” He heard Hawks argue
“What the hell happened?” he asked exasperated as he walked over to them.
The sleeve of Ivy’s left arm had a cut in it and it looked to be darkened with blood all the way down to the elbow but the hole through the sleeve showed a sterile white.
“Nothing! It’s fine, I’m fine!” they insisted.
Knowing them, it was not fine, sure, it may be taken care of now but he doubted it was fine given the amount of blood still on their sleeve.
“Did it need stitches?” he asked
Their lack of response was telling.
“HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET STITCHES ALREADY? DID YOU DO IT YOURSELF?!” Hawks screeched incredulously.
Ignoring him entirely Shota continued, “How many?”
“Only like four or five, it’s fine, it’s my left arm anyways, it's fine!”
“How the hell do you consider that minimal damage?” he asked with a heavy sigh.
“Well, it was minimal when you asked me! This idiot is the one that ran me into broken glass!” they shot back.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Hawks apologize for probably the thousandth time if Ivy’s reaction was anything to go by.
“Are you uninjured Hawks?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” he said looking awfully guilty.
“Alright kid, what else you got? What do you actually consider minimal?” Shota asked turning his attention back to Ivy.
“Probably a lot of bruises and some minor cuts, I’m fine, like actually fine, stop worrying,” they spat.
“You don’t make that easy,” he shot back.
“Whatever, here’s your comm. I’m going home, I’ll see you Monday and I’m not budging on that no matter how much you bitch at me, Eraser,” they got to their feet and headed toward the ledge of the roof.
“You’re not jumping off the side of the roof with stitches in your arm!” Hawks shouted after them.
“Hmm, weird that I seem to be doing that anyway then,” they quipped as they continued on their way.
He watched them as their bickering faded out of earshot and hawks scooped Ivy up, flying them to street level while Ivy tried to struggle out of his grip. It was bittersweet to watch him go cause on the one hand, he was a good kid and a good hero; Shota had no doubt that Hawks was gonna go far in his career, but on the other hand, those two together were completely insufferable.
***
“Come on Ivy let me take you home, I won’t tell anyone where you live! I just want to make sure you’re safe! Those guys were yelling about how they’re gonna kill you and you’re already injured!” Hawks complained as he finally set them back down on solid ground.
“They’ve been yelling about how they’re gonna kill me for years, Hawks, this isn’t anything new. But sure, walk me home, do you want my legal name and social security number while we’re at it?” they shot back.
“Ivyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” he whined as obnoxiously as possible, “You two were just nagging me for being too reckless, come on!”
“Exactly, that’s my job, I have a reputation to maintain around here, now get lost, I wanna go home,” they jabbed while steadfastly remaining in place.
“Fine, I’ll leave if you take this,” he said handing them a small feather, “Break it if you get into trouble and I’ll come back.”
“How is that any different than just leading you to my house? It’s just a glorified tracker.”
“GAAHHH fine, just take my number and call me if you need anything then!” he tried to insist.
“Hawks no, having ties to known criminals isn’t a good look, I wasn’t here tonight, you’ve never met me, and you’ve never even heard of me, okay? Now beat it. I’ve lived here for years, I can handle myself.”
Hawks looked very sad for a split second. A bone-deep worn-out kind of sad, a kind of sad that Izuku was achingly familiar with.
“Short of killing him myself I don’t think I’m getting rid of Eraser any time soon, he’s got my back, and if you ever need me just ask him, alright?” they tried to assuage, “Goodbye, Hawks.”
They offered out a hand for him to shake but he pulled them into a hug, being careful not to jostle their left shoulder in the process. It was quick and kind of awkward but they returned the gesture anyway. His feathers were soft and tickly and it felt nice to know that he cared.
“Thanks, Ivy,” he said after he let go, the flash of sadness returning to his eyes for another split second. He hesitated for a moment before saying goodbye and flying off.
They waited a while watching him fade into the distance before they checked themself for feathers. They were surprised to find none, they were sure the hug was a ploy to plant one but, no, he just wanted a hug. That fact sent a pang of that same weary sadness through their heart, they had no clue what Hawks’ background was, they had no clue why he was so scared and sad underneath his facade but they knew that feeling. Kami, did they know that feeling.
They took their time wandering around aimlessly to make sure no one and nothing was tailing them before they finally ambled back to their warehouse. DJ saw them coming and decided to call it an early night as well, following him down into the stairwell. He took the time to actually remove the eyeshadow he’d been wearing for far too long now and changed into proper PJs that weren’t covered in blood before curling up in his nest with DJ and drifting off to sleep.
Notes:
Y'all get ready for a ~ride~ these next few weeks ehehehehehehehehheeh things are picking up 'round here. The endgame of act 1(?) is upon us, we are approaching canon timeline rapidly. That's right folks, this has all been like a prologue I guess *shrugs*. Maybe it's more like book one of two? Idk but I'm not making a separate work for the second half... mostly bc I don't feel like coming up with another title lmao.
THANK YOU FOR READING!!!
(Everyone say bye bye to the nice birdie man, say thank you for being a convenient plot tool lil' birdie, we love you)
Chapter 62: Emotional Constipation
Chapter Text
Izuku was very right about the several bruises part of his self-wellness assessment. He had woken up sore just about everywhere but thankfully it faded throughout the day, what didn’t fade however was the persistent thought of how he left things with Shinso. He tried to worry about other things, other arguably more pressing things like the fact that he never checked in with Eraser about how the raid went after he left or the fact that he probably had a hit or 10 on his head now but it’s not like he didn’t already have that before and Eraser would have told him if something went wrong. All he heard from him was a text warning him to watch his back like he wasn’t already doing that. Potential criminal catastrophe and having a large group of very violent people wanting his head on a pike wasn’t new and apparently wasn’t pressing enough to distract him.
He needed to go into the library tomorrow. He couldn’t keep avoiding it. Well, he could keep avoiding it but it wouldn’t make anything better, not that there was really any making it better in this situation. GAH he idly wished there was another multi-prefecture crime syndicate that he needed to take down, that was far less stressful to deal with.
***
Izuku had thought of a thousand and one things to say when he got to the library but not a single one of them would leave his mouth. He just stood in the doorway blinking awkwardly at Shinso as he ignored him. He was mad, of course, he was mad. Izuku timidly shuffled to his seat and sat at the computer doing a whole lot of nothing as the minutes ticked by like molasses.
Shinso didn’t want to talk to him, obviously, Shinso didn’t want to talk to him, why would he think that he would? Kami, he should just leave him alone, coming here was a mistake, all of this was a mistake. He’d only spent about half the time there as he normally would have but he packed up to leave anyway and Shinso didn’t say a word, he would hardly even look at him; beyond the glance he’d spared him when he first walked in Shinso’s eyes stayed focused on his work. There was no salvaging this, he didn’t know why he thought there would be. He kept his head down and went to shuffle out the door.
“Midoriya! I haven’t seen you for ages!” Shinso-san called out from the stacks as he walked past.
Oh Kami, this wasn’t a scripted part of the running away like a coward plan.
“H-hi Shinso-s-san,” he peeped out.
She similarly didn’t seem to have this conversation planned out because she paused trying to find the words to say. Though he very desperately wanted to continue legging it out the door he waited for her to speak.
“What’s… what’s going on with you and Toshi? He won’t talk to me and then you were just gone, are you doing alright? I’ve been worried. Is your mother home yet?” she asked after a moment.
Christ, that was a lot of things he didn’t have incredibly concerning answers to. He was so tired of lying.
“Yeah, she’s-she’s back n-now. I’m d-doing fine, I just– I– Shinso– we… he uh, he’s mad at m-me, ‘s my f-fault, s-sorry. I should–I– I’ll just g-go. I’m s-sorry,” he spat out and darted away before she could ask any follow-up questions.
***
Midoriya felt awful, Toshi felt awful and angry. They’d been waffling around for a whole week like the emotionally constipated teenage boys they were and Kohaku was getting sick of it but Midoriya was out the door and down the street practically before she could blink. She took a deep breath and went to find the brat that couldn’t escape her so easily.
“Toshi, this is getting out of hand. What is going on with you and Midoriya? And don’t just try and brush me off again, he feels awful, you feel awful, and doing nothing about it clearly isn’t helping.
He looked up at her with an incredibly sour expression, “He’s scared of me; not my fault and not my problem,” he bit out.
“Toshi, what do you mean he’s scared of you? He’s known about your quirk for over a month and he’s just now scared of you all of the sudden? He’s always scared, what makes you think he’s scared of you?” she challenged.
She saw his jaw clench as his anger mixed with annoyance but he’d been avoiding this for too long, it wasn’t healthy for anyone involved.
“What happened last Monday?” she pressed.
“He lied straight to my face and then ran away”
“Toshi, that’s not helpful and you know it.”
He rolled his eyes and let out a dramatic sigh before reluctantly elaborating, “I was… I was sick of him pretending like nothing happened so I asked him about it, I asked him if he was mad at me or scared and he said no, he said that he trusted me. So I told him that he could tell me about his quirk or whatever and he ran away like I was going to torture the information out of him,” he said bitterly.
“That’s not fair Toshi–”
“And that’s why I didn’t tell you about it! I knew you’d take his side! You didn’t see him Mom he was terrified, terrified of me ! I get that he’s scared, I was scared too but I wasn’t scared like that! And he just said he wasn’t afraid of me, he just said that he trusted me when clearly, he doesn’t!” Hitoshi finally snapped.
Kohaku didn’t know what to say to that, she wanted to say that Midoriya was in the same boat that Toshi had been but he knew that, she wanted to say that neither of them knew what Midoriya went through at home or school, they didn’t know why he was always so scared but Toshi knew that too. And he was right, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to either of them. The situation was the result of a cruel and prejudiced society and that wasn’t either of their faults. She wished for the nth time that the world was kinder to those boys but wishing wasn’t going to help anyone.
“You’re right, Toshi. I get it, it’s not fair. None of this is fair but Midoriya’s not here for me to kick his butt into gear. You need to talk to him, he felt awful when he left and he hardly ever lets me feel the half of what he’s feeling. I don’t know what’s happened to him in his life that he’s so scared to tell you but we both know he’s been through some type of hell. I don’t think he feels fear like we do, I don’t think his scale is the same. You said he didn’t seem scared when you two got attacked, right? I think he’s been so afraid for so long that he can’t gauge how afraid he’s supposed to be anymore. I think he’s more afraid of you rejecting him than anything and I know it’s not fair to put this on you but that’s exactly what you’re doing right now. It’s just as much his responsibility to talk this out with you as it is yours but his mom’s not here to tell him that.”
Toshi didn’t look very happy with what she had to say but he didn’t offer any counterargument.
“Just text him, okay? Tell him to come back on Wednesday or Friday like usual and you two can talk then. You guys are best friends, this isn’t worth losing each other over,” she added before leaving him to think on it.
***
Izuku felt like the scum of the earth. He trudged through his day doing his best to ignore Kacchan & co. like usual but their taunts seemed to cut deeper than they normally did. Maybe it was because it felt more relevant to be called a worthless piece of shit when he already felt like a worthless piece of shit.
Regardless of his mood, the relentless passage of time persisted as it always did and eventually Izuku found himself walking home. Crossing into the warehouse district he was surprised to hear arguing or at least shouting coming from an alley or two over. They sounded to either be lost or looking for someone, whatever was going on it didn’t sound like something that needed his intervention so he just took a meandering route around them back to his stairwell.
He dragged his feet down the steps and flicked the light on to do his homework. He hardly remembered a word of it but after a while, all the questions had answers written beneath them. Whether or not those answers were correct or even made sense was another issue but one that he didn’t have the heart to concern himself with right now.
DJ had been lazily watching him from atop her perch of his freshly cleaned laundry like the princess she was. With a heavy sigh, he laid down next to her and passed the time until patrol spiraling further and further down into the pits of his own despair and self-pity.
***
Eraser was sitting on the ledge with his dinner like he did every night, and like every night Ivy launched straight into conversation as if no time had passed since they’d last seen each other.
“How many people arrested in total? Have you heard back from the detective?”
“27 people total, several injuries, no deaths. It seems that we did in fact luck out and walked right into a meeting with some of the higher-ranking gang members and the support gear dealer goonies. Everyone there had a hand to play in the situation. There’s certainly people involved that we didn’t catch but at least the support gear dealer’s operation is down for the count. Having to move shop in a hurry after we saw them that night had their foundations wobbly but this was the final nail in the coffin. We won’t be hearing from them again. There’s likely still gear in the streets but we stopped the flow, it’ll peter out with time.”
“Good.”
“Did you catch the news?” Eraser asked with a smirk.
“No, why?”
He pulled out his phone and held it up for them to see a headline “Up and Coming Young Hero Known as ‘Hawks’ Takes Down Support Gear Syndicate Spanning From Tokyo to Shizuoka.”
They barked out a laugh at that, “Did they even mention you?”
“No, if they did they’d have a cease and desist on them faster than they could blink,” he shot back sounding offended that Ivy even asked.
“Oh, yeah, figures. I assume they didn’t mention me either,” they said with an edge of anxiety in their tone.
“No, the only people who knew you were there were me, Hawks, and Tsukauchi. Well, the only people not currently in custody, and we’re not telling anyone so don’t worry about it.”
“Mmph, yeah, okay. I see why you went underground,” they said with a grimace. Making the newspaper might be fun in theory but they had too much to hide, too many secrets to uncover. Being under the scrutiny of the public eye was the last thing they needed.
“Mmmhm, I don’t want anything to do with all that bullshit. Bunch of vultures,” he scoffed.
***
The night was painfully slow. They were out for hours and they caught ONE mugging and broke up a drunken fight that was half-hearted at best. It was so unbearably boring that it was actually exhausting and they were all too excited to call it a night and bid Eraser farewell.
As he finally made his way home he was incredibly irritated to find not one but two people milling about in the warehouse district and it wasn’t any of the people he knew camped here from time to time. He’d never seen these people before and he didn’t like them being there, he was tired and he just wanted to sleep but they were putting him on edge. Kami, he’s too paranoid. They’re less than a 5-minute walk from the busier areas of Uptown and they were just walking, people are allowed to walk. Even so, he lapped around taking nonsensical twists and turns for a while to make sure no one was following him.
***
The following day went by unremarkably. It was a shower day and the gash in his arm was on its way to healing nicely. His lunch could almost be considered warm which was better than most days. He would swear on his life that the lunch lady prepared his lunch in advance and let it sit out on purpose just so it would be cold when she gave it to him. Maybe she had forgotten to do her spiteful prep work today. No one tried to mess with him beyond sneers and rude comments, all in all, it was a pretty good day even though patrol was just as dull as the night prior.
He still hadn’t gotten a text from Shinso. He didn’t expect one but he was still disappointed each time he checked his phone to find it just as notification-less as he’d left it. Come Wednesday morning he woke up to his alarm telling him it was a library day. Should he apologize? Was Shinso waiting for him to say something or did he just not want to have anything to do with him anymore? He had no clue what he was supposed to do in this situation and neither did DJ. He was halfway through explaining the whole situation and talking out different solutions to her for at least the 50th time in the past 10 days and from the looks of it she was getting tired of his rambling ‘cause she was sound asleep next to him.
“DJ, I’m talking to you, you could at least pretend to listen 'cause if you don’t help me figure this out it’s just gonna be you and me and I’m gonna keep talking to you until I go insane.”
She twitched her ear at the threat and continued her dozing.
“Incredibly disrespectful,” he mumbled under his breath as he rolled out of his nest of blankets to get dressed for the day.
Wednesday didn’t fair as well as the day prior; his lunch was as cold as it ever was and he had to slip his way out of a beating twice. It’s like the world forgot to spite him yesterday and was making up for it. The day was mediocre and Wednesday was their break night this week; the second break night he wouldn’t be spending at the Shinso’s. It felt like the week was dragging on forever, each day felt like a week in and of itself. He never remembered loneliness being this hard. Maybe it’s just because he didn’t know any better before.
With nothing better to do with his time, he just slept for as long as he could. He generally avoided sleeping too much ‘cause if he wasn’t falling into bed completely exhausted then his mind had the energy to dream and his dreams were very rarely kinder to him than his waking mind was. He let himself sleep in every once in a while and hoped that he could rest without waking up in a cold sweat or screaming but it was a crapshoot at the best of times and this was certainly not the best of times.
As was to be expected he woke up gasping for air around 4 am the next morning. At least he wasn’t screaming, DJ got scared when he did that but she wasn’t here anyway. She was probably still out terrorizing the rats in the back alley so he decided to stay up and wait for her, he’d slept for 8 hours already, which was way more than his standard 3 to 4 hours.
Sure enough around 45 minutes later DJ came trotting down the stairs still licking her chops, gross. Logically, he knew that she ate rats but actually thinking about it made his stomach turn a bit, but it was just the way of things so he let her curl up on her favorite blanket right in the middle of his nest anyway.
His solid night of rest didn’t make Thursday pass any faster, but eventually, 72 hours later by his estimate, the day came to a close and he was once again gearing up for patrol. He solemnly swapped his ‘civilian’ phone for his ‘work’ phone. There still wasn’t a text from Shinso, there wasn’t going to be. With a chin scratch and a kiss to DJ’s forehead, he bid her farewell.
Hopefully, patrol wouldn’t be so dull tonight… well that was kind of a messed up thing to hope for actually, never mind.
***
Hitoshi had been writing and deleting different iterations of the same text message for nearly a whole week. He knew he wasn’t being fair to Midoriya, he knew that, but at the same time, he was still so angry. He didn’t want to talk to him and yet he wanted nothing more than to get over all of this bullshit, he wanted his friend back. He wished he’d never even asked but, at the end of the day, this was inevitable. The truth was going to come out eventually, society put too much importance on quirks, they were practically inextricable from a person’s identity, there’s no way their friendship could go on forever without them sharing that part of themselves.
Mixed up with all the fear and worry Hitoshi felt so relieved when Midoriya found out about his quirk. He wished he could tell him that; tell him that it would be okay, that he wasn’t going to be upset, that he would feel better and then they could move on but he didn’t know how to say it and the look of terror in Midoriya’s eyes kept flashing in his memory.
Things weren’t going to go back to the way they were, too much was said and done and not said and not done for it to ever be the same. Hitoshi was never going to forget the look of fear on Midoriya’s face; it was going to be different now no matter what, but maybe it could still be okay.
Shinso: (Thursday, 10:12 pm)
Come back to the library tomorrow. We should talk.
Notes:
Thank you for reading!!!
Chapter 63: The End of an Era
Notes:
⚠️CONTENT WARNINGS CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS. CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO SEE END NOTES, THEY WILL BE POSTED THERE⚠️
CWs apply after the “⚠️⚠️⚠️” in the body of the chapter, that’s when stuff goes to shit. So, reading up to that point will be fine. A summary will be left in the end notes if you don’t want to read past that.
Shout out to Ashes_28 for Beta reading these next few chapters!!! And go read her comments on chapter 61 she read me for absolute filth. She gave a 10/10 character analysis of Izu.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After they geared up they set out to meet Eraser at their usual place but halfway through their way out of the warehouse district, they heard someone walking around. They were going to ignore it and continue on their way until they remembered Monday when they overheard people walking around lost or looking for someone and the other night when they saw those two random people milling about at damn near 4 am, and now this. Twice was a coincidence, but three times? That was a trend, a trend that they very much did not care for.
They trailed after the man in the shadows for a while but he wasn’t doing anything. He was just walking around. Was he scoping the place? Who was he? He was poking around windows and jiggling door knobs and peering into places. Was someone seriously trying to set up shop here AGAIN??? Hadn’t these people learned their lesson? Fool me once, fool me twice, and all that?
Their suspicions were given credence as he followed the man over to block 8 and watched as he entered the warehouse that the gang had been squatting in for ages. Godfuckingdamnit.
They felt their phone vibrate in their pocket
Eraserhead:
You’re late.
Oh shit, they were.
Ivy :
Ran into something, omw.
Could they not have a moment’s respite?
***
“Of course, you ran into an incident before we even started patrol, I’m surprised this is the first time it’s happened. What was the situation, anything we need to be concerned about?” He asked nonchalant as possible in an attempt to mask his genuine concern.
He didn’t like them running into trouble on their own, hell he didn’t even like roaming around the streets alone right now, they probably had a dozen hits on their heads each. If Ivy knew what was good for them they’d lay low for a while but unfortunately, Ivy did know what was good for them and insisted on doing the opposite daily.
“Yes, actually. There was some guy, I didn’t recognize him, he was roaming around the warehouse district scoping the place or something and I tailed him all the way back to block 8. I don’t know what they're up to but I’ve been keeping an eye on the area and he’s not the first person I’ve seen. There’s been at least four other people but two of them were together. I don’t know if they’re all connected but it’s not painting a good picture,” they responded curtly.
Shota let out a long-suffering sigh at the news.
“So what are we gonna do about it? They haven’t done anything yet. We can’t arrest them for walking around, they’d get a fine for trespassing at best and I don’t think we need to piss them off any more than we already have.”
Ivy looked to be quite frustrated as they thought. After a while with no suggestions he decided to give his two cents, “The streets have been quiet lately, they’re still recouping their losses, do you want to spend patrol in the warehouse district, see if there’s anything to be seen?”
The furrow in their brow only deepened at his suggestion.
“Sit down, kid, you can eat and think at the same time.”
They shot him a look for that but sat down regardless.
Once they’d finished eating their meals in silence Ivy answered his question, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea but we’re not leaving each other’s sight.”
That was strange, usually, he was the one being overly insistent on their safety.
“Sounds like a good call, I’ve got stuff to do tomorrow so I don’t have the time to die at the moment,” he quipped back.
Ivy just rolled their eyes.
***
The warehouse district was quiet and it was rare that any of the buildings exceeded two stories tall so getting on the roof didn’t provide much of a vantage point to look over the sea of buildings of the exact same height, and furthermore, he didn’t trust the structural integrity of half of them. So, the night was turning out to be more of a leisurely stroll in the shadows than anything else. The nights had been dull since the impromptu raid last Sunday, not that he was complaining, but it was getting rather boring. Unfortunately, the change in scenery wasn’t much less boring.
“These people you saw, were they milling around the same areas or was it spread out?” He asked.
“Mostly toward the border of warehouses and Uptown but one of them was further in. So there wasn’t much of a pattern, no,” Ivy responded quietly.
He hummed in response and let silence fall over the two of them again. There wasn’t much to be seen, Ivy steered him away from a few places where they knew people camped out in but they kept an ear out as they passed and there was nothing of note. The only signs of life he’d seen was the occasional rat.
“Didn’t you say there was a cat that lived here?” he asked.
He was admittedly getting very bored, they’d been walking around for hours and there was a whole lot of nothing going on, he was starting to understand why Ivy never bothered to add this part of the district to their patrols even though there was a history of people setting up shop here.
“A cat? Uh, yeah, why?” they answered a little nervously.
That was strange.
“Bored,” he replied honestly.
They snickered a bit at that, “Yeah, same. You like cats?”
He simply hummed in the affirmative.
“You have any?” they asked.
“Yeah, I got two. Bastard and Kimchi.”
They laughed at him again, no doubt because of the first name.
“If you met him you’d agree that there’s no other name for him. He is Bastard incarnate,” he defended.
“Okay, alright, what about Kimchi then? Why Kimchi?” they asked.
He smiled at the memory of when he and Zashi found her in an alley one night when they had been coaxed out, probably by Nem. She was sitting next to a dumpster covered in something, to this day he still has no idea what it was but it smelled absolutely foul and she was just a little baby. They took her home and washed her off but she still stank for a solid week and a half.
“‘Cause she’s stinky but we love her anyway,” he replied with a small smile.
“Awwwwwwwwwwwww,” Ivy cooed dramatically.
They fell back into silence for a bit before Ivy spoke up again, “Okay, I’ll show you the cat, I call her DJ ‘cause… well, you’ll see,” they said with a mischievous giggle, “She’s this big ol’ fluffy thing, like massive, I swear she must weigh over 20 pounds I think she’s part lion or something,” they mused.
They adjusted their route to the west and kept their eyes peeled. He was not looking forward to the rest of the night, but the short cat respite would have to be enough to push him through. 20 minutes of walking later Ivy shushed him even though he wasn’t talking and pointed around the corner of a structure that could only still be called a building by the most generous of definitions. Rounding the corner he didn’t see much in the low light, there was a dumpster with something lying at the foot of it but he couldn’t make it out, especially with Ivy shoving him out of their way as they ran forward.
⚠️⚠️⚠️
He was confused for a moment until he saw them collapse to their knees in front of the mass on the ground, oh… oh. Ivy was frantically checking it over as he walked up behind them. It was the cat and it was lying motionless in a pool of blood.
He could hear Ivy’s shortened and panicked breaths as they put pressure on its abdomen and searched around its neck for a pulse. They were muttering under their breath and it took him a second to realize they were chanting the word “no” over and over again.
The cat was dead, it was clearly dead, blood was no longer flowing from the wound and it was completely motionless, there was no rise and fall to its chest but Ivy seemed to be in denial.
“Kid, it’s dead you–”
“No! No, no, she can’t– I just saw her before– she-she was fine,” they insisted sounding a touch hysterical.
They had come across bodies on their patrols before but the kid had never reacted like this, they were always so clinical about it. They always had a touch of sadness to their tone and it always soured their mood for the night if not the days following but they had never panicked, no they were always so calm and resigned about it like it was something they were accustomed to.
He gently laid a hand on their shoulder and tried to guide them back away from the cat. Kami only knew what kinds of diseases it carried, they really shouldn’t be touching it at all. Even if they were familiar with it, a stray was a stray. They only half turned their body to smack his hand away with far more force than necessary. They reached behind themself blindly to do it, not once taking their eyes off the cat.
He was about to talk again, about to tell the kid she was gone when they froze. Their frantic hands stilled and they sat stock still for a second or two before they stood and turned to him. He expected tears, he expected grief but their expression was neutral, completely blank. Their eyes weren’t even glassy, no they looked… they looked like nothing, like a doll, completely lifeless.
“Ivy?” he asked cautiously.
Their eyes lifted to meet his own and it sent a chill down his spine.
“I doubt there’s anything to see around here but you can finish the patrol if you want. I need to take care of this,” they responded and their voice was just as off-putting as their eyes. It didn’t shake or waver, it didn’t have any of its usual bounce to it. It was completely monotone.
“Kid, are you sure you–”
“Yes. You can go,” they cut off his question before he even had the chance to ask it.
He was frozen where he stood, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t have the faintest idea. It wasn’t often that he had no clue what to do, but it had been happening more and more since he’d met Ivy. The last year had been non-stop with him floundering with them, he thought he’d finally reached a point where he didn’t feel so clueless but apparently not.
“Please, go,” they added in the same nothing tone after he didn’t leave.
Their gaze shifted to something almost angry but still too lifeless to be anything concrete. He didn’t want to leave them like this but he wasn’t sure if that was for his own comfort or theirs. He knew they didn’t like to show their emotions to him, he understood that, he wasn’t the best at being vulnerable either but that cat clearly meant something to them, they were grieving. Or at least they would be once he left. If he stayed they would just continue to shut down but if he left they would be alone with their grief and that didn’t feel right either. He couldn’t stay forever though, staying here only pushed off the inevitable.
“Okay, okay… I’ll go. Just let me know if you need anything. I’ll be around, okay?”
He’d stick around and finish out the patrol, it probably wasn’t the safest idea but there really weren’t any signs of life anywhere and he wanted to be there if they needed him. They nodded stiffly at him in response and stood in place watching him until he was out of sight. Kami, that was creepy. He felt like an asshole for even thinking it but it was, it reminded him of the first time they sparred and the kid went from having a flashback to completely normal at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t right, the way they shifted on a dime was something straight out of the uncanny valley.
He’d check in with them later, text them or something. Right now they needed time.
Notes:
CWs
-Violence against animals
-Vague descriptions of blood/gore
-Minor character death (Yes that one, I’m sorry. I warned you.)⚠️Summary⚠️ spoilers for second half of chapter below
When they round the corner they find DJ lying at the foot of the dumpster in a pool of blood. Ivy rushes over to her but it’s too late, she’s dead. It looks like she was shot and they surmise that someone (presumably from the gang based off their increased traffic in the district) came too close to her ‘hunting grounds’ and she tried to dumpster jumpscare them away but they just shot her either out of fear or anger.
Ivy tells Eraser to finish the patrol without him and he does but he’s worried about them because they seem far more distraught than they should be about some random stray cat.
Chapter 64: Author’s Note: I’M SORRY
Notes:
DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER IN PUBLIC UNLESS YOU’RE POSITIVE IT WON’T MAKE YOU CRY!!! I’M NOT KIDDING!!! I cried writing it and my incredibly stoic partner cried reading it. You have been warned!!!
Same as the last chapter, CWs are *very heavy* and have major spoilers so they will be in the end notes along with a summary of the chapter if you can’t read this one. The summary will still contain triggering topics, just in less detail.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He knelt there in front of her body and took a moment to collect himself after Eraser left. There was a small puncture wound through her ribs and an exit wound on her other side. She’d been shot. Her fur was matted with blood that had already gone tacky and it was caked in dirt. She was filthy, he needed to clean her.
Like a computer given a task, he gingerly picked her up and brought her down to the stairwell to wash her in the pot of rainwater just like he had almost two years ago when she’d managed to fall through the roof and into the horrible pond of mud at the bottom of the elevator shaft. She was already so cold and the water was even colder. Instead of submerging her in the water he dampened a towel and got off all the blood he could so that her light fur wouldn’t end up dyed a rusty orange by blood-dirtied water.
Once she was clean he turned on the space heater and set her down in front of it just like she would have wanted on a cold night. He stayed with her and smoothed down her fur until she was dry. He had no clue how long it took, he had no clue how long it had been since he found her. He’d lost all sense of time and his mind had floated far away. Grabbing her and her favorite blanket he trudged robotically back up the stairs and into the back alley.
He knew this would happen, just like it did with Shinso. The world wouldn’t let him keep anyone or anything that he allowed to know him fully. They left or they were taken, he couldn’t have something like that, he couldn’t hold anything too close or he would break it. That goddamn cat was the only living thing that ever knew the whole of him and stayed anyway and Kami, that was sad. He couldn’t even have this, of course, he couldn’t. No, everything he touched was doomed to fall to pieces just like he was.
His mind was gone from him as his body went through the motions of pulling out one of his knives, stabbing into the compact earth, and clearing away the chunks of dirt with his hands. He knew he was crying but only because he could feel the tears dampen the soil. It felt like seconds and years by the time he’d dug a suitably sized hole. His hands shook as he gently picked up her limp form and laid her in the shallow grave.
Her pristine light blonde fur caught the light of the nearly full moon and contrasted starkly against the dark earth beneath her. He didn’t let himself linger on the sight as he covered her in her favorite blanket before piling the soil back into the hole.
In all his years of solitude, he had never felt so alone.
It wasn’t until he was back in the pitch-black stairwell that he let himself fall to pieces. He dropped to his knees as wretched, screaming sobs ripped themselves from his chest. He pulled off his mask and tried to stifle the noise for a moment before giving up entirely.
She was all alone, she was all alone and he wasn’t there to hold her, to protect her. He was supposed to protect this place, that’s what he was for, that's why he was here and he couldn’t even protect the one creature that had been there for him through it all. He left her and someone killed her, Kami, someone killed her. He was so angry he didn’t even know how to feel it, it was too much, it was too big. He was angry at whoever did this and he was angry at himself for letting it happen, he wanted to find who did this and beat the life out of them slowly and painfully, he wanted them to be in agony, he wanted to make them pay. He wanted to tear his hair out and rake his nails through his skin; maybe he wanted to make himself pay for his own inability to protect her or maybe he just wanted to feel something, Kami, anything else, anything at all, anything that wasn’t this.
He knew this would happen, he knew letting himself get attached would be the end of him. Ever since that first night he broke down crying in front of her and she let him pet her that omnipresent pit of sorrow in his gut had been manageable but now he could feel it expand out and consume him. He didn’t have the heart to do anything but let it.
Kami, he swore the weight of it had never been so heavy, not even on the nights he spent on the roof of his old apartment building debating whether or not he should pull back the flimsy safety fence and let himself fall. It was wretched, he was wretched, and his hands itched for the gun that still lay beneath the bottom stair.
He thought of Shinso. He would probably never know what happened to him if he did that. On the off chance his body was found, he would hear about it on the news. That wouldn’t be very kind. He knew Shinso still cared about him even though he was a liar, even though he’d been avoiding him for weeks because he was too much of a goddamn coward to tell him he was a Null. He should at least say he’s sorry, say goodbye, right? He owed Shinso that much, he owed him far more than that but he was too much of a coward to say it. He deserved more than Izuku could give him, Shinso deserved a better friend. He hoped he would find that after he… after…
Through blurry vision, he picked up his phone and opened his text messages with Shinso. What the hell was he supposed to say after everything? He couldn’t justify his actions, he couldn’t justify lying to him for 2 years and letting him think he had a real friend, he couldn’t justify what he was about to do, so he didn’t try.
Midoriya:
Shinso, u can be a hero. I know u can, please don’t give up on urself, ok? Ur the best friend I have ever had so keep on that schedule and do it for me, be a hero for me. I’m sorry for ignoring u, its not ur fault, its mine.
I’m really sorry Shinso.
Kami, he was a mess, that was indecipherable but it was going to have to be enough. He pressed send through the mess of tears clouding his vision and didn’t even notice he had an unread message. He couldn’t say goodbye, he was a coward, he was still such a goddamn coward after all this time. He knew it was a bad idea, he knew he shouldn’t do this, he should just go to sleep but the weight of his grief was unbearable and he couldn’t have stopped his legs from carrying him down the second set of stairs if he wanted to.
He very much didn’t want to.
***
After walking around the desolate warehouse district for the last few hours of patrol Shota made his way back to the ruins of a building he left Ivy at. He’s not sure what made him come back but his gut told him to and he’d learned to trust that kind of feeling over the years.
As he walked up to the dilapidated warehouse he could faintly hear wrecked sobs echoing from inside. It sounded like a child, “Kami, don’t tell me that’s Ivy,” he muttered to himself.
The building was in shambles and the floor looked liable to crumble underfoot, no one should be in there, it wasn’t safe. But clearly, someone was in there and he couldn’t just leave them. He knew it was Ivy, who else could it be? Cautiously stepping through a large hole in the wall his suspicions were given credence, there was a wood pallet with a target painted on it that looked torn to shreds like someone had been throwing a knife at it repeatedly for a long time.
Fuck.
The sound was coming from behind a door to his left, a door that had a hole cut in the bottom with a little flap of fabric hanging behind it.
Oh, fuck. A cat door.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
That was their cat, wasn’t it? Oh, Kami, they must live here. He knew that look on their face went beyond losing a stray they’d been feeding. He knew they were probably homeless but, fuck. Here? They’ve been living here? This whole time he’d been letting them go every night hoping they went back to a nice warm apartment or something but they’d been coming here to this derelict factory that looked like it would fall if the breeze changed direction too quickly. He’d been letting them go home to a damp concrete floor and the pervasive scent of mildew and no one else but a stray cat. Kami, if those sobs weren’t enough to break his heart then that realization surely was.
They sounded young, too young. He knew they were young but those sobs sounded like they came from someone whose voice had yet to drop. They sounded like they could be the same age as his students. God fucking damnit he couldn’t just leave them like this but what the hell was he supposed to do?
He approached the door letting his footfalls echo through the air but the wails didn’t relent. Standing in front of the door he knocked lightly and the cries cut off with a choked gasp.
“Kid, it’s just me,” he called through the door.
They didn’t respond.
“I’m gonna open the door, okay?”
Again there was no response but he heard a faint rustling like someone was moving around.
Slowly he turned the handle and pulled the door open. It was pitch black on the other side, the moonlight that shone through the holes in the walls didn’t make it past the first three steps. How many years had this kid been living in the dark for?
“Get. out.”
The voice startled him after the bout of silence. They’d put their voice modulator back on and their tone was cold. He’d never heard them speak like that.
“Ivy, I don’t think you should be alone right now,” he pleaded.
“I don’t give a shit what you think, Eraser. Get. Out.”
Their voice was starting to tremble but it was dripping with vitriol.
“Kid, please—“ he was cut off by the unmistakable sound of someone pulling back the hammer of a pistol and it sent ice through his veins.
“I won’t ask you again, get the fuck out.”
Oh, fucking shit this was worse than he could have imagined, why the fuck did the kid have a gun? It had been years since he’d been frozen by fear and he hated it. It was an awful feeling and he’d done his best to build up quick reflexes so he would never feel like this again, he promised himself that he would never freeze up and let someone die ever again.
It took everything he had to force himself out of that and speak, “I don’t know what you’re thinking right now but I can’t leave you like this.”
The only response was shuddered breaths and silence.
“You’re scaring me, kid,” he added.
He heard something clatter to the floor, hopefully it was the gun. The shuddered breaths turned into soft sobs and he couldn’t help his feet from moving, he only took one step down before he felt a small *woosh* of wind pass by his cheek and he heard a knife embed itself in the dilapidated wall behind him.
The kid was sobbing in earnest now and around his shaking breaths, he pleaded, “J-just go, please j-just leave me alone, p-please. I can’t— P-please.”
He had a feeling if he kept walking down these stairs he would never gain back the trust they’d been building up for the last year. They were setting a boundary and if he crossed it there would be no going back but if he walked away he wasn’t sure that Ivy wouldn’t do something there would be no coming back from anyway.
“Ivy, please promise me you won’t do something stupid.”
They just continued to sob albeit much more quietly than they had been.
“I’m not leaving until you give me the gun and promise,” his voice was rough with emotion but he couldn’t steady it, “Please, Ivy.”
He heard the sound of metal clinking together and his heart stopped beating for a moment before the magazine and the pistol were thrown at his feet separately. He sucked in air he didn’t realize he was holding, quickly picking them up and pocketing them.
“Promise me you’re gonna be safe, Ivy,” he prompted when the stairwell fell into silence again.
“Yeah,” they replied weakly before falling back into tears.
“I’m gonna see you tomorrow night, like always, right?”
They gave a high-pitched “uhhuh” that sounded like it was strangled out of them.
“Okay, I’m holding you to that, kid. Text me in the morning,” he said even though every fiber of his being was screaming at him to run down the stairs, scoop the kid up, and bring them home.
Trust went both ways, if he wanted them to trust him then he needed to trust them. They promised him and he needed to trust them.
***
Shota went home in a daze, his muscles must have remembered the movements because as he went to unlock the apartment door he realized he didn’t even remember leaving the warehouse. His hands shook against the handle and he struggled to get the key into the slot properly. He felt like he was going to puke, when he finally got the door open he walked into the living room not even bothering to take his shoes off, and sat down. He didn’t lock the door, honestly, he couldn’t say for certain if he even shut the door, he just sat on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees and buried his shaking hands in his hair.
He almost lost Ivy. If he waited Kami knows how much longer to knock on that door he could've been too late. And he just left them there, alone. Kami, he just left them there alone. He had to keep reminding himself that Ivy promised they would see him tomorrow, they promised and he trusted them. If he could trust them with his life he had to trust their promise, he had to. He knew in his gut that he did the right thing, his gut brought him there and it told him when to leave, he kept telling himself that he did what he needed to do but even still he could feel his chest tighten.
Fuck, he hadn’t had a panic attack since his early twenties and he did not miss the feeling. He tightened his grip on his hair trying desperately to ground himself to anything when he heard one of the cats scream at him while another bumped themself into his leg. Yeah, that was really helping right now, thanks guys. He couldn’t even force himself to look and see who was doing what.
Whoever was shouting must have gone and woken Zashi up because he heard them walk into the room and let out a groggy, “Sho?” before they rushed over to him. He must have fallen asleep with his hearing aids in again, the idiot always forgot to charge them and ended up having to use their spares the next day.
“Sho, baby, what's wrong? Can I touch you?” they asked as they knelt before him, their hands hovering above his knees.
Shota tried to speak but he couldn’t get out anything beyond gasping breaths so he just nodded. Immediately Zashi pulled him into his arms, ran a soothing hand over his back, and used the other to gently coax his fists out of his hair.
“It’s gonna be alright, baby, are you hurt?” they asked.
He shook his head.
“Okay, that’s good. Did someone else get hurt?” he asked with trepidation in his tone.
He didn’t know how to answer that, yes someone else was hurt but he knew that’s not what Zashi meant so he shook his head again.
“Good, that’s really good, Sho. Everything’s gonna be okay then, alright? Everything’s gonna be fine,” they soothed.
He must have been waiting for that reassurance because even though Zashi had no way of knowing what was going on he felt a weight fall off his shoulders. The frozen panic that surrounded him thawed just enough to let the dam break. It had been years since he’d had a panic attack but it had been even longer since he just cried and now here he was quietly sobbing into Zashi’s shoulder. He couldn’t get the image of Ivy’s body lying in a pool of their own blood out of his head, what if he didn’t listen to his gut and never went back? What if he just settled for sending a text like he was going to? What if he hesitated just a little longer at the doorway? What could have happened? What almost happened?
He knew that damned kid had weaseled their way into his heart but he didn’t realize how thoroughly they had planted themself there until he almost lost them. Kami, he almost lost them. He was probably squeezing the life out of Hizashi but he couldn’t bring himself to care and they weren’t complaining yet so he just continued to hold him tight. He has no clue how long he sat there but when the tears finally stopped falling Zashi grabbed his face so gently and wiped away any lingering moisture. When Shota finally lifted his gaze to meet theirs their eyes were wet too and their hair was a mess. Kami, they were so beautiful, what did he ever do to deserve them?
“Why don’t I make us some tea, baby? Is that alright?” they asked, their voice thick with emotion.
He still didn’t trust himself to speak so he just nodded and forced himself to let them go. They planted a kiss in his hair before they left for the kitchen. On their way there Shota heard them shut and lock the front door. Great, he had left it open. He knew it shut most of the way on its own so he wasn’t worried about the cats having gotten out but he was a little embarrassed. Kami, this was too many emotions for one night.
Leaning forward, he buried his face in his hands and waited for Zashi to come back with the tea.
***
Hizashi was freaking out. They hadn’t seen Shota like this in years, not since they first started living together and Sho came home a crying mess after some kid died right in front of him on patrol. It was awful, it broke his heart to even think about it, and here it was happening again but he had to be strong, Shota needed them right now so they needed to pull themself together. He couldn’t think of a damn thing that could have caused this because Sho said no one was hurt. What could have affected him so much if no one was hurt? He wanted to demand answers to calm his own worry but this wasn’t about him, they needed to approach this with tact so they let the familiar motions of making two cups of tea calm them.
He needed to remember what he told Sho, if no one was hurt then everything was going to be okay. When the kettle came to a boil he poured the water into two mugs and took a few seconds to catch his breath while they started to steep.
No one was hurt. Everything was going to be okay.
With one more deep breath, they grabbed the steaming mugs and went back to the living room.
When they got back Shota was in the same position he’d found them last time, leaning forward on his knees with his hands fisted in his hair but luckily this time he wasn’t shaking quite so much and his fingers didn’t look like they were clenched too tight.
“Sho, baby? Why don’t you sit back, let me help you with your shoes while the tea steeps, okay?”
Shota looked up at him with red puffy eyes and it broke their heart all over again.
“Come on Sho,” they prompted again as they set the mugs down on the coffee table.
Slowly, Shota listened to him and leaned into the backrest of the couch. He just sat there and watched with unfocused eyes as Hizashi unzipped the zipper and pulled off his boots. Once they finished they carried the boots back to the genkan and put them in their proper place. When they got back Shota had one of the mugs cupped between his hands and he looked a little more focused.
He sat down on the coffee table across from him and studied his face for a moment before asking, “What happened, baby?”
Sho looked at him and chewed at his lip for a moment before responding, “Ivy was– we were in the warehouse district and they– there was this cat, a local stray they said, they were going to introduce me to them but, the cat was dead, and Ivy– they, they looked so sad, I knew something wasn’t right.”
He took a moment to gather himself and Hizashi waited patiently.
“They told me to go on and finish patrol ‘cause they wanted to take care of the-the body, I figured they’d grown attached to this cat so I gave them some space and left. But I– after I finished patrol something still felt off – I– It didn’t feel right so I went back to the warehouse and I heard them, they were crying– Kami, they sounded so young and–” he cut himself off as tears started to fill his eyes again.
He just blinked them away and continued.
“The warehouse was old, it’s in shambles but I heard them from inside and I couldn’t just leave. They were in the stairwell, there was a little cat door cut out of the door leading to it and they were in there and-and I think they live there. It was so dark and it smelt like mildew.”
Shota’s hands were shaking again so they pulled them into their own to steady them.
“I knocked and opened the door and they put their voice modulator back on and I’ve never heard them talk like that, they sounded so cold and they told me to leave but I didn’t. I took a step down and I heard– they had a gun, they had a gun and they cocked it at me and told me to get the fuck out. I was s-scared– not of them but that they were sitting alone sobbing in a dark abandoned stairwell with a loaded gun, I mean I can connect the dots.”
He pulled his hands back from their grasp and pulled a pistol from one of his pockets and the magazine from another and set them on the table.
“I got them to give me the gun and promise that they wouldn’t do anything stupid, that they would see me tomorrow, and I left.” he finished his story without looking them in the eye.
His gaze was locked on the pistol sitting on their living room table. They pushed the weapon behind them and grabbed his hands again to get his attention.
“You trust them, don’t you?” he asked.
He chewed at his lip again and nodded.
“Alright, then you’ll see them tomorrow, okay Sho?”
He just nodded again and squeezed their hand.
They sat there like that for a while as they sipped their tea, when they both finished their mugs Hizashi coaxed him into the shower. When he got out they dried his hair for him and cuddled up to him in bed. They doubted he would sleep but it would do him well to at least rest. Ivy would text him in the morning. It didn’t do anyone any good to entertain the thought of a world in which they didn’t.
Notes:
CWs
-Vivid descriptions of shock and grief
-Suicidal Ideation (⚠️HEAVILY described⚠️)
-⚠️near suicide attempt⚠️
-Panic attack
-Dissociation
-Gun
-BloodSummary (⚠️spoilers below if you’re just here checking out the CWs⚠️)
Izuku cleans DJ up and buries her in the alley by the dumpster. When he finishes doing that he goes back down to the stairwell and breaks down, after losing DJ (the only one who he allowed to see his true emotions and comforted him when he was at his lowest) he falls into a bout of manic depression, he becomes impulsive and hyper fixates on making the feeling go away. Then he remembers the gun he still has under the stairs. He sends a cryptic text to Shinso apologizing but doesn’t say goodbye or explain what he’s about to do.
Something in Shota’s gut tells him to go back to the warehouse where he left Ivy so he does and he hears them crying from inside the dilapidated building so he goes to check on them. He sees their target practice board and the cat door and connects the dots that they live here. He opens the door to the stairwell but can’t see down into it because it’s too dark. Ivy tells him to leave and when he doesn’t they cock the gun at him and tell him to get the fuck out. He again doesn’t listen and manages to talk them into giving him the gun and promising that they won’t do anything stupid and that he’ll see them tomorrow. Shota then goes home and has his own little meltdown and explains everything to Hizashi.
Chapter 65: Don’t Send Death Threats to the Author~ Challenge Rank: S+
Notes:
Listen, I'm sorry. In my defense, I had to do it to 'em.
CWs
-Suicidal ideation
-Self-destructive behavior
-Descriptions of grief
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When his morning alarm went off he had a few blissful groggy moments before the weight of what happened last night crashed down on him for a second time. It was like he rounded the corner into the back alley to find her lying there all over again, his stomach dropped and he was frozen solid, he couldn’t give a name to the emotion he was feeling, it was too much, whatever it was, it was too much. His skin felt tight with it, it was so overwhelming it almost felt like fear. Later he would think shock; shock was a better word for it, not fear. He could swear his heart was being squeezed so tightly that it stopped beating like lungs giving out after too long of being smothered.
He just laid there for who knows how long. His skin was crawling with the crushing need to get this feeling to stop, just stop, Kami, he would do anything to make it stop. It felt like his body was made of lead, like he was being crushed under the weight of his own skin. He couldn’t even cry, he just lay there staring up into the darkness.
A second alarm went off to let him know that if he didn’t leave soon he wouldn’t have much time to stay at the library. Oh, shit, Shinso. He couldn’t bear to face Shinso, he couldn't bear to face anything. How did people live like this? Making friends, falling in love, having kids, knowing that this is what awaited them every time they offered their heart out. It hurt far less to offer out love and have it be rejected, to offer out love and have it accepted, to have it returned, to learn the joy and peace of companionship only to have it ripped away was agony.
Was it even worth it? Did the joy outweigh the grief? Would he trade every moment DJ had ever spent cuddled up to him to make this wretched feeling stop? Right now he would, he would do anything to make it stop right now, he was going to do anything last night. Goddamnit, fucking Eraserhead, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He wished he had that gun back just so he didn’t have to deal with the fucking mess he’d made of everything.
***
It was nearly midday by the time he was able to peel himself off of the floor. He needed to text Eraser, both his phones had been buzzing periodically but he couldn’t force himself to do anything about it.
Eraserhead: (6:58 am)
Morning Ivy. Please let me know when you get up.
Eraserhead: (9:43 am)
Ivy?
Eraserhead: (10:37 am)
If you don’t respond by noon I’m coming back to check on you.
Jesus Christ, it was 11:38, he was cutting it close
Ivy: (11:38 am)
I’m up
Eraserhead: (11:38 am)
Thank you.
Fuck, he’d really made a mess of things.
He needed to do damage control but he barely even had the motivation to support his own weight. He couldn’t do this, it was too much, Kami, it was all too much. Finally, tears started trailing down his cheeks, the knowledge that DJ wasn’t gonna come trotting over to him only made it worse. He didn’t know where he pulled the resolve to check his other phone from but he did.
Shinso: (6:12 am)
Just come in Midoriya. We can talk about this in person.
Shinso: (6:48 am)
Are you coming in today?
Shinso: (9:52 am)
So are you just going back to avoiding me?
Fucking hell, Shinso deserved so much better than him. He deserved the truth but Izuku knew he was too much of a coward to ever give that to him. Shinso needed to cut his losses, he was better off without him around, Izuku was never going to be the friend he deserved but Shinso was far too kind to end it himself.
Midoriya: (11:54 am)
I’m sorry, I’ll come in later and explain everything.
Izuku forced himself through the motions of getting ready, he wiped off whatever eyeshadow he had left after all his crying and changed into his street clothes, he didn’t bother with his uniform or backpack. It was too late to go to school even if he thought he could force himself, he’d need to send another fake email. Maybe he’d say there was a death in the family, that was what had happened anyway.
He lost himself as his legs carried him down the familiar path to the library, it wasn’t fair to bring his grief and anger to Shinso-san so he shoved it down as best he could but his mind kept drifting back to how he found her, back to who could have done this and he was so goddamn angry. In hindsight, he realized they were probably looking for him, that realization almost sent him to his knees. They were after him, he went poking around in their business and messed up their plans too many times and they were finally trying to take him out, DJ just got caught in the crossfire. She was probably just trying to scare them away, trying to protect their home. His limbs were shaking and he had to sit down on a bus stop bench to collect himself.
He wanted to scream and cry at the injustice of it all but it was his fault, wasn’t it? Kami, it was his fault. She would have been fine if he hadn’t painted a target on himself with no regard for who else might get hurt. He never should have let himself get close to her, he should have left ages ago. He never should have let himself get close to anyone.
Scraping up the last shreds of his resolve he tamped down his grief and continued his trek to the library. It was busier than it was on weekends or in the mornings but it was just as quiet. He made his way to a lone computer in the back and sent off the fake email to school excusing him for his absence before he went to go find Shinso.
He was in his usual spot and when Izuku walked in he glanced up at him for a moment before looking back down at the desk. He looked angry or maybe disappointed, Izuku couldn’t tell. After a second he looked over to all the other people in the room, stood up, and headed for the door. When he passed by Izuku he jerked his head to the side to beckon him to follow so he did. Shinso led him back to what Izuku could only assume was the breakroom, he punched in a code and held the door open for the both of them to file in. He didn’t speak until the door closed behind them.
“Alright, what the hell is going on then?” he asked harshly. His tone softened as he added, “And why did that text sound like a goodbye?”
It took everything he had not to immediately start bawling, he hurt Shinso, Shinso was mad at him and he had every right to be, Izuku was a terrible friend and he was about to make it so much worse.
“Shinso, I’m sorry. I d-don’t have a good excuse and I promise it’s not your fault, it doesn’t have anything to do with you or your quirk, I meant what I s-said. Your quirk is amazing and you can do so much good with it, you will do so much g-good with it, I know you will. I just… I’m…” he trailed off unable to force himself to say what he came here to say.
“You just what, Midoriya?” he asked, now just sounding tired.
He forced himself to look him in the eyes, he didn’t look so angry anymore, Kami, he couldn’t just forgive him, that wasn’t fair. That made everything so much harder. He dropped his gaze because he couldn’t look Shinso in the eye while he said this.
“I’m– I-I’m moving, Shinso,” he croaked out.
“What? You’re moving? Moving where?” he demanded.
“America, with m-my dad. My mom and I are joining him out th-there. My grandma just died so we’ve got n-nothing left here,” he forced each word out and they tasted like bile on his tongue.
The room fell into silence but Izuku still couldn’t force himself to look at Shinso.
“When?” Shinso finally spoke up, he sounded so sad.
Tears started to prick at his eyes despite his best efforts to keep them at bay.
“T-this weekend,” he said as he wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve.
The room went deathly silent again, the weight of it was oppressive. One of them must have been projecting something because there was a warning knock on the door before Shinso-san walked in. She closed the door behind her after seeing the state of them.
“What’s going on, I–” she looked unsure of herself, it was so foreign to him. She always looked so happy and confident, he hated what he was doing to them but he couldn’t stop.
“I just felt– should I leave?” she finally spat out.
“No, you should know t-too,” he said before taking a few deep breaths.
“My m-mom and I are moving to America, we’re leaving this weekend,” he stated bluntly.
He heard her gasp but he couldn’t force himself to meet her eyes either.
“Oh, honey I’m so sorry,” she said as she rushed over to him and pulled him into a hug.
Fuck, he didn’t deserve this. He was lying through his teeth and she was apologizing to him. Worst of all he wanted nothing more than to sink into the embrace. He just wanted to take more and more of the kindness that he didn’t deserve. He wanted to cry his eyes out into her shoulder but he couldn’t. She pulled back and cupped his face in her hands, wiping away his tears with her thumbs. He couldn’t breathe past the lump in his throat, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this.
“You guys can still call and text, we’ll still be here for you Midoriya,” she tried to soothe.
Her words just sent another spike through his heart.
“I w-won’t have an international p-plan,” he choked out.
“We can still talk on Discord or something, right? I can help you set up an account if you don’t have one,” Shinso finally spoke up from the other side of the room.
Fucking hell, why were they fighting to keep him around? Why did they have to make this so hard? Why did they have to be so kind?
“I can t-try but my parents are w-weird about my internet a-access, that’s why I was always h-here in the first p-place,” he lied.
Every word was a lie and that goddamn stutter prolonged every second he spent spitting it out. When he finally forced himself to look up both of the Shinsos had tears in their eyes. His chest shuddered as he choked back a sob
“So… so this is goodbye?” Shinso asked, his voice thick with emotion.
Izuku tried to answer but he couldn’t force the words past his lips so he just nodded. The room was quiet except for the occasional sniffle until he could find the resolve to speak.
“I-I wanted t-to–” his words were wobbly but he pulled himself together, “I wanted to thank you b-both, for everything and I-I’m sorry, I-I’m s-so sorry,” he couldn’t say any more than that.
“Honey, you don’t have to apologize,” Shinso-san insisted.
She had to feel the guilt radiating off of him, it was all-consuming, it could blot out the sun with its intensity. He had so much more to apologize for, more than they would ever know. Suddenly, he was wrapped up in another hug, one from arms too wirey to be Shinso-san. He couldn’t stop his own arms from wrapping around Shinso’s back in return. He wanted to stay here, to leech off of their warmth forever, he wanted to take it all back but instead, he peeled himself from the embrace and forced himself to look Shinso in the eyes and gave one last,
“Goodbye.”
He could see that Shinso was still talking to him, saying something but he couldn’t make out the words, he couldn’t sort the syllables into sentences; he needed to leave. Shinso gave him a piece of paper with writing on it that he couldn’t decipher through his watering eyes, it was probably a username or something, he slipped it into his pocket even though he wanted to shred it to pieces just so he couldn’t be tempted. Both of them wrestled at least one more hug from him before he could finally excuse himself from the room.
***
The moment he left the front door of the library the tears came back in full force, he could barely see where he was going and he kept gasping for air that never seemed to fill his lungs properly. He needed to get out of here, he needed to get away from everything and everyone. He needed to go somewhere far away where he could never hurt anyone again.
Every lie he told them hung heavy around his shoulders but it was for the best, Shinso deserved better and Izuku couldn’t bear to wait around long enough to lose Shinso too. He never deserved them to begin with, it was selfish to have stayed as long as he had.
His legs took him home, back down into the stairwell. He’d left the lights on but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He let himself collapse back onto the floor as he looked at the stuffed cat lying in his mess of blankets, the stuffed cat that Shinso won for him in a claw machine that looked just like DJ. That damn stuffed cat was the physical symbol of everything he couldn’t have, he wanted to burn it, he wanted to throw it into the ocean, he couldn’t bare to look at it; He held it to his chest so tightly that he shook with the force.
Notes:
*runs away from mob with torches and pitchforks*
*yells over my shoulder*
THANKS FOR READING!!! COME BACK WEDNESDAY FOR CH 66!!!
Chapter 66: *Throws Chapter into Pit of Angry Ravenous Dogs*
Chapter Text
He couldn’t stay here, the location was compromised. Eraser knew where it was and more importantly, someone had come poking around close enough for DJ to try and scare them off. It wasn’t safe anymore, it wasn’t home anymore, not without her. The thought of leaving hurt just as much as the thought of staying here and waking up every morning alone.
No, he couldn’t stay here.
Through tear-filled eyes he started stuffing his nest into his duffel bag, he already used his suitcase as a dresser of sorts so he just stuffed as much stuff in there as he could along with his clothes. He packed all the essentials, he could come back for the rest later.
He threaded the handles of the duffle bag around the handle of his suitcase and dragged them up the stairs. He couldn’t help but remember the first time he did this, packed up his life and left. He was so scared then he wouldn’t even walk through Uptown with his stuff for fear that someone would take it. He’d like to see someone try to take his shit now. With determination, he stalked toward the old brewery he taught himself how to freerun in while keeping an eye out to make sure no one followed.
The brewery was closer to all the commotion on block 8 but he didn’t care, no he didn’t care one bit. If he was gonna keep living then he was going to make them pay. Whoever was stalking around over by his warehouse must be involved with the gang, they were looking for him, this wasn’t a coincidence. He might not be able to find out exactly who did this but that wouldn’t matter if he burned their entire operation to the ground, perhaps literally, he hadn’t decided yet.
He spent the rest of the day going back and forth between the two warehouses lugging all his shit. He didn’t have anywhere to set up yet in the brewery but he’s sure he could find somewhere, he could explore later, right now he needed something mindless, something to keep the blood rushing through his veins and distract him from his head.
On his last trip to the old warehouse he looked over everything, all that was left were some scrap parts from the lower landing, his dirty laundry, and the stuffed cat plush. He shoved the clothes and scraps into his bag and looked down at the plush lying at his feet. He stood there for a moment before he walked away. He trudged up the stairs and didn’t let himself look back, he kept his eyes trained forward until the building was well out of sight.
***
Shota had been on edge all day. He’ll admit that he’d been completely insufferable until 11:38 when Ivy finally texted him back. He hardly spoke a word to anyone and he’d just given his classes busy work or study halls because he knew he wouldn’t be able to give a coherent lecture, so they’d all be better off if he just didn’t even try. He contemplated just not coming in at all but he barely got a wink of sleep and by the time the alarm sounded he was damn near tearing his hair out. He needed some sort of distraction.
Hizashi was a damn saint through it all, they let him communicate through vague grunts, pointed looks, and one-word sentences without complaint. They made him coffee twice before they even left the house and he’s sure they texted Nem and either explained the situation or told her not to prod him because everyone, blessedly, left him alone.
He spent his lunch with Zashi and didn’t bother trying to stomach anything but a nutrient pouch. He just sat there and stared at his phone sitting on his desk and waited. If they didn’t respond by noon he was going to take the latter half of the day off to go check on them and with every minute that ticked down he got more and more tense. Zashi was half-heartedly poking at their own lunch next to him with one hand rested on his thigh under the table, he was running his thumb back and forth at a steady pace and that might have been the only thing keeping him sane.
When his screen finally lit up with a notification they both shot up in their seats as Shota snatched the phone off the table. It was Ivy. Thank Kami, it was Ivy. Hizashi read the text over his shoulder as he typed out a quick ‘thank you’ back to them. He sunk back into his chair and took a deep breath or two. That awful weight of not knowing was lifted off his shoulders but he was still worried, he didn’t think he was ever going to stop worrying about that kid.
***
Shota was sitting on the ledge waiting for Ivy like he did nearly every day but unlike every other day anxiety was roiling in his gut. He needed to calm down, they’d texted him this morning, they were okay, well probably not okay but they were alive. Seconds stretched on into eternities until he heard them crest over the ledge on the other side of the roof. He had to stop himself from whipping around and running over to them, they were going through a lot; they didn’t need to deal with his erratic behavior on top of it.
He turned around calmly like he would any other night and looked at them. They didn’t look any different, he didn’t know why he expected them to. They seemed hesitant which made sense so he stood up and walked over to them, he was the actual adult here, he could do this.
“Hey, kid,” he greeted.
Ivy looked down at their shoes before answering, “Hey.”
They just stood looking at each other for a few awkward moments before Shota spoke.
“I’m not going to stand here and pretend that I know what you’re going through because I don’t but I…” he trailed off for a moment, what he went through after losing Oboro was never easy to talk about and after almost losing Ivy it certainly wasn’t any easier.
“I’ve been– I’ve been that low before. I know that it–” he cut himself off again and closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself, “I know how difficult it can be to find a reason to keep going and I don’t know what you have in terms of friends or family but you have… you have me and I… I would… I would be devastated if–” he was barely keeping his composure at this point.
Kami, why was it so hard to just speak?
“I would be devastated if I lost you, Ivy. So, if you have nothing else, then do it for me, please. I’m not good with all of this,” he gestured vaguely between the two of them, “but I can listen, I can try.” he finally concluded.
He could see tears starting to brim in their eyes as they let out a humorless laugh.
“How can you say that when you don't know the first goddamn thing about me, Eraser?”
“That’s not true, kid,” he argued.
They just looked at him then looked back to the ground shaking their head, they clearly didn’t believe him.
“I might not know pedantic trivia about you, I might not know your name or your face but I know your heart, Ivy. I know you and even if I don’t, even if this was all some elaborate ruse and every word you’ve ever said was a lie, I still know that I would miss you. Can’t that be enough?”
The tears threatening to spill from their eyes finally fell down their cheeks and he reached out on instinct before he stopped himself but they didn’t flinch away. Their eyes shifted focus to his hand but they didn’t flinch from him. Slowly he moved closer and they still didn’t back away so he pulled them against his chest. They were so small but it was a balm to his soul to feel them breathing, warm and alive and breathing. He wrapped his arms around their bony shoulders and held them tight. He felt their breath shudder as they cried into his chest and clutched at the back of his jumpsuit.
They were safe, they were here, they were going to be okay.
He held them until they stopped crying and they pulled away. They stepped back and steadfastly refused to look him in the eye so he just gave them a moment.
“I-I’m sorry,” they finally croaked out.
“Kid, don’t–” they cut him off.
“No, I am, just– for all of it. I’m sorry,” they said as they finally looked at him.
The makeup around their eyes had smudged off a bit and either there were specks of it left behind or they had a spattering of freckles across their cheeks, he couldn’t really tell with the sun setting behind them.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he tried but Ivy wasn’t having it.
“Well, I am,” they said with finality.
“Fine, then I forgive you,” he countered.
They dropped their gaze after that, unable to look him in the eye any longer.
“Ivy?” he asked to get their attention back.
They let out a hum and glanced up at him for a brief moment in acknowledgment.
“I…” he started and then trailed off not quite sure how to phrase what he needed to ask. After a moment of silence, he decided, fuck it, this conversation didn’t need to be a game of chess, “Ivy, how old are you?” he asked.
They looked back up at him purely out of shock before answering, “Eraser you know I’m not gonna give you identifying information.”
He knew that would be the answer but he pressed on regardless, “Kid, you’re living in a stairwell and I heard you last night, you don’t sound old enough to be on your own and you don’t even come up to my shoulder.”
They scrunched their brow up at the comment on their height but he continued regardless.
“I’m not trying to say you’re incapable, I’m just worried,” he admitted.
“I don’t live in the stairwell,” they countered.
“Ivy, there was a cat door cut out–”
“I don’t live there anymore, I-I used to. I’ve got four walls and a roof, I've got heat, electricity, and access to clean water and I can take care of myself, I know you probably will anyway but you don’t need to worry about me,” they said, forcing themself to meet his eyes. “I know I sound young, that's why I made this,” they gestured to their voice modulator, “No one ever took me seriously, but I assure you, I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
Shota really wanted to believe all of that. If Ivy was lying they didn’t give any tells but still, something didn’t sit right with him.
“I want to believe that kid, but I don’t.”
“I’m not lying to you, I-I swear on DJ’s grave,” they said as a few more tears fell from their eyes, “Cross my heart and hope to die,” they added with a humorless laugh.
He was so shocked that he couldn’t help the scoff that left his mouth. He lifted a hand up to scrub at the scruff on his face.
“Don’t say that, Ivy,” he mumbled into his hand.
He really wanted to believe them, he was generally pretty good at telling whether or not someone was lying and they didn’t sound like they were lying. Kami, where’s Tsukauchi when you need him? He looked up and studied their face again, they looked genuine, granted, he couldn’t see over half their face but he’d grown accustomed to dealing with that by now. What could he do if they were lying anyway? Take them in? He couldn’t do that, that wouldn’t end well for literally anyone. He’d been over that scenario in his mind a thousand times over, it simply wasn’t an option, and forcing the subject any more than he already had wasn’t going to get him anywhere so he let it drop. All he could do was be here for them.
“Alright, okay,” he paused for a moment before adding, “If you ever find yourself on the streets again, tell me, please. If you ever need anything at all, just tell me, okay? I’ve got a guest room if you need somewhere to crash, I’ve got two full-time jobs, I can spare the funds if you need food or anything, just tell me, please,” he pleaded.
Ivy’s gaze dropped again at the offer and they just nodded.
“I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, I don’t care what you need or want and I don’t care when. I’m not gonna lose you, Ivy,” he asserted.
They simply nodded again.
“Do you have someone kid? Someone to talk to?” he pushed cautiously. It was a little too personal, a little too probing but he needed to know.
“Yeah, Eraser, I’ve got someone. Don’t think I could get rid of them if I tried, think I’d have to kill ‘em myself,” they said with a rueful laugh.
“Good. You need someone like that,” he replied. He felt better knowing they had someone, it didn’t matter who they were to them as long as it was someone.
“Alright, that's enough of that shit,” he declared, “Let's talk about those knife skills, I think you gave me a haircut last night, you think you’re ready to take them out on patrols now?”
Notes:
Thank you for reading!!! I'm done torturing the green bean............... for now.
Chapter 67: ♫ I’m Just a Kid and Life is a Nightmare ♫
Notes:
Guys, I’ve been pussy footin’. The gang needs a name and I don’t know a goddamn thing about the Japanese language, I’m plugging random words into Google translate and weeping. Does anybody speak Japanese? Give me a name and please don’t clown on me, I Will Cry.
These are the names I’ve gotten from plugging shit into Google translate but idk if it translates well at all. Like I know what the word means but idk if its stupid as hell in Japanese, like if someone in wanted to name their gang something scary like the grizzly bears but their language just translated it to little tiny baby bear cub. Or like what if the word translates to something really similar to the word for like doodoo butt or something??? Idfk languages are weird someone help me.Dokuhebi Yakedo Nokoribi
idfk help
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku could say with confidence that the next few days were the worst few days of his life. The weekend was unbearable, he spent the first day lying in the pile of his stuff that he haphazardly threw into the brewery. He didn’t try to adjust anything to make it more comfortable, he didn’t look for the ideal place to camp, he didn’t explore any of the back rooms to see if he could pick the locks or get in somehow. He didn’t even set up his generator, he just laid down in the dim light coming from the windows and stared off into nothing. He couldn’t even find it in himself to cry or scream or rage against anything.
When night started to set over the city he crawled out of his spot and met Eraserhead like he usually did. They didn’t talk and he didn’t talk much either. The streets were still pretty quiet but it was a Saturday so they were a bit more lively than they had been. Even so, they didn’t communicate beyond what was necessary for patrol and Eraser gave them a soft side hug as he left. It didn’t help, it just made him feel unworthy. He didn’t deserve his concern but he knew the man was far too stubborn for him to get rid of. He’d rip the town apart looking for him if he tried to disappear like he did with the Shinsos. He wanted to tell him to leave before he got hurt too, before Izuku’s mess was the end of them both but he knew he wouldn’t listen so he didn’t bother.
Sunday found him perched on top of the roof of a building on block 7 overlooking block 8. He couldn’t stand looking at the brewery walls for a second longer, he’d hardly slept or ate and he hadn’t changed since Thursday night when he’d found her. He looked ragged but he didn’t care. He was going to find something, he was going to get some sort of information, he had to.
He had to.
He didn’t even go ‘home’ after patrol on Saturday, he just went to block 7, took his post, and watched, committing every face and name to memory. He noted everything from the time people came and went to the amount of people, to who traveled together, everything. He filled his mind with every single detail he could, anything to blot out his own thoughts. He drifted off from time to time but he never left, not until the last of the sun’s light left the sky and he was due to meet Eraser again. He knew it was stupid and reckless, he could have woken up screaming at any point but he didn’t care.
When he showed up on the rooftop Eraser gave him a look. Kami, he should have cleaned up a bit, he didn’t want to hear this.
“Ivy, have you slept?” he asked cautiously.
“It’s makeup, Eraser, not eye bags. I assure you mine are not as designer as yours,” they quipped back dryly.
“Ivy, this isn’t a joke, it’s not safe to patrol like this, not for either of us. I can’t rely on you to have my back if you’re dead on your feet,” he argued gently.
They knew that, he knew that but what the fuck else was he supposed to do? He felt misplaced anger welling in his gut, he wanted to tell Eraser to shove his opinions where the sun don’t shine and mind his business but that wasn’t fair. He was right, Izuku knew he was right so instead he just stood there with clenched and trembling fists.
“I know you know that, kid. Sit down, eat. We can figure it out when you’re done,” he offered.
The thought of eating right now made his stomach turn but he knew that the trembling of his fist wasn’t just from how hard he had them clenched. When he got up too quickly he saw spots in his vision, for the past four days all he’d had to eat was maybe a quarter of the food Eraser had packed for him. It wasn’t enough, he knew it wasn’t enough but he could barely force himself to breathe, forcing himself to eat was out of the question.
“Have you been eating?” he asked just as gently.
He hated this, Kami, he hated this so much. He hated his kindness, he hated his concern, he hated himself, he hated the senseless violence of the world, and he hated the hand he had to play in it. He hated how helpless he felt against it all, he hated how his best efforts would never be good enough, and he hated that fucking look that Eraser kept giving him. He was looking at him like he gave a shit, like his suffering meant something, like he didn’t deserve it, like it wasn’t all his fault anyway. Eraser was getting up, he was walking toward him but he was rooted in place. His vision was blurring and he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
***
Ivy was looking worse and worse by the day but Sunday evening when they crested the ledge of the roof their foot caught on the lip and they stumbled forward. It looked like they hadn’t slept since Thursday. Honestly, it looked like they hadn’t even changed; the black eyeshadow around their eyes spread out much further than it normally did like they had kept rubbing their eyes and not washing it off, instead just reapplying it. They walked forward not reacting to their stumble at all he could see a subtle shake to their hands, and small dark whisps of hair fell around their face.
They clearly hadn’t slept and he doubted they’d been eating much more than the small amounts of food they picked over each night. They looked absolutely awful, they couldn’t patrol like this; it looked like a strong breeze would win in a fight against them at the moment. He was honestly hesitant to let them sit in their regular spot on the ledge of the roof to eat but they were frozen in place right now so maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about that at all.
“Ivy?” he called out.
They didn’t respond and he could see their eyes starting to get glassy. He approached them slowly because they didn’t seem very present at the moment and he didn’t need them panicking on top of whatever was going on in their head right now. They’d responded well to very gentle and telegraphed physical touch in the past, and that was usually their go-to when they were trying to calm down civilians during patrol. He could only hope that this wouldn’t backfire as he gingerly laid a hand on their right shoulder.
They didn’t flinch, their gaze just slowly drifted to his hand and back up his arm to his face. They’d yet to let a tear fall and when they looked at him they took in a deep shaking breath and shook their head as if they were trying to clear it like an etch-a-sketch. After another deep breath, they nodded.
“You’re right, I’m sorry, I can’t– you’re right,” they said, quiet and resigned.
“Why don’t you sit down, kid?” he replied as he guided them to sit with their back against the ledge rather than on it.
They sat down hard like their legs gave out halfway through. They hugged their legs to their chest and laid their head on their knees. They looked so small. He sat down next to them and let the silence settle around them. He wished there was something more he could do, he wished they would talk to him and explain why they were hurting so much because this clearly went beyond just losing a pet. He wished there was a concrete problem to solve, but there wasn’t, so he just sat with them.
The two of them sat there in silence until the moon hung high in the sky. Shota wasn’t sure if they had fallen asleep or not but they hadn’t moved and given how exhausted they looked he wouldn’t be surprised if they fell asleep like that.
Shota:
Ivy looks like they havent slept since thurs. I think they just fell asleep sitting up.
Hizashi:
Aren’t you guys patrolling???
Shota:
No theyre completely dead on their feet. I had them sit down and they haven’t moved in over 45 minutes.
Hizashi:
Poor kid.
Shota:
Idk what to do
Hizashi:
I dont know that theres anything to do baby. They’re grieving, they need time.
He knew that was true but that’s not what he wanted to hear, he wanted so desperately to make things better, he wanted to eradicate the sound of their wrecked sobs from his memory.
Shota:
I know
Shota thought back to when he lost Oboro, something he rarely ever allowed himself to do, and tried to think of anything that had made him feel better, anything that softened the edge of the omnipresent shadow of grief but he couldn’t think of a damn thing. He pushed everyone away and lashed out at anyone who tried to resist, he was insufferable, everything was insufferable. It was months and months before his first thought waking up every morning wasn’t ‘Why couldn’t it have been me?’ And even now the thought crept up on him from time to time.
No, Shota knew there was nothing for it but time but, Kami, he wished that wasn’t the case.
“Ivy?” he asked quietly.
They didn’t respond. Listening closer their breaths had evened out substantially, they were definitely asleep. He wondered how they could sleep so tense and curled in on themself, they were still hugging their legs to their chest, their arms hadn’t gone lax at all. There’s no way that was comfortable. They needed to eat and they needed to go home.
He gently shook their shoulder and before he could even blink his wrist was caught in a vice-like grip and Ivy was looking at him with wild eyes. Alright, note to self, never wake Ivy up. He’s glad they didn’t have the wherewithal to grab their knife. As quickly as his hand was grabbed it was dropped and Ivy scrambled back a few feet apologizing profusely the whole time for even falling asleep in the first place.
“Ivy, Ivy, it’s fine. You clearly need the rest but you also need to eat, c’mon,” he reached behind him to the ledge where their dinner sat untouched and handed it over, “eat this and go home.”
Their chest was still heaving from being startled awake but they took the bento in shaking hands anyway. They sat it in their lap and didn’t open it, they just stared down at it. He knew they wouldn’t take their mask off to eat if he was watching them but they didn’t show any signs that they even wanted to.
“Do you wanna just take it home?” he offered.
They glanced around the rooftop with a sad look in their eye before glancing up at him but they didn’t say anything. After a while of looking down at the gravel-covered roof they nodded, took the bento, and got up on shaky legs.
“Text me when you get back, okay?”
They looked up at him again for a moment, they looked like they wanted to say something but decided against it because they just said “yeah” and walked away, carefully lowering themself down to the fire escape and taking the stairs down. He watched until they got to street level and looked back up to him with a wave. They didn’t want him to see where they were going, he knew that but he didn’t want to let them out of his sight. Reluctantly, he turned around and collected the remains of his dinner that he’d picked through while the kid slept and went home.
***
When Izuku got back to the brewery he finally let himself cry for the first time since Friday. He fell into himself on his mess of blankets and clothes and wept. He was so tired, so, so tired; the kind of tired that no amount of sleep could fix. He wanted to give up, he wanted the gun back. He cried and cried until he couldn’t feel anything at all, until the heaving shudders of his lungs felt distant, until all his pain felt so far away that it didn’t hurt so much anymore.
Somewhere along the line, he had fallen asleep and, blessedly, he woke up to the screaming of his alarm clock and not his own screams. He must have slept for at least 8 hours but he felt no more rested than he did before. He was cold, the chill of early April nights clung to the cavernous room and seeped into his bones.
It was Monday. He had school today. He was still in his Ivy gear and he was starting to get a little ripe, he needed a shower. He wasn’t due for one until tomorrow but he still had eyeshadow on and his pot of rainwater had been empty ever since he used it to… since he used it to wash… since…
He needed to clean up, he needed to fill his water bottle. He had no doubt that he was severely dehydrated at this point, his mouth was dry and his eyes were dryer. He went outside with a washcloth and wiped dew off the metal garage door and used that to get off as much of the eyeshadow as he could before changing into his school uniform. His half-broken mirror had cracked even more on the trip over here from the stairwell and his fractured reflection stared back at him. He looked absolutely wretched and he didn’t want to know how much of the darkness under his eyes was left over makeup and how much of it was bags. His hair was an absolute rat’s nest and he spent nearly a full 15 minutes trying to brush through the mess of tangles, once it was a horrible greasy poof around his head he tied it back up and rifled around his stuff until he found where his bar of soap ended up. Sticking that in his backpack he headed out, keeping his eyes peeled for anyone and everything around him until he was well out of Uptown.
***
As the week progressed Izuku became more and more sure in the belief that hell would be kinder than this. He hadn’t been able to sleep for more than an hour at a time before he woke up screaming or crying or both and no matter what he did, no matter where he was it felt like the air was too dense to breathe, like it was physically weighing him down and suffocating him slowly.
After a few days, he gave up on trying to get anything resembling a suitable amount of rest and he spent every waking moment not at school or patrol sitting on the roofs surrounding block 8. He brought his old phone that he hardly ever kept charged nowadays since it hadn’t had cell service in over 2 years but it had a better camera than the useless grainy piece of shit that his burner had. He took pictures of every single person coming in or out or even milling around near block 8 and he started taking intensive notes. He added each person he saw to their own note on his phone and outlined every single bit of information he could on them, he probed around Uptown on patrols subtly questioning people to get any info he could. Within a week he had profiles on over 30 people to varying levels of detail listing anything he could find from their name to their quirk to their criminal records to their damn home address if he could find it.
He had pages and pages listing potential schedules and weak points in their guard. He’d even been drawing out a map of the building, gaining as much information on the floorplan as he could from brief peeks through the windows and opened doors.
When he had time at school and no one was looking, usually at lunch, he copied down his notes into a physical journal just in case something happened to his phone. He upped the brightness of his screen and put it behind each page to trace the pictures he’d taken and fill in any blurry areas. The more copies he had of this information, the better. Eventually, he’d hand it over to Eraser but he didn’t want to hear the lecture about being reckless. He carried his old phone with him on patrols just in case something happened to him, he knew the detective would insist on searching everything he had on his person so Eraser would get the information eventually. And when he was steaking out the block he always had a text message ready to send to Eraser telling him where his journal could be found, just in case they caught him. He wouldn’t let them get away with what they’d done, not even over his dead body.
He was still running himself ragged, he knew that, but he slept at least 2 hours each night and ate at least one meal a day. He forced himself to do that because he wouldn’t be of any help to anyone dead. He caught small naps wherever he could to supplement the lack of rest he got at night, it was better that way, he definitely wasn’t getting a healthy REM cycle but that means he didn’t get the chance to dream which was his preference. All in all, he was doing better than he had been the first few days after he… after it happened but he was a far cry away from okay. No, he was very much not okay but he wasn’t liable to pass out each time he stood up and that had to be good enough.
Notes:
thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 68: Aren’t You Tired of Being Nice? Don’t You Just Wanna Go Ape-Shit?
Notes:
CWs
-fairly vivid descriptions of gore
-severe panic attack
-gunM/W/F guaranteed uploads this week unless I die or something.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Days kept passing in an endless exhausting cycle and nothing seemed to change. Debilitating loneliness settled around him like a second skin and despite his best efforts to distract himself, he couldn’t crawl his way out of it. It was like an annoying tag scratching at the nape of his neck, always there. He felt his sanity fraying at the edges.
Izuku was so sick and tired of being alone. Day in and day out he sat by himself, at school, on stakeouts, and at ‘home,’ he was alone. He’d been trying to relegate a short rest time right before patrols so that he could be more alert and distance himself from the crushing dread of his own loneliness but that wasn’t going to work today. He felt like he was going to crawl out of his own skin so he decided to leave for patrol a little early, Eraser was always there before him, even after they stopped going through drills and spars for a couple of hours before they headed out. They assumed he’d just come straight from UA when they did that but they met much later nowadays so he had no reason to be early anymore but he always was anyway.
They wondered why that was. Eraser had said ‘WE love her’ when he was talking about his cat and they knew he didn’t make the bentos he brought each night. They wondered who he went home to and they wished they still had someone to go home to, wished they still had a home to go to at all. They brushed the thought away as quickly as they could as they threw themselves along the rooftops, jealousy didn’t help anyone, least of all them.
They had never been more glad that they left early for anything in their life. The image of the scene that they could have walked into was going to haunt them forever because as they peaked their head up above the ledge from the fire escape they saw Eraser sitting in his usual spot looking out over the city but someone else was there too, someone uncannily silent was creeping up behind him with a gun pointed at his head.
It felt like time froze in that moment, they heaved themself up and over the ledge quicker than they had ever done before and screamed out his name, they wouldn’t get there in time, they were so close but still too far. As they ran at them from the edge of the roof the two were in a picture-perfect profile just close enough for them to see every detail of Eraser getting his brains blown out but too far to stop it.
Before his name fully left their mouth they remembered their knives. They had the perfect angle; if they could sink it into the man’s outstretched arm it might be enough to knock his aim off. It had to be enough, it had to, this was all they could do, this was all they had left. Pleading and praying to no one and anyone who would listen they let their knife fly. Each millisecond that passed by felt like a lifetime as they watched its trajectory bring itself perfectly into the man’s forearm. Even still, they saw the muzzle flash of the gun firing as Eraser turned to them to see what they were screaming about.
He was standing, he was still standing, he had to be okay, it had to be enough.
Everything the man did was completely silent, his feet on the gravel made no noise, the gun firing made no noise and they were sure that the breaths that Eraser should have been able to hear were silent too. His mouth opened with what must have been a cry of pain but it was silent. It must be a quirk; Hoshino something, quirk, soundwave manipulation, they had a profile on the man already but they’d yet to get a good look at his face.
As Eraser took in the state of them and saw where their attention was pointed he whipped around and disarmed the man before Ivy even made it to his side. Oh, but that wouldn’t be enough to save him. No, God themself couldn’t save this man now.
Heedless to anything Eraser may or may not be saying Ivy Punched the man’s jaw with every bit of force they had in them and he dropped like a brick. He was dazed but still conscious, good. Hauling him back to his feet by the collar they pressed a knife to his neck before he even realized he was standing again.
***
Shota was reeling. He’d just been sitting on the ledge looking over the city waiting for Ivy when they came over the side of the roof screaming his name with guttural horror. Before he even had the time to react he felt the shockwave of a bullet leaving the chamber of a gun reverberating on the back of his skull. He damn near felt the heat from the muzzle flash but he didn’t hear a thing, he didn’t hear the man approach, he didn’t hear the gunfire, he only connected the dots after he disarmed the man and Ivy came after him swinging and shouting.
He didn’t fully get his wits about him until he realized Ivy was holding a knife to the man’s neck screaming at him to give them a reason not to slit his throat where he stood.
“Ivy! Stop!” he shouted as he stepped forward to pull them off the guy.
“Eraser, you take one step closer and this knife is going into his jugular,” they threatened. Their voice was cold, cold like it was when they told him to get the fuck out of the stairwell the night he found them there. That was not a voice he wanted to test.
“Who sent you? Give me names!” Ivy demanded but the man was still dazed from the blow to the head.
He was blinking owlishly at them and mumbling incoherently through his rapidly swelling jaw. Ivy shook him violently and demanded an answer. Slowly his eyes started to shift back into focus and maybe he was stupid, maybe he was just concussed, or maybe he had a death wish because he spat a glob of blood at Ivy’s face and told them to go to hell.
Ivy’s rage was damn near corporeal as they pushed the man a few paces backward toward the ledge and pushed him over until his center of balance was well on the other side and he was only being held up by one of Ivy’s hands fisted in his collar, the other still pressing a knife to his throat.
“Was the knife not enough of a threat? Is this better?” they asked sounding hysterical.
They looked psychotic, they sounded completely unhinged, he wasn’t sure there was any reasoning with them but there was no other option to deescalate; if he wrapped them up in his scarf and pulled them back the man would fall to his death and if he wrapped them both up Ivy would still easily be able to slit the man’s throat. This was not the ideal situation to be thrust into seconds after coming off the panicked high of his closest brush with death in years.
“Ivy–” he tried to call out to them calmly.
“One step and he’s dead!” they interrupted with a harsh reminder.
Kami, he couldn’t tell if they were kidding, he really hoped they were kidding.
“If you don’t have information then you’re dead, do you understand that or are you stupid?” they asked the man in a tone so calm it sent a chill down his spine.
“You’re not gonna kill me, you heroes are too virtuous for that, you don’t scare me, they do. I talk and they’ll kill me,” the man choked out after a second. It seemed like the gravity of the situation was finally starting to sink in for him.
There were several seconds of heated silence before Ivy laughed in the man’s face. The laugh was straight out of a horror film, it was completely deranged, it was downright giddy and it just kept going. On and on they laughed hysterically throwing their head back. They shrugged their shoulder up to dab at the tears of laughter leaking out of the corner of their eye before they pulled themself together and turned their focus back to the man they had hanging over a 20-story drop.
“I’m not a hero, talk or die,” they stated with calm finality.
“Ivy, put the knife away. Put him down and walk away. I already messaged the cops,” He warned them.
He hadn’t actually messaged anyone but they didn’t need to know that. If Ivy was actually serious they didn’t need any more witnesses to this than they already had.
They only giggled at his warning.
“See, even the real hero is scared for you!” they cooed, “Now tell me who sent you, I will not ask again.”
The man glanced over to him and he must have seen the genuine fear in Shota’s eyes because he saw the color drain from his face as he looked back up to Ivy.
“I–I don’t–” he started.
“Don’t you dare say ‘I don’t know’ unless you really want those to be your last words,” Ivy cut him off.
Their arms were starting to tremble, they wouldn’t be able to hold the man up much longer.
“I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if you answer their questions,” Shota warned trying his best to keep his voice level.
The man was holding onto Ivy with his good arm, the other one had one of Ivy’s throwing knives sticking out of it as it sluggishly dripped blood. He was looking over at Shota like he could save him which was rich given that the man had been milliseconds away from putting a bullet through his skull.
“It was The Yakedo–”
“I KNOW IT WAS THE YAKEDO, GIVE ME NAMES!” they bellowed.
“I-I don’t– they’ll-they–”
“Either they might kill you later or I WILL kill you now. Stop worrying about what might happen and worry about what will happen if you don’t talk,” they threatened as the knife pressed to the man’s neck started to draw blood.
“Ich-Ichikawa! It was Ichikawa! Ichikawa Yuu, he sent me!” he stuttered out.
“Not good enough, I already know about Ichikawa. Tell me who’s in charge,” Ivy shot back immediately.
“W-what?” the man echoed Shota’s thoughts exactly.
“WHO’S IN CHARGE?”
“I-I don’t know! I don’t know! I never seen ‘im, please!” the man pleaded desperately.
“Ivy, please, he answered your questions. Put him down, I can’t bail you out of this and you can’t stop them from behind prison bars,” he bartered. It was logical, Ivy was logical, they had to listen.
“I can’t stop them if I don’t get some more GODDAMN INFORMATION!”
“Tsukauchi can get that, put him down!” Shota shot back trying to sound as authoritative as possible but he knew he had no control over the situation, “If you’re in jail then I’m out here on my own,” he added hoping that would be enough because it was all he had.
The man’s eyes had gone glassy and he was babbling, pleading for Ivy to put him down as Ivy’s arms shook more and more under the strain of holding him up. After another heated moment of silence, Ivy threw the man back onto the gravel and delivered a harsh kick to his ribs in one smooth motion. They were going for another kick as Shota dragged them away from the man already coughing up blood on the ground.
“Ivy, that’s enough!” he barked as he held them to his chest, he didn’t want to actually restrain them but he feared what they might do if he didn’t hold them back.
They thrashed around wildly for a moment before they stilled still trembling with rage and heaving in ragged shaky breaths. He continued to hold them there until he was just a little more sure that they wouldn’t immediately go sink a knife into the man’s heart upon being released.
When he let them go they started walking toward the man albeit much more calmly than before.
“Ivy,” he called out in a warning tone.
“I’m not gonna kill him, cool it,” they bit back.
Cool it? They just told him to cool it??
He stood poised with his capture weapon as they approached the man and tied a short length of rope just above his elbow before wrenching their throwing knife out of his forearm causing the man to cry out in pain again. After that, they patted him down, pocketed the small folding knife he’d been carrying, and stood up giving Shota a look that said ‘You deal with this’ as they pulled out their phone.
Reluctantly, he went over to the man and cut off a short length of his capture weapon to more properly staunch the bleeding of his arm. The man was clearly reeling from his own near-death experience because he didn’t try to put up a fight, he just kept his eyes trained on Ivy as they paced back and forth a few feet away while talking on the phone with who Shota assumed to be the detective.
When they got off the phone they walked back over, hauled the man to his feet, roughly tied the man’s hands behind his back, and started pushing him toward the fire escape. Shota could see the look of horror in the man’s eyes and, for the record, he did not revel in it even a little bit. Even so, he kept a close eye on Ivy as they ushered the three of them down to street level, he did not want to have to deal with covering up a murder.
He continued to watch them closely for the few minutes that felt like hours until the detective arrived and Ivy shoved the man in the back of the cruiser making sure to hit his head on the doorframe before slamming it shut. The detective got out of the driver's seat and locked the doors before he turned to them.
“What’s going on?” he asked, clearly Ivy didn’t explain much.
“Eraser can explain on the way back to the precinct,” Ivy responded cooly.
“What?” both Shota and the detective said in unison.
“He’s got a hit on his head and he needs to get out of here,” they explained sending a glare in his direction.
“Hold up, there’s no way you don’t have a hit on you as well Ivy, I can’t–”
“You can and you will! I live here, I don’t have anywhere else to go! I’ll lay low but you need to leave,” they countered.
Tsukauchi was looking between the two of them with wide eyes.
“What do you mean lay low Ivy? Don’t bullshit me I’m not stupid,”
“I’m going home and you are too, that’s what I mean. I’m not stupid either, your hands are shaking, you were inches away from a bullet to the brain! Just go home to whoever the fuck you go home to and rest,” they said the last part in a hushed tone but no less violently.
“Tsukauchi, Please put proper cuffs on him and get in the car, I’ll join you in a second,” He said as he ushered Ivy a few paces away, far enough to have a hushed conversation out of earshot.
“Ivy, swear to me you’re not going to go do something stupid and get yourself killed, swear to me that you will go home,” he demanded.
They glared at him for a moment before relenting, “Yes, I swear, now leave.”
“Ivy I am not kidding, don’t you dare lie to me. If you think for a second that I won’t come back on my own and burn this place to the ground if you go get yourself killed then you’re sorely mistaken–”
“Yes, yes, I get it, I can’t help anyone if I’m dead anyways. I had my moment of weakness and now I live off spite so get the fuck out of here before I knock you out and throw you in the car myself!” they bit out as they bodily shoved him back toward the cruiser.
While Shota definitely wasn’t happy with the circumstance he was beyond relieved to see the fire back in Ivy’s eyes, well the fire left after the inferno of murderous rage calmed down. They had been so empty and sad for weeks and he’d missed them.
***
They hadn’t been kidding about going home they really were going ‘home’. The second Eraser was out of sight they started shaking from head to toe like a chihuahua and they felt like they were going to vomit despite having little to nothing in their stomach. They kept a vigilant eye out until they made it back to the brewery where they took in what felt like the first breath since they poked their head up above the roof. They gagged on it and ripped their mask off their face but they heaved up nothing.
Not even seconds away, a second too late and he would have died. The image of the man who had been shot in the back of the head when he first started patroling never fully left his mind but right now it came back with a vengeance. His face was a horrible blooming flower of bone and flesh and blood and that had almost been Eraser. That had almost been Eraser. That man would have blown his brains out of his skull and butchered his face and he probably would have fallen off the roof to boot. He would have been an unrecognizable mass of blood and gore on the sidewalk below, with nothing left of him but crushed bones and exposed sinew. Kami, he couldn’t stop picturing it, it was imprinted on his eyelids he couldn’t even blink without seeing his awful gored visage.
His breaths were coming far too fast and far too shallow as he sank to his knees hard. The shock of the impact grounded him slightly but not enough. He couldn’t breathe, Kami, he couldn’t breathe. This was his fault, this was all his fault, he poked the hornet’s nest and now they were coming after everyone around him. He scrubbed at his eyes and grasped his hair between his fingers hard enough to displace some of the roots, he felt like he was going mad, he must be going mad, he was losing it now, going completely crazy. He wanted to scream, he might be screaming, he couldn’t tell. Was he crying? He was too lost to say for certain, everything was lost behind the horrific images of what could have happened.
He must have passed out because he came to lying on the floor just inside the entrance to the brewery. Kami, did he really pass out? That was probably for the best, even the memory of the panic and guilt that had a hold of him was upsetting, it probably would have been more than upsetting if he had the energy to feel it. He was exhausted, he felt like he could hardly move but he was so uncomfortable. His, thankfully sheathed, knife was stabbing into his stomach pinned beneath him on the floor and his shoulder ached from having been pinned at an awkward angle as well.
It took all the strength he had to crawl the last few feet over to the mess of blankets he’d been sleeping in and it wasn’t long before sleep pulled him back into its clutches.
Notes:
thanks for reading hehehehehehe
I named the gang Yakedo if that wasn't clear. If you speak Japanese lmk if it's stupid.
Chapter 69: Reckless Idiot Night Pt. II
Notes:
Iwannagohome_Please made FANART GO LOOK AT IT RIGHT NOW IM SCREAMING:
https://www.tiktok.com/@iwannagohome_please/video/7303931169358351624?lang=en
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku couldn’t sleep for almost any amount of time before he woke up screaming. He was glad his classmates threw things at him or his teacher chewed him out any time he started to doze off in class because every time he even so much as blinked the vivid image of what almost happened took hold of him. He couldn’t escape it, like a dog chasing its tail he was running from his own mind and he wasn’t getting very far.
They hadn’t patrolled in 3 days; Izuku refused to let Eraser step foot back in Uptown until he was sure he could keep him safe. He had to be safe, he had to be. Safe and far far away, as far away as he could keep him for as long as he could make him stay. His sanity was fraying at the edges and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep Eraser away, if the weekend wasn’t fast approaching he would have started ditching class but it was Friday so he just had to wait it out.
He had gathered profiles on over 50 different people at this point but no one new had been showing their face around the block, he wasn’t going to get any more information like this. He needed proof, solid, indisputable, concrete proof of criminal activity. Enough to convince the stupid soulless bureaucrats running the precinct that they needed to get a warrant and raid the place. He had tangential proof of known criminals being seen there but that wasn’t enough, he knew it wouldn’t be. He needed to get proof that shit was going down inside the building and he knew there was only one way to do that but Eraser was not going to be happy about it.
What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
They didn’t have time to fuck around, they considered making recording devices from scraps like they did with their voice modulator to plant there and bug the place but there wasn’t time. So in their most risky act of shoplifting, they went to an electronics store on the good side of town and swiped everything they would need, baby monitors and the highest storage SD cards they could find. They had to finagle it a bit so that the footage and audio would save onto an external memory card rather than just broadcasting what it gathered back to the hub thing but the actual security cameras at the store were behind a locked and alarmed door so that people wouldn’t steal them. They had never been so hyper-aware of every single movement they made but they needed to look as nonchalant as possible and there were cameras everywhere so not only did they need to look natural, but they needed to hide any sleight of hand they did from the cameras. Maybe they were getting a little too good at this or maybe there was a god that occasionally decided not to spite them because they got everything they needed without a hitch.
Before they headed out they took pictures of every single page in their notebook with both the burner phone and their old phone. They stashed the journal in a warehouse a block south and their old phone in another building two blocks North. They made a quick stop at a cafe and mooched off their wifi to set up an automatic email that would be sent to the detective unless they stopped it before tomorrow afternoon explaining everything they did and where to find all their notes along with another digital copy of everything they had. This was going to work, The Yakedo was going down whether Ivy was around to see it or not.
With everything set in place, they suited up and made their way over to block 8 as the sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows across the ground. They were going to enter from a window on the second floor, one that every time they’d seen it open it had to be propped up by a small piece of wood. It was busted and only mildly functional and he was willing to bet that it didn’t lock properly.
They were going to go in, plant the bugs, and get out… easy peasy…
Scaling up the wall to the window without being seen was laughably easy and peering it it looked to be a restroom that was currently unoccupied. Perfect. Jiggling the window almost resulted in the bottom half of it crashing to the floor inside, they were right, the latch definitely wasn’t functional. Luckily they caught it before it could crash to the ground. Creeping inside they saw that the faucet was dripping slightly. They had running water in here?? Not fair! how’d they manage that? Flicking the light switch on the wall illuminated the room too so they flicked it off promptly. How did they get water and electricity in an abandoned warehouse? They supposed they could crowdsource to a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds and professions and probably throw a good deal of money at their problems but still, they were jealous.
Ignoring their mental tangent they pressed their ear up against the door and listened for a solid minute and a half of silence before they cracked the door open to peek out. The hall was dark and no one seemed to be around but it looked like they had hired some contractors at some point because this place was actually pretty nice, it didn’t look like a dingy old warehouse at all, well it did on the outside but not on the inside. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz but they had hardwood floors or at least laminate.
Bastards.
As quietly as they could they crept down the hall and peeked into the doors on either side, there was a storage room full of cleaning supplies and toiletries and then a set of stairs and they could hear people milling about down there. It seemed to be a common area of sorts, they needed to get one of the monitors down there. They could only hear two or three people and given the traffic they’d been monitoring they didn’t think it was gonna get much emptier than that. Steeling their nerves they crept down the first half of the stairs and waited. When nothing changed they tiptoed down the last set of steps and peered into the first level. What they saw pissed them off, these assholes were living in the lap of luxury. It looked like a bar down there and they had a pool table and darts and a big ol’ flat-screen TV playing sports and all three of the men he heard were sitting on a couch absorbed in the game. Their frivolities would be their downfall. None of them paid any notice to them as they snuck behind the couch and over to the kitchen/bar area, stepped up on a box, and placed the first monitor on top of the cabinets hidden amongst overstock bottles of alcohol and overlooking the majority of the room.
So far so good.
They only had two monitors so they decided that exploring the top floor a bit more and placing it up there would be in their best interest, the less time they spent around the occupants the better.
Tiptoeing back up the stairs they went to the left having already explored the two doors to the right. To the left of the stairs was what looked like another storage closet given how close it was to the door next to it but it was locked so they couldn’t say for certain, they’d come back to that.
The room next door looked to be a makeshift conference room, there was a big table and a lot of chairs. They took pictures of as much as they could but there was little of note so they moved on to the last door that took up the entirety of the other half of the hall. They opened the door cautiously but no one appeared to be inside. There was a desk and a couch with a few armchairs. It was like a half office half lounge and Ivy was willing to bet that this was whoever was in charge of The Yakedo’s office. They poked around drawers and cabinets and found little of note, there was a firearm which was probably illegal in one of the desk’s drawers so they snapped a picture of that. The back wall and its cabinets were lined with alcohol, it looked fancy, not that they would really know though. Don’t people have anything better to do than drink?
Another drawer in the desk held a ring of keys, hell yeah! They were going to try their best to pick the lock across the hall but hopefully, they wouldn’t have to do that now. Cautiously they listened at the door before crossing back to the storage room and quietly tried each key on the ring. Finally, the second to last key slid into place and turned.
The small room was lined with filing cabinets on one side and shelves and shelves of cases on the other. Ivy wasted no time rifling through everything; the cases were filled with support gear, likely left over from their dealings with the syndicate they took down a couple of months ago. They took pictures of everything as they went through it, they didn’t bother opening up every single one but they documented enough for it to be sufficiently incriminating. Moving on to the filing cabinets they were pleased to find they were not locked, they were beyond cocky thinking that one locked door would keep someone out of here. The files were full of financials and documentation of just so much illegal shit. It was in code but that wouldn’t be difficult to crack, Kami they were stupid. They spent so long working unopposed that it went to their heads making them think they were invincible.
Ivy was working through the last filing cabinet's worth of documents when they heard movement from downstairs. Shit. They immediately put everything back where they’d found it and locked the door behind them. They were about to gun it for the bathroom when they heard someone coming up the stairs.
Shitshitshitshit.
They would have to cross in front of the stairs to get back to the bathroom but there were windows in the office. Hoping for the best they darted back in there and started jiggling the windows but they wouldn’t budge, they didn’t have time for this, fuck they didn’t have time to do anything. Right now their options were fight or hide. They had no idea who was coming or even how many people were coming so hide it was.
They stuffed themself into a cabinet on the far wall just as they heard the door open. They could see a sliver of the room through the crack between the cabinet and its door. It was only one guy but Ivy didn’t recognize him. Was this the boss? It would make sense if he was in the office alone. They snapped as good of a picture as they could through the limited view of the room and started the recording on the second monitor that they’d yet to place somewhere. It wouldn’t get video from in here but it would get audio, they might still get something.
The man sat down at the desk and started up the computer that Ivy hadn’t gotten the chance to mess with yet. Hopefully, he would leave soon and they would be able to. Just as that optimistic thought crossed their mind there was a knock at the door and three more men filed in.
Fucking figures.
The first man grabbed four cups off the counter right above Ivy’s head and poured each of them a drink before sitting down with them in the lounge area.
Goddamnit noooooooooo. GO AWAY!
***
Izuku’s spine ached and he’d been cycling through mute panic attacks and painful boredom for over an hour and a half at this point. One would think the fear of being cornered would have petered out by now but nope! Looks like that’s just gonna be a thing for him forever. He was always going to be a prey animal at the end of the day. Fuck, this sucked. The four men had been droning on and on, he had gathered more than enough evidence on them to lock them away for life, that was of course if he ever got out of here.
They needed to get out of here.
They just needed to wait until these guys left. They’d have to leave eventually… right?
***
Another hour ticked by and they were about to jump out a damn the consequences. They knew that was an awful idea but their logical reasoning was in a losing battle against their fear of being cornered. They had to keep reminding themself that that was stupid, that they weren’t really cornered if no one had any idea they were there.
Trying to distract themself, they watched the monitor they had planted downstairs. The place was bustling now, at least 10 people were milling about most of which they recognized from the profiles they’d been working on. They started new profiles on the two people they didn’t recognize in an effort to pretend they weren’t currently stuck where they were but there wasn’t much information they could gather without being able to hear what was going on. They’d been able to construct robust profiles for the four men in the room though. They were confident that the first man that had entered the room was the leader of the gang and his name was Shimoda something. They supposed that was a silver lining to the fact that they wouldn’t shut the fuck up and leave.
***
At the three-hour mark, they decided enough was enough. They needed to do
something
.
Notes:
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR READING!!!!! I love reading your comments, they make my day <3
Chapter 70: Mom, Come Pick Me Up, I’m Scared.
Notes:
AHHHHHHHHH I'M SORRY I FORGOT TO POST I'M HAVING THANKSGIVING TODAY
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota had been extremely tense since Ivy bodily shoved him out of Uptown. They responded to his wellness checks every day and Tsukauchi hadn’t heard a peep from them but that didn’t mean they weren’t getting themself into trouble. Nem and Zashi had taken it upon themselves to ‘loosen him up’ and dragged him out for drinks after school on Friday and he reluctantly complied because he knew they were right. He was too tense. He’d had an ache in his shoulders that no amount of hot showers or stretching seemed to help and despite the fact that he’d been getting far more sleep than usual he’d never felt so restless.
He’d just ordered his first drink when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Ivy:
Would Tsuka be able to call in a raid on my word?
Eraserhead:
No, probably not. Not without putting his own ass on the line. Why, did u find something?
Ivy:
Yes, I did. What about an anonymous tip?
Eraserhead:
Those are generally taken with a grain of salt, especially if ur trying to get feet on the ground in Uptown.
Ivy:
Alright so if I had enough evidence to get a warrant on block 8 and organize a raid how would I do that?
Jesus Christ, what were they up to?
Eraserhead:
I told u not to go poking around there, what did u do?
Ivy:
Doesn’t matter now just answer my question
Eraserhead:
I’d have to push for it like I did with the meth lab
Ivy:
Great… what if it was urgent?
Eraserhead:
What do u mean by urgent?
They didn’t respond for a few seconds too long for Shota’s liking. The last messages got responses almost immediately.
Eraserhead:
Ivy what do you mean by urgent???
Ivy:
I uh…
That was not the response he wanted.
“Sho, what’s going on?” Zashi asked as they took in his no-doubt rigor mortis stiff posture.
Shota just waved him off without even looking up from his phone.
Eraserhead:
Ivy where are u?
Ivy:
Um… in a cabinet.
Jesusfuckingchrist.
Eraserhead:
In a cabinet where???
Ivy:
Dw abt it
He was going to kill that goddamn kid. He shot to his feet and turned to leave the bar, alerting Nem to the situation as well. Both of them were trailing behind him as he threw open the door and started booking it to the car.
Eraserhead:
I’m omw
Ivy:
No don’t you fucking dare send Tsuka or someone else idgaf stay away from here
Shota didn’t even bother reading the whole message before pocketing his phone.
“Zashi, do you have your gear in the back?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, where are we going?” they answered sprinting behind him.
“North side, block 8,” he replied already halfway to the car.
“Why, what’s going on?” Nem asked doing her best to keep up with the two men’s much longer strides.
“If you’re coming you can’t ask questions Nem,” Shota leveled her with a serious look as he wrenched open the driver’s side door.
“Oh, that kind of trouble, alright, okay. I’ve never had more questions in my life, let’s go,” she said as she took her spot in the back seat.
Shota didn’t even give them time to fully shut their doors before he was burning rubber down the street.
“Jesus, Sho. What’s going on?” Hizashi asked from the passenger seat as they buckled themself in with one hand and held onto the door handle with the other.
“Ivy, they got themself in a mess, my phone just buzzed, get it from my pocket,” he ordered as he drove like a maniac with both hands planted firmly on the wheel.
“How come he’s allowed to ask questions?” Nem piped up from the back.
“They said “No don’t you fucking dare, send Tsuka or someone else idgaf stay away from here.” And then they said “coming here without backup is suicide I’m toast either way.””
“Fuck! Tell 'em not to call the cops, tell ‘em I’ve got back up and I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”
“What the hell are we walking into guys, I need at least a little information,” Nem pleaded from the back seat.
“Dumbass got themself stuck in the gang’s headquarters and if they call the cops they’ll just get themself arrested too.”
He caught a glimpse of Nem’s face in the rearview mirror and she was wearing a look that said he was going to be getting a lot of questions later.
“They asked how much backup,” Zashi interrupted their conversation via eye contact.
“Just tell them 2 pros that won’t ask questions,” he said with a pointed look back to Nemuri.
He heard Zashi make a quiet questioning noise as he looked down at the phone in his hands
“What’d they say?”
“It’s pictures, lots of pictures,” they mused under their breath.
“Open them, what are they of?” he barked back at them.
“Gimme a sec! It’s profiles, a bunch of people, it’s got pictures and sketches and names and quirks and, oh they just sent another picture, it's a floor plan I think,”
“You think?”
“It’s hard to tell! It's a blurry picture of another phone screen with a hand-drawn map, it’s got numbers and arrows but I don’t know what the numbers mean!” they defended, “Nem take this and give me my speakers, should be under Sho’s seat,” he said as he handed her the phone.
“They just said “Quirks” with a question mark,” she said as she exchanged the phone for Hizashi’s directional speakers.
“Tell them who you are, they probably know your quirks already.”
The car went quiet for a moment before Nem let out an offended scoff.
“Who the hell are you hanging around with Sho? They’re an ass!”
“What’d they say?”
“They said “Why the fuck do you have so many limelighters on speed dial? Fine, okay, I’ll figure something out but keep them corraled.” What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“No questions Nem, don’t take it personally,” he replied. More so because he didn’t have the mental bandwidth to explain how they ran things in Uptown right now than out of worry that she would disagree with what he was doing.
After a few moments of tense silence and reckless driving Nem spoke up again, “Alright, really long message, just gonna read it word for word “Okay, this is a terrible plan. Station Midnight at entry 1 (North facing, sorry the map is so shit) and station Present Mic at entry 2 (South facing). You stand guard at the roof as backup and DO NOT ENGAGE UNLESS COMPLETELY NECESSARY. The only other way in is on the second floor, it’s a window with a broken latch facing west, it leads to a bathroom that’s how I got in and where I’ll leave from.
Last I saw or heard there’s about 13-15 people here including the boss of the operation but most of them were downstairs. Tell Mic to say some heinous shit or something to draw some of them out and have Midnight sneak in the back and knock out anyone on the first floor. DO NOT let gas spread to the second floor, at least not before I leave.” Why don’t they want you to infiltrate with me, that doesn’t make any sense, it’s just wasting one of our limited players,” she finished with a question.
“I have a hit on my head, they already sent someone after me, I’m pretty sure they sent someone after Ivy too but they clearly don’t give a shit about that so I will elect to not give a shit about it eith–”
“No, the fuck you won’t!” Hizashi screeched from the passenger seat.
“Zashi they–”
“I don’t care Shota! Don’t be stupid! You dying isn’t a better outcome than Ivy dying. Do you have our comms in here?” they asked not hearing him out at all.
He took a deep breath and white-knuckled the steering wheel before responding, “Yes, in the glove box. Nem do you have a comm on you?”
“No, we were going out for drinks, not a raid!” she complained.
“It’s fine Nem, take mine, I can connect my headphones, it just takes a minute,” Hizashi said as he passed back one of the earpieces and started fiddling with his headphones.
“Ivy sent another text, they said “You can’t erase profiles 8, 12, 17, 27, 28, and 36. 12, 27, and 36 are here tonight but I don’t know about the others”.”
“Noted, I’m parking us a block and a half off and taking the rooftops there. You two go half a block south, split up, and get to your stations, I’ll be able to direct you from above. Nem send the profiles to our group chat if you think they’ll help.”
“Zashi do you want ‘em? I don’t wanna be any more incriminated than I already am and it’s not like I’m gonna have much time to read them once I give your phone back Sho.”
“I need to get these connected, just look over ‘em and let me know if there’s any quirks that might cause trouble”
“Uh, there’s a guy with a soundwave manipulation quirk–”
“Hoshino?” Shota butted in.
“Yeah.”
“He’s been arrested.”
How long had Ivy been making this list? What the hell were they up to? If they made it out of there alive tonight he was going to kill them.
“Alright, nothing specific to you then Zashi, a few long-ranged but nothing crazy.”
Shota assumed that his slowing down from the breakneck speed he’d been going was enough of a warning that they were almost there. He flicked off the headlights as they entered the warehouse district and slowly pulled into an alley a block and a half away like he had said he would.
“Comms are all connected, take yours and go, we’ll head to our stations,” Zashi said as he handed him a comm and got out of the car quietly shutting the door behind him.
Without looking back he looped his capture scarf around a pipe, started hauling himself up to the rooftops, and booked it to block 8. He watched from the roof as Nem and Zashi got to their posts.
“Eraser, tell Ivy to cover their ears as much as possible. I’ll give you two warnings but I can’t warn them,” Zashi called over the comm
Eraserhead:
We are in position, keep your ears covered as much as possible.
Ivy:
Got it
“Message received, ready when you are,” Shota responded.
“Alright, cover your ears and pardonne my French,” Hizashi warned with an awful accent before muting his comm and screaming, “HEY ALL YOU NO GOOD SONS OF BITCHES I HEARD YOUR STUPID BOY BAND GOT TAKEN DOWN BY A LITTLE BIRDY, HOW PATHETIC!!!”
“Exemplary trash talk, Mic,” Nemuri giggled.
“Yeah… prolly shoulda come up with something in the car. I’m stressed, give me a break!” he whined, “Well they’re coming out anyway, easily antagonized I guess. I got 4 on my end, Midnight, give it a second before you go in, I’ll try to draw out more. AWWWW, YOU PUSSIES SENT OUT A SEARCH PARTY FOR LITTLE OL’ ME? HOW CHARMING!!!”
The four guys who had come out to see what was going on winced and covered their ears. Shota could see them getting irritated and drawing closer. They were shouting back now and two more people had joined the crowd.
“Midnight, now, Mic’s got 6.”
He could see her approach the other side of the building and heard glass shatter as she no doubt forced her way in. Keeping both ears and eyes out he went over to the window Ivy mentioned and waited. He occasionally had to cover his ears as Zashi took down the guys after him, for Ivy’s sake he hoped it was less grating inside the building. Several minutes passed and Shota got nothing from Ivy, no text and they still hadn’t made their way out. His skin was crawling begging him to go inside but he stopped himself. He was backup, if anyone got into trouble they were going to need him. He heard fighting going on inside the building and he spent a few seconds restraining himself from jumping into action before he smelled smoke and saw flickering orange light from the window next to the one he was posted at.
Shit, that was fire.
Notes:
thank for reading
Chapter 71: Snakes, Why Did it Have to be Snakes?
Notes:
M/W/F Chapter uploads are guaranteed this week and likely next week as well. We are very near the canon time line at which point I WILL BE TAKING A BREAK. I'll probably be back with the new year but I want to get an outline done so I don't write myself into a plot hole. So, I will upload on the 29th, 1st, 4th, 6th, and maybe the 8th idk yet, I haven't written that far, and after the 6th or 8th (tbd) I will be taking a break and resuming uploads as normal in the new year if not sooner. We will see.
CWs:
-Fire
-vague mentions of panic attacks
-vague mentions of stabbing
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
This sucked so much, Ivy had been stuck in a cramped cabinet for hours. The panic of being cornered had been ebbing and flowing through their veins the whole time so Present Mic’s D-tier trash talk was music to their ears as it rattled the walls of the building. They peeked through the thin crack of the cabinet door but Shimoda didn’t seem overly bothered by the commotion. He perked his ears up and gave one of the other guys a look but didn’t poise himself to move, at least not until the sound of shattering glass and fighting rang out from the first floor. At that point, he hurriedly ushered his lackeys to go check it out while he stayed hidden up in his office.
Coward.
Ivy waited a few seconds after they left to make sure they’d be tied up downstairs and would be less likely to double back before they sprung out of their hiding place and went to deliver a swift hit to Shimoda’s vagus nerve. Apparently, Shimoda was more of a skilled fighter than Ivy had given him credit for because he was on the defensive as soon as they spilled out of the cabinet. When he turned around and saw who was attacking him the look of fury in his eyes was both terrifying and indescribably satisfying. On the one hand, someone looking at them with murderous intent was at the very least off-putting, but on the other hand, they were so proud to have pissed him off that much. They would gladly ruin this man’s life a thousand times over.
They traded a few blows but Ivy quickly got the upper hand and kicked him in the chest hard sending him stumbling backward causing him to trip on a chair and fall on his ass. Unfortunately, he recovered quickly and got his bearings back before Ivy could get another hit in. On his feet he glared at them from across the room, he looked so mad he damn near had smoke coming out of his ears… wait… no… that was actually smoke.
“IVY YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!” he bellowed as he charged forward flailing his right arm in a wild sweeping motion.
They had no clue what this man’s quirk was but smoke + that sweeping motion was not something they wanted to see the result of so they hit the ground as quickly as possible. Kami, was that a good call; a pillar of fire erupted from the candle that had been sitting on the desk and tore through the empty space where their head had just been.
Fucking fire!? Why did it have to be fire??? Nothing sent him into fight or flight more than fire or being cornered. Tonight was just getting better and better, wasn’t it?
Swallowing down their panic they rolled to the side out of Shimoda’s path and back onto their feet. He might be a good fighter but he was nowhere near as fast as Ivy with or without his quirk and it was starting to look like he’d figured that out. He was furious, he was completely out of control. The fire had spread to the curtains and furniture in the room, any paper had already been reduced to ash and Shimoda wouldn’t let them close enough to take him down.
The oppressive heat of the room was getting to them and each bright flash of orange threatened to send him back into a panic attack. They couldn’t let that fire touch them, they had to get out, they had to get out, they had to, they had to. Shimoda almost got the better of them as panic sunk into their bones and the next wave of fire missed their face by inches. Their vision was completely obscured by flames and sweet Christ, that didn’t do well for calming themself down. They weren’t sure if they’d already been burned or phantom pains were taking hold of their psyche. They couldn’t get in close, they needed to take him down. He was standing between them and all possible exits, they weren’t getting out if he was still standing.
Willing their hand to be steady they sent a knife flying and it stuck into Shimoda’s arm; he let out a shout of pain, however, he continued rampaging like nothing happened. Fucking hell, he was hopped up on adrenaline, he wasn’t going to go down easy.
They noticed too late that the fire had spread to the cabinet that they had been hiding in, though it’s not like they could have done much about that anyway. The glass bottles held steady but anything that had been in plastic bottles melted out and burst into flame. Shitshitshit the air was getting thin and the fire was starting to eat into the walls.
“Shimoda! Stop! The pro hero Midnight is here and she has no doubt put half your men to sleep downstairs! You burn this place down they’ll all die before help arrives!”
“YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! I’LL BURN IT ALL AS LONG AS YOU GO DOWN WITH IT!” he shouted back as he sent another pillar of flame charging toward them.
***
“Mic, Midnight, evacuate as many people as possible. A fire has started on the upper floor. I’m going in,” he warned before going to open the window and having it fall to the floor with a crash.
Whatever, stealth was not his goal right now. He ran to the door he assumed led to the room that the fire had started in and he heard shouting and things banging around. Was it a bad idea to bust this door down? Most definitely, possibly adding more oxygen to the flame-filled room was not a good plan but nor was running into a flame-filled room in the first place; however, he could recognize Ivy’s voice behind the door and he wasn’t about to just walk away from that.
“Eraser, no! Do not go in. Midnight and I are evacuating down here! I have paged the fire department!” he heard Zashi shriek over the comm.
“There’s still people upstairs and Ivy is one of them, I’m already inside and I’m not wasting any more breath arguing about this,” he replied as he kicked open the door.
The room beyond the threshold was in shambles, flames licked their way up the walls burning curtains and furniture and a man was cornering Ivy away from the exits as he flailed his arms around directing the flames after them despite the several throwing knives sticking out of his extremities. He was bleeding heavily but paying it no mind as he raged out of control. Flames were surrounding him thus not allowing Ivy to get in close enough to take him out, they’d clearly been trying to with the throwing knives but short of a lethal hit it didn’t look like the man was going down without being physically restrained.
Shota erased the man’s quirk as Ivy dodged the latest barrage of flames heading for them. The man looked back at Shota with so much fury that it almost gave him pause. He couldn’t keep his eyes open with the heat and smoke in the room so he wrapped the man in his capture weapon as fast as possible, hoping that restricting his movements would also restrict his quirk. As soon as the distraction presented itself Ivy sprung forward and sent their baton crashing into the junction of the man’s neck and shoulder with a pained shout as they had just jumped through fire to do so.
“IVY!” he shouted back in alarm but they were already sprinting over to him and pushing him out of the room.
Shota had rarely ever seen this level of fear in their eyes so with all of his might he reeled the unconscious man in like a fish on a line, dragged him out of the room, and shut the door as well as he could behind them. Ivy was dragging him toward the stairs by the arm before he could even attempt to latch it properly.
“Ivy, wait, we need to get him out of here,” Shota tried to remind them.
“Leave him, he’s fireproof,” they shot back as they continued to try to drag him away.
“He’s not collapsed building proof,” He argued.
“It’s his own fault, come on,” they snipped back. They were antsy, they were shaking.
“Just help me, we’ll get out faster.”
With a clearly irritated eye twitch, Ivy walked back over, picked up one of the man’s legs, and started dragging. Shota had no doubts that they would have let his head thump down on each step if he hadn’t picked up the man’s shoulders.
“Upstairs has been evacuated, what’s the situation downstairs?” Shota asked on the comms.
“Mostly handled chaos. At least one person ran off, the rest are restrained or unconscious, Mic and I are still working on evacuating the latter party,” Nem responded
“Police and fire department are about 4 minutes out,” Zashi added.
“Do we have a cover story for this?” Nem asked.
“Responding to a call, don’t elaborate, you two know nothing more than that. I will deal with the police, Mic did you contact Tsukauchi specifically?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, good. I’ll deal with it.”
After finishing that conversation he rested the unconscious man on the middle landing of the staircase, took his phone out of his pocket, threw it to the ground, and crushed it under his heel. Ivy shot him a look for that but continued dragging the man down the stairs paying no mind to the fact that Shota was no longer supporting his shoulders just as he’d expected they would.
“Evidence,” he explained, “You have less than 4 minutes to get out of here. Do you need medical attention?”
“No, not urgently, I’ll let you know if that changes after I get the chance to look myself over,” they responded.
Damn, they must really want out of here. He expected that conversation to turn into at least a little bit of an argument. As they got the man to the first floor Ivy looked around at the chaos that was unleashed down here, Nem and Zashi were still hauling people out even though the fire wasn’t spreading much across the mostly brick and concrete building. Ivy watched them hesitantly for a moment before looking back at him.
“Get out of here kid. We’ve got this under control, the fire’s not spreading very quickly and backup is en route, you need to go. Can you meet me a block and a half north of here in an hour?”
“Yes,” they stated simply as they went to leave casting another look between him and Mic.
“Wait, are you breathing okay? How long were you in there?” Shota asked before they left; he couldn’t let them go running away if their lungs were about to give out.
“My breathing is fine, my mask has a lot of layers, I’m fine.”
Shota could hear distant sirens approaching.
“Tsukauchi will be here, contact him if you need me,” he said as Ivy hauled it out of the place.
“Mic, Midnight, detective Tsukauchi will be here and will likely need to interview you two. His quirk is Lie Detector, he knows about Ivy and won’t try to get info on them more than necessary for the record. Speak in technical truths, you do not know their name, you do not know who they are, you have never met them, all of that is true. I responded to a call and you came with, that is all you know, got it?”
“Roger,” Zashi responded through gritted teeth as he was no doubt hauling someone’s unconscious body out of the building.
“You are going to have a lot of explaining to do when this is over but yes, I’ve got it,” Nem piped up afterward.
***
After everyone had been hauled out of the building Shota pulled the detective aside.
“What’s it gonna take to get me out of here?” he asked shooting Tsukauchi a look that said he had places to be and people to see.
“I’m guessing they were here, are they okay?”
“Okay enough to walk away on their own. I didn’t get a good look at them but they’re likely burned to some degree, they were in the room where the fire started,” he replied.
“Of course they were, alright. I can get away with a short interview here for now, just enough to prove I shouldn’t be arresting you too, but I’ll need to call at least you into the station later to give a proper statement,” he warned.
“Got it, just get it over with.”
The detective pulled a voice recorder out of his pocket and pressed start.
“This is Detective Tsukauchi of the Musutafu Police Department here with pro-hero Eraserhead. My quirk is called Lie Detector meaning if you lie at any point during this interview, I will know. Do you consent to continue?” he rattled off his spiel.
“Yes.”
“Alright, why did you storm this warehouse without a warrant? You are aware the occupants had squatter’s rights, aren’t you?” Tsukauchi began.
“Yes, I was aware. I’ve been patrolling this side of town for over a year and I’ve gotten to know the locals, one of them contacted me with a distress call saying they were trapped in the building. I was out with my associates and they responded to the call with me.”
“That is true. Where is this local? We didn’t evacuate any civilians beyond who we arrested. Did they make it out?”
“They did but I lost track of them. The locals don’t like cops much so I doubt they wanted to stick around and chat.”
“True,” Tsukauchi paused with a bit of an apologetic grimace before continuing, “Who exactly contacted you? They’ll likely need to be brought in for questioning.”
“I don’t know their name nor where they live. I currently have no way of contacting them, unfortunately.”
The detective looked both relieved and concerned before he continued, “True. How did they contact you?”
“My phone.”
“True. Why can you not contact them then?”
“My phone got destroyed somewhere in the chaos.”
“True,” the detective responded flatly not letting his smirk color his tone, “I have no more questions, do you have any more statements?”
“No, I do not.”
“Alright, then this concludes the interview. I will contact you if I have further questions,” he said as he clicked off the recorder.
“You’re sure they’re okay?” he asked after verifying the recording had stopped and that no one was within earshot.
“As okay as they can be, I told them to meet me somewhere about five minutes ago so if that’s all…” he trailed off with an expectant raise of his brow.
“Keep me updated,” he requested as he handed Shota one of his business cards, “Unless you have my number memorized,” he said by way of explanation.
“Thanks,” Shota replied as he pocketed it.
“You know we’re not going to be able to keep half these guys in custody for more than 24 hours if we don’t find anything here. I’m sure a lot of whatever would have been evidence is burnt beyond recognition,” Tsukauchi said just as Shota was about to excuse himself.
“I think Ivy’s been up to some snooping. I’ll see if I can find them and let you know,” he admitted trying his best to keep his concern out of his tone. They were fine enough now, what’s done was done.
“Alright, the sooner the better.”
“I know,” he called over his shoulder as he walked away.
He was going to kill that damn kid.
Notes:
thank you all for reading!!!
Chapter 72: Hot DILFs In Your Area!
Notes:
Get ready for some tomfoolery and shinanigans y'all
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As Izuku sat in the brewery patching up the minor burns on his arms and legs he thought about what the hell had just happened. They just raided block 8. They just raided The Yakedo headquarters. He had two SD cards and dozens of pictures of evidence along with more than enough proof to tie over 50 people to the gang’s crimes.
They… did they?
Did they do it?
Was it over?
This had to be enough, right? He had records of drug dealings going back over a decade and involvement in the recent support gear debacle, he had names and faces and indisputable photographic, audio, and video evidence. They couldn’t weasel their way out of this, they were done for. They had to be done for.
Eraserhead and Ivy took them down.
And Midnight and Present Mic.
Holy fuck, Midnight and Present Mic.
He just teamed up with Eraserhead, Midnight, and Present Mic and took down a gang that’s been the root cause of like 70% of the crime rate in Uptown.
He just teAMED UP WITH ERASERHEAD, MIDNIGHT, AND PRESENT MIC.
whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck
This was a fucking fever dream, it had to be.
No, it made sense. Eraser worked at UA and so did Midnight and Present Mic, obviously, they would know each other. Midnight and Mic were both in civilian garb though, were they just hanging out together? Did Eraser go out in his hero uniform? He would do that, wouldn’t he? Wait, Mic and Eraser went to UA together, he saw them in the sports festival, awww they’ve been friends since… WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!
***
Ivy reported to the location Eraser told them to meet him at but no one was there yet. However, there was a car. It was a nice car. Was this Eraser’s car? They certainly hoped so they thought as they settled down sitting crisscross on the roof. It was over 15 minutes before they heard a group approaching from the sidewalk beyond the alley. They waited patiently for a few more moments until Eraser rounded the corner with Midnight and Present Mic in toe. This was a gamble, they could very well be about to make a fool of themself but they were so happy that they didn’t even care.
“Eraser, you didn’t tell me you were married to Present Mic!” they exclaimed.
All three of them looked shocked for a moment before Eraser and Mic spoke at the same time.
“Zashi don’t–”
“You told them you were married?”
YES! YES! Ivy cackled as Eraser pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and let out an exasperated groan.
“No, but you just did,” he finally responded.
A blush spread across Mic’s cheeks and he sputtered out “Wait, then how did you– what?”
Midnight looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh at both of them.
“I already suspected he was with someone and you both looked each other over for injuries despite having been in contact over the comms the entire time, it was illogical, therefore it’s love,” they explained, “Not to mention I’m pretty sure I watched you fall for him on live television 14 years ago,” they added looking at Mic.
Midnight lost her battle with maintaining composure at that and doubled over laughing, “HA, you guys, he totally did– he–HAH!”
“Not a word about this, Ivy. I’m serious–” Eraser spoke over Midnight’s cackling.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, my lips are sealed,” they interrupted, miming zipping their mouth shut, locking it, and throwing away the key before sliding off the roof of the car and walking over to the group.
“Injuries?” Eraser asked as they approached.
“Minimal and taken care of,” they responded.
They were so happy they almost didn’t dodge the right hook Eraser swung at them as soon as they were within range. Almost. He immediately followed it up by trying to sweep their feet out from under them which they also dodged by jumping away but as soon as they were out of range of his limbs he brought out the capture scarf which Ivy was bad at dodging on a good day; they’d just spent several hours cramped up in a cabinet, then got stuck in a burning room with a psychopath, all on less than a collective 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. So, needless to say, Eraser snared their ankle and sent them sprawling on their ass.
“What the fuck, man!” they complained.
“Don’t ‘what the fuck’ me! What the fuck you! What were you thinking?! What the hell have you been up to? You told me you were laying low! Sneaking into the headquarters of an organization that wants nothing more than to see your head on a pike is not what I would consider laying low!”
“Okay, first of all, you’re a lot stupider than I thought if you actually thought I was just gonna sit on my ass and wait for them to come kill us and second of all, I would argue that I was laying very low, they had no clue I was in there the whol–”
“Ivy! This was beyond idiotic and you know it. What if you died? Whatever information you gathered would have died with you and we would have been left at square one!”
“I had contingency plans, Eraser, I’m not stupid! All my information would have been sent to the detective by tomorrow afternoon if I wasn’t around to give it to him myself,” they shot back.
Eraser looked at them like they just said they were a flat earther with full confidence.
“You would still be dead Ivy!” he all but shouted after he finished looking at them like they were an idiot.
He turned around and started pacing as he cursed under his breath. Midnight and Mic were awkwardly glancing at one another half uncomfortable and half stifling a laugh. Those three were so fucking weird.
“Well, I’m not dead and we did it!”
They walked over to Eraserhead and grabbed his shoulders, stopping his pacing and shaking him vigorously.
“We did it!” they restated when Eraser finally looked at them.
He let out a long-suffering sigh.
“We didn’t do shit unless you have more evidence,” he argued.
Ivy’s face split into a shit-eating grin that they’re sure was evident even with the mask on because Eraser raised a questioning brow at them.
“I already sent pictures of evidence that is probably half burnt to ash by now to Tsuka and these,” they paused as they pulled two SD cards out of their pocket and handed them over, “incriminate at least everyone there tonight and likely more.”
“WE DID IT!” they shouted again literally jumping for joy.
Eraser took a moment to look at the cards in his hand before he rolled his eyes and tried to cover the smirk that was growing into a full-on smile. He let out a huff of laughter and conceded, “Yeah, okay. I guess we did.”
Mic started joining in on their celebration and Midnight gave into the laughs she’d been holding back while they’d been arguing. They hadn’t been this happy in ages and Eraser was smiling! He was actually smiling! This was the best day of their life.
***
“Not bad for a couple of limelighters, huh?” Midnight taunted.
Ivy’s celebratory jumping and dancing cut off at that as they looked back with wide eyes and shot a glare at Shota. He would have felt bad if this wasn’t an express delivery of karma for the idiotic stunt they’d just pulled.
“I was driving,” Shota said by way of explanation.
He was sure he would have been able to see a blush on their cheeks if they weren’t covered.
“I, uh, I didn’t mean, it’s just that–” Ivy floundered as Midnight started laughing again.
“Oh Eraser, you pick up the strangest strays, don’t you? No hard feelings Ivy, you’re a feisty little thing, I like that,” Midnight cooed at them.
“Oh, um… thanks um, thank you, both of you,” they said sincerely with a small bow toward Nem and Zashi.
“How come they get a heartfelt thanks and I get your ass cheeks imprinted on my car?” Shota deadpanned.
“They came in to help, you wormed your way in here against my express wishes and haven’t left me alone for over a year,” they snarked back at him, “OW! And you keep doing that!” they added after he whipped the end of his capture scarf at their forehead.
“Alright ladies, enough bickering. Drinks. We were getting drinks,” Midnight prompted, “and now we actually have something to celebrate, c’mon boys!” she said gesturing all three of them to the car.
“I, uh, I think I’ll stick this one out,” they replied with a nervous laugh.
“Oh, come on, we can get you a silly straw and just stick it through the vents on your mask. I for one have a lot of questions that–” Mic cut her off.
“Midnight, that’s enough. Leave them alone you don’t need to peer pressure everyone you meet into going out for drinks,” Mic chided, “Excuse her, I think that’s her love language,” they said with a laugh as they looked back to Ivy.
“No, no it’s no problem. Uh, thanks for the invite…” they trailed off awkwardly.
“Ivy, just go home,” Shota said with an eye roll, “and try not to get into mortal peril on the way.”
They looked incredibly grateful for the out. How Ivy could be both incredibly charismatic and unbelievably awkward at the same time was beyond him but they were clearly floundering and he’s sure it’d been a long night for them.
“I make no promises but I’ll do my best. Keep me updated on the case, Tsuka’s stingy with the info because it's “classified” and “illegal for him to tell me” or something stupid like that,” they replied with an eye roll of their own.
“Yeah, something stupid like that. Monitor your breathing, kid. If you start having issues let me know and I’ll see what I can do,” he reminded them before they ran off.
“Whatever, Mom,” they called over their shoulder as they scaled the wall and ran out of sight.
***
They heard a snorted laugh from over their shoulder as Ivy sped off. Nem was standing next to the open door of the car waiting for them with a shit-eating grin on her face.
“What?” Shota demanded.
“When were you two gonna tell me you adopted?” she cooed
Sho rolled his eyes and got back into the driver's seat without a word but Zashi couldn’t hold back a smile. The two of them had always teased Sho about how he acted like such a dad with his students but this was another level. He’s pretty sure he would have told them to text him when they got home if he hadn’t smashed his phone to protect them. Well, to protect all four of them but Nem and him weren’t the ones who had him sprinting out of the bar and breaking every known traffic law to gun it to their rescue. They knew Ivy had wormed their way into his heart but it was one thing to hear about it, it was another to see it.
“–always wanted to be an aunt, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
They heard Nem continuing to taunt Shota as they settled back into the passenger’s seat.
“Nem, I haven’t adopted anyone, just drop it.”
“I will not be doing that, thanks for the suggestion though. I have so many questions and I believe I’m owed some answers after that debacle, right Zash?”
“Oh don’t drag me into this. The less we know the better, remember?”
“You would say that, I bet he told you everything already! You said the detective knows about them! If you can “technical truths” your way through an interrogation then so can we. When did you meet them? Is this why you changed patrol routes last year? How old are they anyway, they look like a kid. They’re a vigilante, right?”
“A year ago, yes, I don’t know, yes. Is that enough?” Shota responded after groaning dramatically.
“Wait, so are they a kid?” Nem asked sounding rightfully concerned.
Shota started up the car, turned the headlights back on, and looked both ways before he exited the alley they’d been parked in.
“I honestly don’t know but given what I’ve seen them do it’s highly improbable.”
“But not impossible?” she challenged.
Hizashi saw his knuckles blanche against the steering wheel at the question and he took a deep breath before answering.
“No, not impossible.”
“Then why the hell are you letting them run around like this? They’re gonna get themself killed!”
“Nem, stop. There’s a lot of factors going into this decision and Sho’s not taking it lightly. We’re doing what we can,” they interjected as they saw Sho’s shoulders tense back up.
They pulled up to a stoplight and he took his hands off the wheel to scrub at his face. Nemuri must have caught his expression in the rearview mirror because she toned it down.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that–”
“It’s fine Nem, I understand. I’m worried too,” he admitted.
“Well, I like them. They seem like a riot, it’s a shame they couldn’t come get drinks with us.”
“You just like anyone who will help you annoy me,” he retorted.
They couldn't help but laugh at that and Sho shot them a dirty look.
“What? That was a laugh of agreement!” he tried to defend.
“Says the person who helps her annoy me the most,” he shot back.
“Yeah, no. Okay, that’s fair…” they trailed off and let silence fall over the car, “But you were acting like such a dad,” they poked as they bit down on the smile threatening to creep up their cheeks.
“I’m driving off the bridge,” Shota deadpanned as he and Nemuri laughed at his expense.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!!
Chapter 73: A Fresh New Start
Notes:
UPLOADS M/W/F NEXT WEEK THEN I WILL BE TAKING A BREAK
I will be back first week of January
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Izuku got back to the brewery he was still walking on air but he knew he was going to crash soon and hard. He looked over at his messy pile of stuff and sighed heavily. He didn’t want to wake up in that again. Moreover, it wasn’t even safe to stay there, it was right by the most accessible entrance. If someone walked in they’d be able to strike him down before he got his wits about him and he knew that. He looked at it for a moment before deciding to use the last bits of his, what was it now like 60th wind(?), to see if he could make his way into the offices at the back of the building. He knew there were a few rooms back there but the stars had yet to align and give him the reason, motivation, and energy to explore them properly.
By the looks of it there were two offices, a break room, and a storage closet, or at least that’s what he assumed. The break room had a little window on the door so he could see in but the other two doors didn’t and they were both locked. The storage room however opened up without issue. It was small and fairly clean, it would do for the night. Tomorrow was Saturday and he could try his hand at lock-picking in his free time. For now, he swept the floor, dumped his nest into the corner, and let sleep finally take him away.
***
As happy as he was when he went to bed he still dreamt of fire and blood and shattered bones on concrete. He was so exhausted, he just wanted to rest. Unfortunately, his mind wouldn’t allow that. It was strangely comforting to wake up to pitch-black darkness again, he almost didn’t want to turn his flashlight on. He wanted to lay there and pretend nothing had changed, pretend that DJ was curled up on her favorite blanket next to him, pretend that he could roll over and flick on the light to watch her lazily blink up at him. He knew he couldn’t, but pretending that things were better had gotten him through for years so he wasn’t about to stop now. He reached out and felt around for the fuzziest blanket he had and held it to his chest until he drifted back to sleep.
Waking up screaming for the second time in one night was his breaking point. Sure he was tired but it wasn’t worth it. His phone told him it was half past 8 AM so he just got up. He’d probably gotten at least 6 hours which was more than the last two days combined so that was good enough. Well, actually it wasn’t, he was exhausted but it was what it was.
He walked back over to the front of the brewery where most of his stuff was still spread out in a haphazard pile and started sifting through his collection of knives and other various items he’d nicked off of the people he arrested. He knew he had a lock-picking kit somewhere in here. He’d started taking knives as a bit but it had gotten a little out of control over the past two years so it was going to take a while to sort through it all. He had the rest of the day to organize everything now that he wasn’t obsessively stalking block 8. Kami, he was going to have a lot of time on his hands now, wasn’t he? Whatever, one problem at a time. First order of business: getting those doors open.
Lock-picking was not a natural talent of his unfortunately, he’d have to practice more. He was glad he didn’t have to resort to this last night to get into that filing cabinet room in block 8 because he knelt there for a solid 15 minutes before he managed to get the door open. It did appear to have been an office, there were stubby little windows lining the upper walls on the far side of the room so there was enough natural light to see fairly well. It was very dusty but there was a desk and some cabinets and even a couch. Oh, ~ sweet heavens~ there was a couch?!?! He’d been waking up on the concrete floor 60 yards away from a COUCH???
“Please tell me there’s no bed bugs, please tell me there’s no bed bugs,” he chanted under his breath as he clicked on his flashlight to inspect the cushions closely, “FUCK YES!” he screeched after scouring the dark blue cushions and finding nothing but dust and a couple of spiders which he promptly evicted.
He immediately threw himself on it and sprawled out. Kami, this was so comfy! His reverie was cut short by a bout of sneezing. Okay, clean first, bask later.
He took some time to try and pick the lock to the other room but after about 20 minutes and one frustrated kick he realized it wasn’t even locked, it was just jammed. It was a bathroom that had grown a truly impressive amount of mold before drying out. That was some dust he wasn’t too keen on breathing in so he promptly shut the door making sure it fully jammed back into position. He’ll have no mystery mold spores in his lungs today, dead or alive, no thank you.
Slowly throughout the day he cleaned up and started hauling his stuff over to the office. It was actually really nice to have cabinets to put things in for a change. It would be better to have DJ but, well, he was trying to look for a silver lining here. This was a new start, new uh, home, new goals, but back to the same old loneliness. That was something he wasn’t going to escape, he just needed to accept that. By the time night fell he’d settled all his things into a temporary new arrangement, he’d have to live in it for a while and move things around until it was right and he also needed to get the generator set up but that would happen in due time.
Right now he hadn’t gotten updates from Eraser all day and he needed to harass him. He was mostly suited up already but he needed to grab his mask and probably reapply the eyeshadow so he sat down in front of his mirror to do just that. As he rubbed the powder around his eyes he felt a twinge of pain on his cheek. He furrowed his brow and took a closer look but he didn’t see anything under all the makeup, wiping it off a bit he realized he had a scratch, er no, a burn on his cheek in a straight line. When did that happen?
It took him a second to realize that was where his mask lay on his face, the side where the velcro that held the inner lining to the shell had worn down and didn’t hold as well as it used to, the side where the bare metal had been digging into his skin but he was too lazy to do anything about it. Damn, that room must have really been sweltering if his mask had gotten hot enough to burn him. Whatever, that was a problem for later. Right now he just stuck a band-aid over it and called it a day. The only update he’d gotten from Eraser was a new phone number and a location to meet at so he wasn’t going to be late. He was never going to be late again, not after what happened last time.
***
Shota was hungover for the first time in years and he did not miss the sensation one bit. Getting out of bed was bad enough, this? This was hell on earth. Last night had gotten a little out of hand and he hardly remembered the latter half of it. He did remember deciding to take a shot every time Nem or Zashi made fun of him for acting like a dad and, well, that went about as well as one could expect. He also remembered ending up having to take a cab home. Gaaaah he had so much shit to do today, he needed to go get the car and he needed to get a new phone and he needed to check in with Tsukauchi and then he needed to talk to Ivy and then they were probably going to want to patrol and he had grading to do but fuck that it could wait for tomorrow. He swatted at the alarm going off on his phone and slapped Zashi awake. It was already 10? The cats were not going to be happy about missing breakfast. Zashi’s dramatic groan told him that they weren’t doing much better than he was.
Leaning over his husband he grabbed his hearing aids and forcibly stuffed one in his ear while he halfheartedly attempted to bat his hands away. He was such a drama queen.
“Zashi it’s already 10, cats need to eat and I have errands to run,” he grumbled, his voice still rough from sleep.
Zashi spent a few more seconds groveling in bed before he forced himself up to go feed the gremlins while Shota brushed his teeth. He accidentally dropped the toothpaste cap into the bathtub as he tried to put it back on. Kami, it was going to be a long day.
***
Three hours and two coffees later he had acquired his car and a new phone which, after texting Zashi his new number, he immediately used to text the detective both for an update on the case and Ivy’s number. He had his contacts backed up on his computer but that was at home and he was waiting to pick up lunch that Zashi had ordered them from the Thai place down the street.
Eraserhead:
Any updates on the case? Did they get enough evidence?
Tsukauchi:
Yes, the storage room upstairs wasn’t completely burnt beyond recognition. Most of the files were useless by the time the fire was doused so the pictures they set were very helpful but the support gear wasn’t going to burn and that was enough evidence on its own to keep the people we had detained for long enough for us to pin something on them.
Eraserhead:
What about the profiles?
Tsukauchi:
I haven’t gotten the chance to look thru them all yet. They are… quite extensive. From what I saw the photos should be enough to at least start an investigation on most of them.
Eraserhead:
If we see them out around town should we detain them?
Tsukauchi:
Tbd. I’ll let you know when I know. Are you patrolling tonight?
Eraserhead:
Most likely
Tsukauchi:
Meet me at the station before you go.
Eraserhead:
noted
Well, that was good news. Hopefully, they could get warrants out for their arrests by tonight. The longer these people remained at large the less likely they were to get caught.
Eraserhead:
I have minimal updates, looking positive. Meet me on the roof of the deli on block 22
Usual time
He sent off a message to Ivy before he forgot.
***
“Food’s here!” he heard Sho shout from the entry.
“Set it on the table, I’m gettin’ drinks, whaddya want?”
“Coffee.”
“And how many would that bring today’s total to?” they taunted as they watched him pass by the kitchen entryway and make his way to the dining room.
“Only three!” he argued petulantly.
“You’re pushing it, babe,” he poked as he flicked on the coffee maker and set Sho’s favorite mug under it.
Shota just grunted vaguely rather than arguing further as he set the food out at their usual spots at the dining table.
“You patrolling tonight?”
“Most likely.”
“You sure that’s a good idea? We didn’t arrest even half of the profiles that Ivy sent and this is going to piss them off more than anything else you guys have done before,” he warned.
He had no doubt Shota knew that but he was worried about him. He had a tendency to run into things with no regard for his own well-being; as long as he could save someone his pain was a worthy sacrifice. He’d been doing his best to beat that mentality out of himself for years but it was a hard-fought battle and one that he was always going to lose if his loved ones were the ones on the metaphorical chopping block. For better or for worse Ivy was one of those people and unfortunately for all three of them Ivy lived on the metaphorical chopping block.
“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea but I’m meeting with Tsukauchi before I go out, and if he gives us the go-ahead to detain any of the people Ivy has profiles on then It’s better to get them before they have the chance to make a run for it,” he admitted.
That kid had a way of constructing impossible situations. Scenarios where there was no correct choice. Hizashi wondered how they dealt with that. He’d been thinking about them all day, it’d been a year of hearing about them from Shota and they finally got the chance to meet them. They’d seemed more than a bit nervous around Nem and him but they were so at ease with Shota, they teased and poked at one another like a well-practiced dance. They were smart and funny and endearing; Shota so clearly adored them and Hizashi could see why.
“I don’t think you should go out if you don’t get that clearance Sho,” he responded as the coffee maker started sputtering out a serving.
“I know but I still need to touch base with Ivy.”
“Yeah, alright. Just be careful, please,” they relented after a moment.
“I will,” Shota assured them as they set their drinks down at the table.
***
Aizawa waltzed into his office like he owned the place and immediately made a beeline for the coffee maker like he always did.
“Good evening to you too Eraserhead, please help yourself,” he taunted barely glancing up from his computer.
Aizawa ignored him completely as the machine brewed a cup. He didn’t acknowledge him at all until he’d downed half of it, sat down in front of his desk, and looked at him with a raised brow.
“Charming as ever, Eraser,” he quipped dryly before continuing, “We’ve got a warrant out for the arrest of anyone Ivy got photographic evidence of which is most of the profiles they sent over. I put it in as an anonymous tip and no one has challenged me on that yet. We’re treating all the information included as a starting point rather than actual evidence but I’m sure any investigation we do will only verify their findings. Everyone arrested last night has enough evidence for a conviction and they’ll be seeing a few years of jail time at the very least. This was good work,” he conceded.
“Don’t tell them that, it’ll go to their head. I don’t even know how long they’ve been gathering intel on their own, it was beyond reckless.”
“Reckless, yes, but you can’t argue with their results,” He said shifting most of his attention back to what he’d been working on.
“I can and I will,” Aizawa retorted
“Yeah, fair enough,” he agreed with a humorless laugh, “They looked alright last you saw them? They gave you the SD cards after you left the scene, right?” he asked looking back up from his screen.
“Yeah, I met up with them. They’re fine. There were a couple of holes burnt through their sleeves and one of their pant legs but they’d already patched it up and it didn’t affect their movement so I assume it was not severe.”
He let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes at that. He worried about Ivy more than he’d like to admit. They were a little shit and a terror but they had a good heart and they did good work.
“That’s good I suppose, it could have been a lot worse,” he mused.
“Yes, it very well could have been,” Aizawa grumbled as he stood to leave.
Naomasa couldn’t help but huff out a laugh at that, “You sound like you’re about to go beat their ass,” he joked.
“No comment,” Aizawa shot over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him.
He scoffed again and muttered to himself, “Nice knowing you Ivy.”
***
When Shota got to the meeting place Ivy was there waiting for him. They jumped and whipped around the moment his feet hit the roof. There was fear in their eyes for a split second before the corners of them crinkled up the way they did when he knew they were smiling. He’d realized last night how long it had been since he’d seen those smiley eyes.
“Just came from a meeting with the detective and I’ve got even more good news than I thought I would,” he said as a greeting.
They looked to be positively vibrating with excitement as they demanded him to spill the beans immediately.
“Everyone arrested has more than enough evidence for a conviction and any of the profiles you have with photographic evidence attached to them has a warrant out for their arrest,” he explained before the kid passed out.
They whooped and hollered as quietly as they could while jumping around the rooftop and shaking their fists in triumph, they looked like a little kid in a candy shop after you told them they could get whatever they wanted and Shota couldn’t help the smile that crept across his face. They’d worked hard for this, it might have been stupid and reckless but they worked hard. He wouldn’t go so far as to say they should be proud but they definitely deserved to celebrate. They could be proud after Shota was done being pissed.
“Let’s go! We need to get them before they leave town! It’s already been nearly 24 hours!” they asserted as they made their way toward the edge of the roof to start patrol.
They didn’t get very far before they tripped and fell barely catching their face from hitting the rooftop when Shota snared their ankle with his capture scarf. Propped up on their elbows they looked back at him with a heated glare.
“Eat first,” he reminded them as he handed one of the bentos looped to his belt over to the kid.
They violently snatched the bento out of his hands and started muttering vague curses and threats under their breath. Shota could barely hear it and didn’t even bother trying to decipher them as he sat down with his own dinner.
Notes:
thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 74: Line ‘em Up and Knock ‘em Down
Notes:
REMINDER: M/W/F UPLOADS THIS WEEK, THEN I'M TAKING A BREAK UNTIL THE NEW YEAR!!!
EDIT: WHEN THE FUCK DID WE HIT 50K HITS??? WE'RE ALMOST AT 2K KUDOS???? THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH????
cws
-guns
-knifes
-canon typical violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The days trickled by slowly now that Izuku wasn’t working himself to the bone. They’d managed to catch 3 people on his list bringing the total up to 17/53 profiles arrested. It wasn’t a great ratio but they’d taken down the boss of the operation and the remaining four high-ranking members not present at the support gear raid. They no longer had any leadership and Izuku was hoping that some of them would be caught elsewhere since they had warrants out for their arrest.
For now, their names were serving as wall decor in his office. There was a large corkboard hanging on one of the walls and he’d written out each name on it and with every person caught he drove a knife through their name. Was it morbid? Yes. was it more than a bit creepy? Also yes. But it was a physical reminder of why he kept getting up every morning; his work wasn’t done.
Patrols had become uneventful, even more uneventful than they had been after the last raid but Eraser said this was “normal” and “a proportional amount of incidents for the given population.” They were grateful that people weren’t getting hurt but Kami, was it boring? Of course, they weren’t stupid enough to say that out loud, they knew better than to tempt fate but apparently, fate could read minds because now, a few agonizingly quiet weeks after the raid, they found themselves surrounded and standing back to back with Eraser.
They were responding to a woman’s blood-curdling scream and they ran right into an ambush. They looked down into the alley and saw a woman on the ground crawling backward away from a man whose face was covered and jumped in without properly vetting the area. Awnings or overhangs were blocking both sides of the alley and the moment they touched the ground it was too late; six people were hiding in the blind spot on either side and Ivy recognized all of them.
Several of them pulled weapons but thankfully only two of them pulled guns, Ivy sent a knife through the hand of one of the gun wielders and Eraser grabbed the other guy’s wrist with his scarf throwing off his aim causing him to shoot one of his buddies across the alley in the leg. Everything devolved into chaos very quickly after that, quirks were flying everywhere. The ground was half covered in ice which seemed to be more of an issue for their attackers than it was for them, everyone was slipping but Ivy and Eraser recovered far more quickly than they did.
Ivy couldn’t focus on what was going on behind them, they had to trust that Eraser had it handled because they had five people gunning for them right now. One of their attackers sent a bolt of electricity at them and sweet fuck did that hurt. They seized up and let out a strangled cry of pain. Thankfully the fact that their whole body was giving off sparks was enough to keep anyone else from attacking. They did their best to force their uncooperative limbs forward but the electrical current was giving their muscles conflicting directions. The moment the quirk was cut off by a glance from Eraser they dashed forward and swung their baton into the man’s head. Haha, whoops, they were aiming for their signature takedown but their muscles were still twitching. That was gonna be a hell of a concussion for sure.
Now no longer threatening to zap anyone that got too close the remaining four people closed in. One of them was the woman who had covered the ground in ice and she was making it difficult for anyone to move. They had to flail their arm out to catch their balance and she took the opportunity to grab their forearm; immediately their arm burned from the cold and they sent their fist straight into her cheek hard. She went down without much fight. The remaining three had no visible quirks but two of them were brandishing knives; alright, two could play at that game. They drew the two biggest knives they had on them at the moment and they couldn’t help but smirk at how it caused all three of them to subtly flinch.
They drove the hilt of one knife into the closest guy’s temple and he dropped like a sack of potatoes but the woman who had drawn them here in the first place had finally decided to join the fray so they went right back up to three opponents. They tried to sweep her legs out from under her but their shin smacked into an invisible barrier about a foot away from her causing them to lose their balance. Force field quirk; fuck, that hurt. They got their bearings back as she vaulted over her own force field and tackled them to the ground. They grappled for a little while and she blocked every hit they tried until her buddies realized they should probably help. As they approached from behind Ivy threw a knife toward the closest guy's shoulder but it clattered to the ground like it hit a wall before it even reached him. At the same time, the arm they were propped up on against a force field over the woman’s neck disappeared and their elbow dropped down onto her throat with the weight of their entire upper body behind it. Okay, she can only do one force field at a time… well now none because she was wheezing and hacking up a lung.
Leaving her to her own devices for a moment they sprung up and sent their baton into the man’s temple before he could do any damage with the knife he was charging at them with, they immediately plucked it out of his hand and sent it flying into the next guy’s leg. The second man’s cry of pain was enough of a distraction for them to knock him out as well but the force field woman was back on her feet to their left and the last guy after them was closing in from the right.
Okay, 2v1, easy.
The force field lady was a problem, they needed to take her out first. They feined throwing a knife at the man to their right hoping she would put up a force field to protect him as they changed directions quickly and sent it flying into her shoulder. Thank Kami that worked, they didn’t really have a backup plan. They knocked her out before turning their attention to their last assailant. This had to be a record for the most concussions in one night, they almost felt bad about it. Not bad enough to hold back a laugh when the last guy standing tried to make a break for it though.
“Aw, you running away from me? C’mon, don’t be scared, I don’t bite!” they taunted as they ran after him and tackled him to the ground.
Pinning him down they took a moment to glance over to Eraser as he was wrapping the last of his attackers in his capture scarf and bringing a knee into their skull. Oo, ouch. Seeing that the threat was neutralized they started tying up the man’s hands rather than knocking him out. They had the time and they knew firsthand how unpleasant concussions could be, he might deserve it but it just seemed like bullying at this point.
As they were looping the rope around his wrists he started screaming profanities.
“Oh, just shut up dude,” they complained to no avail.
They hauled him to his feet as he screamed barely comprehensible threats and curses into their ear.
“Shut the fuck up! It’s too late, you’re done, ya’ failed– OH MY GOD SHUT UP!!!”
Ivy quickly lost their patience as the man continued to ignore them. They gave him a few more seconds before grabbing their flashlight and swinging it directly into his vagus nerve not bothering to catch him as he dropped to the ground like a brick.
The alley was blissfully quiet for a moment after that until they heard a snorted laugh from the other side; Eraser was looking at them with his lips pursed into a straight line like he was trying not to laugh. They looked around at the alley covered in concussed gang members then back up to Eraser and started laughing hysterically. Eraser tried to maintain an air of professionalism for a few seconds but quickly gave up and laughed with them.
It was sad, honestly; they had every advantage, surprise, numbers, weapons, and yet Ivy and Eraser were the only ones standing practically no worse for wear. It was a good plan too, it would have probably worked if they had just a modicum of coordination with each other.
“Th-that was j-just sad,” Ivy wheezed out between laughs.
Eraser was letting out a high-pitched giggle that made them laugh even harder. Oh Kami, that was his laugh? No wonder he never laughed, it ruined his whole scary tough guy act completely. He was typing away on his phone with one hand and wiping tears away with the other.
“Cops are gonna be here in about five minutes,” he reported after the two of them got their laughter under control.
They waited around with Eraser until they heard the sirens approaching from the distance just in case some of their assailants woke up and tried to cause trouble, not that Eraser couldn’t take care of it on his own but they’d rather be safe than sorry.
***
When Naomasa arrived on the scene with a fleet of cruisers in tow he had to stop a moment to take it all in. Eraserhead was standing alone in the alley surrounded by over a dozen hopefully just unconscious people lying on the ground.
“What the hell happened?” he asked sounding more than a bit horrified.
“A sad attempt at an ambush,” Aizawa responded calmly with a subtle smirk.
“Are they all on the list?”
“Mostly, Ivy said she’s new,” he gestured to one woman on the ground to his right, “but everyone else is on the list,”
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he went to check it
Ivy:
30/53 >:)
+1 bonus!
He looked up at the surrounding rooftops until he spotted them peeking their head out directly above him. They flicked him off before ducking out of sight. Eraser snorted at him so he shot him a look but he just smirked harder.
“You’re just as bad as they are! They're a bad influence, you’re more insufferable than ever,” he complained.
He felt his phone buzz in his hand and he checked it against his better judgment.
Ivy:
He’s learning from the best xoxo
He didn’t justify that with a response and just took a deep breath before walking away to help his officers usher the criminals to cruisers or ambulances.
***
By the time Shota made it back up to the rooftops Ivy had finally stopped vibrating with excitement. They were lying spread eagle on the roof with their eyes closed… were they sleeping?
“Ivy,” he called out.
They shot up like a bat out of hell and damn near threw a knife at him before they got their bearings. Okay, yeah, definitely sleeping.
“Kid, it was like 20 minutes, you couldn’t stay awake for 20 minutes?” he poked
They shot him a look and a rude gesture as they stretched out their limbs and got to their feet.
“Go home, neither of us needs you falling asleep mid-fight. This was enough work for the night anyway, I think we’ve earned an early one,”
“Not fallin’–” they cut themself off with a yawn and didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
“Very convincing. Go home.”
“Mmmblaaaaarrrmmmggg,” they countered.
“Yeah?” he poked back earning himself another glare.
“Some of us can’t afford to inject coffee directly into our veins every day, Eraser ,” they sneered.
Outwardly he just rolled his eyes at them but honestly, he was still concerned for them; they hadn’t been the same ever since their cat passed away. Usually, they at least made an effort to hide their exhaustion so he couldn’t help but worry about why they couldn’t now.
“Get some sleep, kid,” he reiterated as he gently shoved them toward the fire escape.
They groaned out another complaint but headed toward the edge of the roof obediently regardless. He watched as they shot a lazy wave over their shoulder and made their way down to street level. Once he was sure they weren't going to fall off the side of a building he turned and started making his own way home.
***
That night when Izuku got back to the brewery before he passed out he took out 13 knives from his collection and sent them flying at the corkboard.
30/53 felt good.
Notes:
Thank you for readingggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 75: Swan Dive
Notes:
GUYS I started working on the outline for the second half of the fic and I’m so fucking excited!!! ASDF;IADFGL;JKL it’s currently 6 pages of bullet points 🙃
Also: TWO THOUSAND KUDOS?????? I SCREECH!!!!!!! THANK YOU?!?!?!?!?Anyways, you all saw the title, you know what that means heheheheheheheeheheh LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
CWs:
-Suicidal ideation
-Assault
-Canon typical violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ivy and Eraser had yet to encounter any more gang members around town, it seemed like the message that they were not to be messed with had been well communicated. Every few days Eraser would tell them that another person had been caught a few cities over but eventually those reports started to peter out. At the end of the day, the threat was neutralized and they tried not to let the few stragglers bother them. Despite everything falling into place Izuku still couldn’t sleep through the night. He used to get a full night’s rest if not more whenever he and Eraser took a break night but ever since he found DJ he hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time and that was almost two months ago at this point. Some nights he was able to accept that he might never sleep soundly again but other nights he woke up screaming and it just made him angry. Tonight was one of those nights.
It wasn’t even about DJ usually, he dreamed of fire and gunshots and bloodied shattered corpses on the pavement, those were the dreams he woke up screaming from. But sometimes he would dream of DJ or the Shinsos and he’d wake up already crying; even if it was a good dream, it just reminded him of what he lost.
He was so tired of being tired. He was tired of going through the motions. He was tired of not being happy; he finally did it, the gang was gone, the last remaining members spread to the wind, but he wasn’t happy. He was glad it was over, he was proud to have done what he’d done but the feeling was hollow and flimsy and it hung limply against the solid crushing weight of his grief and loneliness.
He woke up screaming and angry but he was too tired to feel it properly so it melted into sadness. He laid there staring up at the ceiling for hours until his alarm went off.
He was tired of going to school; it felt so trivial compared to everything else in his life but if he didn’t go he didn’t eat and didn’t shower so every day he scraped himself up off the couch and dragged himself to class.
Izuku was considering buying concealer because he was even more tired of everyone telling him how tired he looked. ‘When’s the last time you slept?’ ‘You look like shit.’ ‘You look like a zombie.’ They were as utterly uncreative as most of the insults slung at him but he was already tired and tired of being tired; adding tired of being made fun of for looking tired was another layer of salt in the wound that he didn’t need.
The start of the new school year didn’t make anything better, in fact, it felt a bit worse to have seniority over the majority of the school and still be at the bottom of the pecking order. It hit different to be bullied by someone two years your junior.
He made it to class without any major incidents and took his seat just before the bell rang. He spent half the morning picking at the splintered wood of his desk marred from years of explosions and slurs carved into the surface. There were no more profiles to work on, no more evidence to sort through, and no more plans to coordinate; he felt a bit lost after having spent the last few months in the thick of it. After a while of passively listening and taking notes, he pulled out his hero analysis book. He hadn’t touched it since DJ died, it like many other things seemed far too trivial to devote his time to after that. Now that he felt like he had all the time in the world he figured he might as well pick up where he left off.
Izuku spent the rest of morning classes as well as lunch scrawling in his journal, it felt good to come back to it, it felt familiar. When afternoon classes started he dimly registered that his teacher was talking about prospective high schools and applications but Izuku had already turned in all the things he needed to in order to get the processes started so he ignored the lecture for the most part.
It was a bit more difficult to ignore when Kacchan started ranting loudly about UA and some self-congratulatory bullshit but he tried his best. Everyone knew Kacchan was going to UA, he didn’t need to make a scene about it. Izuku had become quite skilled at tuning out his rants over the last decade so he barely heard a word of it but his teacher’s words pulled him back to the present.
“Oh yeah, Midoriya, don’t you want to go to UA too?” he asked with a smirk.
If he could crawl into himself and disappear he would do it in a heartbeat. The entire class burst out into laughter
“Listen up Deku, you’re even worse than the rest of these damn rejects you quirkless wannabe! You really think they’d let someone like you in when they could have me?!” Katsuki bellowed as he let off an explosion on Izuku’s desk sending him sprawling back out of his seat and onto the floor.
“I’m not trying to compete with you Kaccha–
“You’d never be able to hang with the best of the best! You’d die in the exams! Defenseless Deku, this school’s already crappy do you really wanna embarrass it more by failing so hard?” he sneered.
The teacher finally decided to reel things in at that point
“Boys, back in your seats,” he chastised like Izuku left his seat intentionally.
The rest of class dragged by and Izuku tried to make a break for it the moment the bell rang like usual but Kacchan grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back away from the door before he could book it. It had been a while since anyone gave him a proper beat down, he’d been getting too good at evading but Izuku got the feeling this was going to end far worse for him if he didn’t cooperate so he let himself be dragged back into the classroom.
“I don't know what you think you’re doing Deku but we’re not done,” Kacchan sneered as he shoved him backward and grabbed the notebook out of his hand.
“Whatcha got? His diary?” one of Kacchan’s goons teased, “Hah! Don’t tell me you’re taking notes on how to be a hero!” he scoffed after reading the front cover.
“That's so pathetic!” the other crony chimed in.
“Yeah, he’s delusional!”
“That’s real funny guys. Just give it back,” he grumbled out doing his best to maintain his composure; it wouldn’t do him any good to retaliate.
Before he could get the chance to grab it Kacchan put a hand on either side and let off an explosion charring the book pretty badly before throwing it out the window. Izuku felt something in him snap at that, but he was so tired. He was so fucking tired. Not for the first time he had the urge to kick Katsuki’s ass but he had to remind himself that that wouldn’t end well. Even if he didn’t get his own ass beat in the process there would be consequences; consequences he couldn’t afford to pay, so instead, he took a deep breath.
“Most first-rate heroes show potential early on, people look at them and just know that they’re destined for greatness. When I'm the only student from this garbage junior high to make it into UA people will start talking about me like that. They’ll realize I’m legit; the next big thing. That’s not ego talking, I just know I’m good.”
His goons snickered and poked fun at his ego as Katsuki stepped forward and rested a hand on his shoulder that immediately started smoldering. He could feel the cheap polyester melting against his skin but he kept a scowl on his face not giving him the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.
“Here’s a little word of advice, nerd, don’t even think of applying, or else,” he cooed with faux cheer in his tone.
Kacchan jerked his hand off his shoulder painfully and walked away after that. Izuku just stood there seething silently. Distantly he heard them continue to mock him but he did his best to ignore it, even still Kacchan’s words cut through the dissonance.
“You know if you really wanna be a hero that badly there might actually be another way, just pray that you’ll be born with a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!”
The words hit him like a ton of bricks, he was glad his back was turned to Kacchan because he’s sure he wasn’t able to keep the shock off his face. Izuku listened as footsteps made their way to the door and down the hall followed by snickers and laughter. He stood there froze until any sounds they made were well out of earshot. Eventually, he mustered up the motivation to sling his bag over his shoulder and walk out of the room on stiff legs.
Once he got outside Izuku walked up to the koi pond to see fish nibbling at the soaked and charred remains of his notebook. It felt childish to care about the book, it felt childish to care about anything Kacchan said but still, he felt his eyes go misty.
It was far from the first time someone had told him to kill himself, but it was the first time Kacchan dared to utter the words. For some reason, Izuku had never thought he would, that he would never stoop so low. Maybe he was just clinging onto the hope that Kacchan still gave a shit about him, that he would still care if he lived or died. Apparently not.
Fuck, why did it hurt so much? Why would he ever think that Kacchan cared? He was an asshole, he never did anything to make Izuku think he might still care. He didn’t even realize he’d been holding onto the hope that he did until he said that and shattered that hope to pieces. What was the use of hope? It always broke; it always left him broken. He was doing well, things were looking up! Why the hell did he still let Kacchan have the power to ruin that?
Izuku had been walking around aimlessly trying to forget those words, but he was just getting more and more lost in his own head; he wasn’t so lost that he didn’t hear the awful goopy sloshing sound of sludge leaking up out of the grates of the sewer behind him. Whipping himself around to face it he saw a dark green blob of a creature start to take form, rising from the manhole.
“You’ll make a perfect skinsuit to hide in, kid,” the slopping mass said in a deep scratchy voice.
Fucking phenomenal, just what he needed. They took up a fighting stance as the man (?) sloshed toward them. They dodged out of the way for the first few attacks, but the guy was completely fluid and they couldn’t predict his movements; eventually, they were ensnared in a cold viscous goop that immediately tried to shove itself down their throat.
“You’re quick, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I'm just taking over your body. It’ll be easier for both of us if you don’t fight back. It’ll only hurt for a minute, you’ll feel better soon,” the man teased.
Oh, they would have a choice few words for this prick if they weren’t currently being smothered. The man’s form was forcing their mouth open and slithering into their nasal passages leaving an awful burning sensation in its wake. No amount of coughing helped and they kept clawing at the man to no avail.
“Grab all you want, my body’s made of fluid. Thanks for the help, you’re a real hero to me,” he taunted again.
Made of fluid? How did that work? He couldn’t be completely fluid, could he? He had to have a weak point, something they could exploit. They thought about how the man flowed up and out of the sewer, how his eyes and teeth floated in the awful soup that was the rest of his body. Those two things were the only part of him that looked any different from the rest, maybe they were solid, maybe they weren’t, but they were running out of options quickly, so they grabbed blindly up toward where the voice emanated and clawed until they felt something solid. The moment they made contact with what they assumed to be an eye given how squishy it felt they heard the sewer cap hit the bottom of the bridge above them. Shit, that better not be backup for this asshole. Their vision was going spotty and they were starting to panic; they couldn’t take on anyone else right now.
“Have no fear, you’re safe, for I am here!”
All Might??? What the fuck??? Never mind, thank fuck. They really didn’t want to learn what the sensation of an eyeball popping in the palm of your hand felt like and they’re sure the goop guy didn’t either. The theatric, “Texas Smaaaaaaash” was music to their ears as the villain’s liquid body blew away in the strong winds All Might shot toward them like water under a hand dryer. Unfortunately, it also blew them back onto their ass, causing them to smack their head on the concrete. He wasn’t sure whether he’d passed out or not, but he definitely saw stars and when his vision cleared All Might was looking down at him and lightly smacking his face. Okay, yeah, he probably passed out.
He sat up quickly and looked around for his attacker, but the coast looked clear and All Might didn’t look overly concerned, not that he would even know what All Might looked like when he was overly concerned, but he doubted that the sludge villain was too much for All Might to handle.
“Ah! Thought we lost you there!” All Might cheered as he settled his focus back on him, “Well, looks like you’re moving around alright! Sorry about that back there, I didn’t mean to get you caught up in my justicing! Usually, I pay more attention to keeping bystanders safe, but it turns out this city’s sewer system is pretty difficult to navigate!” he explained with a laugh.
Izuku would admit that he was a bit star-struck. He’d looked up to All Might as a little kid, he was the number one hero! He was entitled to a bit of gawking.
“Anyway, you were a big help! Thank you! I’ve captured the evil-doer!” he exclaimed as he held up two 2-liter bottles filled with dirty green goop.
Izuku was fumbling over himself not really forming a proper sentence. Kami, was the concussion that bad, or was he just that hopelessly awkward?
“Welp, I gotta get this guy to the police so they can take care of ‘im! Stay out of trouble! See you around!”
Wait, he wasn’t going to check him for a concussion? Was someone else on the way? Shit, he had to get out of here, but he had questions! He needed to know how long he was out for and well… selfishly, he wanted some reassurance too. It’d been a shit day, okay?
“Wait, I–”
“Now stand back, I’m taking off! Thanks for your continued support!” he shouted.
Everything happened too fast, Izuku didn’t even realize he’d grabbed onto All Might before they were soaring above the city at Mach Jesus. He’s not too proud to admit that he did let out an undignified screech.
“Hey hey hey, what do you think you’re doing? Let go! I love my fans but this is too much!” All Might declared as he gently tried to push him off.
“IF I LET GO I’LL DIE!” he shouted back.
“Oh. That’s a good point,” All Might conceded and shifted his hand from trying to push him off to holding him in place.
After soaring above the city for a terrifying few seconds, they touched down on a random rooftop.
“Not a very smart move. Bang on the door for a while, someone will let you in. Now, I have to go, see you on the flip side!”
“Wait, one second!”
“No! I don’t have any time!”
“I have to know! Is it possible to become a hero even if I don’t have a quirk?” he asked desperately as All Might walked away.
He stopped when he asked the question. At first, Izuku thought he was actually going to answer him but then he noticed the hand clutching at his side and the slight hunch to his posture. Was… was he okay? Steam was starting to rise off his shoulders.
“All Might, are you oka–”
Suddenly the steady rise of steam erupted into a plume shrouding him completely, and Izuku could see the shadowed silhouette of his form deflate. When the smoke cleared, a skeleton of a man was standing where All Might had been. He looked sickly and malnourished. All Might’s quirk had been a source of speculation on the internet for decades, was it a transformation quirk? Why would he transform in front of Izuku? Did it have a time limit? If it was just a time limit why was he clutching his side like he’d been injured? Was he actually hurt? Izuku was snapped out of his speculation when All Might started coughing up blood.
Okay, nope, definitely hurt!
Before Izuku even knew what he was doing, he’d run over to All Might and guided him to sit down. He’d whipped off his backpack and went to pull out his first aid kit before he could stop to think that there wasn’t much a first aid kit could do for internal bleeding and All Might was batting his hands away.
“It’s fine, I’m fine, young man,” he assured him in a much more dour tone than he used in his other form.
“You’re coughing up blood! I’m not a doctor but I wouldn’t call that okay! You’ve got internal bleeding, are your ribs alright? Do you have a punctured lung? No! Don’t get up!” he instructed as he bossed All Might back into a seated position on the rooftop when he tried to stand.
All Might grabbed both his hands in his own, completely enveloping them cause his were so much bigger even in this smaller form.
“Kid, it’s fine,” he dropped one of his hands to lift up the left side of his shirt, “It’s an old injury,” he explained and gestured to the gnarly scar that took up over half of his torso.
The scar was a starburst centered on his left side with old surgical cuts leaving all the way up his pec and across his stomach. He didn’t realize he was staring until All Might dropped his shirt again.
“Pretty gross, right? I got this in a fight five years back. I’m counting on you to keep your mouth shut. Don’t go talking about this online or tell your friends.” Izuku almost scoffed at that, he had no friends to tell and he barely had access to the internet anyway. Even if he wanted to spill All Might’s secret no one would listen to him, “My respiratory system was basically destroyed and I lost my whole stomach. All the surgeries have pretty much worn me out, it can’t be fixed.”
“Five years ago? D-does that mean it was the fight with Toxic Chainsaw?” he asked incredulously before he thought better of it.
“Wow, you know your stuff, but no. The punk may have landed some hits but he couldn’t bring me down. Most of the world has never heard of this fight, I did everything I could to keep it under wraps,” his expression darkened even more as he continued, “I’m supposed to be the guy who’s always smiling, right? I’m the symbol of peace, people everywhere have to think that I’m never afraid, but honestly, I smile to hide the fear inside. It’s just a brave face I put on when the pressure is high. This job isn’t easy, pro heroes are always having to risk their lives. Some villains just can't be beaten without powers, so no, I honestly don’t think you can be a hero without a quirk.”
Izuku’s mind went from racing to completely still in a second. He’d forgotten he’d even asked that, he was too caught up in All Might’s injury. He froze where he was knelt down next to him as All Might stood to leave.
“If you wanna help people there are plenty of other ways to do it. Become a police officer, they get crap because heroes capture most of the villains but it’s a fine profession. It’s not bad to have a dream, young man, just make sure your dreams are attainable; realistic. Understand?” he called over his shoulder as he left the roof taking the stairs back down to street level.
He barely heard him as he walked away. Did he…? Did he really just say that? All Might? He… he just… Izuku was completely stunned speechless, he was damn near stunned thoughtless. His hand reached up to clutch at the railing on the ledge as he numbly hauled himself to his feet. He didn’t get very far because the view in front of him caught his attention. He was looking down at the city, at the drop below him. That drop had been calling out to him for as long as he could remember but right now it was screaming.
His heart was racing and his hands were shaking as Kacchan’s words mixed with All Mights and echoed in his mind until he couldn’t hear anything else. He couldn’t hear his better judgment telling him that he had already saved so many people, he couldn’t hear logic telling him that he was already a hero, and he couldn’t hear Eraser’s shaking broken voice telling him to stick around for him, to call him if it ever got this bad again. He couldn’t hear any of it.
He couldn’t say how long he was stuck there like that until an explosion pulled him out of his head. That sounded like Kacchan. Another explosion rang out and he was vaulting over the safety fence and scaling down the fire escapes before he could think twice. Kami, it was broad daylight on the nice side of town and he wasn’t in any sort of disguise. Apparently, today was the day for acting before thinking because he was already halfway down and there was no point in going back now. He hit the ground running and gunned it for where the commotion was coming from. He didn’t let himself stop to think about how there probably wasn’t anything he could do, he just ran.
Notes:
THANK YOU FOR READING WE FINALLY MADE IT TO CANON TIMELINE!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Chapter 76: What it Takes to be a Hero
Notes:
THANK YOU GUYS FOR STICKING AROUND!!!!!
I'm going to take a break from posting for the rest of the year to get the second half of this fic ironed out! Make sure you report back PROMPTLY on Monday, January 1st because I will be continuing regular M/W/F uploads then!!!(Shoutout to Ashes_28 for beta reading this chapter and the last chapter too!!!)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The explosions continued to ring out as Izuku found the source in the shopping district; it was… it was the sludge villain? But All Might had just… his veins turned to ice as he thought back to the conversation on the rooftop, he didn’t remember anything sticking out of All Might’s pockets. He must have dropped the bottles. Fuck! This was his fault!
Another explosion went off, and as Izuku looked closer, he realized that was Kacchan. The slime guy had taken over his body just like he tried to do with Izuku. There were heroes everywhere trying to take him down but they gave up quickly when they realized their quirks were incompatible. Were they just going to leave him? Focus on limiting collateral?? Izuku’s nose and throat still stung from the sludge, Kacchan couldn’t breathe like that, he knew that quite intimately. He wasn’t going to last long enough for backup to arrive.
Izuku’s legs were moving again before he had the chance to think about how stupid this was. He ducked under the police tape and sent his bag hurtling into the villain’s eye. He flinched and yelped in pain, giving Kacchan a split second to breathe. By the time Izuku was at his side, he could tell that Kacchan was beginning to lose consciousness; his eyes were starting to unfocus. He clawed the goop around his nose away enough for him to get another breath in and let his eyes become more alert. When he managed to make eye contact with Izuku he wrenched his hand up and pointed his palm above his head directly at the sludge guy’s eyes.
“KACCHAN FIRE NOW!” he shouted.
The explosion left him dazed, his ears were ringing and it took him a second to find his bearings again. He was holding onto Kacchan who was leaning on him and gasping in heaving breaths. The heroes were closing in. Oh fuck, the heroes were closing in. Kacchan pushed him away and he took that as a cue to run. So run he did.
He bolted out of the wreckage and away from the scene thankfully having enough sense to grab his bag before it was too late. He was so busy looking over his shoulder that he almost ran straight into someone; dodging out of the way at the last second he rolled on the ground and back up to his feet as quickly as he could. He was going to call an apology over his shoulder and keep running, but then he saw who it was.
All Might.
He was calling for him to wait and a large part of him wanted to ignore it, but he was frozen in place by the part of him that still looked up to him, that still saw him as an authority figure to be respected and obeyed. All of him was tired though, tired enough to give up, tired enough to take whatever he had to say.
“Young man, I wanted to apologize,” he started.
…What?
Izuku stood there dumbstruck and shaking as he kept glancing back to the scene where reporters were starting to try and shove cameras and microphones into Kacchan’s face.
“Not a fan of publicity?” All Might asked.
It was all he could do to shake his head. His whole body was screaming at him to run, he couldn’t be seen here and he hoped to God that his stunt wasn’t caught on camera.
“Come on then, let's get out of here,” All Might offered and started walking in the direction Izuku had just been running in, “I wanted to talk with you, if that’s alright.”
The prey animal at his core wanted to say no, wanted to gun it and leave All Might in the dust, but he knew he wasn’t going to outrun All Might, not even like this. If All Might really wanted to talk to him it would be better to not make him angry first.
“Uh, y-yeah, okay,” he relented as the two of them fell into stride.
They walked a few blocks away before All Might spoke, “I was wrong to say what I said to you on the roof,” he began, “There are stories about every hero, how they became great and most have one thing in common, their bodies moved before they had a chance to think; almost on their own. And today, that’s what happened to you. Young man, you too can become a hero.”
This was too much emotional whiplash for one day. He felt like he was going to pass out. No one had ever told him he could be a hero, at least no one who knew what he really was, not even his own mother, but now of all people, All Might himself was telling him that he could? He stopped in his tracks but All Might kept walking for a few strides before he realized Izuku had stopped. Once he did he turned around to look at him.
“You have the heart of a hero, my boy. I deem you worthy of my power, my quirk is yours to inherit,” All Might declared.
…
…
…
Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthe–
“AHAHAHAHAHA you should see your face right now! Don’t worry, I’m not gonna force this thing on you,” he said as he walked back over to Izuku, “Listen well, young man! This is your choice! Do you want to accept my awesome power or not?!” he asked with a little too much enthusiasm because blood started pouring out of his mouth again.
For the second time today, Izuku let out a nonsensical string of consonants in response to All Might speaking to him. What. The. Fuck. Was. Happening?
“There are a couple of things you should know about my abilities. Journalists always guess my quirk is super strength or some kind of invulnerability. People ask in interviews and I always make a joke and dodge the question. It’s because the world needs to believe that the symbol of peace is a natural-born hero, but I’m not, there’s nothing natural about my ability. I wasn’t born with this power, it's a sacred torch that was passed on to me from someone else.”
“Wait hold on this is a lot to process! It'struethatthere'salotofdebateastowhatyourquirkactuallyisnobody'severfigureditoutit'soneoftheworld'sgreatestmysteriespeopleareconstantlytalkingaboutitonlinebuttheideaofpassingonaquirkorinheritingitdoesn'tmakeanysenseI'veneverheardanythinglikethatbeforepowersaresupposedtobeuniquetoeachindividualImeansincethefirstsuperpowersnoone'sjustbeenabletogivesomeoneelsetheirpowerlikeapresentthat'sjustcrazy!Ifthisistrueitwouldcauseustorethinkeverythingweknowaboutquirkstobeginwith–”
“STOP NERDIN’ OUT!” All Might cut off the mumbling he hadn’t realized he was doing, “You’ll have to adjust your reality and accept this new truth! I can transfer my quirk to someone else and that's just one facet of my secret abilities. The true name of my power is One For All. One person improves the power, then hands it off to another person; it continues to grow as it’s passed along. It is this cultivated power that allows me to save those who are in need of a hero; the truth behind my strength.”
“W-why the hell would you give it to m-me?” he sputtered out inelegantly.
“I was on a long hunt for a worthy successor, and then I watched you jump into action as the rest of us stood idly by. You may be quirkless, but you saved that boy. You were a hero,” All Might answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
This was too much. This was all too much. This… this was. This was too much! Distantly, he felt the concrete collide with his kneecaps, it hurt. He did his best to hold onto that pain because it was the only goddamn thing that made sense right now. His vision was blurring, was he crying? Yeah, he was crying. That made sense too. He was on the ground, he was in pain and he was crying, that made sense. All Might was standing in front of him looking awfully concerned; that didn’t make sense.
“Kid? Kid, calm down, cool it with the waterworks!” All Might tried to soothe as he gently patted Izuku’s shoulder.
Fuck, he was having a goddamn episode in front of All Might; he needed to pull it together. He quickly wiped his eyes and did his best to corral his emotions. He’d stopped crying, but he was still at a complete loss for words. Thankfully, All Might gave him an out.
“You don’t have to decide right now, my boy. Why don’t you think on it?” he offered.
“Y-yeah, I– th-thank you… I d-don’t– how am I supposed t-to let you know my– when I-I make a decision?” he finally found the words to ask.
All Might thought for a moment before speaking, “Well, I’ve told you secrets far more pressing than my phone number so let’s go with that!” he said cheerfully.
Izuku huffed out a weak laugh at that and nodded before fishing out a piece of paper for him to scrawl the digits on. His ‘civilian’ phone had run out of battery ages ago, and since the Shinsos were the only people he ever used it to talk to there hadn’t been a need for him to keep charging it. All Might passed back his notebook and Izuku committed the numbers to memory before stuffing it back in his bag.
“You get home safe, young man!” All Might instructed him, hesitating for a moment and giving Izuku one last shoulder pat before taking his leave.
***
Izuku walked home in a daze. His brain felt like jello and thoughts swam through it sluggishly. This had to be a joke, right? A dream? There’s no way that just happened, there’s just no way. But it felt real, his head still ached and his throat still burned from the first sludge villain encounter so that had to be real, right? How hard did he hit his head? He went through the process of checking himself for a concussion; he did his best to walk in a straight line along the curb and it was notably more difficult than it should have been but he wasn’t tripping over himself. Probably a mild concussion. That wasn’t enough to explain all of what just happened away.
The sun was low in the sky casting long shadows across the pavement by the time Izuku made it back to the brewery. When he got back to his office he flicked on the lights and pulled out his notebook and sure enough, All Might’s phone number was scrawled onto a blank page right after a spread of two pages displaying an autograph. When did he do that? Izuku could probably sell that for a pretty penny but then he’d have to rip the pages out. Would anyone want two disconnected pages with All Might’s autograph on it? Whatever, that was an issue for another time. Right now there was a matter far more pressing and that was the fact that all of that really just happened. There was physical proof in the form of ten digits inked on a blank page.
Izuku sat there staring at the page only just convincing himself to trust his memory as the last of the sun’s light disappeared from the windows. He needed to get ready for patrol, he was due to meet Eraser in an hour. Quickly he sent a text with a random meeting location and he shook his head in a sad attempt to clear his mind but it only made his brain throb. Ignoring the pain he stripped off his school uniform, peeling the right shoulder of his gakuran off of angry red flesh beneath it. Ow, ow, fuck, he forgot about that. The shoulder of his jacket was a hard sheet of melted polyester that cracked and flaked off as it flexed and his shoulder had a vaguely hand-shaped patch of blistering.
He didn’t have the energy to feel any sort of way about it, he just went through the motions of cleaning it, applying burn cream, and taping gauze over the top before he slid on a shirt and his Ivy hoodie.
What was he supposed to say? Should he say yes? Should he take the quirk? It would be stupid not to, right? This was a miracle opportunity, he should jump at it! Why was he even contemplating otherwise? He smeared shadow around his eyes and checked it in his shattered mirror before he left. He could have a quirk. He shut the door behind himself and locked it with a key he found in one of the desk drawers. He wouldn’t be quirkless anymore. They ducked under the garage door and stepped out into the rapidly cooling night air. They could be normal. They took off running, each step sending a jolt of pain through their head. This is what they always wanted, wasn’t it?
Notes:
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!!
Some of you guys were talking abt Bakugo being a little shit in the comments of the last ch and while I wholeheartedly agree I do think that there is more to him than a 2D irredeemable pos (which is saying something bc I stopped watching MHA after the first ep when my partner first showed it to me bc I thought Katsuki was too much of a prick to deal with as one of the main characters lol)
Anyway, character analysis time!
Katsuki Bakugo:
I think Bakugo has been brainwashed just as much as Izuku has, he is the other end of the spectrum for the same kind of abuse that Izuku suffers from. I think it’s kind of similar to sexism in a way, Bakugo has the ‘male privilege’ advantage but he still suffers from social expectations and ‘toxic masculinity’. He’s put into a box just as much as Izuku is albeit the box is much kinder but it is still a box.
He has been taught that it is a fact that he is better than others because of his quirk and in a way that’s just as dehumanizing, he has been boiled down to nothing more than his quirk status as well. Obviously, this has resulted in an inflated ego and a fundamental lack of empathy which has gone unchecked because of the box on a pedestal he’s been confined in his whole life.
He’s so angry at Izuku because he sees how good he is, how much better he is than Katsuki; but in Katsuki’s mind worth is so inextricably tied to quirks so if Izuku, who is quirkless and thus worthless, is better than Katsuki, then what does that make him? He’s got a major inferiority complex because being on a pedestal is literally all he’s got going for him and if that gets taken away, then what?
Underneath all the anger and brainwashing, he’s still a child, a child that’s capable of growth. He has good in him but, oh my god, is it hidden under so much bullshit. It's going to take a lot of time and a *series* of wake-up calls for him to correct his behavior; restructuring how you see yourself and the world takes A LOT of work.
Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Chapter 77: Moral Quandaries on the Ledge
Notes:
HAPPY NEW YEARS
Thank you all for coming back after my lil' break!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
How much of yourself do you have to give up before it isn’t growth anymore, it’s just betraying yourself? Where is the line drawn? Is the worst part of yourself not just as integral to your identity as the best? Who are you once you change every part of yourself? Are you still you? Would he still be him if the reason he went through everything he went through was suddenly gone? Does it even matter? No one would miss who he used to be because no one ever knew that person to begin with.
If he accepted this quirk would that become a part of him or would he still just be Deku with a flashy new accessory to distract from what was beneath it all? What if it didn’t make it any better? What if everyone still hated him and it never had anything to do with his quirklessness and everything to do with him? Or conversely, what if it made everything better? What if people actually started caring about him? Would they really be caring about him or would they just care about this new person parading around in his skin? Would that be any better? Would this just be another facade for him to trap himself underneath?
What if he could be a hero without a quirk? Is that what he even wanted anymore? Would that make him happy? The people would hate him; that wasn’t going to change. Even if he could do it he would be fighting for his place at the table until the day he died. Is that really what he wanted? He never gave too much thought to his future, he never thought he actually had one and now he was facing down the barrel of it. It didn’t feel any better than assuming he would die in some back alley before he even reached adulthood.
This was the solution to all of his problems, wasn’t it? Why didn’t it make anything better? Why was he still sitting on the ledge of a rooftop looking down to the drop below from a height that should be nauseating like it was the only thing that could comfort him? Nothing could make this better, nothing could fix this. He was too far gone. He was just too stupid and stubborn to give up like he was supposed to; like he should have done ages ago when everyone else did.
Tears were running down his cheeks and wetting the fabric lining of his mask but he didn’t care. All Might was right the first time, he can’t be a hero without a quirk. Physically he might have a shot but mentally, no, he couldn’t take that. One day he’d get himself killed or some snide remark would be the straw that broke the camel’s back and he would end it all and then everyone would just say, “See? He wasn’t cut out for this.” and they’d be right. He’d never met another quirkless kid but they had to be out there still; he couldn’t be the only one and he knew if he ever saw that on the news that would have been it for him. No, he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t bear to be some poor kid’s last straw.
But he made it this far, much further than he ever thought he could, didn’t he owe it to himself to try? Didn’t he— shouldn’t he…
He heard feet plant themselves down on the rooftop behind him, he’d hardly even noticed the time pass. It was pitch dark out now, that was Eraser, it was time to start patrol. He heard him say something but it was all just static. Suddenly he felt a hand settle on his shoulder but he didn’t even flinch, it seemed like too much trouble to be afraid of things right now.
“–id, Ivy, look at me,” he finally parsed out what Eraser was saying.
Looking up he was met with a very concerned expression.
“Ivy, what’s going on? Are you alright?” he asked calmly.
He couldn’t help but laugh at that, it was quick, high-pitched, and a touch hysterical. Was he alright? Hell no! He’s not sure he ever had been nor that he ever could be. He was just offered a miracle and that wasn’t even enough to fix him. No, he was not alright.
Who you used to be is never not going to be a part of who you are. No matter how much he changed, at his core, at his very base level he would still be Deku. So, the real question was, is it better to live a lie or die with your truth?
“What? Kid, I barely caught a word of that.”
Oh shit, was he mumbling this whole time? No wonder Eraser looked spooked; he probably looked like a crazy person. Well… maybe he more than just looked like one.
“You teach ethics, don’t you?” he asked much more clearly
Eraser seemed surprised by the non sequitur and sudden clarity.
“Yes, I do. Why?” he asked cautiously.
“I’ve got a moral conundrum for you, what are your thoughts on The Ship of Theseus?”
“The what?”
“Come on they gave you an ethics degree and didn’t teach you about The Ship of Theseus? Maybe that's more philosophy than ethics… anyway, it’s a thought experiment. If a ship is at sea for years and years and it keeps getting damaged and repaired to the point where every single piece of it has been replaced, is it still the same ship? Or is it something different, a new vessel entirely?”
“Umm… that’s– I’d say it’s still the same ship, right? What’s it like every seven years all of our skin cells replace themselves, it’s still your skin even if every cell has changed, isn’t it?”
“Yeah… Yeah, I guess it is.”
He was always going to be him. There was no escaping it, was it worth trying? Worth pretending?
“Why the sudden interest in philosophy, kid?”
He wanted to ask Eraser what to do. He wanted to spell out everything and have someone else decide for him, for someone to just tell him what to do, to tell him how to fix it, to tell him it could be fixed at all. He sat there for a moment to try and figure out a way to say what he meant without actually saying it.
“Let’s say you had a goal, something you always wanted to do since you were little but everyone, even leaders of the industry told you that you couldn’t because of, uh… because of a disability I guess. But you thought you had a chance, maybe you could, but even if you did the industry would never accept you. If you had the chance to cure that ‘disability’ or at least mask it, would you? Or would it be betraying yourself to even try?”
“Ivy– I… what?”
“It’s a hypothetical Eraser, stop trying to psychoanalyze me and just answer the question.”
“Kid, I don’t feel comfortable advising you one way or the other if I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Just, whatever keeps you on this side of the ledge, okay? Why don’t you get down?”
That was the whole point. Nothing was going to keep him on that side of the ledge, not forever. He might be able to lose himself in pretending for a while but he’d always end up back here, teetering on the edge. He’d been up here so long he didn’t know where else to go.
Eraser was tugging him backward away from the drop in front of him and he just let him. His legs had fallen asleep and he stumbled on them like a newborn giraffe before collapsing and resting his back against the ledge he was just sitting on top of.
“What’s going on Ivy? Did something happen?” he asked as he knelt down in front of him.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Eraser would still care about him if he knew what he was, but Eraser was all he had left now, he couldn’t risk that. No, he couldn’t bear to.
“Yeah, something happened… Guess you could say I got an offer at my day job but I don’t know if I should take it.”
“Must have been a hell of an offer,” he said as he settled down beside him.
“Hah, you have no idea.”
It was quiet after that for a moment, Eraser was sat close enough that their shoulders brushed with each breath.
“So you want to take the offer but it doesn’t feel genuine to yourself to do it?” He asked to clarify.
That wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t even close to the whole truth.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said anyway.
“But it would get you closer to your dream?”
Would it?
“I think so, I don’t know anymore,” he admitted.
“‘Cause you’re always going to be left wondering what could have happened if you did it on your own?”
“…Yeah.”
The conversation dropped off again after that as they both sat there thinking.
***
This kid was really testing him, he had no clue what to say. He had no clue what they were even talking about for Kami’s sake.
“Well, did you not get the offer based off your merit?”
“What?”
“Did you earn the offer?”
“I, um, I guess so, I dunno.”
“So you’re qualified as you are, are you not?”
“Maybe.”
Times like this made him wonder how much of Ivy’s persona was just a show. They acted so confident and self-assured most of the time but it never lasted them. They seemed so unsure of themself now and he wondered how both could be true, how the same person who was the brains and more than half the brawn behind taking the crime rate of the entire district down by over 60% could be so blind to their worth. They gave so much of themself for nothing in return, they had so much good in them that they refused to see.
“I don’t know what it is about you that you need to give up to do this so I can’t tell you if it’s worth it or not. How important is that aspect of yourself?”
“Important? Well, it’s completely controlled my entire life so I’d say it’s important,” they sneered.
There was venom in their tone. It didn’t seem like whatever it was they were worried about giving up was something they even wanted to begin with.
“In a good way or a bad way?” he asked.
“In an awful way.”
He thought back to one of their first patrols when they said they had always been a target. He wondered if this was why, whatever this hypothetical was. If it was, then why were they holding on to it so fiercely?
“Well, then are you just holding on to it because you feel like you have to? Are you just punishing yourself?”
The kid let out a humorless laugh at that.
“Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still me.”
“That’s true, but people change. You’ll still be the same ship,” he asserted.
“Well, that's the problem, isn’t it? It’s still gonna be there even if it isn’t.”
He wished he could beat some self-worth into this damn kid’s thick skull.
“I think you need to do whatever you think has the highest possibility of making you happy. It’s one thing to survive but it’s another thing to actually live. You can survive with this but if you don’t think you can live with this then maybe it’s time to let it go,” he offered after a while, “but I also think that you can do anything you put your mind to, honestly I don’t think anything short of divine intervention can stop you if you’ve got your heart in it.”
He didn’t have anything else to offer them, there wasn’t anything left to say. The kid was in no state to patrol, they were looking out into the distance at nothing and there were tear tracks staining their cheeks. He had a thousand questions burning his tongue but he held them back. It wouldn't do any good to ask. Instead, he pulled out his phone and pulled up the radio app, it was Friday, Zashi was live tonight, and they needed something to fill the silence. Something to distract Ivy from whatever was plaguing them.
He turned the volume up all the way and set the phone on the ground between them before leaning his head back against the ledge and resting his eyes. Ivy didn’t say anything, they hardly reacted at all until there was a break in songs and Zashi’s voice came booming through the tinny speakers and they huffed out a laugh.
“You’re a sap Eraser,” they accused.
“Sue me,” he shot back plainly without even opening his eyes.
After a few more songs he picked up his phone to send off a text.
Shota:
Ivy’s having a rough time, put on something for them.
Hizashi:
How rough?
Shota:
Pretty rough.
Hizashi:
…They’ve got a good sense of humor… right?
Shota:
Why the hell did you write it like that? Your definition of good and my definition of good are two very different things. I don’t think much of anything could make them laugh right now but you can try.
Hizashi:
How’s their English?
Shota:
How the hell am I supposed to know that I barely speak it
Hizashi:
Just ask em
“You speak English kid?” he asked.
They looked back at him with a raised brow.
“Told Zashi to put a song on for you and he wants to know if you speak English.”
“Yeah, I’m not too good at speaking it but I can understand it,” they responded sounding unsure.
“Right, okay. He claimed that it’ll make you laugh,” he replied as he shot off a text to Zashi.
It took a while of waiting but eventually, he heard them come back on between songs.
“Alright everyone, this next one’s a throwback for my classic rock fans, you know who you are! Hit it!” they cheered over the broadcast.
“Let’s see what they’ve got for us,” he said as the music started to fade in
The song started with a strong baseline but since the lyrics were English Shota could hardly catch half of the words, not that he could hear it over the sound of Ivy cackling anyway. It seemed pretty upbeat as far as he could tell but he wasn’t going to interrupt the kid to ask what the hell was going on.
Hizashi:
How’d that go over?
Shota:
They’re laughing so hard I think they might pass out
Hizashi:
HAHA YES!!!
That kid needs therapy
Shota:
What’d you play???
Hizashi:
It’s an old Queen song, they were a British group in the pre-quirk era…
…The songs called “Don’t Try Suicide”
Shota:
…
I have no words.
Hizashi:
Well it worked didn’t it? You’re welcome 💁♀️
The kid’s laughter was infectious and he found himself chuckling despite his best efforts. Good lord, he should never let those two meet properly, the resulting chaos would probably bring down Japan entirely.
Ivy was clutching their stomach and trying their best to muffle their laughs so they could hear the song but each line had them in tears.
“W-what the fuck is th-this it’s s-so bad, I– HAH– what the fuck???” they choked out between shuddered breaths.
“Zashi says it's called ‘Don’t Try Suicide’ it’s by an old band from Britain called Queen, I dunno where he finds this shit,” he said as he shook his head.
“That’s the same group who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody???” they demanded sounding incredulous.
“I don’t fucking know,” he shot back with no heat.
“Oh, Kami, I guess they can’t all be hits,” they said as they finally got their breathing back in line, “Do you not speak English?” they asked.
“Barely,” he admitted.
“Oh, you’re really missing out, that was truly and impressively awful,” they said as they blotted at their wet lashes with the hem of their hoodie sleeve.
“I’ll be sure to brush up and give it another listen so I can get the full experience,” he quipped back dryly.
He was worried about the kid, the way they were sitting on the ledge so precariously and looking down like they were waiting for the wind to blow just right and push them over the edge wasn’t something he wanted to see them do again. It was concerning, to say the least, but they were here, right where they said they’d be, right where they knew he was going to meet them, they let him pull them back onto solid ground. That was good, that was almost like asking for help. As the song ended and their laughter died down he watched as the melancholy laid itself back down into the curve of their spine.
“I don’t know what you did but I’m proud of you, kid,” he said.
He didn’t mean to say it, it just kind of happened but it felt right and it sparked the barest little gleam in their eyes, one that wasn’t even there when they were laughing their ass off. They looked surprised for a moment then just confused before they looked back down at their feet.
“I have no clue what you’re trying to do but I know you can do it. You’ve got what it takes, you’ve got more dedication than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve gotta realize that for yourself though because Kami knows I can’t beat it into you, I’ve been trying to for the past year.”
“That’s what you were trying to beat into me? I thought you were just a sadist,” they quipped back without missing a beat.
He laughed at that and knocked his shoulder into theirs with no real force behind it but they flinched anyway.
“You okay, Ivy?” he asked before thinking better of it.
They laughed at that before responding with a truly impressive amount of sarcasm, “Peachy.”
“I meant physically jackass,” he clarified.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Shoulder’s just a bit sore,” they relented.
“Why don’t we take a break tonight?” he offered cautiously.
“Just took a break yesterday.”
“Yeah, but things have been quiet since the botched ambush, the city will survive two days without us.”
They thought about that for a moment before responding, “Yeah, okay. That’s probably a good idea, I’m pretty sure I have a concussion anyway.”
He whipped his head to the side to look at them with his signature ‘what were you thinking, you dumbass’ glare.
“What the hell did you do?” he demanded.
“Hit my head,” they replied dryly.
“No shit, Ivy. How did you hit your head?”
“Fell,” they said with a smirk clarifying nothing.
He didn’t bother trying to ask again and just scrubbed a hand over his face in exasperation.
“It’s mild at best, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re gonna give me grey hairs.”
“Not my fault you’re old, don’t try to pin that on me,” they shot back.
They clearly had their wits about them enough to make fun of him so they probably weren’t lying about it being mild at best, but jumping around rooftops without full coordination was still beyond stupid. He let out a disappointed sigh which Ivy readily ignored and let the conversation die as they continued to listen to the radio. They were quickly lost in their own thoughts again but Shota just left them to it as he sat there. They could use the company and Shota could appreciate sitting with someone who didn’t always feel the need to fill the silence; Nem and Zashi could be a lot to handle.
He picked at his bento and Ivy stuffed bites under their mask from time to time as they listened to Zashi start call-in hour and star gazed as much as they could with the lights of the city surrounding them.
***
Izuku stared out at the stars looking for an answer he knew wouldn’t be there for what felt like eons. He didn’t pay any mind to the distant sounds of the city or the quiet music and occasional chatter coming from Eraser’s phone. He did, however, pay mind to the light snoring that had just started to his right. Looking over he saw Eraser sitting still as he had been for the last hour but his head was slumped forward with his chin resting on his sternum. That couldn’t be comfortable. That was also probably the cause of the snoring. They watched for a few seconds doing their best not to laugh before they inched away as quietly as possible. Once they were out of arms reach they took out their flashlight and gently pressed it against Eraser’s forehead, slowly pushing his head upright until it passed over the center of balance and fell to the left, thus waking him up with an undignified snort.
It proved to be a very good idea to get out of arm’s reach first because Eraser snatched the baton out of their hand and poised for a fight for a split second before he took in the scene in front of him. Ivy was stepping backward even further out of reach while cackling. His expression went from concerned to exasperated in a second and he threw the flashlight back at them with considerable force. Thankfully, they were able to dodge out of the way and it clattered to the ground behind them.
“You’re an asshole,” he stated plainly.
“I do try my best,” they quipped back.
Eraser just rolled his eyes and checked his phone.
“‘S already 1 am,” he mused with a yawn before looking up to study them, “You alright, kid?”
Their laughter had settled down and they let out a sarcastically amused huff.
“As alright as I can be. Go home, Eraser.”
They didn’t want him to go but it was selfish to make him stay, he was tired. They were tired. Kami, they were so tired.
“You sure? You gonna be okay?” he asked hesitantly.
He wanted to say no but that wasn’t true. He was going to be fine, the moment had passed. He didn’t need supervision anymore he just wanted company. Eraser was too kind, he would probably stay all night if Izuku asked him to and he couldn’t help but wonder what he did to deserve that.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said before adding a timid, “Thank you.”
“Any time, Ivy. I mean that,” he said definitively.
He really did mean that and Izuku didn’t know how to feel about it. He had no doubt that Eraser would drop almost anything he was doing at any time of day if he texted him. It was nice; to know that someone had your back. It made him want to keep going. As much as he bitched and poked fun at Eraser, at the end of the day, he was all he had left and him just being here helped more than Izuku could ever express. He owed Eraser more than he could ever pay him back.
He didn’t have the words to express his gratitude so he just nodded and hoped that Eraser understood.
***
Izuku didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, despite his persistent exhaustion his mind was racing around and around in circles. When it came down to it, Izuku wasn’t happy. He couldn’t see himself being happy either. Eraser was right, he can survive like this but he can’t live like this. It was crazy, it was absolutely insane, it was a miracle presented to him on a silver platter with a little bow on top. How could he turn that down? Maybe he’d be living a lie for the rest of his life, but he’d always been good at lying.
Izuku Midoriya: (5:02 am)
I made a decision, my answer is yes.
Y'all,,,,,
Notes:
LISTEN I know y'all had ur panties in a twist about this. A lot of you were saying you don’t want Izuku to accept OFA and I totally get that, but there’s just so many quirkless Izuku fics and so many OFA Izuku fics where he accepts it w/o thought like he did in canon and I really wanted to make a fic where Izuku *actually* thinks about it and makes an informed decision. This chapter and conversation with Eraser was the inspiration for literally this whole fic so,,, I get everyone’s critiques but I’m not changing my outline lmao.
I was talking to Ashes_28 abt it and I think she put it best when she said something like 'There's no way Izu would turn down this opportunity; he has dedicated his whole life, his personality, everything he has to saving people, and if he is being offered a tool that can help him reach more people, realistically, he's just not going to turn down that opportunity.' He's too selfless to let proving himself get in the way of saving more people. Could he make it as a quirkless hero? Yes, he probably could to some degree and he would be a symbol to quirkless people everywhere. He would do good but social stigma would be against him, the world would be against him, and that would hold him back SO much. The social stigma itself would get in the way of him saving people and that's not something he's willing to risk; in his mind, if the world won't let him save people as he is then he needs to change how he is.
Anyway, I'll get off my soap box. I promise it’ll still be good!!! A lot of things are going to change bc of Izu’s background!!! I plan to change canon around a bit and make earlier seasons All Might less of a fucking tool lol (like seriously, I love him, but wtf he was on some crazy shit for a while)
ALSO I want to make this known: all villains are more agro, there is no anime pause for dramatic effect or exposition in my version of the story. So with the sludge villain, yes Bakugo was *actually* about to die if Izuku didn’t step in. This will be true going forward; I’m rewatching the episodes critically and the showmanship is killing me. Ppl don’t pause that long to make a dramatic speech b4 they kill you (Well, maybe Stain does, but he has plot armor reasons to be able to do that). Like, at the USJ the villains have a whole speech and shit b4 they move to do anything and the teachers and students don’t even try for the door?? They just listen to the speech??
I just, I can’t. Real villains, real stakes, not canon.
Chapter 78: ♫ This could be the START of something NEW ♫
Chapter Text
Izuku rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and checked his phone
AM: (9:24 am)
GREAT!!! Meet me here at noon!
AM shared a location
Izuku stared at the message dumbfounded for longer than he’d like to admit before realizing it was already 11:21. He sprung up off the couch faster than he ever had in his life and tore through his meticulously organized clothes in order to find what he was looking for; a fitted lightweight long sleeve top and a pair of jeans. That would probably work, right? What was the plan? He stopped in front of the mirror and finished the half-assed job he’d done taking off his eyeshadow last night and booked it out the door before he even knew where he was going. Checking the location All Might had sent he was both delighted and confused to find that it was Dagobah Beach. That was only like a 12-ish minute walk, but why the hell did All Might want to meet there?
Deciding to not look a gift horse in the mouth he booked it for the beach, he wasn’t going to be late for All Might. Kami, he was meeting All Might, he was texting All Might. That alone was enough to boggle his mind, he’s not sure he was prepared for whatever he was getting himself into but, really, when was he ever properly prepared for anything he did?
Dagobah wasn’t a huge stretch of beach but it was incredibly easy to get lost among the mountains of debris so when he got there (only 16 minutes early) he climbed up on one of the bigger and more stable mounds of trash to keep a lookout. He was expecting All Might to drop out of the sky, as was his customary entrance, but he didn’t. He watched him pull into the disused parking lot in a modest pickup truck. He looked around for a moment until he spotted Izuku on his perch, he looked surprised for a second but quickly smiled and waved to him before walking over.
Alright, okay. All Might was walking over, he should probably get down and meet him at a reasonable altitude. This was fine and Izuku wasn’t freaking out about it at all. He made his way carefully down the side of the mound of rubbish and waited in a small clearing nearby. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too hard to find him here. Maybe he should have stayed where he was so All Might didn’t have to jump up to find him. Should he go back up now? Or was it too late?
He shoved his second thoughts down as he saw All Might peak out from around a neighboring pile of trash, he was still looking up to the top of the pile Izuku had been on but his gaze settled on the clearing quickly.
“You’re a fast one aren’t you!” he greeted cheerfully.
Izuku wished he was Ivy right now because he was sure his blush from the compliment was quite noticeable. He didn’t know what to say so he just said hello and bowed politely.
“I’m glad you accepted the offer! Now, I bet you’re wondering what we’re doing in this dump!”
“Uh, yeah I wa–”
“You’re not ready for my power!” he exclaimed, cutting Izuku’s response off.
Um, okay… Izuku didn’t know what to say to that either so he just stood there watching All Might and waited for an explanation.
“My quirk One For All is a whole lot to handle. The combined physical abilities of everyone who’s ever used it creates a hurricane of pure force! An unprepared body can’t fully inherit it, your arms and legs would SHOOT OFF if you tried to!” he continued.
Oh, that made sense. He was already pretty fit but he wasn’t built like All Might, he was too lean, built for speed rather than strength. All Might was pretty fast too though so he shouldn’t have to worry about being too slow once he gets the quirk but in the meantime, he might have to adjust. Wait, the quirk gives the wielder the physical abilities of everyone who came before, how does that work? Does that include quirks? If someone down the line knew how to juggle does that muscle memory somehow transplant itself into the next wielder’s brain? That would be pretty confusing–
“Quit mumblin’ Kid! I can’t hear a word you’re saying!”
“Ah! I’m sorry!” he squeaked out before slapping a hand over his mouth.
“Quite alright my boy. Now, as for what we’re doing here! This is your training! You want to go to UA, don’t ya?” All Might asked.
“Uh, yes! Of course, t-that’s the dream!” Izuku answered readily.
“Well, then you have ten months before the entrance exams! This beach used to be beautiful before all this junk piled up so you, young Midoriya, have ten months to restore it to its former glory! Ten months to work up a sweat and build up those muscles!”
Izuku couldn’t help but look around at the landscape of garbage surrounding them with wide eyes, “t-ten months?”
“Not to worry, kid! I've got you covered with the help of my Aim to Pass American Dream Plan!!!” he declared in a booming voice as he held out a stack of papers, handing it to Izuku, “Follow this to the letter and the beach should be cleaned up just in time! I also detailed every other aspect of your life while I was at it!”
Izuku started scanning over the pages and his heart dropped. It outlined his sleep and diet and it called for far more time and money than he had to give.
“If I’m being honest, it’s gonna be super hard! Think you’re up to it?” All Might asked, his voice a little more reserved than it had been.
Izuku already slept less than the plan called for, maybe he could use that time to try and drum up the funds for the sheer amount of protein All Might was proposing that he eat. He was going to have to start pickpocketing people on patrol again but there were so many fewer people to pickpocket now that The Yakedo had been disbanded. Kami, this was going to be hell but his life was kind of already hell, at least he had something to fill in the void of free time he had now that he wasn’t on stakeouts damn near 24/7. Plus, a good portion of what All Might was proposing was cardio and he would be doing that on patrol regardless, his cardio was pretty damn good if he did say so himself, he didn’t need to dedicate so much time to that.
With determination, he looked back up at All Might and said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
***
And so it began, every Monday through Thursday morning Izuku would rise well before the sun and meet All Might at the beach to haul trash into a construction-grade dumpster he’d rented. After the morning workout, he would go to school and in the afternoons he was instructed to do cardio on his own. Which he did! Just, uh, not in the afternoon and not in the normal jog along a nice path kind of way All Might probably meant. Instead, he threw himself along rooftops each night until the wee hours of the morning, but it was still cardio and what All Might didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
On Fridays, he got the morning off and Izuku took that opportunity to go to school early and scrub a full week’s worth of sweat and grime off his aching body; he wished quite desperately he could go back to two showers a week but that wasn’t going to happen on this schedule. On Friday afternoons, All Might met him at the beach after school and he’d pick through the stacks of trash until what most people would consider dinner time, but Izuku didn’t eat dinner until around 10:30-11 when he met up with Eraser. He was supposed to rest on Saturdays but he rarely did, he spent most of the day hauling as much scrap as he could to the yard and usually he would patrol at night as well unless their break day with Eraser happened to fall on Saturday.
Finally, every Sunday he was out on the beach with All Might from sun up to sun down. Sunday night patrols were quickly becoming the bane of his existence. After hauling trash on and off for upwards of 12 hours, the last thing Izuku wanted to do was intensive cardio, but he dug this grave and all he could do was lie in it.
***
Toshinori watched as Midoriya picked through the garbage on the beach bit by bit. It felt wrong to sit by without helping; it was second nature for him to offer a hand whenever he saw someone struggling, be it grabbing something from the top shelf at the store or lending a hand to someone who was far too determined to get all their trash to the garbage in one trip. But this was his training, he was supposed to struggle, so Toshinori only stepped in to break down things that would have been impossible for the boy to move on his own. He didn’t carry them for him, he just tore them into manageable pieces.
He’d been worried that these cleaning sessions would get boring for him because he wasn’t allowing himself to help, but young Midoriya kept things far more interesting than he’d expected and far more interesting than he’d like at some points. He was constantly scaling up and down the mountains of trash grabbing things and sorting them by material which Toshinori was delighted by; he had wanted to recycle what could be recycled but he’d figured that sorting would add too many work hours to the project, but Midoriya did it without prompting and didn’t seem to be suffering time-wise for it. The climbing, however, is where the boy began to stress him out. The structural integrity of the trash mounds was deplorable at best and subject to change at all times, but Midoriya kept leaping around it with the grace of a cat. It was as impressive as it was concerning. Every time a foothold crumbled beneath him Toshinori’s heart lurched and he’d go to catch him but he always maneuvered himself onto another bit of rubbish and went about his way like nothing happened.
He wanted to ask about it but the boy was always so skittish; that was something he was going to have to work on. He may have the drive and the values Toshinori needed in a worthy successor but he did not have the charisma. He needed to hold himself with far more confidence than he currently had. Toshinori wasn’t helping him by catering to his anxieties, plus, his curiosity had been getting the better of him.
“My boy! How did you learn to do all that jumping around? You’re quite agile!” he asked one day when Midoriya had just come down from fetching a busted microwave to set in the growing pile of irreparable electronics.
“Oh, the, uh, yeah, I-I took some, uh, gymnastics classes a-as a kid. I’ve always had a thing for climbing, I guess,” he replied just as nervously as Toshinori had come to expect.
“Don’t be so sheepish about it, my boy! It’s impressive! That talent of yours will be very useful to you as a hero! Agility is a difficult skill to teach! Having skills that honed at your age will set you apart from the crowd and you’ll only get better and better once you get into UA!” he cheered trying to instill some confidence.
He’s not sure that it worked, the boy just turned beet-red and nodded. This was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined. He was used to people being nervous around him, it was just part of being All Might. He was hoping that Midoriya would warm up to him after a few meetings, but it had been a week and a half now and he still clammed up every time Toshinori so much as looked at him. He was at a loss for what to do about that. He knew how to calm people in a crisis, he knew how to charm or leave a good impression, but he didn’t know how to do this. He supposed that’s the consequence of keeping people at an arm’s length.
He watched idly as the boy went back to his task and thought about his predecessor. What would she have done? She always had a way of setting people at ease. Toshinori had his own slew of anxieties when he was Midoriya’s age, but Nana always knew what to say, he had felt safe with her right off the bat. What was he doing wrong?
He’d had precious little time with Nana but she made her impact regardless, he would never forget the lessons she’d taught him. He knew his days were numbered, but not nearly as numbered as her’s had been; he had time to figure this out. He would figure this out.
***
Just a few weeks into the project Toshinori stopped stepping in to help almost entirely. Midoriya had been collecting and setting aside wheels and poles in the same pile, he hadn’t questioned it but he had been curious. His curiosity was assuaged one morning when he showed up to see young Midoriya fastening together the wheels and poles into axles. He lined two of them up in front of an industrial-sized refrigerator, stuck another pole underneath the fridge on the other side, and used it as leverage to tip the thing over and onto the wheels. Toshinori watched in fascination as he pushed the massive thing forward on the wheels, rolling it onto a third axle, and off of the first. Then he took the first set of wheels, brought it from the back to the front, and kept pushing. He cycled through that until he had moved the easily 600 lbs refrigerator all the way to the dumpster on his own; he couldn’t lift it up to put it inside but Toshinori was more than happy to help with that part.
The wheels weren’t made for sand either, it must have been quite difficult for him to push that forward given how small he was. He was quite impressed, the boy was stronger than he looked.
“What a creative use of your resources young Midoriya! You’ve got the brains and the brawn!” he praised as he tossed the fridge into the skip.
Just like every time Toshinori congratulated him, the boy blushed profusely and looked down to his shoes while he mumbled out vague thanks and/or denials. He fought the urge to sigh at his continued timidity as the boy promptly returned to his work.
They’d get there eventually… hopefully…
Notes:
Alright, time for the obligatory character analysis bc I'm obsessed
Toshinori Yagi
I AM CHANGING HIS CHARACTER because omg that man was on some crazy shit in the earlier seasons. I’m not changing him completely but he’s gonna be more chill and less, idk, batshit crazy? Less abrasive ig. But I feel like it fits in with how Izu’s personality is different. In canon, Izu didn’t have any trauma responses bc idk Horikoshi is stupid? Anyway, since canon Izu didn’t react to AM’s brashness the way a traumatized child should it made more sense for him to continue to be brash, but in this fic Izu’s timidity isn’t played up for comedic effect, it’s a trauma response so AM backs off a bit.
My man reeks of hyper-independence developed via neglect/trauma. I think Yagi was treated a lot like Izuku was as a child though to a lesser extent because prejudice grew stronger as the quirkless population dwindled. I think Yagi formed an inferiority complex due to his quirklessness and complete lack of support from anyone in his childhood.
Like Izu does with his Ivy persona in this fic Yagi built his All Might persona in an effort to mask all of his faults and become someone untouchable. He’s made a few friends throughout the years but ultimately he keeps everyone at an arm's length or further so no one gets the chance to see his self-perceived shortcomings. He took the responsibility of keeping the entire country and to an extent the entire world safe and rested it on his shoulders. In an effort to hide his flaws, he built himself a prison that’s been crushing him for decades.
I don’t think he ever got the chance to build healthy coping mechanisms, like Aizawa, he just threw himself and everything he had into his work to the detriment of his health and relationships. I think he based all of his self-worth on his career and what he can do for others so now when he’s facing retirement he feels like he’s facing a death sentence. The canon conversation he had with Aizawa about retirement is probably the most actual character-building Yagi has ever gotten and I NEED MORE. Like, he was passively suicidal for years and they just don’t really get into the consequences of that in the show at all.
I think his self-imposed isolation has resulted in a below-average emotional intelligence (EQ) meaning even though he feels *a lot* he doesn’t know how to make sense of it or do anything about it so he just kinda gets stuck in his own head if he lets himself so he does his best to just not think about it. I think the isolation he’s put himself in also makes him seem a bit dumb because he has very little as a frame of reference to what the average person’s life is but I don’t think he’s stupid, he's just uninformed. He’s built himself into a god and after so many decades humanity is strange and distant to him. So I think that's why he doesn’t see how Izuku and the whole situation between them is so fucked up either in canon or in this fic. He looks at Izuku and he sees himself and because he’s spent his whole life running away and denying his own problems he genuinely doesn’t see how it’s an issue. He can’t allow himself enough introspection to see how wrong this all is because if he does he will fall apart and if he falls apart then so does the symbol of peace. He is Atlas holding up the world and he is not allowed enough of a reprieve to patch himself up.
I don’t think he lets himself spend extended amounts of time around anyone, not enough to truly get to know them and definitely not enough for anyone to truly get to know him. I mean, look at all the people he let himself get even a little bit close to in canon, Nighteye means well, he truly cares about Yagi but that guy is fucking delulu and he worships the ground he walks on, that's not exactly a normal healthy relationship, and Dave, whether he was as overt about it or not, was the same. He spent how many years obsessing over an invention to ‘save’ All Might and he went kinda crazy too. Then there’s Nana who died before she could finish essentially raising him and pawned him off to Gran Torino who is the most brash no bullshit motherfucker in the world, there’s no way that man was emotionally available enough to balance out all the lunacy going on around Yagi.
No one in Yagi’s life is there to ground him, no one ever has been, at least not in the way he needed. Ultimately, I think he is a good man, he cares a LOT but that doesn’t mean that he goes about his relationship with Midoriya in a healthy way. Any harm he does isn’t malicious, it's an honest mistake, and yeah, he is an adult and he should know better, but he grew up in the same circumstances (support system wise) that Izuku did. He is what Izuku will become if he doesn’t let ppl in.
Analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Chapter 79: The Kids Aren't Alright
Chapter Text
Izuku had been using Saturdays to haul as much scrap to the scrap yard as he could. He had found a mostly functional dolly and fixed it up so that he could take as much as possible. Identifying metals on sight was becoming another oddly specific skill in his arsenal. Aluminum and steel were abundant but didn’t pay much and copper and iron were rare and paid handsomely. He did his best to save every bit of iron or copper scraps he could find, but usually, he wasn’t lucky enough to find any. There was one day when he found a bunch of broken and bent pieces of a wrought iron fence though; he slept well that night. Hauling that shit was the most intensive workout he ever endured and All Might kept asking him the next day if he was alright; he was not, he was in immense pain, but he made nearly ¥30,000 so it was worth it.
One gloriously sweltering early June afternoon Izuku stumbled upon a veritable gold mine, or a copper mine would be a more accurate term. He was sifting through a pile of rubbish like he always was when he saw the beautiful green-patinaed orange shine that he kept a keen eye out for at all times. He batted away the stuff trapping the copper piping to reveal more and more of it. He couldn’t believe his eyes; the pipes were mangled but the one he found had to be at least 20 ft long and there were several of them joined together, bent, and crushed at various points but that didn’t matter, not to the scrap yard.
Forgetting that he wasn’t alone he let out a triumphant laugh as he yanked the pipes out one by one. He froze when All Might’s booming voice called to him from below.
***
Toshinori had been supervising Midoriya as he worked for the 7th Sunday in a row now. He was proud that the boy hadn’t given up yet, but he was learning that Midoriya was never one to back down from a challenge. He worked with a ferocity that he’s not sure he could have kept up with in his prime, not without One For All. The project was progressing faster than he had planned and he was presently working on an altered schedule that involved working on the kid’s fighting skills, after all, being a hero wasn’t all about strength. He glanced up to make sure that Midoriya was alright every so often and kept his ears perked up for any sounds of distress even though the boy had proven himself more than capable enough to bounce around the tops of the trash mounds.
Midoriya was always so quiet in both his movements and voice, so Toshinori made sure that he was listening intently at all times. Because of the usual silence, he actually startled slightly before a smile found its way across his face when a bark of joyous laughter echoed across the beach. He’s not sure he’d ever heard the boy laugh before, it was nice.
“What’d you find, my boy?” Toshinori asked with a smile as he walked over.
Midoriya froze like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Damnit, why’d he have to ruin it?
“Oh, um, it’s nothing, it’s j-just some pipes,” he replied.
“What’s so exciting about pipes?” he asked hoping to spark whatever joy he’d accidentally scared out of him.
“Th-they’re, um, copper pipes,” he clarified.
“Yes, it looks like they are,” he said glancing at the pile of them that had been accumulated.
Why was he excited about copper pipes? Should he ask or was that just going to make him more uncomfortable? Trying to get to know Midoriya was proving to be more of a challenge than he’d anticipated but keeping mum wasn’t getting him anywhere.
“What’s so exciting about copper pipes, then?” he amended his question.
Midoriya started picking at his nail beds as he stumbled through a response, “They’re– well copper is– different metals go for d-different amounts but copper is p-pretty high up there w-with iron so I could p-probably get– at the scrap yard I mean, they buy um scrap metals t-to recycle and copper is, uh, one of the more valuable ones.”
“Ah, you’re going to sell it?” he asked because honestly, the explanation wasn’t very clear, “How entrepreneurial!”
“Um, yes,” he responded with a guilty look.
Why did he look like he was being scolded? It was going to take him decades to understand the boy at this rate.
“That’s quite a lot of metal, how are you going to get it all there?” he pressed on, trying desperately to have a normal conversation without feeling like he screwed up somehow.
“Yeah,” Midoriya huffed out a laugh that seemed genuine but Toshinori couldn’t say for sure, “It is a lot…” he trailed off.
“Does it matter if it’s all bent up like that?”
“No, I think they just melt it d-down in a foundry. They don’t care about how beat up it is, they just, uh, weigh it and price it off t-that,” he explained.
Alright, this was going better.
“Well, then why don’t I bend it down for you? It should fit in my trunk if we do that, how far is the scrap yard?”
Somehow all the color drained from Midoriya’s incredibly red and sweaty face at the offer
“N-no! You d-don’t have t-to do that! It’s f-fine! I-I can– I couldn’t ask you t-to–”
“You’re not asking me to, my boy! Some of these pieces are too long to even fit in my truck, how else are you planning on getting them to the yard?”
“I c-can cut them up, you d-don’t need–”
“That would take far too long,” he dismissed already bending the largest pipe in a zig-zagging pattern, “Keep picking them out, young Midoriya! I’m not helping you with that part,” he said hoping to frighten the fight out of him.
He wasn’t sure whether he should be happy or sad that it worked; the boy went back to sorting through the pile without another word of complaint. Every so often he would gently toss another pipe into a pile about ten feet to Toshinori’s right and he would bend it down if it was too long to fit in his truck bed.
Midoriya spent half of his lunch break hauling the pipes over to his car before Toshinori chastised him for not eating. He scurried off after that, presumably to pick up lunch wherever he went to pick up lunch every Sunday. While he was gone Toshinori scooped up the remaining scrap and dumped it in the trunk in one trip. That boy worked himself too hard, they might need to have a talk about that…
***
Izuku scurried off and contemplated stealing a sandwich from the convenience store like he did most Sundays but he decided against it. His stomach was too tied up in knots to be hungry right now. All Might made him nervous, he didn’t know how to act around him, but he got the feeling that whatever he was doing was wrong. He didn’t speak unless spoken to like adults usually wanted but All Might didn’t speak much either; he was a quiet man which Izuku would not have guessed based on his public persona, but it was a bit presumptuous to think he’d always be so lively.
Maybe he was like Shinso-san? Maybe he actually wanted to talk to Izuku? No, he knew he was a null, why would he want to talk to him? But again, why would he choose him to be his successor if he knew he was a null? Izuku had been asking himself that for the last month and a half and he’d yet to come up with an answer. This whole situation was incredibly confusing, All Might was incredibly confusing. Why was he so nice? What did he see in him? Why him, why him, why him?
He had a feeling he would never find the answer to that question and most of the time he convinced himself that it didn’t matter why All Might chose him, but now the question came back with a vengeance. He was helping Izuku for no good reason, if anything he should be telling him off for wasting time; sorting metals by type wasn’t necessary to recycle them yet here he was helping Izuku. It didn’t make any sense.
***
Midoriya looked liable to burst into tears when he came back to see the rest of the pipes had been packed into the truck already. Toshinori did his best to dismiss him. It really wasn’t an issue; it took him less than 2 minutes and he tried to tell the boy that but he doubted that he even heard him through the endless font of ‘thank you’s he was spouting.
He worked even more diligently for the rest of the day; it got to the point where Toshinori actually had to step in to make sure he was taking breaks to drink and breathe . He abandoned the schedule alterations he’d been passively working on in order to keep a better eye on the kid. He was liable to get heat stroke working in the sun like this, he was wearing long sleeves and full-length pants as well which surely wasn’t helping but he figured it probably saved the kid from an innumerable amount of cuts and scrapes so he didn’t comment, he just made sure he stayed hydrated.
As the day wound down he ushered the boy to the truck filled to the brim with pipes and had him help strap it down with some fishing net they’d picked up and the few ratchet straps he had lying around the cab. The pipes were already a tangled mess so they were unlikely to slip out but he’d rather be safe than sorry. He had to clear some junk out of the passenger’s seat so that Midoriya had somewhere to sit but it didn’t take long.
“Th-thank you for this All might, you really didn’t have t-to,” he thanked him for probably the 50th time since he came back from lunch once he got settled in his seat.
“Well, how else are you supposed to get them there, my boy?”
“I have a-a cart th-thing,” he supplied awkwardly
“You were going to walk all of this 8 kilometers away?” Toshinori asked incredulously.
“Um, yeah?”
“That would have taken all day, when would you have the time for all that?”
“I have free t-time on S-Saturdays,” he supplied weakly, “they’re open l-late on Saturdays.”
Saturday? That was his recovery day, he was meant to be resting. Why did he know the scrap yard was open late on Saturdays?
“Have you been going there on Saturdays?” he asked.
“Um, yes,”
“Saturdays are your break days, my boy,” he reminded him.
“I know,” Midoriya replied sounding a bit confused.
“Have you not been resting? You need to rest!” he reminded him again.
“I-I do! I rest!” he tried to insist.
“Young Midoriya, I made that schedule for a reason, if you overdo things it's going to have the opposite effect of what we want!” he chastised a little harsher than he’d meant to.
The effect was immediate, Midoriya let out one quiet “I’m sorry, All Might.” before he withdrew into himself completely. The small boy made himself impossibly smaller as he stilled any fidgeting he had been doing and he looked down to his lap. He was completely silent and still save for the slight trembling of his hands. Toshinori brought his hand up to scrub at his face; he didn’t miss the way Midoriya flinched from him and everything clicked after that. Toshinori remembered the way people used to act around him when he was quirkless, they either treated him like he was made of glass or just a waste of space, there were very few quirked individuals who treated him with respect and he could imagine the same was true of Midoriya. He remembered how he felt when Nana chose him to be her successor, he hadn’t felt worthy. He had spent his whole career proving his worth not only to himself but to the world. Midoriya wasn’t nearly so distanced, he was still living that reality.
“It’s alright, my boy, just– You need to rest. Resting is equally important as working, if you don’t give your muscles time to repair themselves they aren't going to heal stronger, they aren’t going to heal at all,” he explained gently.
Midoriya just nodded his head and kept his eyes glued to his lap.
“Before I got One For All, I was quirkless too,” he admitted.
Midoriya whipped his head up and looked at him in shock. He kept moving his mouth like he was going to speak but he didn’t say anything. He furrowed his brow and chewed on his lip as he settled his gaze back to his lap.
“You don’t need to prove yourself to me any more than you already have, my boy,” he finished before he stuck the key into the ignition and headed for the scrap yard.
The drive was quiet save for the low hum of the radio and Toshinori could see Midoriya in his periphery scrub at his eyes periodically like he was wiping away tears. He wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say, but it was too late now. What was done was done.
When they got to the scrap yard Toshinori stayed in the car and let Midoriya pile everything into a cart and bring it over to the teller himself. He sat there and waited as the boy dealt with the transaction on his own, he seemed far more comfortable doing things on his own and Toshinori wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He saw too much of himself in that boy. It only took about 15 minutes for him to quietly settle back into the passenger’s seat but he apologized for the delay anyway and thanked him two more times before he even got his seat belt buckled.
“Let's set up a pile for things to bring to the scrap yard throughout the week and we can take a load over on Sundays— I know I don’t have to,” Toshinori interrupted before Midoriya could start, “I want to. You need rest days, if you’re going to do this I’d rather it be within the parameters of our schedule; you’re already progressing faster than I’d anticipated so you don’t need to worry about falling behind.”
He was looking up at him like he wanted to argue but he didn’t say anything, he just nodded and turned his focus back down to his lap again. He’s not sure if he actually got through to the boy or if he was just too scared to argue any further, he hoped it was the former but he highly doubted it.
***
“Let me take you home,” All Might said after he informed Izuku he wasn’t allowed to work on Saturdays anymore.
He hoped that he was able to keep the way his heart dropped to his stomach off his face. He immediately went to refuse but he stopped himself, All Might was getting fed up with him refusing help and he didn’t want him to be any more mad at him than he already was. Thinking as quick as he could he rattled off the address of his old apartment. Thankfully, All Might didn’t question his hesitance, he just started up the car and pulled out of the lot.
The drive was quiet as Izuku was lost in thought, he couldn’t wrap his brain around All Might being quirkless. At least it made more sense why he picked Izuku of all people. He didn’t know how to feel about it. He wanted to be happy, he wanted to be able to see himself living up to All Might’s reputation, but he couldn’t. He just felt angry but he couldn’t figure out why. He wasn’t mad at All Might nor himself, at least not any more than he usually was. He didn’t even know what he was mad at, much less why.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by the truck coming to a stop in front of a familiar building. For the second time in the same drive, he felt his heart drop to his stomach and he did his best to keep it off his face. He hadn’t thought through this plan enough to realize he was going to have to see the building again; he hadn’t seen it in three years. He had made a point to not look back when he left, this had been his home for his whole life; it was all he knew. He knew it was going to be too much for him to look back at this place with the knowledge that he was no longer allowed in his home. He had tried to protect himself from that but, well, apparently he couldn’t hide forever.
Feigning nonchalance as best he could he bid All might farewell. He left and shut the car door behind himself before walking toward the front door of the apartment complex. He walked slowly, waiting for the sound of tires rolling away to tell him that All Might had left but they never came. Izuku had made it all the way to the door and he was still there. He turned around and waved, but still, All Might sat there waiting. Kami, this was awkward. Turning back to the door he hoped that they hadn’t fixed it in the three years since he had been gone; he jiggled the handle just so and yanked on the door and sure enough, it opened right up without a key.
Seeing the foyer only made it worse, the floor had all the same scuffs he remembered and the elevator still held the same out-of-order sign it always had but the mailbox that had once read “Midoriya” had a stranger’s name on it.
He forced himself to stand there outside of the view of the windows for as long as he could bear to before he peeked out to check that the truck had driven away. Thankfully, it was nowhere to be seen so Izuku wrenched open the door and ran faster than he had in a long, long time. He let the rapidly cooling summer night breeze flow through his hair and he didn’t stop until he was back in Uptown. That wasn’t his home anymore.
He let himself catch his breath as he walked back to the brewery, by the time he’d finally made his way back to the office he only had about a half hour before he needed to head out for patrol. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything, he just sat on the couch and stared at the wall until he had to start getting ready.
Kami, this was going to be a long night.
Notes:
thank you for reading!!!
Chapter 80: ♫ This Cat is Fast as Lightning ♫
Notes:
I'm missing dadzawa in these trying times. He will be back soon, I promise <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku spent the week trying to detangle the mess of feelings he had about everything that went down on Sunday, but as of Saturday night, well, Sunday morning technically, he was just as confused as ever. He could understand All Might seeing his younger self in him but that didn’t justify why he would take such a gamble on passing OFA to a null, sure it might have worked out once, but why push it? Maybe he was angry at himself for taking it, for accepting All Might’s kindness, maybe he was mad at All Might for having done the same thing. Whatever it was, he needed to stop thinking about it; All Might had texted him earlier today telling him to get some rest because they were “going to be working on something different today” so Izuku shouldn’t be wasting any more precious time psychoanalyzing himself.
***
“Alright, young Midoriya! Like I said last Sunday, you’re rocketing ahead of schedule! So, today we’re going to do something different, after all, being a hero isn’t all about strength! You need to know how to fight! You did well against that sludge villain but you’ll be going up against all sorts of people with all sorts of quirks and you won’t always have allies to help!”
Izuku did his level best not to make a face at that comment. He didn’t exactly have an ally in that fight either.
“Now, I’ve noticed you’re quite agile. That’s a skill that will help you greatly in a fight!”
All Might was rolling up his baggy sleeves and stretching out his arms. Izuku did not like where this was going.
“I want you to show me what you’ve got!” All Might exclaimed as he grew into his muscled form and took up a fighting stance.
Izuku was sure all the color drained from his face at that because All Might was laughing at him heartily.
“Don’t worry, my boy! I’ll go easy on you!”
Oh, Kami.
“I need a baseline for where you’re at so we can go from there!”
There was literally no way that this ended well.
“I, um, is there uh, rules then?” he asked.
“Rules?” All Might asked with a surprised expression, “What rules do you propose?”
“Oh, I, I do have s-some uh, martial arts training–”
“You do?! Wonderful!”
“Hah, uh, yeah… my um, sensei?” Izuku couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose a bit at the title, it sounded wrong, “When we sparred the rules were, uh, no head shots, no groin shots, and don’t use excessive force. So, if uh you get an opportunity to l-land a hit that will actually hurt your opponent then you’d p-pull the punch and the match point goes to whoever found the opening.”
All Might looked at him contemplating the rules he’d set out. They seemed pretty reasonable to Izuku so he couldn’t figure out why All Might was thinking on it so hard.
“Young Midoriya, you’re always full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said, studying Izuku as he fidgeted nervously, “I’ll abide by your rules, but I want you to come at me with everything you’ve got! Show me what you’re really made of!”
This was a terrible idea. Izuku knew how to fight, he knew how to fight well. How was he supposed to explain that to All Might? He’d already been clocked by Shinso’s sensei for fighting like he’d just been pulled off the streets because… well he had just been pulled off the streets. Was All Might going to pick up on that? Was he going to question it? Well, this was all under the assumption that All Might went easy enough on him that he got the chance to show what he could do but that was the point of the exercise wasn’t it?
“Hellooooo! Earth to Midoriya!” All Might pulled him from his thoughts.
He was here to learn, he wasn’t going to learn if he hid what he already knew. He was just going to have to field questions as they came. Alright, fighting All Might. Izuku had a million follow-up questions about what was actually allowed but he had to remind himself that this was All Might; there was no way Izuku could really hurt him so he might as well fight dirty. He did just get tacit permission to kick him in the dick so Izuku figured there wasn’t much that was off the table. With that in mind, he got into a fighting stance and nodded.
“Alright, young Midoriya! I like the spirit! I’m ready when you are!”
Izuku wasted no time charging forward, leaping up on a mound of trash and launching himself up high enough to bring a hammer kick down on All Might’s head. As expected, All Might blocked it with ease and sent him scrambling to the side but Izuku regained his footing quickly and charged again. And again. And again. It became clear to him that All Might was just toying with him, he wasn’t trying to hit him beyond blocking which Izuku was both grateful for and insulted by. It reminded him of his first spars with Eraser; he felt like a little kid again.
He wasn’t getting anywhere like this; All Might was giving him the opportunity to prove himself and he was failing epically. He was far too fast and far too strong for Izuku to beat so what did that leave? Well… not to be rude but all that left was outsmarting him. It hadn’t worked with Eraser but maybe it could work with All Might. Eraser relied on strategy with a noncombative quirk, All Might didn’t have to worry about that if he could just punch all his problems away and scare villains shitless just by showing up.
With a hope and a prayer, Izuku grabbed a fistful of sand in his left hand and feigned a right hook before tossing the sand at All Might’s face. The punch was blocked but the sand was not and All Might squeezed his eyes shut for just a second, but a second was long enough for Izuku to send a kick into his ribs hard.
Before Izuku even had the opportunity to be proud that he landed a hit he was upside down and watching All Might cough up blood into his elbow holding Izuku by the ankle in his other hand. Oh, Kami, he just hit his left side, didn’t he? Shit.
His frantic apologies were cut off by a booming laugh.
“Young Midoriya!!! That was brilliant!!!” All Might cheered.
Izuku hoped that the blush on his cheeks could be excused by the blood rushing to his head. All Might set him down none too gently after that.
“How long have you been doing martial arts, my boy?! That was leagues better than I could have ever hoped for!” he praised again.
There was no excuse for the blush that Izuku could feel spreading all the way to his ears now. He hated when this happened, he looked like a damn strawberry.
“I, um, s-since I was t-twelve,” he replied doing his best to fight the urge to bury his face in his hands.
“Only two years?!”
“Well, um, three now,” he corrected sheepishly.
“HA HAH!!! You’re a prodigy, my boy!!!” All Might exclaimed, his smile twice as wide as it usually was.
Izuku couldn’t fight the urge to crawl into himself anymore. He hid his burning face behind his hands with a groan. He didn’t even have the presence of mind to speak the denials forming on his tongue.
“You exceed my expectations at every turn! You know what you're doing when it comes to opponents who are bigger and stronger than you! But have you ever gone up against an opponent with enhanced speed?”
Izuku ignored the continued praise as best he could and focused on the question, thinking back he could remember a few people he’d gone up against who had speed quirks, but Eraser just, well, erased them. Plus they’d only ever tried to use their speed to get away, not to fight. So Izuku settled on ‘no’ being the most accurate answer.
“AH HA! That makes sense! That’s where I got you, my boy, if I were only stronger than you you might have had me there! You’re quite fast yourself but not faster than me!” he exclaimed with a booming laugh, “Speed was the most difficult adjustment for me, my predecessor taught me how to fight, but with super speed, you need to be able to think just as fast as you can move! That’s quite a difficult thing to learn! Fighting someone faster than you forces you to pick up that skill pretty quickly though,” he said with a nervous laugh and a slightly haunted look in his eye as he scratched the nape of his neck awkwardly.
That was a good point, if he went up against someone with a speed quirk who wasn’t just using it to retreat Izuku would be pretty much fucked without Eraser. He could strategize on the spot fairly quickly but that didn’t matter much if his opponent could strike faster than he could think, hell, faster than Izuku could even see them. All Might had grabbed him by the ankle and flipped him upside down before he could even blink, how was he supposed to counter that? He supposed he couldn’t, that was rather the point, he was All Might after all, but a little practice wouldn’t hurt. Well, that’s not true, practice would probably hurt a lot but it would surely hurt less than getting his ass handed to him by a speedster that didn’t have as much personal stake in his well-being as All Might did.
“That would be a g-good thing to work on, I think. If I get used to fighting you, then everyone else is gonna look like they’re moving in slow motion,” he replied with a small laugh.
“Exactly, my boy!” he cheered.
***
Toshinori was gobsmacked. He knew the boy was nimble but he just leapt up onto a mound of trash nearly as tall as he was, jumped up again even taller than Toshinori himself, and flipped forward mid-air to deliver a kick more powerful than he imagined the boy could be capable of. He was still no match for him but Toshinori could feel the smile on his face spread from ear to ear as Midoriya danced around him with grace, every time he was knocked to the ground he was back on his feet in an instant. He couldn’t bring himself to go on the offensive because he just wanted to keep watching, he went for openings Toshinori didn’t even realize he had left open. Young Midoriya would be a formidable opponent against almost anyone else, he had the speed to dodge hits from larger foes and the intelligence to hit where it hurt.
He could tell the boy was starting to get frustrated by the look on his face but he persisted regardless. Toshinori was prepared to let him go until he tired himself out but then he got a face full of sand and a heavy kick right in the center of his scar. Kami, that was brilliant… and also hurt like a bitch. As he hacked up his remaining lung for a brief moment all he could think was, ‘holy shit, this kid actually forced me on the offensive.’ He had been expecting the rigid and chivalrous types of fighting styles that most dojos taught, especially after requesting to lay ground rules. He did not expect that . He fought savagely; the way he moved was organic and adaptable which, he supposed, he should have expected with the way the boy climbed around the ever-changing landscape of trash. What was Toshinori even supposed to teach him if he could do all of that quirkless ?
Once he got over his coughing fit and shook himself out of his stupor he praised the boy for a job well done and, as was to be expected, he blushed furiously. The proceeding conversation had him questioning everything he knew about the kid; he’d only been practicing for three years? How was that possible? He fought like someone who had been training their whole life, though, again, perhaps he should have expected that given how dedicated he knew the young man to be.
Gymnastics and martial arts, huh? He wouldn’t have guessed that, but he hadn’t even given it much thought until now. It struck him just how little he knew about Midoriya, he had no inklings as to what other tricks were hiding up his sleeves.
“What do you do in your free time, my boy?” the question slipped out without him really meaning to say it; it was a pretty surface-level question, one that seemed odd to ask after spending at least 2 hours a day with someone for nearly two months at this point, but, well, better late than never, right?
Midoriya looked confused and startled at the question, which was fair; it came out of nowhere at least a month later than it should have.
“M-my free time?” he huffed out a small laugh before cutting himself off quickly, “I, uh, I don’t have much free time, All Might,” he finished.
Toshinori couldn’t help but laugh at that, of course, he didn’t have much free time, he knew exactly how little free time the boy had, especially if he had been working through his rest days all this time.
“Sorry about that, my boy,” he said kindly but with very little remorse; they were doing what needed to be done, “What about before our little project then?
“I, um, well, martial arts, I guess? I still do that though, and um climbing…” he trailed off and started picking at his fingernails the way he did when he got especially nervous, “I also like to, uh, I do t-these, um, analyses on h-heroes,” he admitted with so much shame in his tone that one would have expected him to admit that he kicked puppies for fun.
“Analyses?” he gently pushed him to clarify.
“Um, yeah, I used to watch the news and analyze fights or heroes or quirks and s-stuff like that.”
That explained how he fought like he did, critically watching other people’s techniques was a unique way to learn but clearly, it was effective… for Midoriya at least. He’s not sure how much information he could glean from that but he’d always been a hands-on type of learner.
“Fascinating, how long have you been doing that?”
“Oh, um, pretty much since I could hold a pencil,” he responded with a smile and the barest huff of laughter, “I actually used to do them w-with crayons.”
Ah, he’d been studying the greats for years like an artist would, interesting. When did children learn to write? Four or so? That’s a solid decade of study, though the formative years were probably not so productive. He wanted to ask to see them but that seemed too personal, he was surprised he’d even gotten the boy to come out of his shell this much. Should he answer his question now? He was thinking about this too much.
“I like to read, I’ve been reading about gardening lately. I have an abundance of free time nowadays whether I like it or not and I’ve been trying my hand at gardening, though I’m not very good at it. I tried planting some mint and well, that just took over everything, but it's doing well, at least,” he admitted with a wry laugh.
Midoriya’s eyes lit up at that and he actually smiled, not the awkward smile he did when he was embarrassed, an actual smile. Toshinori couldn’t help but smile back. Maybe he could take some pictures of his overrun garden to show him or bring him some mint, he definitely had enough to share. Maybe if he showed him his sad attempts at growing a tomato then he would feel more comfortable showing him his analyses.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 81: A Breaking Point
Chapter Text
About two and a half months into the program Izuku was starting to really feel it. He was sleeping better though, much, much better because his body would simply give out whenever he gave it a moment’s respite. So, that was nice, but he was just as exhausted as ever.
With his unkempt curly hair and eyebags to rival a raccoon he was starting to look more and more like Eraser by the day, if he had the capabilities to grow a 5 o’clock shadow they would be practically indistinguishable. He would be living off coffee as well if he had the facilities to brew it; instead, he was living off of those 5-hour energy drinks he got with a 5-finger discount. He was downing shots of that shit like his life depended on it because, well, it kind of did. He was either wired or sleeping with no in-between; he had never been so jumpy in his life and Eraser had noticed. He’d started calling up to them before climbing onto whatever rooftop Ivy sent him to meet up at because more than once he had touched down on the roof from behind them and they damn near let a knife go flying at him. Yes, caffeine definitely had its downsides but he’d rather his senses be artificially sharpened than dulled by exhaustion. The streets had been quieter but it was still Uptown, it wasn’t safe to let your guard down here, and with all this caffeine his guard had turned into a trip wire.
Eraser had been bugging them about it, asking them what had happened and if they’d been sleeping. Once he even asked, only half-jokingly, if they were on drugs, which was fair because they technically were. They kept brushing him off and saying they were fine but they could feel his eyes on them like a hawk at all times.
***
Ivy was acting weird, or at least weirder than usual. There were more than a few times he was genuinely concerned that they were cracked out of their mind, but given the ferocity with which they pursued the meth lab last year, it seemed unlikely. They were a bit erratic and jumpy but not that erratic and jumpy. The behavior went on for weeks before he got any answers.
The two of them were on patrol and Ivy was acting stranger than ever, every little thing made them jump because they were constantly spacing out.
“Kid,” he started and, unsurprisingly, Ivy jumped at being addressed, “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Noth–”
“If you say ‘nothing, I’m fine’ one more time I will have Tsukauchi interrogate you,” he interrupted before they could lie through their teeth again.
“Okay, Jesus, it’s not nothing, but I am fine. Quit worrying about me,” they shot back rolling their eyes so hard that their iris disappeared completely behind their eyelids.
“I’ll stop worrying about you when you stop displaying worrying behavior, but that doesn’t seem to be within your skill set,” he stated dryly.
Ivy made a face, repeated what he said back to him in a high-pitched tone, and held up their hands, opening and closing them repeatedly in the way one would do to mock someone for talking too much.
“That was lazy even by my standards. If you’re going to make fun of me at least be creative about it.”
Ivy was flicking him off and jumping over to the next rooftop before he even finished his sentence.
The night carried on without much fanfare. The void of criminal activity had started to fill back in but it was nowhere near as rampant as it had been. It made for a busier patrol than his old route but not by much.
Around half past one they heard shouting coming from a nearby alley. They perched themselves on the roof overlooking the commotion; two men were shouting at each other but it hadn’t gotten physical. They kept watch to make sure it would stay that way, they didn’t really need to step in for noise disturbances and none of the surrounding buildings were residential anyway. Their argument lasted less than a minute before one of the two realized they were talking in circles and walked away as the other guy taunted him claiming to have won the argument since the other man was refusing to engage. Shota just rolled his eyes, that was childish and a waste of their time.
He looked over to Ivy ready to hear whatever witty or sarcastic remark they had about what had just happened but they had their face smushed into the concrete ledge of the roof, they were breathing slowly and not moving. Were… were they asleep? What the fuck? They were standing up. Sure enough, just as he thought that he watched them slowly lean further and further to the left until they fell over and woke themself up with a start.
Okay, they weren’t getting out of this one. They just fell asleep on patrol standing up in less than a minute while people only like 50 feet away from them were shouting loud enough to be heard several streets over.
Shota didn’t bother with conversational conventions, he just looked at Ivy with his arms crossed and said, “Explain.”
***
Izuku was fucked, mother hen wasn’t letting them out of this one. Goddamnit.
“Takin’ a quick snooze,” they responded readily with feigned nonchalance from their spot sprawled out on the rooftop.
“Ivy what the hell is going on, you were standing up and we hadn’t even been here for more than a minute.”
“I’m tired, sue me.”
“That’s not a normal amount of ‘tired’ and you know it. I’ve told you before, you can’t patrol if you aren’t at your best. It isn’t safe for either of us. Hell, it’s not safe for you to be that tired in any situation, are you narcoleptic?”
“No, I’m not narcoleptic and I’m fine. I just didn’t realize how tired I was.”
“You didn’t realize you were tired enough to fall asleep standing up?” he asked incredulously before realization dawned on him, “Is that why you’ve been so jumpy? Caffeine?” he mused aloud, that made sense, they were on drugs, just not hard ones, “How much caffeine have you been drinking?”
“I dunno, three or four a day?”
“Coffees?”
“No, those little energy drinks,” they said, pulling one out of their pocket to illustrate their point.
“FOUR?!” he balked.
They cringed a bit at his volume but didn’t correct him.
“Ivy you’re going to give yourself a heart attack at this rate. That’s over 8 cups of coffee worth of caffeine; you know that, right?”
Kami, he thought he was bad for struggling to adhere to a strict 6 or fewer cups a day policy.
“Yes, I am capable of basic arithmetic, thank you for clarifying though,” they drawled in an exasperated tone.
How were they this stupid? How could they possibly be so smart yet so, so stupid? Fine, if they were going to act stupid he was going to treat them accordingly.
“Yes, Ivy, very good. I’m so proud of your math skills, what’s your level of understanding of medicine though? Because that seems a little deficient to me. Let’s test it. I’ve got a question; heart attack bad, or heart attack good?” he asked like he was speaking to a toddler.
They just glared at him.
“Ah, I see, that’s where the issue was. Heart attacks are actually bad though, so we shouldn’t try to induce them through caffeine overdoses,” he continued in a less cheery but equally demeaning tone.
Kami, Ivy was rubbing off on him too much; that was beyond catty.
They didn’t argue or react to his tirade at all and when he finished they asked “You done?” with no emotion in their tone. They looked so tired all the sudden, like they’d been hiding it this whole time. Their shoulders dropped and their eyes shut halfway as if the effort to keep them up was too great of an expense. Good, tired was better than petulant; maybe he could get some goddamn answers.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Alright, maybe they weren’t completely done with being petulant.
“Why are you doing this? What’s so important that you have to drug yourself into a paranoid frenzy to keep going?” he clarified even though he knew his question had been clear enough.
“Identifying information, Eraser,” they quipped back; the standard response he got whenever he asked a question they deemed too personal.
It wasn’t long after their talk on the rooftop where he found them sitting on the ledge and talking hypothetical nonsense that this behavior started. They said something about their day job, did it have to do with whatever offer they’d gotten? He didn’t know if they were still speaking in hypotheticals at that point in the conversation or not but he figured that they would know what he was talking about regardless.
“Is it the new job?” he asked cautiously.
***
The question confused them for a moment before they remembered the lie they’d weaved about themselves. They had given Eraser too much information that night and they were both surprised and grateful that he hadn’t pried them about it. Technically, it was about ‘the new job’ so he nodded in confirmation.
“If it’s running you 800mg-of-caffeine-a-day ragged then I don’t think it’s worth it, kid.”
They huffed out a laugh at that, this ‘job’ was the only thing that had ever made him believe in a future for himself past middle school, if that wasn’t ‘worth it’, then he’s not sure what was.
“You need to cut back somewhere, you can’t keep going like this,” Eraser continued.
He was right, they knew he was right, but he couldn’t leave this city to its own devices. They’d just spent the last three years digging it up out of the pit it had been sinking into for decades, he couldn’t just let it fall right back to where it came from.
“Yeah, I know…” he reluctantly agreed, he couldn’t keep this up.
Maybe if they kept Sundays as a break day?
He propped himself up against the ledge of the roof, brought his knees to his chest, and fiddled with his shoestrings before continuing, “I… I don’t think I can do Sundays, I work all day on Sundays now, but peop–”
“Ivy this isn’t about anyone else. Whatever may or may not happen in your absence is not your responsibility,” Eraser interrupted, “I know people will start to notice the schedule, but how many weeks will it take for anyone to both catch on and take advantage of it? A month? Maybe more. The least you can do is take a break. Maybe we can do short patrols once every few weeks to throw people off, or I can patrol on my own. There are other solutions besides working yourself into an early grave.”
“I don’t want you patrolling on your own,” they countered immediately.
“Ivy, I patrolled solo for nearly a decade straight before I met you, I think I can handle once a week.”
“I thought you were the one berating me for being reckless, patrolling alone for decades sounds pretty reckless to me,” they quipped.
“First of all, DECADE, not decadeS, I don’t know how old you think I am, and second of all, you also patrolled alone before we met, hypocrite.”
“Pot, kettle, black, whatever.”
“Fine, I’m sure I could convince Mic to take a night patrol from time to time,” Eraser offered.
“Mic can’t keep up with you, he doesn’t have the mobility,” he argued before he realized how mean that was, “Wait, I didn’t–” they tried to backpedal but Eraser was already laughing at them.
“Don’t you dare tell them I said that,” they ordered as they buried their face in their hands.
“We’ve patrolled together before, kid,” he said once he stopped laughing, “We know how to adjust our speeds and stick together; plus his legs are longer than you are tall, he’s really not that slow. I could probably rope Midnight in pretty easily as well, she already works nights. Their agencies won’t drop them over patrolling somewhere they’re not supposed to one day every other week, they’re too high in the rankings for a stunt like that to fly,” he mused out loud, “Regardless of that, we don’t need to figure this out right now. You need to go home and sleep. No more Sunday patrols and we’re keeping the random floating break day, two nights off is more than reasonable, we both already have a second full-time job; I don’t want to hear you argue on this,” he stated with finality.
Izuku was so tired he couldn’t bring himself to argue anyway so he just nodded. The look of surprise and worry on Eraser’s face gave away how out of character that was for them, but again, they were too tired to care.
“Yeah, okay. We’ll figure it out… we’ll… yeah,” he trailed off weakly.
“You know you don’t have to give everything your all, kid. It’s okay to only do whatever is absolutely necessary every once in a while.”
“An average performance isn’t going to get someone like me very far,” he countered before he could think better of it.
Thankfully, Eraser knew them well enough to know not to ask about whatever the hell they meant by that. He just gave him a sad nod.
“Well, you don’t have to be above average around me at least, I already know what you’re capable of, and taking a break isn’t going to make me think less of you. It’d actually do the opposite.”
He was too kind. Izuku didn’t know what to say to that so he just looked at him with a sad smile hoping to communicate what words couldn’t.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 82: Learn how to fix a fridge or endure the mortifying ordeal of being Known 🔫
Notes:
I am in a writing slump guys idk abt posting 3 chapters next week. We'll see :[
edit: ⚠️⚠️⚠️ Author is experiencing writer's block, I will upload Wed 1/17/24 (sorry) ⚠️⚠️⚠️
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku hardly remembered what it felt like to not be sore, but after two weeks of one-and-a-half break days, he woke up on a Saturday afternoon, stretched, and felt none of the familiar pain he had grown so accustomed to. The realization made him want to run and jump around the brewery unbound by his usual aches but he had to remind himself that he only felt like this because he wasn’t running around. He would get the chance to expel this excess energy tonight anyway. He was doing better and it felt good, he shouldn’t mess that up.
He was eating as much as he could, but it wasn’t as much as All Might’s plan had called for and it wasn’t anywhere near as nutrient-dense either. He could imagine his standard levels of soreness would decrease even more if he was consuming the amount of proteins needed to mend his muscles properly, but, well, there wasn’t much he could do about that. All Might letting him use his truck to haul scrap to the yard helped but it wasn’t enough, not with the amount he had to put aside to hopefully pay for tuition next year. He knew the clerk from the convenience store by the school was starting to get suspicious of him walking in and out without ever buying anything, but he did his best and pushed through because that was all he could do.
About four months into the program, All Might must’ve heard his stomach grumble one too many Sundays in a row or something because he brought an extra bento and passed one to Izuku when he sat down for a lunch break. He held it out to him without any sort of explanation and Izuku was getting deja vu. He couldn’t help but stare dumbly at All Might’s outstretched hand until he shook it lightly prompting Izuku to take it. Shaking the parallels his mind drew to Eraserhead and Shinso-san he scrambled to take the offered meal and thanked him profusely.
“You never bring a lunch! You are sticking to the plan, aren’t you?” All Might asked.
Izuku froze up a bit at that, he didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t really have an excuse. He couldn’t find a way to weasel out of the question before the pause became suspiciously long.
“I, um, I’m sticking t-to it as best I can,” he offered not looking All Might in the eye.
He picked at the bento All Might handed him and did his best to ignore the silence he was met with. It was curry and rice and distantly Izuku registered that it was absolutely delicious but he was too caught up in trying to come up with excuses to enjoy it properly.
“What do you mean as best you can, my boy? Where are you falling short?” All Might asked after a moment.
“It’s not the work!” Izuku insisted quickly, “I’m not s-slacking off I–”
“I know, Midoriya, I can tell. You’re making great progress,” All Might interjected before he started spiraling.
“Oh, um t-thanks…” he sputtered out inelegantly, “Its um, it’s just the food, it, um, it’s a lot…” he said with a huff of fake laughter.
“You mean you can’t eat that much? You don’t need to stuff yourself, we can adjust for more protein-dense foods; quality over quantity!” All Might offered.
That was the opposite of the issue Izuku was facing but he didn’t know how to explain that without garnering a great deal of concern.
“No, that’s not the problem, well it kind of is, I just mean that these foods are– they’re kind of expensive? It’sjustthatprotiendensefoodsarekindofaluxury,eatinghealthyisactuallyreallyexpensiveit’sasystemicissuereallywealthypeopleeatwellandarehelthierbutpoorerpeoplecan’taffordtoeatwellandthentheyhavehealthconditiosnotthatihavehelthconditions,I'mfine!igetenoughfoodjustmaybenotasmanynutrientsasi’dlikebutthat’sokayI’mmuchbetteroffthanalotofotherpeoplesoyoudon’thavetoworryaboutme–”
“Midoriya! Mumbling!” All Might interrupted his fumbling explanation for the nth time in the last four months, “I didn’t catch most of that but I heard the beginning, do you not have enough money for food, my boy?” he asked with concern etched into his features.
“No! I do! Just, I–er um, we don’t have enough money for the food on the plan, but it’s fine, I–”
“Young Midoriya, I’ve been the highest-ranked hero in the country for decades, money is of no object! You should have said something!”
“N-No! You’re already doing so much for me I couldn’t p-possib–”
“I wouldn’t even notice the dent buying all this food would put in my accounts. Where do you shop? I could do one of those online orders, right? Then you’d just have to go and pick it up!” All Might interrupted with a cheer, he sounded like he was too excited to have found a solution to the problem to hear Izuku’s denials.
Oh no, nononnonnononono– Where the hell was he supposed to put groceries? There was absolutely no way for him to explain away why he couldn’t accept anything perishable or that needed to be cooked! However, he had seen a mini fridge in the pile next to the one they were working on, but when was he going to find the time to fix up one of those anyway? And what about cooking? Most of the things on the list had meat in them, what was he supposed to do about that? Cook everything over an open flame? He had no clue how to do that, hell, he barely remembered how to cook on a stove at this point! And he really didn’t want to give himself food poisoning without access to a proper bathroom.
“No, All Might, you really don’t have to do that, it’s fine, I–”
“Nonsense, my boy!”
“No, I really–”
“Young Midoriya, I'm not taking no for an answer on this! Nutrition is too important! Your body won’t be able to keep up with you at this rate if you don’t fuel it properly!” he cut off his arguments for a third time, “We can worry about the logistics later, eat your lunch!”
Oh, Kami, looks like he’s going to have to dip his toes into refrigerator repair… there goes his newly acquired Sunday night siesta.
***
That night, after All Might took him to the scrap yard and dropped him off at his old apartment building, he trudged his way back to the beach and hauled the mostly intact mini fridge he’d found onto his dolly along with another very broken one. He was hoping he might be able to cannibalize parts from the latter to fix the former. The dolly protested the weight but he persisted; if he could haul trash all day then this godforsaken cart could hold together long enough to haul some junk for 15 minutes. By the time he rolled the dolly into the brewery the left wheel was valiantly trying to make an escape from the weight crushing it. Great, another thing to fix. That was going to have to wait, he had no clue how functional this mini fridge was nor how long he was going to have to fix it before All Might forced a cart full of perishable goods into his hands. He needed to get to work quickly.
After hauling the fridges back to the office the cart finally had enough and the left wheel popped off only about 10 feet from the door.
“Really? You couldn’t wait another thirty seconds to do that?” he asked while giving the dolly a disappointed glare; it did not respond.
“Whatever,” Izuku sighed as he squatted down to pick up the busted fridge first.
Plugging in the mostly intact fridge turned on the little light inside so at least the wiring was still good, though that would probably have been the easiest thing to fix. He spent all night going through the thing, taking it apart and putting it back together. He didn’t know much about how a fridge was supposed to work but if he got a good look at the innards he’d have a better clue of what to look for when he got the chance to do some research. He’d have to go to the library… well… maybe not the library. He burned that bridge pretty sufficiently, and he vowed to never return to the next closest library as well because he kinda hacked into UA’s database there on accident that one time… it had probably been long enough since then, right? Hmmmm, maybe a cafe or something was the smarter choice.
It was already 9 pm by now and he didn’t know the internet cafe’s hours. It was a solid 25-minute walk to even get there and check and he was questioning if it was worth it; it was either open 24 hours or most certainly going to be closed by the time he got there. He would go after school tomorrow but then he wouldn’t have any time to sleep, most of his sleeping was done from 4 pm to 10 pm depending on how much homework he had and when he and Eraser had agreed to meet for patrol that night.
GAH! Why did All Might have to be so pushy?!
Izuku ended up sneaking into the library at school to research, it was risky, if he got caught he would get detention at the very least and that would result in the same loss of sleep time as going to a cafe after school would so he kept a keen eye out for the librarian. He had tucked himself into the back corner of the library and thankfully, no one bothered him.
His research yielded a few things to test, the most likely issue was that the condenser coils and fan were filthy. He’d cleaned everything when he took it apart but he hadn’t thought to check if that had fixed the problem, hopefully it did. If not then he was going to have to sink some money into this project, he could spare about ¥3,500 for a multimeter to check that the components were working properly and some coolant because whether or not that was the initial issue there was no way that fridge had been sitting out in the elements for Kami knows how long without developing a coolant leak.
Well, if heroics didn’t work out he could always repair refrigerators… that was, well that was certainly a backup plan… ha– hm, maybe it was best not to think about backup plans.
***
All Might had been pestering him every day about where to put in the order for his groceries and Izuku had been dodging it as best he could. He was spending every second of free time he had working on that damned fridge but it wasn’t until Thursday that he finally got it working. He hadn’t even had the chance to get excited about having food again, it had been three years since he’d had anything more than granola bars and nutrient pouches at ‘home’. He remembered sneaking out of his room when he was little and stealing ice cream from the fridge, Kami, he can’t remember the last time he had ice cream. He needed to fix the dolly he broke getting the fridges back to the brewery before he thought about ice cream though because he gave All Might the location of the grocery store closest to his old apartment which was nearly a 20-minute walk away from where he actually lived.
They stopped working a little early that morning and All Might had Izuku sit with him and pick out foods on his phone. He tried to get him to add commentary on his preferences but, honestly, Izuku would gladly take any of it, the only thing he specifically requested was tomatoes. He remembered the sad little tomato All Might had shown him a picture of from his garden and Izuku wanted to try his hand at it to see if he could figure out where All Might went wrong; maybe he could help. It was getting a little too late in the season to be planting tomatoes from what he’d read but he was also never one to back down from a challenge.
He did his best not to watch the increasing price of the cart at the bottom of the screen but he couldn’t help peeking. It was nearly up to ¥10,000 by the time All Might decided that was enough. Izuku was never going to be able to pay him back for this, he wasn’t a stranger to penny-pinching at the grocery store; he’d done it for years after his mom just started leaving money for him to fend for himself, but he didn’t remember it ever costing this much. Moreover, he couldn’t even imagine eating that much food in just one week.
Maybe he could start bringing Eraser dinner too, he was well past the point of Izuku being able to pay him back for everything he had done for him in the last few years, but that could be a good start. He’d need to see if he remembered how to cook first, there was no point in trying to pay him back if the food wasn’t any good anyways. He was getting ahead of himself, he didn’t even have a hot plate yet, he was going to be cooking over an open flame for the foreseeable future, and, as funny as it would be, he would never forgive himself if he gave Eraser food poisoning.
Pulling himself back to the present he did his best to express a normal amount of gratitude and excitement for what All Might had done for him, but he’s not sure how convincing it was; he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He tried to squash it down with the guilt he held for All Might having to do this to begin with, but it was no good. He was going to have food again! At home! He wasn’t just going to be shit out of luck when he got hungry on the nights they took a break from patrol! Hell, he wasn’t ever gonna be hungry again! No more shoplifting, no more dumpster diving, Kami, he couldn’t believe it. He was so grateful that it was impossible to put it into words, and he was even more grateful that All Might was so stubborn about this, he would have felt a lot more guilty about it all if he hadn’t tried everything he could to deny the gift.
Izuku spent the whole day at school planning out a list of all the things he would need to get to have a makeshift little kitchen. He already had a big pot but he used that as a sink and a bath more than anything so he was going to need another pot… maybe a few more pots; cleaning cookware in the water he bathed in didn’t sound very appetizing. Oh! and a hot plate, he doubted he would be able to find one of those in good enough condition to even be fixable, but he had seen one online for about ¥4,500 which was… manageable. He was also going to need a pan and a plate or a bowl would be nice to have as well, oh, and chopsticks and other utensils! He had no shortage of knives but he had zero spoons to his name. Being able to look for stuff made sorting through the garbage at Dahgobah much more interesting, like it was a treasure hunt rather than just the disgusting heap of trash that it was. He was actually looking forward to the next time he was going to get the chance to sift through it.
Things were looking up.
Notes:
thanks for reading!
Chapter 83: A Collection of Vignettes ~ Letting the Time Pass
Notes:
Sorry for the writer's block, it's been kicking my ass a bit. Anyway, as the title suggests, this is a bunch of short and mostly unrelated scenes over the span of a few months, so don't expect a unified narrative ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm not uploading this Friday, but I plan to upload next Monday and Friday (not Wednesday, so only 2 chapters next week). No guarantees, we'll see what happens.
Shout out to Ashes_28 for beta reading again <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ivy was waiting on the ledge of tonight’s randomly generated meeting location when they saw Eraser approaching from the south. They spotted him pretty quickly and watched as he grew from a tiny flea hopping from rooftop to rooftop in the distance until he touched down on the roof next to them. He didn’t even sit down in his usual spot to their right before he started yawning. So, of course, they looked at him with the most theatrically disapproving glare they could muster.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to patrol if we’re not well rested,” they sneered.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eraser dismissed, “I’ll be fine, I woke up like 15 minutes ago, I just need a second,” he said as he yawned again.
“You gonna fall asleep on me, geezer?” they poked.
“‘M thinking about it,” he mumbled as he opened up his bento, pulled out a flask, and took a swig from it.
“Good lord man, the students giving you that much grief?” Ivy asked, rightfully horrified.
“It’s just coffee, thermos is too clunky to jump around with, and no, not anymore they’re not,” he replied dryly
Well that response was more than a little ominous
“What the hell do you mean ‘not anymore they’re not’? Did you kill them?”
“No, just expelled ‘em, ‘s why I just woke up. I spent the whole day doing the goddamn paperwork for it an’ I didn’t get to take a nap,” he responded, nonchalant as ever.
They were so horrified that they couldn’t even make fun of him for being grumpy about missing a nap like a toddler.
“You expelled them? All of them? You expelled 20 students?” they asked incredulously.
Eraser simply grunted in the affirmative.
“What the hell did they do?!” they demanded.
“They weren’t serious,” he stated like that explained everything.
“They’re what like 15? Of course they weren’t serious, they’re 15!”
“Better to let their dream die than let them die, I’m not giving out licenses to people who aren’t taking this seriously. They can find a new dream they can’t get unkilled in the line of duty,” he said in an exhausted and rehearsed tone like he’d spent the day explaining that to 40 irate parents.
They supposed that made sense, but Jesus Christ, imagine getting into UA only to get expelled by Mr. Hardass in the first semester for being a bit too silly.
“I know it’s cruel but letting them live a pipe dream and die before they even get the chance to graduate is crueler,” He added sounding more sad than tired.
Ivy wondered if he’d learned that lesson the hard way, had he lost a student before? It was probably better not to ask.
“Yeah, I… I guess,” they conceded.
They wondered if any of those kids wouldn’t be able to work past the rejection. Kami knows they wouldn’t. It occurred to them for the first time that, if everything goes according to plan, they just might find themself in the opportunity for that to happen. Shit, if he expelled his whole class does that mean that he’d cycle back to teaching the incoming first years? They thought they had dodged a bullet when he said he was teaching first years this year.
“So, uh, does that mean ur out of a job for the next two and a half years or are you gonna cycle back to the next incoming first years?” they asked trying to keep the trepidation out of their tone.
“I’ll be getting the next batch of first years,” he confirmed and their heart dropped to their feet, “at least for my homeroom, I’ve heard talk of heroics classes changing next year so I’m not sure how that’s going to play out yet.”
Oh, he was so fucked. That left him with a 50/50 chance of getting Eraser as his teacher; there were only two heroics classes for each year and given his luck there was no way a coin toss was going to end in his favor.
***
Days passed by in a blur after he got the fridge up and running. Taking breaks and eating food made things a lot easier, hm, who would’ve guessed? Izuku had forgotten how much he enjoyed cooking; his first attempts were palatable at best but he got back into the groove of things after a week or so. Getting a hot plate would definitely help, he planned to use whatever money he got from the scrap yard next Sunday to buy one and he was really looking forward to it.
***
Izuku had been seeing a rather strange character around uptown both during the day and night. He felt bad about singling him out among the hundred or so other homeless people milling about the streets but he couldn’t help it, the man was covered in gruesome scars. He couldn’t tell how old he was underneath all of the gnarled flesh but the small amounts of unmarred skin looked quite smooth and soft so he probably wasn’t that old. He kept to himself for the most part, he seemed to have set up camp somewhere in the warehouse district, so they were neighbors, kinda.
He didn’t know what to make of him, he hardly ever saw him interact with anyone but that might just be because everyone gave him such a wide berth. It seemed rude but Izuku couldn’t blame them, he was quite an intimidating figure. Hell, Izuku was staying away from him too, but not out of fear, he just couldn’t tell if the guy wanted to be left alone or if it was just something he expected to happen.
Maybe he should talk to him? He had a pretty good rapport with the homeless population as Ivy, it wouldn’t be out of character to ask him if he needed help or offer him some blankets or something.
***
Summer break came and went without its usual hunger pangs and Izuku was so grateful. The tomatoes he had been trying to grow didn’t end up any better than All Might’s did, but even so, he chopped them up and threw them into a stew which he brought to the beach one Sunday to share with All Might. They talked about their sad attempts at gardening as they ate.
“You made this yourself? Who taught you how to cook? This is delicious!” All Might exclaimed and Izuku couldn’t help but feel like that was an overstatement; it was just alright. It would be good if one of the key ingredients (his roof-grown tomatoes) weren’t under-ripe and out of season.
“T-thanks,” he replied even though he didn’t fully believe the compliment was genuine, “Um, my mom taught me,” he lied.
His mother hadn’t taught him anything about cooking except to not touch the burners, but his father had long since taught him to stay away from fire by that point, so that wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.
“How nice! You’re quite the prodigy, my boy! I was hopeless in the kitchen until my mid-twenties, you know? I learned to cook from a friend in America, he saw me eating microwave ramen every day for weeks and took pity on me,” he said with a fond laugh.
Izuku couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face at that, he liked hearing about All Might, it humanized him. It had been difficult to talk to him for a while; he had been such an icon in Izuku’s eyes for so long that it was hard to think of him as a real person, which seems stupid in hindsight. He was still difficult to talk to, he tripped over his words constantly but it was getting easier the more he got to know him. ‘Yagi’ wasn’t the same person as All Might, just like he wasn’t the same person as Ivy; he couldn’t imagine trying to talk to someone like Ivy but he could talk to someone like Izuku, and All Might wasn’t so different in that regard.
***
Izuku was learning a lot of things about his generator, things like he had to choose two of three to have at any given time, fridge, hot plate, or lights. And his phone charged twice as slow with the fridge plugged in, or he couldn’t turn the lights on and keep the fridge going if it had been cloudy that day. Really, he was learning that owning a fridge required a lot of sacrifice. It took up a lot of power and it was never not in use so he could never turn it off. It was a constant drain on anywhere from a third to three-quarters of the generator’s power but he’d learned to work around it. He was going to have some very strange tendencies if he ever got enough money to get out of here; he could imagine himself a few years down the line getting a place and groggily turning off the lights before he flicked on the stove and started cooking breakfast in the dark.
***
It wasn’t until a full month after he had gotten the hot plate that Izuku felt comfortable enough in his skills to make something for Eraser. It was a little less daunting to make the stew for All Might, that was a test run. All Might knew it was made from sad tomatoes and also that Izuku was a kid so he hadn’t expected top-tier cooking. He didn’t have any of those excuses with Eraser, so it had to actually be good, not just a kind gesture. He made the dish over and over again every night for a week before he built up enough confidence to bring a second helping for Eraser.
Ivy:
Dont bring ur dinner tonight I’m bringing u something
Eraserhead:
Im stuck between saying thanks and being horrified.
Ivy:
>:[ its good u dickhead
Eraserhead:
I’ll be the judge of that
Thanks kid
Summer was on its way out and the nights were starting to get chilly again so Ivy basked in the warmth from the makeshift tupperware containers (old yogurt tubs that they had cleaned out) they held in their hands as they walked to the meeting spot they had sent to Eraser for that night.
When they got there they took the fire escape steps all the way up because they did not trust the yogurt tubs to hold up to even a mild amount of jostling and they didn’t fancy being covered in rice all night. Due to their slower pace, Eraser showed up only a few minutes after they took their seat.
“Whatcha got for me?” he asked with mock suspicion as Ivy handed him his serving.
“Katsudon,” they answered with an eye roll.
He raised his eyebrows looking vaguely impressed as he pulled the flimsy lid off of the tub.
“Looks good, you got chopsticks or am I supposed to drink it?”
They threw his chopsticks at him and they nearly fell over the ledge as he fumbled to catch them with no warning.
“Brat,” he retorted under his breath as he adjusted the chopsticks in his grip.
“Keep complaining and I’ll take it back,” they shot back as they took the lid off of their own container and turned away before taking off their mask.
They expected to eat in silence like they normally did but after a minute Eraser piped up.
“You made this?” he asked
They pressed their mask to their face and made sure the voice modulator was on before responding with an affirmative grunt and going back to their dinner.
“‘S good,” he commented before letting silence fall over them once more.
Ivy was glad their back was turned because they were sure they had a blush across their cheeks right now. Instead of responding they shoved more food into their mouth and did their best to ignore the swelling pride in their gut.
***
Shota wasn’t sure what he expected from Ivy making him dinner but it definitely wasn’t this. He figured their culinary skills would be on par with the average 20-ish-year-old bachelor and he was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren’t. It wasn’t the best katsudon he’d ever had but it was pretty damn good and he ate the whole thing without complaint, hell he might have gone back for seconds if that was an option.
“I made some for Mic too,” they said as they finished their portion and handed him a much more substantial tupperware that wouldn’t bust open mid-jump.
Looking at it more closely he realized it was his tupperware, one that he’d let the kid take home one night and forgot about.
“Might wanna have an early night, I don’t know how safe it is to leave out at room temperature for too long,” they added as he took the box.
“Should be fine for a few hours, thanks kid,” he said doing his best to keep an insufferably fond smile off his face, he had a reputation to maintain.
***
He finally met the man with scars that he had been seeing for a month or so now on accident. He noticed that some guy was following him around on his way back home from school one day and he was so busy looking over his shoulder to see if he’d lost him yet that he ran straight into the guy.
“S-sorry, sir!” he peeped out, “I wasn’t looking where I was g-going,” he added as he glanced over his shoulder again.
He must not have been subtle about it because the scarred man looked behind him as well.
“Someone following you?” he asked, ignoring his apology entirely.
That took him a bit off guard, most people around here would throw a big fuss if you ran into them like that, Izuku was expecting to be insulted at the very least if not pushed right back.
“Oh, um, yeah,” he answered honestly because he was too dumbstruck to talk himself out of the situation, “But i-it’s fine, I’m almost home and my d-dad’s waiting for m–”
“Is it the guy in the blue jacket?” he asked cutting Izuku off.
“Um, y-yeah,” he answered.
“I’ll take care of it, you watch where you’re going,” he said before walking away and not sparing Izuku another glance.
He stood there confused for a moment before shaking himself out of his stupor. That was… nice? He definitely didn’t need the help but it saved him 20 minutes of circling around back alleys to shake this guy off his tail.
Izuku couldn’t stop thinking of him for the rest of the night. Getting a close-up look at him didn’t make him any less intimidating, but it did give him some more information on the guy. He sounded young, probably in his 20s or so and the scars were most certainly burn scars (Izuku knew those all too well) but those were some of the worst he’d ever seen. His skin was held together by staples and over half of his face was purple and warped. He couldn’t imagine how much pain that guy must be in 24/7. He wondered what happened to him but he knew he would never ask, it was just morbid curiosity and certainly not something the man wanted to talk about.
***
All Might kept up his promise to keep sparring with Izuku and he was sure that Eraser had noticed; he was getting used to fighting someone faster than him and more than once it resulted in brutally quick takedowns on patrol. Eraser didn’t say anything about it but he did raise an impressed eyebrow from time to time and he even laughed once when some thug started talking shit and Ivy had him on his ass before he even finished his sentence.
They started each morning with 30 to 45 minutes of sparring before Izuku got to work on hauling trash. 5 months in and halfway through the 10-month plan he was definitely over halfway done, he honestly couldn’t believe it. It looked impossible when he surveyed the whole coast but once he started working he got into the rhythm and didn’t even notice how much progress he was making until he stepped back again.
Plus, it was much easier to work as the last of the summer heat faded from the air. He always worked through the sweaty discomfort so he wasn’t sure how much cooler air would help his progress but he was excited to find out. He’d always preferred cooler weather, it made his perpetual long sleeves and full-length pants more bearable. He used to be able to get away with shorts and three-quarter-length sleeves but ever since his vigilante career had started those weren’t an option anymore; he had too many scars and he didn’t have enough lies to cover them up. Maybe one day, if all of this goes to plan, he could go out in a tank top again; no one would bat an eye at a hero covered in scars.
***
“Sorry I’m late, my boy! I ran into an incident on my way here and felt I should stick around in case I was needed!”
“Oh, that’s n-no problem… um, what happened?” Midoriya asked nervously.
This may have been the first time that the kid tried to further a conversation without prompting and Toshinori had to bite back his excitement, lest he scare the kid off.
“It was an armed robbery at the bank on block 37 but young Kamui Woods took care of it in a flash!” he responded
“Kamui Woods? He’s newer on the scene but he’s made quite the entrance, I bet he’ll be topping the charts by next year,” the boy mused, seemingly to himself, but he did so without stammering or stuttering which surprised him.
“Yes, I don’t doubt that. He didn’t even need to enter the building to take those guys out! He stuck some branches through the vents and restrained all three of the perps before they even knew what happened!” he continued, hoping to coax more commentary out of him.
“He did? How far would he have had to extend his limbs to wind through the vents and get to them? What’s his limit? That was a pretty risky move, did he have visuals on his targets? If he missed it could have turned into a blood bath. I know some trees have ways of communicating through root systems, maybe he had a way to sense things with his limbs, that would be really cool, he could…” his ranting quickly turned into incomprehensible mumbles as he pulled out a beat-up notebook that was marked “Hero Analysis vol. 13” and started scribbling things down.
From his odd angle, he could see that the page already had some things written down and the page next to it had a surprisingly skilled and detailed drawing of the hero in question. This must be that analysis book he was talking about! The boy was writing faster than Toshinori could even think and he had to hold himself back from asking questions; he didn’t want to disrupt his train of thought. He watched for maybe 40 seconds before Midoriya froze and started spouting apologies for getting sidetracked.
“Nonsense, my boy! This is all a part of your training, you learn a lot from these analyses, don’t you?”
“I-I don’t know about that, it’s j-just a hobby,” he insisted.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, young Midoriya! Those were some insightful thoughts, at least from what little I heard. Those are the types of questions you should be asking, heroics teachers have three years to try and beat that type of critical thinking into young heroes’ skulls and you’ve already got it down pat! If you can do analyses on the fly that quickly it might even be an asset in combat; being able to find and exploit an enemy’s weaknesses could be what makes or breaks a fight.”
He didn’t respond to that, he just looked down and started chewing on his lip as he fiddled with the pages of his notebook. He looked like he might be gearing up to say something so Toshinori gave him a moment.
“I, um, I do– well that’s part of what I, um, that’s part of the analyses I do, I outline a hero’s strengths and weaknesses, um, b-based off their quirk and fighting s-style,” he admitted sheepishly.
He didn’t look him in the eye when he said that and he barely said it loud enough for him to hear it but thankfully he stuttered enough for Toshinori to have the time to string together what he was saying.
“That’s brilliant, my boy!” he praised. He hoped he wasn’t pushing his luck as he pressed for more information, “So what do we know about Young Kamui then?”
“Oh, I-I don’t know m-much about him, I haven’t had the t-time to look into the newer heroes. B-but, um, from what I’ve seen he’s p-pretty well rounded, he’s got range and solid defensive and offensive skills, he would be well s-suited for rescue heroics as well as limelight. He has a lot of options open for him w-with a versatile quirk like that. I’d advise him t-to get a sidekick with a pyrokinesis or hydrokinesis quirk when he gets the chance b-because fire is a pretty obvious weakness for him, b-being a tree and all. Anything I have b-beyond that is pure speculation though, I really don’t know much about h-him.”
That was most certainly the longest he’d ever heard the boy speak, barring his incomprehensible anxious mumbling. He stuttered quite a lot but he made some good points, especially given how little he claimed to know about the subject in question.
“If that’s your analysis on someone you hardly know about, I'm curious about what you could do for someone you do know,” he admitted.
He knew if he outright requested to see more of his analyses the boy would comply whether he really wanted to or not so he figured he’d give him an out.
He laughed nervously before responding “Yeah, I-I dunno if we have the t-time to get that in-depth, I t-tend to ramble.”
“Oh, I’d love to hear you ramble, my boy!”
“M-maybe another t-time, we’re already getting a late start,” he responded with a flush high on his cheeks.
***
Izuku had been keeping an eye out for the burned man ever since he had ‘saved’ him. They made sure to stop by him on their annual blanket distribution run they did in the fall. They had continued to salvage any usable scraps of fabric they found on the beach and clean them up to pass out. This year they had far more than they had had in previous years so they loaded up a shopping cart that they definitely didn’t steal and roped Eraser into helping them one night on patrol.
“Where the hell did you even get all these blankets?” Eraser asked when he saw the overloaded shopping cart.
“I find them around and clean them up.”
“So you steal homeless people’s blankets and then give them back to them?”
They leveled a glare at him for that before answering, “No, you ass, I assure you no one was using them.”
“How do you know?” he shot back just to annoy them.
“The places I venture to retrieve these are disgusting. I could clean them up in a muddy puddle and they’d be in better shape than what I found them in.”
That wasn’t too far from the truth, he cleaned them all by hand in the litter layden ocean water before he ever brought them to the laundromat. He couldn’t imagine they would keep letting him in if he brought those blankets in as they were when he found them; the fishy salty smell they gave off before a proper washing was already pushing it.
Eraser raised a brow at that but knew better than to ask further questions.
It was a slow night as they were doing their route on foot but eventually, they found the man they were looking for. He was stood leaning against an alley wall smoking a cigarette and Ivy dug down to the bottom of the cart where they were saving one of the 2 and a half comforters that they had found, they had even patched up the holes by hand. As they walked over and offered the blanket the man just looked at them with a raised brow.
“Why am I getting the only comforter?” he asked suspiciously.
Hmm, he was more observant than they had expected.
“You’re relatively new around here, I figured you don’t have much,” they explained, excusing their favoritism.
The man scoffed at that before dropping his cigarette butt to the ground and grinding it under his heel.
“I can keep myself warm just fine,” he said as he pulled out another cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a blue flame that he conjured on his pointer finger.
Oh… that was… unexpected. They did their best to not appear caught off guard by that and offered him a thinner blanket instead.
“We’ve got more than enough to go around, you might as well take one,” they said when he made no move to accept it.
He looked down to the blanket in their hand then over to the cart then over to Eraser who was talking to a woman across the street.
“You guys aren’t like other heroes,” the man mused before taking the offered blanket.
Ivy couldn’t help but laugh at that, it wasn’t the first time he was mistaken for a hero but he still hadn’t expected it, and he wasn’t wrong. They weren’t like other heroes, they would have been driven out of town if they started arresting people left and right; things were different here and they had to adapt to that.
“I’m not a hero, my friend,” they replied with a smirk.
“I’m not your friend,” he replied with no real malice and paused to take a drag before continuing, “What the hell are you doing this for if you’re not a hero?” he asked.
“Call me a good samaritan, a concerned citizen; I live here too, I’d like for it to be less of a shit hole so I do my best to keep it that way,” they explained.
“And what about him then?” he asked, nodding his head in Eraser’s direction.
“He’s a friend,” they stated simply.
“A hero?”
“Mhmm,” they hummed in the affirmative.
The man shot him with a half judgemental and half incredulous look.
“I keep him in line,” they joked, “He’s a good man. As long as you aren’t doing anything too heinous you don’t have to worry about either of us.”
The man let out a rueful laugh at that.
“Nothing too heinous? What exactly are your qualifications for something being “too heinous”?”
“Needless violence, hard drugs, sexual harassment, stuff like that. Why, are you planning on causing trouble?” they asked, returning the mischievous banter.
“Ah, you never know what I’ll get up to,” he said with a laugh before taking another drag from his cigarette, “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to clear it with you first,” he said with sarcastic reassurance.
They studied him for a moment trying to figure out what he was playing at before they spoke again, “You can call me Ivy,” they said and offered a hand out for him to shake.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t take it.
“Are you expecting me to give you my name?” he asked like they were stupid for even trying.
“Well, it was worth a shot,” they said as they lowered their hand back to their side.
“See you around, Ivy” the man dismissed before turning around and walking away with a thin blanket tucked under his arm.
***
As the brisk autumn nights started to bite with the telltale chill of early winter Izuku realized how good things had been going. He was in his brewery office with his sleeves rolled up as he was searing some pork in a pan over his hot plate. Things were good, they were better than good, they were great! He thought back to last April when he’d lost everything, he’d never been as low as he had been those few weeks. He still missed DJ bitterly and every time he got a message from All Might he would see the text conversation he had with Shinso that he couldn’t bear to delete.
The grief and regret came and went; it was difficult to enjoy the things he had without thinking about the things he lost but he did his best to think of the things he had when the thoughts of what he had lost took over his mind. It was cyclical but it was getting better, he was getting better. He had goals, he had a future, and he wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from him, they’d have to pry it out of his cold dead fingers.
He was going to make it, he was going to be a hero.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 84: Passing the Torch
Notes:
"You gave me more than I could ask for; indistinguishability." Rule #4 - Fish in a Birdcage
Everyone go listen to that song, it's so good.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was starting to get worried the closer he got to finishing up the beach. He still had plenty of work to do, he might finish a month earlier than originally projected at this point, but if All Might planned on waiting until he was done with the whole beach to pass on the quirk then that would mean that Izuku would only have a month to figure out how to use it. That was the equivalent of a four-year-old strolling into the UA entrance exam. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he’s sure he could progress faster in quirk control than a four-year-old… or at least he hoped so. He should ask All Might about this.
After running through his justifications a thousand times a day for the last week, he finally plucked up the courage to bring up his concerns to All Might on a chilly late November morning.
“All Might, I, uh, I had a question,” he did his best to speak without stuttering.
“Ask away, my boy!” All Might shot back without hesitation.
“How long did it take you to master One For All? I’m just worried that, um, at this rate, I’m only going to have a month to f-figure it out before the entrance exam and uh… that–that doesn’t seem like enough t-time?” he admitted.
All Might didn’t answer right away, he took a moment to think about the question.
“That's a good point… I got a hold of it pretty quickly, but from what my predecessor told me, that’s not always the case. It varies from wielder to wielder,” he replied before he went back to thinking.
Izuku gave him a moment to add on to that before he decided to speak up, “I–I w-was thinking that, um, using it t-to clean up the rest of the b-beach would– it might, um, it might be a good way t-to train with it,” he suggested nervously; he didn’t want to step on All Might’s plan or question his methods, “I d-don’t think I'm capable of p-putting on much more muscle mass right now anyway, not unless I hit a growth spurt,” he added with an anxious laugh.
All Might chuckled at that and said something about “tentative confidence” under his breath that Izuku didn’t quite catch, but he was already asking enough questions as is, so he didn’t push it.
“Yes, young Midoriya, that does seem like a great plan, but let me think on it. You are quite strong, I don’t doubt you, but I don’t want to rush into this either,” he said with a kind smile.
“Yes! Of course, I didn’t mean that– right now– that wasn–”
“I know what you meant, my boy,” All Might cut him off before he could start rambling.
Keeping his mouth firmly shut he nodded to All Might before scurrying over to continue his progress on the mound of trash he was currently working on. Winter was gearing up to be cold this year and he was worried that he was going to have to start bringing a pick axe with him to chip all of the trash out of the piles they were frozen in. The stuff at the top came apart with a little effort but he expected that things closer to the ground wouldn’t be so easy to separate. He tried to busy his mind with coming up with solutions for that potential roadblock, but he couldn’t; his conversation with All Might had gone better than he had anticipated, but every time he glanced over toward him he seemed lost in thought and Izuku didn’t know what to make of that.
***
Midoriya was right, but Toshinori was worried regardless. He’d seen the feats of strength that the boy was capable of many, many times over, but he remembered how Nana told him her predecessor had fractured their arm the first time they used One For All at its full power and he really didn’t want that to happen to Midoriya. At the same time, he wanted the boy to have the highest possible chance of success in his entrance exams and if Midoriya didn’t catch on to One For All as quickly as he did then he would surely be setting him up for failure. Not for the first time, Toshinori wished that they had just a little bit more time to figure this out.
He kept turning the idea over in his head as he watched Midoriya work. He’d cleaned up over 3/4ths of the beach in under 7 months, he was easily a month ahead of schedule. He knew that the suggestion didn’t come from a place of wanting to slack off or make the rest of the job easier, he knew Midoriya well enough to know that he never shied away from hard work. No, Midoriya’s argument was based solely on logic, so why was he still so hesitant? There was nothing more to be done, the boy wasn’t building muscle so much as he was retaining it at this point, he could probably get more muscle mass if he went about it like a bodybuilder, but that physique was more form than function.
The kid was right. It was time.
As soon as he accepted that in the privacy of his own thoughts, he realized maybe he was the one who wasn’t ready. He had known since he’d gotten this power that it wasn’t his to keep forever, but knowing and accepting that were two separate beasts, apparently.
A week. He’d give it a week. After that, One For All would belong to Midoriya whether he was ready to let go or not.
***
Next Sunday rolled around both in the blink of an eye and after an agonizing eon of anxious waiting. He wasn’t going to be quirkless anymore. He was going to be normal. He was going to be just like everyone else. He was going to be a hero. He didn’t bother making breakfast for himself, his stomach was too tangled up in knots and the mere thought of food made him feel like puking. He needed to chill out.
This was what he’d been working toward for the last 6 months, All Might thought he was ready, that he was worthy, so he must be, right? Grateful not guilty, grateful not guilty, grateful not guilty. He’d been chanting that to himself ad nauseam for the past week and he wasn’t sure if it was helping or not. As he walked to the beach he did his best to not think of how there were a thousand other people in this city alone who were more suited to take this power, a thousand people both stronger and more worthy, but All Might chose him. All Might chose him and that was just going to have to be enough. He could doubt himself till kingdom come but he couldn’t doubt All Might, if All Might had faith in him then he could have faith in him too.
***
As Toshinori pulled into the parking lot, he took a moment to collect himself. He’d done his best to be at peace with giving away One For All but he didn’t think he’d ever truly be ready. He knew he would still have a few embers burning in his chest for a while yet, but there was no denying that this was the start of the end for him, and that was a hard pill to swallow. He was in his 50s, it was time to pass the torch, he was already well past the average hero’s age of retirement. He needed to put his faith in the next generation and if Midoriya’s peers were anything like him then maybe that wouldn’t be too difficult. Midoriya was going to be better than he ever was, he had a heart of solid gold and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he couldn’t do if he set his mind to it. With One For All in that boy’s hands, the future would be bright.
With a deep breath and one more reminder of who he was placing his faith in, he got out of the car and went to meet his successor.
Unsurprisingly, the boy was hard at work sorting through a frozen pile of trash when he arrived.
“Good morning, young Midoriya!” he greeted cheerfully.
He immediately scrambled down the side of the trash heap to greet him properly.
“Good m-morning, All Might,” he replied, only slightly out of breath.
“Are you ready, my boy?” he asked with excitement, pushing his selfish hesitance to the side.
Toshinori would have laughed at Midoriya’s face if he didn’t think it would hurt his feelings. He looked very uncomfortable and he didn’t need to reply for him to know that, no, he was not ready in the slightest.
“I’m, I–I…” he trailed off and took a deep breath, “Are you?” he asked in return.
He did let out a small laugh at that, he should have known Midoriya was far too perceptive for Toshinori to get anything past him.
“No, of course I’m not,” he answered honestly, there was no point in lying, “but that doesn’t matter, the time comes whether we’re ready or not.”
Midoriya furrowed his brow and chewed at his lip but nodded in agreement regardless. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it before he said anything several times so Toshinori gave him a moment.
Eventually, he spoke up, “Are–are you sure, about m-me, I mean?” he asked with so much doubt written in the lines of his face that it wore on Toshinori’s heart “I mean, I know you’ve p-put s-so much time and m-money into helping m-me, but I don’t know– I…” he trailed off.
He remembered feeling the same hesitance that Midoriya felt right now. He never thought that he was worthy, sometimes he still questioned it, but he never questioned Nana; he hoped Midoriya felt the same way about him.
“My boy, there is not a doubt in my mind about you,” he remembered what Nana had said when he told her he didn’t think he was worthy, “Someone told me this once: 'There's a difference between being lucky and deserving, one's an accident, the other a reward. Never get the two confused.' Take that to heart, young man. This gift, you earned it with your own valiant efforts.”
The boy’s face still looked uncertain but he nodded firmly. He would see his worth one day, but right now, it was enough to just trust him.
It was time.
***
“Now,” All Might plucked a hair from his head and held it out to him, “EAT THIS!” his voice boomed across the beach.
What…?
Izuku’s not sure what he expected on how this was going to go but this… uh… this definitely wasn’t it…
His hesitance must have shown on his face because All Might quickly started explaining.
“To inherit One For All you have to absorb the previous user’s DNA, that’s how it works,” he said as he awkwardly scratched at the nape of his neck.
Well… he supposed that was one of the less disgusting ways of doing this, but he honestly might have preferred a blood pact; assuming he didn’t have any communicable diseases Izuku wouldn’t mind being blood brothers with All Might. Whatever, it wasn’t his place to question, so, doing his best to keep the disgust off of his face he took the offered strand of hair. All Might shot him an apologetic look and gave him a thumbs up.
Before he gave himself the chance to think about it too hard he balled up the hair and swallowed it like a pill. He knew his face did not remain neutral throughout the process but he did his best to repress a full boddy shudder. That felt… wrong.
All Might fetched his water bottle and offered it to him and he readily accepted it.
“It’s going to take a few hours to, erm, digest, so you can just get back to work for now. I’ll be here like always so just let me know when you feel it. I don’t know how to describe it but you’ll know it once it’s there,” All Might explained after he finished gulping down some water.
He was hoping his anxiety would fade after the point of no return but it didn’t, not in the slightest. He was jittery and restless and sorting through garbage sounded like a great thing to channel that into right now so he followed All Might’s instructions readily. As he sorted through piles and hauled things to the dumpster he couldn’t take his mind off of, well, himself. He had no clue what he was looking for so every breeze that cut through his jacket and every anxious turn of his stomach gave him pause; but All Might was right, he would know it when he felt it.
Just before they were due to break for lunch a surge of power hit him like a roaring tidal wave and he dropped the busted toaster he was about to toss into the broken electronics pile. He almost tripped and fell down the side of the pile he was perched on too, but luckily he caught himself. His sudden pause was enough to alert All Might to what had just happened.
“Do you feel it, my boy?” he asked with a grin.
Izuku was stunned to silence and in all honesty, he felt like he was going to cry. Everything was different now, his life was different now, he was different now, but he pushed all of that down and nodded in response.
“HAHA! Fantastic!” All Might exclaimed with a genuine laugh.
Izuku worried about All Might, this was a big change for him too; he couldn’t imagine going back to being quirkless after so long, but he seemed to be okay right now. He hoped he wasn’t missing anything and that his smile was genuine, but he was never sure about what other people were thinking.
“Why don’t we break for lunch early? It’ll give you some time to get used to it, yeah?” All Might offered when Izuku failed to move or speak in response.
Geeze, he was too in his own head, he probably looked like a crazy person right now.
“Yeah, um, okay, that s-sounds good,” he forced himself to speak.
All Might offered him a hand to help him down. He didn’t need it but he took it anyway. When he was back on solid ground he took his hand back and expected All Might to do the same, but he didn’t. He lifted his hand up and ruffled his unkept hair, messing it up even further. Izuku hoped the chill in the air could excuse his blush.
“I’m proud of you, My boy,” All Might said after he returned his hand to his side.
Izuku definitely couldn’t excuse his blush now, he could feel his ears burning with it. He didn’t know how to respond to that but he knew he’d cry if he tried. So again, he just nodded. He was sure All Might could tell because he didn’t press the matter and he let Izuku leave with his lunch rather than sit with him like they normally did.
His stomach was still in knots and he didn’t think he could eat. Tears slid down his cheeks as he walked away and once he was sure that he was out of sight he stopped trying to hold them back. He didn’t even know why he was crying, he didn’t know if it was from guilt or pride or joy but it didn’t matter, whatever it was was too much. Kami, he needed to pull himself together, he was pathetic. He spent most of his lunch break trying to calm down and make it look like he didn’t just spend 10 to 12 minutes quietly sobbing behind a bush; so he only ate about a fourth of his lunch, but he figured any more would have just made him nauseous anyway.
When the end of his 45-minute break came around he didn’t feel any more prepared than he had when he left, maybe a little less likely to burst into tears, but definitely not ready to face OFA. That didn’t matter though, like All Might said earlier, the time would come whether he was ready or not.
It was time to face the future.
Notes:
Thank you for reading!!!!!! Next update isn't until Friday, I'm not uploading this Wednesday.
Chapter 85: ♫ Boom! Crack! The sound of my bones! ♫
Notes:
I think for now I'm going to be posting 2 chapters a week (Mondays and Thursdays) so expect that going forward :[ hopefully, I can get back to 3 chapters a week soon but idk.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Alright, my boy, go for it!”
“Just go for it? What do you mean?”
“Throw a punch! You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Uh, y-yeah, I mean, I feel something, like a buzzing–”
“Then use it!”
All Might seemed way more confident about this than he felt. Saying what he felt was a buzzing was an understatement. It was a buzzing when he was ignoring it but when he actually focused on it, it felt like a roaring tidal wave, something far more powerful than him, something that was going to sweep him away the moment he touched it. He was afraid to admit that though, he didn’t want to let All Might down, what if he took it back? What if he wasn’t strong enough?
“I d-don’t think I can c-control it,” he forced himself to admit before he lost himself in his own racing thoughts.
“Hmm,” All Might thought for a moment, he didn’t look disappointed though and Izuku was immeasurably relieved by that, “Why don’t you aim for something that won’t break then? Hit the sand, it won’t go flying into something or cut you if you hit too hard,” he decided.
Izuku contemplated the sand at his feet. His knuckles were pretty well conditioned at this point, his skin could take it but he was more worried about his bones. He knew how to throw a punch without hurting himself but he had no idea how to throw a punch with superhuman force behind it. He was nervous but All Might looked calm, he believed in him. He could do this, okay, he could do this.
Lining himself up for the swing he went through the motion a few times slowly as practice. Once he ran through the motions enough to be confident he was going to hit where he was supposed to and how he was supposed to, he took a deep breath, tapped into the torrent of power rushing through his veins, and swung.
There was a deafening boom, a crack, and then unbearable pain. He cried out against his will and his vision went white at the edges but he could see well enough to see red. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He couldn’t move his arm at all and the pain was making it hard to even think. Distantly he noticed All Might scrambling up to his feet; shit, did he knock him over? He couldn’t worry about that right now, his hand was bleeding, fuck it was bleeding a lot. He tried to get a better look at it but the sight made him retch. He could see bone. Oh shit, oh fuck, this was not good, this was not something he could fix on his own. All Might had finally gotten to his side and started wrapping his scarf around Izuku’s hand, the light jostling was enough to make him cry out in pain again but then he started to apply pressure and everything went dark.
***
Toshinori was expecting a powerful hit, he was expecting a shockwave and he’d braced himself accordingly but he did not expect nearly as much power as this. He was completely blown off his feet and several meters back and there was a boom like a bomb went off. As soon as he got his wits about him and got back to his feet he looked over to Midoriya and his heart dropped to his stomach… or at least where his stomach used to be. His arm was limp at his side bent at an awkward angle and his hand was covered in blood. As he sped over he watched him inspect the damage for a second before turning his head to the side and retching.
Oh shit, that can’t be good.
“Midoriya, don’t mess with it! Let me see,” he warned as he knelt down beside him in the sand.
Oh Kami, oh shit. His hand was completely mangled and bleeding profusely, Toshinori could see the white of bone peaking through the blood so he wrapped it up in his scarf as gently as he could to staunch the bleeding. He tried to be delicate but Midoriya still let out an agonizing cry and Toshinori couldn’t blame him.
“I need to apply pressure, my boy, it’s going to hurt, I’m sorry. Three, two, one,” he counted down before pressing the fabric into the wound.
He expected him to cry out again but he didn’t, he just went limp. That was probably for the best, honestly, he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. He arranged him in his arms as best he could and took off with a flying leap to the closest hospital.
Running into the ER as All Might with a bleeding child in his arms thankfully got people moving pretty quickly. Nurses were asking him all kinds of questions, what happened, how long has he been out, did he hit his head, and Toshinori answered them all as succinctly as he could; quirk accident, no more than two minutes, no he passed out from the pain. He watched as they whisked him away for x-rays or something and he wasn’t allowed to follow, even as All Might. He wanted to push it, he didn’t want to let the boy out of his sight but that was irrational so he forced the feeling down; there was nothing more he could do to help.
He was very thankful both to have gotten a private waiting room and that he hadn’t done any hero work today because he wouldn’t have been able to maintain this form if he’d been running around and he definitely couldn’t withstand people bombarding him right now. He sat there tapping his foot for an agonizing half hour or so until a nurse poked her head in.
“You’re here for Midoriya Izuku?” she asked timidly.
“Yes,” he confirmed curtly.
“Do you have contact information for his parents?”
Toshinori felt like an idiot. No, he didn’t have their contact information, he didn’t even know their names nor where they were employed. He had no way of reaching them. After having worked with the boy for six months now it seemed a bit irresponsible in hindsight.
“No, I don’t,” he admitted.
“Alright, well, um, he’s going to need surgery,” she said with remorse, “We need someone to sign off on it since he’s a minor.”
Surgery? Kami, what had he done? This was all his fault.
“Can I sign for it? I’m more than willing to take any potential legal repercussions completely,” he offered readily, maybe a little too readily; All Might sitting in the waiting room for some random kid was already strange and Toshinori could only hope that the staff here valued confidentiality more than leaking gossip to the press.
“Um… I’ll need to speak with my manager about that, I’ll be back in a moment,” she replied as she ducked out of the room.
Toshinori had to force himself to still the tapping of his foot as he waited because it was starting to shake the walls. Surgery? He was going to need surgery? Of course, he was going to need surgery, his entire arm was mangled and his knuckles were so torn to shreds that he could see glimpses of shattered bones. That hit was powerful, far too powerful. How were they supposed to train it if it broke him every time he tried to use it? Had he given the boy this power too soon? Was he not ready? He couldn’t imagine what more they could have done though, he was as strong as he could reasonably be given his size; any more muscle mass on him would start to impede his range of motion too much. Had One For All gotten too powerful to wield at all? What the hell was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to help?
His thoughts were cut off as the nurse from before entered the room with a clipboard and pen.
“Good news, we have a form just for this exact scenario! It’s not used often but it’s happened enough times for a form to exist. You’ll just need to sign off at the bottom there,” she said as she handed over the clipboard.
Toshinori barely skimmed it before signing. His lawyers could deal with whatever, if any, fallout came of this.
“How is he? Can you tell me what– what the damage was? Is there going to be any lasting issues?” he asked as he handed the clipboard back.
“Yes, I can tell you now. Every bone in his arm was broken to some degree. The humerus, radius, and ulna all have fractures but those are easily treatable; the issue comes with his hand. There’s a lot of small bones in there and we need to set them all properly before they can heal so that’s what the surgery is for. He’s unlikely to lose any mobility but he will probably have aches and pains to some degree especially when it rains and there will be scarring,” she explained.
Toshinori didn’t know whether he should be relieved that it wasn’t worse or horrified that he’d let the boy scar himself for life. He didn’t know what to say so he just nodded. The nurse asked a few questions about whether he’d be waiting here or not and told him how long to expect, he took it all in numbly and sat back down in the too-small chair he’d been waiting in.
***
Izuku came to in a hospital with his arm still in agony, he could barely move and a nurse put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from sitting up. He distantly noticed he had an IV in his arm but he didn’t even have the time to panic about the consequences of that before his vision went dark again.
When Izuku woke up for the second time it was to the steady beeping of a heart monitor and far less pain than before. He felt a bit woozy as he slowly blinked his eyes open and looked around the room. All Might was sitting in a chair to his right in his small form with his head slumped forward. Was he asleep? Izuku searched around for a clock and caught a glimpse out the window; it was dark out.
OH SHIT IT WAS DARK OUT!
Izuku frantically continued his search and found a clock on the wall above the door that read 12:08 am. Oh shit, oh no, oh fuck, Eraser was going to kill them, he’s probably losing his mind looking for them right now. The heart rate monitor picked up its pace rapidly with his panic and that was enough to rouse All Might.
“Midoriya! You’re awake!” he said excitedly before realizing how much he was panicking, “What’s the matter? Everything’s fine, my boy,” he tried to reassure as he stood and walked over to his bedside.
“My bag, is my bag here?” he asked immediately.
“Yes, I went back and grabbed it!” All Might said with a smile as he reached next to the chair he’d been sitting in and pulled out his bag.
Izuku took it gratefully and immediately started rifling through it, opening the secret compartment he sewed into the bottom of the main pouch, and pulled out his Ivy phone.
6 unread messages and 13 missed calls.
Eraserhead:
You’re late.
Where are you?
Did you forget we were meeting tonight?
If u got yourself killed im going to kill u
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Ivy:
Sorry!!! I’m fine!
Eraserhead:
What the hell happened?
Ivy:
Long story, might b out for a while
Eraserhead:
R u okay?
Ivy:
Yes im fine
Eraserhead:
Ur definition of fine or actually fine?
Well, that was a question, one that he did not have the answer to. Time would tell how fucked he is but there was no need to worry Eraser about it.
Ivy:
Family emergency. I’m fine.
If that excuse worked last time, it could work this time… hopefully. He didn’t like lying to Eraser. Omitting truths was one thing but lying felt like a step too far and it didn’t sit well with him.
Tsukauchi:
Ivy where are you?
Eraser’s gonna lose it.
Ivy:
Im fine. Family emergency, I already talked 2 him.
Izuku ignored the response as All Might cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure if he did that to get his attention or just to clear his throat but Izuku looked up regardless just in case.
“Sorry,” he squeaked out when he saw All Might looking at him.
“No, it’s no problem, was it your parents?” All Might asked sounding a bit cautious.
“Oh, um, no. It’s um, a family friend who checks in on me when my parents are out of town,” he fed him the same lie he used to feed the Shinsos; staying as close to the truth as he could and sticking to old stories was for the best.
“Ah, I’m sure they were worried about you,” All Might said sounding a little bit sad, “When will they be here?” he asked more cheerfully.
“Oh, um, he’s at work now, he can’t make it here tonight…”
It wasn’t technically a lie. Kami, didn’t he learn his lesson about letting people close to him with the Shinsos? He hated this, he hated lying to people he cared about. He hated how good he was at it too.
“He can probably swing by in the morning, y-you don’t have to stay All–”
“Call me Yagi like this, my boy,” he interrupted as he shot a cautious glance toward the door.
“Oh, sorry, uh, you don’t have to s-stay Yagi-san,” he finished the thought, the name rolling off his tongue awkwardly.
“It’s no trouble. I didn’t mean to doze off, I suppose I should move to the couch,” he said with a laugh and a reassuring smile, “We should call the nurse in first, to let them know you woke up,” he added as he reached over and pressed the call light.
No! That’s the opposite of what he wanted, he wanted All Might to leave and then he wanted to book it out the window or something. Actually, that was an awful plan; he had a cast going up to his shoulder and was still a bit high on painkillers. Did they get All Might’s contact info? He’d been here a while, it would make sense if they did. There’s no way he’d be able to provide an explanation as to why he booked it from the hospital if they called All Might asking where the hell he went. Kami, he was so fucked.
As he was trying to kick his foggy mind into motion and make an escape plan he heard a knock at the door and a man in his mid to late thirties walked in, that was probably the nurse.
“Good evening, Mr. Midoriya. It’s good to see you up, how are you feeling?” he asked gently.
This was… weird. Nurses were never this nice to him.
“Uh, yeah, I feel f-fine, thank you,” he replied succinctly with a small bow.
“That’s good, the surgery was a complete success–”
“The what?!” Izuku interrupted before he remembered himself, “Sorry, I’m s-sorry,” he apologized immediately and bowed his head.
“No, my apologies, I wasn’t aware that you were unaware. Yes, they had to do surgery to set the bones in your hand but it went off without a hitch! Everything is in place and you have already undergone a round of healing, but Mr. Yagi here was saying that All Might had another healer that he was going to take you to once you woke up,” he explained with a nod toward All Might.
Oh, they knew he was with All Might, that's why they were being nice.
“Yes, that’s the plan. Though, if your pain is under control then it would be better to wait until morning,” All Might confirmed and turned to Izuku with a questioning look on his face.
“Oh, I’m– yeah, that’s fine,” he replied.
That was not fine. Izuku couldn’t pay for publicly available healthcare much less whatever fancy doctor All Might wanted to take him to. He was hoping All Might would foot the bill on this because if he didn’t then Izuku was really fucked.
“Alright, we’d like to keep him for observation overnight and we can go over the discharge papers in the morning,” he said as he checked over some of the machines Izuku was attached to and scribbled down some notes before leaving.
The room fell quiet after that. All Might sat in his chair seemingly lost in thought for a moment before getting up and moving over toward the couch by the window. Izuku watched him as he poked around in a few cabinets until he found some spare blankets and a pillow and brought them over to the couch. He set down the pillow and unfolded the blanket before turning back to him. Izuku glanced away, feeling awkward for having been caught staring.
***
Toshinori studied the boy for a few seconds after he sat down on the couch. He wouldn’t say he was the poster child for functional families, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for parents to be so absent that their kid could be in the ER all day without them even noticing. He supposed that’s what the family friend was checking in for but what good did that do if they couldn’t even be here for him?
“My boy, where are your parents?”
Midoriya looked like a deer caught in headlights for a split second before schooling his expression and responding, “Oh, um they– my dad works in A-America and my mom travels for work. So, uh they’re out of town a l-lot but they have a family friend check in on me,” he explained like that made it okay.
Wait, that didn’t make sense, if they were always working then why was the family still so poor? As far as he knew Midoriya had no siblings in a dual-income household, well, a split household. He wanted to push but he already seemed quite uncomfortable with the line of questioning. Toshinori checked in with him multiple times a week and, apparently, so did someone else so it’s not like the boy was completely alone, plus he was 15, he wasn’t some helpless child.
“Did, uh, did they call my parents?” he asked, interrupting Toshinori’s thoughts.
“No, the number on file was disconnected so I signed some paperwork to be able to ok the surgery, I hope that’s alright,”
“Oh, yeah that’s fine I just…” he trailed of and glanced away, chewing on his lip.
“You just what?” Toshinori prompted after a moment of silence.
“I, um, I’m worried that they’ll be upset that I got hurt and, uh, not let me train with you anymore,” Midoriya said sheepishly.
Oh.
That would… that would not be good. Shit.
“My mom won’t be back for a f-few days I don’t think we should t-tell her. She won’t understand how important–I didn’t tell her about–she–it– you said it was a secret so I– andidon’twannthertogetmadatyouandidon’twantohavetotellheraboutallthisitsbetterisshedoesn’tknow,right?yousaidityourselfthat–”
“Young Midoriya! It’s going to be fine, calm down!”
The boy’s heart rate monitor was picking up speed along with his ramblings.
“We’ll figure this out… perhaps you’re right…” he trailed off as he lost himself in thought again.
***
Izuku felt like the scum of the earth. He was manipulating All Might into keeping his mouth shut; this was blackmail. Well, it was blackmail if All Might still wanted him to have One For All after how royally he fucked up. Kami, he was blackmailing All Might and playing the victim to boot.
If there was a hell, he just bought himself a one-way ticket.
Notes:
Izu's hand scars are a canon event, they cannot be avoided. Sorry, I don't make the rules... except that I totally 100% do but shut up.
Thank you for reading!!!
Chapter 86: HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON
Notes:
CWs
-implied mentions of suicide/ideation
-implied mentions of sex work
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For the first time since he’d nearly gotten his brains blown out, Shota had arrived at their meeting location before Ivy. At first, he was happy about that, he thought that perhaps they were finally calming down about the whole ordeal; it hadn’t escaped his notice that the kid didn’t let him out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time ever since the incident. But, as the minutes ticked by he was becoming increasingly concerned. Ivy was never late, well, that’s not true, they had been late once but that was because they had run into an incident on their way to meet him.
He sat there picking at his dinner for 5 minutes before he texted them.
Eraserhead: (10:35 pm)
You’re late
The last time this happened, they had responded pretty quickly explaining the situation. So, when another 7 minutes passed by with no response he texted again.
Eraserhead: (10:42 pm)
Where are you?
At this point, he had put the lid back on his bento, not even trying to pretend he was still eating. They didn’t usually meet on Sundays, not since Ivy’s day job or whatever the hell they were doing picked up, but they had this Sunday planned for a while now so that they could throw off anyone who had been watching their patrol schedules too closely. He was only here because of Ivy’s belligerent insistence, it didn’t seem likely that they would have forgotten, but that was his last remaining hope that something hadn’t gone horribly wrong. As nonchalant and seemingly irresponsible as they were, Shota knew them well enough to know that they were too fastidious to forget things like this.
Eraserhead: (10:45 pm)
Did you forget we were meeting tonight?
He texted for a third time after they had officially been late for 15 minutes. He knew in his gut that he wasn’t going to get a response but he sat there for another 5 minutes anxiously hoping. Maybe they fell asleep after work? That was possible; they could be perfectly fine. He almost laughed at the thought, this was Ivy, of course, they weren’t perfectly fine. They got into far too much trouble to be perfectly fine.
Letting himself think that the falling asleep after work theory was plausible he called them a few times hoping that a continuous buzzing would be enough to wake them up… assuming they were just sleeping… and that their phone was nearby… and not on silent. Unsurprisingly, they did not pick up.
He sent off one more text before jumping off the rooftop and setting out to find the kid himself.
Eraserhead: (10:58 pm)
If u got urself killed im going to kill u
His first instinct was to ask around, that’s what you did when someone went missing after all, but he quickly discarded that idea. If Ivy was really missing he shouldn’t be alerting the city about it, he might as well just put out a memo saying ‘Half the district’s defenses are down, go buck wild criminals!’ That’s exactly what they were trying to avoid with these intermittent Sunday patrols anyway, so, despite his better judgment, he headed to the only place he’d ever seen Ivy outside of patrol.
The warehouse was just as dilapidated as he remembered, the only difference he could see was that there was a stack of three bricks beside the dumpster where they had found that cat. His heart lurched at the sight. He desperately hoped that the kid hadn’t lied to him and he wasn’t about to walk into that staircase and find a dingy little camp. As he stepped through the hole in the wall that he had entered last time he noticed the makeshift palette turned target was no longer there. That was a good sign for Ivy’s current living conditions but a bad sign for actually finding them. Pressing ahead he approached the door to the staircase. There was still a bit of cloth hanging behind the makeshift cat door cut out of the bottom so he knocked.
No response.
He knocked again.
Nothing.
Tentatively, he opened the door; it was just as dark as he’d remembered, darker actually because of the overcast blocking a good amount of the moonlight.
“Ivy?” he called down just in case they’d heard the knocks and assumed it was the building settling.
His call was met with silence so he pulled his flashlight out from his pocket. He hesitated for a moment, his mind flashing back to what he had almost walked into the last time he had been here. He didn’t want to see that; the mere thought of it had kept him up at night more than he’d ever admit to. He didn’t smell anything that would indicate that something like that had happened, so, taking a deep breath he clicked on the flashlight.
It didn’t illuminate very far, he could see the steps in front of him and he could faintly tell where they ended but he couldn’t see anything with any amount of detail. He started taking the steps down, testing each one before he put his full weight on it but they held steady. As he got closer to the middle landing he could see that it was empty save for something on the ground in the far corner. He went over to inspect it and he felt his heart twist again painfully. It was a white-blonde cat plush with gold eyes. Shota never got a good look at the actual cat but he knew its fur was light and fluffy, just like this plush.
With a sigh he set the thing back down; it wasn’t his to mess with.
Looking back up he noticed a pattern on the walls, painted strands of Ivy bordered the whole landing and there were strips of tape half hanging off the walls like something had once been hanging there. The painted leaves looked amateurish in some places but pretty well executed in others, like the painter had learned what they were doing halfway through the process. He wished he had Ivy’s flashlight right now so he could get a proper look at the whole mural, that thing was blindingly bright, which, Shota supposed would have been pretty helpful if they had lived in a place like this. Kami, how long had they lived here? This mural would have taken ages to complete.
Shaking the question from his mind he continued down the second set of stairs. The bottom landing was even more barren than the first, there was nothing here except random detritus and small puddles of water. Even so, he checked around the corner to the very back of the stairs, no matter how unlikely it was he knew Ivy was small enough to fit down there. Both thankfully and unthankfully, he found nothing.
Opening the door at the bottom of the staircase took some effort but he eventually got it to creak open. The smell that met his nostrils had him sincerely hoping to not find Ivy here. The lower level had stagnant water covering most of the floor that he could see and it smelled like a bog because of that. He wrapped his capture scarf around his nose and mouth because he didn’t trust any of the mold and algae to not be toxic. He searched the place thoroughly but there were no signs that anyone had been here in quite some time. Equally relieved and disappointed he made his way back outside.
Shota had no clue where to go from here. He called Ivy a few more times just to do something with his restless hands but they didn’t pick up. What was he supposed to do now? Just wander around aimlessly and hope for the best? With a resigned sigh he headed back to their meeting location on the off chance that Ivy was actually just late and maybe lost their phone or something.
As expected the rooftop was as barren as he had left it. Goddamnit.
Taking his phone out of his pocket, he called the detective.
“Eraser?” he picked up on the first ring sounding concerned because Shota rarely called him if something hadn’t gone wrong.
“I need you to check local reports in the last 24 hours for anyone matching Ivy’s description,” he ordered without preamble.
Shota could hear him clicking away at a keyboard before he responded.
“Matching Ivy’s description? What do you mean matching Ivy’s description? What description, short? What’s going on?”
“Approximately 5’6”, green(?) eyes, dark hair…” he trailed off, they really didn’t have much to go on.
“What kind of report? Can you just tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know, they didn’t show up at our rendezvous and they aren’t answering their phone,” he admitted, “Look for assault and battery reports, or, um, I don’t know, just anything, have the police been called anywhere in Uptown?” he asked, doing his best to not sound like he was pleading.
He heard Tsukauchi clicking at the keyboard again and waited as patiently as he could.
“A dozen or so calls in the last 24 hours, none of them report anyone matching Ivy’s description and none of them would explain a missing person. It’s mostly muggings and stuff like that, nothing overly violent,” he reported after a few minutes of tense silence.
***
Naomasa heard a colorful string of curses from the other end of the line in response to his report. Aizawa sounded more strung out than he’d ever heard him and he’d reported some pretty grizzly shit before.
“When and where did you last see them? Are there any locals who might know more about them? Have you asked around?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t asked around, all hell would break loose if word got out that Ivy was missing,” Aizawa snapped back at him.
“Do they have usual haunts? Where have you checked so far?”
The line was quiet for a beat after that but eventually Aizawa responded.
“I, um, I checked their former residence,” he said hesitantly, “they weren’t there and there’s no sign that anyone has been there for quite some time. I have no other leads as to where they could be.”
Former residence? Why did Ivy tell him where they lived, that seemed wildly out of character, but then again, he didn’t know Ivy like Eraser did.
“What do you want to do? Do you need feet on the ground? I could–”
“No,” Aizawa cut him off before he could even offer to help, “No offense, but you look like a cop, the best-case scenario is you get kicked out of town, you shouldn’t come around here especially not without backup.”
Naomasa did his best to focus on the fact that Aizawa cared about his well-being and not on the fact that he thought he would get his ass beat if he showed his face in those streets.
“Alright… um… there’s no locals you trust enough to keep their mouth shut? I know most of them wouldn’t tell me shit about Ivy when I went asking, there's got to be a few people, right?”
“Yeah, there… maybe… I have someone in mind, I’ll let you know if I can find them and if they have any information,” Aizawa responded after a moment of contemplation.
Naomasa didn’t have a chance to reply before the line went dead. Alright, worried Aizawa was much more of an asshole than regular Aizawa. He sat there at his desk tapping his fingers anxiously before deciding that he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Grabbing his keys and his coat he set out toward Uptown, he could drive around and keep an eye out at the very least.
***
It only took Shota 20 minutes to find Iwai, she was standing out on one of her usual corners with a couple other women.
“Iwai, a word,” he asked as he approached the group.
He got several raised eyebrows in response to that but he ignored them readily as he guided her to a nearby alley out of earshot from the rest of them.
“I must say, Eraser, I never took you for the type,” she said flirtatiously as he checked the surrounding area to make sure they were alone.
“No, definitely not the type,” he corrected as she walked closer to him.
“Hmm, what a shame,” she pouted but backed off all the same, “What you need then?”
“Subtlety, for one. I have questions but I need you to keep this to yourself, got it?”
“I can be subtle, depends on what it’s about though,” she replied and after a moment she added, “Where’s Ivy? Thought you two were joined at the hip.”
“That’s what it’s about, I don’t know where they are,” he admitted after checking again to make sure no one was hiding within earshot, “I was hoping you might have seen them or might be able to point me in the right direction.”
Iwai’s eyebrows shot up in shock.
“What, you sayin’ they’re missing?” she asked under her breath.
Well, at least she seemed equally motivated to keep this a secret.
***
“I don’t know, we were scheduled to meet tonight but they never showed up, when’s the last time you saw them?” Eraser asked.
“Last time I saw them was last time I saw you, like I said, thought you two were joined at the hip… Do you think they’re in trouble?” she asked tentatively.
She watched Eraser’s face fall in response. It was subtle but given that his usual range of emotion was absolutely fuck all he may as well have been sobbing.
“I don’t know, I don’t know anything,” he huffed out as he pulled a pad of paper from his pocket, he reached in another pocket but pulled his hand back with nothing and started cursing under his breath.
“What, what’s goin’ on?” she asked, actually starting to get a bit frightened.
“Nothing, kid keeps stealing my goddamn pens,” he responded softly.
Iwai couldn’t help but laugh at that. Ivy was a little shit, so that didn’t surprise her.
“You have your phone on you?” Eraser asked after returning the pad of paper to his pocket.
“Yeah,” she replied, still chuckling to herself as she dug around her purse and handed it over without hesitation.
“I’m giving you my number, please do not share it, and let me know if you hear anything from them,” he said as he tapped at the screen of her phone.
“Hmm, you sure you’re not coming on to me?” she asked trying to lighten the mood.
He fixed his usual dead-eyed stare on her as he returned her phone
“Positive,” he stated bluntly.
“Oh, you really know how to charm a gal, Eraserhead,” she shot back in mock offense, “Ivy’s gonna be alright, they’re tough, you know that,” she added sincerely.
He didn’t look so convinced by that, but she had seen her fair share of the horrible things that happened in this city and she had seen how the frequency of that type of thing had plummeted ever since Ivy, and by extension, Eraserhead had come to town. She knew they were much stronger together but she also knew that Ivy on their own was nothing to sneeze at and they were far too stubborn to go down without a fight.
“Quit mopin’ and have some goddamn faith in them,” she chastised and hit Eraser across the shoulder with her bag none too gently
He made a face at her but recovered quickly, sending her a far more determined nod before turning on his heel and scaling the alley wall in a matter of seconds. She hoped for both of their sakes that Ivy was okay.
***
Shota was getting a whole lot of nowhere as he threw himself around the city. He really couldn’t think of a single plausible reason for Ivy to go MIA that didn’t involve them being dead or gravely injured. Standing on the tallest roof in the city looking out around himself he was about to bite the bullet and deal with the endless teasing he would get if he called in for another favor from Nem and Zashi when, blessedly, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He almost fumbled it over the side of the roof because he went to check it too fast.
Ivy:
Sorry!!! I’m fine!
He let out the biggest sigh of relief that he could and sat down heavily on the roof with his back against the ledge before responding.
Eraserhead:
What the hell happened?
They might still be in trouble, they would be the type of person to say ‘sorry’ with 3 exclamation points and insist they’re fine before adding that they were also being held hostage or some shit like that.
Ivy:
Long story, might b out for a while
Great, that explained nothing, very helpful Ivy.
Eraserhead:
R u okay?
Ivy:
Yes im fine
Eraserhead:
Ur definition of fine or actually fine?
He had to wait a little bit longer for the next response which didn’t help his only partially relieved anxiety.
Ivy:
Family emergency. I’m fine.
Oh, fat chance. That’s the excuse they used last time they took a random six day sabbatical and came back hiding an injury with a concerning degree of skill. He knew he wasn’t going to get answers if he asked, so he didn’t bother.
Eraserhead:
Let me know if you need anything. I won’t ask questions.
He waited for a response for a few minutes but never got one so he figured he should probably inform Tsukauchi.
Aizawa:
Ivy got back to me. They’re allegedly fine.
He should go home. It was enough to throw off anyone’s perception of their patrol schedule for him to have been seen running around and he was tired. An hour and a half of panicked cardio will do that, he supposed. He needed tea and sleep… and maybe a cat or two.
***
Naomasa felt the tension in his shoulders drop when he saw his phone screen light up with a notification from Ivy. He’ll admit he had been worried, but in his defense, hearing a notoriously calm person like Eraser sounding panicked would be enough to heighten anyone’s anxiety. He pulled over in a secluded parking lot by the beach to respond.
Tsukauchi: (11:14 pm)
Ivy where are you?
Tsukauchi: (11:16 pm)
Eraser’s gonna lose it.
Ivy: (12:17 am)
Im fine. Family emergency, I already talked 2 him.
Tsukauchi: (12:18 am)
Alright, good to know. Hope everything is resolved soon.
Jesus Christ, that kid was going to age both of them. He was about to head back to the precinct when he got another text.
Aizawa: (12:20 am)
Ivy got back to me. They’re allegedly fine.
Allegedly fine?
Tsukauchi: (12:20 am)
Yeah I heard, they texted me back too
Why do you say allegedly fine?
Aizawa: (12:21 am)
A hunch
They’re never fine
That was… troubling. He wanted to ask what he meant by that but that didn’t really seem like his business nor was it the type of conversation he felt like having over text, plus he’d already spent over an hour fucking around trying to find Ivy. He had been checking his email periodically and responding when necessary, but he was just hoping no one was going to drill him on what the hell he was doing when he got back, so now wasn’t the time to push his luck.
Tsukauchi: (12:22 am)
Right… lmk if you find anything out.
That kid was going to give him grey hairs.
Notes:
I'm continuing to struggle, I don't even have the next chapter written yet 😭
I *should* have it done by Thursday, but idk man. I'm going through it rn.Thanks for reading!
Chapter 87: If I Had a Nickel...
Notes:
I don't know what the point of uploading 2 chapters a week rather than 1 is if I write the same amount of words but whatever, here you go.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku didn’t sleep, he refused to sleep. All Might was knocked out on the far too small couch by the window and Izuku was panicking. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to shake All Might off his back on this one without getting a third burner; he’d already asked for his parents’ phone numbers and he had to lie and say his phone had just died and he didn’t remember his mom’s ‘new’ number. Kami, he was in some deep shit, and that wasn’t even taking into account how poorly he handled One For All. He should have known better than to expect this would go smoothly.
After roughly 5 hours of overthinking and counting ceiling tiles later, he felt like he had a few ideas on where things might have gone wrong. His notes were just as frazzled as his thoughts since he had to do them with his left hand but they were legible so it was good enough for now. He obviously couldn’t use that much power at once, at least not yet, he was hoping that would be something he could work on. He needed to figure out how to harness the barest fraction of the power first, but the issue with that was the only way he could think to do that was trial and error, and if error ended up with him in the ER being rushed to emergency surgery then… that wasn’t exactly viable long term. All Might should have picked someone with a healing quirk, or a durability quirk, not him; he was fucking it up royally and currently had no prospects for changing that.
GAH!
That wasn’t helpful. All Might didn’t pick someone else, he picked Izuku, whether or not he was regretting that now didn’t help him solve the problem. He needed to think about this logically, not emotionally.
There was a brief moment before he unleashed the power where he was just holding it, and that didn’t hurt him, or at least he didn’t think it did. That would be a good thing to try first; just sitting with the power activated but not releasing it, he might be able to sort through it and figure out how to use small bits of it if he did that. That seemed to be how All Might interacted with the power, at least before the incident five years back. From what Izuku had observed All Might always had the power activated, he lifted cars without any apparent change or pause to ‘power up’, but now he doesn’t seem to be able to handle the constant strain so he has to let One For All lie dormant most of the time, like Izuku was right now.
After counting the ceiling tiles for possibly over the 100th time he heard All Might start to stir to his left. Izuku quickly shut his notebook, shoved everything back in his bag, and pretended to sleep, he didn’t want to hear a lecture about proper rest and bla bla bla. He knew. Sometimes sleep was a luxury he couldn’t afford and most people didn’t seem to understand that. So, like with most things in his life, lying was just easier.
He heard All Might stretch and pop more joints than Izuku even knew existed before he got up and shuffled to the bathroom. He laid there with his eyes closed and waited, it felt nice to rest his eyes. He was tired, but he knew better than to let himself fall asleep; his nightmares had been picking up ever since he’d been properly resting, or at least as close to properly resting as he could manage and he didn’t feel like explaining that to All Might.
He felt a bit bad about it but if he kept pretending to sleep he was going to actually sleep so when All Might opened the door he started stirring as if he had woken him up.
“Ah, did I wake you?” All Might asked apologetically.
“Mm, ‘s okay,” he slurred out hoping that it sounded like he’d just woken up
“I was going to have to wake you up soon anyway but you could have gotten a few more minutes,” he said with a sad smile, “I’m going to have to leave and come back for appearance's sake,” he said gesturing to his lithe form, “then we’ll be on our way.”
“Um, on our way to w-where?” he asked
“Oh, you’ll be excited about this, we’re going to UA!” he replied with a huge grin.
Oh shit. Was he taking him to Recovery Girl? Goddamnit. If he had a nickel for every time this happened… well… he’d have two nickels. He hoped to god that he didn’t run into Eraser.
All Might must have taken the blank face of dread he was wearing as confusion because he quickly explained.
“The healer I’m taking you to is none other than Recovery Girl! You’ll be right as rain within the hour! Well, you’ll probably be sleeping within the hour, but you’ll be sleeping fully healed!” he exclaimed.
Izuku let some of his anxiety show on his face in the form of surprise. She wouldn’t recognize him, right? He’d acted like a nervous wreck the last time he saw her and he didn’t know if he had the acting skill to not act like a nervous wreck again. He should keep his hair down, that would help, since his roots were so dark she probably thought he had black hair. Hair down, hood down, act… normal? Excited? Kami, this wasn’t going to be fun.
“–doriya, earth to Midoriya,” All Might interrupted his panicked planning.
“S-sorry!” Izuku snapped his attention back to All Might.
“That’s alright, you seem nervous. I thought you’d be excited,” All Might said sounding a bit sad.
“I am, I’m b-both, I g-guess,” he answered honestly.
He was very excited to be able to see UA, he wasn’t allowed to go on the school trip to tour it since it would be “a waste of time and space” for him to go. Now he was going to get a one-on-one limited tour led by All Might himself! Take that Kacchan. If only he could gloat about this without getting his teeth knocked in.
Izuku only half paid attention to the proceeding discharge process as he continued to make a plan about how he should approach Recovery Girl; as All Might helped him up into the passenger seat of his truck he decided childlike wonder was the way to go. It would downplay his age and hopefully distance himself from her perception of Ivy being late teens or early twenties like Eraser seemed to have assumed, plus, it wouldn’t really be disingenuous, he was actually excited to see everything. The real struggle was going to be letting himself be excited without forcing himself to shut up and put a cork in it.
***
When they got to UA All Might pulled up to an intercom briefly before a huge gate opened up in front of them which they drove through. It seemed to be an underground parking garage, he didn’t even know this existed. Maybe it was for staff? His suspicions were confirmed as they were walking in when he spotted a car that he was almost certain was Eraser’s.
Shit.
There goes the weak hope he had that Eraser didn’t come to work today.
“Come on, my boy, calm down!” All Might instructed as he gently laid his hand on Izuku’s uninjured shoulder, “This is exciting! There’s no need to panic!”
Ha! No need to panic? There’s always a need to panic if you’re creative enough. Izuku thought– well, maybe he more than thought that given that All Might was now laughing heartily, his voice booming off the enclosed garage.
“I assure you there’s no need to panic, nowhere is safer than UA. You’d have to get very creative to find any real trouble here,” All Might tried to soothe.
He really didn’t have to be that creative but All Might didn’t need to know that so he kept his lips sealed and vowed to not mumble out any secrets for the duration of this trip. He chewed on his lip as they got into an elevator and All Might chattered on about how long it had been since he was last here.
“We’re a bit early, I told Recovery Girl to expect us at 7, why don’t I show you around a bit?” All Might offered as they came to the door of the nurse’s office.
Izuku wanted to say yes as much as he wanted to say no. He wanted to see all that he could but at the same time, he wanted to be seen as little as possible. They had 15 minutes until 7 and knowing Eraser he was probably sitting in a corner sleeping until the last possible second. What could go wrong in 15 minutes, right?
“N-not too far. I-I don’t want to b-be late,” Izuku agreed against his better judgment.
“Too bad all the fun stuff is out there,” All Might said gesturing to a window that had a great view of the campus, “Maybe we can get a proper tour in afterward.”
Izuku was too busy looking out the window with wide eyes to let All Might guide him further down the hall; he could see several fake cityscapes and an entire forest from here. In the distance, he could see the faint sheen of a domed roof that he was pretty sure was the USJ, a newer structure designed by the rescue hero Thirteen themself! He remembered reading about it a few years ago and it sounded amazing.
“See that building over there by the track that leads into the forest?” All Might asked after letting him gawk for a while.
“The one with the blue around the roof?”
“Yeah that one,” All Might confirmed with a smile, “I got stuck in the rafters there my first year here,” he added with a fond smile.
Izuku had to stop the laugh that bubbled in his chest at that.
“I had just gotten One For All not too long before I started UA and I didn’t know I could jump that high,” he said with a chuckle, “I was up there for 20 minutes before I got myself down. My teacher shouted at me that ‘if I could get up there then I could get down’ but I was too scared to jump.”
Izuku couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips, he couldn’t imagine All Might being afraid of anything much less jumping down from the ceiling, Izuku had seen him jump down from a skyscraper more times than he could count.
“Come on, let's go see something in person, you can see all of this from a satellite,” All Might said as he led the two of them down the hall.
He pointed out a few things as they walked, like the one water fountain that apparently exploded during his third year, and the hallway he used to hide in when he was trying to actually study which was “rare but happened occasionally.” Izuku was so engrossed with everything All Might had to say that he didn’t get the chance to read the sign on the massive door in front of them.
“And these are the heroics classrooms! No doubt where you’ll be spending a lot of your time in just a few months,” he proclaimed as he went to open the door.
“W-wait, we shouldn’t disturb anyone!” he interrupted.
“Classes don’t start for another hour, I doubt anyone’s here yet,” All Might dismissed as he swung the door open.
Izuku caught the barest glimpse of messy black hair peeking out of a gaudy yellow mass of fabric in the corner before he hid himself out of view.
“Ah! Aizawa, my apologies for interrupting your– ah– nap. I was just–” he cut himself off with an aborted laugh as he glanced over to Izuku; he must have been making a face, “I must have the wrong room,” he dismissed with a smile.
He heard Eraser respond with a grunt before All Might closed the door and turned back to Izuku.
“I guess you were right, my boy,” he said with a chuckle as he directed them back down the hall in the direction they came from, “That was one of the heroics teachers, he’s… well… he’s effective but difficult to talk to.”
That was a nice way of saying he was a sardonic asshole 80% of the time.
“I’m pretty sure he does night patrols so that’s probably why he was sleeping. Maybe we can properly meet him later,” he mused.
Izuku hoped not.
“Hmm maybe…” he responded letting dread color his tone.
“You’ll have to meet him eventually, but he’s probably not the best first impression of the school. He’s a fine hero, not so much a conversationalist.”
How did All Might know Eraser? Had they worked together before? Izuku couldn’t imagine that going well; All Might’s hero persona was not the type of person he could imagine Eraser getting along with. He might like Yagi but he definitely wouldn’t like All Might.
“Alright, here we are, My boy. Just on time,” he said as he gave a warning knock on the nurse’s office door before opening it.
“Shuzenji! It’s nice to see you!” All Might greeted.
Recovery Girl was sitting at the computer typing away, but she abandoned her task quickly.
“Yagi, I see you’ve moved on to breaking the next generation’s bones,” she shot back without missing a beat.
All Might's face soured a bit at that as Recovery Girl made her way over and shut the door behind them.
“Oh, don’t get your spandex in a twist I’m only joking; I’m sure your boy is capable of breaking his bones all by himself,” she said as she looked over to Izuku.
He did nothing to stop the blush spreading across his face as he smiled awkwardly and nodded.
“Hah, I knew you’d find a troublemaker, of course you did. I’ve got job security for another three years,” she quipped as she went about setting up a bed, “Oh where are my manners, I’m Recovery Girl, you can call me that or Shuzenji, whichever you prefer.”
Well, this was promising, so far she didn’t seem to recognize him.
“Midoriya Izuku,” he introduced himself with a small bow.
“Manners and a troublemaker? We’re doomed,” she grinned back at him, “Come take a seat.”
He followed obediently and sat down on the cot she had just finished setting up for him.
“Alright sonny, Yagi had the hospital forward your x-rays to me, you did quite a number on yourself.”
“Hah… um, yeah…” he trailed off awkwardly, unsure how to respond, both because he didn’t know how much she knew and because, well, how was he supposed to respond to that?
“I’m going to do another x-ray just to make sure I’m not trying to heal you more than you can handle. They told me you should be good to finish up in one session but I’d rather be sure than have you asleep in here for the rest of the week.”
“Has that happened before? I assumed if you t-tried to heal someone more than they could handle they’d just die from the shock, like tripping a fuse, I mean if you don’t have the energy to pull from then, well, you d-don’t have the energy to pull from. Does it work retroactively like that?” he asked in one rushed breath.
Half of him couldn’t help to ask and half of him had to force the words out. He’d spent a good deal of his life training that kind of response out of himself to variable degrees of success, but he couldn’t be like Ivy was the last time she’d seen him. He had to be someone different and the easiest person to be was himself… Was that himself? He’d spent so long being anything but himself that he wasn’t entirely sure anymore.
“Oh dear, manners, troublemaker, and a brain…” Recovery Girl remarked under her breath as she raised a brow at All Might, “You’re right, my dear, if I tried to heal more than you could handle you would just die but I’ve found that people don’t like to hear that that’s a possibility. Apparently, it’s bad bedside manner,” she said with a smirk, “but not to worry, I know by now how far I can safely push things along.”
Well, that was a bit more than mildly concerning. Was that something she had to learn through trial and error? How many people had she inadvertently killed? That must have been awful. Thankfully, he knew better than to ask those kinds of questions so he kept his mouth shut and waited. It took about 20 minutes for her to get an x-ray and confirm that the remaining damage could be repaired in one sitting
“Alright you seem to know how my quirk works already if your hypotheses are anything to go off of. You’ll likely be asleep well into the afternoon but I’ll be around so just call for me when you wake up.”
He couldn’t help the nervous glance he sent toward All Might and, considering that both of their attention was focused on him, it did not go unnoticed.
“I have business to attend to on campus, I won’t be far,” he reassured with a kind smile.
“Okay,” Izuku peeped out nervously.
He didn’t like the idea of being so vulnerable in such an unfamiliar place, people would be walking in and out of the room, and what would he have to protect himself? A privacy curtain? He’d grown too accustomed to being able to lock the office door while he slept.
“Alright sonny, lay back. You’ll be good as new when you wake up.”
Izuku didn’t remember even going to sleep. All he remembered was a loud bang and then blood and then waking up on a hard floor gasping for air. He heard the slinking metallic sound of a curtain being pulled along a rail and that was enough to bring him back to the present.
Shit.
“Are you alright dearie?” Recovery Girl asked with concern etched into the lines of her face as she offered him a hand that was more moral support than it was any actual help in getting up.
“Hah, sorry, y-yes. I’m f-fine. I m-must’ve rolled over in my sleep,” he lied.
The excuse was flimsy but he was hoping Recovery Girl had the decency to not call him out on that. She studied his face and for a moment he thought she was going to push the issue but thankfully she didn’t.
“Well, why don’t we let Yagi know you’re up? Are you still groggy? I’ve got some energy gummies,” she offered.
He graciously accepted them because, yes, he was still quite tired, but mostly he just wanted to shove one in his mouth so he had an excuse to not talk.
Recovery girl tottered off after handing him some gummies and about 10 minutes later there was a soft knock on the door before it opened to reveal All Might.
“Ah, my boy! You ready to get that cast off?” he asked cheerfully.
“Hah, y-yeah. My elbow’s been itchy since I w-woke up,” he quipped.
Recovery Girl had a third-year student from the general education course come in and take a look at his arm before they took the cast off. Her name was something like Kamiya but Izuku couldn’t remember for sure; he was too busy biting his tongue in an attempt to not freak her out with questions about her x-ray quirk. Apparently, she was doing an apprenticeship under Recovery Girl and was planning to go to med school after UA.
“Can you see through walls?” Izuku blurted out before he could stop himself.
“Oh, yeah, I can if I concentrate.”
“You could be an amazing rescue hero, did you try for the hero track? I bet you could find people in rubble if you trained hard enough, have you tried support gear? Tunnel vision goggles might help you focus both literally and figuratively it would take longer to search an area of course but you might get less eye strain. IfyoupartneredwithsomeonelikeRecoveryGirlyoucouldbearescueduo!Youfindanddiagnoseandyourpartnerhealsofcoursethatonlyworkswithbrokenbonesbutthatsaprettycommoninjuryespeciallyinnaturaldisasters–” He stopped himself abruptly when he glanced up to see a shocked look on the older girl’s face, “Sorry! I ramble a lot I d-didn’t mean–”
“No, no, it’s okay. I, um, I did try for the hero course but I didn’t get in…” she trailed off.
“You can still get your l-license. 23% of rescue heroes don’t go to a high school program, m-most of which get some type of m-medical degree. S-so after you graduate you c-can go through another p-program or you could do them c-concurrently and essentially b-become a field d-doctor like Recovery G-girl.”
“I didn’t know that,” she remarked under her breath like she was too busy thinking to properly respond.
“Y-yeah, around 89% of heroes g-go through a high school p-program but that’s n-not the only way…” he trailed off awkwardly, not sure how to respond.
“Alright, that was very educational, I’m sure you have a lot to think about with that, Katayama, but why don’t you get back to class now, I think Midoriya would like to get that cast off and itch his elbow.
“Oh, yes, of course. And, um, thank you Midoriya. No one’s ever told me I could be a hero before,” she said with a polite nod before taking her leave.
Izuku didn’t miss the frown that crossed Recovery Girl’s face for a brief moment at that comment. She probably didn’t even know that Katayama wanted to be a hero because he couldn’t imagine her discouraging the girl, plus she would know firsthand how helpful someone like Katayama could be in the field.
“Alright, time for the fun part!” Recovery Girl remarked after shaking off her frown and revving a small electric saw with a slightly manic grin.
If Izuku hadn’t already had a cast removed before he might have been a bit apprehensive but as it stands he just let himself laugh at her antics. It didn’t take long for the cast to be removed and Recovery Girl had him stretch out his arm and pick up a few things to make sure everything was in order. Thankfully, it was, but Izuku couldn’t stop looking at the jagged scars that now adorned his hand. He wore gloves on patrol, so Eraser wouldn’t notice them, but his classmates might and he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation that would ensue if they tried to bully information out of him. What was he supposed to say? ‘Oh I finally got a quirk at 14 years old and it’s really powerful but I can’t prove it because it might break my bones again if I’m not careful.’ That would go over well, he’s sure.
He lost himself in his own musings trying to come up with plausible lies that wouldn’t also get him made fun of or beat up until Recovery Girl interrupted his train of thought.
“Well, what are you going to do about this then? If this happens every time he tries to use this power he’s going to lose function of his arm."
“Shuzenji, I don’t think that–”
“I’m not here to lie and make either of you boys feel better. You need to find another way, I can only help so much,” she interrupted before All Might could argue.
Izuku wanted to defend him but All Might spoke before he got the chance.
“I know. I have a plan but we would need your help…” he trailed off.
“I’m listening,” she quipped impatiently.
“I was going to call Gran Torino. Gran Torino was my teacher, he never had One For All but I think he could help,” he explained to Izuku before turning back to Recovery Girl.
So she did know about One For All. That would have been good to know beforehand…
“And I want you to be on standby, if possible,” he requested sheepishly.
“When?” Recovery Girl asked without hesitation.
“I’d assumed after school would work best for most everyone involved?” he asked with a glance to both of them.
“Works for me,” Recovery Girl confirmed.
As both of them shifted their attention back to Izuku, presumably so that he could answer the question as well, he felt his heart sink to his stomach. This was too much. Having All Might waste so much time on him was one thing, he could only work for three hours a day, but asking Recovery girl to help after she’d already done a full day’s work? No! That was way too much to ask for, she was already helping him far more than she needed to.
“Nonsense, and quit mumbling my hearing’s not what it used to be,” Recovery Girl chastised.
Oh Kami, he needed to get an actual zipper for his mouth. Were the pain meds still weakly flowing through his system making him worse or was he always like this? How had he kept so many secrets for so long?
“Alright, let’s move our morning sessions to the evenings for now Midoriya. Does that work for you?” All Might asked.
“You don’t–”
“Don’t argue sonny, it’s happening whether you want it to or not, it’s just a matter of when and where,” Recovery Girl cut him off.
“I, Um, y-yes. After school works f-for me,” he reluctantly confirmed.
“Great, you deserve the chance to sleep in any way. Why don’t we meet here? Assuming Nedzu is amendable to the idea,” All Might suggested.
Oh fuck oh shit oh no, nononononono. Eraser would probably go home after work to sleep before patrol, right? Kami, was it too late to apply to Shiketsu instead? How the hell was he supposed to put up with this every day if he actually got into UA?
“Um, d-don’t you think people m-might find it strange that you’re helping me? T-technically we shouldn’t even know each other,” Izuku pointed out in a vain attempt to delay the inevitable.
“Principal Nedzu and Shuzenji already know about One For All and the nature of our relationship. We don’t need to worry about that, we can reserve one of the gyms and no one will disturb us,” All Might assuaged.
Well, no one can say he didn’t try…
“Well, that sounds like a plan. He looks like he’s about to drop dead, Yagi. Get that boy home and let him sleep this off properly. Let me know when you have a better idea of the time, now shoo,” she quipped as she literally shooed them out of the room like cats.
“You look too tired for that tour I promised,” All Might remarked as Recovery Girl shut the door behind them, “Do you want me to take you home?”
Izuku thought for a moment before agreeing, “Yeah, I think that was e-enough excitement for the day.”
All Might smiled at him and ruffled his hair for the second time in as many days before leading them both back to the car.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
I’m trying to come up with a hero name for Izuku bc Deku is a stupid name and Horikoshi is my enemy. Anyway, I was thinking I wanted something that paid homage to Ivy, like another plant name. I was looking specifically into plants/herbs associated with healing whether symbolically or literally but nothing was calling to me. I am open to any and all suggestions <3
Chapter 88: AU Where Sometimes Adults Are Competent
Notes:
Idk my upload schedule, I'm gonna be honest. I'm having a bit of a crisis.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Toshinori watched Midoriya enter his apartment building before turning his attention to his phone. He scrolled through his contacts but his thumb just hovered above the one he’d been looking for. He stared at the name for several minutes before putting the phone down and resting his forehead on the steering wheel none too gently.
This was dumb. He was a grown man, he was the goddamn symbol of peace, he could make a stupid phone call. What was he so afraid of?
Just a phone call, just a phone call, just a phone call. Steeling his nerves, he picked up his phone and pressed call before he could lose his courage.
“Hello?” a gruff voice barked out after the fourth ring.
“Hi Torino, It’s Toshinori,” he replied, trying his best to not sound like a scared little kid.
“I may be old but I’m not older than caller ID, boy. It’s been five years. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked sardonically.
“I need help wi–”
“Of course you do, what else would you be calling for?” he interrupted.
Well… that was probably fair. Toshinori owed a large part of his success to Gran Torino and he hadn’t exactly paid him back kindly by not speaking to him for five years then calling in for a favor that he was not owed.
“What is it?” Torino asked again after he failed to respond.
“I’ve found a successor,” he blurted out before he could back down.
“Lovely. Whaddya need me for?”
“I’m concerned about how powerful it’s gotten. I–the first time he used it he broke every bone in his arm, shattered all of his fingers, and I don’t–”
“You want me to teach him?” he interrupted again.
“I was hoping two heads would be better than one…”
“Do you think it's gotten too powerful to wield?” Torino asked after a bout of silence.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
“That’ll happen when you carry the world with it for over 30 years,” he retorted.
Toshinori tried not to take that personally. There was no pleasing Gran Torino and he knew that. He was the type of man to show care through action, not words. He knew he would come through for him, he always did, that’s why he called. Whatever stunt he pulled or whatever mess he got himself into, Torino would always bail him out; Toshinori knew he cared but he could also say with certainty that he’d never left a conversation with the man feeling better than he had going in. He wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable questions about his choice of successor but he was hoping he would at least not do it in front of the kid. Midoriya didn’t look like much at first glance and Torino could sniff out fear like a dog; he didn’t anticipate their meeting would go well but it’s all he could think to do.
“When and where?” Torino asked after Toshinori failed to respond again.
“Any day Monday through Thursday that you can make it to UA around 3:45 pm.”
“Alright, I’ll see you Wednesday,” he replied and the line went dead before he could respond.
Toshinori let out a deep sigh. This was… this was going to be a disaster, he could only hope that it would be a productive disaster.
***
Izuku sat in the lobby of his old apartment building for ages waiting for All Might to leave. It was getting to the point where he was worried someone was going to come round and kick him out, but thankfully All Might’s truck drove away before that happened. The sun had begun its descent as they were leaving UA and Izuku had lost his chance to fit a proper nap in before patrol so he took his time mosying back to the brewery.
His route took him past the beach so he decided to investigate the site; he never got the chance to see just how powerful that hit had been; he knew it knocked All Might back a few meters but he didn’t have the time to notice anything beyond that and the exposed bone on his hand. He hoped he didn’t blow over any of his piles, that would be a pain to sort through again.
He was surprised to find the scene relatively intact, it was well out of the way of the tide and there was still a crater in the sand, he could even make out dark reddish brown splotches of his own blood. Oh, ew. It looked like a damn crime scene if he was being honest, he should probably cover that up. He went over to kick the sand around and cover up the stains when his foot caught on something hard. Did he manage to pick a place with something buried beneath the sand to punch? That would be his damned luck.
Curiosity got the better of him so he dug it up, it looked like a rock about the size of a softball. Most of it was the same color as the sand but some parts of it were almost see-through like glass… wait… glass? Did he…? Was this from…? No fucking way. Did he do this? He knew glass could be formed like this when lightning or a meteor strikes sand but there’s no way he could have done that… right?
No, it had to be a coincidence.
He brought the rock home with him anyway.
***
Ivy sat on the ledge of their meeting location and did their best to focus on their guilt and not how ridiculous Eraser had looked tucked up into a sleeping bag in the corner of his classroom. He had been too scared to laugh at the time, but looking back on it, he’s surprised he managed to not make fun of the man. He looked like an overgrown caterpillar and they’d bet all their tuition savings that Mic had gotten that sleeping bag for him as a gag gift. They heard him clambering up the side of the building and shut down any caterpillar-related insults they had because they weren’t supposed to know about that. It was a shame, really; a comedy gold mine just out of reach.
“Sorry about yesterday,” they awkwardly apologized when Eraser crested the ledge of the roof.
“Don’t do it again,” was all he said in response before sitting down and opening his bento.
They sat in silence for a bit after that and Izuku did his best to study Eraser’s face without being too obvious
“Where’s your dinner?” he asked after a few minutes.
“I ate before I left,” they lied.
They’d been out in the hospital and then UA for over 24 hours and then All Might took forever to drive away after he’d dropped him off at his ‘apartment’. They usually prepped meals on Sunday evenings so they didn’t have the chance to throw anything together before patrol.
Eraser studied them with a blank expression before pulling a nutrient pouch out of one of his pockets and tossing it to them with more force than strictly necessary.
“Thanks,” they mumbled a bit self-consciously.
Eraser just grunted in response.
“Is everything alright now?” Eraser asked tentatively after a few minutes of silence.
He was looking at them with concern that he didn’t even try to mask.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. There’s promise for further catastrophe still, but that’s nothing new for me,” they replied with a laugh.
“Yeah, nothing new there,” Eraser responded; he sounded sad, or disappointed maybe?
They didn’t know how to respond to that, so they just decided not to.
“You gotta know by now that I’m not out to get you, kid,” he continued, “Please just be honest, are you hurt?”
Izuku couldn’t help but think Eraser would be the end of him. He knew them, he knew him too well. They’d let him get too close, but there was nothing for it now. Nothing but time would tell when his facade would come crashing down.
“No, Eraser, I’m not hurt,” he answered honestly.
“Are you in danger?” he asked after a moment of contemplation.
“I’m always in dan–”
“You know what I meant,” he cut them off.
Alright, not in the mood to joke. Noted.
“I’m not in any more danger than you are.”
He studied their face for an uncomfortably long time trying to look for any sign they were lying but there was nothing to find. Even still Eraser didn’t seem to believe them, they could tell by the look of sad resignation that fell across his face.
“I’m on your side, Ivy. I– you’re… you’re my friend. If you need help, I’m here,” he stated with finality before turning his attention back to his bento.
Kami, the only way out of this was faking his death. He was doomed.
“I know, Eraser.”
***
Wednesday came all too quickly and All Might was picking him up after school to take him back to UA. He was going to meet All Might’s teacher. Times like this made him wonder how the hell his life ended up here. He was nervous and doing his best not to let it show as he sat down in the passenger seat and buckled himself in.
“I wanted to warn you about Gran Torino,” All Might started after they exchanged greetings, “He’s… gruff, I suppose.”
“Um, okay,” Izuku responded awkwardly.
“What I mean to say is that he can come off rather rude, or I suppose, he is , um, rather rude,” he paused again to think about what he was going to say so Izuku gave him a moment, “I don’t know what he’ll think of you. I mean no offense by this, my boy, but you don’t look like much. I know your potential but he might not see you like I do. Try to work that confidence, if you don’t respect yourself then he won’t respect you either.”
Great. This was going to be just… great. All Might of all people was nervous and asking Izuku of all people not to be. This was going to go brilliantly. Izuku took a deep breath and tightened his hold on his notebook.
“Okay,” he said with a nod, doing his best to let some of Ivy’s confidence bleed into his tone.
If All Might's surprised smile was anything to go off of then he’d guess that it worked. He had experience working with hardass teachers; Eraser hadn’t exactly been the most pleasant person to talk to before Izuku actually got to know him and realized he was just a teddy bear with a harsh exterior. And that wasn’t even mentioning any of his actual teachers who genuinely hated him. He’d done this before, he could do it again.
The rest of the drive was filled with idle chit-chat and the low hum of the radio, it wasn’t until they were about to walk into the gym that had been reserved for them that All Might’s shoulders tensed up again. Izuku watched as he took a deep breath and forced them to relax before opening the door.
“Toshinori,” a short old man who Izuku assumed was Gran Torino greeted flatly.
“Gran Torino,” All Might greeted in turn with a nod, “this is–”
“Midoriya Izuku, sir,” he interrupted with a polite bow, “Pleasure t-to meet you.”
Old people liked manners. Confidence and manners, he could do that. He’s sure he’d be cursing his stutter all evening but he could try his best.
Gran Torino’s slightly raised brow told him that he was off to a good enough start.
“What are we working with?” Gran Torino asked, cutting to the chase just like Izuku had expected him to.
Izuku had done a visual sweep of the room as they entered and there was no one else there, plus All Might set this up so it was unlikely that this wasn’t a safe place to talk about One For All. With that in mind, he continued with faux confidence, answering the question before All Might got the chance.
“I inherited One For All last Sunday, the first and only time I used it I broke every bone in my arm,” he stated factually doing his best to not let his insecurity color his tone.
“So I’ve heard, anything else?”
“No sir, I have not tried to use it s-since,” Izuku replied, faltering slightly.
“Well, what have you done since?”
Confidence, confidence, confidence. This was his quirk now, it made sense to analyze it. No one was going to think it was weird, it wasn’t weird.
“I have a few theories based on my l-limited observations,” he started tentatively.
He was nervous to start because once he started he knew he was going to have to fight against losing himself to rambling.
“Well let’s hear them then,” Gran Torino responded impatiently.
Alright, okay, he asked for this. He can do this, with a deep breath, he dove in.
“Since One For All is a stockpiling quirk it g-gets stronger exponentially, meaning w-with each new wielder the power exponentially becomes more difficult to conta–”
“I know how the power works, boy.”
“Y-yes, I know I–I um,” oh shit, he was fumbling.
He felt All Might rest a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“F-from what I have seen, All Might used to u-use One For All constantly, it was active far more than it w-wasn’t, even if he wasn’t actively using it. N-now the strain is too much to h-handle c-consistently so he only activates it w-when necessary which is w-what I’m doing; I can’t handle it at its full p-potential… or a-at least not yet,” Kami, he needed to get his stuttering under control, “So I need to figure out how to harness just a fraction of it and hold onto it consistently before I p-progress further,” he finally finished.
“Sounds like you already have a plan then, what do you need me for?”
“I don’t know how to do that, and t-trial and error ended up with me in emergency surgery last t-time so I’d like to avoid that if possible,” Izuku replied with a bit more sass in his tone than he had intended.
Gran Torino raised a brow and smirked but otherwise didn’t call him out.
“What did it feel like?” he asked after a second.
“Like a riptide,” Izuku replied.
“Well then dip a toe in, boy, test the waters. Don’t just dive.”
“Why don’t we wait for Shuzenji to do that,” All Might interrupted, “She should be here soon.”
He phrased it as a question but his tone told them that was non-negotiable.
“Of course,” Gran Torino responded, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
They certainly had… um… an interesting dynamic… Izuku thought as his focus bounced between the two of them. They appeared to be having an argument via eye contact exclusively. The occasional raise of an eyebrow didn’t give him any indication of what they were arguing about nor who was winning.
“Hellooo! Sorry I’m late!” Recovery Girl cooed from the entrance of the gym, “These old bones can’t get across campus as fast as they used to.”
“It’s no problem, Shuzenji. We only got here a few minutes ago anyway,” All Might excused her quickly.
“Oh, good. It’s been a long time, Sorahiko,” she greeted with a nod to Gran Torino, “What’s it been, 32? 33 years?”
“Hell if I know, I’m retired, I’ve got no reason to keep track of that,” Gran Torino grumbled in response.
“That kind of attitude is going to lose you your memory, you’re no spring chicken,” she warned.
“If I’m no spring chicken, what does that make you?”
Recovery Girl decked him in the shin with her cane practically before he could finish his sentence.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to comment on a lady’s age?” she asked with a smirk as she took a seat on one of the benches on the perimeter of the gym.
“Pleasure to see you as always, Shuzenji,” Gran Torino quipped with a grimace.
All Might was standing between them now biting back a smirk of his own and trying to keep the peace like a child of divorced parents. Were they…? Never mind, he didn’t want to know.
“Alright, now, dip a toe in.” Gran Torino instructed, turning his attention back to Izuku.
Izuku gave an awkward but polite nod to Recovery Girl as the opportunity for a proper greeting had long since passed, but she smiled kindly back at him regardless.
“I still don’t know how to do that,” Izuku reminded him, “I was t-thinking– I mean, um, the last time I used it, I held it for a moment before engaging it and that didn’t– or at least I don’t think that hurt me. So, I thought I could t-try that first, and maybe I could figure out how t-to use just a fraction from there,” Izuku explained nervously; it sounded logical to him but he couldn’t help but feel like it was a stupid idea after he said it out loud.
“Why exactly do you need me here?” Gran Torino asked All Might rather than answering Izuku.
Was… that a compliment? Izuku wasn’t sure. All Might was smiling at him now so he’s pretty sure that was a compliment. That’s um… that was… nice?
“Go on then,” Gran Torino prompted him again.
Izuku sat down on the floor of the gym and crossed his legs before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He did his best to pretend he didn’t have an audience as he tapped into the tsunami of power that had been buzzing in the back of his mind since Sunday. He started with his left arm this time though, he didn’t fancy losing the use of his dominant arm again for any amount of time. Distantly he heard Recovery Girl let out a surprised ‘oh’ and he hoped so sincerely that he didn’t have a muscle form like All Might; that was a type of gaudy that he did not want. He felt normal though, his clothes hugged his body like they usually did, but that’s not the type of thing he needed to be concentrating on right now anyways. Izuku could hear the three of them murmuring amongst themselves but he ignored it until Gran Torino addressed him directly.
“Can you move?”
He didn’t even trust himself to move enough to respond.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Gran Torino thankfully understood, “Can you let go?”
That he could do, he didn’t hesitate to drop it and let his muscles relax. He’s not sure how long he’d been holding it, but he did know that he wanted to completely collapse on the floor of the gym; his clothes were clinging to him because his whole body was sweat-damp and he gratefully took the water bottle that All Might was handing him.
“So, what’d we learn?” Gran Torino asked after giving him a moment to gulp down some water.
“N-nothing yet. It’s difficult to concentrate on anything but k-keeping it contained,” he admitted.
“Did it feel the same as last time?”
“Yes.”
“But you used your left this time?” Gran Torino asked.
Izuku creased his brow at that, how did he know?
“I’ll take that as a yes; you lit up like a Christmas tree all down your left arm,” he explained.
Oh! Is it like electricity then? Your body can safely be a part of a circuit if you’re grounded; the issue only presents itself if the current doesn’t have anywhere to flow. So theoretically I could throw a punch at full power if I just let all the resulting damage ensue, I’m only affected if I try to hold it back. That doesn’t solve the problem though. I can’t just do everything full force if full force levels a building, so I still need to figure out how to conduct lower levels. Breaking my arm was like tripping a fuse, but bones aren’t as replaceable as fuses. I need a transformer then, how do transformers work? They increase or decrease the voltage but not the frequency butwhatdoesthatcorrelatetowi–
“You’re losing us, kid,” Gran Torino interrupted his train of thought.
Well, apparently it was more than a train of thought. Damnit.
“Oh, I didn’t mean– I was– that– I said that all out loud d-didn’t I?” he stammered out as he buried his cherry red face in his hands.
“Yes, my boy, but you sounded like you were going somewhere with that,” All Might answered, shooting a glare at Gran Torino.
“I– well, I don’t think that’s a theory we should test here–”
“Or at all until we’re sure about it,” Recovery Girl interjected.
“Y-yeah probably not…” Izuku trailed off.
This was frustrating. He had a few ideas he wanted to try but if he was wrong about them he was going to end up in the hospital again and he didn’t have time for that.
“What about transformers? What was that about? It sounded promising,” All Might prompted.
“Oh, well, I don’t know how, um, literal the analogy can go but t-transformers use magnetic fields t-to alter the voltage output in um a circuit or s-something. I d-don’t fully understand how they work,” he admitted, “b-but it might be a helpful way to think about it.”
“Do you want to try that?” All Might asked tentatively.
“M-might as well.”
Izuku insisted on backing up nearly all the way to the far wall of the gym before he sat down to try again. He didn’t have confidence in his ability to not hurt his audience if they were too close. Again, he tapped into the torrent of power and did his best to imagine a small tributary off of the raging white water river that was One For All. He sat with it for a moment until it felt like he wasn’t going to rip his arm out of its socket when he moved and then he snapped his fingers.
The sound hit him before the pain did. It sounded like someone had just slapped him right over his ears; he saw the lights flicker and dust start to fall down from the ceiling before his body clued him into the fact that his fingers were very much broken.
Shit.
Wait, it was just his fingers!
“Haha!” he laughed triumphantly.
“Nothing’s broken?” All Might asked as he made his way over to Izuku at a light jog.
“No, my fingers are broken, but it’s just my fingers!” he stated excitedly, flexing his arm to prove his point.
All Might didn’t seem as impressed by that as Izuku would have liked him to be and Recovery Girl was hustling her way over as quickly as she could manage so Izuku stood up to meet her.
“No, no. I’m fine, I can walk y-you don’t need to–”
“You’re certainly not fine! Look at your fingers, sonny,” she reprimanded with no real heat.
Alright, yeah. They looked kinda gross, the thumb and middle finger on his left hand were all bruised and purple and bent in directions they definitely weren’t supposed to go but it was nowhere near as bad as it had been Sunday. He could still move them slightly so he knew the bones weren’t shattered, just broken.
“Quit messing with them!” she scolded him again, whacking his right arm away from his left with her cane, “Let me see.”
Izuku obediently held his hand out for her to inspect. She looked at his fingers for a moment, turning his hand around to inspect the damage before she spoke.
“How’s your pain?”
“I’ve had worse,” he answered.
“Yes, I know, I saw your x-rays. That’s not what I asked.”
“Um, f-four?”
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow before ushering him over to the bench she’d been sitting on.
“Is it alright if I poke around?”
He nodded.
Gently she started prodding at his fingers and he bit down on his lip. That definitely didn’t feel good.
“Feels like clean breaks on the distal and proximal phalanges on both your thumb and forefinger,” she diagnosed.
“Do you need an x-ray to set them?” he asked.
She raised an eyebrow at him again for that.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were more than capable of breaking your own bones, were you sonny? How many bones have you broken?”
He had to think about that for a second. Honestly, he didn’t really know the answer to that question.
“Like 36?” he guessed, “W-well 40 now, but 30 of those happened last S-Sunday.”
Izuku didn’t quite catch what Recovery girl was muttering under her breath in response to that but he was sure that he at least heard the words ‘good grief’ and ‘trouble’.
“Come on, we’re going back to my office,” she declared.
As soon as she said that two robots holding a stretcher burst through the doors of the gymnasium.
“Just in time, our ride’s here,” Recovery Girl cheered.
“I can w-walk–”
“I said our ride, boy. You can jog alongside if you want but I’ve walked enough today,” she said as she sat down on one side of the stretcher and patted the open spot next to her.
Izuku had to hold back a laugh at that, but Recovery Girl using UA’s prestigious med bots as her own personal chauffeurs was pretty funny, in his defense.
***
Toshinori watched the med bots zip the two of them away as he stood awkwardly next to Gran Torino. He was going to say something that pissed him off, he just knew it.
“Well, I never expected you to pick brains over brawn,” Torino quipped before the doors even shut behind them.
Called it.
“The kid’s a solid brick of muscle, Torino,” he defended.
“He’s tiny.”
“He’s only 14.”
They walked in silence following the path toward the main building where Shuzenji and Midoriya had already been swept out of sight. They were over halfway there before Torino spoke up again.
“He’s got potential,” he stated nonchalantly.
Toshinori almost stopped mid-stride, he was sure he hadn’t heard that right.
“What?” he asked dumbly
“You heard me, boy.”
He let out a string of inelegant sputters at that. That… that might have been the nicest thing he’d ever heard the man say, and he’d known him for over 35 years.
“I– hah, you haven’t seen the half of it,” he responded with an ear-to-ear grin when he finally got a hold of himself.
“How have you been?” Torino asked in a tone more gentle than he was accustomed to.
His smile faded quickly at that.
“I know I look terrible,” he answered, resignation in his tone.
“That’s not what I said,” Torino defended weakly.
“But it’s what you meant,” he retorted.
Torino didn’t have a response for that.
“I’ve stagnated. I’m not getting better or worse, well, except for aging.”
“You’re getting old Toshi,” Torino poked.
He huffed out a laugh at that.
“If I’m getting old, what does that make you?” he challenged, stealing Torino’s jab from earlier in the evening.
Torino predictably went to wack him in the shin with his cane but Toshinori was already out of reach and stifling a laugh at the other man’s expense.
This evening was going far better than he’d anticipated.
Notes:
New character, you know what that means
Torino Sorahiko:
I think Gran Torino is an interesting character. I think it’s very rare to get a kind word from him; he seems like the kind of person who would do absolutely anything for the people he loves except tell them that he loves them. I think he harbors a bit of resentment for OFA because of how it has destroyed the lives of the two people he loved most, Toshinori and Nana, and I think he lets that resentment bleed into his relationship with Toshinori. He pushed Yagi so hard because he didn’t want what happened to Nana to happen to him as well. He pushed so hard and didn’t care if he lost Toshinori’s love in the process as long as he was safe.He’s old and tired, he just wants the war between OFA and AFO to be over, he wants to let his grief lay to rest but something keeps coming up and poking the festering wound. He’s lost just as much as Toshinori has to AFO, he lost Nana and his youth and had the responsibility of raising Yagi forced upon him. I don’t think he wants anything to do with OFA anymore but he will still do anything for the people he loves which includes Toshinori. So when he comes asking for help Torino doesn’t even think of refusing him.
I think his brashness and lack of communicating positive emotions borders on abusive at times but that isn’t his intention. He wants the best for Yagi and he doesn’t care if that makes him the bad guy in Yagi’s eyes. He doesn’t care if he goes too far or pushes too hard if that's what it takes to make his student strong enough to fend for themself. I’m not sure what made him this way, whether it was what happened with Nana or something from his childhood but he clearly doesn’t know how to cope with positive emotions nor how to use positive reinforcement.
Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Torino Sorahiko: Ch 88
Chapter 89: Progress
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku had missed two patrols in the last week because he broke his arm again and he was not happy about it. Recovery Girl healed him, of course, but he was so tired afterwards that he contemplated falling asleep in the apartment’s lobby where All Might dropped him off rather than walking all the way back to Uptown. He made it home somehow, but he had to cancel patrol. They’d been meeting with Gran Torino every afternoon since Wednesday and Izuku was desperate for a breakthrough. So far the best he’d managed was snapping and only spraining his thumb which was abysmal in his opinion. He felt like he was training his pain tolerance more than anything.
“You look up to him too much,” Gran Torino accused after All Might left the gym to use the bathroom.
“W-what?”
“I haven’t seen you try a damn thing that he hasn’t done a million times before.”
“But it–”
“One For All isn’t special, boy. Stop treating it like it is. Toshi told me you’re a fighter but I haven’t seen proof of that once in the last 5 days,” he accused.
All the sudden Izuku was flat on his back looking up to the rafters. The moment he got back on his feet he was knocked down again. He didn’t bother trying to get up this time, he just looked around trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Recovery Girl was still sat on the bench and rolling her eyes but Gran Torino was nowhere to be seen, or at least he wasn’t until a gust of wind blew by and a foot kicked out the elbow he’d propped himself up on.
“Come on boy, where’s that fight?” Gran Torino taunted.
Kami, okay, I guess this is what we’re doing now.
He paid close attention to the breezes Gran Torino was making and, doing his best to follow them, Izuku successfully dodged the next pass which had Gran Torino cackling with delight like a senile old man.
“You can do better than dodge, can’t you?” he challenged, clipping Izuku’s shoulder on the next strike, but it wasn’t enough to knock him down.
There was a gust of air each time he moved and it seemed like more than would naturally be displaced by a simple speed quirk. His quirk had something to do with air, could he control the wind or was it like a jet quirk? Either way his best bet at winning this was disrupting the air flow. He could do that… theoretically. He was moving in a pattern, he’d strike from the North then South East then South West then North, over and over. Recovery girl was sitting to the South, oh she wasn’t going to be happy about this.
South East
South West
North
Izuku swung around, summoned One For All in both arms, and clapped.
The force was enough to rattle the whole building and knock Gran Torino back before he could strike. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears from the resounding boom as he anxiously looked down at his hands.
They were… fine…? They were fine!
Well, they stung like a motherfucker but his bones were intact so he wasn’t complaining.
All Might came bursting through the doors a moment later and looked over to Gran Torino who had been knocked on his ass then over to Izuku who was standing in a state of mild shock.
“I left for one minute,” he complained.
That was enough to knock him out of his stupor.
“Are you okay Gran Torino sir?!” he asked frantically running over to him.
“Are you okay?” he asked instead of answering.
Gran Torino had a manic grin on his face and was already getting up so he had to assume that meant he was alright. Izuku didn’t bother trying to hide the smile that split his face as he proudly held up his hands, wiggling each finger.
“So, what was different?” Gran Torino asked.
What was different? He was in an actual fight this time, well, not an actual fight, but close enough. That was different, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been taking it seriously before so he doubted that that’s what had made the difference. Like Gran Torino had said before, it was the first thing he’d done that wasn’t something All Might would have done, but that seemed arbitrary so that probably wasn’t it either. He activated it in both arms, that was different. Of course! He’s so dumb how had he not thought of that?! It was force! If you apply force over a greater surface area then the whole area gets less pressure per unit. Kami, that was a grade-A stupid kind of oversight, how had he not thought of that? Seven whole days now. Obviously, it was force, idiot–
“Midoriya!” All Might’s voice brought him back to the present, “You’re not stupid, none of us thought of that.”
He’s not sure if the color drained from his face or if he was blushing hard enough to rival a stop sign, but he knew his face was definitely doing something. He didn’t trust himself to talk so he just nodded his head and kept his mouth shut.
“Right. Well, can you do it again?” Gran Torino piped up after an awkward moment of silence.
“I– I don’t kn–well, p-p-probably– I mean–”
“Why don’t we take a break first?” All Might interrupted, resting a hand on Izuku’s shoulder.
Izuku didn’t bother trying to pull his gaze off the floor, he didn’t want to see All Might’s or anyone else’s face right now so he nodded in agreement. He wanted to run away but the hand resting on his shoulder started leading him somewhere and he had no choice but to follow. All Might led him out the front doors and had him sit down on the steps leading up to the gymnasium. The air was frigid and bit through his shirt easily which he was grateful for; it gave him something besides mentally kicking himself to focus on.
“Why’s it always the smartest people who think they’re stupid?” All Might asked.
Izuku was hoping that was rhetorical because he didn’t have a clue about how he was supposed to respond to that.
“You’re doing well, Midoriya. It’s only been a week, no one is expecting you to be able to do this right away.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that either. He could tell All Might was looking at him but he couldn’t force himself to meet his gaze, his eyes remained glued to the stitching on his shoes that he was anxiously picking at.
“It’s colder than I thought it’d be,” All Might remarked with a shiver, “Come back in when you’re ready. I’ll bring your coat if you're not back in 5,” he said kindly before taking his leave.
When he heard the door shut behind All Might he stuffed his face into the fabric of his pants, buried his hands in his hair, and groaned dramatically. He needed to learn how to shut the fuck up. He sat there filling his lungs with the frosty air for as long as he thought that he could push it before he ended up making All Might bring him his coat. Approximately four and a half minutes later he didn’t feel ready to go back inside, but he never felt ready for anything so he forced himself to get up anyway.
When he walked back into the gym All Might and Gran Torino seemed to be having an argument over Recovery Girl’s head who appeared to be ignoring them as best she could while also being sat between them. The sight made him chuckle; he hoped he had people he was that close to one day. Actually, he could imagine bitching at Eraser like that while Tsukauchi tried to mentally eject himself from the situation.
“Ah, you’re back, let’s see if you can do that again,” Gran Torino called over to Izuku, effectively ending the argument.
Thankfully it turned out that he could do it again.
And again.
And again.
And again…
Why did he have to figure this out on a Sunday? They’d been here since 1 and they weren’t set to leave until 6 which wasn’t for another hour and a half. He’d been sparring with both All Might and Gran Torino on and off for two hours now and he was tempted to break his arm again just so he could go home. The novelty of finally getting some sort of a grip on the power had worn off about an hour in and he was just tired now. His exhaustion was starting to show in his movements as well, Gran Torino hadn’t been able to land a solid hit since they’d started up again but now Izuku was laying face-first on the ground and he did not want to get up.
It made sense, he was flexing a muscle he hadn’t even had before last week, he was bound to tire pretty quickly, but it stung his pride that a retired old man had stronger endurance than him at the moment. Regardless of his fatigue, he got up and kept fighting. It wasn’t for another half hour that Recovery Girl saved him.
“Are you two trying to kill that boy?” she asked after he took a little too long to get up again.
“I’m f-fine, I–” he had to pause to catch his breath, “Okay… maybe I could use a little b-break,” he relented, stooping down to brace himself on his knees.
All Might let out a hearty laugh at that and slapped him good-naturedly on the back. Unfortunately, since he was in his muscle form, that was enough to knock Izuku over again and he found himself sprawled out on the ground laughing breathlessly. This was all so surreal, he couldn’t help it.
“I’m in town for a full week, son, you better rest well tonight. Now that you’re startin’ to keep up there’s nothing holding me back,” Gran Torino quipped from above him with a sadistic grin.
Kami, why couldn’t he have a teacher who didn’t have a sadistic grin? All Might was his only hope.
“Don’t threaten him while he's down, Sorahiko,” Recovery Girl admonished from the other side of the gym.
Okay, maybe Recovery Girl too. That was a solid 50% of his teachers who didn’t seem to want to kill him; the odds could be worse.
***
The odds could not be worse, they all wanted him dead, he’s sure of it. By the time Wednesday rolled around and Gran Torino was finally due to leave Musutafu he had had to cancel patrol TWO MORE TIMES based off pure exhaustion alone. Eraser was on their ass trying to figure out what was going on, All Might and Gran Torino were kicking his ass daily, and Recovery Girl did not step in to save him again. He hadn’t been this tired since he first started cleaning the beach and he was only working with OFA for like three to four hours a day. He’d heard of quirk exhaustion before but he didn’t think it would be so literal.
If he had to guess he’d say he wasn’t even using 5% of One For All’s potential power, but 5% was enough to rattle the windows so he didn’t really know how he was supposed to progress beyond that anyway, at least not inside. He was looking forward to getting back to work on the beach, it would be easier for him to experiment with things without so many eyes on him and so many walls to potentially break.
“Alright boy, you ready to get back to your spring cleaning project?” Gran Torino asked after kicking his ass for hopefully the final time.
“Yes, sir,” he replied with more enthusiasm than he had meant to let out.
Thankfully, Gran Torino didn’t seem to be offended by Izuku’s apparent eagerness for him to leave.
“Don’t worry, I told Toshi to stop going so easy on you,” he shot back with a laugh.
Oh Kami.
His trepidation must have shown on his face because Gran Torino was laughing at him again.
“See you in the sports festival, boy, I’ll be watching,” he said menacingly after he stopped laughing at Izuku’s expense.
Izuku was starting to get a hang of Gran Torino’s way of communicating, or translating his “Torino-isms” as All Might called them. So, he’s pretty sure that was his way of saying ‘You’re doing well and you’re going to get into UA’, so Izuku responded as such.
“T-thank you, Sir,” he said with a small bow of his head.
He didn’t expect Gran Torino to be one for drawn-out goodbyes so he wasn’t surprised when he left pretty abruptly after that. He talked to All Might briefly before leaving but that was it.
“Alright boys, you’ve got my number and I won’t be far so don’t hesitate to come to me if you end up breaking something again. That being said, I hope I don’t see you soon,” Recovery Girl quipped, bidding them a polite farewell before she too left.
“Bright and early again tomorrow, are you ready, my boy?” All Might asked as they shrugged their coats on.
“Yes, I’m looking forward t-to it actually. I feel like I’m damaging the structural int-tegrity of the poor gym,” he replied, allowing a slight smile to grace his features.
“Oh you don’t need to worry about that, they build things tough here at UA,” he said, ruffling Izuku’s curls.
He had the feeling All Might was talking about more than just the buildings, and for the first time, Izuku finally started to believe he genuinely had a shot at this. He could do it, he could get into UA.
Notes:
Thanks for reading, sorry it's kinda a short one.
Chapter 90: Getting Back in Touch
Chapter Text
“Toshi!” Naomasa exclaimed at a volume just barely acceptable for the cafe they were meeting in.
“Noamasa!” Toshinori greeted in return with a smile so wide it made Noamasa wonder how no one had put 2 and 2 together and realized he was All Might years ago.
He didn’t hesitate to hug the giant twig of a man when he got up and offered his hand out for a handshake. He felt more than he heard the small laugh he let out in response as Toshinori quickly hugged him back.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long, my friend. I just… well I guess I don’t really have an excuse,” he said when they pulled apart, the smile no longer brightening his gaunt face.
“I understand Toshinori. Things get busy, life happens. I could have reached out too, it’s not like I didn’t know you were back in town.”
His attempts to assuage his concerns earned him a small smile but he could tell that Toshinori was not convinced that he wasn’t the one to blame, which didn’t surprise him. Old habits die hard.
“So what brings you back in town anyway?” he asked as he took his seat across from Toshinori at the booth he’d saved for them in the corner of the cafe.
Toshinori smiled sadly again, he was surprised that his lexicon of Toshinori’s fake smiles had not been lost to time; it had been over 4 years since he had last seen the man. The steaming mug of coffee that was waiting for him on his side of the table told him that his own idiosyncrasies hadn’t been forgotten either.
“You know I’m getting old, Noamasa,” he answered.
“You’re middle-aged,” he argued back.
Toshinori laughed ruefully at his response, “I appreciate your optimism.”
Silence hung between them for a beat after that. He knew Toshinori’s health wasn’t the best ever since… well he preferred not to dwell on that.
“Are you getting worse?” he asked hesitantly.
To his surprise, he genuinely smiled back in response.
“Not without good reason,” Toshinori replied.
Naomasa felt his jaw drop in shock, he looked around to make sure no one was within earshot but Toshinori had picked a suitably secluded booth.
“You found a successor? Have you already…” he trailed off.
Toshinori nodded and his grin grew back to the same blinding brilliance it held when Naomasa first walked in. He had a million questions and he didn’t know where to start. He wanted to hear all about them, whoever it was that his friend had chosen, but ultimately he was more concerned about what this meant for Toshinori.
“Wait, so you are? You’re getting worse?” he asked and regretted immediately as the smile fell from his friend’s face.
“Yes, that’s how aging works, unfortunately. I’m not about to drop dead if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve still got some time,” he replied, not unkindly.
“How much?”
“I haven’t gotten an expiration date, I’ll let you know if that changes,” he joked before taking a sip of his tea.
“Toshi, this isn’t funny,” he chastised, rubbing at his tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“No, I suppose it’s not.” he agreed with another sad smile, “I don’t know, Naomasa, could be years; maybe you’re right, maybe I am middle-aged. I’ve got just as much certainty about my longevity as anyone else.”
Silence fell across the table once more and he took a sip of his coffee, it was just the way he liked it.
“Let’s talk about something less dour. How have you been doing?” Toshinori asked after a moment.
“Good. I’ve been good. I got promoted to detective a few years back and I think I’m looking toward another promotion pretty soon, though, that’s not entirely based on my own merit but you won’t hear me complaining. The chief detective at the precinct is retiring in a few months and I look like I’ve been doing far more work than I actually have been on paper because of a vigilante who’s been running around doing all the grunt work. Of course, you didn’t hear that from me though,” he said, recapping the last 4 years as succinctly as possible.
“Of course,” Toshinori agreed with mock sincerity, “No vigilantes around here.”
“What about you? Tell me about your shining young pupil.”
Toshinori’s smile returned before he even got the sentence out.
“Oh, he’s wonderful,” he said with a shimmer of pride in his eye, “I’ve had him cleaning up Dahgobah for the past 8 months now.”
“Oh yeah, I passed by there last month and I thought it was looking much cleaner than I’d remembered. You’re telling me one person did all that? You’ve been helping, right?”
“Minimally. Anything smaller than a car was all him. It’s good strength training and he’s been taking it very seriously, I couldn’t ask for more dedication.”
“Strength training,” He mused aloud, “Yeah, I’d imagine that’d do the trick. You said you already…?” he trailed off, not wanting to say too much on the off chance someone was listening.
“Yes, last month,” he confirmed, understanding Naomasa’s non-question, “It went, ah, disastrously, but we’re getting there slowly.”
“Disastrously?” he pushed him to elaborate.
“It’s quite difficult to control and, well, I’m not so sure I’m the best teacher,” he said with a nervous laugh as he rubbed at the nape of his neck, “He accidentally, er, went full throttle and destroyed his arm the first time he tried to use it. Thankfully, I was there. I took him to the hospital and he had to get surgery to set the bones in his hand, they were completely shattered.”
Naomasa didn’t even try to suppress his cringe, that sounded awful. He could see the guilt written in Toshinori’s features so he tried to steer the topic elsewhere.
“How did you meet him?”
His look of guilt only deepened.
“I’m afraid that went rather disastrously too–”
“Well, how about something non-disastrous?” Naomasa interrupted, “Just tell me about him, what makes him so ‘wonderful’?”
“His name is Midoriya,” he started, a smile already creeping back up into his features, “He is just so talented, everything I ask of him he does with astounding competence. He’s been sorting through everything to recycle, you know? I didn’t even ask him to! I bet you less than half of the stuff on that beach is going to end up in a landfill by the time he’s done. He’s just so good, it’s not even a conscious effort on his part, he saw a crab one day and ever since then, he checks where he’s throwing something before he throws it just in case there’s another one. I’ve never met someone just so fundamentally good,” Toshinori explained with a grin as if he himself hadn’t been carrying around a pocket full of change to feed into parking meters that were running low since before Naomasa had even met him, like he didn’t have coffee waiting for his friend he hadn’t seen in 4 years made to his exact preference.
Naomasa couldn’t help but smile back at the irony.
“And he’s smart too, always coming up with creative solutions rather than giving up and asking me for help. He moved this industrial-sized refrigerator once with wheels and axels he fastened together with scraps, the thing must have been 600 lbs, but he moved it on his own! He’s been studying quirks and heroes for a decade too, he’s got these analysis journals, I haven’t seen much of them but what I have seen is absolutely brilliant. He notes their fighting styles and incorporates them into his own martial arts training which he’s been doing for a few years. The first time we sparred he knocked the wind out of me! He threw sand in my face and kicked me in the ribs while I had my eyes closed!” he said with a full-bellied laugh.
Damn, Naomasa was impressed. It seemed like Toshinori had found a real gem. It also seemed like his friend was completely besotted, like a proud dad. He supposed that probably wasn’t too far from the truth.
“How old is he?” He asked, genuinely curious.
“He’s only 14!” he exclaimed, “Well, 15 now. He’s on the fast track to greatness! Entrance exams are in less than two months and he’s going to get into UA, I’m sure of it.”
Naomasa was slightly concerned about that, 15 was young. One might argue too young, but Toshinori wasn’t any older than that when he received One For All; he’d at least had it before UA, that much was public record. Noamasa wasn’t sure when or how his friend had received One For All, he knew he had been young and there had been exacerbating circumstances, but Toshinori didn’t like to talk much about the past. The power had always been a burden to bear, hopefully, less so now that All For One was no longer an issue to be factored into the equation.
“Fifteen?” he repeated, his contemplative silence no doubt having become concerning.
Toshinori nodded in response.
“Is he handling this all… well?”
“Oh, he’s rather nervous about everything, he could definitely use some confidence, but we’re working on it,” he responded.
“He’s just a kid, Toshi,” he warned.
“I know.”
“Alright, just, make sure you don’t forget that.”
“Hah, it’s hard to forget when he’s 5 foot nothing,” he quipped good-naturedly, “Well, not really, he’s a bit taller than that, but not by much,” he said as he started tapping at his phone screen.
Naomasa gave him a minute and was rewarded with a picture of a green-haired kid sitting on a stack of tires, presumably at Dagobah, while smiling shyly with a tupperware of soup in his lap and a spoon halfway to his mouth.
“He made us the stew, he grew the tomatoes himself,” he added brightly.
Toshinori proceeded to show him about a dozen more pictures of the kid and himself spanning over the past few months if the change in seasons around them was anything to go by. He had been worried about him since the moment he stepped into the cafe; Naomasa would never say it, but he looked awful. He looked like a particularly strong breeze could blow him over, but at the same time he’d never seen him so happy. He’d known the man for over a decade now and he’d never seen him smile like that, like he wasn’t holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He hoped dearly that he hadn’t settled that weight onto his successor.
***
Time was slipping through his fingers and Izuku had never been so stressed in his life. Two months went by in the blink of an eye and the beach was absolutely spotless. He’d finished it a few weeks ago and people were starting to come back to enjoy the views which was bittersweet; he felt like he was losing a place that was supposed to be his, but at the same time, this is what he’d been working toward. The beach would always be there, he just needed to share it now. It was still pretty well deserted in the early mornings and All Might had been making good on Gran Torino’s promise; he wasn’t going so easy on him anymore. He spent 45 minutes of his 3-hour limit working with Izuku every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and Izuku liked to think it was paying off; using One For All was becoming more instinctual which was good, but he was worried it was going to become a problem on patrols. It hadn’t yet, the mental dissonance between him and his Ivy persona had been enough to keep it at bay but he couldn’t help but worry regardless.
He knew he needed to figure out a way to end his, er, extracurriculars soon but he could hardly bear the thought of it, Uptown was his home and his people needed him, they needed Ivy. how could he just leave them? What was he supposed to do? Just pack up and move on to greener pastures? And what about Eraser? He wouldn’t just give up on them if they left and they couldn't risk the possibility of him poking around and finding out who he really was.
More than any of that though was the plain truth that he needed Ivy. He needed to be Ivy for him, being Ivy, ironic as it was given how much danger it put him in, saved his life. He owed everything to them; as weird as it was and as little sense as it made, he didn’t want to let them down. He had a feeling that letting someone down was going to be unavoidable, he made his bed and now he had to lie in it. He still had time though, less and less by the day, but there was still time. Just a little more time.
Just… just a little more time.
Notes:
Everyone stop worrying about me, I’m fine. I’m just stuck on the futility of life in a fun girly pop kind of way, but this too shall pass… eventually. The ground varmint said spring is coming soon so hopefully the sun will come back and remind me that everything is pointless but that’s the point of it. We shall see.
No but for real, I’ve been depressed my whole life and it’s to the point where I know it will get better so it’s kinda just annoying more than anything. Like girl,,, I get it,,, we’re all gonna die and capitalism is a leech on the underbelly of humanity that has grown so fat that it’s becoming a beast more powerful than us. I’ll probably never make a living wage as an artist, it’s fine, just like be chill about it maybe.
I feel better when I’m making something so I’m not pushing myself to write to my own detriment, I promise. The more I make the better I feel but the worse I feel the less I can make. ’Tis the curse of the artist, It’s cyclical, brother🤘😔
…
*sighs* Give me my damn whimsy back, this shit is exhausting.
Anyway... thanks for reading <3
Chapter 91: The Entrance Exam
Notes:
canon timeline canon timeline canon timeline CANON TIMELINE CANON TIMELINE CANON TIMELINE
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It took some convincing but Midoriya finally relented and allowed him to drive him to the entrance exam. He had to resort to mild guilt-tripping, but hey, a win is a win. He felt like a parent whose teenage kid was going through a phase of being too embarrassed to be seen with them and the thought brought a smile to his face even though the real reason Midoriya kept trying to refuse a ride was that he didn’t want to be a bother. He was too kind. Toshinori had wanted to have a family when he was younger but with All For One, that just wasn’t feasible, it left too many weak points, provided too much leverage and now it was a little too late for that. He was glad to have found Midoriya, he was like the son he never got the chance to have.
Pulling up to the boy’s apartment complex he was unsurprised to find him already waiting outside even though he was nearly 15 minutes early. That kid was beyond punctual and looking more nervous than ever. He was sitting on the curb wringing his hands and bouncing his leg at a frankly impressive frequency. Even still, his face lit up when he spotted Toshinori’s truck pulling into the lot. He barely had time to put the car in park before Midoriya was scrambling into the passenger’s seat.
Kami, the kid had anxiety radiating off of him like heat sweltered off the pavement in mid-July.
“My boy, calm down. You’re going to do great,” he said with what he hoped to be a reassuring grin, though he looked a little too skeletal to be of much comfort to anyone in this form.
Midoriya just let out a shaking high-pitched groan in response which had him laughing good-naturedly at the boy’s expense.
“Ah, there’s that confidence,” he shot back sarcastically.
He let a comfortable silence fall over them for a few blocks before he spoke up again.
“Did you eat breakfast?”
“Mhmm,” Midoriya confirmed.
“Did you sleep?”
“I slept… an amount…” he answered nervously.
Toshinori laughed again. That was one of his favorite things he had learned about Midoriya over the last 10 months, he was actually quite funny once you got to know him. Glimmers of his personality shone through slowly but surely and he hoped that he would be around long enough to see him blossom into the man Toshinori knew he could be. Life after retirement wasn’t something he hadn’t wished for in a long long time and the thought brought a smile to his face.
They filled the rest of the drive with idle chit-chat until they pulled up at the front gate.
“You’ve got this, my boy. I have enough faith in you for the both of us!”
“T-thanks, All Might,” he replied sounding no more convinced than he did when he got into the car.
Oh well, he’d just have to wait and see then. Time would prove him right, Midoriya was going to do amazing Toshinori thought tenderly as he watched him walk away.
And then promptly trip about 10 feet past the front gate.
…that wasn’t a great start.
***
Alright, this was it for him. Nearly three years of quasi-vigilantism, three years of living on the streets, and 10 months of a training program from hell and an uneven paving stone is what finally took him out. Well, everyone had their time, he’d had a good run. He’d accepted his fate when the pavement that had been rapidly approaching his face suddenly stopped; he felt his stomach turn and he let out a sound that couldn’t be described as dignified by any stretch of the imagination.
“Are you okay?” he heard someone ask with a sweet voice.
He was… floating?
All he could manage to do was look over to the source of the voice dumbly. It was a girl with short brown hair who looked to be the same age as him.
“I used my quirk to stop you from falling, I’m sorry I didn’t ask first, but I figured you wouldn’t mind,” she explained as she gently manhandled his feet back onto the ground and released her quirk.
A gravity quirk? That was really cool! She pressed her fingers together to release it, was it a five-point touch activation? He didn’t feel her touch him so it must work on objects touching other objects, if that’s the case she probably touched his bag.
“Isn’t this all like way nerve-wracking?” she asked anxiously.
“Um, I uh–”
“Well, guess I’ll see you inside, bye!” she dismissed herself before he could even form a coherent sentence.
Well, he fucked that up. He wished the crooked paving stone took him out when it had the chance; his conversation skills were beyond hopeless.
“Not here to socialize, Izuku. Here for a test, pick one thing to stress out about at a time,” he muttered to himself under his breath as he continued his march through the front doors.
Once he was certain he knew where he was going he hid himself away in a disused hall, he knew Kacchan was going to be here and he knew his assigned seat was going to be right next to him because they were from the same middle school and he did not fancy sharing forced proximity with him for any amount of time. He would just wait here until the last of the crowd trickled in and slip in last second, just like he did at school.
Some things never change.
When the last second approached Izuku slid through the auditorium doors right before they were closed and Present Mic was already on stage. The sight of him helped assuage Izuku’s anxiety. They’d only met once in person but he felt like he knew them pretty well through Eraser and his radio show of which Izuku had been an avid listener for several years now. They were a good person and he hoped that he’d get the chance to know them better.
He tried to get to his seat with as few disruptions as possible but once he sat down he knew that his entrance was going to be noticed.
“Deku, what the fuck are you doing here?”
Kami, even when he whispered he was shouting. The people around them were giving them looks so, against his better judgment, he put a finger to his mouth and hoped that for the first time in 15 years, Kacchan would actually listen to him.
“Don’t fucking shush me, I told you not to apply to UA,” he barked at him loud enough that Izuku wondered if he had hearing damage from his quirk because that would honestly explain a lot.
“Kacchan p-please be quiet, people are staring. I won’t get in your w-way we aren’t even going to the same t-testing centers,” he whispered back at a slightly more acceptable volume.
“Get your eyes off my card! Whatever, you’re gonna get killed in there, shitty nerd,” he sneered after looking around and realizing they had acquired an audience.
Izuku did his best to ignore the murderous aura radiating off of the boy next to him as Mic continued to explain how the test was supposed to go. He’d missed a good bit of the explanation due to Kacchan’s berating but he’s pretty sure he got the gist of it. Wait, four opponents were listed on the handout but only three were listed for points on the display screen. What was–
“Excuse me sir, but I have a question,” a tall boy a few rows in front of him spoke up.
“Hit me!” Present Mic exclaimed as a spotlight blinked to life above the boy.
“On the printout, you've listed four types of villains, not three. With all respect, if this is an error on official UA materials it is shameful. We are exemplary students, we expect the best from Japan's most notable school. A mistake such as this won't do!” he chastised with more misplaced confidence than Izuku could ever dream of, “Additionally, you two back there, you’ve been arguing this whole time. Stop it. If you can’t bother to take this seriously then leave, you’re distracting the rest of us,” he continued, pointing an accusatory finger at him and Kacchan.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, now people were laughing at them. He hoped that girl from earlier couldn’t see him, this was so embarrassing. He vaguely heard the explanation stating that the fourth opponent was just an obstacle, but he was more focused on sticking his head in the sand. As soon as he heard the first signs of a dismissal he got as far away from Kacchan as he could, being around him wasn’t great for his nerves.
He did his best to stay toward the edge of the crowds as they all made their way to the busses that would be taking them to their testing grounds. Izuku boarded the bus last, like always, which usually ended up with him sitting at the front but this time the last pick seat was right next to the kid who had called him out for Kacchan ‘whisper’ shouting at him during Mic’s orientation. He could see why that was the last pick spot…
Whatever, he’d suffered worse. Luckily, it looked like the boy was focused on mentally preparing himself or something so hopefully he wouldn’t try to talk to Izuku at all. He made a disapproving face at him when he went to sit but otherwise said nothing. What was up with today and forcing him to sit next to people who hated him? The bus ride was blessedly short as Izuku did not want to spend any more time than necessary with the one person on this bus that he’d already managed to get into bad graces with.
He wasn’t even quirkless anymore, maybe it was just a him thing.
When the bus came to a stop to drop them off Izuku got as far away from that kid and everyone else as quickly as possible. He let everyone else crowd in front of him to gawk at the enormity of the testing grounds and stayed back; he didn’t want to start any more trouble than he already had.
From his spot at the back of the group, he noticed that the girl who had saved him from a face full of concrete was here too and she looked even more nervous than before. He should thank her, right? That would be a normal and good thing to do… probably; it’d get her mind off her anxiety and remind her that she could save people even if it was just in little ways. That would make him feel better if he were in her shoes at least.
With his mind made up, he steeled his nerves and made to walk into the throng of other examinees only to be stopped about five steps in by a hand firmly grasping his shoulder. It scared the living daylights out of him and he nearly went to flip whoever it was that grabbed him over and onto the ground but he stopped himself at the last second and settled for wrenching himself out of their grasp.
It was that tall boy from before. Of course.
“She looks like she’s trying to focus on the trials ahead. What are you going to do? Distract her and ruin her chances to succeed?” he asked, literally looking down his nose at Izuku.
He’d been psyching himself up for the test ahead and as it stood he was stuck halfway between Ivy’s confidence and his own timidity. He didn’t try to justify his behavior with a response nor did he dispute the boy’s frankly wild accusation; he just stared back at the boy blankly before walking away, returning to his spot at the back of the group. What the hell was that guy’s problem?
Whatever, that guy’s problem was that guy’s problem, not Izuku’s. For the first time in his life, he wished Kacchan was here so that he could bully someone into their place because that guy had a real stick up his ass. The thought of those two interacting made him chuckle. That kid should be impressed with himself, he’d somehow managed to make the thought of Kacchan’s presence comforting for the first time in over a decade.
“Right! Let’s start!” he heard Present Mic’s voice boom over the crowd as the massive gate in front of them opened.
Well, he didn’t need to be told twice; time was ticking and if he was allowed to separate himself from the oppressive aura of a crowd then he would do so readily. As he ran straight down the center street he encountered his first ‘enemy’, it was a massive robot with the number 1 painted on the side of it. This was a one-pointer? That thing was towering over him and it had a goddamn machine gun for an arm!
“Oh this is bullshit,” he muttered under his breath before taking action.
He wasn’t going to use One For All unless it was absolutely necessary, he’d gotten pretty good at controlling it at very low percentages but it wasn’t perfect and he couldn't afford to break a limb so early in the game. So, with that in mind, he used a garbage can as a launch pad to jump up on top of a bus stop shelter. The robot came barreling after him and Izuku stayed in place as it took aim but he jumped to the left off of the awning as it fired. As he’d hoped, the bus shelter was reduced to rubble and he was able to easily wrench a structural pipe from the wreckage. He couldn’t break through solid metal without One For All, but this pipe sure could. Charging forward he took a running leap and swung the pipe like a bat straight into the robot’s head which went flying before clattering to the ground about 15 feet away.
Well, that was… violent… and far easier than he had expected. These things were barely a step above glass cannons, which he supposed he wasn’t one to critique about, but that was beside the point. They were intimidating more than anything, well that’s not true, it did destroy that bus shelter, but they were easy to take down, or at least the one-pointers were. That made sense, weed out the meek but still make the opponents manageable for a middle schooler.
Head in the game, Izuku, now’s not the time to meta-analyze the test.
There weren’t any more opponents in the immediate vicinity so he took to the rooftops, the pristine fire escapes were much easier to climb than the rickety old rust buckets in Uptown. From his vantage point, he made his way over to an area void of other examinees with a few bots driving around aimlessly. As he got closer he saw that they were all 3-pointers, four in total. Hopefully, they weren’t too much more trouble than the one-pointers. He didn’t let himself think about that too much as he dropped down on the nearest one, using his full body weight to plunge the pipe in his hands down its spinal column. Kami, this was gruesome. The bot shuddered to the ground and the remaining three turned their sights on him so he charged his way into the center of all of them with a flimsy plan and reckless hope. He was in a plaza with a fountain and a bunch of massive decorative potted plans circling it. He passed the bot closest to him letting it lock on him as a target before lining its shot up toward another bot and ducking behind one of the potted plants before it fired.
The shot exploded the upper half of the other bot into an unrecognizable mass of smoke and sparking wires. How the hell was UA expecting to deal with the fallout if a student got shot by one of these? He was operating under the assumption that there was a failsafe if someone couldn’t dodge in time because that was brutal.
The bots weren’t very smart because they fell for the same trick a second time before Izuku, er, disposed of the last of them. Okay, 13 points, 13 points was… good? He had no frame of reference, he hadn’t seen anyone else yet; he’d gotten ahead of the crowd and he was pretty deep into the mock city at this point. Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about that though, it didn’t matter if 13 points was good, more points was better so he took to the rooftops again.
Izuku continued his tried and true drop-down ambush technique but he was starting to get a little worried about his points, other people were dropping robots like flies and he swore that he just heard someone mutter about having gotten 52 points now and he only had 32… that was… that was not good. Was that good? Maybe that other kid was an outlier? Up to this point he had lost himself in his task but now he was starting to panic, what if 32 points wasn’t enough? There were only two and a half minutes on the clock.
He was taking down a 2-pointer as the clock ticked down to two minutes and the ground started to shake.
***
Shota was watching the screens intently, his next batch of students was spread throughout these testing centers so it was in his best interest to pay attention. One kid in center B had caught his eye, bolting ahead of the group without hesitation. That was good, usually, Zashi had to give ‘em a push. Hesitance was something that could get you killed in the field.
He skimmed over the monitors in front of him but his eyes kept coming back to that one kid and he couldn’t figure out why. He was working intelligently, he clearly had a mind for tactics but his points weren’t anything special. Did he have a mental quirk? It was rare that someone with a non-physical quirk got into UA through the standard methods, but this kid looked to be doing just that. His points were barely enough to scrape by, but barely enough was still enough.
“Examaniee on ground B, the one with the green hair, what’s his quirk?” he asked no one in particular.
All Might piped up from the back of the room, awkwardly shifting papers around but not actually reading off of them.
“Midoriya Izuku, quirk: Superpower. It’s a–uh– basic strength enhancer,” he responded.
That was… weird.
A strength enhancer? Really? He supposed that made sense, the kid had been throwing himself around with little to no effort, but he’d very rarely seen a kid with a quirk like that go at things so tactically.
“You calling dibs so soon, Eraser?” Sekijiro poked.
“Mmm,” he hummed noncommittally, “Might be.”
“You always had a thing for underdogs.”
“There’s a difference between an underdog and ignored potential, Vlad,” he shot back.
“Mm, touched a nerve, did I?” Sekijiro teased, “Tell you what, you can have the bean sprout if you take blondie too,” he said, gesturing to a kid with an explosion quirk who was annihilating robots left and right with no regard to fellow examinees or property damage.
Shota groaned at that.
“I have a feeling I’m going to have to anyway. You can’t keep a loose canon in check,” he jabbed back a little more subtly than Sekijiro had been.
“Hah, sounds like a deal to me,” he scoffed, either ignoring or not catching the insult.
He was mid eye roll when a booming crash loud enough to be heard from center campus quieted the entire room. The kid he had been keeping an eye on just destroyed the zero-pointer…
“Holy shit,” he heard someone voice his thoughts exactly.
“Basic strength enhancer, my ass,” Snipe commented from behind him.
That was the strength quirk? Had he even been using it before? Did he do the whole test quirkless? Why would he do that? He was using a salvaged pipe as a weapon, but he clearly didn’t need it.
Wait… was he okay?
***
The whole city was rumbling as the ground erupted to his left and a behemoth of a robot burst out. It had a large “0” painted on it.
That was the zero-pointer? Mic, you shady little shit.
He was about to start running for the hills when he heard someone in the billowing shroud of dust shouting for help. As it settled he saw the source, the girl who had saved him earlier had gotten trapped under a large piece of debris from what had once been the street before the Zero-pointer had burst through it.
Oh shit shit shit shit shit.
He needed to stop that thing, it was headed straight for her. What if he couldn’t stop that thing? He needed backup, Kami, where’s Eraser when you need him? Doesn’t matter, he’s not here, he still needed help. He blindly grabbed someone’s shoulder from the throng of people running away and spun them around. It was the tall boy from earlier… of fucking course it was that tall boy from earlier, just his goddamn luck.
“Get her out of here,” he instructed with a voice that left no room for argument before turning on his heel and running toward the robot that was flattening buildings without even seeming to notice they had been in its way.
This was a terrible idea.
He was tempted to test his theory about being able to use One For All at 100% without hurting his body but there were too many people here, too many ways for that to go horribly wrong so he couldn’t risk it. He harnessed as much of the power as he could manage without feeling like he would explode and let it spread to every part of himself, hoping that would be enough to save his poor battered bones. As he leapt up he saw sparks dancing around him and it felt like everything was moving in slow motion; that was new, he tried to focus on that rather than the pain in his surely broken legs.
Go for the head, it worked with the other robots, why not this one? He could at least slow it down… probably… maybe.
Well, it was too late to back down now. He poised himself to strike with his left arm and hoped against all hope that fortune shone upon him and he didn’t end up breaking anything else.
Fortune did not shine upon him.
The robot seemed to be pretty out of commission so that was good, but his arm was broken and for the second time today, the pavement was racing toward his face at an alarming rate and there wasn’t much of anything he could do about it. He idly hoped he was right and that UA had some sort of failsafe rescue bot in place as he plummeted to his imminent death. Maybe he could try a full power flick and make a shockwave to cushion his fall? He’d already broken three limbs to varying degrees, what was one more finger at this point? He went to take aim when he saw the two students from earlier still below him. The girl was now on top of the debris that had been trapping her which was nice but he wished she would get out of the way; this wasn’t going to be a pretty sight.
He heard the boy shout something and all the sudden the slab of concrete and the girl were barreling toward him, well barreling toward him faster than they had been. Were they trying to save him? That was sweet…The girl and the massive slab of concrete weren’t slowing down though…
‘Oh Kami, this was going to hurt.’ Was the last thing he thought before everything went black.
***
He was going to get rescue points for that. That stupid kid just broke three of his limbs and he was going to get so many rescue points for that, Shota just knew it. The board members loved to reward idiotic self-sacrificing bullshit, there was no way that kid wasn’t getting in. The same went for that blonde boy, he’d gotten way too many points to not get in and now Shota was stuck with both of them.
Lord rest his soul, this was going to be a long year.
Notes:
teheheheheheh thanks for reading!!!!
Chapter 92: Finally Passing the Bechdel Test
Notes:
Listen, it's only kind of my fault that it's taken *checks watch* 248,089 words to finally pass the Bechdel test.
...
Personally, I blame Horikoshi.
CHECK THE END NOTES FOR FIC RECS
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When he came to it was to the sound of retching and a small hand slapping him gently across the face. He blinked his eyes open slowly and the blurry visage of Recovery Girl came into focus. She was talking and he didn’t mean to ignore her but his head was fuzzy and he was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The retching was coming from a girl lying next to him on a chunk of concrete and there was another kid a little ways away with a bloody shin.
The entrance exam, oh no, his bones.
“–idoriya! Look at me,” he finally registered what Recovery Girl was saying.
“S-sorry,” he stuttered out, returning his focus back to her.
She was still a little blurry though, he probably had a concussion.
“Yes, that seems to be the case but I fear that that’s currently the least of your concerns, Sonny,” she chastised.
Oh, yeah, bones… that explained the pain.
“Bones indeed. You did a number on them,” Recovery Girl confirmed his suspicions.
Was he saying everything out loud? That was embarrassing.
“Yes you are dear, but you’re going right back to bed. Don’t worry, you didn’t embarrass yourself too much,” she assured him before planting a kiss on his forehead causing everything to go dark again.
***
Once she finally finished barfing over the edge of the concrete slab she looked back up at the scene around her. She could have sworn she heard the boy next to her talking but he was still out cold, that other boy put a little too much oomph into the boost he’d promised and she ended up crashing into the kid they were trying to save. At least his aim was on point…? No one died so that was good enough she thought as she looked back at the kid next to her who was getting checked over by someone.
Oh my gosh, that was the legendary rescue hero Recovery Girl! Ochaco inelegantly choked on a gasp before she formed a proper sentence.
“Is he okay?”
“He will be, just some broken bones and a concussion,” she replied cheerily
Oh, that was good?
“What about you, dearie? I assume the nausea is from quirk exhaustion,” she continued.
“Oh yeah, it is,” Ochaco confirmed.
“You almost got squashed there, are you injured?”
She’d nearly forgotten about that, so much had happened in the last two minutes, but upon being reminded her ankle started to flare up and she winced.
“My ankle,” she replied concisely.
“Can you move it?” Recovery Girl asked
She could move it but it hurt quite a bit
“Just a sprain or minor fracture then,” Recovery Girl explained before pecking a kiss on her forehead, “There we go, right as rain. Take a few energy gummies for the road,” she added before taking her leave to check on the other boy sitting a few meters away.
The exhaustion hit her immediately and she slumped back down to where she’d been laying before she had propped herself up. Ok, energy gummies were for the now, not for the road. After she started to munch on the second one she realized that it was probably kind of weird to be laying down so close to a stranger who was dead asleep and snoring softly, so she rolled off their makeshift bed quickly.
The boy was lying on his stomach with one of his arms pinned beneath him and pointing in a direction that it definitely wasn’t supposed to be. Oh, that was gross, okay, looking away from that now. When she turned her focus back up she saw that Recovery Girl was making her way back toward her, no she was probably coming back for that boy, she should get out of the way–
“Be a dear and help me get him on this stretcher,” Recovery Girl asked as two med bots came zipping toward them.
“Um…” she responded elegantly.
“Just roll him on, my back’s not as strong as it used to be,” Recovery Girl joked.
“But his arm…” Ochaco pointed out cautiously.
“Broken, yes, it’s not going to get any less broken if we just leave him there, come on. Chop chop,” she instructed.
Okay, that was fine, this was what she was doing now apparently. She did her best to ease the boy’s weight off of his arm gently but he was a lot heavier than he looked and he ended up just falling onto the stretcher with a thud. Thankfully, he was still out like a light because she was sure that would have hurt quite a bit if he were conscious for it.
“Thank you, dear,” Recovery Girl responded cheerily, she was seemingly unphased by Ochaco’s poor form.
Ochaco watched as she walked away with the robots without another word. That was… strange.
“Hello!” someone damn near shouted right behind her causing her to jump, “Sorry I didn’t get the chance to properly introduce myself, my name is Tenya Iida,” the boy from earlier continued, either ignoring or not noticing her shock.
“Oh, hi, I’m Uraraka,” she responded politely, “Thanks for your help earlier.”
“Of course! I apologize for the, uh, miscalculation,” he replied awkwardly clearing his throat.
She couldn’t help but laugh at that, this was all so ridiculous.
“It’s alright, it all worked out in the end.”
“It worked out for us…” Iida commented under his breath as his eyes followed Recovery Girl and the other boy who had saved her.
“Recovery Girl said he would be fine,” she reassured, “Do you think you did alright, with the test I mean?” she asked, doing her best to sound curious and not guilty.
“I believe my score was satisfactory, yes. I did all I could at least,” he responded.
“That’s good,” she paused, worrying her lip before continuing, “I hope that other kid had enough points, you guys wasted so much time on me.”
Iida scoffed at that.
“I fear he may have foreseen a part of the test that I hadn’t thought of.”
“What do you mean?” she asked genuinely curious as the comment was kinda out of left field.
“I can’t imagine UA would penalize someone for using their valuable time to rescue another participant. It is the essence of heroism, helping someone regardless of your own selfish interests. I misjudged him,” he paused, looking to be deep in thought before he returned his attention to her and brightened his expression, “I wish you luck Uraraka, I hope to see you come next school year,” Iida said with a polite bow.
“You too Iida,” she replied before they parted ways.
She hoped that Iida was right about that, they’d both wasted so much time on her…
***
Izuku felt… he’s not entirely sure how he felt but he knew it wasn’t good, both physically and mentally. He blinked his eyes open for the third time today as he looked up to the ceiling of the UA infirmary. He remembered everything that happened but he wished that he didn’t. He’d fucked up royally again, hadn’t he? Begrudgingly, he looked down at himself to assess the extent of the damage, it felt like his concussion had been taken care of and his legs were operational but his arm was in a cast.
“Oh, you’re up!” he heard Recovery Girl chirp from the other side of the room before making her way over.
“Here, have some energy gummies. It’s getting late and you need to go home,” she said as she shoved the sweets into his hand and walked away.
This was just sad, he thought as he started chewing on the first gummy. What the hell was he thinking? He didn’t use One For All for practically the whole test and then he went and fucked himself up for a whooping zero points. That girl would have been fine, UA wouldn’t let someone die in the entrance exams. He got too wrapped up in the moment and his rational thinking went out the window.
“Don’t look so glum, I’m sure you did fine,” Recovery Girl cooed as she reentered the room, “Yagi’s on his way now, I'll be seeing you tomorrow to get that arm settled.”
“How bad was it?” he asked even though he didn’t actually want to know.
“It could have been worse, you broke both your legs but they were just hairline fractures so I fixed those up along with the concussion you were sporting on site. I haven’t done anything to your arm besides set it but it wasn’t as bad as last time,” she said in a tone that told him she was trying to be reassuring.
That’s not exactly a hard bench to pass, he thought.
“I saw the whole thing go down, you know, I had my eyes on you. You did something different, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I activated it throughout my whole body that t-time. ‘S probably why I d-didn’t shatter my arm again,” he explained.
“I do wish your breakthroughs weren’t so literal,” she quipped back with a sad smile.
“Me t-too,” he said before shoving another gummy in his mouth.
***
Toshinori had never had his poker face tested so thoroughly. The elegant jumping around Midoriya had done since his first day at Dagobah had nothing on the feats of athleticism he was performing today; he just watched the boy scale up the side of a five-story fire escape in a matter of seconds. Did this kid do anything by half-measures? He should stop being so surprised at this point, but even still he damn near went into cardiac arrest when he watched his protegee jump from rooftop to rooftop. When he went to jump off the roof of a three-story building with nothing beneath him but four three-pointers and an empty plaza Toshinori had to take a seat. He watched with poorly concealed horror as Midoriya leapt down with nothing but a metal pole and landed squarely on top of one of the robots sinking his makeshift weapon into its skull.
That was… mildly disturbing if he’s being honest.
It was an amazing strategy but he’d never seen Midoriya do something so violent. The brief glimpse of a grimace he caught on the boy’s face told him that he wasn’t too happy about it either.
As the test went on Toshinori did his best to accept that Midoriya was far more competent than he’d imagined; he was cringing less and less each time the boy balanced over a fatal drop like it was nothing, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t still worried.
“Examaniee on ground B, the one with the green hair, what’s his quirk?” Aizawa piped up from the front of the room.
He felt pride swell in his chest; other people were noticing how talented Midoriya was! Doing his best to not sound so personally invested he shuffled around some papers and tried to respond casually.
“Midoriya Izuku, quirk: Superpower. It’s a–uh– basic strength enhancer.”
Upon recounting the information he realized something, Midoriya wasn’t using One For All. Why wasn’t he using One For All? His points were nothing to scoff at, they weren’t great, but they would probably get him into UA. He could be doing much better if he used One For All though, so why wasn’t he? Was he scared he was going to mess up and break something? It seemed out of character for the boy to not use every tool at his disposal to do the best job he possibly could, he hadn’t really been dissuaded by broken bones before so why was he so hesitant now?
Wait.
Oh…
He wasn’t using his quirk…
He was passing the UA entrance exam without a quirk…
Toshinori had never really forgiven himself for how he’d acted when he first met Midoriya but right now the guilt was suffocating. He did his best to shove that guilt down and pay attention which was a feat that became much easier when a booming crash sounded off loud enough to be heard from the observation room which was at least a mile away from the testing centers.
Midoriya had just taken down a zero-pointer.
And he was plummeting toward the ground from about 150 feet in the air.
UA wouldn’t let a student die, UA wouldn’t let a student die, UA wouldn’t let a student die. He repeated to himself over and over again in the few seconds that felt like eternities before his the boy was safely lowered back to the ground by the very participant he’d just saved. Thankfully, everyone’s attention was captured by his protegee’s stunt so he didn’t think anyone had noticed his disproportionate reaction from everyone else in the room. Well, someone was going to notice the armrests he’d crushed in his anxious white-knuckled grip but that was a problem for later. Good god, he could feel his hair turning grey. When the final buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the exams, Toshinori felt like he’d just run the length of the city thrice over. Is this how Nana had felt every time he did something stupid? He owed her far more apologies than he had previously thought.
Midoriya was alright. Recovery Girl was already with him. Everything was fine. He did his best to dismiss himself calmly and booked it to the infirmary once he was sure he’d left the sight of all the other teachers. He’d been sat down and waiting for several minutes by the time Recovery Girl burst through the doors. She let out an amused sigh, rolled her eyes at Toshinori, and answered his question before he even got a word out.
“He’s going to be fine. Concussion, hairline fractures on both legs, and a busted arm. Everything but his arm is already taken care of. I’m going to set it now, so shoo. I have other patients and you no doubt have other duties you should be attending to. You can’t come running every time he gets a boo-boo or people are going to start to notice,” she chastised.
He opened his mouth to argue, but she was right. He was supposed to report to a meeting to discuss the exam with the rest of the teachers in five minutes on the other side of the building, if he stayed any longer he would be late.
His mind was frazzled and he barely participated in the meeting, only speaking up once to agree that a student who had pushed another participant out of the way in order to get more points for themself should be disqualified. He hoped his silence was viewed as him taking in the room and learning through example rather than what it really was, plain old distraction. He couldn’t get his mind off of the fact that Midoriya had done the majority of the exam quirkless and whether he passed or failed now had nothing to do with Toshinori at all.
“Alright, moving on to rescue points, we had quite a few candidates this year as far as I saw,” Nedzu commented with a small laugh and a brief moment of eye contact with Toshinori.
Rescue points? That wasn’t mentioned in the pamphlet, was it?
“Well, I reckon those three on exam ground B go without saying,” Snipe commented.
He caught the tail end of an eye roll from Aizawa when he scanned the room for reactions. Didn’t he have his sight set on Midoriya earlier in the test? Why did he seem so against him now?
“Yes, of course, I’ve already sent their footage to the board for review, any others?” Nedzu prompted again.
He tuned out the rest of the conversation as he had nothing to add, he had been watching Midoriya the entire time. There was no way the board wouldn’t award rescue points to Midoriya, right? He put himself in harm's way to save someone who couldn’t save themself; that’s what being a hero was all about. The rescue points soothed a selfish part of his soul, the one that worried that he was wrong to tell Midoriya he couldn’t be a hero without a quirk. Well, he was wrong to tell him that but he doesn’t– or at least he didn’t think it was inaccurate. It was rude and insensitive but it was based on fact, he could have never become a hero without One For All. Sure he was strong, he had the will it took, but the world would have crushed him up without a quirk, Toshinori knew that better than anyone, he had worn those same shoes for years. But after watching Midoriya today, he didn’t know what to think anymore.
He didn’t know how to face the boy now.
Notes:
Get ready for angst babes, and thanks for reading!
---
I was talking with some of y'all in the comments abt fic recs so I'm dropping mine here. Is this the best idea for reader retention? No, no it is not, but these fics are good. Just promise to come back to Mama Cinnamon when you're done reading them 🥺 (mind the tags for a lot of these)
CinnamonPinecone’s MHA Fic Recs (all Izu-centric, all A03)
Heap of Ashes that I Am by Bunjeegumboy ->One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~226,595 words (complete)A Sudden Mastery by Bunjeegumboy
~246,845 words (incomplete but still updating; sequel to the previous fic)Better Luck Next Time by Nauticalwarrior
~638,928 words (incomplete but ended satisfactorily enough imo)Yuuei Survival Guide by LowlyWriter ->One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~519,280 words (complete)Switchblade by Cacid
~333,816 words (complete)Your Presence is a Dream in this Godforsaken Nightmare by ChaoticBitch033
~71,377 words (complete)Kintsugi (Broken but not Unfixable) by PhantomReads
~202,783 words (**incomplete** 🥹)Pied Piper by Blackholeca ->One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~297,011 words (complete)Viridian: The Green Guide by Clouds (myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown)
~272,617 words (complete)I Gave the Voices in my Head a Megaphone by Hannahbal
~17,306 words (complete)Always Chasing After Something by GriffinRose
~202,685 words (complete)Complicated Creation by Elemental ->One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~112,787 (complete)Accidental Bonding by What_Is_Sleep_T_T
~5,169 words (complete)The Physical, Emotional, and legal Consequences of Watching a Movie With Your Friends by whatagoodegg
~18,071 words (complete)Before My Heart Gives Out by kira18
~107,557 words (complete)
*only read if you’re in the mood to rip your heart out and stomp on it repeatedly (major character death)Climbing The Rigging And Counting Bloody Dreams (Never Quite There) by Otaku6337
~46,863 words (complete)
Chapter 93: Nothing's New
Notes:
Alright, strap in folks, this one's a bit of a doozy.
CW:
-suicidal ideation
-self-harm (not graphic)
-detailed descriptions of depressionlmk if I should add anything
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
All Might was acting strange when he picked him up. He weakly tried to initiate conversation a few times but Izuku just replied in one or two words and eventually he stopped trying. Was he disappointed in him? Did he see the results already? Kami, was he watching the whole time? As the drive went on in painful silence Izuku became more and more convinced that he had failed spectacularly. All Might didn’t ask him how the test went, so he must already know.
Fuck.
Kami, he was so useless. He wasted at least the last fifth of the exam ‘saving’ someone in the most idiotic way imaginable for no reason. UA wouldn’t have let a student die in the exams and he could have just used One For All to move the debris trapping her, the robot wasn’t that close, was it? There was probably enough time and he was just too hopped up on adrenaline to see it. He dragged that other boy down with him too. He didn’t feel as bad about that last part as he probably should have though, that guy was obnoxious. He hoped he still got enough points though, just because he was annoying doesn’t mean he deserved to get his dreams ruined by an idiot meddling somewhere that didn’t need meddling.
Getting dropped off at his old apartment building was the cherry on top of his day. He bid All Might goodbye and tried not to take his forced smile to heart as he watched him drive away from his hiding place in the lobby. Ten months of training with Japan’s number one hero and being gifted one of the strongest quirks the world has ever seen wasn’t enough to save him. He was doomed from the start. He never had a chance, he’d accepted that! Why did he always let hope drag him back into its clutches?
He did it with Kacchan over and over when he first got diagnosed as quirkless, for years he’d get up and hope today he’d be good enough to be his friend again but he never was.
He did it with his mother over and over after his dad left, for years he’d get up and hope today she would love him enough to cook dinner or smile at him, to tell him he was worth a damn but she never did.
He did it with his staircase and DJ and the Shinsos, it took him over a year and a half to finally give in to hope that time, and right when he did it was all ripped away. Why did he keep falling for it every. single. god. damn. time? Was he really that stupid? None of this was new! It was the same thing over and over and over and over; nothing’s new! Nothing’s new! Why the hell did he think it could be?
He didn’t even know where his feet were taking him, the sun had set and he knew he should go home but he didn’t care. He didn’t have room to care about anything right now; his mind was filled with rage and grief and an all too familiar overwhelming, suffocating hopelessness. The logical part of his brain tried to tell him that the entrance exam for Shiketsu was in a few week’s time, it tried to tell him that UA wasn’t his only option, that this failure wasn’t the end of the world but that voice was so quiet in the torrent of his thoughts. It was too quiet to be heard over the wind roaring around him– Oh, he was on a roof…
Why was he always on a roof?
The lights of Musutafu twinkled to the west and he could almost fool himself into thinking he could hear the waves crashing against the shore in the east. It was beautiful and he was sitting on the ledge.
Why was he always on the ledge?
There was a fire escape beneath him so he wasn’t in immediate peril should he fall but the sentiment remained the same, even his subconscious was trying to make him get the hint.
This was stupid. He was being childish. His life wasn’t his to play around with anymore, as long as he held One For All taking a swan dive was a luxury that he couldn’t afford; it was selfish to even consider it. He needed to pull himself together and go home. His arm hurt in a way that told him he’d used it to climb up here and he let the pain ground him. The cold wind stung his face the longer he sat up there and he just let it, he sat there until he knew his cheeks would be rosy for days from the windburn before he finally forced himself back down the fire escape.
He let muscle memory take him back to the brewery and paid less attention than he probably should to his surroundings to make sure no one was following him, but he figured if a rat scuttling across an alley on the other side of the street was enough to ping his radar than he should be fine.
He really thought he had a shot at this, he really thought he could do it, he was delusional; UA’s acceptance rate was lower than 1%, what the hell was he thinking? Sure, he had All Might’s quirk, but he couldn’t even use 5% of it without self-destructing. He couldn’t do anything without self-destructing though, so he shouldn’t be so pressed about it.
Izuku was tired, so, so tired. When he got back to his little office he let his bag fall to the floor and threw himself face-first into the couch, broken arm pinned awkwardly beneath him; the angle gave him a twinge of pain but he ignored it, he was used to the feeling of broken bones scraping against each other under his skin by this point. The ache only grew the longer he laid there and he only moved when it became borderline unbearable, he didn’t want to give Recovery Girl more work and make her set his arm again.
He rolled onto his back and tried not to think about his little revelation on the roof but after nearly four hours of staring at the ceiling and fighting the urge to tear his own hair out, he was forced to admit to himself that the option of ending it all had provided him far more comfort than he thought. It was a lot easier to face his problems when he knew he had the option to quit. Now that he didn’t have that, he didn’t know what to do. What if he couldn’t take it anymore? What then? What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do right now?
He found himself digging his fingernails into the palm of his good hand and the pain was comforting. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that wasn’t a road he should go down, it wasn’t an urge that he should tempt, but what else was there?
As he watched the clock on his radio tick over to 1:00 am he decided enough was enough, he couldn’t just keep laying here. He threw his blanket off and let his feet take him where they always did, the roof. His makeshift bucket garden held nothing but shriveled-up tomato vines and he thought distantly that he probably shouldn’t relate so much to a dead plant.
As he looked over the sea of abandoned warehouses he thought about why this was so difficult for him, not just his failure but his realization. He rarely ever seriously considered suicide, only a handful of times in the last few years, and he was doing better now anyway. He didn’t really want to die, so why was no longer having that option keeping him up? Maybe it was some sort of Stockholm syndrome or maybe it was the lack of choice in and of itself. He was stuck here now, that was it. The one bit of control he had had over his life was gone. Everything he held dear to him was one exposed secret, one slip up away from being ripped from his grasp and ending it all was the one thing no one could take from him, but now it was gone.
Kami, that was so fucked up. Most kids had a stuffed animal or something to comfort them and all he had was suicidal ideation. Jesus Christ, what was he supposed to do with that information? Some things were better left alone, he should have walked to the convenience store and nicked some sleeping pills to knock himself out, ruminating on his problems never fixed them. There were some things about himself that he just didn’t need to know.
***
He eventually managed to get a few hours of sleep. Recovery Girl would probably reprimand him if she knew, but honestly, it wasn't much less sleep than he normally got. He woke up tired with a familiar hollow weight in his chest, one that told him to stay in bed, one that told him that whatever waited for him today wasn’t worth it. The dramatic melancholy was just annoying at this point, he had to get up, he didn’t have a choice. He had to get his arm fixed today and he had to go to the library (on the other side of town) to register for Shiketsu’s entrance exam and he may as well register for Ketsubutsu or whatever other school’s exams haven't passed already.
Izuku almost laughed at himself, was he really so confident about UA that he didn’t register for anywhere else?
He told All Might that his mother was going to drive him to his appointment with Recovery Girl and took the train; he couldn’t face his mentor right now. Recovery Girl didn’t question his foul mood and he was grateful for that, she just gave him an encouraging smile and an extra handful of sweets before sending him on his way.
Sunday passed in a painfully slow slough, one that he hadn’t felt since he started training with All Might. His mind was at war with itself, half of it lost to pointless self-pity and the other half trying desperately to move on and let the past be the past. The opposing sides left him in a state of paralysis where each second ticked by with excruciating clarity. He did everything that needed doing and tried his best to eat enough food to be considered a meal but fell desperately short before spending the rest of the day laying on the couch in the dark.
Things would be better tomorrow. He had patrol, that would take his mind off of things at least.
***
Monday didn’t fair much better than the day prior but he muddled through, he had patrol tonight. Moving around and getting some fresh air would be good for him; hopefully, it would at least tire him out enough to sleep soundly.
He looked at himself in his broken mirror as he applied the dark eyeshadow around his eyes; he looked awful.
“Come on Izuku, patrol’s gonna fix everything,” he muttered to himself.
Being delusional was better than being depressed. Nothing was going to get better if he didn’t think it would get better, he knew that, so he plastered on his Ivy persona and pretended everything was fine.
***
Eraser looked different and it took them a little longer than they’d like to admit to realize that it was because he hadn’t shaved, his usual stubble was a day away from being a full-on beard; he looked haggard.
“New look or having a crisis?” they poked though they were genuinely concerned that it was the latter.
“Crisis,” Eraser responded.
His tone was as deadpan as ever but Izuku could still tell he was joking somehow.
“I was hoping that was the case, it’s not a good look on you,” they jabbed again.
“Charming as ever, Ivy.”
“It’s a gift,” they responded with faux gratitude, “Why are we having a crisis, exactly?”
“Work. Entrance exams were Saturday and there’s a lot more that needs to be reviewed than there usually is.”
Oh for fucks sake. The entrance exams were the last thing they wanted to think about, they’d been looking forward to patrol so that they could think about anything besides the entrance exams.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” they asked because it would be weird to not respond.
“Both, mostly good though. Well, good for the students, not good for us.”
“Mmm, just more work for you.”
“Yup,” Eraser replied somehow managing to unenthusiastically pop the ‘p’ at the end, “Overall a promising batch though. Promising to be a pain in my ass at least.”
“You gonna expel the whole class again?” they joked.
“I’d prefer not to, that was such a nightmare to deal with and I was serious about this batch having potential. There’s so much review to do because extra points are being awarded,” he clarified.
Awarding extra points? For what? Could he–? No.
Just no. He could not bear to hope anymore. He couldn’t take it being ripped away again, God, he couldn’t take it anymore. Even still, he felt its warmth seeping through the cracks; he would never be free of it.
Hope was such a wretched thing.
“You okay kid?” Eraser’s voice cut through his thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m fine just spaced out there for a second. What’d you say?” they lied, pretending that their mini-crisis had nothing to do with what Eraser had just said.
“Nothing important, just work shit. You sure you’re alright? You went all 1000-yard stare there for a second,” he asked again as he started eating his dinner.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just lost in work shit too,” they replied.
“That explains your 5 o’clock shadow,” Eraser quipped with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Hey, for all you know I have a luscious beard that this mask can barely contain,” they shot back, easily falling into their well-worn banter.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he replied lazily with a mouth full of rice.
It felt better to be Ivy, it felt better to not be so alone, but the night passed regardless of his wishes and eventually, he was Izuku again. He didn’t want to be Izuku anymore.
***
He was glad to have stacked both break days for the week right after the exam, he didn’t want to know how much worse he would be doing if he hadn’t had something to distract himself through the worst of his little episode. As it stands he was filing his nails down obsessively because the temptation to dig them into his palms had been too great to ignore. All Might had told him that he had ‘earned a break’ from training last Tuesday and Izuku wasn’t sure what to make of that. Did he just not want to see him? Had he given up on him?
He’d gone to the Ketsebutsu exam last weekend and he thought he did pretty well there, but that didn’t make him feel any better. The fact that it didn’t make him feel any better just compounded his misery because how arrogant was he that the possibility of getting into Ketsebutsu wasn’t enough for him? He was such a child, having a breakdown because he didn’t get his way. UA was a pipe dream and he needed to move on. Shiketsu’s exam was this Saturday which was also when UA’s exam results were due to be sent out.
All Might hadn’t been speaking to him much in the last two weeks. They didn’t usually text often but the damn near radio silence after seeing him five days a week for the last ten months was jarring; it was lonely. He’d texted him a picture of his garden box all tilled up and ready for the coming season and Izuku wanted to respond and tell him that he thought he’d done well on the Ketsebutsu exam but he didn’t have the nerve.
***
The Shiketsu exam didn’t go as well as he felt that the Ketsebutsu exam had gone, but he thinks, or at least he hoped he did a passable job. His train brought him back to Musutafu with enough time to check his PO box if he hurried. He didn’t want to hurry, he didn’t want to see what waited for him, but, like most things he did lately, he forced himself to anyway.
The bell above the door chimed as he walked in just a few minutes before the post office was due to close and the middle-aged man at the desk looked like he was praying Izuku wouldn’t go up and talk to him. He gave him a polite nod as he made his way over to his box at the front end of the shop. A crisp white envelope with a shiny red wax seal greeted him when he turned the key and peered inside. He didn’t want to grab it, he didn’t even want to look at it. But the clerk at the counter was eyeing him, likely waiting for him to leave so that he could close down shop for the night, so Izuku grabbed the letter and stuffed it in his bag before he could think too much about it; he knew he could lose himself staring off into nothing for hours and he didn’t want to have to put the poor underpaid clerk through his mental breakdown. Just as he had thought, the clerk followed him out and flipped the sign over after the door shut behind him.
The sun was low in the sky, casting a golden light over the pavement and the air was pleasantly cool, the last of the biting winter winds having faded for the season. It was a beautiful evening to get his dreams crushed. He took his time walking back home, the air was pleasant and the letter that awaited him surely wasn’t, he wanted to live in denial for just a little longer. As much as he had been beating himself up for his failure the last two weeks, the barest glint of hope still remained and would remain until he opened that letter.
His long walk eventually came to an end and he found himself at his desk staring at the envelope like it had already wronged him. The sunlight coming through the window behind him shone like a rectangular spotlight on the desk dramatically, the realization made him scoff; as if whatever news contained in that envelope could be the light at the end of the tunnel. No, he knew what awaited him, and no matter how long he stared at it, it would not change the outcome. Biting the bullet, he carefully peeled the wax seal and shook out the envelope’s contents. A small disk slid out and fell onto the table.
“I AM HERE AS A PROJECTION!” All Might’s voice boomed from the disk’s tiny speaker causing Izuku to damn near jump out of his skin.
“I know it’s been a while but with great power comes a great amount of paperwork! My apologies, young man. The truth is, I didn't come to this city just to fight villains, you’re looking at the newest UA faculty member!”
That explained a lot, he wasn’t too surprised by that.
“You passed the written test with flying colors, scoring in the 99th percentile! Well done Young man!”
He what?! He thought he’d done alright on that part, but the top 1% of applicants?! He’d never scored that high on something in his life!
“As for the practical exam–”
Oh, Kami, here it comes.
“You scored 34 villain points!”
Yeah, he knew that, he knew all of this, he didn’t want to have to hear his mentor repeat it all.
“Just enough to secure your place in UA’s hero course!”
…what?
All Might kept talking but he didn’t hear a word of it. He numbly slapped a hand over the projection disk managing to pause it somewhere around his fourth blind swat. He didn’t hear that right, he couldn’t have heard that right. There was no way, there was just no way. He was shaking and he wasn’t sure how long he sat there frozen staring at the stilled projection of his mentor.
He had to have heard that wrong, he didn’t use One For All to get any points, there’s no way he got into the hero course like that, there’s no way he got in quirkless. He figured out how to rewind the tape with his fumbling hands but All Might kept saying the same thing. There had to be a catch. After Kami knows how many times of listening to that he let it continue to play, there had to be a catch.
“You scored 34 villain points! Just enough to secure your place in UA’s hero course! But that’s not all! You went above and beyond the call of duty and risked not only your score but your well-being to save another participant! How could the hero course overlook such a heroic act? For your selfless efforts, you have been awarded 60 rescue points!!!”
…WHAT?
He paused the recording again. There was no way they gave him 60 points for that moronic display, there was no fucking way. Again he rewound the tape and again All Might kept saying the same nonsense over and over.
There were only a few seconds left on the recording, that was enough time to say psych, surely he was going to take it all back.
“…For your selfless efforts, you have been awarded 60 rescue points!!! In total, you received 94 points on the practical exam bringing you to the top of the pack by a significant margin! This is the highest score UA has seen in decades! Congratulations young Midoriya! Welcome to your hero academia!” All Might concluded with one of his trademark smiles before the projection blipped out.
What?
…
W–
…what?
The sun’s light had completely left the sky and night had blanketed the city before he was able to think anything beyond that simple four-letter word. He turned on his light and read through the letter that had accompanied the projection disk but it only confirmed what the recording had said along with further instructions on where and how to get a uniform and a bunch of paperwork that he had to fill out. He must have read the letter over 50 times yet the words remained the same.
He made it into UA.
He made it into UA quirkless .
He… how could…
He could have done it. He really could have done it, he could have been the first…
No.
No no no no. That was delusional. He was a null before, he was different now. He was fundamentally different, down to his very DNA, that had to be it, right? Maybe One For All had passive benefits, maybe it made him smarter or something.
He kept trying to come up with excuses in his head but each one was weaker than the last. By the time his alarm went off letting him know it was time to get ready for patrol, he had (intellectually) accepted it; he could have gotten into UA quirkless. They were wrong, everyone who had told him he couldn’t do it was wrong. Everyone who called him weak was wrong.
It should have been liberating, vindicating, exhilarating, but it just made him numb. The hollow weight that had made its home in his chest writhed and screamed like a wounded animal and Izuku silenced it accordingly. He had learned from his mistakes, it didn’t do him any good to dwell on his emotions, so he tied a short leash around the neck of the ugly creature that felt like it was trying to burst out of his rib cage, walked away, and shut the door behind him.
He pretended like he didn’t hear it howl, he pretended that he didn’t hear it throw itself against the door with a fevered desperation to be seen, he pretended like he didn’t hear it begging for its pain to be acknowledged. He locked the door, let a mask of indifference slide over his face, and pretended everything was alright.
He had a job to do, one that didn’t involve childish tantrums.
When he smudged the dark makeup around his eyes in the shattered mirror he did not recognize the person who looked back at him. There was some suppressed part of himself that knew that wasn’t good but they ignored it. They were rarely ever ‘good’. No matter what happened, no matter if things were going their way or not, they were never ‘good’. That wasn’t new and the familiarity was comforting in its own convoluted way.
None of this was new.
Nothing… nothing’s new.
Notes:
Everyone go listen to “Nothing’s New” by Rio Romeo. I know it’s about a dysfunctional relationship, but what is mental illness if not a dysfunctional relationship with yourself? The last verse when they repeat the phrase ‘nothing’s new’ over and over again is such a good depiction of long-standing mental health issues, at least in my opinion.
Not to be dramatic, but the way they sing it, letting their voice become more and more desperate before finally letting it break at the words ‘please spare me’ takes my heart, puts it in a blender, lays the sloughed remains of it out on a sieve, lets it dry in the sun, and turns it into a sheet of paper thusly making it so that I have never been more torn apart but nor have I ever been more seen in my life. Y’know?…
Maybe that’s just me haha…
Anyway 👀 while we’re talking about a person’s relationship with their mental health being analogous to a romantic relationship, go listen to “Dear Happy” by Dodie w/ Thomas Sanders too.
…okay that’s it, thanks for reading, bye!
Oh, actually, here’s some more fics (I went into the trenches of my a03 history for this):
Weapons Training (Everyone is more terrified of Mido than before) by Itsilvybear
~ 1,047 words (complete)Ethics VS Law (And Other Things To Know About Heroics) by Bakanohero —>One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~7,949 words (complete)Please Listen! (To What I Can Not Say Out Loud) by Almond_Milk23
~13,329 (complete)A Penny For Your Thoughts by cassiopeia721 —>One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~16,791 words (complete)Pictures, Posters, and Tender Beauty by ProPinkest
~4,378 words (complete)I Don’t Need You To Tell Me by AnAnonymousCactus
~7,974 words (complete)All it took was a fallen building to see it by Silvers_whispers
~32,196 words (complete)See You In the Morning by Broken_Radio
~50,706 words (complete)Run, run as fast as you can by CloudedStripes —> first part of a series, I recommend all of it.
~4,016 words (complete) (crack but cute anyway)See No Evil, Hear No Evil by Almond_Milk23
~13,920 words (complete) (violent/gory, beware)Of heavy hearts and helping hands by aworus
~4,637 words (complete)Bloody, but Unbowed by redrobin1989
~7,839 words (complete)Swapsies - No take backs! by heyhamlet
~4,446 words (complete)If I Could only Take it Back by miraculousemily47
~7,808 words (complete)Home is Just a Room full of My Safest Sounds by alineintherain —>One of Cinnamon's top picks ❤️❤️❤️
~9,405 words (complete) (this is a todeku ship fic 💞)Mockingbird by angst_goblin
~10,849 words (complete)Stream of Consciousness by kakashionmain
~18,747 words (**incomplete** 🥹)Ok that’s all for real this time, bye bye.
Chapter 94: Runner-Up
Notes:
FAN ART FAN ART FAN ART!!!!! A;RHJFARRF;E;AHFLUQHEL
Shout out to @Xunavailable06 on Twitter for drawing Ivy ❤️❤️❤️Also, ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND HITS!??!?!?!!?!? Are you absolutely joking me right now???? Thank you all so much!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
@Xunavailable06 Go pay them money to make more art or something. Look at their stuff and press buttons at the very least, like come on, look at that, lil' baby looks so badass.
Shota was not pleased to be Nedzu’s favorite, it tended to end up with additional work on his plate more than anything else and today was not an exception. He regretted ever agreeing to play a game of chess with the chimera, his career had been downhill ever since.
“Aizawa! You already know my opinions on nepotism, so I’ll spare you another rant,” Nedzu started talking before his office door even fully opened, “I took the liberty of looking into that board member’s progeny that weaseled his way into your class and I’ve found some rather disturbing accounts of misconduct that had been haphazardly brushed under the rug.”
“Misconduct?” he pushed to clarify as the doors shut behind him.
“Several accounts of sexual harassment against both his peers and teachers.”
“Can I even expel someone before they’ve been accepted?” he asked, seeing where this conversation was going.
“No, and there will be no need for that, that was just a preface for my exciting proposition,” the stoat continued.
Nedzu’s propositions were rarely ever exciting, that was just his way of telling Shota he had more work to do. He just raised an eyebrow, prompting him to continue.
“The vacant place will be offered to the runner-up, but an acceptance letter has not been prepared for him. Being accepted into UA’s hero course is rather exciting news and I would hate for it to be delivered anything less than spectacularly. The boy’s address is listed to be not too far from your residence so I–”
“I’m supposed to deliver news ‘spectacularly’?” he interrupted, managing to make his voice more monotone than it normally was.
“Yes, of course! I can’t think of a more qualified individual,” Nedzu replied without an ounce of sarcasm in his tone.
Shota just stared at him blankly.
“I’ll take that as a yes! I’ve already emailed you the boy’s information. He likely already received a letter saying he got into general education and I’m sure he will be thrilled to have that corrected, you have my gratitude!” he chirped with a nauseatingly pleasant smile.
He knew there was no point in arguing; Nedzu had already triggered the automatic doors of his office to open which was to say, this conversation is over.
He checked his email on his way out and the name rang a bell but he couldn’t place why. Knowing Nedzu, he would figure it out once he got there. The address listed was on his way to patrol but getting a strange visitor at 10 pm was probably not something that would be welcomed no matter how ‘spectacular’ his news was. Going at a reasonable time and then going back home wouldn’t be worth it, luckily it wasn’t far from the coffee shop he liked on block 37. He could go there at a reasonable hour, deliver the news “spectacularly”, then wait out patrol at the coffee shop. Ivy had been acting off lately anyway, he could bring them a muffin or something, it might not help but he couldn’t imagine that it would make it worse.
Plan in mind, he set out to find Hizashi to either tell them to leave without him or to fall asleep on them, he hadn’t decided which yet.
***
A few hours later found him knocking on the door of one “Shinso Hitoshi”. The name had been niggling at the back of his mind since he read it but the kid who opened the door didn’t look familiar.
“Hello, I’m a representative here on behalf of UA–” he started but stopped himself after the kid’s eyes went wide as saucers.
He couldn’t help glancing behind himself but, no, the kid was looking at him like that. So he knew the kid somehow, he must if he recognized him enough to be shocked by his presence. Before he could ask about the boy’s peculiar reaction a woman came tearing down the hall behind him.
“Toshi, what’s going on? Who–?” she too cut herself off and looked at him with wide eyes.
Oh… oh. He recognized the woman, it had been years since he’d last seen her face, but he couldn’t forget the twisted look of grief and fury that had graced her otherwise kind features that night. So, if this woman was who he thought she was, then this lanky bean pole must be her son. Kami, he felt old.
“Eraserhead, sir, it’s nice to see you’re well,” she said with a bow far too deep for his comfort.
“There’s no need for that Shinso-san, please,” he insisted.
“Come in, come in, Toshi go put the kettle on. How do you like your tea?” she asked already dragging him inside before he could argue.
Nedzu was a rat, forget mouse or bear or whatever the hell his stupid spiel was, he was a goddamn rat. He knew he did this for the kid’s sake; learning that the hero who had saved him but failed to save his father was now going to be his teacher was a revelation better had at home than with an audience of his peers. He wished his boss had had the decency to warn him though, sadistic bastard.
Shota had been thanked and apologized to for several more trivial things, manhandled into a chair, and had a steaming cup of tea set in front of him before he was given the opportunity to get a word in.
“Not that I’m complaining but what brings you here Eraserhead-san?” Shinso-san finally asked.
“I’m here on behalf of UA–”
“Yes! Toshi got in! We got the letter earlier today!” she said with a beaming smile.
She was clearly very proud of her son but the boy in question looked far less enthused.
“Yes, but there has been an exciting clerical error on our part which is what brings me here this evening. Shinso-kun made it into the hero course, not general education,” he stated plainly.
Both of their faces turned back to the same twin shocked expressions they’d had when they first saw him but Shinso-san snapped out of it before her son. If he thought she was beaming before then he’s not sure how he could describe her current expression, if he even attempted to smile that wide he’s sure he’d split his lip.
“TOSHI!!! You did it!!! I knew you could do it!” she exclaimed standing up from her own chair to embrace her still gobsmacked son.
Okay, he might not have delivered the news very spectacularly but he had to admit it was fun, he couldn’t suppress a fond grin when Shinso-kun’s expression caught up with the news and he smiled the same ear-to-ear grin as his mother. It was nice to replace the wretched visage of grief that the pair had always worn in Shota’s memories with this. Maybe that’s why Nedzu sent him, rat bastard still could’ve warned him though.
Shota waited until they had calmed down a bit to deliver the next part of the news.
“You’ve been assigned class 1-A meaning that I will be your homeroom heroics teacher,” he concluded his announcements.
Having forgone the limelight heroics route, he had gotten 12 years into his career without ever having seen the starstruck expression Shinso-kun wore on his face. It was odd. It was flattering, but he didn’t like it, he would be more than alright with going another 12 years without seeing it again. He was pretty sure he knew what his answer would be but he felt it prudent to offer regardless.
“You can be moved to class 1-B with Vlad King if that makes you uncomfortable. I would understand–”
“No! No, that’s– 1-A is fine, it’s good. I’ll stay in 1-A,” Shinso-kun answered inelegantly.
“Then I will see you soon,” he said with a curt nod.
Shinso-san, in all her aggressive hospitality, didn’t let him leave until he’d finished his tea and been offered dinner no less than four times. He definitely needed that coffee after enduring so many pleasantries.
***
Hitoshi had never been more confused, excited, and embarrassed all at the same time.
“I did it again, didn’t I?” his mom asked with a sigh once she finally let Eraserhead leave.
“Yes, yes you did,” he replied honestly; she had a tendency to overexpress her gratitude.
“Damnit. I freaked out,” she said with a sigh, “but forget about that! You got into the hero course Toshi!” she exclaimed again.
He felt himself smiling the goofy smile he usually tried to hide but he didn’t even care. He couldn’t believe it, if his mom hadn’t been there to corroborate the story he’d be convinced he had to dodge the loony bin for developing vivid hallucinations. He had been begrudgingly proud of himself for having gotten into UA at all, but the hero course? He got into the hero course? That was a pipe dream on his best days, how could this be happening? He had doubled down on his time at the dojo ever since Midoriya moved away but he didn’t think that could be enough! There had to be some sort of technicality, he only got 16 points.
He went back to the dining room to tear through the papers that Eraserhead had left and he got his explanation there; apparently, he had gotten 20 rescue points… whatever that meant, so his final score was actually 36 points. That was probably the “clerical error” Eraserhead was talking about. He passed the papers over to his mom after he read through them in lieu of trying to form a coherent sentence in explanation.
He made it into the hero course.
Everyone who called him a villain was wrong.
Everyone who called him evil was wrong!
He was still smiling like an idiot as tears started to stream down his face and all he could think was ‘They were wrong.’ The phrase played in his mind over and over again. His mom looked up and started wiping the tears off his cheeks only for more to take their place.
“They were wrong,” he finally said out loud, in the shy and broken voice of the little boy he used to be.
“Yes, they were, baby. I told you they were wrong, I told you. You gotta believe me now,” she replied, knowing what he meant without him having to explain.
She had faced the same thing, he knew she was right about him. He knew that everyone else was wrong, but that never made it hurt any less, that never stopped the world from sowing seeds of doubt in his mind. That paper sitting on the table was proof though, it was proof that she was right; he had been living on faith in her word alone for years, but now there was solid evidence sitting on their dining room table.
He made it into UA’s hero course.
He was going to be everything that people had told him he couldn’t be, he was going to be the antithesis of what people called him. He was going to be a hero. He was going to be a hero for little boys like him, he was going to be among the few heroes with villain quirks in just a few years, he was going to be the living breathing proof he had so desperately clung to in his childhood.
It was liberating, it was vindicating, it was exhilarating, it was too much to even begin to process right now. He let himself cry into his mom’s shoulder like a little kid even though he had to bend down to do so, and she held him just as she had when he was a little kid even though she had to reach up to do so.
He was going to be a hero.
Kami, he did it, he was going to be a hero.
***
Shota let out a dramatic sigh as he sat down with his triple shot of espresso in the privacy of his own booth. That was exhausting, people were exhausting. The cafe was out of muffins too so he hoped Ivy liked macaroons, he’d picked the strawberry ones since he knew that was one of their favorites, their eyes lit up subtly whenever he gave them a strawberry nutrient packet.
He only had an hour to kill before patrol since Shinso-san had kept him so long. Well, ‘only’ had an hour wasn’t giving credit where credit was due, it would have been far less time than that, but he’d managed to weasel his way out of having dinner there because he said he eats with his partner before patrol and showed her his bento. He was at least 95% sure that she’d taken the use of the word ‘partner’ the wrong way but she backed off regardless so he’d take it.
He did as much ‘paper’work as he could on his phone to pass the time but that only ate up about a half hour. He knew he would start getting drowsy if he just sat there doing nothing, so he downed his coffee and left. Ivy was always there before him, maybe they could just start early. He grabbed some Mocha macaroons for himself on his way out as well because the ones he’d gotten for Ivy had been tempting him, plus the kid always seemed more comfortable eating if Shota was too.
He got to their meeting location about 25 minutes before their proposed starting time and Ivy had yet to arrive, but they showed up less than five minutes later. Had they been showing up 20 minutes early every night? Damnit, they were probably going to start showing up even earlier now that he’d beat them there once, he should have stayed at the coffee shop.
“You’re early,” they stated plainly.
They didn’t have the same playful cadence to their voice that they usually did. Shota liked to think he was good at reading people but Ivy tested him, he didn’t even notice the change for nearly a full week, he knew something was off but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Either they’d gotten better at hiding things or whatever they were dealing with now wasn’t as troubling as past incidents. He was hoping for the latter, but, knowing Ivy, he assumed it was the former. They sounded worse today than they had the past two weeks, their act would have been convincing to most, but not him.
“I am, had some business to attend to nearby and it didn’t make sense to double back home just to leave again,” he offered as explanation.
Ivy eyed him warily but didn’t say anything.
“Brought you some macaroons, you like macaroons?” he asked in an attempt to pick the mood up.
Ivy just shrugged and took their spot next to him on the ledge looking out over the city.
“You’ve never had a macaroon?”
“Nope,” they responded, popping the p in an unconvincing show of their usual pep.
“Mmm, I don’t know how to describe them. It’s like a fancy Oreo… but also nothing like that at all,” he supplied unhelpfully as he handed them the strawberry-flavored ones.
“You’ve always had such a way with words, Eraser,” they predictably mocked, “I think you missed your calling as a poet.”
They weren’t too far gone to make fun of him, that was good at least.
“Yeah, I’ve been saying that for years,” he agreed, playfully ignoring the jab.
They scoffed out a laugh at that, but it was halfhearted at best.
The rest of patrol proceeded as it usually did. It was Saturday so things were a bit more lively than usual, but the state of things was still far better than they had been before the Yakedo raid. Everything went smoothly and Ivy never missed a beat, but Shota could tell that something was gnawing at them.
“Are you alright?” he asked cautiously, “You’ve been off lately.”
He looked them in the eye as he said it and he was glad he did. Their microexpressions spoke more than their words; he saw something break in their gaze only to be hastily boarded back up before they spoke.
“I’m fine, you worry too mu–”
“Ivy, I know something’s up. I know you too well for that to trick me,” he took a gamble and pressed.
He watched as the distant sadness in their eyes turned to anger and he knew he’d made the wrong call.
“You don’t need to know everything about my life. If I start falling short on patrol, then you can talk. Beyond that, just back off,” Ivy snapped back at him.
He shouldn’t have pressed. He wished Zashi was here to fix this, talking about feelings was not his forte, they were a combo deal for a reason. What would Zashi say right now? How would he salvage this? He’d probably tell him to communicate his feelings or something equally irritating.
Kami, here goes nothing.
“I know it’s not my business, but… I care. If you’re not okay, I’d want to know, I’d want to help. So just… let me know, okay? If there’s anything wrong or if there’s anything I can do,” he stated inelegantly.
“I know, Eraser,” they responded.
It should have been reassuring to hear, but they sounded too sad, like they wished he didn’t care. He didn’t know how to respond to that, he didn’t know how to help, he didn’t know how to do this shit.
“I’ll see you Monday,” they said with a nod before he could think of something to say and they were gone before he could stop them.
He couldn’t help but think that his incompetence in situations like this would be the death of them one day.
***
Izuku broke down the moment he ducked under the garage door to the brewery. Eraser was right, he knew them too well for them to trick him. He was too close, they’d let him get too close and now he was going to UA. He was going to UA and at best he would interact with Eraser in passing on a daily basis and at worst he’d be with Eraser constantly.
He couldn’t keep being Ivy, not if he was going to be a hero. He knew that, but it hurt too much to accept. He already had an existential crisis going on, he didn’t need that piled on top of it, not when being Ivy was his only reprieve.
As he cried himself out into his mess of blankets he tried to rationalize things. If he quit being Ivy right when someone with a similar skill set showed up at UA, that would be suspicious, right? So he had to be Ivy just a little while longer. He’d give it a few months maybe and then he’d stop. Yeah, a few months, he could do that. Things would be better in a few months, he’d be at UA! He’ll be happy, he’ll have gotten over his stupid little crisis by then, and he won’t need to be Ivy in order to feel anything beyond the hollow weight in his chest, right?
He could tell Eraser he got another offer at his ‘job’ and he was moving away. The excuse had worked before, he could make it work again, he just needed a little more time.
Just a little more time.
Notes:
My font is running dry, but here are a few more fic recs. I'm still going back through my history but there are a few fics I wanna skim over again to see if I actually like the writing or just the premise before I recommend them.
Thanks for reading!
Acts of Service by littlewonderlandgirl
~3,501 words (complete)I Come Complete and Invincible by Raayide
~20,521 words (complete)Customized Shoes by Athygy
~1,622 words (complete)The Softening by VioletlyRed
~4,366 words (complete)Sea Salt, Teardrops, And The Gentle Holds Afterwards by Otaku6337
~5,512 words (complete)And in the midst of it all by ephemeralfragments
~3,094 words (complete)
Chapter 95: The Good News Blues
Notes:
It's a short one, sorry. It felt off to add more and it didn't flow well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
CW:
depression
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku woke up and checked his phone only to realize he’d missed a text from All Might last night.
AM:
Did you get your letter?
Kami, he didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t want to pretend to be excited. He wished so desperately that he could just be excited. He got into UA’s hero course quirkless, that was supposed to be a dream come true. Shouldn’t good things happening make him feel good? Why did he always have to latch onto any sort of perceived misfortune? His wildest goddamn dreams came true! He was texting All Might, he had All Might’s quirk, he got into UA’s hero course, he apparently got the highest score on the entrance exam that the school had seen in decades, but he still had that godforsaken hole in his chest!
He wanted to scream and cry at the injustice of it all, but he didn’t have the energy.
Midoriya:
Yes!!!
He sent off a reply because he owed it to him. All Might had given him far too much to deserve Izuku’s sour mood.
AM:
I’m so proud of you!
We should celebrate! I grabbed your uniforms for you since I was already on campus. Why don’t I pick you up and we can get some ice cream? :D
It was so painfully domestic that it almost made him cry. That was something a father was supposed to do and the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. Izuku didn’t deserve his kindness, he hardly had the decency to be grateful.
This was supposed to make him happy!
Why
Why
Why
Why couldn’t he just be happy ?!
It was so frustrating to know how he was supposed to feel and have it just out of reach. It felt even worse to know that nothing could fix him, no amount of good news, no amount of genuine care from others was going to make this better. He was supposed to feel like this, wasn’t he? It was what he always came back to, it was inevitable, it was just how he was.
He knew he was spiraling, he knew he should stop, but he didn’t have the energy to even try. He texted All Might back, made some plans for later in the evening, and hoped he would be able to pull himself out of the hole he’d dug by then.
***
Toshinori was out of his depth. He’d made a bumbling mess of things, but he’d never felt such pride in his life. Midoriya had done amazingly and it stung his ego to know that his performance had almost nothing to do with his own teachings, or lack thereof, he should say. Midoriya was going to be something great and Toshinori owed him an apology for having discounted him at their first meeting. He had already apologized the day of, but he had no clue just how wrong he’d been. Should he apologize again? He felt like he should, but whether that was to soothe his own guilt or to actually make amends he didn’t know.
The boy had a knack for making him feel clueless. He was 50 years old and stumbling around like a newborn giraffe. He knew he didn’t want to be like Torino, the man was too cold and distant. He wanted to be like Nana but his memories of her were faded; all that he remembered with clarity was how she made him feel, and she made him feel loved, she made him feel seen, and supported, and cared for, and like he wasn’t alone for once in his life, but he didn’t know how to be that for someone else. It had been too long since someone had been that for him.
He hardly even knew how to be there for a friend much less be there for a child. Maybe he should ask Dave. He’d left their relationship like a book opened halfway, pages once flipped through with care only to be abandoned on a coffee table. He didn’t even put a bookmark between pages, he didn’t leave with the intent to be gone long, but he had and now it seemed too late to pick it back up again. He had a habit of doing that, he did it with Dave and Torino and Mirai and Naomasa and the list went on.
Kami, he had a problem.
He had to do better for Midoriya, but he had no clue how.
He figured being there for him was a good a place to start as any so he invited him out to celebrate. As much as he appreciated having work to fill his time with getting ready for the start of the new semester at UA, he did miss his protegee in the past two weeks.
***
Izuku did his best to pull together enough scraps of his sanity to construct a passably convincing facade for All Might. He bounced on the balls of his feet and plastered a smile over his face that he could only hope spread to his eyes as All Might’s truck pulled into the lot.
“Good evening, my boy!” he greeted with such genuine warmth that Izuku wanted to scream.
“You’ve been busy at UA h-haven’t you?” he answered back hoping to fend off any conversation that would prompt introspection on his part.
“I have, sorry about that. However, we’ll be seeing each other a lot more in a few short weeks! Congratulations, my boy. You did spectacularly!”
He knew there was no getting out of talking about himself, but he wished there was.
“T-thanks! I couldn’t have done it without y-you,” he replied knowing that was only half true.
“I didn’t teach you any of that agility, young man! You got in on your own merit!” All Might reminded him.
Why did he have to remind him?
“I couldn’t have g-gotten number one without the number o-one hero’s help,” he insisted, doing his best to emulate a version of himself that wasn’t so self-pitying.
“Semantics, you wouldn’t have left that girl there, quirk or not,” he said as he pulled out of the parking lot.
He was right about that. He probably would have gotten a few rescue points there anyway. That wasn’t helpful to know. He let All Might chatter on about UA and his garden, giving a comment here and there but he wasn’t really paying attention.
He didn’t want to be a quirkless hero, he reminded himself, he didn’t want to be quirkless. Nothing was going to change for him if he was still quirkless, it would be the same old discrimination just on a larger scale. It had to be enough for him just to know he could have. He could have done it, but now he was going to be something better, some one better. He wasn’t letting anyone down, no one expected him to be a quirkless hero, quirkless people didn’t expect a quirkless hero. Eraser had told him to do whatever had the greatest chance of making him happy and being bullied and told to kill himself on a national scale for the rest of his life was not going to make him happy. He could be happy like this, with One For All, he could be happy.
“–right, my boy? You seem off,” All Might commented, snapping him from his thoughts as they parked.
“Yeah, sorry. J-just a bit overwhelmed by e-everything,” he answered honestly.
“That’s understandable and nothing a little ice cream can’t fix, if you ask me,” All Might replied with a kind smile.
He could be happy like this. He wasn’t, but he could be.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 96: You Won’t be Alone (Whether You Like it or Not)
Notes:
Another short one, idk man. This and the last one were gonna be one chapter, but they were a bit too incongruous imo so now it's two lil' ones.
Y'all ready for UA? 👀 (that one's gonna be a beefy chapter to make up for these little story nuggets)
CWs:
Physical Assault
Bullying
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“This year we have made history at this school, for the first time since we opened our doors we have a student bound for UA’s hero course!” Ogami-sensei announced to the class.
Katsuki sat back in his chair with a smirk while all the extras had the gall to act surprised. Of course, he got into UA.
“Congratulations, Bakugo. Please stay after class; I have some paperwork to give you. The rest of you are dismissed.”
He kicked his feet up on the desk and let his peers congratulate him until they all filed out of the room, well… until all but one of them filed out of the room. What the hell was shitty Deku still doing here?
“Midoriya, you’re dismissed,” the teacher prompted.
“I, um, sh-shouldn’t I have p-paperwork t-too? My t-transcripts and s-stuff…?”
Ogami looked at Deku incredulously for a second.
“I thought that was a joke…” he muttered under his breath as he bent over the recycling bin and fished out some papers, reading through them several times before looking back up.
“Well, here you go,” Ogami said, handing Deku the crumpled papers.
What the hell was going on?
“and here you go Bakugo,” he said as he handed him the paperwork in a neatly folded letter.
Katsuki snatched the envelope out of his hand and glared at Deku. He was about to ask what the hell he was doing stepping on his moment but Ogami spoke up before he got the chance.
“Congratulations on getting into UA, boys,” he said with a tight-lipped smile aimed at Deku.
…
…what?
He watched the color drain from Deku’s face as he locked eyes with him.
“Whatever is going on with you two, take it outside,” Ogami interrupted his glare with a wave of dismissal.
He grabbed Deku by the collar and dragged him out of the classroom door, all the way down the hall, and outside. He tossed him to the ground around the corner of the building before he said a word.
“Give me those damn papers,” he demanded, grabbing them from his hands hard enough to tear them slightly.
He skipped the header and went straight for the body of the letter, “Izuku Midoriya has been accepted into UA’s Hero Course, please provide him with a copy of his official transc…”
What?
The?
Fuck?
He was so mad; he had the front of Deku’s shirt bunched in his fist and slammed him up against the wall before he even realized he was moving.
“What did you do to pass the exam?! You must have cheated somehow, right?! I’m supposed to be the first and only student from this shitty school to get into UA, but you had to go and screw that all up! I warned you not to apply!” he roared right into Deku’s face.
He didn’t flinch away like he always did and that just pissed him off even more. His face was neutral, like he was just sitting on a park bench and not pinned up against a wall in a corner where no one would check for them. As if Katsuki wasn’t even a threat.
“Let go of me,” he replied, not stuttering and making direct eye contact with him.
It wasn’t a request, it was an order. Katsuki damn near complied before he remembered who was talking. He didn’t think he was ever going to understand Deku, the piece of shit didn’t know when to quit and Katsuki hadn’t been this angry in a long, long time. He shifted his grip on his shirt to his left hand and held him steady as he sent his right fist crashing into his cheek. He heard his head thud against the brick wall behind him and he didn’t stick around to make sure he didn’t bust his skull on the sidewalk as well. He just walked away.
He expected Deku to be sprawled on the ground so he whipped his head around in surprise when he heard him speak.
“You’ll never be a hero like this, Kacchan,” he stated plainly.
He was still standing, he held his hand up to his cheek but otherwise, he looked no worse for wear. He looked disappointed if anything. What the fuck was going on? Katsuki was stunned speechless long enough for Deku to grab the papers from the ground and walk away. As he watched him calmly walk down the sidewalk he felt his blood boil. That motherfucker was always looking down on him! What the hell was his problem? He was always sticking himself in Katsuki’s business and stepping on all of his plans. What right did a stuck-up Deku have to say he couldn’t be a hero?
***
Any sort of progress he had made in improving his mood over the weekend came crashing down around him the moment he heard Kacchan had made it into the hero course. Of course, Kacchan made it into the hero course, he’d been working for this his whole life and Izuku felt like a horrible person for wishing he would fail. He just wanted a clean start, he just wanted to go somewhere where no one knew him as Deku, no one knew him as who he used to be, no one knew him as a Null. Kacchan certainly wouldn’t keep his mouth shut about it, not a chance in hell.
Kami, he was going to need to talk to All Might about this.
Izuku ignored the fact that his name wasn’t called out in class along with Kacchan, he ignored the fact that his teacher had thrown away his paperwork, he ignored the lack of apology, and he ignored the insincerity in his congratulations. He tried to ignore Kacchan, but well, Kacchan wasn’t going to let that happen. He distantly registered him screaming into Izuku’s face but he couldn’t be bothered to care about stringing the words together into something that meant anything. He just wanted to go home, he was tired and maybe that’s what possessed him to do something as stupid as ordering Kacchan around.
“Let go of me.”
He watched as the anger in his eyes turned to unbridled fury. He was so tired of being Deku. He saw the punch coming from a mile away but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it, some part of him still froze, knowing that ducking out of the way would only make him angrier. As his head crashed into the wall behind him he wondered if it was always going to be like this.
As his senses came back to him he noted the window sil to his left and the thought occurred to him that he very well could have died if Kacchan was left-handed; his head would have collided with the jutted-out corner of the decorative brick framing the window and he would have fractured his skull at the very least. He would probably be severely concussed as is if he didn’t happen to have his hair pulled back tight enough to cushion his head’s meeting with the thankfully smooth brick to his right.
He slumped against the wall for a second when Kacchan released him and walked away without even sparing a glance in his direction. Maybe he was just really tired or maybe he actually was concussed enough to say something as stupid as what he said next.
“You’ll never be a hero like this, Kacchan.”
He said it with the gentle realization that it was because now that they had actually gotten into UA, now that they were actually on track to be heroes, it occurred to him that Kacchan really didn’t have what it took. Today wasn’t the first time Kacchan had been that close to killing him; he was cruel and heroes were supposed to be good. Heroes should be smart enough to know how fragile life can be and precise enough to subdue without undue harm, they should be thoughtful, and selfless, and gentle whenever possible, and at least kind when it wasn’t; they should be everything Katsuki had never been. It would be one thing if he was just like that with Izuku, sure, he got the worst of it, but Kacchan wasn’t kind to anyone; He hoped that would change one day. The fact that he hadn’t been blown to smithereens for saying that was a promising start.
He paid thorough attention on his way home to make sure he could walk in a straight line. His head hurt but he’s pretty sure his hair took the brunt of the damage and he wasn’t concussed, his eye however was starting to swell quite a bit. Hopefully, he could ice it when he got back and it wouldn’t be too noticeable under his black eyeshadow during patrol tonight. It was definitely going to be noticeable tomorrow at school but no one would care enough to question it so he didn’t need to bother with covering it up. He reminded himself that this was the last week he was going to have to deal with this. One more week and Aldera would just be a bad memory.
His present wasn’t great but his future would be, things were going to be better, he was going to be better. He just had to keep telling himself that until it was true.
***
They didn’t last 10 seconds before Eraser noticed their eye.
“Do you have a black eye?” he asked the moment he was close enough to see them properly.
Oh, for fucks sake.
“Yeah, two of ‘em, I always do. Did you just notice? I really thought you were more observant than that,” they quipped back in a futile attempt to dodge his concern.
“You know what I meant, it’s swollen,” he predictably dismissed with an eye roll.
“No, I haven’t the faintest,” they defended sardonically.
Eraser just looked at them with an exasperated expression.
“You gonna stare dreamily into my eyes all night or are you gonna eat your dinner?”
“You’re insufferable,” he grumbled as he sat down on the ledge to eat like they always did.
“I try my best, yet here you are still suffering me.”
“Seriously, kid. You alright? You don’t have a concussion or anything, do you?”
“No, I don’t think so, I feel fine,” they relented, answering honestly.
“And what about the other guy?” Eraser joked with a smirk.
The other guy didn’t have a scratch on him because Izuku was too much of a coward to defend himself, but Eraser didn’t need to know that.
“Sleepin’ wit tha fishes,” they replied in a truly awful American accent.
“Yeah, I’m sure they are,” Eraser said, rolling his eyes again.
They just huffed a laugh out in response and turned to their own dinner. The bitter gloomy part of his mind told him that he was going to miss this, but they did their best to squash it down and just live in the moment. Plus it’s not like they weren’t ever going to see Eraser again, hell they might be seeing him even more often than before. That same dark corner of his mind told him it wouldn’t be the same and they did their best to ignore that as well. He was going to have to give up one of the few good things he had left soon, but soon wasn’t now and it did him no good to ruin the now with later. He would have other good things later, new good things.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Also, does anyone know the name of that fic where Izu is a snarky little shit under his breath and Jiro is the only one who knows? I have forgotten it but I remember it being funny. It was pretty short I think, just a one-shot.
Chapter 97: Ramen With a Side of Identity Crisis
Notes:
Okay, this is the last baby chapter before UA. I had a few loose ends that seemed too unrelated to put into one chapter and I've been in a mood. I could have probably lumped these chapters together somehow but that's just the nature of fanfiction, I suppose; you kinda send things out before you finish the bigger picture. I might lump 'em together later but idk if I care enough tbh.
Anyways, this Wednesday! Get ready for UA! The chapter is pretty much complete and she is a beefy beauty so gird thy loins or something idk.
CWs:
Identity struggles
Dissociation
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He had to wait a week before he could set up a meeting to talk to All Might because the black eye Kacchan had given him did not want to leave. Eventually, it calmed down enough to be covered up by a touch of concealer. All Might had been texting him more regularly since they’d last met and Izuku had been doing his best to dodge any attempts to meet up so it wasn’t difficult to schedule lunch with him the next day.
He didn’t really know how to properly use concealer so he just poked at his face until it looked convincing and walked to his old apartment building where All Might said he would meet him. The familiar truck pulled into the the lot about 10 minutes after Izuku had arrived which made him a bit nervous. He was here 15 minutes early again, how was Izuku supposed to explain himself if one day All Might got here before him and watched him come from a direction that definitely wasn’t the apartment that he supposedly lived in? Whatever, that was a problem to think about when he couldn’t sleep, right now he had bigger fish to fry.
“Afternoon, my boy!” All Might greeted him cheerfully.
Izuku nodded and smiled before awkwardly replying with his own “A-afternoon.”
“How do you feel about ramen? There’s this place I used to go to when I was at UA, we didn’t have Lunch Rush back in my day so there wasn’t as much of an appeal to eat on campus as there is now, but I thought I’d show it to you anyway,” he responded, gracefully ignoring Izuku’s fumble.
“S-sounds good to me,” he answered, thankfully sounding more like a regular person would.
The drive didn’t take long and the ramen place was small and quaint but very busy which made sense given its location in the city. They had to wait awhile to be seated and Izuku was grateful that they ended up getting stuffed into a small table placed in what appeared to be a refurbished closet. He supposed there was only so much expanding this place could do if all the surrounding buildings were occupied by other businesses and they had made the place cozy enough that it was more like a nice little nook than like the broom closet that Izuku suspected it had once been. It was perfect to have a sensitive conversation which Izuku would rather not be eavesdropped on.
After they placed their orders Izuku interrupted their pleasant small talk.
“I have a p-potential problem that you should p-probably know about,” he started.
All Might shifted his posture to something a little less relaxed and a little more attentive as he subtly shot a glance around them to check if anyone was in earshot. Izuku had already made sure there wasn’t but it was nice to have All Might confirm his findings.
“Is it about OFA?” he asked in a voice quieter than his normal speaking voice but not quite a whisper.
“Y-yes,” Izuku waited for All Might to nod before he continued, “O-one of my classmates f-from middle school got into UA as w-well and he knows that I’m– that I’m supposed to– that I d-don’t have a q-quirk,” he replied stumbling over himself.
All Might took in a deep breath at that and sat back in his seat taking a moment to contemplate what he had said. Izuku gave him a minute before he spoke up.
“He’s not– I d-doubt he’s going t-to keep his mouth shut a-about it, he’s er… talkative, but I was t-thinking about what t-to tell people and I thought I could just say I w-was a late bloomer or s-something. I know it’s unheard of, f-fourteen is extremely late, but you said that I couldn’t handle OFA if I w-wasn’t strong enough so I thought I could say that it didn’t manifest until I have enough muscle m-mass to handle it or something like t-that,” he concluded, wringing his hands nervously under the table.
All Might’s eyebrows rose thoughtfully at that.
“That sounds like a brilliant cover story, my boy,” he decided, shooting Izuku a proud smile, “I was thinking I’d better start teaching you how to dodge questions like that from the media but you’re well on your way already.”
Izuku blushed at the praise… did All Might just commend his lying skills?
“We just need to work on your confidence and you’ll be an all-star!”
He wasn’t wrong about that. No one was going to listen to him if he was a stuttering anxious mess, he needed to get rid of ‘Deku’. He wasn’t quirkless anymore and, as of a few days ago, he never had to go back to Aldera, there was no purpose left for that part of himself; he knew that logically, but the rest of his brain apparently hadn’t gotten the memo yet. Part of him was worried that he couldn’t kill off that persona he’d crafted and another part of him worried what would be left of him once he did. He needed to get rid of Ivy too, eventually, and once he did that he didn’t know what that would leave behind.
Someone that wasn’t him, that’s what would be left. That was good, that was what he wanted. He shut down that train of thought and told himself to be excited, not afraid. He was with All Might right now and All Might didn’t need to deal with his identity crisis.
“Hah, y-yeah, you’re p-probably right about that,” he said sheepishly hoping that he hadn’t lost too much time in his head for the window of normal response time to have closed.
Judging by All Might’s face it hadn’t been long enough to have caused concern.
“Don’t worry young man, you’ll get there. One day no one’s even going to remember the symbol of peace, you’re going to be something greater than I ever was,” All Might said casually as he went back to his bowl of ramen.
Izuku was stunned speechless by that. Was he joking? Was All Might trying to make fun of him? That seemed out of character but he couldn’t actually believe that… could he? It felt like the world stopped spinning as his ears started ringing. He had figured All Might had expected him to go down the path of limelight heroics, but the new number one? That was impossible! There was no way in hell Izuku could ever live up to that! He thought he would end up being a hero like Eraser was, competent in his own right, but more of a background player. He didn’t necessarily have his sights set on the underground but he never diluted himself enough to believe he could be a rank climber. Is that what All Might wanted?
He did his best to reign in his anxieties, smiling and nodding wherever seemed appropriate in the conversation that he was no longer an active participant in.
This was good, he rationalized, he didn’t know who he was supposed to be, and now he had an outline. That was good, it was somewhere to start. He had plenty of analysis on limelight heroes since information on them was the most readily available, he knew exactly what made a good persona. This was good. He could work with this. This was good.
Once Izuku came back to himself they went back to pleasant small talk and All Might refused to let Izuku pay for lunch which he was secretly grateful for since all of his savings were about to be dumped into tuition fees. He just barely had enough and he was thankful that he would be old enough to work by the time next year’s tuition fees came knocking.
When All Might dropped him off Izuku stood stock still in the lobby for Kami knows how long trying to come to terms with the fact that he was going to have to completely reinvent himself. He’d done it before with Ivy but that didn’t seem so daunting and it wasn’t so free form either, he wasn’t working off of nothing, he became what he needed to be. He responded to the people’s reactions, he was calm and gentle when needed, but ruthless when someone was being threatened, and he molded his sarcastic ‘go with the flow’ attitude to Eraser’s staunch stoicism. He didn’t think about it when he was doing it, he just did what felt right. He carved himself out to fill in an already present void, but now he needed to craft someone and convince people that that person was someone they liked, someone that they wanted to make a space for in society. Sure, he knew how to do that on paper, he did it with Hawks and it seemed to be working out well for him, but again, Hawks already had something desirable to work with, Izuku didn’t.
He could mold himself after All Might but that would be too on the nose, he didn’t need to link himself with him any more than he already had. He could mold himself after Ivy, but he couldn’t give Eraser any more connections between himself and Ivy than he was already going to. Deku had nothing worth modeling anything after and that left Izuku with nothing to work with.
When someone came down the stairs from their apartment Izuku pulled himself back to the present for the nth time today. He couldn't stand here forever, he was going to get kicked out if he did that. Wasting no more time, he headed back out again, he needed to make it to the library on the other side of Musutafu because he had a long day of forging his mother’s signature and falsifying documents to send to UA before next week.
He had a week to make contingency plans and craft different versions of himself and then he’d be at UA. He hoped that once he was there he would be able to fit all of the loose pieces together into someone that fit in with his peers. Aside from whatever Kacchan had to say there wasn’t going to be anything about him that was immediately repelling so he should be able to slot himself in somewhere and he was looking forward to that. He had filled a vacancy as Ivy but that didn’t mean they really ‘fit in’ with anyone besides Eraser, so he was hesitantly excited to fit in somewhere.
His anxiety was still buzzing but he forced some optimism down his own throat to muffle it.
@Xunavailable06 on Twitter sent me some of their sketches!!! Look at them!!! That's my baby!!!!
Check out their Twitter, they're so talented, I'm gagging.
(also, you're right, bb has long hair, he never got it cut)
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 98: The Love Child of a Train Wreck and a Dumpster Fire (Welcome to UA!)
Notes:
Buckle up, this is the longest chapter yet.
CWs:
Self-harm
dissociation
mentions of bullying
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
All Might had to be at UA way earlier than Izuku did which he was privately very grateful for because, as much as he appreciated All Might giving him a ride, he didn’t want to be seen with him like that. It would raise too many questions. So, like anyone else, Izuku took the train. He was glad to have free transit passes through the school again, he’d only gone a little over a week without it but the amount of times he had to go to the library to submit paperwork for UA had him wishing he wasn’t too broke to afford the fair.
He got there early and hid himself away like he always used to, he didn’t know why, he supposed it was a habit but he told himself it was just for today. Tomorrow he will have gotten the lay of the land and he won’t be so afraid. Today, however, today he was very afraid. He didn’t know if Kacchan was going to be in his class and he didn’t know if Eraser was going to be his teacher, he was hoping for a no on both accounts, but he knew he wasn’t that lucky. Mercifully, he was left undisturbed as the minutes ticked closer to the beginning of classes.
When the time came, he got up and made his way to the classroom, when he got to the door he could already hear shouting from the other side.
“Take your feet off that desk now!” someone reprimanded.
“Hah?!” a familiar voice called back.
That was definitely Kacchan… great… they’re in the same class… again.
“It's the first day and you're already disrespecting this academy by scuffing school property you cretin!”
And if his memory served him, that sounded like the tall boy from the entrance exams who called him out in orientation. Looks like he got his wish to hear them interact. He had to stifle a laugh at the thought of Kacchan’s face right now, but no matter how accurate it may or may not be, who calls someone a cretin these days?
“You're kidding me right, your old school put a stick up your ass or were you born with it?”
Okay, that was kind of funny… and also kind of deserved. Those two were polar opposites, maybe they could shout at each other until they both mellowed out, that would be nice.
The rest of the conversation seemed to be proceeding at a more reasonable volume so he couldn’t hear it through the door. Now was as good a time as any, everyone was probably focused on whatever spectacle those two were causing. Izuku slipped into the classroom as quietly as he could, though he knew it wouldn’t last. Before he even located his seat he heard a grating voice directed at him.
“Deku,” Kacchan growled.
And of course, Izuku’s seat was right behind him, it was better than right in front of him at least. Hopefully the kid behind him wouldn’t–
“Midoriya?” the kid sitting in the seat behind Izuku’s raised his head from his desk where it had been hidden behind Kacchan
Oh, fuck.
He vaguely heard Kacchan say something along the lines of ‘shut up troll doll’ before he went back to berating him but the words didn’t compute. Izuku was frozen stock still in front of the whole classroom staring back at a face he hadn’t seen in over a year.
“Sh-Shinso…” he replied dumbly, ignoring Kacchan entirely.
“When did you get back to Japan? You didn’t tell me you were coming back,” Shinso asked looking somewhere between nervous, excited, and hurt.
“The fuck you mean back? Shitty nerd never left,” Kacchan barked before Izuku could get a word out.
Oh fucking hell. No no nonononononono–
“No, he left… he’s been gone for like a year,” Shinso argued weakly.
“I’ve had to see his stupid face damn near every day for the last 15 years, I’d know if he left. Who the fuck are you anyway?” Kacchan cursed again, much to the tall boy’s chagrin.
Izuku wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. What was he thinking? Of course, Shinso would be at UA, he knew he wanted to be a hero. Did he just forget about him so easily? Did he think he couldn’t get into UA? This was such a gargantuan oversight. Kami, he was such an asshole. Shinso was glancing rapidly between the two of them, clearly becoming more and more upset by the second.
“Who am I? Who are you? What do you know?” he shot back defensively.
“Apparently, more than you do troll doll.”
“First of all, it’s Shinso, asshole, and Midoriya’s my friend–”
“Hah! Friend? Sounds like a shit friend if–”
“Enough,” a voice called from the doorway.
Izuku knew that voice. He didn’t want to turn around. He had a 50/50 shot, of course, it had to be him, of course, all of them had to be in this class. Just his godforsaken luck.
“Class hasn’t even started and you’re fighting like children. I’ve been here for 12 seconds while you shouted at each other, that’s not going to work. Time is precious, rational students would understand that,” he chided as he pulled out a bag of gym uniforms from what looked to be the gaudy yellow sleeping bag Izuku had seen a glimpse of a few months ago.
“I’m Shota Aizawa, your teacher. That’s enough of an introduction for now, everyone grab a uniform, get changed, and head outside.”
Izuku, still stood at the front of the class, took that as a golden opportunity to get the fuck out of there. He grabbed a uniform and booked it to the locker room like a coward before anyone could get a word in.
He’d already fucked up, all he did was walk in the room and he already fucked everything up so badly. What was his problem? Why did he always, always, always fuck everything up? He felt an all-consuming dread fall over him, his stomach had dropped to his feet and his hair stood on end like a filthy rat that was being hunted and finally got cornered in an alley. He was doomed, everyone saw, that was everyone’s first impression of him and that wasn’t even to mention Shinso! How could he do this to him? How could he just wash his hands of their friendship and move on to better things like it never happened at all? Kami, he just wanted them to be safe! He couldn’t let the gang track him back to them, he couldn’t let them get caught in the crossfire like DJ. But that didn’t excuse him not coming back, he was just too much of a coward to give himself something to lose again.
He ducked into a stall and got himself changed as quickly as he could, leaving a long-sleeved undershirt on beneath his gym shirt, and snuck outside before anyone else had even made it to the locker room. Once he got outside he realized that this wasn’t really any better than the locker room, he was either stuck in there with Shinso and Kacchan or he was stuck out here with Eraser. This was a nightmare, Kami, this was a fucking nightmare, never in his wildest dreams could today have gone as poorly as it was going and it hadn’t even been five minutes since he crawled out of his hiding place. Ducking behind a nearby building he curled in on himself and tried to calm his breathing.
In 2, 3, 4.
Out 2, 3, 4.
In 2, 3, 4.
Out 2, 3, 4.
Was this an unfixable nightmare? Yes, yes it was. There goes any chance he had at fitting in, any ideas about who he was supposed to be had been tossed out the window. He had well and truly committed social suicide a scant few seconds after walking in, but social suicide wasn’t exactly a new concept for him. No one was going to like him, that wasn’t new, this wasn’t the end of the world. Shinso was going to hate him forever, that was… that– that hurt, Shinso hated him and it was all his fault and the guilt was eating him alive like maggots squirming around in rotting, open wounds on his still living form… but that wasn’t the end of the world…
He wasn’t here to be liked, no one needed to like him, no one liked him before, this wasn’t new, he could do this.
He could do this.
The distant sounds of people talking told him it was about time for him to join his peers.
He could do this.
***
Shota knew this class was going to be a nightmare, but this was surpassing his expectations. Class hadn’t even begun and four of his students were already starting shit. From the little he had caught before he’d cut them off, it seemed to be pretty juicy drama as well, that green-haired kid apparently told Shinnso he’d left the country to get out of something , though he’s not entirely sure what, and the blonde kid apparently knew him as well and hated his guts for another unknown reason. Why Tenya was caught up in all of that he wasn’t sure but he had a feeling it had to do with their lack of decorum.
He was starting to care less and less about their supposed potential as the minutes ticked by and the first student had yet to join him on the field. He’d already warned them about wasting time. Eventually, the majority of the students trickled out and the green-haired kid scurried over from a direction that certainly wasn’t the locker rooms. He’d been hiding around the corner. Honestly, Shota couldn’t blame him, he would have done the same, but the kid had lied himself into whatever mess he was in and he wasn’t even sure how many of them would be making it past today so it wasn’t his job to care yet.
“Sensei, aren’t we supposed to be at the orientation assembly?” the kid who had shown up late asked as they all settled into a semi-circle in front of him
“If you want to make it in the big leagues you can't waste time on pointless ceremonies. Here at UA, we’re not tethered to traditions, which means I get to run my class however I see fit and I refuse to let my time be wasted. I need to know where you stand, you’ve been taking standardized tests your whole lives but you never got to use your quirks, that changes today.”
He looked down at his roster, scanning it for the first-place scorer on the entrance exams, the names and faces had been lost to him over the last month or so.
“Midoriya,” he called out and the green-haired kid looked up at him like he had just threatened to kill his mother.
Well, this was going to be interesting.
“You managed to get the highest score in the entrance exam, what was your farthest distance throw with a softball in junior high?”
“Um, s-sixty t-two meters, s-sir,” he responded damn near inaudibly and shaking like a leaf the entire time.
That was… odd. This kid was odd. He understood a healthy amount of trepidation or embarrassment but that was– he looked like he was facing down the barrel of a gun.
“What the hell are you talking about?” one of the kids who had been shouting earlier interrupted, “How could Deku have gotten the highest score?! What did you do, you goddamn Null?” he asked as he started toward Midoriya aggressively.
His quirk was erased and he was in a tangle of capture weapon on the ground before he even got two steps away from where he’d been standing. Did he just call him a Null? What decade was it? What the hell was going on here?
“Enough! Interrupt my class one more time and you will be dismissed. That language will not be tolerated anywhere on this campus, I expect a five-page paper on slurs and their impact on marginalized communities on my desk by tomorrow morning if you want to keep your place in this school,” he ordered as he scanned the rest of the class.
Most of them looked sufficiently horrified but Midoriya’s jaw was practically on the ground.
“This warning goes for all of you, if I hear slurs of any kind come from your mouths your expulsion will be immediate, is that understood?” he asked.
He got mumbles of acknowledgment, a few ‘yes sirs’, and a lot of nods, but Midoriya was still just looking at him with a stunned expression. When their eyes locked for the second time the boy seemed to knock himself out of whatever trance he’d been in and nodded along with his peers.
“Good. Now, Midoriya, throw this with your quirk,” he instructed as he held the ball out for Midoriya to grab.
The blonde kid, Bakugo, if he was reading the tiny pictures on his roster correctly, scoffed as Midoriya walked to the front of the class and took the ball. The hand that reached back to him was shaking and had two gruesome scars that wrapped around it. He knew better than to ask but this kid just kept giving him questions.
“Anything goes, just stay in the circle and throw it as far as you can,” he prompted when the boy just looked back at him cluelessly.
He looked terrified as he faced the other way and took several deep breaths. At least he knew how to ground himself, though Shota had never met someone who knew how to properly employ breathing exercises without having gone through something awful enough to necessitate it.
Questions, questions, questions.
Shota gave him the time he needed and waited patiently. Eventually, the kid took his stance and poised himself to throw the ball, midway through his throw green sparks started crackling over his body and Shota remembered what had happened the last time he saw that. He erased his quirk instinctively and the ball sailed a respectable 70.6 meters before rolling to a stop. Midoriya stood there stiffly, looking like he’d just been scolded, he was facing toward him but notably not looking at him. His eyes were trained on the ground as he stood there doing a commendable job of making himself look as small as possible.
“Let me amend that. Throw the ball as far as you can without hurting yourself.”
The kid’s face paled even more than it had been and he nodded shakily. Shota tossed him another ball and he caught it deftly before awkwardly looking back toward the field. Bakugo looked like he was about to self-destruct but he was being quiet enough so Shota let it slide.
Again, green sparks formed around the kid and this time Shota let them, there was a shockwave strong enough to blow his hair out of his face for a moment and the softball went flying. The number tracking its progress on his phone kept climbing higher and higher. The ball had long since left his field of view when the number settled on 1,253 meters and the kid was still standing, seeming no worse for wear. Well, no worse for wear physically at least.
“1,253 meters. Good, rejoin your class,” he instructed.
Midoriya skirted around the group, giving everyone a wide berth as he made his way to the back of the pack. He was wringing his hands in a way that must have been painful and Shota kept a subtle eye on him as he scanned the class like he was looking for a threat.
“1,253 meters?! Are you kidding me?” another blonde boy spoke up sounding understandably impressed.
“This is gonna be fun!” one of the girls exclaimed.
A positive interruption was a nice change of pace, too bad he had to squash that.
“So you think this is all for fun, huh? You have three years here to become a hero and if you don’t take it seriously you won’t make it to graduation. This test is to gauge your potential, whoever comes in last will be deemed to have none and will be expelled immediately,” he announced.
He wasn’t sure if he was lying about that yet, time would tell.
***
Ochacco was freaking out, she had gotten lost and showed up late for the first day of classes! Luckily for her, the teacher seemed to be too busy yelling at everyone to notice and she was able to sneak in and grab a uniform during all the commotion. And that boy from the entrance exam was here! But he looked spooked and she doesn’t think he even noticed her when he darted out of the classroom.
She followed the rest of the girls on a mission to find the locker rooms which wasn’t too difficult now that she wasn’t alone and wasn’t so worried about getting in trouble for being late.
“What the heck was all that about? Did they all know each other? What are the chances of that?” a pink-haired girl asked no one in particular.
“Well, they both knew the green-haired kid, they didn’t know each other,” she heard someone correct but couldn’t see who, her query was answered when she saw a floating shirt pull itself over a floating bra and take the form of a torso.
She must be invisible, that's so cool! She was probably going to be a super successful stealth hero!
“I was not expecting to get such a large serving of tea on my first day but I’m not complaining,” the pink girl shot back.
“Tea?” a tall girl who had her hair up in a ponytail asked with a confused expression, prompting the two girls who had been talking to giggle.
“Tea like gossip, not tea like tea ,” the invisible girl explained.
“Ah… yes,” the other girl replied still sounding confused, “That was rather unusual, I can’t imagine what would prompt someone to lie about moving to another country.”
“Yeah, I gotta know what’s going on there. I wanna side with the purple kid but that blonde was being so mean to the poor green guy that I kinda feel bad for him. Maybe purple hair is nuts and lying about leaving the country was a perfectly valid thing to do, you can’t judge a book by its cover,” the girl with the pink hair tossed in her two cents.
“What?” she felt the question fall from her mouth before she could think better of pointing out her tardiness.
“Oh, did you not hear? You missed so much, girl. I’m Mina, by the way, I don’t think I’ve gotten anyone’s names yet, it’s been so crazy already!”
“Oh, yeah, I got lost and was a little late, I was hoping that sensei wouldn’t notice. I’m Uraraka,” she introduced herself to the group.
“I’m Hagakure!” the floating gym uniform called out.
“I’m Yaoyurozo but you can call me Momo or Yaomomo,” the tall girl said.
“Jiro,” a shorter girl with purple hair stated plainly.
“Asui, but call me Tsu, please,” a girl with her long green hair tied in a cute bow concluded their introductions.
“Alright! Nice to meet you all! Does anyone know the names of the boys who were fighting?” Mina asked.
“That one guy introduced himself as Iida but he was barely involved in the whole thing,” Jiro spoke up.
“The one with the purple hair said his name was Shinso and he called the one with green hair Midoriya, kero,” Tsu finished.
Leave it to the quiet ones to get all the info.
“Sweet, that's better than explaining this all with the color of their hair, does anyone know Blondie’s name?” Mina asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“Okay, that's fine. So Iida was yelling at Blondie for putting his feet up on the desk and Blondie seems like a total douchebag and just starts insulting him, which, like is kinda fair because Iida was being too much, but that’s besides the point. Midoriya walks in and Blondie– what did he call him? Deku?– he calls him Deku and starts insulting him to hell and back, I’m not even gonna try and repeat that but all the shouting gets Sleepy’s attention–”
“Shinso,” Hagakure interrupted.
“Yeah, Shinso was trying to ignore everything and had his head on the desk but he looked up and saw Midoriya and interrupted Blondie’s completely unprompted roast session asking Midoriya when he got back to Japan, but according to Blondie, he’d never left. They must be from the same school or something because he said he’d seen him every day for the past 15 years,” she finally concluded.
“I don’t know who to believe at this point,” Hagakure said as they all made their way out of the locker room.
“If Midoriya’s heart rate is anything to go by he was lying about something,” Jiro added.
When Ochacco looked back with a confused expression, she noticed headphone jacks that seemed to be growing out of Jiro’s ears. She must have super hearing or something, that was really cool too.
“Wow, I guess I really need to make it to class on time,” she joked.
Most of the girls laughed at that, but the more quiet of the bunch just smirked. Ochacco would take that as a win.
“Midoriya was at the same testing center as me, I didn’t talk to him much, but he was really nice! He helped me out big time, I probably wouldn’t be here without him,” Ochacco admitted.
She might be biased but she didn’t want everyone to be ragging on him.
“Oooooooh interesting, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the deal is,” Mina replied as they made their way out to the field where their sensei was waiting.
***
Ochacco could see why Mina didn’t want to repeat what Blondie had said to Midoriya, he just called him a Null in front of the whole class, presumably for a second time. She was glad Aizawa-sensei shut that down quick because she was about to add a fifth person to the ongoing class argument if he didn’t. Why did he even call him that? Midoriya had a super powerful quirk! But it did break his bones, did it always do that? That would make him functionally quirkless, she supposed, but that blonde kid was being an ass about it. They were in school to learn how to control their quirks anyway! If he managed to get the top spot then he deserved to be here. She didn’t know who to side with about the whole leaving the country lie debacle but she knew she definitely didn’t side with that blonde kid. What an ass.
Midoriya still looked terrified as he shuffled his way to the back of the class after his ball throw. Whatever he did he clearly felt awful about it, but why did he look so scared? She got the feeling that Aizawa-sensei wasn’t the type of teacher to allow talking in class but he was standing pretty far away and focusing on whoever was currently up to bat so she figured she might be able to get away with seeing if he was alright.
He was wringing his hands together hard and doing his best to look at everyone and no one all at the same time. Was this really the same kid from the entrance exam? He seemed so cool and collected out there, grabbing Iida and ordering him around like he was used to leading the charge, not to mention squaring up with that behemoth of a robot without breaking a sweat. If that hadn’t been enough to spook him then what the hell was going on here that had him scared enough to make his hands tremble?
“Hey, Midoriya, right? I never got the chance to introduce myself, I’m Uraraka,” she whispered just loud enough for the two of them and possibly Jiro to hear.
Midoriya looked up at her with a tense smile and gave her a jerky nod in response.
“Are you alright?” she asked, she was pushing her luck talking in class so she didn’t have time to beat around the bush.
“Y-yeah, I’m f-fine,” Midoriya replied unconvincingly.
Whatever was going on he clearly didn’t want to talk about it but it felt wrong to just leave him there alone. She didn’t want to push but she also didn’t want to make it seem like she didn’t care.
“I’m glad you got in,” she decided to say.
“You t-too,” he replied with a barely there smile, it was small but it seemed more genuine than the last one.
She wanted to help but she didn’t know how. If the not-so-subtle way Midoriya was shuffling away from her meant anything then he probably just wanted to be left alone. She didn’t want to do that but she could imagine it wouldn’t be comfortable to have a virtual stranger prodding at you while you were so scared you looked like you might start hyperventilating. She could keep an eye on him, maybe they could talk once he’d calmed down.
***
Izuku was so close to losing it, he felt like he was going to lose his breakfast at the very least. He had never been so afraid of so many things at once. He was scared of Eraser recognizing him, he was scared of Shinso’s anger, he was scared of what his classmates were thinking about him, he was scared of not doing good enough, and he was scared of doing too well. He didn’t want to disappoint All Might who he’d spotted around the corner where Izuku had been hiding earlier, but there was an ingrained part of him that told him that he’d better not outperform his peers, and if he wanted to have his teeth to remain un-kicked in by tonight then there was no way in hell he was allowed to outperform Kacchan. It was stupid, he had a quirk now, and Eraser wouldn’t– he didn’t let Kacchan push him around. Izuku was still trying to process that among everything else that was going on.
He kept reminding himself that he wasn’t Deku anymore, not here, but he still found himself running just a little bit slower, stretching a little less far, and jumping a little less high than he knew he probably could. He wasn’t going to get last, but he certainly wasn’t going to get first, not like this. He was getting angry at himself the more he did it, he couldn’t keep dumbing himself down, not when he had All Might’s reputation to live up to, but every time he thought he might be catching up to Kacchan it was like his heart stopped and ice ran through his veins leaving him frozen like a deer in headlights.
And, Kami, Shinso glaring at him was not helping!
He was rapid-fire cycling through fear, anger, and guilt and he couldn’t decide which was worse.
When Eraser flashed their scores up on the screen and revealed his ‘logical ruse’ Izuku didn’t even have the presence of mind to feel bad for whoever had gotten last place for the brief moment Eraser had left them hanging in suspense. He had gotten fourth place, right after Kacchan in third. Part of him was relieved by that and another part of him was furious. He could have gotten first, he had the number one hero’s quirk, he could have gotten first.
After Eraser dismissed them he kept a healthy distance from the rest of the class and followed them to the locker rooms, he skirted along the wall and looked no one in the eye as he slipped back into the bathroom stall he’d changed in before.
He needed to talk to Shinso, but what was he supposed to say? He couldn’t tell him the truth. He didn’t think Shinso was stupid enough to fall for another lie and even if he were he didn’t deserve that. He deserved the truth, he deserved the one thing Izuku could never give him. Kami, he deserved a lot more than the truth, he deserved an apology and a better friend, he deserved his place here at UA without Izuku fucking it all up for him.
“Midoriya,” a voice from the other side of the door pulled him from his spiraling thoughts, “Quit hiding. You owe me a goddamn explanation.”
Fuck, that was Shinso.
“Open the door,” he demanded cooly.
Izuku didn’t have the heart to disobey. He hadn’t even started changing but he pulled the door open regardless. Shinso was standing there in his UA hero course uniform looking down at Izuku with barely contained fury. The look was enough to have him nearly flinch away, the same part of him that forced himself to lag behind Kacchan told him that Shinso was a threat. They were alone, Izuku was cornered, and Shinso was angry. He was at school and that meant he was Deku and Shinso was bigger than him and there was no one else around and Shinso was angry and he had nowhere to run and–
“Explain,” Shinso’s voice snapped him out of his head again.
His heart rate had skyrocketed and fear muddled his thoughts, he couldn’t think of the words to explain how he felt, he could hardly even understand what Shinso was saying.
“That’s it, you’re afraid of me, that’s why you left,” Shinso concluded after Izuku just stared at him blankly.
He went to turn around and walk away and something in Izuku’s heart snapped at the glimpse he had caught of Shinso’s expression before he turned and hid it from view.
“N-no that’s not I’m n-not…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence, he couldn’t lie to Shinso again. It was true, Izuku was terrified of Shinso right now but it wasn’t for the reasons Shinso thought and the words to explain that got caught somewhere in his throat.
“Quit lying! I’m sick of it!” Shinso yelled turning around again quickly.
The sudden movement and volume made Izuku flinch and he saw how that reaction made Shinso’s anger soften to something more akin to resignation, something like disappointment.
“I-I’m not— I didn’t m-mean— I’m s-sorry,” he did his best to claw himself out of his own head, he wasn’t Deku, Shinso was a good person, he wasn’t going to hurt him. This was UA and things were different now.
“Y-yes I am s-scared o-of you right n-now b-but not b-because of y-your quirk–”
“Bullshit!” Shinso interrupted, “You could beat my ass if you wanted to, the fuck else is there to be afraid of?!”
“I’m n-not lying, I s-swear, I–”
“And why should I believe you?” Shinso challenged.
“Because it’s t-true,” Izuku insisted weakly.
“Then why did you leave?” Shinso asked again.
“It was b-better if you-you weren’t around m-me, I’m s-sorry I–”
“I don’t want another fucking apology and I don’t want another lie, I want the truth! You were my best– my only friend for two years! Was that all just a game to you? Were you just fucking with me?
“No, I–”
“Then what?!”
“You d-deserved better than m-me! I-I’m not— I d-didn’t–” he cut himself off as tears started to fall down his cheeks, he tried to wipe them away, but they just kept falling, “I’m s-sorry, I-I’m s-sorry,”
“I don’t wanna hear it, Midoriya. Talk to me when you have an explanation, other than that just leave me alone,” he said, turning on his heel and walking out of the locker room without another glance in Izuku’s direction.
Once he was alone, any semblance of composure crumbled. He shut the stall door again and curled in on himself in the far corner between the toilet and the wall. This was too much, everything was too much and he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. His hands were gripped in his hair hard enough to pull out a few strands but he didn’t even notice, the pain was negligible and not nearly enough to ground him right now. It felt like molten glass had been poured down the back of his neck, burning his skin with his shame before hardening and leaving him stuck in his hunched-over position. Every muscle in his body was taught like a spring that was past its compression threshold and was just being crushed. Something had to give but he was still in public, he was in the locker rooms where anyone could walk in, he couldn’t let himself cry in here where people could hear him sniffle and gasp for air.
Izuku didn’t have the presence of mind to think about it as he let himself sink his nails into the skin just above his ankles hard enough to draw blood. He didn’t come back to himself until the blood had flowed down and begun to dampen his thankfully red shoes. Once he realized what he’d done he pulled his hands away and tucked them to his chest like they’d been burned. He kept them curled into fists in an attempt to keep the blood off of his shirt but he wasn’t sure how successful that ended up being as he finally pulled air into his lungs properly.
Fuck, what had he just done? Goddamnit!
He unfolded himself enough to rest his elbows on his knees and press his face into his forearms, keeping his bloody fingers above his head and away from his clothes. He sat there for a moment as tears continued to stream down his cheeks unbidden. Once he’d collected himself enough he grabbed some toilet paper and cleaned himself up as best he could. He tried to calm himself, his pants would cover the damage as long as he didn’t pull his legs up to his chest like they were right now, no one was going to find out about this. The wounds weren’t deep since he’d been keeping his nails short in an effort to avoid this exact outcome so he just slapped some bandages over the cuts to prevent the blood still flowing from them from soaking his pant legs. He reluctantly looked at himself in the mirror while he washed his hands to make sure that he didn’t look like he’d just had a mental break in the bathroom and was relieved to find that he just looked tired and a little out of it.
Eraser had told them to grab a syllabus but he hadn’t said what the class was doing after that. Had they been dismissed? Was he missing a lesson? How long had he been in here? He had to go back to class but he wasn’t looking forward to whatever awaited him in that room.
***
When Shota got back to the classroom he dismissed the students, letting them decide whether they wanted to go home or to catch the end of orientation because Nedzu was surely still droning on about something to his poor captive audience of first years. Some stragglers came through having taken longer to get changed and he relayed the information to them as well. He was sitting at his desk going over some of the paperwork the students had turned in, there was still one copy of the syllabus on his desk and he had a pretty good guess as to who it belonged to. His suspicions were confirmed when, around 15 minutes later, Midoriya opened the door silently and stood in the doorway like a deer in headlights as he stared at him.
“I dismissed the class to either go home or catch the end of orientation, make sure to grab a syllabus,” he repeated what he had told the rest of the class before returning his focus to his work.
Midoriya stood there for another second before stepping forward and cautiously taking the paper left for him on the corner of the desk. He knew the boy wouldn’t want to talk to him but he had only been in class for a few hours and had already displayed several concerning behaviors; Shota had a duty of care to follow whether Midoriya liked it or not.
“Midoriya, are you alright?” he asked bluntly, he had a feeling that Midoriya didn’t want to stick around for gentle questioning and Shota wasn’t all that good at that approach anyway.
“Y-yes s-sir, I’m f-fine,” he predictably responded.
“May I ask what was going on with you and Bakugo?” he pressed.
The situation between him and Shinso was none of his concern, it seemed civil enough of a dispute but Bakugo’s actions were well out of line. He’s not sure what the boy would have done had he not restrained him and the fear in Midoriya’s eyes was telling. The whole situation was very concerning but those two had gotten the highest scores in the entrance exam and he couldn’t just expel one of them without due cause; Nedzu gave him a lot of leeway, but not that much.
“Oh, it’s n-nothing, he’s j-just r-really competitive. We w-went t-to school t-together,” he explained.
Midoriya looked scared then, he looked scared now, and Bakugo didn’t seem like he was kidding; that was real anger. He’ll need to keep an eye on them.
“The way he behaved was unacceptable,” Shota pointed out because it didn’t seem like Midoriya understood that, “I will be speaking to him about this as well, but please let me know if his behavior doesn’t change.”
Midoriya didn’t respond to that, he just looked back at Shota with the same blank vaguely fearful expression he’d been wearing since he opened the door; it reminded him of a rabbit, the way they freeze and stare at you as you walk past as if you won’t see them if they don’t move. The comparison might be cute, but that was a trauma response. It had been an eventful first day for the kid so Shota hoped things weren’t as bad as they appeared.
“Alright?” he prompted again when Midoriya continued to fail to respond to him.
That snapped him out of it.
“Y-yes s-sir,” he stuttered out hastily.
Great, freezing and fawning; Shota was sure he was about to complete the trifecta.
“Good, you’re free to go.”
The kid nodded shakily and turned on his heel, not saying another word before he left, and closed the door gently behind himself.
And there’s flight…Brilliant.
Kami, he really hoped this was all just first-day jitters. He knew in his gut that it was more than that but for now, he’d have to give the whole situation the benefit of the doubt.
***
There had been very few times in his life in which Hitoshi had been this angry. Midoriya had lied to him! He lied to him and said he was leaving the country, who the hell does that?! They’d been friends for two years and he just up and dropped him, cold turkey, hadn’t even sent a message, called, nothing?! As far as Hitoshi knew he could have been dead! And he’d been hiding the fact that he was a perfect quirked bastard from him too!
He was such an idiot. He thought Midoriya could understand him but he didn’t even have the decency to cut off their friendship outright. He’d put up a convincing act, he’d give him that. He’d believed him when he told him he wasn’t afraid that day in the library, he believed him when he said that Hitoshi was going to be something great. Fucking hell, he believed him when he said that he could be a hero, but he was just like everyone else! He was afraid of him like every other kid that had called him a villain, like every other kid who had beaten the shit out of him and made his life a living hell, he was just like everyone else! And, god, that hurt so much more than anything those other kids had ever done to him.
Seeing Midoriya cower in front of him like that hurt more than he could ever put into words.
He did his best to remind himself that he was in UA, he’d gotten into UA. He was going to be a hero whether anyone liked it or not. He was going to do it! He was… he… he was going to be feared for the rest of his life. Being a hero wasn’t going to change that… was it?
Nothing he did was ever going to change that.
pov ur the photographer UA hired for picture day:
I'm back babeeey, look at my perfect son 🥰
Notes:
Shinso Hitoshi:
A lot of people were ragging on Shinso last time because he was so unforgiving toward Midoriya but y’all gotta remember, he’s a fifteen-year-old boy, and he was fourteen during that last altercation. Izuku is incredibly emotionally intelligent both in general and for his age because he grew up having to please everyone in order to keep himself safe, Shinso didn’t have to do that as much, both because his mom doesn’t act like that toward him, and she took him out of school when it got bad there. He doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to see this from Izuku’s perspective and not only that, he is incredibly insecure about his quirk. It took a lot for him to trust Midoriya in any capacity so when he found out about his quirk and started pulling back it cemented the idea in his head that Midoriya was just like everyone else.When someone is rejected for something for so long they begin to look for that rejection, seek it out even, because it’s what they’re used to. Trying to come out ahead of the curve and preempt it is a common way for people to react so that they feel like they’re in control. If they can rationalize things and say ‘Oh, see, I saw this coming’ they can pretend like they were never fooled into trusting someone and thus they can distance themself from the betrayal. I’m not saying Shinso is right to act this way but he does have valid reasons. He is a traumatized child who is emotionally stunted because he was shunned by his peers and he never got the proper socialization needed to build his emotional intelligence.
Also, guys, you need to take into account that what Izuku did to Shinso was really really shitty. As the reader we know why he did it but it was still wrong to do and it's completely valid for Shinso to be hurt by it. So keep all that in mind before you dunk on my shitty teen in the comments again. Dunk with empathy 😂
Quirkism:
Another thing I wanted to address is quirkism in this universe. In my head, the quirkism in Musutafu (the city UA is in and where Bakugo, Shinso, and Midoriya are from) is considerably worse than in other regions of Japan and much worse than in other countries altogether. Quirks first appeared in China in canon (I believe) so it would make sense that there are a lot more quirked individuals in Asia and therefore there is a more prevalent stigma against quirkless people since they are an even smaller minority. Furthermore, I think the culture around hero society inflates the issue in Musutafu even more. UA is very prestigious and whether they mean to or not the people in Musutafu have created a cult-like pride for heroics because of the presence of the institution, thus exacerbating the stigma against quirkless and villainous quirked individuals in the area surrounding the school.[TL;DR]: quirkism is worse in Musutafu than in other places in Japan/the world because quirks originated in Asia thus making the quirkless population even more of a minority and UA’s presence in the city has created an inflated sense of pride in stereotypical heroicism thusly otherizing villain quirked people and quirkless people alike more so than other regions in Japan.]
To explain Aizawa and his reactions a bit more, Aizawa went to university in Musutafu and therefore his education was influenced by the same stigmas. He knows about quirkism against the quirkless, but in his mind, it’s an issue of the past (similar to how a lot of people think racism/sexism is a thing of the past in America when it clearly the fuck is not. Yeah, it’s like that but 100x worse since the quirkless are such a small minority). I don’t know much about getting a degree in law and ethics but I'd assume it requires some anthropology-type classes; so Shota is pretty educated on the topic of quirkism, he just has some blind spots when it comes to quirkless people.
Character analyses I’ve done if you want to read them all:
Shota Aizawa: Ch 21
Hizashi Yamada: Ch 34
Izuku Midoriya: Ch 58
Katsuki Bakugo: Ch 76
Toshinori Yagi: Ch 78
Sorahiko Torino: Ch 88
Shinso Hitoshi + Some commentary on quirkism in the MHA/CMA universe: Ch 97
Chapter 99: For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
Notes:
Consistent chapter lengths aren't real, they can't hurt you.
CWs:
Disassociation
French (I'll translate it in the endnotes lol)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was halfway across the city before he realized he probably should have taken the train, but he had been too out of it. All his brain had been able to provide him was “get out now” and his feet obeyed the command. He didn’t know this side of the city very well but he recognized the buildings around him cause he had seen them this morning through the window of the train, which made sense, he had been walking due north and the train was a straight shot through the city with UA on the far south side and Uptown on the far north. He hadn’t taken note of where the stops were but he saw the tracks so he figured he could just follow them until he found somewhere to board. He must have been walking for at least an hour to have gotten this far and he didn’t fancy walking another hour, especially now that he had his wits about him again; walking alone with his wits taunting him was a surefire way to end up having another public meltdown.
He was going to have to cancel patrol tonight; there was no way he could face Eraser right now, hell, he couldn’t face anybody right now much less the one person who seemed to see right through him no matter what he did. He’d let himself get too muddled, he should never have let any amount of Deku or Izuku out when he was Ivy, he should have never let Eraser get so close, he should have never let Shinso get so close either. He should never have let anyone in, it never ended well. It was only a matter of time before All Might realized how broken he was too; Deku wouldn’t just die, today was proof of that, and All Might needed better from him. He was in too deep now though and all he could do was stand back and watch it all go to shit like it always did.
Why did he keep deluding himself into thinking things could be different?
The 15-minute train ride back happened without Izuku even noticing it. He sat in his seat and stared off into nothing until the conductor came around and told him he was at the end of the line and needed to get off. It was a good thing the end of the line was where he needed to be. He’s not sure how far from home he would have found himself if left to his own devices.
He hadn’t been this out of it in a good long while, he didn’t miss it.
It wasn’t safe to walk home like this but it’s not like he had a better option, he did his best to pay attention and make sure no one was following him like he always did but the effort was half-hearted at best. It felt like he blinked and one second he was a 5 minute walk from the brewery and the next he was sitting on his couch in the dark; the sun had already set. He couldn’t patrol like this and he hoped he hadn’t been sitting here so long that Eraser was tearing apart the city again looking for him.
Thankfully it was only a little after 8 o’clock which was plenty enough of an advanced notice to cancel.
Ivy:
Canceling tonight something came up
He didn’t try to weave some sort of excuse which was probably for the better, overexplaining wasn’t a good way to sell a lie, it makes you look too desperate for the other person to believe it and leaves you with too many details to mess up later. He should know, lying seemed to be the only thing he was good for.
Eraserhead:
Everything alright?
Ivy:
Yeah
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
He shoved his phone back into his bag and didn’t bother waiting around for more questions. He wanted to go back to wherever he went away to before, somewhere deep in his mind, locked in stasis, but at the same time, he didn’t, because that would just bring him closer to tomorrow and tomorrow wasn’t going to be any better. What the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn’t drop out, he couldn’t tell Shinso the truth, and there’s no way in hell that Shinso was going to forgive him. There was no way anyone in class was going to want to be around him, no one was going to trust him to have their back much less be their friend. And they shouldn’t! They shouldn’t trust him! He’s a liar! He’ll lie to all of them.
He wished he had gotten the chance to pretend. He didn’t deserve it, but it would have been nice.
He laid down on the couch and stared up into the darkness above him and let the world fall away. Sleep claimed him at some point but he didn’t remember much of anything after he let himself blank out again, he had no clue how much sleep he had gotten but he felt as tired as ever. He was lucky his phone had enough charge to set off his alarm because he hadn’t plugged it in. Sun was shining through the small windows again, it was still early and he didn’t have to get ready since he never changed to begin with so he just tracked the progress of the sunbeam slowly receding closer and closer to the window as the sun continued its ascent. He’d have to get up eventually, but not yet. His body felt too heavy to move, the floaty far-away weightlessness of yesterday had left him and now he was firmly rooted back into reality which is a place he very much did not want to be.
When his alarm went off again, informing him that it was time to go, he took a deep breath and reminded himself of what he had decided yesterday; this was irreparable, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It was going to suck and he wasn’t going to have any friends, but that wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
He could do this.
He picked up his bag from where he had dropped it next to the couch and headed for the door which he hadn’t even shut last night. He was lucky no one had followed him home. He shut and locked the office door behind himself and headed for the train.
He could do this.
***
Hitoshi didn’t sleep a wink last night and as his alarm screamed at him to get up he wanted nothing more than to throw it out the window. His anger ebbed and flowed in the last 20-some-odd hours going from white-hot fury to a soft bitter acceptance, back and forth back and forth all night long. His mom had asked him again and again what had happened but he couldn’t even begin to explain. Thankfully, she was already gone for work and he wouldn’t have to deal with her prodding until he came home tonight.
Kami, he had fucked everything up for both himself and Midoriya. Why did he have to bring all of that up in front of the whole class? Why couldn’t he have just waited? Now everyone was in on their drama and they were going to pick sides and he knew for damn sure that no one was going to pick the villain-quirked kid’s side over the perfect heroic-quirked bastard that Midoriya apparently was.
This was such a nightmare.
He’d really hoped things could go differently this time.
When he got on the train he purposefully avoided the car that had a familiar head of spiky blonde hair and was glad to find that the second option didn’t have a head of curly green hair occupying it either. Shinso didn’t know what that blonde kid had against Midoriya, he was too caught up in his own anger to really pay attention, but apparently Greenie was good at making enemies. Though, Hitoshi would hazard a guess that it probably wasn’t too difficult to make enemies with that blonde kid, he seemed like an asshole and, Kami, he was so loud.
He kept his headphones in and his head down as he walked onto campus. Thankfully, that was almost enough for everyone to leave him alone… almost. He stopped about a foot short of running into someone standing directly in his path. Looking up to see his teacher he immediately stood up straight and pulled his headphones out of his ears.
“You were walking like you wanted someone to attack you. Your situational awareness is deplorable,” he stated bluntly.
Hitoshi did not know how to respond to that but he felt a blush rise on his cheeks.
“One headphone and keep your head up,” he instructed.
“Um, yes, sir,” Hitoshi replied awkwardly.
Aizawa seemed to notice his discomfort because he softened his stance and backpedaled a bit.
“You’re not in trouble, It’s just better to break bad habits now.”
“Yes, that’s– yeah– got it,” he fumbled out inelegantly.
“I wanted to speak with you before class; do I need to be involved with whatever is going on with you and Midoriya?”
“No. It’s– he– we were– I, uh…”
“If I don’t need to know, you don’t need to tell me,” Aizawa saved him from his fumbling, “if it’s not my business, it’s not my business. Work it out on your own, but if it affects your education then it becomes my problem as well, got it?”
Hitoshi wasn’t sure if that was Aizawa’s way of saying he was there for help should he need it or if that was his way of saying don’t make this my problem or you’ll regret it, but he nodded in agreement regardless.
Aizawa nodded back to him and dismissed himself with a quick, “See you in class,” before walking away without another word.
Hitoshi couldn’t say that he was well versed in how a normal social interaction was supposed to go but he assumed it couldn’t be like that because that was… that was weird, right? Aizawa was… difficult to read, he decided. He’s sure he’d get the hang of it one day but today was not that day. With his head held high enough to see his surroundings but not high enough to look anyone in the eyes (unless they were particularly vertically challenged) he walked the rest of the way to the classroom without his headphones stuck in his ears.
***
Katsuki was almost to the classroom with his stupid fucking essay that his stupid fucking teacher made him write because stupid fucking Deku made a goddamn fool of him in front of the entire class. He knew that bastard was always looking down on him, hiding that he had some sort of super quirk just so that he could make him look like an idiot when he wasn’t the only one from their garbage middle school to get into UA. Was that the end goal? What was his problem? Why’d he go through all that trouble just to make Katsuki look like a dumbass?!
His anger was simmering hotter and hotter the more he thought about it and when hobo-sensei pulled him aside before he got to the classroom he was just about ready to blow.
“Bakugo, I’d like a word with you, follow me,” he said without waiting for Katsuki to reply before turning on his heel and walking away.
He held his tongue and followed the ragged-looking man to what he could only assume was his office.
“I should hope you have that essay done,” he stated as he took a seat at his desk.
Katsuki handed over the papers without a word.
“Good, I will have you rewrite this if it’s not up to my standards, you’ll get it back by the end of the day. Take a seat,” he instructed.
He dropped his bag onto the floor with a loud thump and did as he was told.
“If I hear you speaking to Midoriya or anyone else like that your expulsion will be immediate; this is not a joke. The way you acted was shameful; I don’t know if your old school let you get away with that or what, but that is not going to slide here. If I had my way you would already be gone, there is no place in heroics for someone with an attitude like yours, but you have the chance to change that. Your place here is not a right, it is a privilege, one that can and will be taken away if you step another toe out of line. Am I understood?” he asked looking down at Katsuki from his place behind the desk.
Was he trying to intimidate him? The bastard was making him angry on purpose just so that he could have a reason to kick him out, but Katsuki wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t going to fall for that. He grunted in the affirmative and gave him a nod, not once breaking the intense eye contact that the man was no doubt using to try and make him avert his eyes like a coward. He kept staring back until he was dismissed at which point he scooped up his bag and left without a word, closing the door behind himself loud enough to be annoying but not loud enough to get called out for slamming the door.
What a bastard.
***
When Bakugo left Shota took a deep breath and scrubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes.
This was going to be a long three years.
***
Izuku sat in his hiding spot for a couple of minutes after the warning bell rang before he started making his way toward the classroom. He tried not to let it get to him that he was resorting to old techniques to avoid his classmates, he tried to tell himself to just accept how things were and not dwell on the fact that, even with a quirk, he was still undesirable, but his efforts were only mildly successful. He slipped into class and into his spot between Shinso and Bakugo without a word. He had noticed both Iida and Uraraka had sat up straighter and looked at the clock like they were checking to see if they had enough time to talk to him, but, by his own design, they didn’t, so they both settled back into their chairs.
Why did they want to talk to him? Was it about the entrance exam? He couldn’t think of anything else that would tie the three of them together. He wasn’t going to be able to avoid them forever so he had a feeling he would figure out what they wanted sooner rather than later and hopefully, they would leave him alone after that.
Eraser walked in just as the bell tolled.
“I hope you’ve all gone through your syllabi because I will only be explaining this once,” he announced in lieu of any sort of greeting, just like he did when they met up for patrol.
The familiarity was comforting but he snapped himself out of that quickly, he wasn’t Ivy, he didn’t know Eraser, and his usual idiosyncrasies were unpleasant and off-putting, not reassuring.
“Every day, students meet for homeroom in the morning for 15 minutes, this is where all announcements will be made, it IS NOT an excuse to be 15 minutes late to class. Even if we don’t have anything to go over you are expected to be present. After that you will have your homeroom curriculum, for all of you that will be Law and Ethics with me, then we will rotate to the next class which, for you, will be English, so on and so forth. You will be dismissed for a 45-minute lunch at 12:10 and afterward, you will return here before Heroics unless I tell you otherwise,” he stated flatly, “Any questions?”
As was to be expected, no one raised their hands. After his showing yesterday and his general ‘don’t fuck with me’ demeanor, he wasn’t exactly the most approachable person and the explanation was pretty straightforward anyway.
“Good, I will be here should that change,” he stated after a moment of silence.
After that, he stepped away from the podium, went behind the desk, pulled out that gaudy yellow sleeping bag, stepped into it, and collapsed on the ground in the corner. If Izuku weren’t using 97% of his brain power to both have and fight off a crisis, he would have laughed, because to the remaining 3% of him that knew Eraser, that was so incredibly on brand. He was more cat than man on a good day and tired 24/7 was kind of his MO.
The rest of the class wasn’t as unphased as him, from the quick glances he stole he could see everyone’s lips pursed into a straight line in an attempt to keep from laughing at their sensei and that made the remaining 3% of Izuku’s mental bandwidth want to laugh even more. He had seen the way Mic and Midnight poked and prodded at him relentlessly, the man was used to getting laughed at by this point but everyone was too scared to do anything but remain silent.
The quiet kept up for a solid three minutes before soft whispers started to spread through the room. Whether they actually thought Eraser was asleep or they were more disturbed by the awkward silence than the thought of consequences, Izuku wasn’t sure. Even once the whole class was gently murmuring back and forth Shinso, Bakugo, and him all kept mum. Everyone surrounding them had joined in conversations with someone else and they certainly weren’t going to talk amongst themselves.
As much as Izuku didn’t want to let himself be calmed by Eraser’s presence, he was. He knew he had more reason to be afraid of him than anyone in this class, but he couldn’t help it. Eraser was the only person he could reliably predict in this room, he wasn’t any different here than he was on patrol and that felt right, it felt safe. Not safe enough for him to let his guard down, no, not by a long shot, but safe enough to know that he wasn’t alone, not completely at least, and that was a dangerous feeling.
Eraser’s class was as dry as Izuku had expected it to be but the information they covered was interesting, it was essentially just an overview of what they would be covering throughout the semester so they didn’t get too in-depth about anything but each topic he brought up gave Izuku plenty of ideas to further the debate. He was going to have to be careful about that too, Eraser and him had gone into pretty deep conversations about law and ethics throughout his tenure as Ivy and if he regurgitated any of his opinions verbatim that was going to be a problem.
First period passed by in the blink of an eye and before he knew it, Eraser was walking out of the classroom, moving on to his next batch of students. Izuku tried not to let his anxiety get the better of him as he left. Eraser was not safe, not here, and he needed to get that through his thick skull.
“GOOD MORNING LIL’ LISTENERS!!!” Mic burst through the door, speaking at a volume that no functional member of society should use before 12 o’clock noon at the very earliest.
Izuku among several other classmates flinched at the sudden noise and he wondered how the hell Eraser put up with that amount of enthusiasm for so long. It made him achingly fond to imagine Eraser ignoring Mic’s outbursts on a daily basis, though he knew there was no way they were this loud all the time.
“Who’s ready to learn some English???” he asked as he settled his papers on the podium.
“Moi!” one of the students in the front row was the only one to answer in neither of the languages that one would expect from a room of Japanese students learning English.
“Oh lala, tu parles français?”
“AH! Oui! Je veins de France! Personne ici ne parle français, c'est tellement excit–”
“Woah, Listner, pump the breaks! I only took a year of French as an elective! Je parle un PEUX de Français, but we’re here to learn English anyhow! Knowin’ French might help you out though, it’s a lot more similar to English than Japanese is.”
The kid looked a little put out by whatever Mic had said but he nodded in agreement.
“That was fun though! I bet Eraser didn’t do any get-to-know-you stuff, he’s such a stick in the mud. Does anyone else know another language besides English ‘cause I know you all know the foundations from middle school,” Mic asked the class.
The kid sitting to Izuku’s right said he spoke Spanish but other than that no one had anything to add.
“Radical! Knowing languages is super helpful in heroics! I speak Japanese and English fluently and I also know JSL!” he said as he signed at the same time, “I dabbled in the romance languages a bit but I don’t know much, maybe you two could help me brush up!” he said brightly.
Izuku felt safe here too. Not safe enough to speak up and join in the class’ freeform get-to-know-you session, but safe enough to breathe evenly and not tense each time one of his classmates moved too quickly.
Maybe UA could be different. Not different in the way Izuku was hoping it would be, but different enough. He trusted at least two of his teachers to not throw him to the wolves at their earliest convenience which was more than he could say for Aldera. Maybe he wouldn’t be liked, but he at least wouldn’t have to be so afraid, and that was nice.
No one had been bold enough to stand up and talk to someone not in their immediate vicinity in the small breaks between classes but Izuku knew it was only a matter of time before someone started to try and talk to him. He’d been listening in on the conversations around him and he’d caught a few names, but no one had tried to talk with him yet. That changed when the lunch bell rang, Iida and Uraraka made a beeline for him and he did his best to not be visibly tense. Kami, what did they want? Was Iida going to chew him out for causing a scene yesterday?
“Midoriya!” Iida greeted him with a small bow, “I wanted to extend my apologies to you!”
…What?
“I misjudged you, I had thought you weren’t taking this academy seriously, but you had looked into the exam beyond the surface and acted like a true hero. My score would not have been nearly as high as it was if not for you spurring me into action!” he declared dramatically.
“N-no– I didn’t– I-I– that was s-stupid I didn’t– UA wouldn’t have let anyone g-get hurt I sh-should have– I wasn’t trying t-to get points for–”
“That’s even more admirable!” Iida cut him off, “goodness for its own sake is more impressive than intuiting a secret point system,” he insisted.
Oh, Kami, what the hell was going on?
“I think what Iida is trying to say is thank you,” Uraraka butted in, “Do you want to sit with us at lunch?” she asked brightly.
Of all the awful things Izuku had expected to happen today, small talk wasn’t one of them.
“Haha, um, s-sure,” he agreed nervously.
Either they were messing with him, in which case he needed to do his best to act normal and not give them ammunition to throw at him later, or they wanted to thank him for helping them get more points on the entrance exam, in which case he also needed to do his best to act normal because this might be a second chance at making a friend. Izuku knew first impressions could be misconstrued, maybe they thought about that too and were giving him the benefit of the doubt. He was screaming at himself internally that letting people get close, even to a fake version of himself, was only going to end poorly, but he must be stupid or a masochist because he followed dutifully behind them as they made their way to the cafeteria.
***
So far, Hitoshi had been spending the day in silence doing his best to not burn holes into the back of Midoriya’s head. The phrase “out of sight out of mind” had merit and Midoriya sitting right in front of him was proof of the opposite, he was very much in Hitoshi’s sight, and thusly, very much in his mind. It was a relief when the lunch bell finally rang and he was able to remove the bushy head of green hair from his line of sight.
He got his lunch quickly and made his way to an empty table out of habit, but he didn’t remain alone for long.
“There is a darkness within you, I feel a kinship. May we sit with you?” the short boy with a bird head from his class asked after he walked up to the table Hitoshi was sitting at.
…What?
“We?” was all Hitoshi managed to choke out, cause honestly, what the hell was going on?
“I’m here too!” an angry shadow emerged from the boy’s chest to chastise him.
“Dark Shadow, calm yourself, there's no way for him to have known,” the boy shot back to the creature before looking up to Hitoshi again, “This is Dark Shadow, my quirk and an extension of me, though they have a mind of their own. I am Tokoyami,” he introduced himself and his– er– companion.
“Shinso,” he replied succinctly.
“May we sit?” Tokoyami asked again.
“Oh, yeah, sure. Go for it,” he agreed quickly, forgetting what the boy had even asked him to begin with.
He took his place across from Hitoshi and the two of them sat in silence until a group of their classmates came over as well.
“Is anyone sitting here?” a blonde kid asked, gesturing to the spot next to Hitoshi.
He had a mouth full of food and used that as an excuse to not answer him verbally, shaking his head instead to let him know that no, no one was sitting there. He didn’t know why the boy would want to sit there, there were plenty of open seats in other places.
“Guys, over here,” he gestured to three more of his classmates to join them.
Hitoshi’s immediate response to that was ‘Oh god, please no’ but he squashed that down and reminded himself that he was supposed to be making friends, even if he hadn’t still expected that to be a possibility after yesterday when he’d gotten that gravity girl to use her quirk for him on the ball throw. He hadn’t explicitly given away his quirk, but he hadn’t hidden it either, and that wasn’t even to mention the whole situation with Midoriya.
The boy who said he spoke Spanish, a pink girl, and a boy with spiky red hair joined the table and Hitoshi did his best to act regular about it.
“I didn’t get your guys’ names,” the pink girl said as she took her seat, “I’m Mina!”
He glanced at Tokoyami who also glanced toward him like neither of them knew how the hell they were supposed to approach the situation. He supposed that with a quirk and demeanor like that, Tokoyami probably wasn’t too popular in middle school either, so he took the lead.
“Shinso,” he introduced himself.
“I am Tokoyami and this is Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami introduced the two of them.
Dark Shadow emerged as a tiny little thing, waving timidly before disappearing. Maybe Dark Shadow was a little shy as well, that was kinda cute.
“I’m Kirishima!” the guy with red spiky hair said enthusiastically.
“I’m Sero,” the boy with black hair said casually.
“And I’m Kaminari,” the boy who had first come over to scope out their table concluded.
He exchanged another glance with Tokoyami that said that neither of them had any idea where to take the conversation from here. Thankfully, the four who had just joined them seemed to have more than enough to say to fill the silence. They chattered on and on without pause seamlessly including Tokoyami and himself in their conversation in a way that didn’t seem invasive or performative. The social grace the four of them so casually displayed was something Hitoshi could never dream of. He might be able to fake it one day, but it would never be as natural as they were.
“Hey, that kid from our class is sitting alone,” Kirishima interrupted their banter about 20 minutes later to point out.
“Oh, Bakugo?” Mina asked to clarify when everyone turned their heads to see who he had been talking about.
Mmm, that blonde kid. Yeah, that didn’t surprise Hitoshi in the slightest. That guy was obnoxious.
“Yeah, we should go sit by him!” Kirishima insisted
Everyone else looked at each other seeming a bit unsure about that, but eventually, the four that had come over to sit with him and Tokoyami decided to finish the latter half of lunch with him. Martyrs, the lot of them, Hitoshi decided in the privacy of his own thoughts. With a kind farewell, they migrated over to the angry pomeranian leaving Hitoshi alone with Tokoyami again.
“They have heroic spirit,” Tokoyami commented after they left.
Hitoshi was sure that he meant it as a compliment toward them and not an insult toward Bakugo, but he snorted out a laugh regardless before agreeing. It was nice to have someone to lead the chattering, but now that they were gone Hitoshi realized how loud they had been and the quiet was nice too. For the rest of the lunch period, they occasionally made attempts at small talk but it was painful at best. Tokoyami was nice but they were both too awkward to be left to their own devices. They walked with each other back to the classroom, and, if nothing else, his presence was a good distraction from who he was about to have to sit behind again.
He only had to restrain himself from glaring at Midoriya for a minute before, for the second time today, a tall, loud, blonde teacher burst into the room shouting.
“I AM HERE!!! COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A HERO!!!” All Might announced his entrance dramatically.
Hitoshi had to fight off a groan as the rest of the class ooh’ed and ahh’ed. This was going to be a long day.
Notes:
The conversation in French went as follows:
"Me!"
"Oh, do you speak French?"
"Yeah! I'm from France! No one here speaks French, this is so exciting-"
"... I speak a LITTLE French..."
[Fun fact: French is like the second most common foreign language for Japanese students to learn (English being the first) and French cuisine is really popular there. Don't worry Aoyama, you'll find someone who speaks French, I'm sure 🥹]
[Secondary fun fact: I took four years of French! ...I barely remembered enough of it to write that conversation though.]
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 100: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper… and also a few bangs… and a LOT of shouting.
Notes:
ahhhhhh brain bad again time 🤘😅 Sorry for uploading so late in the week. Generally, I aim for Wednesdays, but welp... that didn't pan out, did it? Idk if this is gonna push back next week's upload as well so... hope for Wednesday but expect later I guess.
I made a separate post for the art I have been making and receiving for this fic so go check that out, it's the only other thing I have uploaded at the moment. I'm planning on linking Tumblr posts to better-quality images bc you can't really zoom in on any of the details without just getting a bunch of pixels. I have posted a few already so I'll just link my Tumblr here if you wanna check that out. I also have a TikTok, some ppl were surprised to see me pop up on their fyp so I'll link that too.
Idk how to link w/o the rich text option in the body of the story so that's where I'm linking it (sorry) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Lunch went surprisingly well. Neither of them brought up what had happened with Shinso or Kacchan even though Izuku couldn’t stop himself from glancing back and fourth between the two of them on their respective sides of the lunchroom. Kacchan was sitting alone and Izuku couldn’t help but feel like that was his fault after blindsiding him with his sudden lack of quirklessness. He probably wouldn’t have made such a scene if he warned him beforehand; though, Kacchan probably would have beaten his ass if he warned him beforehand outside of Eraser’s watchful eye.
He was glad to see that Shinso wasn’t sitting alone and he was even more relieved when a portion of Shinso’s group broke off to sit with Kacchan. Ruining his own social life was one thing but ruining theirs was another and he’s not sure he would be able to forgive himself should that have happened.
Despite his distraction, he did his best to keep up with the conversation happening around him. Uraraka and Iida seemed to be getting along well, he’d seen them chatting throughout the day since their seats were right by one another. Due to that fact, it became apparent that they had talked themselves out, so when they ran out of discussion topics they set their sights on him.
“So Midoriya, are you from around here?” Iida asked.
“Y-yeah, I’m from Musutafu. B-born and raised,” he replied with a nervous laugh; the statement ‘born and raised’ was more true than they would ever know since the city itself raised him more than his own parents had.
“You must know all the good hangs then!” Uraraka mused, “You should take us around sometime, I just moved here, my hometown’s way too far south to commute.”
“Yeah, m-maybe…” he said a little more dismissively than he had intended; it’s not that he didn’t know cool spots to hang out at, it’s just that all the local spots hosted the local kids who hated Izuku’s guts, so he wouldn’t be caught dead there most of the time.
“I was talking to Iida all day but I didn’t get the chance to ask you, do you have any hobbies? I don’t really have the time for them, I spend– er– spent, I guess, I spent most of my time helping my parents with their business, doing paperwork and stuff. It’s really boring and any free time I had I spent training as best I could to get in here,” Uraraka explained.
“Likewise, I spent most of my time training to get into UA,” Iida added succinctly.
Izuku would bet that was true as a part of the Iida family, they probably started him out young to take up the legacy. That was actually kind of sad, he hoped this was Iida’s dream too, not just something his family forced upon him, but that seemed too personal to ask someone you just met.
The two of them were looking at him expectantly and he snapped himself back to the conversation, Uraraka had asked him about what he did in his free time, right? Oh Kami, he couldn’t answer that truthfully.
“T-training, yeah. Lots of t-training,” he agreed awkwardly.
“Well, I don’t know what I expected. Not many people can get into UA with a rich social life, can they? Gotta train your butt off to get in,” she sighed as she poked at the remainder of her lunch.
“Yes, that does seem to be the trend. Maybe we can find time for hobbies now that we’re here! As long as we keep up with our studies, of course,” Iida suggested as the bell rang.
“I don’t know about that, I don’t even have the time to finish my lunch,” Uraraka joked but she seemed genuinely troubled.
She hadn’t eaten much more than Izuku had, and as he shoved his leftovers into a bento to take home she looked up at him.
“You a slow eater too? That’s a good idea, this stuff is too good to waste. I’ll bring a tupperware tomorrow,” she decided as the three of them took their trays to the tray return.
***
The anxiety in his gut that had piqued when Eraser had left the room abated slightly as All Might burst through the door. Of course, Izuku still had to pretend that he didn’t know All Might, but at least All Might was in on that secret as well, unlike Eraser who, hopefully, had no clue who he was. He allowed himself the barest bit of excitement when All Might revealed that they would be able to wear their costumes for Heroics. He had spent most of his life editing and redesigning his hero costume and now he was finally going to be able to wear it! It was further proof that his lifelong dream of being a hero was becoming more and more tangible by the day.
He was grateful that the costumes were stored on the wall closest to him because it allowed him to grab his case and book it to the locker rooms ahead of everyone else. He changed in the bathroom stall like he had the first day, though it took him longer to get everything situated so the locker room had filled up before he got the chance to dart away again. Luckily everyone else seemed to be fiddling with the various bits and bobs of their costumes as well and no one tried to talk to him as he snuck his way out. He got two pointed glares from the expected parties but he ignored them and went on his way.
Again, he was the first to the training ground, but unlike last time, he didn’t hide around the corner. He didn’t need to hide from All Might. He took a deep breath and assured himself that everything was fine before he stepped out from behind the blind corner he’d paused at.
“Lookin’ good, young Midoriya!” All Might exclaimed as he walked out into the clearing.
He felt a blush rise on his cheeks at the compliment. He’d gone over the design with All Might before he had submitted it but this was the first time he had seen it in person as far as Izuku knew. He was relieved that he had his approval.
“Thanks,” he replied as he tried to repress a smile.
“You got out here fast, I’m sure Aizawa appreciated that yesterday,” All Might responded, not so subtly probing Izuku for information about his first day.
He had gotten a text or two from All Might last night but he hadn’t even checked his phone until about an hour prior when he was eating his lunch. His blush deepened at the reminder of both yesterday’s disaster and the fact that he had ignored All Might of all people.
“Oh, I don’t know, he’s… uh…” Izuku trailed off not wanting to either lie or tell the truth to All Might about what he thought about Eraser.
“He’s a tough nut to crack, but he’s a fantastic hero! He’s not going to tolerate anything but your best,” All Might concluded for him, “He’s less daunting once you get to know him,” he added in a stage whisper, not that anyone was around to overhear them yet anyway.
Izuku huffed out a small laugh at All Might’s antics, he wasn’t normally like this when it was just the two of them and Izuku was starting to realize that he wasn’t really that familiar with “All Might” proper. The man Izuku knew was Yagi, not All Might, and the thought made him equal parts happy and sad. He was glad to know that All Might was his actual self around him, but it was upsetting to know that he so often wasn’t allowed to be that; Izuku knew more than most how difficult it was to put up a facade, it had gotten to the point where he didn’t even know who the “real” him was anymore. He hoped the same wasn’t true for All Might.
He was distracted from his thoughts as All Might went to greet the next students to come out
“Good afternoon, young…!” he trailed off as he scanned the attendance sheet.
“Shinso and Tokoyami,” Shinso responded flatly.
“Yes! Thank you, Young Shinso! Greetings young Tokoyami!”
They both nodded their heads politely but said nothing further. The silence was getting awkward and it wasn’t helped by the next few arrivals who introduced themselves as Tsu, Shoji, Jiro, Todoroki, and Kouda. Izuku supposed it made sense that the quiet ones would get out first as they weren’t wasting time talking or waiting for their conversation partners to finish changing as well. After what felt like an eternity of ignoring Shinso’s occasional glares in the stark silence of the faux city the chatterboxes started rolling out and Izuku felt like he could hide better behind their conversations.
He stayed close to All Might but still off to the side as the class congregated in the clearing. Once All Might counted 20 heads in the group he started to explain what today’s “battle training” would entail. Teams were assigned, lots were drawn, and Izuku’s heart sank in his chest when it was announced he was supposed to go against Kacchan.
There was no way this was going to end well.
All Might handed both of them a copy of the building’s schematics before wishing the four of them good luck and taking the rest of the class to an observation room. So, he was going to have to fight Kacchan… while the rest of the class AND All Might watched him.
Brilliant.
Izuku studied the building’s layout and began to devise a plan. It would be best for them to split up, they’re on a timer and there’s a lot of ground to cover. Kacchan will certainly be on the offensive, he wouldn’t let Iida go out and search for them even though that would be the best use of their quirks; Iida would be able to cover a lot more ground and Kacchan would be more suited to take a stand in defense, but that’s besides the point because Kacchan was far too stubborn and impatient to wait for someone to come to him. He was also unlikely to see Uraraka as a threat, she looked harmless and her quirk wasn’t exactly violent at first glance, but Izuku had seen glimpses of her at the entrance exam, she wasn’t anything to scoff at. She could hold her own against Iida since they both needed close range to fight, the best he could do is evade, but he didn’t like her odds against Kacchan; he could blast her away before she even got the chance to get in close. So Izuku needed to take out Kacchan (great) and send Uraraka in after Iida. One of them should enter from the a higher level and the other from the main entrance.
“So you want me to use my quirk to get you up to the roof?” Uraraka asked.
“Oh… um…”
He said that all out loud. Terrific.
That’s not, in fact, what Izuku had meant, but it did sound fun. He was tempted to agree but he didn’t know how he would react to zero gravity and they were on a timer, now was not the time to mess around.
“No, I think it’d b-be best for you to enter from the r-roof. Kacchan’s gonna expect us to enter on ground level s-so that’s where I need to b-be,” he corrected.
A blush spread across Uraraka’s cheeks at that.
“Oh, yeah! Hah, I um… I don’t know if I can do that…” she admitted sheepishly.
“Can you not use your quirk on yourself?” he asked before he had a chance to stop himself.
Was that rude to ask?
“No I can, but it’s really difficult to control and… well you were out of it last time but I tend to end up puking my guts out if I try. I don’t think it would be smart to start the exercise off exhausted and nauseous.”
“That’s f-fine. I’ll give you a b-boost up to the fire escape and you can j-just take the stairs,” he replied, doing his best to sound reassuring.
Her responding smile told him that he’d done at least a passable job.
“Make sure to keep as quiet as you can… you might want to take your shoes off,” he supplied suppressing a grimace at the impractical heels that clicked with every step they made across the sidewalk, “glance into the windows before you pass them and make sure you aren’t seen. The plan isn’t going to work if they know we’ve split up. Once you get to the top there should be a roof access door, but it that’s locked try the window on the fire escape. They likely hid the weapon closer to the top floor expecting us to enter at ground so you’ll probably find it first, but stay out of sight until I take out Kacchan then we can corner Iida and take the weapon,” he instructed as they made their way to the fire escape.
He was letting himself fall into his Ivy persona but he just let himself. The confidence was helpful whether it was his or not.
“Be quiet, find the weapon, wait for you, got it,” Uraraka repeated with a determined nod.
Her blind faith in him made his resolve falter, but he did his best to ignore that. This was a good plan, he needed to trust himself too. It was foolproof so long as he didn’t let himself freeze up when Kacchan found him. They could do this.
He squatted down under the fire escape and looked up at Uraraka.
“Alright, stand on my shoulders,” he instructed.
He stayed close enough to the wall so that she could keep a hand on it for balance but once she stood upright he held her calves in place and stood up as well, effortlessly holding her as he walked over to the fire escape’s acess ladder.
“No don’t grab that part! It’ll pull the ladder down, it’ll be too loud!” he whisper-shouted as she reached for the first rung of the ladder.
“Sorry, here?” she replied shifting her grip to the grating of the floor.
“Yes, you can pull yourself up, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Can I jump off your shoulders or is that gonna hurt you?”
“No, go for it,” he assured her, his shoulder armor would take the brunt of any damage her heels may have done.
Without any more hesitation, she hoisted herself up onto the fire escape and looked back down at him with a smile and a thumbs up. It felt all too easy to return the gesture before making his way back to the main entrance. Ivy was better at making friends, he wished he could just be Ivy all the time.
Pushing the thought from his mind he opened the front door, half expecting for Kacchan to be waiting for him right at the entrance. He let out a sigh of relief when he found that he wasn’t. The interior of the building was too plain to seem real, which made sense if these buildings were built to be knocked down or damaged in training, but it also made the search that much easier since there was nothing to hide behind. He went about the place methodically, making sure he didn’t get himself turned around and waste time by ending up checking identical rooms several times. He made it up two floors before he even heard a peep from the other team, and of course, that ‘peep’ was Kacchan’s aggressive footfalls; he wouldn’t know stealth if it punched him in the face.
As good as the emptiness of the building was for looking for things, it worked in reverse as well, meaning there wasn’t really anywhere for Izuku to hide either. He briefly entertained the idea of trying to skirt around him and sneak onto the next floor but with the layout, that didn’t really seem feasible, any movement against the slate gray halls would catch Kacchan’s attention. As much as he dreaded it, Izuku knew a confrontation was going to be inevitable the second All Might pulled the lots.
“Engaging on the second floor,” he warned Uraraka over the comms before stepping out into the main hallway and waiting.
It didn’t take long for Kacchan to storm out of one of the rooms and lock eyes with him; it took even less time for him to charge. Something primal in his mind told him to run, told him to make himself as small as possible and protect his head and chest but he ignored it and stood his ground. He was used to fighting Eraserhead and real villains and freaking All Might, he could fight Kacchan. He could do this.
Predictably, he started with a right hook aimed straight at Izuku’s face. His jaw was damn near crooked because of how many times Kacchan had pulled that shit on him over the years, but this time was different, this time he could fight back, this time he didn’t have to be so helpless. Like any other overly telegraphed move a thug tried to pull on him, Izuku saw it coming from a mile away and used his opponent’s momentum against them. He grabbed him by the oversized gauntlet, which admittedly made the maneuver quite difficult, and threw him back over his shoulder and onto the ground.
The impact knocked the wind out of him and he laid on the ground gasping. This was his chance, he knew better than to hesitate, but that same primal part of his brain that told him to run said that there were going to be consequences for retaliating. It had been so long since he had even had the gall to try and his mind was telling him he was in for detention and then he would be home late and then Mama would be mad and– No! No!
By the time he had gotten a hold of himself, Kacchan was back on his feet and his palms were crackling. Izuku knew what that crackling heat felt like, he knew how powerful those explosions could be, he knew how much damage they could do and he could not let that happen again. He was panicking, and for the first time in a long time (against Kacchan at least) his brain chose fight over flight.
He ducked under an explosion that would have left his face permanently deformed at the very least and delivered a swift kick to Kacchan’s ribs. Having just gotten his breath back, this made him falter. Izuku used the distraction to make it into his blind spot, forcing him to turn around rather than attack again. He stayed low and waited for Kacchan to take aim before leaping above another explosion, ready to strike Kacchan down as he descended. Unfortunately for Izuku, Kacchan had two hands and the reflexes to match Izuku’s dodging. As the first explosion was still going off he aimed his other hand up at Izuku and fired. Being that he was in midair, there wasn’t much he could do to stop the hit from coming, all he could do was brace for impact.
The familiar heat and force enveloped him and his ears had already been ringing from the first two attacks. His back hit the wall and his panic alongside the impact was starting to become disorienting. Even still, he landed on his feet with his back still against the wall and thankfully, his costume had prevented any real damage.
“YOU BASTARD! YOU’VE BEEN LAUGHING BEHIND MY BACK FOR YEARS HAVEN’T YOU?!” Kacchan bellowed as he charged for him again.
His right arm was out, aimed right at his face and ready to fire; Izuku watched as his left hand pulled a pin out of the oversized grenade gauntlet. His heart sank, he had a feeling that pin wasn’t just for show. The world felt like it was moving in slow motion as the orange light bloomed forth from Kacchan’s hand like a flower, green sparks crackled over his body before he had fully gotten his wits about him. The ceiling and walls were already cracked, even if the explosion didn’t get him, the debris would, and Kacchan wouldn’t be safe from that either.
Before the blast got too big for him to jump over it, he leapt up and over, dragging Kacchan with him. The explosion likely would have blown Kacchan back anyway, but he wasn’t taking chances on that. The two of them tumbled away together as Izuku had looped his arms under Kacchan’s and pulled him to his chest.
He couldn’t hear a damn thing beyond a high-pitched ringing as they slammed into the far wall and the world returned to spinning at it’s normal pace. Kacchan was starting to struggle against him so he shifted his hold up to his pressure point and dug his thumb into the flesh until he stopped moving. He slumped back against Izuku’s chest and Izuku wasted no time in throwing his prone form off of him.
He took a second to get his bearings back and once he did he couldn’t help but be disappointed. He was disappointed in himself for freezing up so much and letting everything spiral out of control, and he was disappointed that Kacchan went down as easily as anyone else, but more than anything he was disappointed that Kacchan had been so reckless. This was exactly what he had meant when he told him that he couldn’t be a hero like this. He had too much hatred in him and, even if most of it was aimed at Izuku, it was still too much.
That would have killed him.
That could have killed Kacchan as well.
What the fuck was he thinking?
He got to his feet and started stripping the weapons off of his opponent before he thought about how that wasn’t something he was supposed to know to do yet. Whatever, he didn’t trust Kacchan to not wake up and go on another rampage anyway. He had hauled all of his supplementary explosives off around the corner before remembering that he should probably alert his teammate. Shit, she was probably worried after hearing that and he wasn’t sure whether she had been trying to contact him anyway because he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing.
“I can’t hear right now, everything’s ringing but it’s getting quieter. No one is hurt. Just give me a few seconds and I should be able to hear you again soon,” he whispered into the comm because he didn’t trust himself not to scream without being able to hear how loud he was speaking.
He could only assume that the message was received as he went about tying Kacchan’s hands behind his back and dragging him to the stairwell where it was less likely for debris to fall on him when he couldn’t defend himself. By the time he’d finished that, he could hear an indistinguishable chattering in his ear. Cranking the volume to the max he was able to make out the words.
“–sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay. I can hear you now. I took care of the scout, have you found the weapon? Is Iida guarding?”
“Yes and yes, fifth floor,” she answered succinctly.
“What direction do the windows face?” he asked.
“...uhhh.”
“The fire escape is on the west side,” he supplied.
“The South then,” she responded.
“Okay, I’ll enter through the window, he can’t take on both of us at once,” he replied as he took the stairs up to a less demolished floor.
The structural supports were still in place so he wasn’t too worried, but the wall had been blown clear off, there wasn’t anywhere he could easily climb up anymore; the stairs were the path of least resistance at the moment. He climbed up to the fourth floor and opened one of the south-facing windows; he slid out of it backward, holding onto the frame to keep his balance as he got to his feet on the sill. He couldn’t quite reach the window sill above him, he was going to have to jump. Well, if he fell maybe he could test out the theory that he could break his fall with a flick’s shockwave. Not letting himself get psyched out, he jumped up and grabbed the ledge. With the concrete firmly in his grasp, he let go with one hand and turned his body to face away from the wall before grasping it again.
“Uraraka, now,” he warned.
With the building behind him and the ledge in his hands, he kicked off the wall and used his momentum to swing upward, sending his feet crashing through the glass. He landed in the room in a roll facing the wrong way but Iida was too shocked to have taken advantage of that brief moment of disorientation.
Iida charged at him much faster than Kacchan had but much slower than All Might did, and he wasn’t nearly as adept at controlling his momentum, so it was easy to trip him and let him roll away with a loud clanging sound. As inexperienced as he seemed to be at controlling his momentum he was more experienced than Izuku had expected with recovering because he was back on his feet and charging… straight past Izuku before he could prepare for the next round.
Uraraka was mere feet away from the weapon when Iida dashed in and stole it from her clutches. Time was running short and the other team could still win if Iida was able to play keep away for long enough. Both of them charged after him but, even holding the comically large fake bomb, he was fast. Izuku was fast too, but he was even more inexperienced at controlling his momentum at speeds like that, he was liable to knock himself out if he tried. He could get ahead of Iida if he were gunning straight for him because at least he would know where he was headed, but in an empty room with his only clear destination being anywhere Uraraka and himself weren’t Izuku couldn’t predict his movements as well.
“We need to corner him,” Izuku decided as Iida ran circles around them, “take the north side, I’ll take the south, if he tries to go between us I can catch him.”
It took a few passes around the room for them to properly corner him but once they did, he didn’t stand a chance. Just as Izuku had expected, he tried to slip between them as they began to close in and with only one path open to him it was easy to trip him up again. Just like he had before, Iida went sprawling to the ground with a clang, but this time Izuku was prepared; before he could scramble back up to his feet and run after the bomb that had rolled away, Izuku grabbed him by the forearm and forced it behind his back, pinning him to the ground again.
The buzzer sounded and Izuku’s heart dropped before he spotted Uraraka standing with the weapon firmly in her grasp.
“THE HERO TEAM WINS!”
Izuku winced at the sudden volume, his hearing had largely returned to normal but his comm was still on max and All Might wasn’t exactly quiet, but it was over. They did it!
“DEKU!” he heard a distant voice yell aggressively.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! 100 chapters woot woot!
Chapter 101: Find Your Footing
Notes:
First full day done ✅ what's next? More panic? Yeah, that sounds about right.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Toshinori was sure that one day he would stop being surprised by Midoriya’s skills, but today was not that day. He listened as he expertly devised a plan and instructed his teammate, doing his best to play to the strengths and weaknesses he knew about everyone involved. Everything was going according to Midoriya’s plan until he ran into the enemy team. He was surprised he hadn’t heard Midoriya talk about his childhood friend, or whom he assumed must be a childhood friend seeing as though he referred to him as “Kacchan.” He recognized him as the kid who Midoriya had saved from the sludge villain on the day they had first met, but he’d not spoken of him since then.
The situation only became more confusing as the minutes ticked by. Bakugo lunged at Midoriya with blind fury and Toshinori wasn’t sure how much of that could be excused by him playing a part. He was prepared to step in if things got out of hand, but he wasn’t prepared for just how quickly the situation would devolve. Bakugo pulled the pin on his gauntlet and aimed straight for Midoriya’s head before Toshinori could say a word. The camera they were watching the fight through cut to black after the explosion whited out the contrast completely. He would have been gone in a millisecond if he hadn’t seen his protegee rolling to a hard stop against the far wall on another monitor with the other student firmly in his grasp.
The camera’s position gave him a clear view of the carnage that the blast had caused and it made Toshinori sick. That would have killed his boy, if not Bakugo as well.
“Midoriya, is everyone alright?” he asked over the intercom but Midoriya didn’t seem to hear him.
Even if he did hear him he was too busy subduing the other boy who was still trying to fight. He answered his question well enough by getting up and throwing his friend to the ground before stripping him of his weapons. Toshinnori took a subtle deep breath at that, he was well enough to continue the exercise. He should be fine.
He watched with bated breath as Midoriya threw himself backward through a window four floors above street level and secured the weapon with the help of his teammate. Once all was said and done, he was all too relieved to announce that the hero team had won.
His relief didn’t last long as his announcement roused the student who had been terrorizing his protegee and he immediately flew back into a fury, effortlessly ripping his hands out of the flimsy capture tape they had been bound in and stalking toward the room where Midoriya and the rest of the students in the exercise were. For a moment, his panic spiked, and he pictured another one of those explosions going off in a room where three of his students were; the thought chilled him to the bone.
“Young Bakugo, stand down. The exercise is over,” he commanded over the intercom with more force than he had ever used with a child.
Generally, he did his best to be as non-threatening as possible to civilians and allies; he knew he could be intimidating, but he never wanted people to be afraid of him. Right now that concern was the farthest thing from his mind as the blonde, thankfully, heeded his command and stopped in his tracks.
If his heart rate skyrocketed this high every time he saw Midoriya fight, he’s not sure how much more he could take before he expired from a heart attack. The entrance exam and now this? Good god, Shuzenji was right, this kid was a trouble magnet.
“Report back to the observation room,” he instructed the four students not already here with him before turning his attention back to the remaining 16 who were all staring at him with wide eyes.
Great, he’d frightened all of them.
He tried to reassure them with a softer and kinder smile than he usually wore and he saw some of them release the tension in their expressions, but not all of them. He bit back a sigh as he waited for the last four students to join them. His heart rate settled as Midoriya slipped through the door behind everyone else and stood next to his teammate off to the side of the room.
“Alright everybody, who can tell me who the MVP of that fight was?” he asked the class to start their post-battle debrief.
One of the girls in the group stepped forward with her hand raised and waited for him to nod before speaking.
“Midoriya had clear communication with his teammate throughout, devised a solid plan, and followed through with it despite running into disaster. Not only that, he ensured the safety of both himself and his opponent. Iida did everything he could given the circumstances, he embodied the role and took the practice seriously, but there’s only so far you can get with an uncooperative team member. Uraraka did as instructed by her teammate, but took no initiative on her own. Even if that was the best play in this instance, she wasn’t given the opportunity to prove herself. Bakugo launched a large-scale attack indoors, damaged his own base, and refused to work with his partner all because of a personal grudge. Therefore, Midoriya was the most valuable player in the mission. Though the title could just as easily go to Iida, history is written by the victors,” the student who had introduced herself as Yaoyorozu stated matter-of-factly.
Toshinori was impressed, she stated everything elegantly and succinctly, leaving no stone unturned.
“Precisely, young Yaoyorozu! Excellent analysis!” he praised.
A light blush bloomed on her cheeks but Midoriya was beet red and staring at her wide-eyed. His gaze flicked to Bakugo for a moment before settling on Toshinori himself.
“Midoriya did an excellent job leading his team and Iida took his role very seriously, even 2 vs 1 he had them down to the wire! Communication is vital when working as a team and the results of this exercise show that! I expect the rest of you to learn from their mistakes going forward. The next match-up is team B as the heroes vs team I as the villains!” he declared.
He relaxed further as he got a round of enthusiastic “yes sirs” from the class and Midoriya settled in the front corner of the room to his right while Bakugo stayed in the far back corner on the left. This had to be the worst of the exercises, he told himself, taking another subtle deep breath as he turned back to the monitors and kept Midoriya in his periphery.
***
Today was strange. It was good, and that was the odd part. Iida and Uraraka stayed by his side for the rest of class and chatted amicably whenever the atmosphere allowed for it. Even though he didn’t say much they still insisted on walking to the train station with him. Iida had boarded a different train but Uraraka was headed northbound with him.
“That exercise was crazy, wasn’t it? Mina said that All Might totally dug into Bakugo at the end, she said he was gunning for you again before All Might yelled at him,” Uraraka idly chatted as they sat next to each other.
Izuku’s face blanched at that. All Might yelled at Kacchan? Kami, he was getting into so much trouble because of Izuku.
“What’s his problem with you anyway?” she asked.
“Oh, K-Kacchan? H-he’s just competitive,” he tried to assuage.
“That went a little past competitive if you ask me. There was a hole in the side of the building!” she exclaimed before adding, “…did he aim that at you?”
“I-I’m fine, I c-can handle myself,” he insisted.
“He did, didn’t he?” Uraraka gathered with an angry look on her face, “That’s not okay, Midoriya, you could have died!”
“But I d-didn’t. I’m f-fine–”
“That’s not the point! What if you didn’t dodge? What if he took the whole building down?” she pushed.
“He just d-didn’t know how p-powerful the blast would be, it was the s-support gear he has. It’s n-new he j-just doesn’t know how to use it y-yet.”
“Well then he shouldn’t have used it,” Uraraka insisted.
He didn’t have an argument for that. She was right, he knew she was right. Kacchan shouldn’t have done what he did. Izuku just hoped he wouldn’t get in trouble because of it.
For the rest of the train ride their conversation was stilted and awkward. Uraraka got off a few stops before he did and it occurred to him too late that he should have probably gotten off at the stop that took him to his old apartment for appearance’s sake, but what was done was done, so he just hoped that Uraraka didn’t know the city well enough to know that nowhere past that train stop was a place she wanted to be. Actually, no, that wouldn’t be better, he should probably tell her not to venture too far north. He could do that tomorrow and get off at a different stop. If she asked, he could tell her he needed to pick something up from somewhere on the north side or something.
The train screeched to a stop at the end of the line and he got out, keeping an eye on his surroundings. The streets had been much more habitable since they took down the Yakedo but they could hardly be considered nice. That point was driven home succinctly as he was roughly pulled into a blind alley.
He wrenched himself out of his attacker’s grasp and prepared himself for a fight until he saw who had grabbed him. It was the burned man that he had started seeing around town a few months ago; this guy had ‘saved’ him from some creep following him the first time they had met, so he wasn’t scared of him despite the circumstances.
“So you’ve got the reflexes to match the get-up, do ya?” the man asked with a smirk.
“What do you want?” he asked sternly.
He wasn’t really threatened at the moment, but he didn’t want to give off the impression that he was a big enough pushover to let a stunt like that slide.
“You’re a walking target, dumbass,” the man responded cryptically.
Panic rose in his chest at the comment but he did his best not to let it show on his face. There was no way this guy knew he was Ivy, right? He’d been careful. He made certain that no one followed him home after patrol and he only came and went in his gear under the cover of night; this man had a fire quirk, not night vision. He knew he had set up camp in the warehouse district, but, as far as Izuku knew, that was several blocks away from his own residence.
Izuku raised his brow at the man, wordlessly asking him to elaborate. If he didn’t know anything, Izuku wasn’t going to be stupid enough to let something slip.
“The uniform, idiot. You’re practically begging to get mugged, this is the second day in a row and I’m not gonna keep watching your back for you. Get a damn hoodie or at least take the jacket off,”
Izuku couldn’t help the relieved laugh he let out at that.
“Hah, I don’t think anyone mugging me is gonna get much out of it,” he scoffed.
“Yeah well, the uniform begs to differ. You go to a rich kid school, they’re gonna assume you’re a rich kid,” he rebutted, “Now get lost, I don’t need to be seen mingling with Uptown’s elite,” he quipped sarcastically.
Izuku shrugged the jacket off and rolled his eyes at that.
“I’ll try not to ruin your bad-boy reputation,” he said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder again
The man raised an eyebrow at the sass but thankfully he didn’t seem angry. He was acting too much like Ivy now, he needed to cool it.
“Thanks, I put a lot of work into it,” he shot back dryly as he gestured for him to get lost.
Izuku gave him a grateful nod and went on his way. He ditched the poor excuse for a tie as he made his way back to the brewery, keeping an eye out to make sure that man wasn’t still “watching his back.” He may not feel overly threatened by him but he sure as hell didn’t trust him, however, he didn’t trust anyone so that didn’t really say much.
In hindsight, he can’t believe he overlooked that, wearing a UA uniform in Uptown sounded like a great way to get mugged. It’s not like he couldn’t handle himself but he’d rather avoid an altercation entirely if he could help it.
Did that man follow him home yesterday? He really hoped he didn’t, he did not want to deal with packing up shop again. Following a stranger all the way from the train station to here was a hell of a lot of work for no payoff anyway, it was a solid 10 to 15-minute walk depending on how quickly he was walking and he couldn’t imagine that the guy was that committed to his wellbeing. He’d stay for now, but he’d keep an eye out. The guy had been all bark and no bite so far and he clearly didn’t have the intention of hurting him, if he wanted to, yesterday would have been a prime opportunity.
When he got back he made sure to lock the door behind him. He needed to rest before patrol and he felt too on edge to sleep without the extra assurance a locked door provided. After lying down on the couch for a few minutes he got up and shoved the desk in front of the door as well. This wasn’t going to work, was it? His paranoia was satiated for the time being, but the desk was not a long-term solution. He would figure that out later, right now he needed to sleep.
He managed to catch a fitful few hours of sleep before his alarm woke him up at 7:15. With a groan, he turned it off and got up. He had homework to do and a dinner to pack before he got ready for patrol and he only left himself two and a half hours.
The door and desk were both still firmly in the places he had left them which calmed his nerves a bit. Eraser and Ectoplasm didn’t hold off on their assignments but the rest wasn’t too bad, English was a breeze and he managed to finish everything due tomorrow in just under two hours. He had already prepared the week’s worth of dinners last Sunday so he just added some of the rice and chicken he made in with the leftovers he had from lunch.
He had an idea as he was falling asleep so he geared up and readied himself to go a solid ten minutes earlier than he usually did and headed to the main floor of the warehouse. There was a huge flammables cabinet on the west wall, it was empty, he’d poked around it a while ago, but it was durable and heavy, and most importantly, bigger than the door to his office. He’d have to use OFA to move it, meaning that the average person wouldn’t be able to move it at all and it was fireproof. If that guy followed him home he’d both have to know where to find the room Izuku had set up in and figure out a way to move the massive fireproof cabinet in order to get to it.
Was he being a little over-paranoid? Yes, he probably was, but he was better off safe than sorry. With his mind at ease, he set off into the night, making sure to stay almost completely hidden until he crossed out of the warehouse district entirely.
It felt like they hadn’t been out like this for ages, they reveled in the breeze against their face as they ran across the rooftops on their way to meet Eraser. They did their best to push any anxieties aside and fall into Ivy entirely. This wasn’t about UA or Izuku, this was about Ivy and this was about Uptown. They had a duty to this place and they couldn’t let their personal life infringe on that any more than it already was.
“Evenin’ Eraser,” they greeted as Aizawa joined them on the rooftop.
He just grunted in response before plopping down on the ledge with them.
“Day going that well for you?” they asked sardonically.
“This class is a nightmare,” he responded.
They did their best to not let themself react to that.
“Kids, huh?” they replied awkwardly.
“The first full day and they blew up a goddamn building,” he continued as he rubbed at his eyes in exasperation.
“Yeesh…” they forced out, trying not to sound guilty.
Eraser hummed in agreement as he opened his bento.
They let their gaze linger on him longer than they usually would before turning around and opening their own dinner. He was going to miss this, being Ivy.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 102: A Positive Experience? With *my* Teachers? It’s More Likely Than You’d Think. (Get a free PC check today)
Notes:
This is such a long chapter for no good reason. I just couldn't find a good place to cut it off, so what should be like 2-3 of my normal-length chapters is now one. Enjoy!
Also, happy eclipse day! I have work and I was gonna take a late lunch and stare at the sun but I forgot my eclipse glasses at home 🙃
I am very upset and considering leaving work early... we'll see.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“You all need to pick a class representative. You have until homeroom is over. I don’t care how you pick as long as you don’t make it my problem,” Eraser said, barely acknowledging the class before he crawled into his sleeping bag and collapsed in the corner.
Kami, he was so dramatic.
Before Izuku could even bite back a laugh the entire class started shouting over each other, offering themselves up for the position. The sudden volume startled him and he damn near jumped out of his seat.
“Silence! Everyone, please! The class representative's duty is to lead others, that's not something just anyone can do. You must first have the trust of everyone in the classroom, therefore, the most logical way to fill this position is democratically. We should hold an election to choose our leader,” Iida insisted over the rest of the class shouting.
“Isn’t everyone just gonna vote for themselves, kero?” a girl Izuku was pretty sure was named Asui called out.
“Most people will, but that means that whoever does receive multiple votes must truly be the most suitable person for the job,” he shot back.
Izuku agreed with that, it was a good way to pick someone, but his thoughts started to spiral; he would never have offered himself up for the position, he had no desire to be the class’s center of attention, but All Might was expecting him to take up his mantle and being the class president at UA was a lot more prestigious than a regular high school, it got you on the pro’s radar. Aside from winning the sports festival, being the class representative was one of the best ways to ensure yourself a good internship and if Izuku couldn’t lead the class, how in the hell could he be expected to lead the charts? As Iida went by collecting everyone’s votes Izuku reluctantly wrote his own name on a slip of paper before throwing it into the lot. He was under no disillusions that anyone else would vote for him, but he would have felt too guilty if he didn’t at least try.
As Iida tallied the votes up on the board, Izuku’s brain short-circuited. His name had three tallies next to it and Iida wasn’t even done. By the time Iida finished Izuku was pretty sure he could be declared legally brain dead. He had gotten five votes… FIVE VOTES… he won…
Who the hell voted for him? Why the hell did anyone vote for him? Was this an accident?
“Alright the class rep is Midoriya and the deputy is Yaoyorozu,” Eraser’s bored drawl cut through the static that had enveloped his senses.
Oh, Kami, this was really happening. Why? Whywhywhywhywhy? He should have voted for Yaoyorozu or Iida like he wanted to, then he could be vice president. Vice president wouldn’t have been so bad, right?
His brain felt like poorly pureed tomato sauce as he did his best to pay attention during Eraser’s lecture. He had notes written down that he hardly remembered taking and he just had to hope that they would be sufficient enough to do whatever homework was assigned. He was only feeling mildly more coherent when Mic walked into the room for English.
“Alrighty little listeners, today we’re talking about irregular conjugations, everyone’s favorite, right?” Mic asked as he strode up to the podium.
Izuku didn’t notice the confused looks on his classmates’ faces until Mic spoke again.
“Ah, and that too. I buttered you up on the first day, but from now on, I’m only speaking in English during class. You’ll get the hang of it, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it,” he explained.
The class stared at him blankly.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have you cool cats speaking English faster than Eraser leaves a party,” Mic assured them.
The comment caught Izuku’s already mushy brain off guard and he couldn’t stop the snorted laugh that escaped him.
“Haha! See someone’s already on their way! I was trying to trip you up, but you caught it anyway!” Mic exclaimed much slower than he had been speaking before.
Everyone glanced over at Izuku and he wished the floor would split open and swallow him whole.
“Your comprehension is great lil’ listener! Do you have English-speaking friends or relatives?” Mic asked him.
“Oh, n-no. I just watch E-English movies and s-stuff,” he replied
“What was that? Sorry, that sounded like Japanese, could you repeat that in English for me?” Mic shot back with a kind smile still on his face.
Was he in trouble? Was Mic making fun of him? The sweet smile on their face looked too similar to the sadistic grins of his middle school teachers and, despite knowing that this was Mic and Mic was better than that, he felt himself starting to panic.
***
“S-sorry Yamada-sensei,” Midoriya said in English as he bowed his head, “No, I d-don’t know any E-English speakers.”
Shota had told them to keep an eye out for this kid, said that he’d displayed too many trauma responses and Hizashi could see what he meant by that. The kid looked terrified and apologized to him for something he had no need to apologize for.
“Wow kiddo! There’s nothing to apologize for and your English is amazing! You said you learned all that just from watching movies?” they asked hoping to reassure him.
A deep blush spread across his face and if he didn’t look so scared it would have been adorable.
“No! No, I s-studied in m-middle school and a b-bit in e-elementary as well,” he insisted as if Hizashi had just accused him of something.
“So how many years altogether then?” he asked, keeping his tone cheerful because based on Midoriya’s reactions alone the rest of the class, depending on how much of this conversation they caught, must think he was scolding him or something.
“E-eight years s-sir,” he responded.
“Well, that’ll do it! We should get you another placement test to see where you’re really at, but until then, do you know sign language?” he asked signing along with the question.
“N-no sir,” Midoriya replied.
“Wonderful! Wouldn’t want you to get bored! I’ll teach class in English and JSL to keep us both on our toes and hopefully you can pick up somethin’,” they decided as they struggled a bit trying to speak English and sign in a Japanese-based language at the same time.
“You d-don’t have to d-do that,” Midoriya tried to insist.
“Do ya think I would’ve gotten a degree in a foreign language if I didn’t like a little linguistic challenge?” he asked, keeping a bright smile on his face to drive the point home, “Alright, so, irregular conjugations,” he continued the lecture in English and JSL before Midoriya could argue further.
***
“I didn’t know you could speak English, that’s so cool!” Uraraka said as their lunch conversation started to dry out.
“Oh, y-yeah. T-thanks?” he replied awkwardly.
“I didn’t catch all of the conversation, but did you say you have been studying it for eight years?” Iida asked.
“O-on and o-off, but yes. I started when I was s-seven,” he answered.
“Well I bet that’s been paying off well for you, English has always been my worst subject. My grade in that class tanked my GPA so much that I was sure I wasn’t getting into UA,” Uraraka said with a dejected sigh.
“It h-helps to w-watch stuff in English, o-or at least it helped m-me,” Izuku offered.
“Oooooh English movie night! And we can ask Midoriya what the heck anyone is talking about every five minutes!” she shot back with a giggle.
He didn’t even have the time to sputter out a response to that before an alarm started blaring above them. The noise startled him but he reigned in his momentary panic quickly as he turned his focus to some of the older students explaining what was going on to Iida.
“Level three security breach means that someone’s managed to get past the school’s barrier. This hasn’t happened in my three years here, we should get going,” the elder student said in a panicked tone before turning tail and booking it.
Well, that did wonders for crowd control, Izuku thought sardonically as all the students around them started following suit and running. The three of them stood up and started following the crowd but it quickly became clear that either no one knew what they were doing, or they were too scared to follow the procedures they were taught. As they made their way into the hall the panic of the students around them started to seep under Izuku’s skin. He wasn’t scared of whoever had broken in, the school was rife with pros everywhere and he had faith that they could handle it. The claustrophobia, however, that was another issue entirely, and pressed up against the window it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his composure. He could feel his hands start to tremble and every thought in his mind turned to ‘get out get out get out get out’. He had just gotten into good graces with his peers, he wasn’t going to let himself break down in front of them and ruin everything.
Before he could think better of it he grabbed the window sill above his head that separated the upper and lower panes of glass and hauled himself up enough to kick off a pillar and perch himself precariously on the sill he had grabbed keeping himself steady with a hand on the pillar. The relief was instant, he was no longer trapped and from up here he could grab several pipes and fling himself out of the crowd if he needed to. He had an escape route and that was enough.
His position from above granted him a full view of the situation unfolding outside, it was just the press. Everyone was panicking, but it was just the press.
“Guys, it's j-just the p-press!” he tried to shout out but no one really listened.
Iida and Urakraka looked up at him and released the tension in their shoulders but besides those two everyone else kept shoving each other toward the door.
“IT’S JUST THE PRESS, EVERYONE REMAIN CALM!” Iida tried to shout out louder than Izuku had but that only got the attention of a few more people surrounding them including some of their classmates.
Yaoyorozu was among the few that heard him and she quickly loosened her tie, pulled a megaphone out from her clavicle, and tossed it to Iida. Kami, her quirk was so freaking cool. He couldn’t hear them talking above the noise of the crowd but it became clear that they were devising a plan when Iida started floating above everyone and shot over to the door like a rocket spiraling out of control before gracelessly perching himself on the exit sign and shouting into the megaphone loud enough to be heard over the alarms and clamoring crowd.
“EVERYTHING IS OKAY! IT’S JUST THE MEDIA OUTSIDE, THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! REMAIN CALM AND FOLLOW THE EVACUATION PROTOCOL IN AN ORDERLY FASHION!” he instructed concisely.
The spectacle along with the sheer volume was enough to get the crowd’s attention and finally, everyone listened. They all stopped shoving and the anxiety in the air that had been palpable lessened as everyone calmed down. Iida and himself were kind of stuck where they were until the students had cleared out enough space for them to drop back down to floor level but Izuku didn’t mind. As long as he was out of the crowd, he was fine. Hell, he’d prefer to be stuck here unable to evacuate than in the crowd even if there were an actual intruder here and he’s not sure what that said about him if he’s being honest.
Yaoyorozu and Uraraka waited for them as well and by the time the coast was clear, there was an announcement for everyone to return to their homeroom classes, which was convenient for them. Izuku was glad he wouldn’t have to deal with the crowd migrating back since he was already ahead of it.
“That was good thinking Iida!” Uraraka praised as the four of them made their way back to the classroom.
“I couldn’t have done it without all of you. Midoriya was the one to alert me and give me the idea to get above the crowd, I couldn’t have made it to where I was without you, and the back half of the crowd wouldn’t have been able to hear me without Yaoyorozu’s assistance,” Iida insisted.
“Yeah, but still, that was so cool! You handled it like a real pro.”
Izuku bit down on his lip as the three of them discussed what had just happened, and he made up his mind. No matter how much All Might wanted him to be leading the charge, he wasn’t suited for it. It would be a detriment to his class for him to keep his role as president. It was selfish, he needed to forfeit the title. He let his classmates file into the classroom ahead of him and stayed back, dismissing them to say he needed to talk to Aizawa-sensei about something. A few more people trickled in before Aizawa showed up so he just nodded awkwardly at them as he waited. When he saw the mess of dark wavy hair approaching he stood up straighter and steeled his nerves.
***
“A-Aizawa-sensei? C-could I talk t-to you real q-quick?” Midoriya asked as he approached the classroom.
This was… unexpected. He had told the kid that he was there to help him if he needed it but he truly hadn’t expected him to take him up on the offer.
“Hmm,” he hummed in agreement, “do you want to speak privately?”
“No, no! H-here is f-fine. I just wanted t-to ask if I c-could forfeit the title of class p-president? Ireallydon’tthinkI’msuitedfortherolesomeoneelsewoulddoamuchbetterjobthanIcouldandIdon’twannadragthewholeclassdownwithmyterribleleadershipskillsIthinkYaoyorozuwoulddobetterthanmeandshecanchooseanewvicepresidentsomeonethat’snotme!becauseIjust–it’snotthatIdon’twanttheresponsibility!ijustdon’t—”
Shota put a hand up to silence the word vomit that Midoriya had presented to him and the boy shut his mouth with an audible click before looking at him with wide eyes. Of course, he wasn’t asking for help, he had no clue why he even entertained the possibility.
“You want to forfeit your title? Your classmates elected you for a reason, are you sure?” he asked to clarify.
“S-sorry. Y-yes sir, I’m s-sure,” Midoriya replied with a slight bow.
Shota had watched back the tape of their battle trials already, he knew Midoriya had what it took to lead, but the Midoriya out there was a completely different person from the Midoriya in front of him. That fact was added to the pile of growing concerns he had for the kid. He wanted to encourage him to keep his role in hopes that it would help him get out of his shell, but at the same time, the kid clearly had a lot going on and he didn’t want to foist any more responsibilities on top of whatever he was already dealing with. At the end of the day, he couldn’t force Midoriya out of his shell and he could tell how much certainty it must have taken for Midoriya to get over his fears and actually talk to him in the first place, so he relented.
“Alright, if you’re sure,” he conceded and gave the boy a second to take it back, but he didn’t.
He nodded his head, confirming his decision, so Shota nodded in return before continuing on his way into the classroom. It wasn’t the call he would have made for him, but at least the kid had enough spirit to take a stand. He could have easily slacked just enough responsibility off to Yaoyorozu and kept the title for appearance's sake while he slunk into her shadow, but he didn’t, and Shota had to respect that.
“Midoriya has chosen to forfeit his title as class president. Yaoyorozu, you are being moved up to the role, you may choose a new vice president for yourself but make it quick. We have a lot of work to do this afternoon,” Shota announced after the last student took their seat.
Yaoyorozu’s eyes widened in surprise and Midoriya shrunk into himself more than he already had been.
“Oh… oh… um…” Yaoyorozu trailed off in surprise as she looked over the class, trying to make a decision quickly, “Iida? If that’s alright with everyone else,” she offered.
“Yeah, I can get behind emergency exit Iida!” someone piped up.
Shota cut them off before it turned into a whole class discussion.
“Alright, Yaoyorozu and Iida. It’s decided. Now, Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, Jiro, and Midoriya, you four will be spending the first half of heroics with Snipe for weapons training. After yesterday’s debacle, I don’t want any of you handling weapons you don’t know how to use. Is there anyone else who has a weapon as a part of their costume or quirk that I missed?” he gave the class a second to offer up someone else but when no one did, he continued, “Good, the rest of you report to gym beta and you four meet us there whenever you finish with Snipe. Everyone go get changed, gym uniforms today but the four of you going to Snipe bring your applicable support gear.”
***
“Alrighty, y’all ready for some good ol’ fashioned safety trainin’?” Snipe asked enthusiastically.
“Yes sir,” Yaoyorozu answered politely.
Kacchan all but snarled at him like a dog and Izuku and Jiro nodded their heads in agreement.
“Okay, miss Yaoyorozu I’m gonna have more than a day’s worth of stuff to cover with you seein’ as though your weapon of choice could be anythin’, so why don’t we cover knife work and explosives today to get these three on their way? Jiro, I know you ain’t really working with explosives but the shockwaves are similar so I’m lumping y’all together,” Snipe began.
“Sounds logical,” Yaoyorozu agreed with a smile.
Jiro just nodded again in agreement.
“Let’s do some knife work first since that’s a little more straightforward. Bakugo, Jiro y’all stay back, listen if you want but I’m not clearin’ you to carry a knife today since you don’t have prior experience. Yaoyorozu and Midoriya, step on up,” he instructed.
Izuku could feel Kacchan’s eyes burning into his skull but he did his best to ignore it. This wasn’t about Kacchan, this was about his education. He couldn’t let All Might down by downplaying his skills, he wasn’t going to get any better if he did that and as much of a risk as it was for him to make potential connections back to Ivy, he didn’t feel comfortable not having a knife as part of his costume. Just like when he started sparring with All Might, he couldn’t hold back what he knew, even if it didn’t make any sense for him to know what he knew, he was just going to have to field questions as they came.
“How much experience do y’all have with knife fightin’?” Snipe asked.
“Not a lot. I have worked with an instructor using weapons for a few years but we rarely practiced with knives. I’m far more confident with a staff,” Yaoyorozu answered.
And then everyone’s attention turned to him…
“I– um– I h-have a f-few years experience w-working with a t-trained professional,” Izuku answered truthfully.
“Wonderful, why doncha show me whatcha got, bean sprout?” Snipe challenged as he threw what Izuku assumed was a blunted blade at him.
He caught it by the hilt and turned his attention back to Snipe who was laughing like a maniac.
“Was that luck or are your reflexes that good? Did ya know it was blunted?” he asked through his laughter as he slapped his knee.
Izuku really wished his skin wasn’t so fair or at least that he didn’t blush so easily because he felt a familiar heat rise on his cheeks and he just knew he looked like a strawberry.
“Y-yes, I f-figured i-it was b-blunted,” he stuttered out in response.
“This’ll be fun, let’s see if your knife skills are as sharp as you are,” Snipe replied, beckoning him forward into the center of the room.
Izuku followed obediently and took his place across from Snipe in the ring marked on the floor.
“You start, I don’t wanna come at you guns blazin’ if I don’t know what you're capable of, an’ be careful, the blades ain’t sharp but I reckon you're strong enough to stab me with it anyhow. No quirk use,” he clarified.
Okay, he could do this, he knew how to do this. Avoid major veins and arteries and try not to maim anyone. Easy, he did that all the time. He took a deep breath and nodded to Snipe, confirming that he was ready before he lunged. He made out like he was about to stab him straight in the chest and waited for Snipe to block before dropping low and sliding the smooth edge of the knife across his shin and calf, springing back to his feet on the other side of the ring.
“Oh you’re quick, ain’t you? Good move, show me what else you got,” Snipe said, squaring up again.
He did a few more passes like that, dealing non-fatal but surely debilitating blows before Snipe started to go on the offense. The way he fought was similar to Eraser, but not nearly as fast. Snipe was a long-range fighter, he very rarely had to get his hands dirty like this, but he still knew his stuff far more than any of the street thugs he was accustomed to fighting. Izuku had a feeling Snipe was going easy on him because he managed to disarm him and press his blade against his jugular, effectively ending the fight.
“Soooooey! You know your stuff kid! That was damn near perfect!” Snipe exclaimed as he tapped on Izuku’s hand prompting him to release him.
Izuku stepped back quickly with that damned blush still high on his cheeks.
“I don’t know what in the hell they’re expectin’ me to teach ya. I got a sheet for ya to fill out, mark everywhere on the diagram there’s a major vein er artery, but I can tell you already know all that. Once you finish, I’ll sign off on it an’ you can head back to class,” he said as he grabbed a worksheet and handed it to Izuku before turning his attention back to the other three, “Right, miss Yaoyorozu, you’re up!”
He watched as Yaoyorozu clicked her jaw shut and shook the shocked expression off of her face before she stepped up to join Snipe in the ring. Now that he wasn’t distracted, he could once again feel Kacchan’s eyes burning a hole through his skull. There wasn’t anywhere to sit in the room except for on the bench that Kacchan and Jiro were sitting at and Izuku seriously considered crouching in the far corner of the room like a goblin as he filled out the worksheet Snipe had given him, but again, this wasn’t about Kacchan. He needed to pull himself together and stop acting like a terrified little Deku. It couldn’t be said that he walked over with his chin held high by any stretch of the imagination, but he still walked over and took a seat on the bench.
As was to be expected, Kacchan piped up not long after that.
“Where the hell did you learn to do that, Deku?” he growled.
“I had a t-teacher b-before UA, I j-just said tha–”
“Were you just pretending to be weak the entire time? What the hell kind of game are you playing? Did you do all of this just to humiliate me?” Kacchan continued ‘whisper’ shouting at him.
“I’m n-not– I w-wasn’t trying t–”
“You two cut it out. Bakugo, leave him alone. Your arguin’ ain’t good for focus,” Snipe chided.
Izuku didn’t dare speak another word after that and, thank Kami, Kacchan didn’t either. He could tell he was seething and glaring at him the whole time he filled out the worksheet but Izuku did his best to ignore him. He finished his work as quickly as he could and waited for Snipe to finish a round with Yaoyorozu before he stood up and handed over the page once he’d gotten Snipe’s attention.
Snipe scanned his work quickly before signing his name off on the bottom.
“Knew you knew your stuff. You’re good to go but come on back any time you wanna scuffle,” Snipe dismissed him with a friendly clap on the shoulder.
Izuku did his best to not jump out of his skin at the unexpected gesture and thanked Snipe with a polite bow before taking his leave. He refused to look his peers in the eye and kept his head down even as he walked through the empty halls on his way to gym beta to rejoin the rest of the class. Kacchan was getting restless and he knew it was only a matter of time before he started demanding answers from Izuku, but he was just going to have to cross that bridge when he got to it.
Eraser raised a brow as he entered, clearly not expecting him to have gotten back so soon. The class seemed to be sparring and he gestured Izuku over to him.
“Done already?” he asked as Izuku approached.
“Y-yes sir,” he replied with a nod of confirmation.
“Snipe signed off on you?”
“Y-yes s-sir,” he confirmed again.
Eraser raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t comment on it further.
“The class is working on quirkless hand-to-hand combat right now. I’m still gauging where everyone’s at but from what I saw from yesterday, you seem to be on the more advanced side and we’re working with an odd number at the moment so you can pair with me for now,” Eraser explained casually.
Any lingering blush he may have had drained from his cheeks quickly. He must be setting a world record for the widest color range covered by one person’s face in the span of an hour. Kami, this was a terrible idea. It had been a while since he’d sparred with Eraser, but Eraser taught him damn near everything he knew and no one was more familiar with Ivy’s fighting style than he was. Shitshitshitshitshit–
“Midoriya?” Eraser called his attention back, “Is that alright?”
“Um, y-yes. O-of course, s-sir,” he forced out a reply against his own will.
“Alright, no head shots, no groin shots, no maiming, and no quirks. If you have the opportunity to strike your opponent in a way that will actually injure then pull your punch and the match point will go to you. I’m ready whenever you are,” he said after studying him for a moment.
Okay… Izuku had a choice to make now. Throw the fight or actually try. He could tell Eraser’s attention was split between him and the rest of the class, he’d positioned himself so that everyone was within his field of view. Izuku could use that to his advantage and risk making even more connections back to Ivy or he could downplay and let Eraser school him, quite literally. He was going to have to fight Eraser as himself eventually, he was his teacher and Izuku was training to be a hero; it was unavoidable. He didn’t see this issue going away so maybe it was better to just get it over with and hope that his personality was pathetic enough to disprove any connections Eraser might make.
It had to be Eraser, didn’t it? It just had to be Eraser.
He cursed his shit luck and took his stance, nodding to his sensei before charging, just like he had with Snipe. And, just like he had with Snipe, he feigned high and went low, but Eraser wasn’t going easy on him. He jumped over Izuku’s attempt to trip him up and used his crouched position against him; Eraser went to pin him but he rolled out of the way and got back to his feet on his other side.
Not giving Eraser a chance to strike again he dove back in with a punch that was swiftly caught by the wrist. When Eraser tried to twist his arm behind his back he kicked a leg out as he spun, forcing Eraser to release him if he wanted to keep his balance. Unfortunately for him, that got Eraser’s attention. After a brief glance to the class, he shifted his focus entirely onto Izuku. That razor-sharp focus was enough to unsettle him as Ivy and now that it landed on him as Izuku, he had to fight against the instinct to freeze or run. He barely dodged Eraser’s next strike and he didn’t pull himself together enough to do anything but defense for another three passes.
Once his faculties returned to him he took the first opening he saw; as Eraser threw a punch, he blocked it with his right arm and delivered a swift uppercut to his exposed diaphragm with his left. The blow knocked the wind out of him and he was forced to fall back for a moment. The minuscule smirk he saw on the man’s lips as he caught his breath set off every alarm bell Izuku had and he was not surprised when Eraser raised his hand to grab his scarf.
Oh, he was in for it now.
He dodged out of the way the first time Eraser went to ensnare him, the second attempt was much closer, but the third time was a charm. He managed to grab his left arm, but before Eraser could use his hold to pull Izuku closer and take him down he pulled out the knife he’d had in his pocket from his lesson with Snipe and slashed the scarf apart. He’d used the blunted blade Snipe had provided him earlier, but Eraser had told them to bring applicable support gear so he still had his real knife on hand, and If Eraser could use a weapon then so could he.
Eraser was surprised for a split second and that was enough for Izuku to get a solid kick in. He swept Eraser’s feet out from under him and he went sprawling to the ground, but he didn’t stay there for more than a millisecond before he was rolling back to his feet. Izuku was too gobsmacked by the fact that he’d actually managed to trip Eraser up to properly dodge the next loop of capture scarf that Eraser threw at him. He was on the ground in a veritable cocoon of fabric before he even knew what hit him.
He actually tripped him! He wasn’t even going easy on him! He’d never managed to knock Eraser on his ass even as Ivy and now he finally managed it when he wasn’t allowed to gloat! This was bullshit. He’d only been able to do it because Eraser didn’t expect that level of skill from him, he probably couldn’t do it again, but he still wanted to rub it in the geezer’s face.
He wiped the self-satisfied grin off his face as Eraser pulled his capture scarf back and sent him spinning before he found himself free of his bindings and face-first on the floor. As odd as it was, the situation he found himself in was the most comfortable he’d been since he’d stepped foot on UA’s campus. This was familiar, this was something he knew how to do. He was almost worried he was going to have to fake “Izuku’s” anxiety when he faced Eraser but the sight that met him when he looked up had the panic flowing on its own.
The entire class had stopped whatever they were doing and were now staring at Izuku. He glanced back to Eraser whose face remained impassive as always and he followed Izuku’s gaze behind him to the rest of the class who had all started talking at once.
“Stop gawking and get back to work,” he reprimanded, cutting off their chatter instantly.
Izuku felt like he needed to justify that performance, to tell everyone that he wasn’t really that good at fighting, he just knew Eraser’s moves well enough to preempt them, but he couldn’t and now he’s pretty sure he just built himself a reputation he couldn’t live up to. He did his best to take a deep breath and remind himself that he was doing this for the sake of OFA, he was doing this so that he could one day fill All Might’s shoes, he was doing this for good reasons, and he didn’t do anything wrong.
He didn’t do anything wrong… right?
Any resolve he had in that statement crumbled as Eraser turned his attention back to him.
“Who taught you how to fight?” he asked
“A f-family f-friend,” he peeped out, remembering the half truth he had told Shinso when he had asked Izuku the same question over a year ago, “they, um, d-do mixed m-martial arts.”
Eraser raised an eyebrow and eyed him critically but, thank Kami, he didn’t press the matter.
“That was good. They’re due to swap partners in two minutes, I’ll have you join Ojiro and give someone else a break.”
He kept his mouth shut and just nodded in agreement.
“And I’ll take that knife for now,” he added as Izuku started to shuffle away.
“Y-yes sir, s-sorry s-sir,” he apologized quickly and handed over the weapon in its sheath.
“You were only playing fair, I just don’t want you using this against your classmates,” Eraser replied as he took the knife.
***
Shota was impressed. He’d never had a first-year student so skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Midoriya fought like a seasoned pro; he fought the same way Shota did. Damn near every move he pulled was exactly what Shota would have taught him to do and the more he thought about it the more unsettlingly true the statement became. He kept an eye on the kid as he repeatedly sent Ojiro sprawling, never failing to offer out a hand to pull him back to his feet again.
He was running through a mental list of every student he’d ever taught trying to figure out if one of them could be the “family friend” Midoriya was referring to when all thought came to a screeching halt.
Ivy. He fought like Ivy.
Was he…?
No, Midoriya was too young, he was 15, and Ivy "debuted" nearly four years ago now, but Midoriya was one of the three Musutafu locals he had in his class, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to know them. Moreover, as often as Ivy ditched him on patrols for “family emergencies” it made sense if part of that “family” was a clearly traumatized child AND it would make sense how oddly quiet Ivy had been when he was complaining about his class last night. His curiosity was killing him, Shota had every intention of poking around Midoriya’s home life just to figure out if the kid was safe or not, but now it felt like a breach of Ivy’s privacy.
He was getting ahead of himself, what were the chances that Midoriya had even heard of Ivy? Slim, but not impossible, he should treat the situation exactly as he had been planning to; earn the kid’s trust, and make sure he’s safe. As important as Ivy’s trust was to him, his student’s safety had to come first.
This kid was an enigma. He was astoundingly intelligent if the written portion of his entrance exam was anything to go by, yet on paper, he was average at best. Hizashi had told him earlier that he might be fluent in English too. Fluent in English, proficient in knife fighting and hand-to-hand combat, yet he had a completely unruly overpowered quirk. He was an endless font of questions, but Shota would get to the bottom of it somehow, or at least deep enough to ensure that the kid was safe, though, he had a feeling he wasn’t.
Notes:
You know what's coming next, doncha? Hehehehehehe HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH
I have had the next arc mostly written for so many months now and I am very excited to finally upload it (I am also very excited to have a backlog again, uploading chapters as I write them is stressful bc I don't get the chance to make sure the fit well with where the story is headed. I think this is why real authors write a whole book and *then* publish it...)
Chapter 103: Please Let This Be a Normal Field Trip. With the Frizz? No Way!
Chapter Text
“Listen up,” Eraser silenced the class’s chatter as he strode into the room, “class is going to run differently today. We will be going to a satellite facility for Heroics and you will have three instructors watching over you.”
Izuku wondered if that was to increase security because of the break-in yesterday. The more he thought about it the less plausible it seemed that the press were the only ones to blame for the breach. He knew they were a bunch of vultures but he didn’t think they had the capabilities to get past the school’s defenses. UA had officially announced that it had just been the media and they hadn’t gotten past the front doors but something about that didn’t sit right with him.
“It’s technically still on campus but we will be taking a bus to get there. Everyone get changed into your costumes or gym uniforms, whatever you’re more comfortable with, we’re going to be doing rescue training,” Eraser concluded as he pressed the button that released the costume storage on the wall nearest to Izuku.
They were going to the USJ weren’t they? He hoped Thirteen would be there, he hadn’t gotten the chance to meet them yet. After everyone got changed Iida herded them onto the bus and Izuku damn near had a crisis when his classmates started making fun of Kacchan on the way over. UA was so weird, but he was starting to get the hang of it, or at least he thought he was.
He was glad to see that Thirteen was there to guide them through the building they designed, but as they finished explaining what the morning’s activities would entail, Izuku felt a sudden unease wash over him. He started searching around for the source and just as he began his first sweep over the facility the lights began to flicker and the fountain in the central plaza started sputtering. He was on high alert as a purple mist started as just a pinprick in his vision but quickly expanded to block his view of more than half the plaza.
“The only real heroes I see are Thirteen and Eraserhead. Perplexing. According to the schedule we retrieved, All Might should be here as well,” a voice boomed across the plaza, seemingly coming from everywhere; it must be coming from the mist then.
According to the schedule they’d received? He knew it couldn’t have just been the press yesterday. Shit. Izuku glanced at Eraser who seemed to be subtly panicking. Double shit, this was real. Alarms weren’t going off and he had a feeling that all communications had been cut, but he couldn’t verify his hypothesis since his phone was in his backpack in his locker back on campus.
This had to be a coordinated attack; help was not coming.
“Woah, what is that? Has the training started already? I thought we were rescuing people,” Kirishima remarked.
“STAY BACK!” Eraser barked as several students stepped forward.
Izuku had never heard him speak in that tone, he was scared and Izuku didn’t blame him, he was scared too. There were still people pouring out of the portal, the teachers wouldn’t be able to take them on by themselves; the students were going to have to fight and they weren’t ready for this, for real life. They didn’t know how to fight against someone who was trying to kill them. There was no making mistakes in a fight like that, one slip-up and his classmates would be dead.
“Thirteen, protect the students. Get them out of here and alert the main campus,” Eraser ordered as he launched himself down the stairs.
NO! WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE THINKING?!?! That was suicide! They had no clue what these people were capable of and a large portion of them seemed to have mutation quirks. Izuku instinctively went to run in after him, but Asui held him back.
“Midoriya, he told us to stay back, kero.”
Izuku tried to struggle free without hurting her and he watched with mounting horror as Eraser met the group head-on. He stopped struggling so much when he saw that Eraser was dropping them like flies; who were these people? They had no coordination and seemingly no training. They were cannon fodder, but why? Most of the people at the center weren’t moving at all, they were just letting Eraser thin their numbers. What were they playing at? And more importantly, what was going to happen when Eraser finally worked his way over there? Izuku didn’t want to wait and see.
He turned around to Iida and ignored whatever chatter had been going on in the group, “Iida, you need to get out and alert the main campus, security and communications are being blocked somehow and you’re the fastest,” he instructed.
With Aizawa gone someone needed to take charge. Thirteen may be a pro, but they were a rescue hero, they didn’t know how to deal with situations like this. Their job was to respond after disaster struck; they weren’t a combat strategist and Izuku was sure that if they didn’t have that helmet on he’d be able to see the uncertainty in their eyes.
“I can’t abandon my classmates!” Iida tried to argue.
“Either you leave and try to save us or we all die here together!” he shot back.
Was that too harsh? Yes, yes it was, but everyone was just standing around, most of them didn’t seem to understand the trouble they were in or maybe they were too shocked to act. Either way, he needed them to get moving and it had the desired effect; everyone started hurrying back toward the doors until that purple mist appeared in front of them.
“There is no escape for you,” it taunted.
Great, kill a bunch of kids and be annoying while you do it. Awesome plan.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, we are the League of Villains. I know it’s impolite, but we decided to invite ourselves into this haven of justice to say hello. And besides, isn't this a fitting place for All Might, the symbol of peace to take his last breath? And yet I see no sign of him. There must have been some sort of change in plans we could not have foreseen. Ah, well, in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter, I still have a role to play” he continued.
Thanks for the name and motive, Mr. Exposition.
Before Izuku could think of a plan Kirishima and Bakugo stepped up and charged. There was an explosion and then silence. Izuku hoped for the best, but as the smoke cleared the voice boomed over them again.
“You live up to your school’s reputation, but you should be more careful, children. Otherwise, someone might get hurt.”
Terrific, he didn’t have high hopes for that working anyway.
The smoke of the explosion mixed with purple mist and it was all he could do to shout “IIDA RUN!” before he was falling.
He was grateful to see water beneath him because he was transported damn near to the ceiling of the facility with nothing within reach to grab onto and that wasn’t a fall he could survive. One day he’d be able to test out his flick shockwave cushion theory with OFA… one day, but right now he could see portals opening up all over the facility and if one opened up below him he’d never be able to forgive himself for whatever damage that might cause. He did his best to streamline his form so the wind wouldn’t be knocked out of him on impact, but he ended up plunging deeper than he would have liked because of that, at least it was better than drowning immediately. He started swimming to the surface as fast as he could and he was over halfway there when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, turning quickly he saw a man with a shark face racing through the water much faster than Izuku could ever dream of. Before he could even pull his knife Asui grabbed him with her tongue for the second time in damn near as many minutes. She moved through the water with grace and knocked the shark man off course while she pulled Izuku out of the water and dropped him on a boat; Shinso was dropped next to him shortly thereafter
They were both still gasping for air as she climbed her way onto the boat looking no worse for wear. Kami, she was so cool, but now was not the time for gawking; there were people in the water closing in on them from all sides. He was scrambling to make a plan when he noticed they all stopped a charitable distance away from the boat. What were they waiting for? They had them surrounded.
“They don’t know our quirks.” he mused more to himself than to the other two.
“What?” Asui asked
“Sorry, they don’t know our quirks, that’s why they’re staying back. They must’ve seen you in the water and now they’re scared. Yeah, they definitely don’t know our quirks; they wouldn’t have sent you here to begin with if they did.”
He looked back at their small group to see what he was working with when his eyes met Shinso’s. Izuku didn’t know how to read the emotions he saw there, it was conflicting at best but it was the first time Shinso had looked at him without malice in his gaze since the first day of classes. The thought made something in his heart hitch but he pushed that down readily; now was not the time.
“They all seem to have water-based quirks; we can’t fight them here, or at least Shinso and I can’t. We need to get back to land.”
“Great plan, how exactly do you propose we do that? We’re surrounded,” Shinso quipped back sardonically.
It made Izuku’s breath catch, he spoke to him! He actually– gah! Now was not the time. He needed to think practically not emotionally. Of course, Shinso spoke to him; they were trying to figure out how to not die. Shaking his head he did his best to firmly plant himself in his Ivy persona; Shinso wasn’t his friend or ex-friend or classmate or anything. He and Asui were allies and pieces to a puzzle they needed to solve; nothing more, nothing less.
***
“Asui how far can you jump?” Midoriya asked, shaking his head and ignoring Hitoshi’s taunt.
He was right, that was childish and now wasn’t the time.
“I told you to call me Tsu,” she argued before answering, “Not far enough, kero. Especially not while holding you two.”
“You don’t need to take me, just Shinso, and you don’t need to get far, just to the other side of them,” Midoriya countered.
“I might be able to get to them, but not past them,” Tsu replied
Couldn’t he just jump all three of them to shore with his stupid quirk? Why was he making this so complicated?
“Shinso, how many people can you control at once?” he asked, turning to Hitoshi.
He wasn’t expecting Midoriya to talk to him directly so he startled a bit before responding, “No clue, I’ve never gotten the opportunity to test it,” he admitted.
“Well, you do now. I need you to get up on top of the bridge and get as many of them as you can. Asu–Tsu take port side and I’ll take starboard, we’ll have your back in case any of them have long-ranged quirks. Then tell them to come closer; phrase it like a taunt so that hopefully anyone not caught just goes along with it. Tsu, once they’re close enough take Shinso and get out of here.”
“Why can’t you just jump us out of here yourself?” Hitoshi interjected.
“Did you see how fast they are in the water? If I don’t make it all the way to shore we’re literally back in the same boat we started–”
“She just said she couldn’t make it to shore with me!”
“I’m going to stay back and cause a diversion,” he countered.
“A diversion? What do you mean a diversion? They’ll just split up and half of them will be after us anyway!” Hitoshi argued.
“Shinso, just let me finish!” Midoriya snapped.
He looked apologetic for a split second but took a breath and went back to explaining his plan quickly.
“I’m going to destroy the boat, it will sink and create a vacuum that will suck in anyone close enough; ideally the villains will get caught in it and you two will be far enough to get away–”
“What about you, kero?” Tsu interrupted.
Midoriya looked like he was going to lose it if he was interrupted one more time. He’d never seen him look even mildly annoyed and it was kind of intimidating but Tsu seemed completely unaffected.
“I am going to jump off at the last second, I’ll be able to make it out far enough on my own but if I jumped with both of you I might end up breaking my legs from the force and there’s no guarantee this works so I’d like to still be able to move in the event we need to fight,” he finally concluded, “We all understand the plan?” he asked glancing between the two of them.
Break his legs? What the hell? He had so many questions but he knew better than to think he was going to get an explanation from Midoriya. Hitoshi glanced over to Tsu with a face he was sure just screamed confidence and she didn’t look too self-assured either.
“Tsu, just jump when I give a signal, and when you two hit the water swim as fast as you can,” he reassured her.
“What am I supposed to do? What do I even say?” Hitoshi asked, shoving his resentment for Midoriya down as best he could.
“Call them pussies, they’re a bunch of street thugs, they’re easily antagonized,” he answered readily.
Again, Hitoshi had several questions about that response, but Midoriya was ushering the two of them into their places before his brain caught up with the fact that he just heard him say any of what he just said.
They walked over to the port side of the bridge together and Midoriya ushered him to follow around to the starboard side with him. When they got there Midoriya stopped and turned to him placing his hands on Hitoshi’s shoulders before he spoke.
“You need to sound confident. You aren’t scared, this is going to work; treat that like it’s fact. You can sell this, got it?” he asked looking at Hitoshi with unwavering eye contact.
It struck Hitoshi that Midoriya wasn’t stuttering over his words in the slightest, it was the same as he was when they’d been mugged that one night that felt like it had happened lifetimes ago. Midoriya in a crisis was not the Midoriya he knew, he’d forgotten how well he handled things. Was that how he did it? He just told himself it would be okay until he tricked himself into believing it? Why did he need to know how to do that? It wasn’t the first time he had a thousand questions about Midoriya that he knew he’d never get answers to and it likely wouldn’t be the last. Well, it hopefully wouldn’t be the last…
No, it wouldn’t be the last time. Hitoshi was going to be confused and infuriated by Midoriya again tomorrow if it was the last thing he did. With a deep breath and a determined nod, he let Midoriya help boost him up onto the roof of the bridge.
Hitoshi did his best to not scramble around like an idiot when he got up there and stood proud as he looked around the ship. He forced out what he hoped sounded like an overconfident scoff and cast out his mind as far as he could before shouting, “What are you all waiting around for? Come at us cowards!”
Several people started toward them without him even commanding them to and he grabbed onto anyone who reached back to him with a response and repeated himself, “Come at us, cowards!”
At least half of the remaining villains started moving forward on his command and the rest followed after. Kami, was this actually going to work? Hitoshi let out a hysterical bark of laughter because he needed to release his mounting anxiety somehow and he figured it fit the character he was playing anyway. He waited there with a fake smirk plastered on his face until Midoriya gave the signal. He jumped down onto Tsu’s side of the boat and let her grab onto him. Before he could even say he was ready they were flying over the edge. He watched the faces below them track their path as they started to descend. Fuck, they were going down and they weren’t nearly far enough. Just as Hitoshi realized that, there was a crack and a gust of wind blew them off course and further toward the shore.
Everything was happening so fast; he didn’t even get the chance to question it before a deafening BOOM resounded from behind them and a shockwave pushed them even further along their path.
***
Izuku watched as Asui jumped away with Shinso. They weren’t going to make it, shit shit shit. He poised himself on top of the bridge where Shinso had been standing and took aim; a broken finger wasn’t going to slow him down and if he could get enough power behind a flick he might be able to use the airflow to blow them further away. He hardly spared a second to make sure they kept hold of each other before he looked to the boat beneath him and punched down as hard as he could without breaking himself. There was a deafening boom but the sound of cracking bones didn’t follow.
The surface he’d been perched on was completely obliterated and he started to fall fast, aiming for the largest bit of deck still above water he braced himself. The moment his feet hit something solid he launched himself up and away, shooting after his classmates. His landing was less than ideal because he made his way close enough to shore that he couldn’t just dive into the water but far enough away that he couldn’t roll with his momentum to break his fall on land. His legs ached from the jump, but with a splash and a crash, he got his wits about him as quickly as he could. There was a whirlpool at the center of the lake and Asui was dragging Shinso to shore.
They did it.
Holy shit, they actually did it!
Asui caught up to him quickly and seemed to be no worse for wear, though Shinso was a bit disoriented for a moment, but he got his bearings back fast enough that Izuku wasn’t worried about quirk overuse.
“We need to get out of sight ASAP, come on,” he whisper-shouted to them before leading the way down a stream that branched away from the lake and closer to the exit past the central plaza.
Fuck, the central plaza. That’s where Eraser was, he was not going to leave him for dead but he needed to get Asui and Shinso back to the main entrance. He knew getting back to the entrance was what Eraser would want him to do but, well, since when did he ever do what Eraser wanted him to do?
“You two follow the stream until you’re as close to the entrance as you can get then make a run for it. I think I saw people still up there when I jumped. If no one’s gotten out yet then help them get the doors open,” he instructed as he made his way closer to the plaza.
He didn’t get very far because Shinso stepped in front of him.
“Why are you telling us that like you’re not coming with?” he asked with a pointed look.
He could see Eraser still fighting, he was holding his own for now but Izuku knew that he was one slip up from being overwhelmed. Plus the guy at the center and his big buddy still hadn’t moved; they were waiting, just letting Eraser pick through their pawns. Eraser was at their whims, if they went through this whole scheme to kill All Might then there was no way they didn’t have something to back that up, and if Izuku had to guess, that backup was those two guys. Eraser was a bit of a wild card with his quirk, but if they could spell trouble for All Might, then they could probably take Eraser down too.
“Eraser can’t win that fight, he needs help,” he explained nudging Shinso out of his way.
Shinso stood his ground.
“He told us to stay back, kero,” Asui reminded him.
“Right, yeah, I’ll just go with you and let him die then!” he shot back.
It was harsh but he was getting annoyed. They needed to listen to him, he knew what he was doing. The best chances of survival for all of them was if they left and he went in as backup. Sticking around to explain that was only going to waste precious time so he went to step around the two of them.
“Midoriya stop,” Shinso, said as he grabbed his shoulder, “If Eraser can’t win that fight what makes you think that you can? I know you know how to fight but that’s not the same–”
“You don’t know anything about me, Shinso! Get out of my way!” he shot back, his fear and anger getting the better of him.
Oh shit. That was… that was definitely the wrong thing to say.
He’s sure Shinso’s grip on his shoulder would have been painfully tight if it went for the armor that was protecting him and Izuku’s stomach felt like it was made of lead with the look of pure fury that was on his face.
Shinso didn’t get the chance to say anything to that before a cry of pain in an all too familiar voice pulled all of their attention back to the plaza. Eraser had made his way to the smaller of the two that hadn’t been moving and Izuku watched as his elbow slowly crumbled away under the man’s touch. He jumped back, continuing to fight and Izuku almost let out the breath that he’d been holding, but then the big guy moved faster than what should have been possible. He stopped right behind Eraser and Izuku’s heart may as well have stopped beating.
Something about that– that
thing
was wrong. It sent a chill down his spine and had his hair standing on end. It’s like it exuded some sort of inexplicable dread; he didn’t want that thing anywhere near Eraser.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! Come back Monday for the next chapter!
Chapter 104: Over My Dead Body
Notes:
Okay okay okay, no more cliffhangers. Kind of.
CW:
blood and gore
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku watched in horror as the giant of a creature grabbed Eraser’s arms, snapped them like twigs, and smashed his face into the concrete barely leaving enough time for him to cry out in pain. Before Izuku even thought about moving he was already out of the water and halfway to the center of the plaza. His legs gave off the telltale ache that told him he used just a little too much power again, they weren’t broken yet but, Kami, they hurt. He watched as the creature grabbed Eraser’s head and poised itself to smash his already mangled face into the concrete for a second time. Izuku saw red; damn the consequences, he wasn’t going to let that thing hurt Eraser any more than it already had. Any questions he had about whether or not it was human were deemed irrelevant as he grabbed the knife off his thigh and sent it flying into the beast’s exposed brain.
It let out an awful wailing sound and dropped Eraser back onto the ground. Within a second Izuku finally made his way there and delivered the hardest punch he trusted himself to make without shattering his bones to dust. He expected that to knock the creature back, he expected that to hurt, he expected that to do something , but it didn’t. Eraser was still pinned beneath it and now every villain in the plaza had their eyes on him.
Shit.
“You! You hurt my Nomu!” the apparent ringleader cried out as he frantically scratched at his neck.
Everything stood still for a moment, he saw Eraser weakly struggling under the beast; he was saying something, surely trying to tell him to get out of there, so Izuku readily ignored it. His attention was already split between the ‘Nomu’ and this scraggly creep that disintegrated Eraser’s elbow.
“You’ve got cheats on, don’t you?” he asked hysterically.
He looked insane, he sounded psychotic. He reminded Izuku of the leader of The Yakedo, the man who was so angry that he was willing to burn all his men and his base to the ground just to kill Izuku. He was deranged and Izuku knew not to underestimate him; you don’t fuck with crazy. The beast didn’t seem to have the ability to act on its own, as long as he could keep Crazy occupied Eraser would be safe.
Alright, okay, he could do this.
“Cheats?” Izuku prompted.
He was fumbling but he needed to keep him talking.
“Yes! Cheats! My Nomu was made to kill All Might! A puny twerp like you shouldn't be able to hurt it!”
“Made? What’s this big guy your son? You look nothing alike, plus you seem a little young–”
“NO YOU BRAT! Nomu is the bioengineered anti-symbol of peace! IT WAS MADE TO KILL ALL MIGHT! SO, WHERE IS HE?!”
Okay, so, not human. Good to know.
“I’m just a student, I don’t get updates on the teacher’s whereabouts,” he tried to assuage, making him angrier wasn’t what they needed right now.
The man looked like he was about to go on another hysterical rant when a purple misty cloud materialized next to him.
“Tomura Shigaraki,” it greeted.
Thankfully, the newcomer’s presence had a calming effect on “Shigaraki.”
“Ah, Kurogiri, did you manage to kill Thirteen?” he asked.
“The rescue hero is out of commission but there were students I wasn’t able to disperse of. One of them got outside of the facility.”
Yes! Kami, he hoped that was Iida he was talking about, they needed backup ASAP. Unfortunately, that news seemed to have set off Shigaraki again. Izuku didn’t like the manic tone in his voice as he growled like an animal and clawed at his neck, he started threatening “Kurogiri” and Izuku took that as an opportunity. In that moment of distraction, he turned back to the Nomu and lept up onto its shoulders, wrenched the knife out of the thing’s brain, and plunged it back in as many times as he could as the beast howled in pain.
Apparently, it had some semblance of survival instincts because it batted Izuku off its shoulders sending him flying several yards across the plaza and into the fountain. Through his dazed mind, he heard Shigaraki snap and give the order to “kill that goddamn brat.” In a second he watched as a massive fist came barreling down toward him and it was all he could do to meet it blow for blow resulting in what must have been the world’s most powerful (and painful) fist bump.
The resulting shockwave didn’t affect the Nomu in the slightest, it reminded him of the man he’d faced as Ivy; the guy who shot-stabbed Eraser with that stupid knife gun, the one with some sort of shock absorption quirk. Kami, this wasn’t good. This thing must have multiple quirks, shock absorption, super strength, super speed, and, given the brain matter he watched knit itself back together, Izuku assumed it must have regenerative capabilities as well.
He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could and started to lead the beast away from Eraser’s prone form. He seemed to be falling in and out of consciousness, which was good, that meant he was still alive and goddamnit he was going to stay that way if it was the last thing Izuku did. It took every bit of Izuku’s focus to dodge the creature's hits; it was too fast. Izuku was going to kiss the ground All Might walked on for making him spar with him and Gran Torino because he was sure that experience was the only thing keeping him alive right now.
Even with that training, all it took was one slip-up, one lapse in focus for Izuku to go down. He heard Shigaraki screaming about making All Might pay, about killing his colleagues and students and Izuku glanced up before he could think better of it. Shigaraki was charging toward Eraser who was still laying on the ground and Izuku started running back for him when he felt a massive hand grab his leg. He couldn’t help the scream that ripped itself from his chest as he felt his bones crunch like they were nothing more than potato chips. The Nomu flung him across the plaza for a second time sending him crashing into the steps and he felt several somethings in his chest crack.
Shit, that was not good.
He looked up to see the Nomu charging for him again. He tried to force himself to his feet, but sitting up was the best he could manage, his right leg was mangled. Distantly, he registered a loud BOOM coming from somewhere in the facility but he paid it no mind; if he didn’t stop the next hit from coming he was going to die. His right arm wasn’t as bad as his leg but it hurt enough for Izuku to know it was broken so he pushed himself up and as far away from where the Nomu was headed as best as he could with just his left side.
As the beast went to charge again Izuku saw Shigaraki finally make his way to Aizawa and something in him snapped, he forced himself up onto his good leg with an awful scream but he didn’t get a step closer before Aizawa was gone in a blur of white and yellow. Before he could even begin to question it massive arms had enveloped him. For a split second, Izuku thought it was the Nomu, he thought he was dead but the arms were far too gentle for that.
He had never been so glad to see All Might.
***
When Toshinori broke into the USJ he was met by a scene from a nightmare. He saw Thirteen on the ground surrounded by a handful of students, the rest were spread throughout the facility; he had no way of knowing if they were safe. But he knew one thing for sure; Aizawa was about to die. He was hardly moving and covered in far too much blood on the ground in the center of the plaza with his arms limp and mangled at his sides and a villain was pinning him down with a hand around his throat. Moving faster than he had in ages he lept to the pair in one bound and sent the villain sprawling to the other side of the clearing. He gathered Aizawa in his arms as gently and quickly as he could, bringing him to the outskirts of the plaza but at the same time he heard a horrible gut-wrenching scream of pain. When he looked up he was horrified to see his protegee standing on a clearly broken leg and struggling to get away from some massive beast.
He set Aizawa down less gently than he would have liked to and charged back into the fray, swooping the boy out not a second too soon. He struggled for a moment but when he looked up his slightly unfocused eyes gained frightening clarity as he spoke.
“All Might, that thing has multiple quirks, it was made to kill you. Shock absorption, super strength, super speed, and regeneration. It’s not human, you need to kill it or it will kill you and everyone else here. Aim for its brain,” he ordered clinically with no emotion.
He didn’t stutter or stumble over his words and his tone left no room for argument. It was unsettling; it was something he’d never seen from the boy, but Toshinori didn’t have time to dwell on that. Setting him down as far away from the fight as he thought he could get away with he charged back in.
He met the creature as it was halfway back to Midoriya seemingly still trying to rip him limb from limb. Toshinori hadn’t been this angry since Nana died and he let that anger fuel him as he hit the beast with a punch hard enough to crack all the glass in the facility, but the creature didn’t budge. Shock absorption. Shit. He met the thing blow for blow as he tried to think of a way out of this without committing a very gruesome murder in front of Kami only knows how many students.
The fight kept waging with no end in sight, the creature wasn’t waning in the slightest while Toshinori was fast approaching his absolute limits. He needed to end this. Looking into the thing's blank eyes he saw nothing reflected in them; this beast was hollow. If it had ever been ‘alive’ it certainly wasn’t anymore. Just past its eyes, he saw young Midoriya’s knife embedded to the hilt in its brain matter. He hated the implications of that; he hated that his boy had gotten close enough to this thing to do that. Had he fought this monster on his own? Amid his fury and horror, he felt a swell of pride that his protegee lived through that fight.
He remembered his words, “You need to kill it or it will kill you and everyone else here.”
He would not let this monstrosity hurt that boy again, not even over his dead body. Strengthening his resolve he grabbed the beast’s maw in one hand pulling its head close enough for him to grab hold of the knife and he plunged it into its brain over and over until its wails quieted and it fell to the ground at his feet. It made Toshinori sick, those screams were going to echo in his mind for many moons to come, he was quite sure of that. He took several paces back in disgust until he could feel his grip on this form slip. He was done, one more move and he was going to collapse.
It was all he could do to stare down the psychotic little man running toward him. He didn’t have an ounce of fight left so he was immeasurably grateful to hear a shot ring out from the entrance and strike the man down. He turned his head to make sure it was friendly fire and that was enough for him to break. He went down and distantly acknowledged the wall of cement rising around him.
He owed Cementos a thank you card and several fruit baskets.
He fell to the ground and gasped desperately for air that refused to fill his mangled lung, he could taste the familiar tinge of iron on his tongue as he choked on his own blood. He struggled for air long enough to worry that this might be the end of him anyway until Recovery Girl came rushing forward on another slab of cement and Toshinori vowed to get Cementos an entire liquor store if he wanted it. Shuzenji pecked him on the head and glorious oxygen filled his lungs as bone-deep exhaustion settled in.
Notes:
Alrighty folks, remember, villains in my fic are actual villains and don't leave time for exposition and backup to show up. Stakes are higher and, yes, Eraser would have actually died if the Nomu got the chance to smash his skull into the ground again, and double yes, the Nomu would have killed All Might if he didn't kill it. They engineered it to kill him and it would have (plus it barely made sense how AM won that fight in canon if you ask me). The only reason it didn't succeed is because they didn't account for the heroes being prepared to kill (ie Izuku and AM, the only ones who would have actually been both mentally and physically capable of doing so at this moment in time (ik arguments could be made for Todoroki, Bakugo, and Tokoyami but I honestly don't think they have the gumption yet))
Anyway, real villains, real stakes, actual life and death. Outcomes would not default to what happened in canon if Izuku didn't intervene when he did.
Shinso and Tsu watching that whole shit show go down from the lake: 👁️👄👁️
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 105: Panic! At the USJ
Chapter Text
Izuku felt a sharp pain in his chest as he was unceremoniously deposited on the outskirts of the plaza; he ignored it in favor of searching desperately for Eraser. He found him laying on the ground a couple dozen meters away and he tried to will himself to his feet again but that wasn’t going to happen so he gave up quickly and started crawling as best as he could. Every movement sent shocks of pain through his body, but he just kept going, he couldn’t stop, he needed to make sure Eraser was okay. He had to be okay.
He could hear the fight continuing in the plaza, but he had a single-minded focus, that’s all he could do right now. Making his way to Eraser’s side, he hit him in the chest as it was the only place within his reach that wasn’t wounded. Relief washed over him as Eraser grunted and stirred. He cried out in pain, but he needed to stay awake. Izuku didn’t want to know how bad of a concussion he was sporting, but it had to be pretty severe, he couldn’t let him sleep if he could help it.
“Eraser! Eraser! Stay with me, you’re concussed you can’t sleep right now, c’mon.”
Eraser groaned and squinted against the light before closing his eyes again.
“Nope, no napping! Nap’s gonna earn you brain damage, get up,” Izuku said, hitting him in the chest again.
He groaned again and seemingly went to bat away Izuku’s hand but given that his arms were absolutely shattered it didn’t go as planned and he let out another pained yell. Izuku immediately slapped his good hand over his mouth to silence him; they didn’t need to attract attention right now.
“Don’t move your arms, they’re fucked,” he chastised, forgetting himself for a moment.
“Tha’ks Iv’, fig’red tha’ out on m’own,” he quipped back slurring his words heavily. (Thanks Ivy, figured that out on my own.)
Izuku’s stomach dropped, did he just call him Ivy?
“W-what?” he stuttered out in response.
Eraser squinted up at him again and looked very confused before speaking, “S’rry, thou’t you wer’ som’ne els’.” (Sorry, thought you were someone else.)
Izuku did his best to hide his sigh of relief but Eraser was too busy looking around trying to figure out what the hell was going on anyway. He must have remembered because his confusion quickly melted away into fear and he went to push himself up and let out a strangled moan again. Izuku was well versed in Eraser's various microexpressions, he could read them as easy as breathing, but he had never seen fear like that on his face. He would give just about anything to never see it again.
“All Might is here Aizawa-sensei, it’s going to be alright,” Izuku did his best to soothe, “Stay down, you’ve done enough.”
Eraser squeezed his eyes shut at that, it looked more like he was trying to ground himself rather than he was falling asleep so Izuku let him. The way he strained his face made the blood leaking from a cut on his right cheek start flowing into his eye and Izuku did his best to mop it up with his shirt sleeve without hurting him further. Heedless of any blood in his eyes he snapped them open as both of them turned their attention to the sound of footsteps approaching, they sounded like they were trying to be sneaky but they weren’t doing a stellar job. Fucking fantastic, they had three legs and one arm between them, this was going to be a shit show.
***
Hitoshi had been frozen with fear watching the horror show play out in front of him. He could do nothing but watch as Aizawa-sensei was crushed beneath that horrible creature and he couldn’t stop Midoriya from charging in.
He watched Midoriya throw a knife into the thing’s brain without hesitation and taunt the maniac in charge of this whole mission. He watched Midoriya throw himself back up onto the monster’s shoulders and plunge his knife into its brain over and over as unnaturally dark blood splattered all over him. He watched as Midoriya was flung across the plaza into the fountain and he watched as he kept fighting it until it finally caught him and crushed his leg like it was nothing. He just watched. Kami, he was such a coward.
He couldn’t force himself to snap out of it until All Might burst through the doors and whisked Aizawa-sensei and Midoriya away. He felt a little bit better about his reaction when he had to shake Tsu out of her own frozen horror as she watched All Might meet the Nomu blow for blow.
“We need to get out of here,” he whispered once he got her to tear her eyes away from the train wreck in front of them.
She blinked a few times trying to shake herself out of it before wordlessly pushing Hitoshi back toward the entrance and away from the plaza. They crept along the outer border doing their best to stay out of sight until they saw Aizawa-sensei laying on the ground screaming out in pain as Midoriya covered his mouth. Oh, thank Kami, they were alive.
Both of them changed course immediately and started for their teacher and classmate. They looked ready to pounce until they recognized them and Hitoshi could see relief settle into their shoulders. Their reactions were eerily identical but Hitoshi didn’t have time to dwell on that because Midoriya started barking out orders.
“Shinso, use his capture weapon to staunch the bleeding on his elbow, Asui, help him sit up,” he instructed as he laid down on his stomach half propped up on the one arm that still appeared to be functional. He was damn near just as mangled as Aizawa-sensei.
Hitoshi didn’t have the presence of mind to argue about that right now though, he did what he was told.
“‘Doriya, wh’tr yer inj’ries?” Aizawa slurred through gritted teeth as Shinso wrapped his elbow. (Midoriya, What are your injuries?)
“Use the rest of the length to make slings, keep his arms at a 90-degree angle against his body,” Midoriya ordered ignoring Aizawa entirely.
“Uh, his arms are a bit out of shape… kero…” Tsu said looking down at the mangled limbs, she looked a little more green than usual.
“Shinso, help me up, I can do it.”
“‘Doriya! Inj’ries?!” Aizawa tried again. (Midoriya! Injuries?!)
Again, Midoriya ignored him and, again, Hitoshi blindly followed directions, helping Midoriya up to sit facing Aizawa. The gauntlet on his right arm was missing and the sleeve was torn to bits, the exposed flesh was bruised and discolored. It looked swollen and he wasn’t moving it, it was probably broken too, just not as horrifically as his leg. He used his left hand and shoved part of Aizawa’s scarf into his mouth and checked their surroundings before speaking.
“This is gonna hurt, don’t scream.”
Aizawa tried to argue but Midoriya swiftly arranged his arms into place and Aizawa was forced to shut up. He bit down on the material in his mouth and, despite his best efforts, he let out a quiet muffled shout. He started to go limp but Tsu caught him before he fell again and Midoriya started hitting his leg to get his attention back.
He was breathing heavily and shot Midoriya a glare before spitting out the handful of capture scarf.
“Help him to his feet,” Midoriya instructed, ignoring the glare entirely.
“Midor’ya, what are yer injuries?” Aizawa demanded for a third time, pain and anger seeming to have made his words clearer.
“Broken leg, arm, and fingers, probably several broken ribs. Now get up,” Midoriya snipped back.
Whatever weird ass argument that was brewing between the two of them cut off when a deafening screech called all of their attention back to the center of the facility. All Might had smoke rising from him as he ripped Midoriya’s knife out of the Nomu’s brain and plunged it back in again and again just like Midoriya had done earlier. The beast screamed in agony as the blade cut through its gray matter and dark blood splattered out in all directions. The four of them watched with mute horror as the creature stopped screaming and fell limp on the floor at All Might's feet.
The psycho ring leader let out an enraged screech at that and charged toward All Might. All Might was standing his ground, but Midoriya started screaming and tried to get up and run into the fray again. Before any of them had the mind to stop him shots started ringing out from the entrance and the psycho went down, getting enveloped in purple mist and disappearing before anyone could reach him. Steam erupted from All Might and a wall sprung up from the floor before Hitoshi could see what was going on.
The rest of the teachers were here. Oh, thank Kami. Hitoshi looked back to the entrance and saw Present Mic barreling toward them faster than he would have thought them capable of.
***
When Hizashi heard the alarms go off and the announcement for all teachers to report to the USJ he knew it was going to be bad. He felt his heart plummet to his feet; he knew Shouta, he knew he would die before he let his kids get hurt. He had one foot firmly planted in the denial stage of grief and the other in bargaining before he even made it to the door.
He saw the carnage inside and watched as his coworkers reported to the student's sides until his eyes settled on Shouta and the trio of kids surrounding him.
“Oh thank Kami,” he muttered to himself as he ran for them.
Shota was hurt, he was hurt badly and covered in blood, but he was alive and Hizashi was so relieved he could almost cry. As he ran over he saw that Midoriya was also on the ground; his leg was absolutely mangled and he looked to be having a coughing fit. Asui was holding Shota up and Shinso appeared to be holding Midoriya back. As they made their way to the group they spared a glance toward Shouta just enough for him to communicate that he would be alright before he turned his attention to Midoriya.
The kid was hysterical, he was seemingly trying to get up and run into the plaza, but he didn’t have much fight left in him so Shinso wasn’t having trouble holding him back.
“Midoriya, kiddo, c’mon, sit back. It’s over, it’s okay,” they did their best to soothe him, but he wouldn’t hear it.
“‘s it dead? It regenerates! Is it actually dead?! He’s alone, he–” he cut himself off with a coughing fit; his breaths were wheezing and labored.
“M’doriya, lay back,” Shota slurred out.
Oh, that wasn’t good. His eyes were drifting in and out of focus; he definitely had a concussion, a severe one by the looks of it. Shinso pulled Midoriya back as he weakly fought against him with only his left arm. His right arm was broken too, wasn’t it?
“Shit. ‘s got a punctured l’ng; broken ribs, Zashi, get a stretcher, don’ move ‘im,” Shota instructed. (Shit. He’s got a punctured lung; broken ribs. Zashi, get a stretcher. Don’t move him.)
Oh, damnit. They could see blood dribbling out from the corner of his mouth, that was not good, that was very much not good.
“WE NEED A STRETCHER ASAP,” Hizashi called back up toward the entrance, he could hear sirens; the paramedics had to be close.
“Can you walk, Eraser?”
“Theo’tically, Prolly no’ straight… prolly-mmph…” his eyes were starting to lose focus again, he was doing his best to blink away the fog but it didn’t seem to be working, “No, ‘m gonna pass out.” (Theoretically, probably not straight… probably not… No, I’m going to pass out.)
His adrenaline was fading.
“Asui, try to keep him awake,” he instructed before turning around again, “TWO STRETCHERS!”
Midoriya’s breathing was getting more and more labored and he wasn’t settling down, in fact, he was getting worse as he watched Shota’s head slump back against Asui’s shoulder.
“‘Raser, no. Get up,” he wheezed out as he frantically hit his leg trying to rouse him.
“Midoriya stop, don’t move. Moving is only going to make it worse. The paramedics will be here any second, he’s going to be fine,” Hizashi tried to calm him while doing his best to insert himself between the two.
While Midoriya was too distracted with trying to see Shota or the central plaza from around Hizashi’s body blocking him he made pointed eye contact with Shinso and glanced down at Midoriya. He had to do it a few times before it got through Shinso’s panic-addled brain but eventually, he got the message.
“Midoriya, what’s wrong in the plaza?” Shinso asked.
“He’s–” Midoriya’s eyes went foggy before he even got the next word out.
“Calm down and stop moving,” Shinso ordered numbly.
“Thank you Shinso, keep him still as long as you can,” they said as they turned their attention to Shota, “Asui, I’ve got him.”
He relieved the girl of Shota’s weight and held him to his chest, doing his best to wake him up, but he seemed completely out of it. He was breathing. They had to remind themself that he was breathing.
***
Hitoshi was so out of his depth. Midoriya was in his arms coughing up blood and struggling with every breath. He was so scared, he could hardly think beyond the fear. The one thing ringing through his mind was that Midoriya was going to die, he was going to die in Hitoshi’s arms. He was going to die right in front of him just like his father had and there was not a goddamn thing he could do about it.
It felt like hours had passed by when the paramedics finally whisked him away. Hitoshi was ushered outside and he obeyed without question, all he could do was sit there shell-shocked until he felt his control over Midoriya snap away as the ambulance rushed off into the distance. He was sitting next to Tsu and despite the warm spring air that surrounded them he felt frigid. He was trembling and eventually, someone came over and settled a blanket over his shoulders. It stilled his shaking for a while but then he just started to become overly aware that he was sitting in wet clothes. The baggy material clung to his frame and it was incredibly uncomfortable but he couldn’t do much about it.
Yamada-sensei kept checking in on them but it all just felt like static. What if Midoriya didn’t make it? What if he died and he never got the chance to forgive him? Why did he feel himself wanting to forgive him even though he still refused to explain himself? Was that just the guilt that he couldn’t do anything to save him talking? Hitoshi wasn’t sure, he wasn’t sure about anything. He wasn’t sure how to feel and he wasn’t sure what to do; he wasn’t sure what he even wanted.
Notes:
Thanks for reading and commenting! I love hearing y'alls feedback, it fuels me. ❤️❤️❤️
Chapter 106: It's Over... Isn't it?
Notes:
My cat woke me up at 5 am so y'all get this chapter an hour and a half early. 🙃
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Naomasa was starting to curse this promotion when he pulled up to the USJ, tires damn near still screeching as he flung himself out of the car. He saw Toshinori’s boy getting wheeled away on a stretcher and for a moment all he could think was ‘I didn’t even get the chance to meet him.’ He was doing his best to shake the morose thought from his mind when he saw a second stretcher race to another ambulance with Eraser on it covered in blood and completely motionless.
He bit back any sort of reaction he had to those sights and let a veil of professionalism fall over his features. Help was already here, whether or not they were going to be okay didn’t hinge on his level of concern so he pushed it down as best he could. He had a job to do. Unfortunately, a large part of that job was to get statements from freshly traumatized kids as all the adults present appeared to have been loaded up into ambulances. Terrific.
He let his officers take charge of ushering various criminals into cruisers and ambulances and headed for the first adult he saw who just so happened to be Yamada. If anyone asked, that was purely coincidence and didn’t have anything to do with his poorly ignored concern for Aizawa.
“Mic, report,” he called out while jogging to keep stride with him as he marched somewhere like a man on a war path.
“Group of villains infiltrated the facility, upwards of a hundred random street thugs and three main ‘leaders’ from what I understand but I didn’t get here much sooner than you so that’s all I know for sure. Two of them got away,” he explained curtly juxtaposing the gentle care he used to drape shock blankets over two students who were soaking wet and shivering despite the warm spring air.
He waited until Yamada started walking away out of earshot from the kids before he asked his next question, “Casualties?”
“One student, two teachers. Severe to critical condition for all three,” he tried to report cooly but his tone hitched.
“Is Aizawa…” he trailed off not wanting to say the words knowing Yamada would know what he was asking regardless.
“I’m not certain, but from what I saw he’s got a severe concussion and two broken arms. He didn’t look it but he was probably in the best shape out of the three. Head wounds bleed a lot,” he stated clinically, “I need to get back to helping the students,” they dismissed and walked away.
Shit, okay. That was going to have to be enough to satiate his worry right now. He was working, it wasn’t his job to demand the wounded’s current status of well-being, the report would come to him in time. With a deep breath, he made his way into the facility. Naomasa knew this was a center for rescue training but he wasn’t familiar enough to know what level of carnage was supposed to be present. He was fairly certain that the swaths of blood spread across the central plaza were not supposed to be there though.
Pushing on he made his way over to the principal who was currently talking to Vlad King, directing him to call back to center campus and dismiss classes. As Naomasa approached Vlad took his leave.
“Ah, afternoon detective,” the creature greeted, his cheerful tone betrayed by the scowl that graced his features.
“Afternoon Nedzu. Do you have a list of those present at the incident? I’ve been instructed to get statements from everyone,” he said regretfully.
“Yes, as I’d expected. All the students were witnesses and from what little I have gathered, I believe that they were spread throughout the facility in pairs or small groups. Most of them are still in those groups outside which will be convenient for getting their statements, I suppose. Both of the instructors present have been taken to urgent care along with only one student. This could have been much, much worse,” he claimed though the statement didn’t seem to bring either of them comfort, “It is my understanding that you are also aware of Yagi-san’s condition so do feel free to get a statement from him, he was the first to respond and is likely to have the most information. He’s on the other side of this, ah, partition.”
He gave Nedzu a polite nod and made his way down the steps toward the wall. He felt his heart sink as he spotted Recovery Girl tending to Toshinori next to an impressively large pool of blood. Kami, there was too much blood. But Toshinori was sitting up and talking so it was unlikely to be his.
Oh. Oh . it probably belonged to the creature lying motionless a few yards behind him. Its brain was exposed and butchered. The sight would have a man with a weaker constitution retching into the nearest trashcan but, whether fortunately or unfortunately, Naomasa was accustomed to gruesome sights; even so, his stomach recoiled slightly. Upon closer inspection, the blood covering the ground and most of Toshinori’s shirt looked to be a few shades too dark to be human. He’s not sure whether that realization made it better or worse.
Toshinori appeared to be fighting exhaustion with panic and exasperation. He was trying to get up and dismiss himself from the scolding he was currently receiving, but Recovery Girl wasn’t having it. He looked incredibly grateful to see Naomasa approaching.
“Naomasa, do you know their conditions?” he asked before he could get a word in.
“I’ve been told they’re critical but alive,” he reported.
It didn’t seem to do much to calm him but he at least stopped fighting to stand up as he ran a hand over his face. He was hesitant to push him, but his choices were either Toshinori or going in to blindly question 19 traumatized children and he knew that's not what his friend would want either so he continued.
“I need to get a statement, Toshinori,” he prompted.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath before responding, “Yes, of course.”
He turned to Recovery Girl to dismiss her before he started.
“You remember what I said, boy,” she warned before taking her leave.
When she was out of earshot he began, “I had reached my limit before classes had started, it was moronic, I know. I was supposed to be here from the beginning, they were after me,” Toshinori stopped himself, they both knew that was more conjecture than the statement required, “Young Iida came back to central campus to notify us of the situation and I responded immediately.
All communications had been cut and all exits had been sealed, he was the only one that had managed to get out. When I got here several students were tending to Thirteen at the main entrance and Aizawa was… he was in the center here with a villain pinning him down, he must have been seconds away from dying so I stepped in. I got him out of there and when I looked back one of the students, young Midoriya, was standing on a broken leg, and that… that creature,” he gestured over his shoulder, “was after him, I got him out of there with less than a second to spare and he…” Toshinori trailed off.
Naomasa gave him a minute. Toshinori had always kept a tight leash on his emotions, he’d never seen the man so affected.
“He told me the creature had multiple quirks,” he finished, looking up to meet Naomasa’s gaze.
His blood froze at that. No, it couldn’t be– there had to be another explanation.
“Do you think…”
“I don’t know. I– I don’t know. He told me it wasn’t human, that it was “made” to kill me. He said I had to kill it before it killed me and everyone else in the building.”
That was… that was a horrifying thing to hear. He couldn’t imagine those words coming out of the mouth of that sweet-looking boy he’d seen so many pictures of.
“He faced it on his own, he was trying to save his teacher,” Toshinori added staring off into nothing, “He was right too, he told me it had shock absorption, enhanced strength and speed, and regenerative capabilities. I had to take the kid’s knife from its head and butcher its brain before it went down. If I hadn’t done that I’m sure I’d be getting wheeled out of here on a stretcher too, and that’s probably the best-case scenario,” he concluded.
“So, whoever did this either has the capabilities to bioengineer quirks or…” he trailed off, not wanting to speak that reality into existence.
“Yes, it appears so,” Toshinori confirmed.
“How did they get away? The two that escaped?”
“I was well over my limit, if I took so much as a step I was going to lose my grasp. One of them had a warping quirk, I assume that’s how they got in as well. He could make portals that himself and others could step through.”
Naomasa didn’t want to think about how close of a call this whole thing had been.
“Alright, do you have anything else to report?”
“No, that’s all I know,” Toshinori finished sounding more dejected than he’d ever heard him sound.
Naomasa offered out a hand as his friend struggled to get to his feet.
***
He was glad that most of the worst fights went down in the central plaza. The students were clearly shaken, but not too far gone to give coherent reports. Most of them didn’t have a clue what had happened in the plaza, though a few had witnessed the tail end of the fight, Katsuki Bakugo, Eijiro Kirishima, and Shoto Todoroki had all reported that they were heading in to aid in the fight when the creature went down. All three had no issues reporting what had happened up until that point but when they got to the final moments of All Might’s clash with the beast they had much less detail to offer. Todoroki gave the most comprehensive recollection, but it was stilted and void of any emotion, much like the rest of his report. He could hardly blame them after hearing what they had seen from four different people now.
He had four more students left to question and he was not looking forward to the next two. From what he’d heard, apparently, they had bore witness to almost everything that happened in the plaza from beginning to end. It was the two students Yamada had draped shock blankets over when he’d first arrived, Hitoshi Shinso and Tsuyu Asui.
He approached them with caution and did his best to appear non-threatening, but by the looks of it, they didn’t have the presence left to be afraid of much of anything right now. Christ, this really couldn’t wait? No, it was best to just rip the band-aid off.
“Hello, I’m Detective Tsukauchi, I’m here to get your statements,” he greeted, getting straight to the point.
The kids looked up at him slowly then to one another before turning back to him. They didn’t move to speak and he was about to prompt them again when Yamada came running over with a water bottle in each hand.
“Hey, hey, hey Detective! What’s goin’ on?” he asked in a slightly toned-down version of his boisterous persona.
He handed a bottle to each of the kids and Naomasa was incredibly grateful he butted in. Trying to extract answers from a traumatized brick wall was never pleasant and he was hoping Yamada had built up enough of a rapport with these two to get them talking as painlessly as possible.
“Ah, Mic, good to see you. I’m getting statements from the students.”
“Can’t this wait?” they asked under their breath.
“I have my orders and I think it’s best to just get it over with if we can. I don’t want to have to bring them into the station later,” he responded just as quietly.
He watched resignation fall over their expression as they sat down in front of the kids.
“Alright kiddos, you need to tell this cool cat what you saw. I can help where I can but I don’t know what happened before I got there. I’ve worked with him before, he’s very nice. If you need a second just let us know and we’ll give you all the time we can, but it’s better to get this over with, right? Drawin’ it out’s just gonna make it worse, ya dig?” he explained kindly.
The kids looked at him then to each other and back to him slowly just like they had when Naomasa had spoken to them, but unlike with him, they responded with small nods.
“Okay, thank you. I’ll be right here the whole time,” they said, shooting a glare toward him, daring him to argue.
He shot back a grateful nod to communicate that he was not about to force them away from these kids for a second. Yamada looked back at him and then shot a pointed look at the ground next to where he was sitting. He got the memo and took a seat with his legs crossed in front of him. It felt a bit ridiculous but if Yamada thought that it would make the kids more comfortable then he would do it gladly.
“Alright, I can get a group report from you two, you were together the whole time, correct?”
They both nodded.
“Okay, either of you can start.”
Shinso gave a report that matched what everyone else had said about the villain's entrance and Asui took over after they had been warped away.
“They warped the three of us to the shipwreck zone, kero,” she started.
“Three?” Naomasa interjected.
That seemed to have been the wrong thing to say because they both clammed up.
“Midoriya was with you, right?” Yamada prompted.
Ah, that made sense. They nodded and he gave them a second to continue.
“We were all dropped in the water and there were villains there, I grabbed Shinso and Midoriya out of the lake and brought us to the boat,” Asui continued.
Even though Naomasa had just spent the last couple of hours hearing about how these children defended themselves and their peers from real-life villains, he was still impressed each time they recounted their actions. These kids were something else; they clearly belonged here.
“Midoriya took charge of the situation once we were on the boat. He had me draw as many villains toward us as I could and gave Tsu and me a boost to jump as far away from the center as we could then he broke the boat in half. He said the vacuum would pull them in or something. Whatever he did kept them far enough away from us to escape and he followed after us,” Shinso continued.
Naomasa had gotten reports from his officers about that area. Apparently, it had been a close call on one of the criminals in the water. He’d been out for a while and had to be given CPR after nearly drowning, but he kept that information to himself. These kids didn’t need to know they were technically complicit in a near murder even if it was in self-defense.
“Midoriya told us to go to the entrance and wait for help…” Asui trailed off.
“He said he needed to help Aizawa-sensei, he took off before we could stop him…” Shinso added before trailing off as well.
He knew enough to know where the story was going so he gave them a minute. Yamada took one of their hands in each of his and did his best to reassure them.
“We… we followed him cause we didn’t want… he should’ve…” Shinso tried before trailing off again.
Asui looked at him with a furrowed brow before taking the reigns back, “We were all in the water next to the plaza and we saw the… the thing break Aizawa-sensei’s arms and Midoriya jumped in. He threw a knife into its brain and then punched it in the stomach, but it didn’t do anything. There was a shockwave, I felt it, but it didn’t move an inch.”
“He talked to the leader for a little bit but I don’t remember much of what he said, he was taunting them though, joking around like he wasn’t about to… like they wouldn’t…– the mist guy showed up in the middle of it, and Midoriya, uh, tried to take down the thing because it still had Aizawa-sensei pinned,” Shinso added.
“It swatted him away and the leader told it to kill him. It went after him so fast I couldn’t tell what was happening. Midoriya dodged it for a while but it grabbed him by the leg and crushed it before throwing him into the stairs. All Might got them both out of there before anything else happened, kero.”
“We went around the plaza and found Aizawa-sensei and Midoriya they were both…– Midoriya started giving us first aid instructions for Aizawa-sensei and we just did what he told us to until the thing screamed and got our attention… All Might, um… he beat it but Midoriya just kinda lost it. He started screaming and trying to get up, he was trying to get back to All Might. And that’s when Yamada-sensei showed up,” Shinso finished their tale.
Good lord. Naomasa was impressed and horrified in equal measure. He couldn’t imagine how that kid was capable of giving first aid instruction in the state he was in. He’d assumed he’d been knocked out for a while but apparently, he was with it until the very end. All of these kids were remarkable and he wished they hadn’t gotten the opportunity to prove that so soon. He turned his focus to Yamada to get the rest of the statement. He could see the subtle tension in their shoulders tighten with each word the kids had said, but they didn’t let a bit of it show on their face; as the attention was turned back to him, he slowly forced the stiffness back as unobtrusively as it had crept up.
“As they said, when I got there Midoriya was panicking. He was worried that All Might was alone with that creature. He said it could regenerate and he was worried that it wasn’t dead. I did my best to calm him down but then Eraser passed out and he lost it again. He was moving around too much, Eraser said his ribs were broken and his lung had been punctured so I had Shinso use his quirk to keep him still, he’s got a mind control quirk. The paramedics showed up shortly after that and you pretty much know the rest,” Yamada concluded.
With a stiff nod and a smile he was sure didn’t fool Yamada for a second, he stood up slowly.
“Alright, thank you for your statements, please take these,” he pulled out two business cards and handed one to each of them, “and let me know if you think of anything that you forgot to tell me, any footage that would have been caught was cut off with the rest of security and communications so your statements are invaluable.”
He spared another grateful nod for Yamada and left them to process all of that in peace.
There was one more student he needed to talk to, the boy who had gone back to center campus to alert the staff. He also needed to get statements from the two teachers and student that had been injured but well, that was going to have to wait.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 107: In the Shitter
Notes:
Fuck it, chapter a day early. I do what I want.
300,000 words baby! Thanks for following along on this roller coaster shit show of me learning how to write!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Hizashi finally got to leave the school grounds and go to the hospital he checked on Midoriya first; Shota wouldn’t want to see him if he didn’t have updates. Peeking into his room he saw Yagi sitting in the corner in his small form. That was… odd. They cleared their throat to announce their presence. Yagi jumped a bit but settled quickly.
“Ah, Yamada, evening,” he greeted awkwardly.
He raised an eyebrow and nodded back in lieu of responding verbally, “Has he woken up yet?” they asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Have you gotten updates on his condition?”
“Yes, he needed surgery on his leg, it, um, it was quite bad. He has three broken ribs, his lung was punctured by one of them. His right arm as well as a few fingers were broken and he had a near innumerable amount of sprains. Everything is on the mend, though. He’s going to be fine,” he tried to sound cheerful about the last bit but he didn’t have the energy to sell it.
He looked haggard; he was slumped over in the too-small chair he was sitting in and it looked like he was struggling to even keep his head up. What was he doing here? Where were Midoriya’s parents? Everything about the situation was odd. How did Yagi expect to explain himself if Midoriya woke up to a strange man he didn’t know watching over him? He was too tired to ask all of those questions, so he settled on the one that mattered.
“Where are his parents?”
Yagi looked down to the floor and furrowed his brow at that.
“I don’t know, his mother isn’t picking up the phone,” he replied.
Hm, that explains why Yagi was here, they supposed. Well, it explained why someone from the school was here it didn’t explain why that person was Yagi. It was an odd choice given that Hizashi knew for a fact that he was well out of time for the day, but that wasn’t his mystery to solve; he needed to see his husband.
“Keep me updated, I’ll be down the hall,” he said with a curt nod and took his leave.
When Hizashi walked into Sho’s room he almost fell to his knees. All the emotions he had been pushing down for the kid’s sake came flooding back at the sight of him. He was covered in bandages and both his arms were in casts; he looked so pale under the harsh fluorescent lights but the heart monitor he was connected to beeped steadily. There weren’t enough ‘thank you’s in the world to express the gratitude he had for the kid down the hall, and for the sake of keeping their relationship a secret, they wouldn’t even be able to relay half of it to him.
He pulled a chair up beside the bed and let his bag slide off his shoulder to the floor as he collapsed into it. He was okay, well, he was going to be okay. They hadn’t gotten any news on Thirteen yet, but no news was good news… right?
Everyone was going to be okay.
Everyone was going to be okay.
Everyone was going to be okay.
They repeated that like a mantra in their head to try and stop the tears from falling, but it was no use. The events of the day were catching up to him whether he was ready or not. He buried his face in Shouta’s stomach and cried his eyes out until there was nothing left. It was silly, but it hurt so much more not being able to hold Shota’s hand through it.
***
Shota woke up slowly; his mind was foggy but there was a persistent beeping noise driving him mad. He kept drifting hoping that it would stop but it didn’t. After regaining a bit of his sense he was a little more grateful that the beeping persisted because he realized that was his own heart monitor.
He was in a hospital.
Why was he in the hospital?
He blinked his eyes open trying to search for clues but the garish lights felt like an ice pick was being shoved through his eye sockets so he shut them quickly. What happened? What was the last thing he remembered? Was he on patrol? No… no the last thing he remembered was just after lunch. He was at work; the class was having a field trip– OH FUCK!
He forced his eyes open and sat up quickly enough for him to see stars. His vision was spotty and his head was killing him, he went to hold his temples hoping the pressure would help but his arms were in casts all the way up to his shoulders. What the hell happened to him? His memory was hazy but all at once his spotty recollection fell into place and he felt his heart drop.
Midoriya.
He felt hands on his chest pushing him back into the bed so he did his best to blink the spots out of his vision to see who it was.
“‘Zash?”
“Yeah Sho, it’s me. Lay back, everyone’s going to be okay. It’s over.”
“‘Doriya?”
“Yeah, Midoriya is in a room down the hall. He’s going to be okay. He had a bunch of sprains, some broken bones, and a punctured lung but we got him here in time. He’s going to be alright. Thirteen just got out of surgery an hour or so ago; they had to get skin grafts on most of their back, but they’re taking well so far. No one else was hurt enough to need the hospital. Everyone’s going to be fine.”
The words took longer than Shota thought they should to compute but eventually, he got the message and sank back into the bed. Everyone was going to be okay.
“Do you wanna know your injuries, or do you need some time?” Zashi asked quietly.
Shota was grateful for his volume adjustment.
“Tell me.”
“You got a grade 3 concussion and every bone in both of your arms were broken; both shoulders dislocated. They had to do some surgery to set it all properly and you had to get a skin graft on your elbow. You also got a few stitches on your face, but other than that you’re as healthy as a horse,” they chirped with a tired smile.
He huffed out a humorless laugh at that which he immediately regretted because it sent another stabbing pain through his head. After the pain faded enough for him to open his eyes again he took the time to actually look at Hizashi. They looked awful. Half of his hair was still gelled up but half of it had fallen down, it looked absolutely ridiculous and his eyes were swollen like he’d been crying. Shota wished he could hug them or at least hold their hand, but his arms were in casts from his fingertips to shoulders so he settled for verbal reassurance.
“You look awful,” he stated plainly.
Hizashi’s look of worry quickly turned to offense and Shota couldn’t help the smile that crept across his face.
“Well excuse me for putting concern for my husband’s well-being before aesthetics, I’ll be sure to get all gussied up for you next time you get curb stomped by Frankenstein’s monster!” he squawked in defiance.
The combination of Zashi’s volume and his own laughter hurt like a bitch but he couldn’t find it in himself to care much about that right now because Zashi had a genuine smile on his face. His focus drifted toward the window, the sun was just starting its descent and they must have been on the west side of the building because painfully strong rays of golden light were peaking their way through the cracks in the blinds. Zashi went and turned off most of the lights in the room not long after he first flinched away from them but there wasn’t much he could do about that; the sun would set eventually.
Oh shit, he was supposed to meet Ivy tonight. That definitely wasn’t happening, he was thankful he realized that before they were due to meet because he had no doubt Ivy would be half way through breaking into thier apartment if they hadn’t already seen the news.
“Can you text Ivy for me? They–”
“Already did, Sho. Don’t worry about it. They haven’t responded yet, but I’m sure they will soon, they usually text you a meeting location around this time, right?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Just don’t want them breaking down our door,” he mumbled out, he could feel sleep pulling on his consciousness already.
“They know where we live?”
“Mmm, they were snooping an’ hacked into UA’s mainframe,” he replied and Hizashi just looked at him dumbstruck, “was an accident,” he defended.
“What the fu– that was– how do– never mind. Stop falling asleep, I’m calling the nurse in.”
“Mmmmmmmff,” he groaned in futile protest.
***
Shota underwent a series of tests and did his best to push past the nausea and keep his dinner down before passing out at 7 pm. Not that he blamed him, Hizashi was exhausted too but he couldn’t sleep. His mind just kept running through an awful loop of guilt and fear and needless worry about what could have happened. He had managed a few solid cat naps throughout the night but he kept waking up to gasping breaths with images of Sho’s face covered in blood and dead kids plaguing his mind’s eye, so, after a while he just gave up.
They had been sitting at Sho’s side and scrolling through their phone when there was a very quiet knock on the door, one that Hizashi wasn’t fully sure was on their door or not until he saw the shadow of feet through the crack at the bottom. Sho wasn’t due for a check-in for a half hour, but there was another knock just as quiet as the first. Not wanting to wake Shota they quietly got up and made their way to the door to find Yagi on the other side. It was like 6 am. Did he sleep here or did he come back at the ass crack of dawn? Both of them shot a glance back to Shota before Hizashi left the room shutting the door behind himself and turned to Yagi.
“Yagi,” they greeted with a nod.
“Good morning Yamada, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I was up, but Sho’s gonna be sleepin’ for another half hour before his next check-in,” he warned assuming he came to check on his husband’s well-being.
“Ah, that’s quite alright, I came to speak with you. He’s doing well, though, right?”
“Yeah, he’s gonna be fine. Whaddya need?”
“Oh, it’s… it’s about young Midoriya,” Yagi paused awkwardly and Hizashi felt his heart sink to his feet, “His parents still haven't shown.”
Having been prepared to hear that he spontaneously re-punctured his lung and died or something equally catastrophic, Hizashi was actually quite relieved to hear that the lil’ listener either had shit parents or a missing person’s case on his hands.
After a deep breath and a sharp glare at Yagi for his choice of phrasing, Hizashi replied, “They haven’t even picked up the phone?”
“No, we haven’t heard from them at all,” Yagi confirmed.
“Shit.”
Yagi hummed in agreement.
“Are we worried about their well-being or…” Hizashi trailed off, somehow it was easier to think that the lil’ listener’s parents were in mortal peril than to think that they cared so little for him that they didn’t show up when he landed himself in the ER on death’s doorstep.
“I… um, no. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. I… I’ve spoken with him and he doesn’t seem concerned about that,” Yagi said with resignation, “I just don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
Hizashi didn’t like the implication that Midoriya’s parents were so consistently absent that the thought didn’t even occur to him that they might be in trouble when he ended up in the hospital and was unable to get in contact with them. How unreliable do they have to be for the kid to assume they’re just too busy to pick up the phone for damn near 24 hours straight?
“How’s he coping with all this? Do you think talking to him now would be beneficial? Is he even awake yet?” Hizashi asked.
“Yes, I believe he is awake, but just barely. He’s coping better than could be expected but I’m not sure if that’s just for show or not. Maybe after breakfast?” Yagi offered as he did his best to scrub the exhaustion off his face.
“Are you staying with him?” Hizashi asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
They saw a faint blush spread across the man’s cheeks before he responded, “Yes, as much as I can.”
Was he using all his time for the day to stay with Midoriya? That was sweet, or maybe stupid; Hizashi couldn’t decide.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk with him after breakfast,” he agreed before dismissing himself back to Shota’s side.
***
After sitting down and helping Sho eat his breakfast they made their way over to Midoriya’s room and gave a courtesy knock on the door before peeking their head inside, “Hey kiddo,” they greeted gently.
Midoriya looked up from the notebook he’d been paging through and shot him a nervous smile.
“H-hello, Yamada-sensei,” he greeted back.
“No need to call me ‘sensei’ outside of school, ya dig?” he shot back with waggling finger guns after shutting the door behind himself.
“Oh, um, s-sorry Yamada-san,” he replied with a small bow of his head.
Eh, good enough. He wasn’t one for formalities of any sort, but the kid looked uncomfortable already.
“Don’t sweat it, how ya feelin’?”
“I'm fine, they, uh, said I should get another round of healing and then they’ll d-discharge me. I’ll p-probably still have the cast on my leg, but I’ll be transferred to Recovery Girl’s care for one more round of healing then I’ll be able to get it off after that.”
“That’s good to hear,” they said with a genuine smile as they took a seat.
“H-How, um, how is Aizawa-sensei?” he asked sheepishly after Hizashi didn’t start on another topic.
“He’s doing well; head wounds are tricky so they want him under observation for a little while longer but that’s just a precaution. He should be out of his casts around the same time as you. He’s sleeping a lot but that’s not too far out of his usual behavior so I think he’ll be just fine,” he answered with a fond smile.
They hadn’t even realized how tense the kid was until his shoulders fell after hearing that. Poor kiddo was really worried, wasn’t he?
“That’s all thanks to you, Midoriya. He told me what happened, or at least all that he can remember. What you did was incredibly reckless, but it saved his life, so, thank you,” he did his best to communicate just how grateful he was, but words would never be enough, “Just don’t you dare do something like that again lil’ listener,” they added quickly.
Hizashi smiled as a deep blush spread across Midoriya’s face. With his hair up and his freckles, he looked like an adorable strawberry and Hizashi just wanted to pinch his cheeks.
“I-it’s not– I didn’t mean– h-he was– and–”
“You don’t need to justify or deprecate your actions, Midoriya. Just– thank you.”
He didn’t have anything to say about that; he just looked down at the sheets looking thoroughly scolded despite Hizashi barely saying anything.
“But that’s not what I’m here for,” he said as he took a seat next to the kid’s bed, “The school hasn’t been able to contact your parents, lil’ listener. We’re a little bit worried about that, do you have any idea what might be going on?” he asked gently.
He seemed to have been expecting this conversation because he didn’t seem flustered, just resigned.
“My mom, she–she works a lot and she t-travels for work so I don’t see her too m-much,” he admitted.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“I d-dunno, a while I guess. She l-leaves notes and money,” he replied as he fiddled with the bedsheets in his left hand.
This wasn’t fair. No kid deserved to be so neglected, but of all the kids, it had to be this one? The kindest, smartest, cutest little kiddo they’d ever met? His mother didn’t deserve this kid. They quashed down their anger as best they could because Midoriya looked more ashamed than anything. Did he even know that this was wrong? Did he know that he deserved better?
“That’s not okay, lil’ listener. Do you have anyone at home with you? Siblings?” they asked hopefully.
“No, ‘s just me.”
Resisting the urge to hunt this kid’s mother for sport, he took a deep breath.
“Midoriya, that’s not okay. It’s not safe. If there’s an emergency at home and you need help what are you supposed to do?”
“A f-family friend checks in on me, I'm n-not completely on my own. It was an emergency that got me here anyway, what’s she supposed to do about that?” he shot back half resigned and half irritated.
He was getting angry. That was something Hizashi had yet to see from him, it was good though, he should be angry.
“Kiddo, it doesn’t matter if she could have stopped anything from happening, she should be here–”
“Yeah, I get it! She’s just not around much. She’s a nurse, she’s busy! She’s always worked odd hours but I’m 15, I can survive at home on my own. I've got a roof over my head and food in the fridge. World’s not gonna stop spinning ‘cause my mom’s not around.” he spat out mumbling the last part under his breath much more bitterly than the rest.
Okay, maybe he pushed it too far too fast, but regardless of the kid’s discomfort this needed to be done. He’d been in the hospital for nearly 24 hours now and no one had come for him other than Yagi.
“What about your father?” Hizashi asked, not expecting much better news on that front.
He scoffed at that before responding, “Mom says he works in America.”
That was certainly an odd way of phrasing that.
“You think she’s lying?” they asked.
“Does it m-matter? He’s not around, that’s all I need to know,” Midoriya responded quietly and with no emotion.
Hizashi wouldn’t usually say that kidnapping was the best solution to a problem but right now it was extremely tempting.
“I’ll try t-texting her, she can’t answer calls on shift. Or maybe she’s just not p-picking up for an unknown number,” Midoriya tried to justify.
“Kiddo, it’s all over the news already.”
“She’s probably on shift, m-maybe she hasn’t seen yet,” he continued.
He was chewing on his lip and fiddling with the bed sheets so furiously that Hizashi worried he was going to wear a hole into them. How could anyone leave their son like this? He felt a pang of jealousy, he’d always wanted a family but he and Sho never had the time. They’d been renewing their foster licenses for years hoping that they’d be able to cut back on patrols or something but it never worked out. Kids need time, if you don’t have that time to give then you shouldn’t have a kid, but of course, that was easy for him to say with the amount of disposable income he and Sho had between them. They supposed it all came down to the fact that you could either have time or money; not many people had both. Or at least that’s what he hoped because if that woman was neglecting her son for no good reason then he was going to have some choice words for her, at a choice volume as well…
“Yeah, kiddo, why don’t you try? It’s worth a shot, right?”
He nodded and Hizashi watched as he pulled out an honest to god FLIP PHONE and started typing away on it. Okay, yeah… maybe he was too quick to judge without knowing the family’s financial status.
***
Izuku had too many goddamn phones. He rifled through his bag doing his best to make it look like he was just looking for his phone and not juggling around three phones trying to make sure he had the right one. He should really color-code these damn things. Triple-checking it was the correct phone he grabbed his civilian burner and drafted a text to the burner he had gotten for his ‘mom’ when All Might was getting on his back the first time he had ended up in the hospital. He made sure the ringer on that one was off before pressing send.
Izu:
Hey idk if u got the calls the school’s trying to get in contact with you
There was an attack on campus. Im ok but im in the hospital
Everyones gonna be fine tho so u dont need to worry
He sent it all in one long message because he didn't have nearly enough money on his "mom's" burner to send each message individually.
“I–I’ll let you know when she responds,” he told Mic when he was done.
It was hard to look them in the eye after everything he just said, all the lies he told. Using faux anger to manipulate him into dropping the subject was a dirty move, but it was all he could think of. Mic was too nice, too concerned; he needed to get them off his back or this was going to become a real problem.
All Might slipped into the room a minute or so after Mic left. Ah, so that’s why he had left earlier, it was to go get backup, terrific. More people worrying about him was just the thing he needed right now. He couldn’t see himself pulling off this balancing act for three full years, it was barely past three full days and he’d already damn near had his cover blown, but he was in too deep already. Kami, this was going to be such a shit show, it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?
Notes:
Thanks for reading! and leaving kudos! and commenting! I love reading your comments so much. No one tell my boss, but I check my comments on here before I check my email in the morning lmao. I have PRIORITIES.
Chapter 108: Debrief
Notes:
Sorry for uploading an hour and a half late, I had to do my job at my job which is kinda fucked up if you ask me :[
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku appreciated the sentiment of All Might staying with him in the hospital, he really did, but he just wished he would leave already. He couldn’t relax with someone so close; he felt like someone was breathing down his neck despite All Might sitting over by the window on the far wall of the room. He was tired but he didn’t want to sleep with him here if he could help it; he didn’t trust himself to not wake up gasping for air or screaming. He didn’t want any more concern than he already had and that would no doubt garner the concern of the entire ward.
All Might had brought his laptop and several stacks of paperwork; he had been slowly making his way through the pile as Izuku did his best to mindlessly write analyses with his left hand. Needless to say, that venture wasn’t going very well.
An hour or so dragged by before Izuku pulled out his “mom’s” phone and replied to his own message.
Mom:
I just saw the news baby I’m so sorry! I was on shift and I didn’t have my phone and I just passed out when I got back.
I’m catching the first flight back. It lands in Tokyo at midnight, I’ll be back by 2am. What hospital are you in?
He subtly watched All Might in the reflection of the TV monitor making sure he didn’t see him switching between phones and sending fake text messages to himself.
Izu:
Musutafu general but they’re discharging me sometime tonight
Im fine u don’t need to come home
Mom:
I’m coming home Izuku, you could have died!
You’ll be home then? Do you have your keys?
Izu:
Yeah ive got everything
Im fine, like actually fine, I promise
I’ll have a cast on my leg for another day or so then ill be back to 100%
Mom:
That's good but I'm still coming home!
“My mom responded,” Izuku remarked, doing his best impression of someone whose parents occasionally gave them nuggets of affection that they still begrudgingly craved.
“Really?” All Might asked sounding both hopeful and disappointed in one word.
“Yeah,” he replied, flipping his phone around to show the messages.
After All Might took the phone he grabbed the other phone he had tucked under his leg and pressed send on one more message.
Mom:
I’m back on shift rn I’m leaving as soon as I can. I’ll see you soon. Katsudon for dinner tomorrow, ok?
“Ah, you got another message,” All Might said with an awkward smile.
He handed the phone back. Perfect, enough time to read the messages but not to look too deeply into them or scroll back up and realize there hadn’t been any text messages between them prior to about 3 minutes ago. He faked a small smile as he pretended to read the text before tucking the phone back into his bag. He went back to scrawling in his notebook to wordlessly cut the conversation off before it started. All Might was much easier to get to back off when he showed discomfort, Mic would push him more. If All Might reported back a vague recollection of a positive interaction between him and his mother, then Mic would be less likely to feel the need to poke his nose into Izuku’s business.
He felt like he was playing 5D chess with emotional manipulation and he wasn’t sure he was even winning.
***
Naomasa was glad both that Toshinori was so tall and that he agreed to meet him at the front desk because this hospital was a maze and every time he found himself here he got lost. Toshinori standing in the corner like a great big yellow beacon was quite helpful. He looked rather tired, not that Naomasa could blame him, but he perked up when he spotted him walking over.
“Afternoon, Detective,” he greeted with a gentle smile.
“Afternoon, Toshinori,” he replied as he was guided back through the winding halls of the hospital.
“Is Aizawa awake at the moment? Do you think it would be better to get his statement first?”
“They’re both awake last I checked, I don’t think it matters much.”
“How’s the kid doing, I mean mentally. You’re sure he’s ready for this?”
“I’ve been talking with him, he didn’t seem to have issues with answering any of my questions. He seems far more uncomfortable about the situation with his parents.”
“The situation with his parents?”
“They… they didn’t pick up the phone until about two and a half hours ago,” he replied scrubbing a hand over his face.
“What?!” Naomasa exclaimed stopping mid-stride out of shock.
“Yes, his mother will be on a flight back to Tokyo soon but she won’t be back until 2 am,” Toshinori responded turning back and nodding his head to prompt him to keep following.
Jesus Christ, that was over 24 hours after the incident. Her kid could very well have died and she wouldn’t have even known until just two hours ago? He went from critical condition to damn near ready to get discharged and she was just completely out of the loop?
“Are we worried about a legal case here?”
“I don’t know. I’ll admit I’m out of my depth on this, I asked Yamada to speak with him. I knew his parents were rather absent but I wasn’t aware how bad it was. It seems that his needs are being met, but he is alone most of the time. He’s 15 though so I’m not sure how much of a case we have there. Yamada fielded some questions and it seems like he has everything he needs ; he’s got a roof over his head and food in the kitchen. It’s a delicate situation, but I’m keeping an eye on him,” he explained sounding more and more tired with each word, “It’s probably best to not bring it up. He seems fine enough to talk about what happened at the USJ, but I’m sure he’s just downplaying it. I don’t want to overwhelm him if I can help it.”
***
This wasn’t going to be fun, he really wished he could be meeting the boy under better circumstances but it was too late for that. With a deep breath and a nod to Toshinori, he knocked lightly on the door before entering.
“Hello Midoriya-kun, I’m Detective Tsukauchi,” he introduced himself.
The kid’s eyes widened in what seemed to be surprise and he bit his lip for a moment before responding.
“H-hello Detective Tsukauchi-san,” he greeted politely.
“I’m here to take your statement about what happened yesterday, are you alright to do that now?” he asked.
“Um yes, t-that’s fine,” Midoriya responded, pointedly not looking him in the eye.
“Alright, I’m going to record it and, not that this is really applicable, but I do need to disclose that I have a lie detection quirk, are you comfortable proceeding with the interview?”
Midoriya nodded.
“Perfect, now please recount the events that occurred after you arrived at the USJ to the best of your ability,” Naomasa prompted after he clicked the recorder on.
Midoriya glanced up at him nervously before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. When he finally spoke he sounded much more put together than he had before.
“A few minutes after we got to the USJ a warp gate appeared by the fountain at the center and a large group of people stepped out. Aizawa-sensei ordered us to stay back and jumped in pretty much immediately. Alarms weren’t going off so I assumed all communications had been cut. I told Iida to get back to the main campus and alert the teachers but then the portal appeared at the door and stopped us. It spoke and said they were the “League of Villains” and that they were after All Might before scattering us across the facility. I ended up in the shipwreck zone with Shinso and Asui. Asui saved us both from the water and brought us to the boat where Shinso used his quirk to draw the villains closer and I gave them a boost to jump to shore before sinking the boat to create a whirlpool that would keep the villains trapped long enough for us to get away.
After that I headed for the plaza to help Eraser because I knew he was going to get overwhelmed; it wasn’t a fight he could win on his own. As I got near I saw the leader of the operation disintegrate his elbow. Tomura Shigaraki, I think he has a five-point touch-activated quirk that allows him to turn things to dust. I was going to wait for the right moment to jump in but then Shigaraki ordered the Nomu to attack. The Nomu was bioengineered to kill All Might, from what I observed it has several quirks, super strength and speed as well as regeneration and shock absorption. The Nomu broke Eraser’s arms and smashed his head into the ground; I stepped in before it could crush his skull. I threw a knife into its brain, it was the only place I could think of to stop it fast enough to save him.
When I got to it I punched it as hard as I could manage; I used far more force than it took to destroy the boat in the shipwreck zone, but it didn’t do anything. Throwing a knife into its brain did enough damage to make Shigaraki angry though. He started yelling at me, but the Nomu stopped reacting entirely so I figured it only acted when given orders. I tried to keep him talking long enough for help to arrive so he couldn’t order the Nomu to do anything else, but then Kurogiri, the villain with the warp quirk, came back. While he was arguing with him I took the opportunity to try and take down the Nomu. I stabbed its brain several times, but it hit me off of it before I could take it down.
Shigaraki ordered the Nomu to kill me so I led it away from Eraser. Eventually, it caught me by the leg and tossed me onto the steps. I couldn’t move much after that, but thankfully All Might had arrived by that point. He took care of the Nomu and I helped Eraser with first aid as best I could with Shinso and Asui until Present Mic and the paramedics arrived.”
Naomasa was stunned, to say the least; the kid reported everything so clinically. He had names and quirks and motives and he delivered it all so calmly. He said it all like he didn’t nearly die a thousand times and he admitted to attempting to murder the Nomu without so much as a cringe. Where the hell did Toshinori find this kid? He was glad Midoriya was in the hero course; he didn’t want to know what kind of damage he could do on the other side of the law.
Despite his concerns, he couldn’t be more sure of his friend’s choice of successor. Midoriya was sharp, he had a wicked intelligence; he acted quickly and took charge of the situation. He had that same brave determination that Toshinori did and Naomasa was sure this whole incident would have gone a lot worse if Midoriya hadn’t stepped in when he did. Aizawa would surely be dead, perhaps Shinso and Asui as well, and if what Toshinori said was true, if he really couldn’t have defeated the Nomu without Midoriya’s instruction, then Kami only knows how many more casualties would have occurred.
He did his best to shake off his surprise before he spoke but he still stuttered a bit regardless, “I– Alright, um, the names, you said the warper was called Kurogiri?”
“Yes sir.”
“The man with the disintegration quirk was Tomura Shigaraki?”
“Yes sir.”
“And the large bird-like one was Nomu?”
“It was my understanding that it was ‘the Nomu’; they d-didn’t use the title like it was a name, more like a classification of s-species. Shigaraki said IT was M-MADE . I don’t think it was human. It only moved when commanded like a well-trained dog though it s-seemed to understand speech well enough. There was nothing behind its eyes. I don’t know what it was, but it… it didn’t have a soul,” Midoriya clarified, sounding a little less sure of himself than he had just a moment ago.
Well, that was… haunting. But it lined up with the preliminary autopsy reports he’d received. The Nomu had several different people’s DNA in it. It was human, at one point at least, but whether or not it could still be considered a person was above his pay grade.
“Alright, thank you for your statement Midoriya-kun. Please take my card and let me know if you remember anything else,” he said as he clicked off the recording device.
He wanted to thank him for saving not one but two of his friends, he wanted to tell him he did a good job, that many lives would have been lost without his intervention, but it seemed too unprofessional. He needed to keep whatever personal involvement he had in this case to himself. It wasn’t his place to say any of that, and it surely wasn’t his place to praise a child for putting their life on the line.
So, instead, he said, “Get well soon,” with a kind bow before sliding out the door.
He had a thousand questions to ask Toshinori but, until he was added to the case in an official capacity, they were blocked behind confidentialities. So, shutting the door firmly behind himself he pulled him aside
“You keep an eye on that kid, okay?” he said doing his best to convey all of the worries he wasn’t yet permitted to share.
***
A knock on the door roused him from a light doze. He ignored it in hopes that whatever the person wanted wasn’t important enough to wake him but unfortunately, Zashi shook his leg and told him he needed to get up. With a grumble, he opened his eyes to see Detective Tsukauchi standing at the door of his hospital room.
“You’re finally getting that beauty rest you always wanted, Eraser. It’s not paying off…” he poked as he shut the door behind him.
Zashi laughed in a way that communicated that he only begrudgingly found that kind of funny but Shota would have given him the finger if he were able to.
“Is now a bad time?” Tsukauchi asked in a more serious tone.
“Yes.”
“No.”
He and Zashi replied at the same time respectively.
Tsukauchi snorted out a laugh at that.
“Seriously?” he asked to clarify.
“No, now is fine,” Shota relented.
Tsukauchi glanced at Zashi and then back to him in silent question.
“He can stay if that’s alright,” Shota answered.
“Yeah, that’s fine. You both know my quirk, I’m ready to start when you are,” the detective said, flashing his audio recorder as he pulled up a chair.
Shota nodded to him to say he was ready as well and Tsukauchi clicked on the recorder.
“This is Detective Tsukauchi interviewing Pro Heroes Eraserhead and Present Mic. Eraser, please recount the events that took place yesterday at the USJ to the best of your ability,” Tsukauchi prompted.
Shota told him about the lights flickering and the fountain sputtering, he told him about the portal opening and how he charged into the fray, leaving Thirteen to evacuate the students. He told him how the villains he met on the outskirts of the plaza were uncoordinated street thugs at best, but he faltered when he got to the point where he made his way to the center of the facility. He had told Hizashi what had happened briefly, but he hadn’t been forced to relive it in excruciating detail yet, though he was sure the nightmares would come in due time.
He thought about how he was convinced he would never see Hizashi again, he thought about the time years and years ago when he had gotten shot and woken up in the hospital to Zashi crying over him, he thought about how he was so sure he wasn’t going to be able to wake up and comfort them this time. He thought about how he pictured his husband weeping as he forced himself into a stuffy suit to stand at his graveside. He thought about dead kids and the clickbait headlines he was sure that his students would be reduced to and he thought about the horrible guttural scream of pain he had heard at some point when he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
That had been Midoriya, hadn’t it?
“Sho, baby?” Hizashi’s quiet voice cut through the fog in his mind.
He looked up at him blinking stupidly for a moment and was grateful when tears didn’t fall down his cheeks.
“Sorry, One of the two men in the center of the plaza had a disintegration quirk,” he continued, ignoring the look on the detective’s face, “I think it was touch-activated. He grabbed my elbow but I canceled his quirk quickly and got away. After that, everything gets a little hazy. I think the big guy grabbed me and tried to break my skull…” he trailed off again for a moment remembering the white-hot pain of his arms being crushed and his face splitting open on the pavement.
“Yeah, it– er he, um, he smashed my face into the ground and broke my arms. That’s when Midoriya showed up. I know he talked to the smaller guy and I tried to tell him to get out of there, but obviously, he didn’t. He got that thin– the bigger guy off of me somehow but I was in and out of it at that point, I think the smaller guy came after me again at some point but I don’t really know. The next thing I remember is Midoriya shaking me awake after All Might showed up, then some other students joined us, it was Shinso and someone else… it was…” he trailed off trying his best to remember who it had been but he couldn’t, “I don’t remember but there was someone else there too. Midoriya helped them with first aid for me until he punctured his own lung and H– Present Mic showed up shortly after that,” he concluded quickly, just wanting the interview to be over now.
Tsukauchi was quiet for a moment, surely looking at him with the same look of pity he had been before but Shota refused to meet his eyes.
“Alright, thank you Eraser. I got the rest of the statement from Present Mic yesterday. Let me know if you remember anything else,” he said, clicking the recorder off and sliding it into his pocket as he stood.
“I haven’t heard from Ivy, I assume you’ve contacted them?” he asked before heading for the door.
“Yes, Zashi texted them before I even woke up,” Shota answered, grateful for the change in subject.
“Good… that’s good. Get well soon Aizawa,” he said sincerely before leaving and shutting the door behind himself quietly.
“You okay Sho?” Zashi asked him gently after the sound of the detective’s footsteps faded down the hallway.
“I’m as good as could be expected,” he answered.
“Do you want to talk about it?” they asked.
“No,” Shota replied a touch too readily.
Hizashi hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
“Do you think you should?”
“Probably,” he answered honestly, but he didn’t offer anything else.
Notes:
Izu when Tsuka walked in: 👁️👄👁️💧 can I not have a moment's respite?
poor baby can't catch gd break (says the person in complete control of whether or not Izu does or doesn't catch a gd break)
Chapter 109: Intervention
Notes:
Angst time baby, bc we haven't had enough of that, have we?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Toshinori sat with Midoriya as the doctor ran through the discharge papers with him. He paid attention dutifully taking in everything that was said but in the back of his mind, he couldn’t shut down the thought that this was not his job. Don’t get him wrong, he was glad to be here for the boy, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t his father. This happening once was concerning enough, but twice? Something had to be done. A wellness check of the house, a conference with his mother, something . He would settle for a phone call at this point.
He was lost in his thoughts as he helped the boy up; he insisted on changing on his own and Toshinori let him, but he didn’t leave arm’s length once he exited the bathroom all the way until he was loaded into the passenger seat of his truck. The last of the sun’s light was making its way past the horizon as he pulled out of the hospital’s parking garage and he couldn’t stop glancing over at Midoriya like he would disappear if he let him out of his sight for too long. He wished he could just take him home with him, but again, he wasn’t his father, plus he could tell he was getting annoyed with his hovering, which made sense if he was used to such a negligent mother.
He knew he didn’t have the tact to have this conversation but who else was there? He was the closest to the situation and the questions were burning his tongue the longer he kept them in.
“How often is your mother home, my boy?” he asked as gently as he could.
The boy’s already stiff posture hardened even further at his question.
“It, um, it d-depends on where she’s contracted,” he replied.
“Meaning?”
“Well if she’s on c-contract with a hospital in a reasonable commuting distance then she’ll, uh, she’ll b-be home between shifts but if she’s on contract somewhere f-further away then the agency pays for a h-hotel and she stays there,” he explained.
“For how long?”
“D-depends on the contract.”
“How long do contracts tend to be?”
“Anywhere from a f-few weeks to, um, to a m-month but…” he trailed off for a moment and picked at his cuticles before continuing, “s-sometimes they renew the c-contract.”
“So your mother is gone for months at a time?” he clarified as calmly as he could manage.
“Sometimes, yeah,” he confirmed.
It took a considerable amount of his strength and several reminders that kidnapping was illegal to not turn the car around and continue on the path to the Midoriya’s.
“How long has she been working on a schedule like this?”
“A few y-years now.”
Toshinori’s grip on the wheel turned his knuckles white. He did his best to push his anger down and not let it color his tone as he spoke.
“I want you to text me when she gets home.”
“I-it’s going to be p-pretty late,” he warned.
“I don’t mind,” he replied with a tight smile.
The car fell into silence for a time before Toshinori broke it.
“I want to speak with her tomorrow,” he said as they came to a stoplight.
He watched as Midoriya fought to keep his expression neutral but he couldn’t cover up the way his face blanched.
“W– um, w-why?” he stuttered out in response.
“She has been concerningly absent, I just want to make sure she understands the severity of the situation. She seems rather, ah, out of touch,” he explained in a much kinder way than he would have liked to.
“I, um, I d-don’t think that’s a g-good idea,” Midoriya replied nervously.
“And I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave a child to raise themselves,” he blurted out before he thought better of it, “Sorry– I’m sorry…” he took a deep breath to calm himself.
The silence stretched on and the light turned green. He had to drive another few blocks before he trusted himself to speak again.
“The school is reaching out to all of the parents, offering counseling, answering questions, the works. I would like to speak to her personally about a few matters as well. I’m not going to go off on her, I just want to talk. She’s left you in the ER twice now Midoriya, that’s a potential case for criminal negligence, this is serious, my boy.”
The passenger’s seat had gone silent and Toshinori glanced over as much as he thought he could get away with. He had his good leg hugged against his chest and he was hiding his face behind his knee. When they were stopped at another red light he noticed the boy’s breathing was deep and steady in a calculated sort of way, like he was trying to calm himself down. He felt awful having been the one to make the boy panic so much but it had to be done, something had to be done.
***
Izuku could see his life crashing down around him in his mind’s eye. He was almost home free, he was so fucking close, goddamnit! He was trying to come up with solutions in his panic-addled mind but nothing was coming forth and he was a hair’s width away from opening the door and just tucking and rolling; not that that would get him very far.
Fucking hell, how was he supposed to get out of this? They were going to find out. He needed to hide all of his Ivy gear, no one could find out about that, it would ruin his life completely. Wait… his gear… his identity-altering gear… he had a voice modulator and a phone in his mother’s name. Kami, this was a crackpot idea but it’s all he could think of. This flimsy ruse wasn’t going to last forever, but maybe he could draw it out long enough to figure out a better solution.
He was grasping at straws, it was only a matter of time before everything came crumbling down.
He was numb as they pulled up to his old apartment building. He didn’t remember how he managed to stop All Might from walking him all the way to his old apartment unit but somehow he did and now he was just standing in the foyer alone and staring off into nothing. He needed to get home.
He hobbled away to the nearest bus stop on his crutches and waited. He was too lost in his own thoughts to register how uncomfortable it was that the armrests kept digging into his armpits or that he kept dragging his cast along the pavement. All he could think about was Ivy. UA was digging too much, they were going to find him out and he couldn’t let Ivy go down with him. Finding out he was homeless was one thing but finding out he was a practicing vigilante was another. That would ruin his career, he would get kicked out of UA, he would never be able to get a license.
If he wanted to be a hero he had to let Ivy go.
As exhausted as he was he didn’t even try to sleep when he got back to the brewery; he grabbed his decrepit old laptop and his voice modulator and got to work tweaking the code that the voice modulator used. He pitched it up rather than down and fiddled around with it until the sun was starting to peak through the blinds.
It still sounded a touch robotic, but he was hoping that over the phone it wouldn’t be too bad. This was an awful idea, but he had no other option. He needed more time to come up with a plausible story to feed Eraser about how Ivy wasn’t going to be around anymore. He had joked that he would have to kill Eraser himself to get him off his back but he was becoming increasingly concerned that that was more true than he would like it to be.
He was too tired to think right now. He needed to sleep quite desperately so he grabbed all three of his stupid phones and set their ringers to max volume before passing out on the couch. He was probably going to wake up to a call from All Might, one that he had barely prepared for, but he was too tired to care about that right now.
***
As expected, Izuku was violently jerked away from his nap by his third phone ringing in his ear. He scrambled up and cleared his throat as best he could before grabbing his mask and throwing it on his face, testing it for a brief second to make sure it was on and functional before he answered the call.
He fumbled the phone in his shaking hands and dropped it to the ground. Biting back the curses that sprang to his mouth he grabbed the phone and brought it to his ear. There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment before he heard All Might’s voice.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” he asked
“Hi, yes, yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?” he asked as he held the phone a solid two feet away from his mouth.
“Not really, you’re a bit muffled,” All Might responded.
Izuku then proceeded to crumple several things against the microphone before setting the phone on the desk and walking about six feet away before asking again, “Is this any better?”
He had to rush back over to the phone to even hear All Might’s response and he just barely caught the tail end of it.
“–actually much worse.”
“Worse? Okay, one second,” he responded again keeping the phone a full arm’s length away from his mouth; he made a few more hopefully heinous sounds by rubbing velcro against the mic and returning the phone back to about two feet away from his mouth, “Is this better?” he asked again.
“Yes, that’s better,” All Might answered shortly, already sounding fed up.
Great great great; time to get berated. As long as he wasn’t questioning the slight robotic tone to his voice then that’s all Izuku cared about.
“Good, good. Uh, what did you say your name was again?”
“Yagi Toshinori, I’m a representative from UA calling about the recent attack on our grounds.”
Interesting, he didn’t introduce himself as All Might; that would have been far more intimidating.
“Good afternoon Yagi-san,” he greeted kindly.
“Afternoon, Midoriya-san. The school is reaching out to the families of all students who had been involved in the attack to let you know we are offering counseling either with our counselors or one of your choosing as well as to answer any questions you may have.”
Well, this was surprisingly cordial. He must be following whatever protocol the school provided, at least for now.
“Oh, thank you, I–I’ll have to speak with Izuku about that; he’s asleep at the moment. But I was wondering– I don’t know how much you can tell me, but how did they get into the facility? I thought UA would have better security, how can you be sure this won’t happen again?” he asked, doing his best to sound like a concerned parent when, in all honesty, he was just curious how they planned to combat such a powerful warping quirk in the future.
“Hm, yes. I can’t get into specifics but they used a combination of quirks to teleport and repress security communications; half of that combination has been apprehended. Nevertheless, principal Nedzu himself is looking into our fail-safe protocols as well as doubling the size of our security team here at UA. We have people working around the clock to get these new measures implemented by the start of next week. This campus will be a veritable fortress by the time students are to return, I can assure you.”
Izuku could see why All Might was the one making this call, he was a master of deflecting questions and reassuring people without really answering anything because of his history with the media. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one calling all of the student's parents.
“Oh, good, that’s– that’s good,” he replied, feigning a healthy amount of hesitance.
“Yes, the student’s well-being is our number one priority, which is why I’m calling you.”
Alright, here it comes…
“Your son was in the hospital for a full 24 hours before we heard back from you and we’re, rightfully, concerned about that. Young Midoriya said it was common for you to be absent for long stretches of time, I’m sure you know how dangerous that can be.”
“Oh– I– well, yes– I see that now… I’m out for work a lot, I’m a travel nurse–”
“Yes, I’m aware,” All Might interrupted.
He sounded angry and Izuku didn’t like it; it was subtle, but Izuku knew his usual tone, he knew how warm it was supposed to be, it had been cold ever since he picked up the phone, but now it was downright frigid. He did his best to remind himself that All Might wasn’t talking to him, not really, but even so, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end the way they did whenever someone yelled at him. This wasn’t the first time All Might had elicited this reaction from him but it was the first time he’d heard him genuinely angry and he didn’t like it. It was stupid, but he didn’t want All Might to be disappointed in him, not in any context.
Well, he was going to have to get over that sooner rather than later anyways. This wasn’t a solution, this was buying time at best.
“Oh, y– okay…” he answered dumbly because, honestly, he didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I’m going to be frank with you, Midoriya-san, the fact that we couldn’t reach you for over 24 hours after your son was hospitalized is a promising start to a criminal negligence case. Your son is only 15, he is a minor. He needs an adult present in his life and if you can’t be that for him other arrangements will need to be made.”
“I know– I– I have a friend check in on him he–”
“That doesn’t help if they’re not there when he needs them to be either,” All Might cut him off, “I understand financial restraints can be tight, but there comes a point when things need to be more important than money. There is no shortage of nursing jobs in Musutafu, I’m aware travel nursing pays handsomely, but it won’t pay back time lost with your family.”
That statement made something in his heart twist painfully. Nothing was going to pay back the time he had spent alone. He didn’t have a family, not anymore, he barely even had one to begin with. The closest relationship he had was with Eraser and he was going to have to give that one up too, or at least give up what it was. He’d still be able to see him every day, but he’s not sure if that was better or worse. Being his student was never going to be the same as whatever he was as Ivy. At least he’d still have All Might… probably. He couldn’t imagine that All Might would drop him for being homeless; he would probably be mad at him for lying but he wouldn’t… Kami, he hopes he won’t leave him.
He must have been lost in his own thoughts for too long because All Might spoke again before he could respond.
“The school would like to set up a conference with you Midoriya-san. We aren’t starting a case against you, but we will if things continue like this. When is your earliest availability?”
Oh, fuck. Earliest availability? He needed time, please, Kami, he just needed a little more time.
“I-I can’t, um, t-this contract ends on, um, the 12th of May and I doubt it will be renewed after I broke it like this. I can only stay with Izu until he’s on his feet again and then I have to get back as soon as possible. I’ll be available to meet in person after the 12th,” Izuku squeaked out and hoped to god that this excuse would work, he needed time.
“That’s several weeks from now Midoriya-san,” All Might pointed out.
“Yes, I know. I– we can’t afford to break the contract completely. It doesn’t just affect me, it will affect the agency’s standing as well. I know, I– I know I need to be home, but I won’t be able to get a new job with a reference like that on my record. Just– just a few more weeks and we can… we’ll figure this out. Things will change, they’re going to have to,” Izuku didn’t have to fake the emotion in his voice for that; things were going to change and he was terrified.
He heard All Might let out an exasperated sigh on the other end of the line before he spoke, “Alright, May 12th, we’ll expect to see you. I’ll discuss the time and location with the principal and get back to you with the specifics. Have a nice day, Midoriya-san,” he dismissed without any of his usual kindness.
“Y-yes, you too Yagi-san,” Izuku replied and the line went dead before he could hang up.
Okay… that– that worked. All that was left to do now was figure out how to end Ivy’s career…
He sat on the couch and stared at his gear folded up under the corkboard filled with names and knives; he couldn’t stop the tears from coming no matter how hard he tried. Nearly four years of his life; he’d been protecting this hell hole for four fucking years, this district had been his home for four years, and it was slipping through his fingers. He had no clue what the future had in store for him and he was so fucking scared, all he could do was hold a bundled-up ratty blanket to his chest and sob.
Notes:
Help I don't want to write the sports festival someone please kill me. My best idea I think happened in another fic I read but I only just realized that after mapping everything out... so now ima have to go back and re-read that to make sure I'm not just ripping off that fic lmao hahahahahah
*skips arc entirely* (I'm kidding it is narratively a very important arc for the future of this fic haha but AHHHHHHHHH I do not care)
side note: it doesn't make any sense for Aizawa to be commentating on the sports festival if he's an underground hero right? like publicity is not gonna be good for him so idk how I'm gonna logic my way around that one but we'll see.
Chapter 110: Beginning of the End
Notes:
CW:
mentions of blood, gore, and murder
PTSD flashbacks/nightmares(the chapter title is in reference to Ivy's career not this fic don't freak out)
I made a Discord:
https://discord.gg/pBZrZufUH4
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Kohaku had never driven so recklessly in her life but she made it to UA’s campus in what must have been record time. When she got there Hitoshi was sitting with a few of his classmates and teachers on the front steps. His hair was wet and he was shoulder to shoulder with a green-haired girl as they both stared off into nothing.
“Toshi!” she cried out as she ran to him.
Her son and the other kid next to him looked up to her, both of them were radiating the same muted fear and violent nothingness, it was a feeling she hadn’t felt since she’d last seen Midoriya and the thought made her sick with worry for both of them.
“Toshi, you’re alright? You’re not hurt?” she asked even though she could see that he was physically fine.
“Yeah, mom, I’m fine,” he confirmed.
“Oh, thank Kami,” she breathed out as she knelt down and pulled him to her chest.
The kid next to him was looking at the two of them, but Kohaku didn’t know her. Hitoshi hadn’t spoken about school at all, he’d hardly spoken to her altogether since the term started but the girl looked so lost, so Kohaku grabbed her hand gently.
“Are you alright sweetheart?” she asked.
The girl looked at Hitoshi and then back to her before nodding.
“That’s good, I’m glad. Are your parents on their way?”
“Yes, they should be here soon, kero,” the girl replied.
“Good, Toshi and I will stay here with you until they show up. I’m his mom, you can call me Shinso or Kohaku, whichever is easier for you, I don’t mind either way,” she introduced herself.
“Tsu,” the girl stated plainly.
Kohaku assumed that must be her name. She sat on the step below them leaning her side against Toshi’s shins and using his lap as an armrest while she kept her other hand loosely grasped around Tsu’s.
“It’s nice to meet you, Tsu,” she said kindly.
Neither of them seemed ready to talk yet, everyone around her was so tense and scared or angry and it was suffocating. These kids were so afraid; there was a girl on the other side of the steps clinging to a taller boy and crying her eyes out while he held her with the same blank expression Tsu and Toshi had on their faces. She knew she probably shouldn’t, she knew it was technically illegal but she couldn’t just sit by while everyone suffered. She didn’t change what anyone was feeling, but she let herself exude a warm and radiant sense of calm. It was something she used to do to help Toshi when he had nightmares. It didn’t stop any of the feelings from happening, it just put a warm blanket over the top of them, a gentle reminder that it hurt now but it would be okay again eventually.
She felt Toshi’s tension lessen and saw Tsu’s shoulders drop. The overpowering negative cloud of emotion that emanated from everyone around her turned into a light fog. She felt like she could breathe again and so did everyone else. She was worried that someone would notice but no one besides Toshi seemed to pay her any mind.
The girl on the other side of the stairs stopped crying around the same time Tsu’s parents showed up and Kohaku bid her farewell so that she could go to them. Reluctantly, she left the crowd of traumatized kids to deal with their emotions on their own and ushered Toshi into the passenger seat of her car. He shut the door and buckled himself in but he still didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything until she parked the car outside their house and looked over to him when he didn’t make any move to unbuckle himself or leave the car. She was about to ask but Toshi beat her to it.
“Midoriya’s in my class,” he stated plainly.
Of all the things she had been expecting to hear, that wasn’t one of them.
“What?” she asked more as a statement of confusion than a real question.
“He might be dead,” Hitoshi continued, seeing the non-question for what it was.
“WHAT?!” she asked again.
“His lung was punctured and his leg was crushed and his arm was broken and he was coughing up blood and I don’t know if he got to the hospital in time,” he elaborated.
For the first time since she saw him, his blank expression faltered. His lip trembled as tears started to stream down his face. He wasn’t kidding, was he? This wasn’t a joke. Kohaku’s heart dropped to her stomach.
“He never left Japan, he lied to us, and I was so angry, but what if he doesn’t make it? What if he dies and I never get to–” he cut himself off with a sob as he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
She was so stunned she didn’t even react to her son breaking down for a few seconds, but after the third heaving cry forced its way out of his lungs she pulled herself together and leaned over the center console to awkwardly hold him. She petted his still-damp hair as she frantically tried to figure out how to respond.
“Recovery Girl must have been there, right? He’ll be okay,” she tried to reassure.
“T-they took him in an ambulance,” Hitoshi forced out around his sobs as he shook his head.
“The hospital isn’t far from UA Toshi, he’s probably fine,” she said, reassuring herself as much as she was reassuring her son.
She felt sick, Kohaku loved that kid like he were her own and she’d missed him desperately over the past year but he’d never reached out. She wasn’t only worried about what was happening in the hospital, she was worried about whatever made him lie to them in the first place. If he never left Japan then why did he leave them? He certainly didn’t want to, she could feel that clear as day, she remembered his remorse with awful clarity. What forced him to make that decision?
She had half a mind to start the car up again and head to the hospital but she knew they wouldn’t let them see him. They weren’t related and, on paper, there wasn’t any proof they even knew each other. She was sure journalists and news reporters would be feeding the poor hospital staff that same story trying to get information on the status of the teachers and students like they always did whenever a hero got hurt in the line of duty. She couldn’t help Midoriya right now but she could help Hitoshi.
“Let’s get inside, I’m sure it will be on the news before the end of the night. You still have his number, don’t you? Why don’t you text him?” she offered but Hitoshi just shook his head as he cried.
It hurt to let go of him but she had to. She got out of the car and quickly went over to Hitoshi’s side, unbuckled him, and coaxed him out of his seat. He didn’t even look up as she guided him inside, she didn’t bother with their shoes and led Hitoshi to sit on the couch before she started pulling at his laces. Her vision was getting blurry with tears but she ignored it. She set their shoes off to the side and pulled a blanket around them before flipping the TV on to the news channel and set the volume so low that they could barely hear it. It was loud enough to hear updates but not loud enough to force their attention on it.
They’d have to report on it eventually. News of the attack had already been broadcast and the public wasn’t going to rest until the status of the students and teachers was released. Kohaku wasn’t going to rest until then, that was for sure.
***
Katsuki was running into the central plaza to help All Might fight that thing when he did something he’d never done before, he froze. All Might looked to be struggling against the creature until he grabbed it by the weird beak that it had and pulled a knife out of it’s exposed brain before plunging it back in over and over and over again. The awful shrieks the beast let out were damn near deafening and all he could think as he watched the symbol of peace brutally murder someone, or rather, something right in front of him was, ‘that was Deku’s knife.’
He had heard screaming earlier before they had made their way into the open, before he had a proper view of the plaza, but that couldn’t have been… no that wasn’t…
His denials were cut off by that same scream echoing out from the outer border of the plaza. Deku was on the ground next to Hobo-sensei and they were both covered in blood. He could tell Deku’s leg was broken even from the distance he was at but he was still trying to get up while Troll Doll held him back. He couldn’t tell what he was saying from so far away but it sounded like he was pleading, he sounded desperate and all Katsuki could do was watch as he went limp and paramedics wheeled his lifeless form away.
Was he… he couldn’t… he…
He didn’t know how long he stood there frozen before Shitty Hair gently laid a hand on his shoulder. Katsuki reflexively wrenched himself out of his grasp and scowled. When he aimed a sharp look at him his mouth was moving but Katsuki had no clue what he was saying. It occurred to him that he wasn’t really aware of anything that was going on around him and he didn’t like that so he did his best to focus on figuring out what Shitty Hair was trying to say.
“…kugo, can you hear me? Are you alright?”
He finally managed to parce out and once he did it felt like the world fell back into clarity. Everything was so fucking loud and he didn’t realize how quiet it had all been just a second ago.
“Let’s get you boys out of here,” Recovery Girl said with a kind smile.
Katsuki damn near jumped out of his skin at that. He hadn’t realized she was even there with her height bringing her just out of his normal field of vision. When did she get here? How did he not notice her? She wasn’t exactly fast, it’s not like she could creep up on them. He looked back over to Shitty Hair and the look on his face told him that his flinch didn’t go unnoticed, he was looking at him with concern that he didn’t seem to be trying to conceal at all and it pissed him off. He was fine! He was fine. He didn’t need anyone’s goddamn concern.
He shouldered past the other boy and started making his way back to the enterance. He didn’t have to stick around and deal with those two.
***
Shuddering sobs had been forcing themselves through her battered lungs for what felt like hours as Iida held her on the front steps of UA’s main campus. She had seen Thirteen, Aizawa-sensei, and Midoriya as they were whisked away to ambulances. All three of them were so still and lifeless and she couldn’t erase the thought of how bright red the blood had looked against Midoriya’s pale skin; specks of it were mixed with the freckles on his cheeks and a steady stream of if leaked out of the corner of his mouth with the wheezing breaths she could hear him struggle to take in.
She had finally started to calm down when alarms started blaring for a second before quickly being shut off. She looked up with her heart in her stomach expecting the worst, but it was a hero that had bust through the front gates and none of the teachers around them looked panicked, just slightly annoyed as they shut off the alarm.
Inginium, a hero from Hosu was shooting straight toward her and she didn’t even have the time to flinch before he wrapped both her and Iida in a hug.
“Tenya!” he cried as he held them.
“Tensei, I’m alright. You’re scaring her,” Iida chastised.
It was the first time she had heard him speak since they met back up at central campus.
“Sorry, sorry,” Inginium replied as he pulled back.
He rested one hand on either of their shoulders and looked between them for a moment before releasing them to remove his helmet. The face that was revealed looked awfully familiar and Ochacco felt kind of stupid for not realizing who this was when he essentially had the same quirk as Iida.
“I’m Tensei Iida, you must be Uraraka. You can call me Tensei or Ten or Iida-ten otherwise this is gonna get confusing. I’m Tenya’s brother,” the elder Iida introduced himself with a kind and apologetic smile.
She looked between the two of them dumbly and she felt more tears start to brim in her eyes despite herself. She felt Iida’s tension release the second his brother had come into view, but her parents wouldn’t be able to get here until tomorrow moring at the earliest. She didn’t want to be alone and Iida’s brother was about to take him away.
“Hey, hey. It’s alright,” the hero tried to soothe as he grabbed her hand gently.
She just shook her head and buried her face in Iida’s shoulder again. He couldn’t leave her here.
“Uraraka, I’m not going anywhere,” Iida reassured her as he brought his hand back up to the space between her shoulder blades.
She wondered if she had said that out loud or if she was just that obvious. Either way she felt relief wash over her. She knew it was a lie, Iida was going to have to leave eventually, she couldn’t keep him hostage here forever, but going back to her empty little studio apartment that could be more aptly described as a glorified broom closet by herself right now was the absolute last thing she wanted. Thirteen’s blood was still under her nails and she couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone to scrub them raw until her own blood replaced it.
“Do you know when your family is going to get here, Uraraka?” Inginium asked after she’d managed to pry her face away from where she’d hidden it.
The question made her want to go right back.
“Her parents live in the south, I can’t imagine they’ll make it here before tomorrow morning,” Iida thankfully answered for her.
“Does she live alone?” Inginium asked Iida.
She was grateful that he didn’t expect her to talk and she was even more grateful that Iida didn’t have to see the things she saw. If they were both in the same state right now she couldn’t imagine this interaction would be going as smoothly.
“Yes, she rooms in a nearby hostel,” Iida answered.
She looked between the two of them as they appeared to be having a conversation comprised entirely of eyebrow raises and head nods before they both shifted their attention back on to her.
“Do you want to stay with our family until your parents make it to town? We have plenty of room in our house, it’s only a half hour east of here,” Iida offered.
It was all she could do to not burst into tears again as she nodded readily before Iida even fully finished his sentence. She was too grateful to put into words. She wouldn’t be alone, she wouldn’t have to curse herself all night for not having gotten Midoriya’s number yet. Kami, she thought she would have more time, she thought he would have more time– No! She would have more time, they both would. All three of them would. She wasn’t going to be alone tonight and she wasn’t going to be alone at lunch whenever classes reconvened. All three of them would be there together just as they had been for the past few days.
Everything was going to be alright, it had to be.
***
Izuku was under strict orders from Recovery Girl to not overwork himself and he was doing his best to heed that command, but he felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. He’d gotten the cast off his leg but his whole body still hurt, he couldn’t get comfortable no matter how he positioned himself. He couldn’t sleep either, well, he could, but he always woke up screaming. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Eraser’s face shattered on the concrete or All Might’s skeletal form torn apart by the Nomu or Shinso and Asui floating in the lake as the water turned red around them. He’d hardly been able to eat and what he did manage to stomach felt like lead going down.
More than once he caught himself staring at the corkboard as tears fell unbidden from his eyes. He had just over three weeks before the jig was up and that more than any of the gruesome scenes that unfolded behind his eyelids is what had bile churning in his gut.
Izuku had been texting Eraser as much as he thought he could get away with. He said he’d gotten his casts off too and he was back home but he hadn’t been cleared for patrol and likely wouldn’t be for at least another week. He worried about what had become of Uptown in their absence, he worried what would become of Uptown in three weeks time. He’d poured his blood, sweat, and tears into this city for four years, he’d dedicated his life to it; this was his city, these were his people, and he was just going to leave them for dead.
Every time he’d thought he’d run out of tears to shed he proved himself wrong. He’d been crying his eyes out for three days now and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. He’d made a plan at least. He was going to tell Eraser that he’d gotten into one of the internship programs he’d told them about, he was going to tell him that they were on track to becoming a real hero and they needed to hang up their metaphorical cape before they got caught. Eraser would never have believed them if they said they were just going to stop or that they were moving away, he knew them too well to think they’d ever give this whole thing up for good. He was going to tell him that he’d see them when they got their license and hope to god that he’d be able to pick up where they’d left off three years later. He would tell him one day, after he graduated he would tell him the truth because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing him after everything they’d been through.
After he did that, he was going to hide or destroy all of his gear, eradicate any bit of physical evidence that Ivy ever existed and he was going to show up to the “parent-teacher conference” and tell them the truth, or at least part of it. He would look All Might in the eye and tell him that he had been lying to him the whole time and hope to god that he forgave him.
He’d probably end up in the foster system and the thought of that terrified him. A stranger’s home could never be his, he would be a guest at best but more likely than not he would spend the next three years feeling like an intruder, and that was if he was lucky enough to be placed in a good home.
This part of his life was over. He felt like an idiot for thinking he could keep up this charade for three years. Every time he opened his eyes he saw what he was about to lose and every time he closed them he saw what he had been so close to losing. It was torture and as much as he didn’t want to face his peers tomorrow, he couldn’t bear to stay here like this.
Notes:
thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments on the last chapter! y'all really popped off.
Chapter 111: Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming!
Notes:
⚠️ I MADE A DISCORD FOR THIS FIC ⚠️
come join us in the chaos:
https://discord.gg/qTbKscBshD
I'll put a hyperlink in the body of the fic 👇CW:
mentions of blood and gore
PTSD symptoms⚠️ I am shifting my upload schedule again ⚠️
Expect uploads every Wednesday, if something changes I will put it at the end of the summary of the fic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was psyching himself up gearing to walk into the classroom slightly sooner than he normally did to give his classmates time to question him, but not too much time before they would be cut off by the bell and forced to leave him alone. It seemed as though he wasn’t the only one with that idea though as when he turned the corner he saw Eraser starting toward the classroom from the other direction. He had a new scar under his right eye and he looked more exhausted than usual but otherwise, he seemed normal, like he hadn’t been milliseconds from death just a few days ago. Izuku’s steps faltered and he found himself staring at the scar on his cheek despite himself.
“You alright, kid?” Eraser asked.
Despite his calm tone and low volume Izuku flinched slightly. There was a stillness to the moment that he had been completely lost in.
“Y-yes sir,” he answered quickly, averting his gaze.
“Mic said that word traveled fast, everyone’s been asking about us. I imagine we’re about to be swarmed,” Eraser warned.
“Yeah, I f-figured,” Izuku replied.
“You ready?”
“No,” he answered honestly.
“Me neither,” Eraser shot back with a small sigh as he opened the door and strode into the room like he would any other day.
The class went silent and then erupted into a cacophony of questions. Izuku expected that; what he didn’t expect was Uraraka running over and barreling into his chest at full speed. His battered bones protested the harsh treatment but he was too shocked to do anything but return the embrace.
“Quiet!” Eraser ordered and the class obeyed without question, “Both Midoriya and I are fine, we will make full recoveries with no lasting issues. You have five minutes to ask questions, all of which are to be directed at me, not Midoriya. Everyone return to your seats, raise your hand, and wait to be called on. If anyone speaks out of turn I will not be answering anything.”
Uraraka took a second to pull back and look him over, verifying that he was in fact there and was in fact in one piece before she relented and followed Eraser’s directions. Izuku also made his way to his seat, doing his best to hide the fact that he was still favoring his left leg. As he went to sit Shinso’s eyes caught his; his expression was neutral, not the scowl Izuku had quickly grown accustomed to, but he didn’t have time to analyze that before the class started their interrogation.
“Is All Might okay? He hasn’t been out since the attack,” Sero asked once he was called on.
“Yes, All Might is fine. He’s been working closely with the school to improve security which is why he hasn’t been out,” Eraser answered readily.
“Kaminari,” he called on the next student.
“My mom said she talked to someone from UA and they said they didn’t catch everyone, is that true, did they get away?” he asked.
“Yes, that is true. Two of the perpetrators got away, that being said, please don’t go spreading that around. Rumors are one thing but we don’t want to incite mass panic with confirmation from a first-hand source. UA made a statement the day of, if it wasn’t stated there then assume it’s still confidential. We can’t stop you from talking with councilors or your family about what happened, in fact, we encourage that you do, but don’t speak with the press or post about it on social media. If anyone on campus pressures you for information, please let me or another staff member know and we will take care of it. That goes for everyone in this room as well, I don’t want to hear that you’ve been pressuring your classmates for their side of the story. If you want to share what happened to you that’s fine, but you aren’t owed someone else’s experience.”
For someone supposedly not ready for this, he was doing a remarkably good job at handling everything. He paused for a moment and waited for the next person to raise their hand.
“Ashido.”
“I know you said you’re fine– I didn’t see what happened but I heard– I mean we’ve been talking and it sounded like–” she glanced over to Izuku for a brief moment before returning her focus to the front, “Um… are you sure you’re okay?” she finally stumbled through her actual question.
“Yes, Ashido. I’m fine,” he said a little more gently than his usual tone.
Izuku could swear he saw the barest hint of a grin on his face, what a softie.
“Kirishima,” he called on the next hand up
Kirishima hesitated before speaking up nervously and with none of the warmth or excitement his tone usually held.
“That thing… in the plaza… was it human?” he asked.
Eraser took a deep breath and scrubbed at his face before answering that.
“No, I don't think so,” he decided.
“…You don’t think so?” Kirishima repeated, pushing him to elaborate on that answer.
“Well, aside from the philosophical debate as to what it means to be human, the autopsy has not been completed. There were preliminary findings, but I am not allowed to disclose them as they are still confidential,” he explained.
Amid all his panic Izuku had been wondering what that thing was too. Shigaraki had said it was bioengineered, did it used to be a person, or several people even? Were their quirks harvested and grafted onto a base like limbs on a tree? He didn’t know for sure, but he did know that it wasn’t human, not anymore at least. Looking into it’s eyes answered that question for him. It was far from human, it didn’t have a soul, it didn’t even have the warmth that an animal might have. Izuku wasn’t even sure if it could be considered alive; It was too cold, like a computer that had taken over flesh. It didn’t have feelings, there was no emotion behind it.
No, that thing certainly was not human.
Izuku was pulled from his thoughts by the entire class bursting out into questions again and it startled him enough to jump slightly. Looking around and listening to what everyone was saying he surmised that Eraser had just announced that the sports festival was still going to be held as scheduled. That sounded like a bad idea and he instinctively turned to Eraser to guage how he felt about it but he was already looking at Izuku.
Oh shit, he probably saw him staring off into space like he was having war flashbacks, which to be fair, he kind of was, but that was neither here nor there. He cocked an eyebrow up almost inperceptively in silent question and Izuku nodded back confirming he was fine before he thought better of it. That wasn’t a normal interaction between two people who supposedly barely knew each other and he hoped Eraser didn’t look too far into it.
“Quiet!” Eraser reined in the class again, “It is out of my hands, but rest assured that security will be more stringent than ever. We will have over twice the police presence as we normally do and pros will be patrolling the entire campus as well. No one is going to be stupid enough to pull something when a quarter of the country’s defenses are breathing down their necks. That being said, if you don’t want to participate, come talk to me during my office hours and we will work out an alternative assignment, you will not be penalized for not participating, at least not academically. Your internship opportunities will be more sparse than they might have been but you will still be offered some sort of internship whether from the list of pros who open internships to all UA hero students or with a member of our faculty. If that interests you we can go more in-depth on it on a case-by-case basis. Understood?”
He waited for the class to nod or verbally confirm their understanding before he continued.
“Alright, I will take questions by raised hand only,” he threatened.
The rest of the morning’s classes went by without incident though it felt like Mic never took their eyes off of him for more than a second. He wished they would stop but, honestly, he couldn’t blame them. Looking back on it from their perspective, it was probably a bit disturbing to see someone with two visibly broken limbs coughing up blood, thrashing around, and screaming like a lunatic. Yeah, he would be pretty concerned about him too… It felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders when they finally left though.
He was dreading lunch but, as it was wont to do, the clock kept ticking and as Ectoplasm left the room dismissing them to the cafeteria he felt half the class’s attention shift to him. He ignored them and busied himself with packing up his backpack at a snail’s pace hoping that everyone would just leave him alone. Shinso and Bakugo among others didn’t wait up to try and talk to him which was to be expected, but it felt like those who remained were watching him like he was prey.
Iida and Uraraka placed themselves in between him and the rest of the room as they chatted and Izuku couldn’t have been more grateful. He didn’t know who all had seen what he’d done, he sent a knife into that thing’s brain before he was even sure it wasn’t human and he didn’t want to know what his classmates would think of him once they knew that. Shinso already hated him and Asui, well, Asui he didn’t know about, but she seemed more logic-based than most, she probably… hopefully would understand that he did what needed to be done. As for everyone else, he wasn’t so sure. They seemed wary of him but he didn’t know if that was because of Eraser’s implied threats or because they knew what he did. He very much hoped it was the former but teenagers weren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut; word was bound to travel eventually.
Twenty or so minutes into lunch the painfully awkward silence was starting to get to him.
“J-just ask your questions,” he said looking between Uraraka and Iida.
“Can I have your phone number?” Uraraka asked without hesitation before doubling back, “I just– I was so worried and I couldn’t– I had no way to–”
“Yeah, that’s f-fine,” he interrupted her rambling as he ripped out a sheet of paper from one of his notebooks, wrote down the digits, and handed it over.
“Thank you,” she said shyly as she entered the number into a flip phone.
Iida was looking back and forth between the two of them and biting his lip. He didn’t know for certain what he was stopping himself from asking but he had a pretty good idea.
“We all would have died if you didn’t go back to campus and get help. Thank you,” he said, forcing himself to maintain eye contact.
Iida’s brow furrowed and he looked back down at his lunch tray. He looked over to Uraraka but she was looking at Iida with obvious concern on her face as well. It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it though and Uraraka turned back to Izuku once she realized that.
“What happ– no you don’t have to tell me what happened– I– you’re okay, right? I know Aizawa-sensei said– but I-I saw you. When they wheeled you out to the ambulance, I saw…” she trailed off and her eyes started to tear up.
“I’m fine, Uraraka. I s-swear. Just some broken bones, a punctured l-lung, and a whole lot of sprains.
“There was so much blood,” she insisted, her voice barely audible and trembling.
“I don’t think most of that was m-mine,” he admitted.
The blood from the Nomu was too dark to be human but against the green of his costume that probably wasn’t obvious at a quick glance and the blood on his hands was Eraser’s for the most part. He didn’t want to explain that though, so he didn’t.
Iida was still quiet but he had a hand settled between Uraraka’s shaking shoulders. He wished they never had to see that, they were too young to be so disillusioned. It wasn’t fair.
“Tsu said you saved Aizawa-sensei,” Uraraka said with a watery smile once she’d pulled herself together.
Izuku’s blood ran cold at that. Asui had seen what he’d done. Had she told Uraraka? Had she told the rest of the class? Kami, he’d already started this year off badly enough he didn’t need a reputation for being a murderer thrown on top of it.
“Um, y-yeah, I, um, I guess… I– yeah…”
Real smooth, he nailed that. Jesus Christ.
“Thank you, for doing that, I mean. I can’t imagine… I don’t even want to think about that,” she said with a humorless laugh as she wiped her eyes.
“Thank you for telling me what I needed to do. I wouldn’t have gone if you weren’t so insistent,” Iida finally spoke up.
Izuku blushed at that. That wasn’t his best moment, he had treated his classmates like they were pros. It was insensitive, but he didn’t have much of a choice; he needed them to listen to him.
“S-sorry I was kinda harsh,” he replied as he looked down at his lunch and poked at it with his chopsticks.
“No, you were right,” Iida insisted, “I thought it too cowardly, I needed someone to give it to me straight. Your actions saved our lives.”
Izuku didn’t know what to say to that. It was true, if he hadn’t done what he’d done people would have died, but it was uncomfortable for it to be pointed out so blatantly. He did what needed to be done and that was that; he didn’t want to be touted as a martyr. He was understanding why Eraser went underground more and more by the day.
“I think that’s enough of… all of that,” Uraraka, blessedly, chimed in, “Do you think you guys are gonna participate in the sports festival?”
“Yes, I understand reservations, but I think it’s important to show that the school is unwavering against the villainy that threatens us,” Iida readily accepted the change in subject.
“Yeah, I was gonna participate too. I don’t want to miss out on a good internship. My whole career could ride on this, you really never know,” Uraraka agreed.
“Yeah, m-me too,” Izuku answered but offered no explanation.
He needed to participate and make a name for himself in the spotlight if he was going to live up to All Might’s reputation, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, good. I was worried everyone was going to drop out and then it wouldn’t be all that much fun, would it?” Uraraka chirped excitedly.
Izuku let the conversation flow between the two of them, tossing in his two cents only when necessary. He was so tired. The pain that still radiated throughout his body told him he was still healing so fatigue was to be expected but he felt tired down to his very soul. He supposed that with recent events that was also to be expected but it didn’t make it any less annoying. He wished he could lie to himself like he always did and delude himself into thinking it would get better, but he knew it wouldn’t. He was living on borrowed time and if he thought he was in the shitter now, well he had another thing coming for him.
***
“Midoriya I want to speak to you after class.”
The words had been echoing in his head ever since Aizawa had stopped him in the hall on his way back from lunch. He’d put the pieces together, hadn’t he? He was going to walk out of that meeting in cuffs or something, he was at least going to be put into the system and kicked out of the school. Kami, he was so fucked, what did it say about him if he was hoping he was just going to be questioned for attempted murder? No one had brought that up yet! Maybe this had nothing to do with Ivy! That was self-defense… kind of… Sure the thing hadn’t attacked him yet but it would have, so throwing a knife into its exposed brain was totally acceptable from a legal standpoint… right?
Fucking hell, he was so boned.
When he walked back into the almost empty classroom he was only slightly relieved to find Eraser was the sole occupant. Not immediately being arrested was good.
Eraser glanced up from the papers he’d been grading.
“Take a seat wherever you’d like, I’ll only be a second,” he instructed before turning his focus back to his work.
Izuku looked around the room awkwardly before taking a seat at his own desk. It didn’t feel right to take someone else’s chair. Eraser did not seem to have the same reservations though as after about a minute he walked over and took Bakugo’s chair, turning it around to face him.
“I haven’t gotten the chance to check in with you, are you doing alright?” he asked.
That wasn’t what Izuku had been expecting. Maybe he was starting off easy on him. Was he trying to lull him into a false sense of security? Because that wasn’t going to work, he hadn’t felt secure since he was four years old and that wasn’t about to change now.
“Y-yes, I’m fine. I’m g-going to make a f-full recovery,” Izuku reminded him.
“That’s not what I meant, though I'm sure you’re still in a hell of a lot of pain, I meant mentally. That was… traumatic to say the least. A kid your age shouldn’t have to deal with that,” he clarified.
Well, he was right about that, but it wasn’t much worse than what he was accustomed to. He was going to have nightmares regardless so how much of a difference did this whole ordeal really make? …a lot, actually, it made a big difference, he was not doing well, but what was bad versus a little worse? It wasn’t anything that he couldn’t handle, the nightmares would subside with time.
“I’ll be f-fine,” he answered.
It wasn’t a lie, per se, he would be fine eventually… probably. He would be much, much worse first, but assuming Eraser really just wanted to have this meeting to see if he was okay and not to out him as a practicing vigilante, then everything could proceed according to plan and he would be fine in a few year’s time.
Eraser studied his face and didn’t look very convinced.
“You aren’t expected to be fine, kid. It’s okay if you’re struggling,” he responded after a moment of silence.
“I know,” he replied, not offering anything beyond that.
He was being too nice and it was putting Izuku on edge. Eraser wasn’t supposed to be nice like this, teachers weren’t supposed to be nice like this.
“What you did was beyond illogical. It was reckless and moronic, it was pure chance that either of us lived,” Eraser stated bluntly.
Ah, there’s the asshole he knew and loved.
“But you saved my life, so thank you. However, if you do something that stupid again I will expel you,” Eraser amended the kind words immediately.
Izuku had to hold back a laugh at that. That was almost verbatim what Mic had said to him in the hospital, sans the calling him a stupid moron bit. It made sense after having been together or at least having been friends for what like fourteen, fifteen years now?
“U-understood,” he peeped out because, honestly, he didn’t doubt the sincerity of that threat given the man’s track record with expulsions.
“Have you made a decision about the sports festival yet?”
Izuku hadn’t expected the subject change, but he answered despite his confusion.
“Y-yes I plan to p-participate,” he confirmed.
“You realize, as the top scorer on the entrance exam, you will be expected to give the opening address,” Eraser asked.
He was sure the color drained from his face or his dread was somehow evident in his expression because Eraser ducked his chin down into his capture scarf the way he always did when he was trying to hide a smile. Sadistic bastard.
“I f-forgot ab-bout that…”
“We could give it to the runner-up,” Eraser offered though he didn’t make it sound like that was really a viable choice.
“W-who would that b-be?” Izuku asked.
“Bakugo,” Eraser answered plainly.
Izuku couldn’t hold back his groan as he buried his face in his hands and Eraser actually let out a snorted laugh. Eraser’s laugh always made him laugh so he was glad his face was already hidden in his hands as he smiled to himself. This was nice, he felt like they were Eraser and Ivy right now, not Izuku and Aizawa. It gave him the barest little bit of hope that he wasn’t about to lose his only friend in a few weeks.
“Don’t stress yourself out too much about it. Keep it short and simple, the less time you have to mess up the better. Think on it for a few days, let yourself heal, and then focus on training. Your performance at the festival is going to be more important than a speech half the viewers are going to miss as they tune in late,” Eraser did his best to assuage his concerns.
That was probably true but that didn’t account for the entire stadium full of people who would be there and, of course, the other half of viewers all across the world who would be tuning in on time. That was easily billions of people. Billions, with a B. As in the number 1,000,000,000 several times over. He couldn’t even conceive of a number that high. Oh, sweet Kami, he would rather be hunted for sport.
“Midoriya, breathe. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Eraser tried to calm him.
“I– n-no I should– I n-need to d-do it. I can d-do it,” he said in the most unconvincing way he possibly could.
“I know you can, but you don’t need to. You have enough on your plate, if this is going to cause you too much stress then it’s not worth it. I can see you’re determined but you can back out at any time. I’m sure Mic would love to have another few minutes to hear himself talk if you back out last second.”
Izuku chuckled at that before he could stop himself and a blush surely graced his cheeks when he shut himself up, but Eraser was wearing a smirk. Why was he acting like this? Like Eraser and not Aizawa-sensei? If he knew who he was he would have said something, wouldn’t he? Or was he just poking fun at him now? He might have jumped the gun thinking Eraser would have him arrested immediately, he realized that now that he wasn’t panicking as much, but toying with him? He would definitely do that. Is that what this was? Was he just messing with him until Izuku broke and revealed who he was and confirmed Eraser’s suspicions? No, if Eraser knew he was a “child” he wouldn’t let him go without looking into his “home” life, he was too fastidious for that. If he knew Ivy was a fifteen-year-old he wouldn’t see them as Ivy anymore, he would see him as a child which is why he had to wait until he graduated, he didn’t want to change what they had. He didn’t want Eraser’s pity.
“Midoriya?” Eraser’s voice brought him back to the present moment.
Christ, he knew he had a problem with spacing out but it had been so bad today. Maybe everything that happened was affecting him more than he thought.
“Y-yes, sorry, I g-got it,” he answered the last thing Eraser had said and hoped he hadn’t missed something.
The look on Eraser’s face told him that either he had missed something or he had been spacing out in silence for entirely too long.
“The school is offering counseling, unlimited and free of charge either with our counselors or your own. Did your mother speak with you about that?” he asked.
Alright, if he missed something apparently it wasn’t important.
“Y-yes, she did,” he lied.
Eraser eyed him critically again and the scrutiny made him uncomfortable. That was his ‘I’m extremely worried about you’ stare and Izuku was painfully familiar with it. It usually preceded one of his mental breakdowns, it was like Eraser had a sixth sense for when he was at his limit and about to lose his mind. He did not like that the ability was not lost on him as his student.
“I’m not a professional counselor by any means, but my door is always open to you as well. This isn’t the type of thing you should try to go through on your own,”
Well, he was probably right about that, but it was exactly the type of thing he had been going through on his own for years and he wasn’t about to stop now.
“I know,” he agreed despite the fact that that was exactly what he was intending to do.
Eraser looked reluctant to dismiss him but he did anyway and Izuku was all too glad to scramble out of the room as quickly as possible.
Notes:
Thanks for reading everybody!
Chapter 112: The Adults Aren’t Alright
Notes:
Is 33 chapters later too late to make a call back to a previous chapter title? Perhaps. Am I doing it anyways? Yes.
The discord is popping off, it's not too late to join! I've got an FAQ and a podfic started there so go check it out. I'm on there daily and would love to hear from y'all. (link at the beginning of the text body below)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hizashi was watching Sho and his kids like a hawk. Only two of them had taken up the school's offer for counseling and he really wished they could have made it mandatory for everyone. He was glad Uraraka and Kirishima were getting the help they needed but neither of them would have been his first pick student to accept the offer. It didn’t do anyone any good to compare trauma, but they hadn’t witnessed the worst of it. They knew Kirishima was one of the students who saw what had happened to the Nomu after All Might showed up. They knew Uraraka had led the charge of administering first aid to Thirteen before paramedics arrived, but neither of them had seen Shota and Midoriya be crushed and thrown around like rag dolls by that monster. They hadn’t been the ones responsible for making sure the rest of their classmates didn’t die.
Sho had spoken to Midoriya but apparently, he hadn’t said a word about what happened, he just insisted he was fine. He was clearly not fine. He sat in class with a glazed-over look in his eyes and flinched at the slightest sounds. Shota hadn’t been much more forthcoming about his experiences either and he was one more vacant stare away from forcibly beating some sense into him. He had been waking up almost every night either thrashing or screaming loud enough to wake Hizashi up and he couldn’t imagine Midoriya was doing any better.
He was losing sleep imagining the poor kid going home to an empty apartment and waking up to no one there to calm him down from his brain’s torment. Yagi had told them that he had spoken to his mother on the phone, that she had been home with the kid for one measly day before she had to go back to work. What a fucking joke. They had a meeting scheduled with her for nearly four weeks from now, her apparent earliest availability.
Shinso and Asui didn’t seem to be doing well either. Shinso’s eyes never left the back of Midoriya’s head for more than a few seconds, and Asui glanced over in the boys' direction every time Midoriya flinched which was incredibly often. The whole class hardly chattered, even the more talkative of the group, whom he had had to reel in quite frequently for the first few days of class, were quiet.
They had been contemplating scheduling an appointment with their own therapist even though they hadn’t been there at all. Not being there at all was traumatic in its own right, they supposed. He could tell the same issue was weighing heavily on Tenya’s shoulders. Tensei had said he’d talked to him about it and he was working through his guilt as best he could, but Hizashi hadn’t spoken to anyone. He would usually talk to Sho, but he was clearly going through his own shit.
“You both look awful,” Nem interrupted his train of thought.
He looked up from the computer screen that he wasn’t really seeing with an unamused expression on his face.
“Thanks, Nem.”
“I’m serious, you look as tired as Sho usually looks and he looks like he’s got one foot in the grave,” she asserted, crossing her arms across her chest, “have either of you been sleeping?”
They looked over to her properly and they could see the genuine concern hidden behind the lighthearted jabs so they let out a heavy sigh and relented.
“No.”
A frown graced her features at his response and she pulled the chair from her desk around to sit next to him.
“Nightmares?” she asked, seeming to already know the answer.
“Yeah,” they confirmed anyway.
“I assume Sho doesn’t want to talk about it?”
They didn’t justify that with a proper response, they just looked at her not bothering to hide the tired expression they wore, and raised their eyebrows as if to say ‘You’re really asking me that?’
“Figures,” she scoffed with no humor, “and you? You haven’t talked to me and clearly haven't talked to him,” she pressed.
She knew them too well, ever the pushy older sister forcing them to get their shit together even all these years later. He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands as he propped his elbows up on his desk.
“I’m… I’ve been better,” he admitted.
She laughed at the understatement before crossing her legs and resting her elbow on Shota’s desk silently telling him that she was here to listen. They looked over the mostly empty teacher’s lounge, only Hound Dog was here with them but they knew he knew how to mind his business, plus they didn’t care if he overheard anything anyways.
“I know it wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t there, but…” he trailed off and let her draw her own conclusions.
“You’re right, it’s not your fault. You did everything you could, we all did. You’re here for him now, aren’t you? No one could reasonably ask any more from you.”
“I just- the kids… I can see it on their faces. They’re not alright either.”
“No one is expecting them to be alright Zash. It’s only been a week. They’ll bounce back,” she insisted, “All you can do is be here for them, and you are. You’re doing everything you can, there’s just nothing for it right now. Nothing but time.”
He knew she was right but that didn’t help the guilt that weighed on his shoulders every time Sho woke up in a cold sweat or Midoriya flinched when they signed something in class a little too enthusiastically. This guilt wasn’t helping anyone, they needed to pull themself together. Yeah, they should schedule an appointment, lead by example and all that. Hopefully, Sho would follow suit.
***
Shota was exhausted. He hadn’t known this kind of exhaustion since the night he had almost lost Ivy which felt like eons ago even though it had only been a little over a year. Emotional exhaustion was a different beast than physical exhaustion. He couldn’t sleep, he had to force himself to eat and he was so sick and tired of feeling his coworker's eyes on him. Something about his stoic demeanor had always been a neon sign begging for playful taunts from his few friends and acquaintances. He’d thought he would be relieved if he could finally go a day without being purposefully annoyed by his colleagues, but now that he had it, it was more infuriating than ever. Tsukauchi was the only one not treating him any differently, but he had hardly seen the man since he wasn’t allowed to patrol. He’d been keeping him updated on the case which he was grateful for. Clinically dissecting the arguably extremely traumatic events he had witnessed probably wasn’t healthy, but it was better than being left to his own thoughts. It was productive at the very least.
A few of his students had come to him to talk about what had happened, but for the most part, they had just wanted to know that he and Midoriya were going to be okay. It was irritating, but he understood. He felt the urge to ask Midoriya if he was okay every time he saw him; and any time he left his classroom it felt like he was leading sheep to slaughter, like his students would be butchered the moment he let them out of his sight. It was irrational, it was illogical, but his heart rate spiked every time first period ended regardless.
He’d been getting messages from Ivy daily telling him to get off his lazy ass and back into uptown. They had told him that they weren’t patrolling without him but he’s not sure he believed that. No one had been called in to Tsukauchi at least, so maybe they were telling the truth. They’d been pestering him for information about the break-in as well, asking if there was anything they should keep an eye out for, any way they could help the investigation and Shota had told them under no uncertain terms that they were not to go sticking their nose into this. There were pros from all over the country on it and he didn’t want them getting wrapped up in the mess; it wasn’t safe.
Tsukauchi and Ivy’s dedication to not pitying him was one of the few things keeping him sane. That and Hizashi’s steady presence; they weren’t trying to pry information out of him, which he was grateful for, but he had a feeling that their patience was wearing thin. He needed to talk to someone, he knew he did, but he had never been very good at that. He was the epitome of a hypocrite; telling his students to seek help but refusing to do so himself. He knew he couldn’t keep going like this, he knew he would feel better if he got a few things off his chest, but that didn’t make it any easier.
***
Toshinori felt weak, well weaker than he usually did. You’d think after five years of this he would be used to getting weaker, but no, he wasn’t. Each time he found that he couldn’t hold his form as long as he used to be able to he was surprised. It was inevitable, he knew it was, he’d always known it was, even before his clash with AFO he knew, or at least he’d hoped this power wouldn’t be going to the grave with him. That didn’t make it any easier to accept.
One hour. He could hold onto the shriveling embers of OFA for one hour a day now. All things considered, it could have been much worse. If Midoriya hadn’t told him to kill that thing he’s not sure that he would have gone to such drastic measures so soon in the fight. He can’t say that he regretted it, he was horrified by what he had done, but he couldn’t regret it. Those kids’ lives were on the line, it wasn’t an option to do things by half measures, but he was correct in his fear that those pained screams would haunt him. He watched that creature as it stopped fighting and went limp, he couldn’t say that he saw the light leave its eyes because it hadn’t been there to begin with, but he’s not sure that that made it any better.
The thought of what had almost happened plagued him more than what he’d done. If he had been just a second too late Aizawa would have certainly died; that man who had him pinned had a touch-based disintegration quirk and his hand was wrapped around Aizawa’s throat, the only reason he wasn’t already dead was because he had been clinging onto consciousness enough to activate his quirk. And Midoriya… God, he didn’t want to think about that, but it was all his brain seemed capable of conjuring. It had been a long, long time since he had felt so powerless; he was All Might! He was supposed to be the one that could save anyone! He knew that wasn’t true, it had never been true, but he had been so close to losing the one person he couldn’t afford to lose. In such a short span of time that boy had become everything to him. In hindsight, it was frightening to see how quickly and thoroughly he had slipped his way through Toshinori’s defenses, he’d spent his whole life trying to push people away before they got too close and this kid had settled himself into his guarded heart effortlessly.
Every time he saw the boy he felt his heart tear a little more. Ever since school had started up again he had been jumpy or at least jumpier than he normally was. He was barred from participating in heroics until he fully healed but he watched his classmates from the sidelines like they would die if they so much as tripped. He shouldn’t be worried about keeping them safe, that wasn’t his job; he was a kid just like the rest of them, he should be thinking about what he was going to do after school and stressing out about class work, not whether or not his peers would live to see tomorrow.
He knew he should talk to him but he didn’t know what to say. He knew exactly how the boy felt, he knew nothing he said was going to change how he was feeling. Maybe it would be better to get his mind off of it? The sports festival was coming up, he should be excited about that! Having something to look forward to always helped him from being bogged down by the past, hopefully, it helped Midoriya too.
***
“Young Midoriya!”
All Might caught him as he was leaving the classroom and he damn near jumped out of his skin.
“Y-yes All Might?”
“A word, if you don’t mind?” he asked a little quieter than he usually did in this form.
“Y-yeah sure. You guys go on without m-me,” he dismissed his, um, friends?
“You sure Midoriya? We can wait and catch the next train together,” Uraraka offered.
“No, it’s f-fine,” he denied the offer quickly.
Both Uraraka and Iida looked between him and All Might for a moment before relenting.
“Let us know when you get home,” Iida insisted.
He had to bite his lip to stop himself from making a face at that. They really cared about him. Why did they care so much?
“Yeah, course,” he answered with a nod, turning to All Might to cut off any more assertions that his friends actually cared about him.
“Sorry, my boy I wanted to catch you before you left and I didn’t get the time to change,” All Might apologized as he pulled the two of them into a meeting room and deflated in a puff of steam.
“It’s alright, um, w-what did you n-need?”
“I haven’t gotten the chance to see you much, I wanted to catch up! I’ll give you a ride home so you don’t have to worry about the train,” he replied with a kind smile.
That smile had his heart rate settling ever so slightly. He hadn’t seen Yagi in over a week, he saw All Might every day, but not Yagi. It was bittersweet to see him smile like that knowing that he was going to be letting him down so soon.
“Oh, t-thanks,” he replied and forced a small smile in return.
“The sports festival is right around the corner, aren’t you excited? Your first chance to show the world what you’re made of!” All Might asked as he busied his hands making tea for the two of them.
Izuku did his best to not let himself look too exasperated by the comment. He was not looking forward to the sports festival, his speech in particular. The competition itself was fine, he supposed, but the more he thought about it the more it sounded like an awful idea. Broadcasting information about a bunch of kids on its own was bad enough, but he himself had gathered information on many heroes’ weaknesses from their sports festival performances. If he could do it then so could someone else and his class already had enough of a target on their heads after thwarting the league’s plan to kill All Might. But if All Might wanted this to be his debut, then it would be his debut. Maybe if he did well enough the audience wouldn’t pay too much attention to his peers, however, it was more than a bit arrogant to think he could steal the show that much. God, this was such a bad idea.
“Y-yeah, I’ve g-got the speech to do, a-all eyes will be on m-me already... s-so that’s good,” he replied, doing his best to not sound like he was forcing the words out despite his stutter.
“Oh, yes! The speech! I’d forgotten about that, how’s it coming along?”
Gah, why did he have to bring up the speech?
“S-slowly,” he replied with a rueful laugh.
“Oh don’t worry so much. Keep it short and sweet, get up there, tell the world who you are, and stand proud, that’s all there is to it,” he dismissed with a smile as he handed Izuku his tea.
That was easy for him to say. Where did All Might get his confidence? He had told him that he’d been quirkless too, hadn’t he? How did he shake that off so easily? He wanted to ask him but it didn’t seem polite so he kept his mouth shut.
“T-thanks,” he said as he took the offered cup.
He wished his last few weeks of freedom didn’t have to be so damn stressful.
***
Students dropping in during his office hours petered out after the first few days. The class hadn’t recovered, not by a long shot, but nearly a week after classes started up again they seemed to have convinced themselves that things were going to be okay. He was sitting at his desk doing his level best to not doze off when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” he stated plainly after clearing his throat.
The door swung open to reveal Shinso and Asui, the two students who had been with him and Midoriya at the end. They had yet to approach him but they had both been keeping a not-so-subtle eye on both him and Midoriya ever since the incident, he had figured it was only a matter of time before they became the 1,000th and 1,001st people to ask him if he was sure he was alright.
He nodded for them to come in and take a seat. Asui shuffled in first and Shinso shut the door behind them before following suit. The two looked at each other nervously before turning their attention back to him.
“What hero agencies are on the list that offer internships to all hero students, kero?” Asui asked.
Oh? No one had come to him asking to not participate in the sports festival. He honestly hadn’t expected anyone to. Most hero students either didn’t have a single bit of self-preservation in their bones or were too arrogant to think they needed to worry about self-preservation to begin with.
“The list is actually quite long, I don’t know it off the top of my head but I could print it out for you. They’re mostly small C-list agencies but there’s still a great deal to be learned from them,” he explained as he typed away on the keyboard looking for the file he needed.
“You said that teachers here are willing to take on internships as well?” Shinso asked.
He looked up from his computer to better gauge his expression, he sounded quite nervous and he looked it too.
“Yes, most teachers have agreed to take on limited internships for those students not interested in competing in the festival,” he confirmed.
Shinso looked at Asui and she raised her eyebrows in a way that said ‘go on’ before he turned back to him.
“Are, um, are you one of the teachers doing that?” Shinso asked while trying to maintain eye contact, but it was shaky at best.
Shota had to bite back a grin at that. His trepidation was cute, not that Shota would ever admit it. He had been planning to offer an internship for both Shinso and Midoriya, one to keep a closer eye on and the other because he thought that he could benefit greatly from learning to use a capture scarf; there wasn’t nearly enough time to teach that one-on-one during class.
“Yes, I am. I assume this is a request,” he replied.
“I, um, yes,” Shinso answered with wide eyes, clearly put off by Shota’s bluntness.
“Request accepted. Do you still want a copy of the list?” he shot back.
He had to bite back another grin when the kid’s eyes went even wider. They looked liable to pop right out of his head. He glanced over to Asui again who was looking back at her classmate with a grin.
“Um– I– No, no thank you,” Shinso sputtered out.
“Good. Saves paper,” he replied, turning his attention back to the file he needed to print.
The room was silent until the printer hummed to life behind him and printed out a single sheet which he handed to Asui.
“You both can still participate if you’d like to, I’ll give you the alternative assignment tomorrow and you can make a decision based on that. No choice is final until the first round of the festival starts so you can think on it as long as you want,” he explained as he sat back down at the desk.
Asui was already going over the list and Shinso looked like he might be about to shit himself if he was being honest. Shota had to chew on the inside of his lip to keep a straight face.
“Anything else?” he asked, throwing the poor kid a rope.
Asui glanced up and shook her head and Shinso sputtered out a “no sir” before they both took their leave.
He had known since before the school year even started that he was going to have his work cut out from him with this lot; no other batch of students had ever been awarded as many rescue points as they had been, nearly across the board. He was expecting the lack of self-preservation to be more egregious than ever so he was pleasantly surprised that at least two of his kids had survival instincts. Two out of twenty could be worse. He was firmly in the camp of his colleagues who thought holding the sports festival was an awful idea, but they were funded by the commission, and what they said was law so the show must go on.
He sincerely hoped that the targets on his student’s backs would not be painted any larger after this was all said and done.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! Next update is gonna be 5/22/24.
Chapter 113: Quit While You're Ahead
Notes:
Wahoo early chapter. I'm gonna upload Friday as well 🎉
The discord is still going strong and I am on there every day so pop in and say hi or ask some questions, link in the body text below 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku had found himself with a lot of time on his hands while he was still on orders to take it easy. No patrol meant an additional 4-8 hours every night for him to not sleep. He had tried to for the first few nights but he gave up quickly. Even without the nightmares, he’s not sure he was capable of sleeping for more than 4 hours at a time, his body wasn’t used to it. He’d come home, do his homework, and pass out for a few hours, wake up in a cold sweat gasping for air that seemed to refuse to fill his lungs, contemplate eating dinner, stress out about his sports festival speech, go back to bed, wake up in a cold sweat, rinse and repeat. He was getting more sleep than he usually did, but it didn’t feel like it; he was so tired.
He had made little to no progress on his speech by the time he was nearly cleared to participate in heroics again. He hadn’t even gotten past the point of what he wanted to talk about much less actually writing the speech. Eraser had told him to get it done while he had time and then focus on training, but, well, so much for that. He felt like an arrogant asshole for not really being all that worried about the actual sports festival, but he had nearly four years of intensive training in the field. He had been both All Might and Eraser’s personal student for a while now, he didn’t think he could feasibly get more prepared than he already was. The speech, however? He was not qualified for that in the slightest.
Thinking about his motivations and why he was doing what he was doing required too much introspection for his comfort, but after waking up screaming loud enough to hurt his throat at nearly 5 am one night, he decided that his mental state was unlikely to get much worse so he might as well try.
Why did he want to be a hero? What did being a hero mean to him? Those were the types of questions he should touch on. This speech was his introduction to the world, this could set the tone for his career, he needed to tell the world he was here like All Might wanted him to and, not only that, but why he was here.
So, what it meant to be a hero, why he wanted to be a hero, and why he was here. He wanted to be a hero to save people, that was obvious, ideally, that's why every hero wanted to be a hero; saying that wasn’t going to set him apart. He wanted to be a hero so no one had to go through what he went through. He wanted to save people like him who never had a hero, but he couldn’t very well say that. He already had the teachers on his ass, he didn’t need them grilling him any more than they already were so he needed to keep himself out of it. He wanted to be a hero for the hopeless, that was good, right? He didn’t have to say he was among the sorry masses left to the wayside by society.
What did it mean to be a hero? To him it meant dedicating yourself to others, it meant stepping in where no one else would, it meant being patient and kind and strong and selfless, it meant standing up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves, people like him who– no. This wasn’t about him or who he used to be, or who he might still be under everything, who he might always be no matter how far he ran from it– Gah!
He was wrong, his mental state could get worse. He couldn’t wait to get back on patrol; he was so sick of himself.
***
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop felt like the air finally returned to his shriveling lungs for the first time in weeks. They were going to show up over half an hour early at this rate but they didn’t care; if they spent another second in the stupid little office that served more as an echo chamber for their own tormenting thoughts than it did as shelter, then they were liable to completely lose their mind. Completely losing their mind while standing on top of a tall building was much more preferable.
They sat on the ledge and looked out over the city while they waited. It didn’t look any different than how they had left it. They had been keeping an ear out as well and hadn’t heard any whispers of anything stirring up in their absence. There had to be something, but at least that something wasn’t big enough for people to be talking about. They let themself get lost in their own thoughts as the minutes ticked by, it was a nice night for it; more pleasant than over-analyzing themself into a downward spiral while it was freezing at the very least.
“Eraser!” they greeted cheerfully as the man in question crested the roof and saved them from their imminent unraveling.
“You miss me?” he shot back sardonically with an eye roll. However, the slight grin on his face betrayed his feigned nonchalance.
“You’re not allowed to die, we’ve been over this at some point, surely,” they half teased.
Even though they saw him every day, they hadn’t gotten the chance to actually express concern. He had seen the way he got agitated toward the end of first period every day, he knew Eraser wasn’t doing well, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“Yes, we have. I was thinking about it but I ended up deciding that I probably shouldn’t,” he shot back dryly.
“No dabbling with death either, didn’t think I needed to be so explicit about the rules,” they amended, stage whispering the last bit.
“Noted,” Eraser replied, hiding a grin in his capture scarf.
He sat down and they ate their dinners like they always did. They knew that Eraser probably noticed them glancing back at him, he could at the very least hear them shuffling if not sense their gaze on him but they couldn’t help it. Their days like this were numbered and they were going to have to tell him that tonight; for now, they could just let him believe that it was because they were worried about whatever had happened at the USJ. They weren’t not worried about that after all, but they were much more worried about losing Ivy and what that would mean for them and Uptown.
The spring air was warm against their skin as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop even as the night progressed. They were doing their best to live in the moment but it was difficult given how much change was currently hanging over their head. Luckily, things around town didn’t seem to have deteriorated too much in their absence. The ladies, however, were not pleased with their disappearing act.
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in,” one of them remarked as they made their way over to walk them home like they normally did at the end of the night.
“Now where the hell have you two been?” Iwai asked, shooting both of them a glare, “We thought you were dead.”
“Nah, just on a romantic getaway vacation,” Ivy shot back.
They didn’t even have the chance to laugh at the disgusted and confused faces each of them pulled at that before Eraser smacked him across the back of the head.
“Ooo you look like you got your shit rocked,” Iwai ignored Ivy as she studied Eraser’s face.
“I think the getaway mighta been to the hospital,” Sakura half teased, she still looked rather concerned.
“We’re both fine, it’s nothing to worry about,” Eraser answered.
“Nothing to worry about my ass! You guys have been out for over a week! Now you come back with your face busted? I’m not buyin’ it,” Sakura argued with her arms crossed over her chest.
“The information is highly classified. We’ve got our fingers in pies you guys have never even heard of, but we showed ‘em what for, right Eraser?” they said in the same way they used to when they’d tell the ladies overly embellished stories of their escapades.
“I bet he tripped down the stairs or somethin’ stupid,” Iwai said, rolling her eyes after Eraser didn’t respond to their prompting.
They shot him a disappointed glare for letting the bit fall flat but he just rolled his eyes as well.
“Come on girls, they aren’t gonna tell us anything. They’re alive and back so let's just go, the wind is gettin’ too cold,” Iwai interrupted the ladies’ chatter after sharing a charged look with Eraser.
What was that about? She seemed to know more than she was letting on. They shot Eraser another look that said ‘What am I missing?’ and he returned a look that said ‘I’ll tell you later’ so they let the matter drop for now.
The ladies lingered at their respective doorways as they walked them home but none of them prodded for more information. Izuku was going to miss them too when all this was said and done. He couldn’t very well hang around with hookers as some random fifteen-year-old boy… that would probably be frowned upon.
He had a few more weeks though, he’d just have to savor them while he could.
“What was going on with Iwai?” they asked as soon as they were alone again.
“I gave her my number back in November when you went MIA so she could let me know if she saw you. She texted me last week asking where we were. She wouldn’t drop it so I told her I’d been hospitalized and you were fine, that’s all she knows,” he replied.
They felt a sharp pang of shame in their chest. He had really been worried about them…
“Got it,” they answered awkwardly.
“We calling it for the night?” he asked them.
They were grateful for the change in subject but unfortunately, they had an even worse subject to bring up before he left.
“Yeah… I just, um, I needed to talk to you about something before you go,” they forced the sentence out of their mouth against their own will.
Eraser stilled and eyed them cautiously. He took a moment to look around before nodding his head for them to follow him up the alley wall and onto the rooftops away from any prying ears. Once they made their way up, he looked back at them with a raised brow.
God, they just had to say it and get it over with.
“I, um, I’m gonna get a license…” they started
They saw how Eraser’s expression brightened at that. He had clearly been expecting terrible news.
“That’s great kid,” he replied with a rare, genuine smile.
The smile didn’t last him long though because he could see the way their tension hadn’t settled. He didn’t say anything, but his face told them that he was ready to hear the bad news now.
“I’ve been pushing it for nearly four years, I can’t afford to get caught now that I actually have the chance to…” they trailed off.
They couldn’t say what they really meant, saying it out loud made it too real. They were living in a delusion and they wanted to stay there as long as they could.
“Oh…” Eraser remarked, seemingly as much at a loss for words as they were.
The two of them stood there in painful silence for what felt like eons before Eraser spoke up again.
“How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know… I don’t want to leave this city– I can’t– I-I don’t know,” they sputtered out a little too honestly, “A week or so just to tie up some loose ends, make sure this place doesn’t fall apart without me.”
Eraser just nodded. He looked sad. It was subtle, but it was an expression he so rarely wore and it twisted their heart painfully.
“I’ll come back,” they insisted, trying to lift the mood, “when this is all said and done, I’ll come back. You can’t get rid of me forever.”
“Yeah, only in my dreams,” he replied in a voice just a touch heavier than his usual monotone.
***
As the two of them said their awkward goodbyes something didn’t sit right with Shota. He should be glad that the kid was ending Ivy’s career like this, it was far better than the alternative, but something niggling at the back of his mind told him that too many similarities were being drawn between Midoriya and Ivy. They were both getting their licenses now, they fought the same way, they looked similar, or at least he thought they did. He’s not sure what Ivy really looked like under that disguise. But they acted completely different, Ivy was loud and crass and Midoriya was timid and painfully polite and that’s not even to mention that Midoriya would have been, what, 12 when Ivy made their debut. That was completely illogical, a 12-year-old would have been dead their first night in these streets doing what Ivy was doing and moreover, Midoriya’s quirk was far too flashy to hide. It was plausible that they were related, it would explain the parallels if Ivy taught him how to fight; it would explain the similar physical appearances as well. Maybe Ivy was inspired to get their license because of Midoriya? Or maybe Shota was looking into this too much. What were the chances that Ivy and Midoriya were related in any way? There had to be some other explanation, surely.
He felt certifiably insane for considering that Midoriya could be Ivy but there were too many coincidences piling up. Either way, he and the entire UA staff were keeping an eye on Midoriya, so he had to trust that they would catch him should he fall. As for Ivy, he had to trust them to take care of themself; he knew he worried about them too much and Hizashi was right, they had made it this far, they weren’t incompetent.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized he was halfway home. As he approached the train station he usually boarded at he let out a sigh. He hadn’t made sure no one was following him; he was going to have to keep an eye out and walk to the next station wasn’t he? That damn kid was such a pain in the ass.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!!
Chapter 114: Round 1
Notes:
CHAPTERS NEXT MONDAY AND FRIDAY
The Discord is still going strong and I'm in there every day so pop in and say hi (link in the body of the chapter 👇)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The week leading up to the sports festival slipped away like sand between his fingers. He knew Eraser had started to notice the way they lingered at the end of patrol every night, but he hadn’t said anything about it yet. Ivy still had a little over a week and it seemed like neither they nor Eraser wanted to waste that time thinking about how little of it they had left, which was probably for the best. Nonetheless, every night that they sat in front of their mirror and scrubbed off their eyeshadow hurt a little more than the last.
The morning of the sports festival was tumultuous. He forced himself to eat a full breakfast even though every bite felt like it was going to force its way back up his throat from the nerves. All Might had told him that this was his chance to tell the world what he was made of, he was going to have billions of eyes on him, he couldn’t mess this up. He’d spent most of his time writing his speech, Iida and Uraraka had invited him to train after school and he probably should have taken them up on the offer, especially to work on his speed with Iida, but his brain had convinced him that if he didn’t spend every waking moment he had staring at the speech he had written out and changing one bit of punctuation back and forth for hours on end, he was going to make a fool of himself on international television. It was stupid, it was a spoken speech, his punctuation didn’t really matter and he had long since passed the point where he was still fiddling around with word choice. The speech was done, it was as good as it was going to get, but he still spent a full four days staring at the page for no reason at all.
The paper he had folded up in his pocket looked like he had been carrying it around for years because he had been nervously unfolding, re-reading it, and re-folding it over and over again even though he already had it memorized. He was doing his best to not slip it out of his pocket for the third time in the last 15 minutes when a boy from his class came up to him.
“Midoriya,” he called his attention up from the speech burning a hole in his pocket.
“Um, y-yeah? T-Todoroki, what's up?” he sputtered out nervously.
With everything that had been going on, he hadn’t had the time to size up most of his classmates, but he knew who the legacy kids were and Todoroki was one of the ones who had gotten in on recommendation; he was Endeavor’s son.
“From an objective standpoint, you and I are the strongest in the class,” he stated bluntly.
Izuku had yet to hear the boy speak unless spoken to and honestly, he had been concerned about that, but he was starting to see why that was the case. He was worse than Eraser, would it kill them to beat around the bush just a little bit?
All he had to say to that was a nonsense string of consonants.
“You have All Might in your corner, don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he continued.
Oh, Kami, the whole class was watching them, the waiting room was dead silent aside from whatever the hell this conversation was. He could only be consumed by panic over so many things at a time.
“W-what, I d-don’t–”
“I’m still going to beat you,” Todoroki cut off his flimsy denials.
“Um…”
He didn’t have a response to that. How was he supposed to respond to that? Why was this of all things what broke Todoroki’s apparent vow of silence? Did his father put him up to this? It’s no secret that Endeavor was not happy sitting in his number two spot for over a decade now, he had beef with All Might and he was not good at hiding it. Izuku had the sneaking suspicion after seeing Todoroki’s ice powers that Endeavor was trying to create progeny for the sole purpose of creating something stronger than he could be, and this was not doing much to assuage his concerns. Did Todoroki even want to be here?
By the time he had put a cap on his internal crisis, Todoroki had already walked away and Kirishima was berating him for his hostility.
One crisis at a time, Izuku. One crisis at a time.
He ignored the class’s reactions and started reciting his speech in his head for the millionth time… a speech that was going to feel a little pointed after Todoroki’s declaration of war… oh, goddamnit. Well, it was too late to change it now.
He squinted against the light of the sun as he made his way onto the field with the rest of his class. Mic was announcing all of the classes, but it was just static in his ears, he was so nervous. He doesn’t think he really took in anything anyone was saying until Midnight called him up for his speech.
“For the student pledge we have IZUKU MIDORIYA!!!” she announced with a dramatic flair.
How the hell did Eraser end up with two of the most dramatic teachers at UA being his closest friends? Whatever, that wasn’t something he needed to concern himself with right now. Right now he needed to focus on walking up the three steps leading up to the stage without tripping. Just one foot in front of the other, super easy, he’s great at using stairs and walking normally on flat surfaces; he’s been doing it for years.
He walked up to the mic without incident and took a deep breath before he grabbed it. It gave out a little shriek of feedback which he cringed at before he brought it toward his face. This was it. He can do this. It’s only four sentences, he’s got this. He steeled his nerves and did his best to maintain a relatively neutral expression as he spoke.
“I am here on behalf of my classmates to say that today may be about competition, but heroics is about cooperation. There are enough things in the world that separate us; age, gender, race, class, quirks or l-lack thereof,” his words caught on that last part, but he continued like nothing had happened, “The list goes on, so I want to focus on what brings us together. No matter who wins, no matter their quirk, gender, or class, is a part of the UA community. I don’t want anyone to lose sight of the fact that we are in this together, that being said, I expect everyone to do their best, to go above and beyond,” he concluded his speech and held the microphone up for the crowd to finish, “PLUS ULTRA!!!”
Oh Kami, oh god, oh fuckshitaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
He did it. He’s done. He is walking down the stairs and he is not tripping over his feet and he’s done. His heart rate was surely visible against his throat if anyone looked closely enough, but aside from that he thinks he did pretty good. At the very least, no one was laughing at him and Mic was already trying to quiet the crowd for Midnight to announce the first round. He had his hands balled into fists in an attempt to hide their shaking when Kirishima slapped him on the back damn near causing him to fall on his face. Sero caught him before he actually fell and everyone was laughing in good nature, or at least he hoped they were, he was still too panicked to understand a word anyone was saying to him so he just smiled and nodded. Uraraka shot him a thumbs up though, so it was probably fine.
***
Midoriya was… peculiar. Shoto had seen him fiddling around with the speech he’d prepared before he had confronted him at all so he didn’t think that it was aimed at him, but there was no way to be sure. He could have changed it last minute as a subtle jab, though his gut told him that wasn’t the case.
Midoriya had been the one on the front lines at the USJ; he had been the one to step up and protect them after their teachers had been taken down. Shoto didn’t know exactly what he had done, but he knew that he had been severely injured. He hadn’t asked anyone, but he couldn’t help but overhear his classmates; Asui had insisted that Aizawa-sensei at the very least would have been dead if not for Midoriya.
Perhaps he had been subconsciously blaming his peer for the beratings he had been receiving at home for not having been on the front lines of the fight as well. He had done his best to be there, but he was too slow and, by the time he had shown up, All Might had… taken care of it. His father wasn’t pleased by that. Shoto had told him as little information as he could get away with, but he couldn’t deny that he was too slow and All Might had been the one to save them all in the end.
The rivalry he had just started between himself and Midoriya reminded him too much of his father’s poor social grace when it came to All Might. They hadn’t even started the festival yet but he already felt like a sore loser. Pride wasn’t something he thought he had a problem with, but as the crowd roared in approval for Midoriya’s speech, he realized maybe he was more like his father than he thought. The idea brought a sour taste to his tongue, one far more bitter than his wounded pride did.
***
Shota was cursing the kid more and more each day for forfeiting his role as class president. That speech was perfect; short and sweet and it painted him in a good light. It showed him as compassionate and thoughtful and he hardly stumbled over his words in the slightest.
“I think you were right about him Sho, poor kid doesn’t know his own worth,” Hizashi remarked after handing announcements over to Nemuri.
“I showed you the battle trials, you know I’m right,” he replied.
“And you’re so humble about it too,” they shot back sardonically, “I’m gonna offer him an internship as well. I wanna keep an eye on him,” they added when he rolled his eyes in response.
“What are the chances he accepts either of us?” he asked in a tone that said he was fully expecting their offers to be denied.
“Probably low. I doubt he’s going to have a lack of choices and he’s already fed up with our prying into his home life if his reaction from the hospital is anything to go by,” Hizashi agreed ruefully.
“The meeting with his mother is before internship choices are due, isn’t it?” he reminded them.
“Exactly. Doubt he’s gonna want anything to do with any of the teachers here after that,” Hizashi agreed again.
“Yagi still seems to be in his good graces,” he pointed out.
Hizashi made a face like he had something to say about that, but he cut himself off and raised his hand signaling for silence as announcements were tossed back to him.
“You kiddos ready to run???” they asked theatrically before the countdown buzzers started to tick down, 3, 2, 1, “BEGIN!!!!”
***
Izuku barely even computed the words “obstacle course” before the starting buzzer sounded and he realized he was at the back of the pack. He heard a cry of alarm start at the front of the crowd in the tunnel start to make its way toward the back, but he couldn’t see what was going on. Due to the fact that he couldn't see the threat, he assumed it had to be below his field of vision; his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the fast-approaching sheet of ice taking hold of everyone’s feet. He jumped on instinct and found himself standing on top of the ice rather than stuck in it but he was still surrounded by a crowd of people who were stuck in place. There was only one path out of here and he felt awful about it.
He pulled himself up by the shoulders of the two people next to him and started using the crowd as stepping stones. He aimed for the sturdiest-looking shoulders and he shot apologies back with each step, but he still felt like a prick. Thankfully, he was out of the tunnel shortly and facing down robots from the entrance exam, which was much more preferable than facing down his peers.
He was ahead of the vast majority of the pack and thus was granted a front-row seat to Todoroki setting off another massive ice attack. The ground shook with it as ice formed around him like an explosion. Crystals tall enough to bury the 150-foot-tall robots formed at his command and frozen air flowed out from where Todoroki stood at the epicenter; it damn near knocked the air out of his lungs. That was powerful. Izuku had seen the careful control he was capable of in the battle trials, the scope of that attack was already impressive, but this was a whole other beast. He stood there in wonder for a moment before he heard other contestants rushing toward the path Todoroki had made for himself.
The tower of crackling ice and creaking metal ahead of him wasn’t going to hold and for a moment, in his mind’s eye, he saw his classmate's blood strewn across the ground under the carnage left behind by these behemoths.
“HE FROZE THEM OFF BALANCE, THEY’RE GOING TO FALL!” he tried to warn them.
The people closest to him hesitated but those who had already charged ahead either couldn’t hear his warning or were too caught up in their lead to care. With his heart in his throat, he activated OFA and ran as fast as he could toward one of the students ahead of him. They weren’t going to make it through the gap before it all came tumbling down. He grabbed them blindly as debris was starting to cloud his vision. Tiny crystals of ice fell from the wreckage like snow and all he could see was light peaking through the darkness and he hoped to god that that light meant the other side of these robots. He managed to grab one more person-shaped blob before he made his way to the other side.
The three of them sprawled out on the ground in a messy huddle and Izuku’s heart had yet to start beating properly until he heard Mic’s voice booming out from the arena’s speakers.
“Looks like one of our hero students took some passengers along for the ride! Four people have made it past the pile-up! How is everyone else gonna get through?!” they exclaimed theatrically.
It was a game, this was a game. Kami, this was just like the entrance exam again. No one was in any real danger, why couldn’t he get that through his thick skull? A Hero student from the other class that Izuku didn’t recognize gave him a quick glance and a grateful head nod before he took off again and the business student, Izuku assumed, was still sitting there with wide eyes.
“You’re fine, let’s go,” Izuku insisted, dragging them up to their feet before brushing himself off and charging ahead.
This wasn’t a team sport. It was probably a good idea for him to be seen helping someone like that, it was good publicity, but he couldn’t stick around and let them hold him back. They were going to be fine, but he wasn’t going to be fine if he sat there and let everyone else pass him by. He avoided the rest of the robots, letting others waste their time taking them down and charged ahead.
The next obstacle actually almost had him laughing, he had to jump from one tall narrow surface to another? The only way that this could be more in his wheelhouse is if whoever made this course asked him personally for ideas. He paused for a second to assess the easiest path forward and wasted no more time charging ahead. It wasn’t often that he had to use wires to get from building to building. Generally, he tried to avoid them because he didn’t want to break anything and shut the power off to half the district because Kami knew the government would take its sweet time sending someone out to fix anything in Uptown, but sometimes it was his only option. The steel wires were much more stable than the flimsy phone lines around Uptown, they didn’t wiggle around beneath his weight nearly as much and he had no problem crossing the chasm below.
However, by the time he made it to the next obstacle, he could hear the telltale sound of explosions up above. There was an open field in front of him with huge billboards off to the side warning him about the mines buried beneath the dirt. He could see the subtle variations in the terrain where the earth had been disturbed, it wasn’t too difficult to maneuver around them, but Kacchan was closing in. Right now he was in second, close behind Todoroki, but he knew Kacchan wasn’t just going to pass him; he was going to do his best to make sure there was no chance for him to overtake him again. Todoroki was making his way carefully through the minefield and he had yet to make a misstep, he was about a quarter of the way through and Izuku was closing the distance pretty rapidly, though not as rapidly as Kacchan. He was going to blow him up as he passed, Izuku knew he was. All he could do was brace for impact. Just as he expected, Kacchan sent an explosion right for him, and the shockwave set off several of the mines around him as well. Kacchan’s blast blew through the forearms of his shirt because he had used them to cover his head but the other explosions didn’t do anything but shove him off balance.
So, shockwaves set off the mines… He could make a shock wave. He could make a very big shock wave actually, one big enough to break him and everything else within range, though that wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for right now. He thought of the way Todoroki had shown off such a massive display of power at the beginning of the race, that was good publicity… Izuku could do that too, he had All Might’s quirk for God’s sake, he could show off, couldn’t he? He couldn’t risk his legs, he needed to be able to run, but he could risk an arm, right? This was a bad idea, but it was now or never; the rest of the competition was closing in and he wasn’t going to be able to pull off a large attack like this if people got too close. If he could sink a boat without breaking his arm then he could make the ground shake a little, surely. Without giving it too much thought he gave his surroundings a quick once over to make sure Hagakure or someone else with a stealth quirk wasn’t sneaking about and brought his fist down onto the ground like a gavel. The earth around him shook like there had been an earthquake and the mines everywhere started going off like dominoes falling away from him.
Izuku dashed after the shockwave, taking care to make sure that he didn’t outrun it and find himself in the midst of all the explosions he’d just set off. He couldn’t see much of anything through the smoke and dust kicked up by the mines but he heard shouting up ahead so he assumed Todoroki and Kacchan had just gotten caught up in his trap. He needed to book it now when they were distracted. He could imagine the green light crackling off of him would give away his location as it bounced off of the dust particles in the air so he gave the shouting as wide of a berth as he could and kept running until he could see where he was going. As he burst out of the cloud he saw the finish line.
Wait, the finish line?
He didn’t let himself second guess things for too long because explosions had started going off again and he knew that was Kacchan getting his wits about himself. His feet pounded against the dirt as he sprinted across the finish line and back into the arena. He could see himself on the jumbotron and Mic’s voice coming through the speakers reminded him that he was live so he plastered an ear-to-ear grin on his face and did his best to catch his breath through it.
Holy shit, he just got first place!
And billions of people were looking at a close-up of his face on their TVs right now…
Haha… that was… fine.
He was all too relieved to see the cameras cut to Todoroki and Bakugo coming in right behind him at second and third. He kept his eyes aimed up at the screen just in case the cameras cut back to him and even though he was no longer in frame he could tell that the angry look on Bakugo’s face was aimed at him. Kacchan and everyone else in the competition were going to have their eyes on him in the next round, them along with the several billion people watching at home. This was an absolute nightmare. He tried to remind himself that this was what he wanted, he wanted everyone’s eyes to be on him, he wanted to make a name for himself, but it didn’t quell his anxieties in the slightest.
Up in the teacher’s booth, he could see All Might looking back down at him with a smile so wide Izuku worried he was about to blow his cover. He had made him proud. The thought brought a more genuine smile to his face. He did well, he was going to have a target on his head in the next round for sure, but he did well.
“Midoriya!” Uraraka came running up to him panting, “That was amazing! I can’t believe you got first place, I’m so jealous!”
He turned into a blushing mess despite himself and held back denials that he did anything worth note because he didn’t want to offend her.
“Thanks for blowing up all those mines, that woulda been a real pain in the butt if you hadn’t,” she added with an out-of-breath laugh.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Hah, no p-problem…” he returned awkwardly, still catching his breath as well.
It wasn’t until med bots swarmed around him and he looked down at his arms that he realized that he might have messed up…
***
“You just sprained your wrist, Sonny, it’s not that bad, and the burns are mild. You’re going to be fine,” Recovery Girl assured him.
He could tell she still had something to say so he waited patiently and raised his eyebrow in silent question when she didn’t go on.
“I told you before that injuring yourself is going to have lasting effects. Even if I heal you, you’re left with a scar whether internal or external, and that scar tissue is going to build up. Every time I heal you, you lose more of yourself to scar tissue and that is going to impact your mobility. I’m sure it’s already causing you pain, though that hardly seems to deter you from making the choices you make,” she said a little more harshly than he had expected, “This is just a game, Dearie, don’t maim yourself for it,” she concluded, sounding resigned but not unkind.
He couldn’t help but feel like he had disappointed her.
“You’re doing better, boy, don’t look so glum,” she chastised as she tossed him an energy gummy.
He instinctively caught it with his right hand, the one that had yet to be healed from its sprain, and Recovery Girl looked at him in exasperation. He sheepishly transferred it from his right hand to his left before bringing it to his mouth to take a bite out of it. Recovery Girl just shook her head and continued rummaging around the cabinets as she had been earlier.
“You have an hour before the next round starts. Get as much rest as you can,” she advised as she walked over and pecked him on the forehead.
The pain he had yet to fully register faded away and an exhaustion that he was all too familiar with replaced it. He finished chewing on the gummy she had given him and let himself melt back into the cot, he didn’t expect to sleep but it wouldn’t hurt to try.
GUUUUUUUUUUUUYYYYYYSSSSS Woomy from the Discord wrote this chapter from Bakugo's perspective bc I am ASS and GARBAGE at writing anything from his POV but Woomy is the GOAT so go check it out!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/56299534
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 115: Round 2 – Todo Trauma Dump Power Hour
Notes:
round two round two ROUND TWO
I am here once again to remind you of the discord for this fic. It is happenin' and I am in there every day so go on and join (link in the body text below 👇)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shoto watched as med bots started bullying Midoriya out of the arena. His arms were burnt and his wrist looked a bit swollen but he kept gesturing around with a blush high on his cheeks like he didn’t feel the pain at all. He knew from experience that a burn like that had to hurt, it wasn’t awful but the skin was pink and shiny; it had to be painful.
Second place.
He had gotten second place to Midoriya’s first and not only that, he was a hair’s breadth away from third. His father wasn’t going to be pleased about this. He could all but feel the fury radiating off of him from where he stood in the stands but he refused to look. He was going to have hell to pay tonight regardless, he didn’t need to suffer his disapproving glare on international television as well.
To his dismay, he heard Mic announce that there would be an hour’s break before the next round. He doubted he would be able to evade his father for that long, but he could at least try. Maybe if he stayed in the students and staff-only areas he would be safe.
***
Third place?! Third fucking place?!?! Katsuki was downright fuming as he watched the playbacks on the jumbotron. Shitty Deku saw that move coming from a mile away, he had already braced for impact before he was even in range. If he had hit hard enough to daze him then he could have won! That’s what he gets for holding back.
Shitty hair tried to congratulate him on third place, but he just pushed past him and back to the locker rooms. He didn’t need to be congratulated for losing. When the hell did Deku get so strong? Why had he been pretending to be weak? What did he get out of it? Why would he pretend to be a Null for so long? It didn’t make any goddamn sense; it was like he existed just to piss him off.
His stupid reasoning didn’t matter. This was a no-holds-barred competition and he was going to win.
***
It didn’t take long of him sitting in the waiting room for Endeavor to find him and drag him off somewhere to berate him privately. He was thankful that he needed to be in top shape to compete otherwise it would have been worse. As it was, the words just went in one ear and out the other, he couldn’t say with certainty he remembered any of the tirade, but it stiffened his spine nonetheless. He only had a few minutes in the waiting room to collect himself before the second round started. Midoriya had returned and looked to be back in fighting shape. He glanced up at Shoto when he walked in but he didn’t say anything. The expression he wore was unreadable to him so he did his best to dismiss it.
Round 2 was a small team-based competition, it always was. Agencies wanted to see that internship candidates were capable of teamwork and what better way to showcase that than forcing it? He wasn’t looking forward to this. Endeavor had never allowed him to be a team player and he had no clue what he was doing, but he couldn’t show that. He was going to have to figure out how to lead a team and he was going to have to do it fast.
He listened closely as Midnight explained the rules and his heart sank when he realized what he was going to have to do. If he didn’t get Midoriya’s headband then he was done for. He wished he could just partner with him instead, that would ensure their victory. It was the most logical thing to do; given the showing everyone else had put up, no one stood a chance against the two of them, and if they could add Midoriya’s friends for mobility this whole thing would be so simple. But simple wasn’t an option.
Thankfully, one-half of Midoriya’s mobility forfeited their spot on his team. With Iida, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari they stood a solid chance.
“Did Midoriya tell you his plans?” he asked the second Iida joined them.
“Ah, well, yes he did,” Iida replied but didn’t elaborate.
“…Well tell us,” Shoto prompted again.
Iida exchanged a look with Yaoyorozu that seemed to communicate something he didn’t understand before he responded.
“Evasion is his primary tactic. As the rider, he will be at a disadvantage without my speed,” he summarized.
Yaoyorozu nodded at Iida and he nodded back to her, seeming to end their nonverbal conversation and it kind of made him want to pull his hair out. Why can’t people just talk to each other? All these pointed looks were confusing. He wished he spoke whatever language it was that everyone else seemed to understand perfectly.
“Well I know what you guys are cookin with for the most part but I don’t know what you know about me. I’ve got electricity,” Kaminari interrupted the tense silence, holding up his left hand and letting sparks dance across his fingers, “but my brain gets fried if I use too much and I can't control where it goes very well,” he added sheepishly.
“You just need something to conduct it. I can help with that,” Yaoyorozu replied with a kind smile.
“We need to corner Midoriya’s team. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to get their headband. I can create barricades but there’s no guarantee he won't just break them. Who else is on his team now?”
“Getting his headband would be good but we need to make sure we keep ours as well.”
“Looks like some support course chick, Uraraka, and Tokoyami.”
Yaoyorozu and Kaminari replied at the same time.
“Tokoyami is going to give them range and from what I saw of the support course girl, she is going to be an asset to their mobility,” Iida added with a frown.
“Kaminari how far can you throw your electricity?”
“Pretty far, I guess, but I’d hit all of you guys too…” he responded as he nervously picked at his nails.
“Electricity follows the path of least resistance, we just have to make sure that path isn’t us and we’ll be fine, just like at the USJ,” Yaoyorozu assuaged.
“If you have a conduit and we have insulation then it won't be an issue. Yaoyorozu, can you do that?” Shoto asked, though he already knew the answer; Yaoyorozu could make anything, he doubted rubber and metal were beyond her capabilities.
“Yes, I can.”
“Good, then I have a plan.”
***
As the buzzer sounded and the timer started ticking down he accepted that this was going to feel like the longest fifteen minutes of his life. Midoriya’s team immediately took to the sky and there wasn’t much he could do about that. He could freeze a pillar of ice up and hope he caught them, but that would be difficult without being able to touch the ground and he couldn’t guarantee the safety of anyone caught in the crossfire. He was so infuriating! Shoto was going to be stuck in second place and there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was starting to empathize with his father and the thought made him nauseous. He wanted to prove that he could win without his fire but that outcome was becoming less and less likely with every move Midoriya made.
He could pick off the other teams without it, but not Midoriya, and goddamnit, he would rather lose than do that. Fire only brought pain; it had no place in heroics. As the minutes ticked by and he finally managed to corner Midoriya’s team he wondered if Midoriya ever felt the same way about his quirk. He didn’t even try to break the barricades Shoto had made. Was he too afraid of hurting those around him too? There was something familiar in his eyes, something he saw when he looked at his left side. Whatever it was didn’t matter, now was their chance
“Everyone hold on tight, we’re getting that headband,” Iida warned the group with confidence.
Everything after that happened in a blur. One second their teams were several yards apart, and the next he was face to face with Midoriya. Green lightning crackled across his skin as Shoto reached for his headband and for a moment the sparks tickled their way over Shoto’s fingers. He saw the determination in Midoriya’s eyes and the hand he had raised against Shoto. The power behind that threat made him do something he promised himself he never would. He used his fire. Midoriya moved faster than he could react to either grab or bat his hand out of the way and his quirk flared to life seemingly of its own volition. Flames danced across his arm and the determination in Midoriya’s eyes turned to fear for the briefest moment.
That look made Shoto sick.
The moment was over in the blink of an eye but it felt like it lasted eons. Before he even got his wits about him the buzzer had rung out signaling the end of the match. They still had their headband and Midoriya still had his.
Second place.
Again.
God damnit , he was done for.
His team was lamenting losing their chance at first place while still congratulating each other for maintaining second, but it was all static in his ears. Midoriya always had a vaguely fearful demeanor, something more akin to nervousness than genuine fear, but Shoto had never seen him look like that. He had heard what he had done at the USJ, he had faced down real villains and taunted them with a smile on his face according to Asui, but the sight of Shoto’s fire scared him? No, it should scare him. He thought he had better control over himself than that.
Awful nauseating guilt seemed to pump through his veins the longer he imagined the fear in his eyes. How could he do that? What was he thinking? Was he trying to make an enemy out of Midoriya? Because he seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it if he was. He felt like he would never be able to look him in the eyes again without seeing the echo of the fear that had been there, but he refused to be like his father. He needed to apologize, to explain himself, he needed to say something, he needed to do something. Before he could second guess himself he pulled Midoriya aside and waited for the rest of the competitors to file out to the locker rooms or cafeteria.
He didn’t seem to be afraid of him, not anymore at least. Or maybe he was just hiding it. He couldn’t tell. To Shoto, his expression was too neutral to be afraid, it was more curious, maybe a little nervous, but not scared. Why wasn’t he scared? He seemed to be waiting for some sort of explanation so Shoto just started talking before he could back out.
“I was overwhelmed,” he admitted.
Midoriya raised a brow at that but otherwise didn’t comment. He just patiently waited for him to continue speaking.
“It made me break the promise I made to myself a long time ago…” he trailed off not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.
Midoriya just looked at him and nodded. His brows were downturned and his lips were pressed in a line. He looked like he understood, like he was listening to what Shoto had to say. Again, he just waited patiently for him to keep talking.
“No one else was close enough to feel it…” he trailed off again.
He remembered the tickling sensation of Midoriya’s quirk on his skin. He remembered the heavy scent of ozone, the way the air felt like it does when a storm rolls over the mountains. There was only one other place he had felt that before, it was at the USJ when All Might took down the Nomu. He pulled his gaze up from his hand and looked back at Midoriya. He didn’t look very remarkable. He was short and small, he had a kind, round face. He looked nothing like All Might… but that power? That power was the same, Shoto was sure of it.
“Your power feels the same as All Might’s, are you his secret love child?” the words tumbled out of his mouth without him meaning to let them out.
Again, the face Midoriya pulled at that was unreadable. It looked pained for a moment before he burst out laughing. He giggled for a second before catching Shoto’s gaze again, he stopped abruptly, schooling his expression before he spoke.
“N-no Todoroki, I’m n-not,” he answered matter-of-factly.
His smile was gone as fast as it had come and the loss of it brought a tight frown to Shoto’s face. This was all very strange, Midoriya didn’t make any sense to him. This conversation was going off the rails, he had just wanted to explain himself…
“My father is Endeavor, you must have heard of him. You know he’s the number two hero, and if you’re connected to the number one hero, then that’s all the more reason I have to defeat you.”
No, wait, that came out all wrong. He needed to backtrack.
“My old man aims for the top, he used his power to make a name for himself as a hero, but he was never able to best All Might. So, the symbol of peace is living proof of his failure. He’s still at it though, trying to take down All Might… one way or another.”
Midoriya was looking at him again with a furrowed brow, and again, his attentive silence prompted Shoto to continue.
“Have you ever heard of quirk marriages?” he asked.
Midoriya frowned at that and glanced down the hall before he replied.
“Um, yes… maybe we sh-should talk about this s-somewhere else?” he asked, looking pointedly down the hall again.
Was someone there? How did Midoriya notice that but Shoto didn’t? What was wrong with him today? He’s glad his father wasn’t here to see this failure at least.
“L-lets get some lunch t-together, I kn-know a place we can t-talk,” he continued with a reassuring smile.
Shoto nodded in agreement and they walked to the cafeteria in silence. He watched Midoriya as he studied everyone and everything they walked past as if he was subtly looking both ways before he crossed the street with every step. Shoto had a lot of questions he wanted to ask him but he had already prodded too much. It was better if he just kept his mouth shut, wasn’t it? He hadn’t even gotten the chance to explain himself properly. Every time he opened his mouth the wrong words seemed to come out. He’d never been very good at this and it seems he wasn’t about to start today. Thankfully, Midoriya was forgiving enough to bear with him as he floundered.
Midoriya took him to a disused hallway not too far from the heroics classrooms and sat down in a small alcove with his lunch tray before gesturing for Shoto to follow suit. He didn’t know where he had expected Midoriya to bring him but based off his own confusion, apparently this wasn’t it. Disregarding his thoughts he obeyed Midoriya’s request and sat down on the ground, leaning his back against the wall of the alcove opposite from his peer.
“No one ever comes back here, or at least I’ve never seen someone come back here,” Midoriya spoke for the first time since he’d led them out of the corridor at the arena, he sounded different in a way Shoto couldn’t quite pin down.
***
Izuku glanced up at the security camera he knew was hidden just out of sight and hoped it had audio. They knew the second Todoroki had asked Izuku that question that he was going to hear something he did not like, and if a case needed to be started it would be better to have this on record so he didn’t need to repeat himself. Not that he seemed to be having an issue saying whatever came to his mind at the moment, but that was beside the point. Endeavor had never felt right to them, and after meeting his son with an overpowered fire/ice quirk and a burn scar on his face, well the picture that painted wasn’t pretty.
“What were you saying Todoroki? About quirk marriages?” they asked, hopefully filling in any audio tapes being taken.
Todoroki eyed them critically just as he had been damn near all day. It was starting to become unnerving but they ignored it. This wasn’t about them.
“My father has plenty of money to throw at his problems, he bought my mother to get his hands on her quirk and now he’s raising me to usurp All Might… but I refuse to be a tool for that scum bag,” he said bitterly
They couldn’t say they were surprised, but they were disappointed to be forced to let go of their denials. They were hoping they had just read everything all wrong, but unfortunately, they seemed to have been spot on.
“In every memory of my mother, I only see her crying. She called my left side unbearable before she poured boiling water on my face,” he continued.
Well, shit. This just got a lot more complicated. However, that was likely on record already and was probably why he was speaking of his mother in the past tense. There’s no way Endeavor would have let her stick around if she was a threat to his masterpiece’s well-being.
“The reason I picked a fight with you is to show my old man what I was capable of doing without relying on his damned fire quirk. I’m going to show him I can win without his power, I can take first place without using it,” he insisted as if he hadn’t just dropped the metaphorical bomb that he had, like this was all still about a stupid game.
“Todoroki, are you safe at home?” they asked, ignoring the irony of how Shinso had asked him that same question so long ago.
“What do you mean?” he asked in reply, sounding genuinely confused.
Alright, maybe that was the wrong approach, they should get more information first before they dove in with a question like that.
“Do you have siblings?” they asked.
Again Todoroki seemed confused by the nonsequitor but he answered anyway.
“Yes, and older sister and… well I used to have two older brothers but one of them died in a quirk accident.”
Wonderful. That was just… peachy.
“Do they live with you?” they pressed on, they wanted to ask about the brother but now wasn’t the time; it didn’t look like Todoroki was about to shut down but his expressions were difficult to decipher so they couldn’t be sure, it was better not to risk it.
“Yes,” he answered succinctly.
“So it's you, your dad, and your two siblings at home?” they clarified.
“Yes.”
Okay, that could be worse, at least he wasn’t alone.
“Do you get along well with your siblings?”
“I don’t get to see them much outside of meal times, but otherwise, yes, I do.”
“Oh, do they work? Or are they still in school?”
“The eldest, my sister, works as a school teacher and my brother is in college.”
“Do you not see them much because of their busy schedules?” they risked a more probing question.
“No, they are home often, but my father doesn’t allow me to see them,” Todoroki answered readily.
Alrighty then! That was… terrific! He was acting like all of this wasn’t highly concerning but at least it was easy to get him to talk. They didn’t know where to go with all this information but if Todoroki was going to be an open book then they should take advantage of that.
“What about your other brother, if you don’t mind my asking, what happened to him?” they asked cautiously.
“He inherited my father’s fire, but my mother’s resistance to cold, not my father’s heat resistance. His flames burned too hot, hot enough for him to incinerate himself,” he replied.
He spoke without hesitation and little to no emotion, just as he had been since this conversation started, but for the first time, his gaze left the lock it had held with their own. It was a relief to be free of it for a moment. They felt bad feeling the weight lifted off of them as he looked away but his eyes were too intense in conjunction with the topic of conversation.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I was young. I didn’t know him well,” Todoroki tried to deny his grief, but they could see through the flimsy excuse.
“Todoroki are you safe at home?” they risked the question again.
“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” he replied sounding a little bit frustrated.
“Are you safe around Endeavor, does he hurt you?”
His brow furrowed at that and again his gaze dropped to the floor for a moment. He didn’t respond right away so they just gave him the time he needed and started eating their lunch which was beginning to go cold.
“During training, yes, sometimes,” he answered eventually.
They took their time finishing the bite they had their mouth full of to give themself time to think of a response to that.
“What kind of training do you do?” they decided.
“Quirk training,” he said in a way that told them that that should have been obvious.
“Your father uses his quirk against you?” they clarified.
“Yes, it’s the perfect counter to my ice,” he said in the same ‘duh, are you stupid?’ tone.
“How long have you been training?”
“Ever since my quirk came in,” he replied.
“So like four?” they asked, feigning nonchalance.
“Yes.”
“Is that something you like doing?”
“Not particularly.”
Well, shit. They were 2 for 2 on legacy kids being here of their own volition, they knew that streak wasn’t going to last.
“What do you like to do?”
Todoroki paused at that. He didn’t have an immediate answer like he seemed to for everything else. They had to fight to keep their expression neutral to his rather depressing hesitance. They forced down some more of their lunch even though this conversation had left them nauseous to give Todoroki more time to think.
“I like school,” he finally decided, “I was homeschooled my whole life so I didn’t know what it was like, but… it’s nice.”
Of course, the bane of most kid’s existence would be the only positive experience Todoroki could think of. They wished he had a better answer to that but at least this one gave them an avenue to press further.
“Do you like heroics class? That’s probably my favorite,” they offered some information on themself because, so far, this conversation had been little more than a poorly veiled interrogation.
“Yes, I do. All Might and Aizawa-sensei are good teachers.”
They didn’t know what to say to that, they could only beat around the bush so much, and pushing the matter had yet to go poorly so they might as well try. He remembered how his own father used to treat him and they weren’t going to sit by and let someone else go through that just because their dad was a hot-shot hero.
“Todoroki the way your father treats you isn’t okay,” they stressed the statement, saying it matter of factly while making eye contact, “a parent shouldn’t hurt their child in any context.”
He pushed down any feelings he had about the way he had been treated because that was different , he wasn’t– they didn’t– Gah! This wasn’t about him. His situation would be coming to light soon anyway, whether or not that made anything better was beside the point. Things could get better for Todoroki and that’s what he needed to be concerned with right now.
Todoroki held his chopsticks halfway between the bowl and his mouth and looked at Izuku like he had just told him the sky was green. How sheltered had he been his whole life? He clearly didn’t think his issues were anything of note if he spilled his guts this quickly. If he had had the opportunity to tell someone what happened behind closed doors before, surely they would have done something about it, right? He wasn’t even allowed to see his own siblings for god’s sake, that certainly explained how emotionally stunted he seemed to be, he didn’t even get the chance to see how his peers interacted from the sidelines like Izuku had. He had no map to follow at all.
“Do you even want to be a hero Todoroki? D-did your father force you to do all of this?” he asked before he could think better of it; the poor kid was clearly trying to process things, he didn’t need to add to the crisis.
“I-I don’t…” he trailed off and looked down at his noodles, “what else am I supposed to do?” he asked so genuinely that it broke Izuku’s heart.
Now wasn’t the time for all of this, they only had another 15 minutes before they were due to head back to the arena. Todoroki had to compete and he wouldn’t be able to do that safely if he was having a crisis.
“Right now you should finish your lunch and focus on the festival. After that, we can talk some more and figure it out,” they offered, trying their best to pull him out of a downward spiral before it started.
Todoroki looked back up at them, tearing his gaze away from the noodles in his lap. He glanced up at the clock they knew hung on the wall behind them and then back to his noodles before nodding. They finished their meals in silence and before they left the little cubby they had holed themselves away in Izuku had one more thing they needed to say.
“Your fire is yours Todoroki, not your father’s. Don’t let your spite for him hold you back from your full potential. Even if it’s against his wishes you’re still letting him control your actions; don’t give him that power over you,” they said.
They didn’t wait for him to respond. They just gathered their things and stood up, he could either take their advice or leave it, but getting into a debate about it right now would be too draining for both of them and they had a competition to focus on.
Round three was going to start soon.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!!!! (don't forget abt the discord, it rules! it's also chaotic af so click the link up top)
Chapter 116: Round 3 pt. 1
Notes:
Me: Oh yeah, I can get the sports festival done this week, one chapter per round, easy.
Also me: *writes 5k words and gets less than halfway through my plot points for round 3* 🥲It's looking like it's gonna be another 2 chapters for the sports festival guys, I'm sorrier than you are, trust me. I plan to upload twice next week as well (Monday/Friday). I should probably change the "uploads Wednesdays" in the description at this point bc we're gonna be on week 3 of bonus chapters so... not really a bonus chapter anymore... it's just a completely different upload schedule than what I said I'd be doing...
Whatever, come join the Discord, it's a fun time, lots of chaos and I'm in there every day so if you wanna chat with me that's the place to do it. The community is great, we've been giving homework help and college advice and there's a channel for other fic writers who need help too so it's not just for goofs either, though, there are plenty of those. Link to join will be down below in the body of the chapter 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was up against Tokage from class 1B in the first round of the bracket, and would likely (sorry Kaminari) be up against Shiozaki in the second round. He had seen very little of either of the girls’ quirks, Tokage more so than Shiozaki’s–hers was difficult to miss. He should really be focusing on strategy, but he couldn’t get his mind off of Todoroki who, no offense to Iida and Sero, he would likely be up against in the third round (assuming he got that far).
He was regretting telling him to use his fire. Half of him wanted Todoroki to discard his restraints, but the other half of him was still a scared little kid who was too afraid of getting burned again. No, he wasn’t a little kid. He was training to be a hero. He couldn’t let childish fears control him. Todoroki needed to learn to use his fire and if Izuku could help him do that then it was his duty to try.
He shouldn’t have been so stuck in his head about Todoroki, he should have been focusing on who he was up against because, as the starting buzzer rang out, he found himself surrounded in the blink of an eye. So it seemed Tokage must have been the owner of the floating limbs he had caught glimpses of in the cavalry battle. He had thought that was the case but hadn’t known for sure, though it’s not like he used that hunch to his advantage: he had no plan.
As quickly as he was surrounded, he was being advanced upon. She wouldn’t expect him to dodge up; he was surrounded on all sides and down was the only logical option left, but he’d been wanting to practice his super jumps since the USJ, so up it was. He braced himself, activated OFA, and leapt just as the barrage of floating limbs were about to make contact with him.
A hand managed to grab his ankle, but the strength of it was no match for him even without OFA. After he rolled to a stop he wrenched it off of him and tossed it aside.
“TOKAGE IS OUT OF BOUNDS, MIDORIYA IS THE WINNER!!!!”
“What?” The announcement confused him before he realized how hard he had thrown the appendage, “Oh…”
Well, that was… underwhelming. He could have at least vamped it up a little bit. He just made Tokage look pathetic and he didn’t even show off what he was capable of. He couldn’t help but nervously bite at his lip as he turned back to Tokage who was reassembling herself at the center of the ring. She looked at him with her lips pressed in a firm line and bowed politely. When she brought her head back up, her face held a forced smile. He shot back a nervous one in return and bowed as well.
That… could have gone worse.
It also could have gone better. He felt like an ass.
He let Tokage pick the exit tunnel she wanted to use before he headed to the opposite one. It would be a longer walk back for him, but he had already inconvenienced her enough, he didn’t need to get in her way any more than he already had.
He’d wanted to get back to the stands to watch the next fight so he could scope out his competition in person, but he didn’t make it in time and ended up watching it on a small TV in one of the waiting rooms. It was better than missing it entirely, but he would have been able to catch details that the cameras didn’t if he had been there in person. As he had suspected, Shiozaki won against Kaminari– he really needed to get some support gear for his quirk. If Aoyama could have his belt then Kaminari should have something to focus his quirk as well; it wasn’t safe for him or the people around him as it was.
He made it back to the stands just as the next round was about to start; Todoroki vs. Sero. He didn’t really need to analyze much to predict the outcome of this match, Sero was completely outgunned; it was hardly fair to him. Even if Sero was fast enough to restrain his opponent before he got frozen, Todoroki would still be able to use his ice. As far as he’d observed, the only thing stopping an ice attack from him was making it so he couldn’t touch anything. If Uraraka could get the first hit in she would be a good match, but, as it stands, very few people even had a chance of winning against Todoroki.
The fight went as was to be expected, but the force of Todoroki’s attack was completely disproportionate to what was necessary. He froze half the stadium. Was he trying to show off? Why did he do that? As the camera cut to Todoroki thawing out enough of the ice to free Sero from his confines, he realized that that attack was fueled by anger. Why was he so angry? Was it because of what Izuku had said to him? He hadn’t seemed angry as much as he had contemplative on the walk back to the arena. Something had clearly changed and Izuku could only hope that he hadn’t pushed him too far.
He stayed seated for Iida’s match with Mei and pressed his lips into a straight line when Iida walked out wearing support gear. He knew where this was going, he had chatted enough with Mei earlier to know that she didn’t lend him that gear out of the kindness of her heart. Poor Iida, poor, gullible Iida; he was too kind-hearted for his own good.
Halfway through their advertisement break fight, he noticed that Uraraka had gotten very fidgety. She was up against Bakugo in this bracket… he didn’t envy her, but she stood a chance if she played her cards right. Though, Izuku would also be up against him if he played his cards right, but he was doing his best not to think about that.
All too soon, the first bracket came to a close and he was up again. He hadn’t gotten to see much of what Shiozaki was capable of offensively, but he had seen how strong her quirk was at defense. His first fight was over pretty quickly, but he had a feeling this one wouldn’t be so simple. If she managed to trap him, he would not be in good shape, those thorns didn’t look like they were just for show. He did his best to remind himself that he knew far more about Shiozaki’s capabilities than he did the random thugs he confronted on a nightly basis. However, his reasoning wouldn’t shut up about how the random thugs he encountered on a nightly basis didn’t get into UA, and that’s not even to mention the fact that he didn’t have Eraser on his side right now. Ivy would have been dead in a back alley years ago if it weren't for Eraser– No, nope, no, that wasn’t helping.
He’d been up against worse odds and this was just a game anyway. A game that the future of his career may or may not be riding on but a game nonetheless. He heard Mic announcing Shiozaki from the stadium speakers. The sound muffled itself as it echoed off the walls of the tunnel and made its way to him. He didn’t really listen to what they were saying because he knew he was going to be announced second, the nice lady that met him here had told him so at least. As Shiozaki’s introduction wound down he made his way toward the front of the tunnel where he could hear the announcements much more clearly.
“Oh, I’m just getting news on our second contestant, this just in! Class 1A’s front-runner only fights people who also have green hair! Togaru and Kamakiri might not be in the bracket but they’d better watch their backs!!! It’s MIDORIYA IZUKU!!!” Mic introduced him over the loudspeaker.
As the cameras cut to him coming out of the tunnel he was already laughing. That was so stupid, why was he laughing? Maybe he was nervous after Shiozaki’s showing against Kaminari, but he just couldn’t help it. He shook his head and reminded himself that billions of people were watching him right now and that was enough for him to get his head back in the game. With a smile still on his face, he took his place in the ring opposite from Shiozaki.
As the buzzer went off, Shiozaki dropped several strands of her hair and let them sink into the ground, tethering herself in place: a good strategy after seeing his fight with Tokage. He felt the ground rumble ever so slightly and that was enough warning of what was about to happen for him to avoid the vines reemerging from the ground behind him. He didn’t bother with them at all, he just gunned it straight for his opponent. He saw her eyes widen as he approached and the look of genuine fear on such a young face made him falter, it was only for a split second but that was enough.
More of her vines shot forward and enveloped him in an instant. The sharp thorns cut up his skin and the constriction shot enough adrenaline through his veins that he didn’t even think before he activated OFA and ripped them off with more force than strictly necessary. He burst out of his impromptu chrysalis with a rumbling boom, shaking the ground enough to throw Shiozaki off balance. Though she was off her feet she didn’t lose focus as he charged forward. He had to dodge her vines with each step, impeding his progress significantly. It slowed him down, but it didn’t stop him. The strength of her vines was nothing against the force of OFA, but then again, the strength of his bones was nothing against the force of OFA half the time so that didn’t really say much.
The closer he got the more difficult it became to dodge, but, by the time he made his way to Shiozaki, he made up his mind. He had to fight dirty. Generally, hair pulling wasn’t a very chivalrous way to fight, but when her quirk was her hair he’s not sure he had much of a choice. He didn’t give himself time to hesitate again; he grabbed as much of her hair as he could and pulled it toward her head as he used his leg to pin it further down on the ground, creating enough tension for it to snap between the two points of contact. She tried to fight against him without her quirk but it was of little consequence, she wasn’t very strong. Before she got the chance to grow back any of her vines he tossed her out of bounds, sending her rolling for several yards.
The moment Mic announced the winner he went scrambling after her to make sure she was okay. She just gave him an indignant look which he couldn’t blame her for. He offered her a hand up and she schooled her face into something more graceful as she accepted the offer.
“I’m s-sorry, does that hurt? Y-your h-hair I m-mean?”
She eyed him critically for a moment before relaxing her expression slightly and replying.
“Mildly. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”
So she could feel things through her hair? At least to a certain degree. That was so cool! If she could get an internship with someone like Kamui Woods she could really learn a lot; their quirks were quite similar, if his theory about Kamui’s quirk was correct. It was certainly worth looking into at the very least.
She cocked her head at him and he shot back a nervous smile.
“Thank you, I’ll see if I can look into that avenue. Should the stars align, I think it would be a good opportunity.”
Oh… he’d said that all out loud. Goddamnit.
He didn’t get the chance to do anything but sputter out nonsense syllables before Shiozaki turned and left the field. As he had done last time, Izuku made his way to the exit opposite of his opponent so as to not make the short walk unbearably awkward. Maybe one day he’d have the social grace to walk out with his opponent laughing like Kirishima and Tetsutetsu had after their rematch, but today was not that day.
Any exposed skin he had under the shoulders was covered in scratches and sluggishly oozing blood, thankfully that was just his hands and wrists. Hmm… that’s probably why Shiozaki hesitated in taking the hand up he had offered… gross. He needed to get some bandages, it wasn’t significant enough to risk the dizziness that Recovery Girl’s quirk might cause. The cuts were shallow and clearly didn’t hurt enough to impede him so healing them could wait.
He got back into the stands just in time to see Tokoyami throw Ashido out of bounds like a rag doll. He winced in sympathy but honestly, it made him feel better about what he did to Shiozaki. He wanted to know how Iida’s match with Todoroki went, but when he scanned the seats for him he was nowhere to be found. Todoroki was there but Iida wasn’t. Did he have to go to Recovery Girl? Was he okay?
He shuffled back to his seat next to Uraraka as unobtrusively as he could before asking her.
“W-where’s Iida? Did he get hurt?”
“No, he was fine. He lost though, did you not see the match at all? Todoroki cornered him,” she replied with a frown, “I don’t know where he went, he should be back by now.”
Something about that didn’t sit right with him. Iida was supposed to be sitting in the student’s section and he wasn’t one to disobey orders, at least not without due cause. He had just gone to his bag in the locker room to get his first aid kit, but his phone was in there, and if he wanted to contact Iida that was the only way he could think to do it. He didn’t even consider taking it with him because everyone who had his number was already here so there wasn’t really any point, but as he dismissed himself from the stands less than a minute after sitting down he was beginning to regret his choices.
The halls were empty as he wandered back through them so it was easy to sense a presence around the corner before he could even see anything. The air was getting warmer and warmer and he could hear the telltale gentle woosh of flames. The orange light that started to bounce off the walls around the corner confirmed his suspicions. Was that Endeavor? He wasn’t supposed to be back here, but pretty much anyone else would be audibly concerned about the fire that bathed the corridor in a soft glow.
As Endeavor rounded the corner he looked down at Izuku both literally and figuratively. He hadn’t spoken a word yet but everything about his body language told him that he believed Izuku to be beneath him.
“Ah, I was looking for you,” he greeted, still staring down his nose at him.
Why the hell was he looking for him? Did Todoroki tell him his suspicions about his connection with All Might? He didn’t seem like the type for idle chit-chat with the old man so he doubted that was the case. Either way, he had his guard up. He had never trusted Endeavor, and after what he had learned about the Todoroki household today, well, he was struggling to keep his expression neutral.
“...um, okay,” he answered dumbly, too focused on not spitting the vitriol that came to mind at the sight of him.
“I watched your fights. That’s an impressive power you’ve got, strong enough to shake the ground. You have a lot in common with All Might,” he sneered out his name like it was a curse, and the blatant disrespect made Izuku want to Detroit Smash his shins.
“Thank you, sir, that’s very kind. I can only hope to be a hero like him one day,” he replied, sickeningly sweet.
Endeavor’s expression almost made him laugh but thankfully he managed to fight it back; it looked like he was sucking on a lemon. Izuku took that as an opportunity to take his leave, that face was too satisfying and he feared he would get himself into trouble provoking it again. With a nod and another sickeningly sweet smile, he walked past Endeavor without any sort of proper dismissal.
“It is my Shoto’s duty to surpass All Might as the number one hero. His match with you will be a good testing ground for how much training he has left, so hit him hard. Don't disgrace yourself or him by holding back.” Endeavor called over his shoulder.
Izuku was glad he had his back turned because he could do nothing to hide the expression that comment elicited. Hit him hard? Izuku had a feeling that Todoroki had been hit enough in his life, he didn’t need Izuku adding on top of that. Endeavor himself had seen the power he was capable of, if he didn’t hold back at all then Todoroki would be gravely injured. However, Endeavor's not insignificant record of civilian casualties and property damage on his arrests told him that he didn’t care for anyone’s suffering in the slightest.
“I’m not All Might,” he replied before he could think better of it.
He knew the anger in his tone was thinly veiled at best, but he’d gone too far to stop now.
“And Todoroki isn’t you.”
He bit his tongue before he could remind the man that his son’s successes wouldn’t make up for his failures. He didn’t wait for a response, he just walked away. Nothing good was going to come of this conversation continuing. Maybe this is why Todoroki had been so mad, his father probably tracked him down too. Izuku had half a mind to call security on him, but it’s not like Endeavor would face any real consequences, so he might as well just leave it be. He had a match to focus on and a friend to text anyway.
As he closed the locker door behind himself he let out a groan. That man was insufferable for a single conversation, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with him. He needed to get Todoroki out of that house ASAP. By the time he drafted and sent a text off to Iida, it was time for him to get back out on the stage for his fight with Todoroki. He had heard the announcement that Kacchan had won against Kirishima, which both didn’t surprise and disappointed him in equal measure. At least there would be a consolation prize of not having to fight Kacchan if he lost this match against Todoroki… silver lining. He sighed heavily as he tucked his phone back into his bag.
He had a match to get to.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
(Some ppl in the discord forgot but Shinso and Asui aren't competing in the festival due to the piddling scraps of self-preservation they must have stolen from the rest of the class)
Chapter 117: Round 3 pt. 2
Notes:
If the next chapter isn't the last chapter of the sports festival I'm going to throw myself into a volcano
[She just won't stop yapping, what is her problem?]
Anyways, long chapter today, almost 5k *wah hoo*Shout out to my mods Beezus, Penny, and Parker for beta-reading this behemoth for me <3 it was not my best work b4 their intervention. I think every single comma was singlehandedly added by Parker so pop into the Discord and thank them for that... (I'm sorry Parker)
Link to join the Discord will be in the body of the text below 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
If he thought he had been nervous to go up against Shiozaki… well… he was wrong. Todoroki had been demolishing the competition with only half his quirk since the beginning of the festival and Izuku was going to taunt him into using his full power? He was a masochist.
The bright light of the sun in his eyes was jarring after the darkness of the tunnel and that, along with his nerves and the cacophony of cheers coming from the stands, was overwhelming. He had to take a deep breath and center himself before he could block it all out and focus his attention forward.
Todoroki stared him down from the other side of the ring. He didn’t look any less angry than he had when he went up against Sero in the first round. He was compromised already. He wasn't going to be easy to beat, but, unless Todoroki cleared his head and used his fire, Izuku was confident he could win. He should really use that to his advantage, he should let Todoroki tire himself out until he got too cold to continue, but he knew he wasn’t going to. When had he ever made things easy for himself? He tried to convince himself that this was a good idea, that prolonging the fight and taunting Todoroki until he used his fire would give them both the chance to show off their quirks, but he couldn’t shake his fear. This was either going to end with Todoroki still refusing to use his fire or Todoroki flambe-ing him live on international television and neither of those seemed like a favorable outcome.
Whatever happened, all he could do was try his best; that’s what he needed to be focusing on. Everything else was a distraction. Fight like your life depends on it and get him to use his fire. He could do that… probably… maybe. Well, whether or not he could do that was no longer of his concern, the timer had ticked down and the buzzer sounded.
As was to be expected, Todoroki sent a large-scale ice attack his way. He opted to dodge rather than try and break it because adding barricades and uneven terrain would only serve to his advantage. Even though he didn’t have his spiked shoes, the ice was jagged enough to traverse if he was careful. Getting the higher ground would only benefit him further; from what he had observed, Todoroki’s ice had to start from a solid surface that he was touching, meaning that he couldn’t just shoot ice at Izuku, he had to send it on a path along the ground and control its trajectory upward. Forcing Todoroki to navigate a path up the evermore complex ice structures he had already created would slow him down. His fire, however, did not have the same restraints, assuming it functioned similarly to Endeavor’s. It would be much easier to pick him off the tops of the ice spikes with a jet of fire and Izuku could keep up this dance all day if he needed to.
He could see Todoroki getting more and more tired from where he jumped around the tops of the glaciers. The attacks were coming slower and further apart, but he still wouldn’t use his fire. The terrain had become almost completely covered in ice and the cameras were having difficulties navigating around the new structures to see what was even going on in the fight. As a drone dodged around another barrage of ice, Izuku made a decision. This wasn’t just about Todoroki, he still needed to use this fight to show the world what he was made of, and if the cameras couldn’t see then he needed to switch tactics; he’d displayed enough of his evasive skills by now and that didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere with Todoroki anyway.
With as much force as he could muster, he raised his arms above his head, clasped his hands together, and brought them down onto the mountain of ice beneath him, just like he had in the last leg of the first round. He could only hope that using both hands would put less strain on his wrists. The hit made the whole stadium rumble and the ice shattered out from under him. He hadn’t cleared the arena, but he had leveled a good portion of it, enough that there was room for the cameras to buzz around unobstructed.
The carnage left a coating of ice chips on the ground which wasn’t great for stability. So while Todoroki was still recovering from the quasi-earthquake Izuku had just caused, he decided to kill two birds with one stone. Todoroki had said himself that fire was the perfect counter to his ice, so, if Izuku used his ice against him, then the best way for him to respond would be with fire. He didn’t have high hopes for this, but it was worth a shot; he swept his leg out against the ground with an OFA-powered kick and launched the shards of ice straight back at Todoroki. As was to be expected, he just conjured a shield of ice in front of him rather than using his fire. This was getting annoying; he could see frost developing on Todoroki’s skin even from a distance and cold plumes of air puffed out of his mouth with each breath. He was pushing his ice too far and he was liable to hurt himself if he kept up like this.
“YOU AREN’T GOING TO BEAT ME WITH ONLY HALF OF YOUR STRENGTH!” he shouted toward the barricade.
When Todoroki failed to respond, he spread his arms out and clapped his hands together hard enough to sting significantly. The resulting shockwave shattered the wall Todoroki had been hiding behind and he could tell that he was reaching his limit. He stumbled backward and caught himself with a wall of ice behind him. He got his footing back quickly, but he didn’t attack. Izuku wasn’t sure if he even could attack in this state, at least not with his ice. He was panting heavily, each breath coming out as a plume of fog, and he looked angry. More angry than he had been when he fought Sero and more angry than he had been when he had declared war against him to begin with.
Good.
Anger makes you do irrational things, like breaking stupid illogical promises that you made to yourself.
“LOOK AT YOURSELF! YOU CAN’T WIN WITHOUT YOUR FIRE,” he taunted.
The anger in Todoroki’s expression turned nuclear before he sent another large-scale ice attack at him. Izuku broke it just like he had broken the last one, his hands were starting to hurt but he ignored it. Recovery Girl wouldn’t be happy with him, but he could still move fine. Nothing was broken yet, just sore.
As the ice shards settled, he saw Todoroki’s shaking form glaring at him from the far end of the arena, he was dangerously close to the edge, each attack Izuku had sent his way pushed him more and more and he didn’t seem to have the strength to take a single step forward. He had thought he had no more fight left in him before that attack, he was impressed he managed this much, but he certainly had nothing left in him now. That was his last leg, it was either use his fire or admit defeat. He was at Izuku’s whims, he could send him out of bounds right now and there wasn’t much of anything Todoroki could do to stop him.
“YOU HAVEN’T PUT A SINGLE SCRATCH ON ME, TODOROKI! QUIT SCREWING AROUND AND FIGHT!” he shouted, ignoring the ache in his hands.
Todoroki shook as he took a step forward and Izuku just waited.
“DID MY FATHER PUT YOU UP TO THIS?!” he shouted back between heaving breaths.
The idea that Endeavor had bribed Izuku to do this seemed to send another wave of anger through his mind and, apparently, spite was a powerful motivator because Todoroki started charging toward him. He was shaking with fury, cold, and exhaustion; was he going to resort to a fistfight before he used his fire? Really? The punch Todoroki sent his way was slow and telegraphed; Izuku had no issue dodging it. He used his forearm to redirect the momentum but the moment their skin made contact he felt his arm burn. He finished the maneuver and sent Todoroki sprawling to the ground behind him and looked down at his arm. It was coated in ice; the long sleeves did nothing to help, his sweat froze the garment to his skin and the salt only made it burn even more.
He had been getting into close range because he couldn’t manage another long-range attack with his ice, not to fist fight him. It was as good of a tactic as someone with an ice quirk could manage, but it was still desperate. Izuku was only more effective in close quarters and Todoroki was smart enough to know that this wasn’t going to end well for him.
“You’re getting desperate, you won’t win like this! You know you won’t!” Izuku prodded him again.
“Why are you toying with me?!” Todoroki called back with more raw emotion in his tone than Izuku would have thought him capable of.
His voice caught on nearly every word and Izuku could only imagine how he was feeling right now; humiliated and betrayed, assuming Izuku had taken a bribe from his father. Izuku’s heart ached for him
“You are not your father,” he said, a much more gentle reminder than the one he had given Endeavor earlier, “It’s okay, Todoroki.”
***
“It’s okay, Shoto. You can use your fire, you are not a prisoner of your lineage.”
His mother’s words, which he had long since forgotten, echoed through his mind as clearly as the day she had spoken them. How had he forgotten that? How much of his mother had he forgotten? How many memories had his father tainted or twisted into something unrecognizable just like he’d done to his mother? How long had he been letting that man control him?
***
Something about a kinder approach must have struck a chord with Todoroki because he just stared back at Izuku blankly. He was still shaking but he stood as still as he could despite it. He was looking at Izuku without really seeing him and it was becoming concerning.
“Todoroki?” he prodded again just as gently as before.
He was only a few feet away, there was no way he didn’t hear him speaking, but he wasn’t present. His breaths were just as fast as they had been but they were too shallow now. This wasn’t good. He was having a flashback of some sort on live television; Izuku needed to snap him out of it. It wasn’t the kindest thing he could have done but anything else would have called more attention to the issue; he wound up and sent a non-superpowered kick to his ribs. The blow caused Todoroki to stumble back but he caught his footing and looked back at Izuku with a little more clarity.
“Are you with me?” Izuku asked as he circled around him, feigning that he was playing it safe when in reality he was doing his best to give Todoroki time to collect himself.
His eyes were still a bit glassy as his usual razor-sharp focus returned to them. The shift was unnerving, it had him feeling like a specimen pinned under a microscope but he ignored it. Now wasn’t the time. Todoroki’s panicked hyperventilating turned back to the normal out-of-breath panting that he had been doing before. The manic grin that spread across his face was the only warning Izuku had before an inferno bloomed forth from his left side.
Oh! …Good!
He did his best to hide the fear in his eyes and plastered on his own manic grin. He could hear Endeavor shouting something from the stands but neither him nor Todoroki paid him any mind. This wasn’t about him. As Todoroki poised to fire at him, he realized this may have been a mistake in more ways than one: firstly, he could do nothing to stop the flow of ice-cold panic pumping through his veins, and, secondly, he could feel something in the frigid air shift as the fire made its way toward him. Rapid change in the ambient temperature of the arena was not good and the fire didn’t even get a chance to meet him before the consequences of that shift made themselves known. The ice surrounding them sizzled for a split second before a shockwave that seemed to emanate from nowhere and everywhere shattered it to pieces, the force of it hit before the resounding bang went off and he did his best to brace for impact. He felt himself fly backward and he rolled to a stop and back up onto his feet as fast as he could. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t see anything further than the grass under his feet through the dust in the air… wait… the grass under his feet?
Shit.
“MIDORIYA IS OUT OF BOUNDS!!!” he heard Mic announce over the loudspeakers.
Goddamnit.
“BUT WHAT’S THIS? TODOROKI IS OUT COLD IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE! IS THIS ANOTHER TIE???”
…What?
“Play back the tapes!” Midnight ordered with a flick of her whip.
Izuku was stuck between making his way back to Todoroki to make sure he was alright and watching the jumbotron. Midnight was with him… he was probably fine… right? His anticipation got the better of him and he kept his eyes trained upward as he walked back to the ring. They had been at the center of the arena when that explosion went off and Izuku watched the split screen slow motion replay of Todoroki braining himself on a pillar of ice at the exact same moment when he himself passed over the boundary line.
“ANOTHER TIE?!?!?! HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN UA SPORTS FESTIVAL HISTORY???” Mic shrieked over the speakers, causing Izuku to flinch out of the trance he’d been in.
He was back in the middle of the ring and Todoroki was still knocked out as he got wheeled away by med bots. There was nothing he could do for him now.
“Alright viewers, let’s move on to the next match while we figure out how to break the tie!” Midnight announced with another theatrical flick of her whip before ushering him back off the stage.
“Follow Todoroki-kun to Recovery Girl,” she murmured to Izuku, holding the mic away from her face and shooting a pointed glance at his hands which were slightly swollen.
Goddamnit.
He could still flex his fingers, but it did hurt a good deal. He had done his best to stabilize his joints as he used OFA, but the throbbing ache that he was becoming more and more aware of by the second told him it wasn’t enough. Was he ever going to be able to do this properly? He was such a failure. He clenched his fists and grit his teeth in a vain attempt to ground himself. Recovery Girl was going to be so mad at him and she was going to tell All Might and All Might was going to be so disappointed and– GAH! He didn’t even win the fight! If his performance didn’t look good enough for the camera then he did all that for nothing! Or… maybe not nothing, he had gotten Todoroki to use his fire, but he’s not sure if that was a good thing or not; he didn’t seem to be in a great frame of mind when he finally conceded.
He was both picking and biting at his lip when he finally made his way into the infirmary and the sight of the cool, sterile, white walls clued his mind back into the pain radiating from his hands. He should stop fiddling with things, he had already fucked up enough.
Todoroki seemed to have roused, but his eyes were clamped shut and he had a grimace on his face, it was likely that he had a pretty bad concussion right now so that made sense. Recovery Girl took one look at him and silently pointed him toward her assistant, the student with the x-ray quirk he had met before. He wondered if she was doing a proper internship now that she’d graduated, but he was too anxious to hold a conversation so he didn’t bother trying. He just quietly offered her his hands to look at.
“Do you have pain in your fingers or just your wrist,” she asked after studying him.
“B-both.”
“Hmm, it doesn’t look like anything’s broken, it’s likely a sprain, bone bruising, or both,” she mused aloud before glancing back to Recovery Girl who was still tending to Todoroki. “I’ll let her know when she’s done and we can go from there. I’ll get you some ice for now.”
He held the ice in his hands more tightly than he probably should have, but the burning cold helped him from spiraling too much so he didn’t stop. Recovery Girl didn’t say anything when she healed him, but he felt his stomach drop regardless; she must be disappointed, he just kept messing up, it’s like that’s all he was good for.
Neither him nor Todoroki got much time to rest before they were both being summoned into a meeting with Nedzu, All Might, and Snipe.
“Good afternoon gentlemen, please take a seat, we have much to discuss,” Nedzu greeted them cheerfully.
Izuku glanced over to Todoroki who was eying All Might critically. Oh! Geez, he should not be calling him All Might, not even in his head. He was Yagi-san right now and it wouldn’t do for Izuku to blow his cover even if it seemed like Todoroki was connecting dots on his own. That was… an issue for another time; how could he be so perceptive and clueless at the same time? Whatever, unless he started asking questions he didn’t need to worry about it yet.
“We need to figure out a tiebreaker in the next fifteen minutes or I fear Mic is going to start vamping,” Nedzu warned.
Snipe scoffed out a laugh and Al–er, Yagi-san grinned goodnaturedly, but Izuku bit his tongue before he could react; he probably shouldn’t be laughing at his teacher’s expense, even if it was a kindhearted ribbing at worst.
“Their quirks are too volatile, they’re gonna blow each other to bits ‘fore anyone can be declared a winner. No offense, boys,” Snipe started.
Todoroki nodded his head with no change in expression and Izuku offered a nervous smile.
“Another arm wrestling match hardly seems fair with Midoriya having a strength quirk nor does it offer anything new and interesting to the viewer,” Yagi-san added. “I’m Yagi, by the way, nice to meet you boys,” he said with a smile and a knowing look pointed toward Izuku.
“Yes, I agree, hence the meeting, we have a little under fourteen minutes to come up with another solution that we can all agree on,” Nedzu responded.
“An’ we want to keep it within the parameters of a 1v1 fight, right? Doin’ an obstacle course or some sort of timed trial would deviate too much from the spirit of the third round; it’s always been 1v1s far as I can recall,” Snipe piped up again.
“Yes, that would be preferable, I could imagine we would get some backlash about it not being fair for x, y, and z reasons. They say no publicity is bad publicity, but I’d rather not have any disputes about it put either of these two under public scrutiny,” Nedzu returned.
The adults went back and forth with a few ideas for several minutes and the whole time something was nagging at the back of his mind. If their quirks were too volatile for a full-out 1v1, why couldn’t they just fight without them? It made sense to Izuku, it would show off their martial arts skills, it would level the playing field, and it would still be something new and interesting to the audience; people still watched boxing and stuff like that, right? What was the difference? It might not be the most grand thing but anything else put them both at risk for being too injured to participate in the final round and, surely, that would be far worse for viewership.
As their implied timer was beginning to run out and they had yet to come to a consensus, Izuku decided to bite the bullet; the worst they could do is call him an idiot and ignore him, which wasn’t anything he wasn’t already used to.
“Um, why don’t we j-just fight without our q-quirks? P-people still watch MMA fights, r-right,” he peeped out when the conversation stalled enough for him to get a word in.
His heart sank a bit as All Might glanced at the other two nervously. He couldn’t see Snipe’s expression due to his mask, but he had tilted his head in a way that looked like he was interested, and Nedzu had a full smile of sharp teeth on display which Izuku didn’t know how to read… was that a good thing?
“Sometimes the best solution is the most simple,” Nedzu spoke after what felt like an eternity of silence, but in all reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, “We’ve been waffling on for 13 minutes now and the answer was right under our noses. What does everyone think about that? I believe it’s the best option we’ve heard yet.”
“It may be a bit lackluster viewership-wise, but I can’t see how anyone could argue it was unfair, nor does it seem likely that it would result in them being too injured to continue to the finals,” Yagi replied after taking a moment to think.
“Sounds like a good idea to me, viewers’d be more disappointed by the finals being botched than a ‘lackluster’ rematch,” Snipe concluded.
The three of them turned their focus back to him and Todoroki after that.
“Sounds the most logical,” Todoroki agreed.
And everyone’s focus turned to him.
He clammed up under the attention and just nodded his head.
“Alright then it’s decided, you boys are due out any minute now, surely. Get to your waiting rooms; I’m sure the coordinators are waiting to direct you already. I apologize for taking your limited rest time away from you but I’m sure you will both sleep soundly tonight,” Nedzu dismissed them with what Izuku assumed to be an apologetic grin; it was difficult to read emotions from an inhuman face.
After that, Izuku was directed through the hallways in a blur and before he knew it he was standing at the end of the tunnel again. He’d caught wind of the results from Tokoyami and Kacchan’s match; if he won this he would be up against Kacchan in the next round… He honestly wasn’t sure whether he’d prefer to win or lose this fight but he knew he’d beat himself up until the end of time if he didn’t give it his all. So, whatever happens happens.
“AND NOW FOR THE REMATCH YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, CLASS 1A’S FRONT RUNNERS TODOROKI AND MIDORIYAAAAAAAAAAA,” Mic announced and the coordinator ushered him out quickly, clearly not expecting such a rushed introduction; they must be pressed for time.
“Alright folks, you all saw the last round, a groundbreaking performance all around, but we can’t have our champions out of commission before the final, can we?” Midnight asked, pausing for dramatic effect.
“This time we’re going to have a special challenge,” she exclaimed as she pulled something out from the pouches of her belt.
She held up the items to the crowd: two pairs of handcuffs rested precariously on each extended pointer finger. They looked to be standard issue quirk canceling cuffs that most police officers carried.
“Our contestants are going to be wearing these quirk-canceling cuffs for the fight! That’s right we’re going back to the basics, mono e mono, are you ready boys,” she asked more provocatively than was probably appropriate before beckoning them forward.
She latched both ends of the cuffs around one wrist so that they wouldn’t actually be restrained and as the second ring clasped around him he felt the torrent of power that he had grown accustomed to disappear. Ivy not Deku, Ivy not Deku, Ivy not Deku . He fought quirkless all the time, he wasn’t quirkless anyway, not anymore, he could do this, he was fine.
This was fine.
“Get back to your starting marks,” Midnight ordered after fastening the cuffs around Todoroki’s wrist as well.
He bit down on the inside of his cheek in an effort to keep his expression neutral, but he’s not sure how successful it was. He walked back to his starting mark and took in a deep breath through his nose. They were Ivy, not Deku, they could do this. They relaxed their shoulders and got into a well-practiced fighting stance.
The timer ticked down until the buzzer sounded; they shot forward like a bat out of hell and Todoroki did the same. He led with a punch and they caught it, wrenching his arm around in an attempt to immobilize, but Todoroki used his weight and momentum against them and sent them both crashing to the ground, forcing them to release their grip and roll away to avoid getting pinned.
They were back on their feet in a split second, but so was Todoroki. They charged forward and sent a powerful kick into his side before he properly got his footing back; all he could do was block, he didn’t have the time to dodge, but blocking wasn’t enough for a hit that hard. His forearm took the brunt of the impact away from what would have been his ribs and he stumbled back for a few steps. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the opportunity to strike again before Todoroki had his feet firmly planted.
Todoroki charged at them again, this time with a kick and they dodged out of the way and sent a kick back at him while he was off balance. He toppled to the ground, but they didn’t want to start grappling with someone heavier than them, especially since Todoroki might be physically stronger than them without OFA. That wasn’t something they wanted to test right now and it didn’t make for good television anyway, so they waited for him to get back on his feet before advancing. They charged full force ahead and jumped up just before meeting him, bringing all their momentum down to their foot, which was aimed right at his chest. Again, there was very little Todoroki could do against the speed and force of the attack. He fell onto his back and gasped for the air that had been thoroughly knocked out of his lungs, but he recovered concerningly fast. Most people would be dazed for a few seconds at the very least, but he rolled to the left and out of the way of Izuku’s momentum before he could catch a knee to the sternum.
Izuku’s surprise made him hesitate, and that was enough time for Todoroki to get to his feet again. They circled around one another cautiously for a moment before Izuku charged at him; if he was on the defense then they could use that to their advantage. They exchanged blows back and forth for an amount of time that Izuku didn’t have the mental bandwidth to track properly. It felt like a dance, going back and forth with a brutal rhythm. Though, it’s not like he had ever danced with someone to know what that was like, but he imagined it was similar.
They weren’t landing a single hit, or at least not ones hard enough to matter, they needed to try something else. They feigned another kick to the ribs which Todoroki went to block making it so that he only had enough time to partially block a fist to the jaw. It glanced off his forearm and lost some momentum, but it still hit its mark.
Izuku made the same mistake again, assuming Todoroki would be dazed from the blow, but he recovered damn near immediately and delivered a swift kick to their exposed flank. They stumbled back, but both of them seemed to be too used to getting hit to be dazed for long. Izuku advanced again while Todoroki was off balance and grabbed his arm which had been stuck out to the side for stability. He wrenched it behind his back like he had earlier. However, unlike earlier, Todoroki didn’t have the momentum to throw them off balance.
Grappling was a risk, but they needed to trust themself; they saw an opportunity and they took it. With his arm twisted behind his back, they pushed him to the ground and pressed a knee to the center of his spine. Their combined weights slammed Todoroki into the ground chest first forcing him to gasp for air again. Any squirming around threatened to pop his shoulder out of place; he tried to reach back with his free arm, but the movement strained his joints further and he let out as much of a pained groan as he could manage after getting the wind knocked out of him twice in rapid succession. He wriggled around as much as he could and Izuku counted the seconds in his head.
1
2
3
“Todoroki has been immobilized! Midoriya advances to the final round!”
Well… shit.
Eves from the Discord made a Shinso POV for this chapter and it's so good??? check it out???
https://archiveofourown.org/works/56411635
I keep forgetting to upload this meme so I'm putting it here lol. POV Aizawa in the commenter's booth after this fight
Notes:
THANK YOU FOR READING!!!!
Chapter 118: Round 3 pt. 3
Notes:
Shout out to my mods Spade, Beezus, and Penny and also Woomy from the Discord who helped me out immensely. I struggled with this chapter a LOT and I would not be uploading this if it weren’t for their help <3
CWs
Flashbacks
Dissociation
PTSD
Mild description of injuries/scars
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Izuku sat in the waiting room bouncing his legs incessantly.
He was going to fight Kacchan. That was fine, he’d fought Kacchan before and won so it was fine! He wouldn’t even have his support gear this time! This was going to be easy! So… so easy… and simple and fine and he wasn’t freaking out in the slightest!
He was going to fight Kacchan, who he had been one step ahead of during the whole festival… who was surely very angry about being one step behind Izuku during the whole festival… Kacchan who had far more to prove now than he did during the battle trials…
God, he was so screwed.
Even if he won, he was toast, Kacchan wouldn’t let bygones be bygones; he’d followed him after school to beat the shit out of him before, and he’d do it again. Should he throw the match? No, All Might would be so disappointed. Why did his last two matches have to have so many pyrotechnics? He’s not sure he could get through this fight without being the second person to have a flashback on live television. Hell, he could hardly get through heroics class without having a flashback, and now billions of people were going to be watching him and All Might was going to be watching him and he couldn’t disappoint All Might any more than he already had today.
For fucks sake he was damn near having a panic attack and he hadn’t even left the waiting room yet!
***
He was going to destroy Deku.
Fuck all restraint, fuck holding back, he was going to win. Recovery Girl was on standby anyway, shitty Deku could walk it off. He had been in third place all day and now he was only in second because Deku had taken Icyhot out on his own, so that hardly counted.
Where the hell did Deku learn to fight like that? That rematch was quirkless, he could have kicked Katsuki’s ass if he had wanted to – or at least he could have tried – for how long now? Why did he just stand there and take it all those years? Why was he always looking down on him? What was he trying to prove? That shitty nerd didn’t make any goddamn sense, but that didn’t matter, he didn’t need to make sense for Katsuki to kick his ass.
As he sat in the waiting room he realized that, for the first time today, he was nervous. Fucking Deku of all people is the first match that made him nervous? God, that pissed him off. Shitty Deku and his stupid fucking super quirk. Well, the jokes on him, the nerves only made his hands sweat more, and the more sweat he had, the bigger the explosions he could make. He had half a mind to put Icyhot’s shitty thermal explosion to shame but he wasn’t confident he wouldn’t end up breaking a wrist if he tried that. Plus it was overkill, he had more control over his quirk than that idiot anyway.
He was just about ready to tear his hair out when he was finally called from that damn room. He walked ahead of the guy who was supposed to be ‘guiding’ him to the field and telling him when to go out as if he hadn’t done this three times already. He wasn’t stupid. He waited in the tunnel as Deku was called out first from the other side of the arena and walked out when Loud Mouth introduced him for the fourth time today, ignoring any cue the coordinator may or may not have given him.
Deku stood on the other side of the pitch, his hands were bunched into fists at his sides, but Katsuki could tell they were shaking, even from this distance. He looked like a toddler gearing up for a tantrum. What a loser, why had he been so nervous? Deku was shaking in his boots, as he should because Katsuki was going to destroy him.
The timer ticked down and the buzzer sounded. Katsuki wasted no time charging forward and Deku just stood there like a deer in headlights. It only lasted a split second, but Katsuki saw it. Once he was within range he braced his footing, held out both palms, and let off an explosion big enough to shake the stands.
He expected Deku to be a pancake on the far wall of the arena, but a kick to the back told him that this fight wasn’t going to be that easy. How did he get back there? Katsuki hardly blinked and all the sudden he had to roll back up to his feet.
Green sparks crackled across Deku’s skin and, not for the first time today, Katsuki cursed that stupid fucking miracle quirk. It seemed to boost both his strength and speed to a degree that Katsuki did not know the bounds of. That overpowered runt wasn’t going to get the better of him though. Undeterred, he sent another explosion after him, this one smaller, but from a much closer range. Deku dodged it again and tried to get in close; why the hell would he be trying to fight at close range? If he could break Half-n-half’s little ice palace from the other side of the arena then why wouldn’t he do the same thing against Katsuki? That kick to the back hadn’t felt good, but it didn’t feel any more powerful than a normal kick would; was Deku trying to win this half-assed? He’d spent damn near 20 minutes taunting Icyhot to get his head in the game and now he was gonna turn around and do the same thing to Katsuki?
Hell no. Katsuki wasn’t gonna take that.
As Deku came at him he poised himself to send a blast off on him but waited until he dodged again. Fool me once, fool me twice, third time wasn’t gonna happen. Katsuki watched and raised his other hand to the left where Deku was dodging away from a blow that never came. He could see on the nerd’s face that he realized his mistake too late and Katsuki set off an explosion big enough to send Deku flying backward.
He had gotten his arms up in time to take the brunt of the damage and rolled back up onto his feet before the smoke had even cleared. He charged back toward Katsuki again, and again Katsuki set off an explosion, forcing him to dodge out of the way in a flash of green sparks.
Was he just going to use that damn quirk to run away?!
He’d blame his annoyance for letting Deku get close enough to land a hit on him, but in reality, he’s not sure there’s much he could have done to avoid it. Deku grabbed his wrist as he went to blow him away and tried to pin his arm behind his back, the same shitty move he pulled on Icyhot to win last round. But he wasn’t Icyhot, and this fight wasn’t quirkless. Deku had one of his wrists twisted awkwardly against his back and the other one in a vice grip. He was doing his best to keep Katsuki’s palms facing away from him, but it wasn’t enough. It hurt to wrench his wrist around, but he did it anyway and let an explosion off that shot Deku away from him.
He turned around immediately so that Deku wouldn’t get the chance to retaliate, but the sight that greeted him made his blood go cold. Deku was on the ground several feet back from where he had just been. One of his hands was planted on the ground behind him, propping him up in a seated position, but the other one was shaking and pulled to his chest. His chest which had an ugly scorch mark burnt through his shirt and onto the skin beneath it.
He wasn’t sure if it was reality or the memory of burnt flesh that filled his nostrils, but either way, it was enough to make him sick. The longer Deku sat there shaking the more Katsuki’s vision started to go fuzzy. Why wasn’t anyone helping? He was hurt, wasn’t he? How long had it been? Why wasn’t Deku moving? Why wasn’t he moving? Why was it so difficult to breathe? Why wasn’t anyone helping ???
He thought he had kept his eyes on Deku, but apparently, he hadn’t because all of the sudden he was standing in front of him and planting a heavy kick to his chest. The world felt like it was moving in slow motion, everything was blurred and staticky and he was on the ground and he couldn’t get any goddamned air in his stupid goddamned lungs. Feeling vulnerable and unable to breathe was not bringing up pleasant memories either. God, this had to stop– Jesus— FUCK– this had to stop!
Deku was after him again, green lightning traced lines over his skin and Katsuki needed to get up, he needed to fight, lack of air in his lungs be damned. He needed to get a hold of himself, he was fine, Deku was fine; they were in the middle of the finals, now was not the time to be showing weakness.
***
As the explosion shot him back he hardly registered the pain he was feeling, his mind was too busy supplying him the pain he had felt years ago when Kacchan had done this the first time. He felt the agony of dousing the open wound in alcohol, he felt the awful pull of his charred skin that had plagued him each time he raised his arms above his head for months, he felt the horrible freezing cold and burning hot exhaustion that had smothered him for a week before he could move properly again. He felt the damp air of the stairwell fill his lungs with each painful breath and he felt white hot fury pumping through his veins.
Katsuki was not going to do that to him, not again, not without paying for it.
All of his panic couldn’t have been going on longer than a second because the crowd was still roaring and the teachers were still watching; no one had stepped in yet, and they didn’t need to. He got to his feet quickly but Kacchan didn’t move an inch, he was still looking at the ground where Izuku had been sprawled out. He clearly wasn’t seeing what was going on in front of him, he should give him a second to get his wits about him, shouldn’t he?– No, he wasn’t Deku right now, he needed to fight. He could tell that Kacchan’s breaths were shallow, but that didn’t matter. He charged forward and planted the sole of his foot onto his opponent’s sternum with enough force to knock the limited air he had been forcing into his lungs out in a big huff.
Kacchan fell to the ground and finally looked at him like he was actually seeing him while he tried desperately to get air into his lungs. He looked terrified. Izuku wanted to kick him again and, god, that was sickening. What the fuck was his problem? What was he doing? He couldn’t kick someone while they were down. Well, he could, but he shouldn’t. He wouldn’t be any better than all the people who had kicked him down and kept hitting him his whole life, he couldn’t be like that, he refused to be like that. Even still, anger thrummed violently under his skin, green sparks danced across his vision but he didn’t move, not yet.
He waited until Kacchan looked up at him, clutching a hand uselessly in the fabric of his own shirt as he forced in a breath, he waited until the fear in his eyes faded back to anger, and then he charged.
As Izuku advanced he watched Kacchan raise a hand to him and let off an explosion. With his momentum, he dodged up and over him and rolled back onto his feet. Kacchan had used another explosion to get himself back on his feet while Izuku’s back was to him and he was already gunning straight for him. The scent of nitroglycerin hung in the air, heavy and sweet, it was familiar and it had only been getting worse as the fight went on. He’d been fighting with himself to retain his composure just as much as he had been fighting Kacchan. Memory was most heavily linked with the sense of smell and the scent of burnt caramel was woven into far too many memories, where the only way he could survive Kacchan was to submit to his demands. Half of him was furious, half of him wanted to pummel Katsuki into the ground, but the other half was 10 years old and terrified.
There was something both halves could agree on though, this fight needed to be over. He could feel himself shaking from head to toe, whether it was from anger or fear he couldn’t tell, but that didn’t matter. OFA crackled around him and the second Kacchan left an opening, he took it. He went low, ducking under an explosion, and kicked Kacchan in the stomach with more force than he had ever used against another human being. The impact sent him flying backward and rolling for several yards. When he came to a stop on his back he let out a groan of pain; he clutched at his stomach but he didn’t get up, not yet at least.
Izuku knew better than to let him get up.
He silenced the part of himself that told him to run away and charged toward Kacchan. He didn’t want to hurt him any more than necessary and they were so close to the boundary line, all he had to do was push him out of bounds. He was still on the ground and recovering from the hit to his gut when Izuku grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up. He was still disoriented but he had gotten his wits about him enough to start fighting back, he was setting off explosions, but Izuku just ignored them. The pain registered, but it was distant at best.
Izuku threw him toward the boundary line and Kacchan let a blast behind himself to stay in bounds. Unfortunately for Kacchan, he had expected that. With one hand still posed behind himself and the other hanging limp at his side he flew forward toward Izuku with no means to dodge before it was too late. With sick satisfaction, Izuku sent a right hook straight for his jaw hard enough for him to stumble backward. With him already off balance it was all too easy to shove him over the line and out of bounds.
Mic announcing him as the victor was nothing but static in his ears as he watched Katsuki trip and fall into the grass. The better part of him told him he should help him back to his feet, but a smarter part of him told him that that wouldn’t end well. Med bots were already zipping out onto the field anyway.
His ears were ringing and the panic that had been thrumming in his veins was starting to become unbearable now that he had nothing else to focus on. He noticed that he was still shaking and taking note of his body clued him into the pain he had been ignoring. He regretted looking down at his chest immediately; his shirt was in tatters and the skin beneath was angry, red, and burned. The pain was good though, it meant that he hadn’t been burned as badly as last time. However, the sight of the wound still made his head spin.
Med bots swarmed him for the second time today and this time he didn’t bother trying to dismiss them, he just sat down on the stretcher letting his legs give out from under him with a heavy thud.
***
Bakugo’s injuries weren’t very severe, he had a dislocated shoulder, a handful of heavy bruises developing, a sprained wrist, and a mild concussion. Chiyo had been watching the final, Midoriya had much more restraint than his opponent; she made quick work of healing Bakugo’s injuries because Midoriya was going to take much longer to see to.
Bakugo didn’t say a word unless prompted while she tended to him. He just grit his teeth and let out a pained grunt when she set his shoulder. From what little she knew of him, she hadn’t expected him to take a loss with pride so she wasn’t too surprised.
What was a surprise was how quiet Midoriya was as well. He did tend to have his moments where he seemed too shy to talk but right now he was damn near catatonic. When she walked over to him, she wasn’t given the same over-the-top, polite greeting she had grown accustomed to; all she got was a shaky nod of acknowledgment. The boy was sitting on the cot with his legs crossed, his arms held in front of his chest, and he was avoiding eye contact like it was the plague.
She wasn’t at Midoriya’s bedside yet, she was halfway between the two boys, but she had a feeling that whatever had set Midoriya off was only going to get worse as she prodded at him, and he didn’t need an audience for that.
“Bakugo-kun, would you please wait in the hall? Someone should be by shortly to collect you for the awards ceremony. If anything changes – your vision goes blurry or you get dizzy – let me know, alright?”
The boy, to his credit, didn’t argue. He just shot a glare between her and Midoriya for a moment before leaving while muttering something under his breath that she should probably be grateful that she couldn’t hear. Midoriya watched him subtly as he left, tracking his movements closely out of the corner of his eye; the tension in his shoulders released microscopically when the door shut behind him. That might be something worth keeping tabs on, but for now, there were more pressing matters at hand.
“Midoriya-kun?” she gently called his attention back to her.
He gave her another jerky nod of acknowledgment as he sat there trembling. His lips were pressed into a fine line as he appeared to be chewing on them. This was… worrying. She had seen to the boy after shattering his own bones several times now and he had never been quite so demure. Either he was much more injured than he was letting on, or there was something else at play here, and she wasn’t looking forward to whichever outcome awaited her.
“I’m going to need you to move your arms so I can tend to your burns,” Chiyo warned.
Whatever minuscule amount of tension that had released from his shoulders when Bakugo left returned with a vengeance at her words. Still, he listened. He moved his arms shakily to his sides as if he were fighting against them to follow her directions. The burns didn’t look awful but they were quite expansive, covering the majority of the boy’s chest and arms. His shirt was little more than clumps of scorched cloth strung together around his torso, but it still needed to be removed so that she could see what she was doing.
“I’m going to have to cut your shirt off dearie,” she cautioned.
The surprisingly steady breaths Midoriya had been taking stopped abruptly and his arms twitched as if he were going to shield his chest again before remembering that she had requested he move them. He refused to look up at her as he nodded again and started taking in breaths that were far too quick and shallow to be of much use. Chiyo wished she could give the boy time to collect himself but his physical health came first; it would probably be better to get this over with anyway.
She grabbed a pair of scissors and started snipping away the few points of connection that held the shirt in place. By the time the poor excuse for a garment was removed Midoriya’s breath had returned to normal, the tension had left his shoulders almost completely, but his expression was blank and he was looking off into nothing; the lights were on but it appeared as if no one was home. That… that wasn’t good at all, but it would probably make this process much less painful for the poor kid.
Judging by the state of his shirt, his back shouldn’t be too damaged but she went to check it over before she guided him to lay down. As she inspected it, she saw a large swath of discolored flesh on the far side of the boy’s torso. The skin was raised and textured, darker in some places and bright silvery white in others; it appeared to be scar tissue from a burn that wrapped around his side and onto his chest. She quickly shuffled around the bed to get a better look at it before she had him lie down.
The expanse of the scarring was much worse than it had looked from the other side of the cot. It went down, starting from the bottom of his cervical vertebrae, over his shoulder, and across the entirety of his right side before disappearing into the waistline of his pants. It looked old and poorly healed. She could imagine it had been extremely painful and she shuddered to think what could have caused it. Whatever happened to the boy was likely contributing to his current state of mind, but that wasn’t what she needed to be focusing on right now.
Shaking the thoughts from her head she gently pushed the boy's shoulders down until he rested on his back. He moved like putty, following her direction without a lick of defiance as he stared up at the ceiling unblinkingly. There were many more concerning scars littering the boy’s front but she ignored them as best she could and went about treating the burns across his chest. She cleaned them and Midoriya didn’t so much as flinch as she did it. The burns were all manageable, second-degree. They shouldn’t scar too badly, if at all, assuming they were taken care of properly, and she was going to see to it personally that they were taken care of properly; a body this young shouldn’t be so marred. She called to one of her aides to grab another long-sleeved shirt to replace the one Midoriya had been wearing as she bandaged him up behind a privacy screen. She would have to report all of this, but, given the boy’s normal attire, she assumed he would prefer that the fewer people who saw his scars the better.
With his shirt in place, she grabbed an ice cube and a towel, placing the former in the boy’s hand and the latter around it in an attempt to bring him back to coherency as painlessly as possible. It took at least 20 minutes and two completely melted ice cubes before any amount of focus returned to his eyes, but Chiyo had ordered her aides not to let anyone in barring a world-ending catastrophe and she had enough patience to wait.
When Midoriya looked over to her she gave a gentle smile and waited a little longer before speaking.
“Is there anything or anyone I could get for you, Dearie?” she asked quietly.
The boy looked at her for longer than most would take to understand a question before he shook his head.
“Alright. I’ll be right here if you need anything,” she offered, turning around in her chair and busying herself at her desk.
He needed time to get back to himself and she was going to give him as much as he needed, awards ceremony be damned.
***
Katsuki sat fuming under the arena on his stupid fucking 2nd place pedestal next to that stupid fucking Icyhot bastard for what felt like hours before Deku walked into the room. He had gotten a new shirt. Katsuki could see white bandages wrapped around his right hand and up his wrist before they disappeared behind the hem of his sleeve. He looked like the scared useless Null he had been in junior high; Katsuki hadn’t noticed how much taller he’d been standing lately until he slouched back into the weak pathetic posture he had carried himself with for most of his life.
Was he seriously going to get up on his first-place pedestal looking so goddamn pathetic?
“Stand up you shitty nerd,” he barked as Deku stood on his marker.
He jumped as Katsuki spoke but that reaction didn’t give him the satisfaction that it used to, it just made him angrier.
“You’re not going up there looking so goddamn pathetic, stand up!” he shouted again.
This time Deku took a full step back away from him and stared at him with wide eyes before taking in a breath, shaking his head, and complying. He turned away from Katsuki, faced forward, straightened his spine, and squared his shoulders. His expression was still eerily neutral, but it was better than what it had been.
Less than a minute later the ceiling above them opened up and the light of the late afternoon sun poured in, making him squint for a moment before the podiums started to rise. Half-n-half went up first, then him, and finally, Deku’s platform rose up between them. He glanced over to make sure he hadn’t dropped his shoulders again and the fucker had an ear-to-ear smile on his face. The crowd roared in approval and that bastard seemed to soak it up like a sponge, except the smile didn’t really reach his eyes and his hands still held onto a persistent tremor.
Katsuki watched him out of the corner of his eye. He stood there and only half paid attention as the teachers worked together to botch All Might’s entrance, but the crowd roared even louder regardless and Katsuki didn’t bother trying to hide his annoyance. He didn’t want to be here, there was no reason him and fuckin’ Icyhot should be on the podium. They were being celebrated for losing and it was fucking embarrassing.
The crowd screamed in celebration as All Might rested the 3rd place medal around Half-n-half’s neck and gave him a bear hug. Oh hell no, he was not doing that to Katsuki, he didn’t care if it was All Might or God himself, he wasn’t going to let himself look like a weak little baby getting a hug from their idol. When All Might walked over with his medal, Katsuki didn’t bow his head so that he could put it on, he just held out his hand to take it. When All Might faltered at Katsuki flipping the script he just reached out and took it himself; this whole show had stretched on long enough and he wasn’t going to wait for All Might’s brain to load. He shoved the medal in his pocket and reluctantly accepted the handshake that All Might offered instead of a hug.
When All Might Shifted his attention to Deku, Katsuki watched in disgust as both of them wore smiles bright enough to blind anyone watching. All Might settled the first-place medal on his shoulders and hugged Deku tight enough that Katsuki heard several things crack. What the hell was their deal? They’d seemed far too familiar since day one and it had only gotten worse since the USJ.
It was difficult to make out over the noise of the crowd losing it, but Katsuki could swear he heard All Might say, “I’m so proud of you, my boy.”
My boy? Who the fuck was he calling my boy ? Deku had some explaining to do about several things already and they just seemed to keep piling up.
An eon later the teachers finally wrapped up the stupid ceremony and the podiums started to lower the three of them back down to the room they had been in before. The moment the noise of the crowd was shut out behind them Deku crumpled like a wet paper towel. His shoulders dropped and his expression went back to the same sad, scared, and submissive thing it had been since they were kids. At least he had the decency to not look so pathetic out there. Half-n-half kept looking at him with a furrowed brow like he was trying to figure out what the hell his problem was but Deku skittered away to the locker rooms like a rat before he could. He looked over to Katsuki like he might have an answer but he just rolled his eyes and shouldered past him. He had no clue what Deku’s deal was and even if he did he wasn’t going to try to explain it to someone as socially stunted as him.
By the time he got to the locker room Deku had already shut himself into a bathroom stall to change like he always did, he’d done it since they were little and Katsuki never understood it. He was just drawing more attention to himself ‘sneaking’ away like that. By the time he had packed up his bag the rest of the class was starting to come in from the stands and Deku was trying to slip out unnoticed. He just got first place in the sports festival, the idiot wasn’t going to go unnoticed anywhere for a while. Deku brushed everyone off as quickly as he could and then the crowd turned on him. Shitty Hair tried to congratulate him but he ignored everyone and marched out after Deku.
That nerd had some explaining to do and he wasn’t going to get away so easily, not this time.
Even with how fast he’d followed, Deku was already halfway down the block outside the front gates by the time he caught up to him. He had his hood up and his head down. Hm, maybe the dumbass realized people were going to recognize him now.
“Deku!” he shouted ahead of him as the shit nerd walked away.
He saw his shoulders tense and his step falter mid-stride. He took one more step before his shoulders rose like he was taking in a deep breath and he turned around. His expression didn’t betray anything, he just looked back at Katsuki and waited.
“When the hell did you learn how to fight?” he asked with no preamble.
Deku glanced around them before answering, but his expression didn’t change.
“Been t-training since I was t-twelve,” he replied, not quite meeting Katsuki’s gaze.
Twelve? It had been over three years? He could have fought back– or at least tried to– for over three years? What the hell was he getting out of playing the victim? Why did he just fold over like a bitch and take it? Did he think everyone was so beneath him that he didn’t even bother to try? And why the fuck was he still shaking in front of Katsuki like he was scared?
“So what, you were just pretending to be pathetic? You’re always looking down on me, what the fuck is your problem!?” he demanded.
Deku flinched back from his volume but that only pissed him off more.
“I n-never looked d-down on you Kacchan,” Deku tried to deny.
“Oh piss off! You could have fought back the whole time with that damn quirk. Why did you hide it? You were pretending to be a Null for what? Pity? To make me look like an idiot?”
“I wasn’t p-pretending anything. I didn’t have a q-quirk until 5 m-months ago. It would have sh-shattered my bones if I had g-gotten it–”
“Bullshit! You owe me a real goddamn explanation,” Katsuki insisted.
Deku’s expression finally shifted from the tired, neutral, empty thing it had been since the award ceremony ended, but what it changed to was something Katsuki had never seen on his face; anger. He’d seen him annoyed, he’d seen him indignant, he’d seen him fed up, but he’d never seen such fury on his face.
“Midoriya!” a voice from behind him called.
The expression disappeared in the blink of an eye.
“There you are, I was looking all over for you,” Pink Cheeks said after jogging over.
She shot a glare back at Katsuki, draped an arm over Deku’s shoulders, and started guiding him away without a word. Tch, whatever. Deku couldn’t run away forever. He was going to get an explanation sooner or later whether that asshole wanted to give it to him or not.
He walked straight and took a different path to the train station, one that would hopefully not put him on the same train as Deku and Pink Cheeks. The silver medal in his pocket felt like it weighed 20 pounds and he had half a mind to throw it over the side of the bridge he was currently crossing, but he knew he’d never hear the end of it from the hag if he did that. Fucking hell, he was never gonna hear the end of it from her anyway but coming home empty-handed was only going to make it worse, so he just kept walking.
Notes:
SPORTS FESTIVAL OVER
I'M FREE
I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Chapter 119: Onto the next chapter
Notes:
Thanks to my Beta-reading crew (Penny, Parker, Beezus, Spade, and Woomy) for vetting this before I posted it! You guys are a huge help!
CWs contain spoilers, see end note if you want to read them.
This fic has a very active Discord atm so come join us, I'm in there daily, link in the body of the text below 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Discord
When Izuku finally got back to the brewery after the sports festival he was relieved and disappointed in equal measure to see that Eraser had texted him to cancel patrol. He had said that there was an emergency and that they shouldn’t worry about it, but they worried anyway. Well, they worried as much as they could before falling asleep on the couch in their day clothes.
When his alarm woke him up he was thankful that the teachers had all cut back on homework assignments because Izuku had slept a full 12 hours; 6 pm to 6 am. He hadn’t even taken his backpack off fully, much less gone through it to get any homework he may or may not have had. He also hadn’t eaten since noon yesterday and the cold dinner he had intended to heat up last night was calling his name. He scarfed it down, paying little mind to how unpleasant the textures were at the temperature they were at.
After being ambushed by his classmates on the way out of the locker room yesterday he was a little nervous to go back to school. He didn’t want to be rude, but he also didn’t want to talk about the sports festival, it was stressful enough to live through it once, and he didn’t want to have to do it again. He hadn’t been recognized on the way home last night with his hood up, but the only hoodies he had were his old Put Your Hands Up Radio hoodie and his Ivy hoodie. He really didn’t want to be bothered on the long train ride across the city, so, Put Your Hands Up was his only real option. It had grown a little too small for him, or rather, he had grown too big for it over the years, but it still fit well enough and covered his relatively distinctive hair. He’d just have to take it off before he got to campus because if Mic saw him wearing this, he might actually die of embarrassment. He’d been wearing it to and from school only so far as the bounds of Uptown in an effort to hide his UA uniform and avoid attracting unwanted attention, so the ritual wouldn’t change that much, he’d just have a much smaller window of time to hide the evidence.
Thankfully, his skills of going unnoticed were well practiced. He made his way to school and shoved the hoodie to the bottom of his bag without being recognized, but he knew that wasn't going to last once he got on campus. He kept his head down and made his way to his little alcove in the disused hallway as quickly as he could. He got a few whoops and hollers but no one actually stopped him to talk so he’d count it as a win.
He stayed hidden away for as long as he could, but eventually, he had to make his way to the classroom. The room was disordered, people were out of their seats and chatting with friends, but once the first person noticed him, everyone noticed him. They all seemed excited, they had smiles and some gestured wildly but Izuku couldn’t really make out what anyone was saying since they were all speaking at the same time.
The one thing he could make out was Iida’s notable silence. He was sat in his seat at the back of the room and he didn’t even look up at the commotion, he didn’t try to quiet anyone down or demand order like he usually did. He just stared at his hands on the desk. Uraraka gave him a smile, but she also seemed pretty downtrodden. Both fortunately and unfortunately, Izuku had timed his entrance impeccably and the bell rang, forcing everyone to settle back into their seats less than half a minute after he walked in. Maybe he could catch them between classes and see what was going on.
When Eraser walked in with a notable tension in his shoulders, Izuku started to become rather worried. What had happened? All three of them were upset and Izuku had no clue why. His mind started running a mile a minute but was stopped abruptly when Eraser announced that internship offers had been compiled. He started passing out papers full of lists to everyone who had participated in the sports festival and Izuku’s eyes went wide when Eraser dropped a packet stapled together onto his desk. There had to be at least 6 pages double-sided, single-spaced, and all of them were offers for him? This had to be damn near every agency in Japan!
He recognized a lot of these agencies, these were good agencies butheneededtopicksomething
goodforlimelightheroicsrightthatwouldbeinhisbestinterestbut thereweresomanytwilightandevenundergroundherosonhere WAITWASTHAT-
A dull thump hit the back of his chair. He whipped his head up and several of his classmates were looking at him as well as Eraser. He looked back at Shinso, who apparently had kicked the back of his chair and he just pointedly moved his attention back up to Eraser. Oh, goddamnit, he was talking and Izuku was probably mumbling inane bullshit again.
“As I was saying, internship choices are due Wednesday. You should all have a list of offers as well as a form to fill out at the back with your final choice. That needs to be filled out and turned in to me or you will not be getting any internships, no exceptions. Any questions?” Eraser, presumably, continued speaking.
Izuku did his best to fade out of existence as he felt his face burn with a blush. He bit his lip and looked back down at his packet as Eraser answered questions. The “E” section of his alphabetically ordered list caught his attention, two names in particular: Eraserhead and Endeavor. Why the hell did he get offers from either of them? He didn’t exactly leave his conversation with Endeavor on good terms. In fact, he was under the impression that he would have liked to squish Izuku like a little bug. So why the hell did he get an internship offer from him? And what about Eraser? He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to offer internships, moreover, he didn’t even have an agency, he worked with the police! And where the hell was he going to take an intern anyway? Uptown? He’d never done it before so why would he be starting now? Is it because he had told him Ivy was leaving? Was he trying to replace them with… him…?
He could at least ask Todoroki about Endeavor, but Eraser was… well Izuku had a feeling he wasn’t going to find an explanation for that anywhere.
***
His classmate’s murmurings clued him into what was going on with Iida before he ever got the chance to ask. Ingenium had been hospitalized with severe injuries after another attack from the “Hero Killer”. With everything that had been going on in his life, he wasn’t very up-to-date on current events. He knew who the Hero Killer was but didn’t know much about him. He should stop by the library or internet cafe and do some research on that. As for right now, Iida just looked like he wanted to be left alone.
When lunch rolled around he wasn’t surprised to see Iida brush him and Uraraka off to go eat by himself. They didn’t stop him, but it hurt to watch him suffer alone. Something that did surprise him, however, was Todoroki walking over to their table and asking to sit with them. Usually, he sat by himself or with some of the other quieter kids on the other side of the lunch room.
“Yeah, of course you can!” Uraraka answered before Izuku got the chance.
He sat down next to Izuku and didn’t do much to help with the conversation vacuum developing in Iida’s absence. As the awkward silence stretched on Izuku figured this was as good a time to ask as any.
“Hey, T-Todoroki?”
“Hm?” he hummed in response around a mouthful of soba.
“I, um, I w-wanted to ask you about my um, internship offers,” he started sheepishly.
Todoroki just looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“It’s just– I, uh, I got one from Endeavor…” he trailed off awkwardly hoping that Todoroki would pick up on the non-question; he didn’t want to explain why that was strange in front of Uraraka.
Todoroki furrowed his brow for a moment before making an expression Izuku had yet to see from him: he smiled and huffed out a laugh. Something about the laugh of someone who never laughs was infectious; the same thing happened with Eraser, whenever they managed to make him laugh they couldn’t help cracking up themself. He didn’t even know why Todoroki was laughing, but he found himself laughing too.
“Burnin’ probably sent out the internship offers,” Todoroki answered, a small smile still on his face.
Izuku laughed again at the explanation. It would be incredibly funny to see the look on Endeavor’s face if he showed up for an internship with him. Given that Burnin’ likely sent the offer, he probably wouldn’t be seeing much of Endeavor if he accepted it, but the thought was funny regardless.
“It’s the h-highest ranked offer I got m-maybe I should take it,” Izuku joked as he got his giggles under control.
“That would be nice, we could intern together,” Todoroki answered casually.
Together? Was Todoroki interning with his father? Why would he do that? That was an awful idea, school was supposed to get him out of that house and as far away from that man as he could be! Not straight back into the fire!
“You’re interning with y-your dad?” Izuku asked cautiously.
Todoroki just hummed in confirmation.
“D-don’t you get enough of him at home?” he asked in a joking tone, trying his best to not give anything away to Uraraka.
“If I want to get better control of my fire, he’s the most logical choice,” Todoroki offered, nonchalant as ever.
That… made sense. He wondered if Todoroki had given any thought to his question about what he wanted. Did he want to be a hero? Whether he had made a decision on that or not, he was right, it was in his best interest to gain better control of his fire. As much as he hated to admit it, Endeavor was the best person to teach him that.
“Yeah… I g-guess you’re right,” he acquiesced before turning back to his lunch.
“I didn’t get a ton of offers, but I think I'm gonna go for a hero that focuses on hand-to-hand combat. I just gotta look through the list and see who would be the best fit, I don't know half the names on here,” Uraraka interjected.
“I could l-look through it. I don’t know every h-hero, but I know a lot of them,” Izuku offered.
“Oh, that would be great! You could at least point me in the general direction, right?” she said with a smile.
As she rummaged through her bag for the papers, Izuku realized how nice it was to have friends like this. He had been alone for so long now that he’d forgotten. He hoped that whatever happened at the “parent” teacher meeting next week didn’t ruin this; he wasn't sure he could bear to lose it all at once.
***
Iida hardly said a word for the rest of the day and the tension had yet to leave Eraser’s shoulders. Uraraka seemed to just be feeling sympathy pains because she had perked up a bit when Iida had left during lunch. Did Eraser know Ingenium? They were around the same age and he’s pretty sure they both went to UA, so it wasn’t impossible; plus Eraser had seemed nonplussed about Iida’s theatrics since day one. If he still looked so tense on patrol tonight, maybe he could ask him, but as Izuku, it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate to broach the topic.
Iida walked with them to the train station like he always did, but he didn’t say much of anything. He spoke when spoken to, but that was it. As he went to board his eastbound train, Izuku told him to text or call him if he needed anything, but the offer was just met with a stiff nod that told him it wasn’t taken seriously.
“I’m guessing he hasn’t talked to you about anything,” Uraraka asked as Iida’s train left.
“No,” he confirmed, “You heard what h-happened, right?”
“Yeah…” she responded, trailing off with a sigh.
They didn’t speak again until they boarded the train and traveled a few stops.
“I don’t know him well, but I met him after, uh, after the USJ. He came to pick up Iida and found out my parents wouldn’t be able to make it to the city until the next day, so he offered for me to go home with them. He’s very kind, he didn’t deserve this,” Uraraka said mournfully.
Oh, he didn’t know that she had ever met the elder Iida. Maybe she was feeling a little bit more than sympathy pains.
“N-no, I don’t think many people deserve t-that. He’s alive though–- gotta look on the b-bright side,” he offered weakly.
Uraraka didn’t respond to that, not that there was really anything to say. It was a shit situation and nothing was going to make it any less shitty except time. They bid their goodbyes and went their separate ways, but the filter of melancholy didn’t lessen; Izuku had a feeling it wasn’t going to lessen for a long, long time, but he did his best to ignore that. He’d gotten Eraser to agree to patrolling every night for the week before he left and he should enjoy it while he could.
***
As he and Hizashi were packing their things to leave, Shota got what being a teacher allowed him to dread all the way at the ripe age of 30: a call to report to the principal’s office.
“Ooohoohoo Sho’s in trooooouble,” Hizashi taunted him when the sound of the intercom was shut off with the click of Nedzu putting the phone down.
Shota just gave him a glare. He should have more empathy because Zashi wasn't going home without him anyway, not if he knew what was good for him.
“Oh, quit it with the face, I’m gonna wait up for you. You got any idea what this is about?” they asked, returning their focus to packing up their bag.
“No clue. Nothing good, I imagine,” he answered.
“Love the optimism, Sho, it’s charming,” they shot back.
“I’ll text you if I think we’ll be a while,” he replied, ignoring the jab on his way out the door.
When he got to Nedzu’s office he was surprised to find out that he wasn't the only occupant. Chiyo was sitting in one of the unreasonably plush chairs and Shota had a feeling he was going to be bullied into helping her out of it before he left.
“Ah, Aizawa, please take a seat,” Nedzu chirped a touch too cheerfully.
That tone was usually reserved for when he was in a particularly bad mood. Shota was not looking forward to learning what this meeting was about, but he took a seat anyway.
“Shuzenji, please continue,” Nedzu prompted.
“Yes, I have some rather troubling wounds to report from one of your students.”
Shota had to fight the urge to groan. What the hell was wrong with this class? Could they not go a single day without threatening to give him a receding hairline?
“While I was tending to Midoriya-kun yesterday–”
Of course, it was that one. Problem child.
“–I noticed extensive scarring, mostly on his right side. It looked as though he had been burnt quite severely in the past and there were also a number of gashes, all of which were fully healed, save the injuries he sustained in the festival. However, they were concerning enough to warrant a report,” she concluded.
Lovely. He didn’t bother trying to hide how tired he was most of the time and now was not an exception, he scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. Zashi had told him about the meeting they had planned with the boy’s mother, he should probably be here for this too.
“Mic’s got a meeting planned with his mother at the end of the week. Should I call him in, or is that all there was to be said?”
“Mmm, yes, All Might is involved with that as well, but I believe he left the grounds about fifteen minutes ago. However, I don’t believe there’s anything more to be discussed for the time being,” Nedzu answered.
Well, thank God for little victories. He did not want to have this conversation with All Might. The man didn’t even have a teaching degree and he doubted he’d have the experience to deal with this properly. Well, he knew he didn’t have the experience to deal with this properly, that’s why Hizashi had been roped into this issue to begin with, because Yagi was out of his depth and Shota was in and out of consciousness for several days.
“Shuzenji, you said that the scarring was quite old, yes?” Nedzu asked.
“Most of it, lesser injuries looked newer. Nothing was fresh though, or at least nothing that hasn’t been documented,” she confirmed.
The two of them shared a look that seemed to communicate something that Shota was not privy to. Did they know more than they were letting on? There were too many unknowns surrounding Midoriya. He had his own slew of concerns, but for the sake of any potential connection the boy had with Ivy, he kept them to himself. He would talk to Midoriya tomorrow privately before he risked either sounding insane in front of his colleagues or genuinely endangering Ivy’s cover.
This was such a fucking mess and, with Tensei in the hospital, it felt like the hits just wouldn’t stop coming. He hardly ever felt well rested, but ever since this school year had started he’d been running on fumes.
He’d need to talk to Zashi about this.
***
The wind against their face felt like home. Even though it had only been two days since they were last out, it felt like it had been weeks. The tension in Eraser’s shoulders only seemed to have gotten worse since they’d last seen him, but they had all night to ask so they let him relax with his dinner for now.
Uptown had continued to be in good shape since the gang had been dealt with. It still had its unsavory characters, the streets were still neglected, and the buildings were still worn down; it was still the “bad side” of town, but it was much better than it had been. They never wanted to leave this city to its own devices, but they had to admit that Uptown had never been in a better shape to be left unattended. Well, not completely unattended, Eraser would be in the streets keeping an eye on things, but he didn’t have his finger on the pulse of this city like they did.
They trusted him, they really did, but, regardless of trust, it was difficult to release something they had sworn was going to have to be pried out of their cold, dead fingers. They had held this place so closely for so long it’s like their muscles had atrophied around the grip.
As the night started to wind down and Eraser’s tension had yet to lessen, they decided now was as good a time to ask as any.
“You’ve been tense all night, what’s your problem?” they asked as they made their way across a rooftop slowly, looking down at the few people left milling about the streets outside the bars.
“Work shit, don’t worry about it,” Eraser replied lazily.
“You’ve complained about work shit before, you never looked like you needed several masseuses and a chiropractor to fix the kink in your shoulders,” they shot back.
Eraser studied their face critically for a moment before subtly shaking his head and responding.
“Work shit’s confidential, but I’ve got a friend in the hospital which isn’t helping,” he admitted.
Hm, probably Ingenium, just as they’d suspected. Small world. They still had no clue how to comfort him, and what about work was confidential? Did they get more information on the League? Was there another breach? Everything had seemed fine when he left school today and he’d checked the news at the library– well, if it was confidential it wouldn’t be on the news, would it?
“They gonna be alright?” they asked cautiously, pushing their selfish curiosity down.
“Yes and no. He’ll live,” He answered.
“But not without consequences?”
“No, not without consequences.”
If Ingenium couldn’t continue his work as a hero, they could understand why that would weigh heavily on Iida, he always spoke so highly of him.
“Well, he’s still alive. Be grateful for that. I’m sure he’s struggling with what went wrong enough on his own, focus on what went right for him.”
Eraser looked over at him and let a soft smile grace his features for a moment.
“Not bad advice, kid.”
“Did you expect me to give bad advice? I’m hurt,” they shot back with faux indignance in an attempt to lighten the mood.
As was to be expected, Eraser just rolled his eyes at them.
“It’s about time to walk the ladies home, let’s start heading that way,” he said, dismissing the conversation.
Right, enough touchy-feely stuff for Eraser, noted.
The group was small tonight, only Iwai and Sakura, and Ivy was secretly glad for it. Those two had been here the longest, they were closer with them than the rest of the ladies who seemed to cycle in and out of the scene more often than these two. He was going to miss them the most, so it was nice to spend time with them while he could. Sakura had recently gotten a nicer place closer to the bar area so they dropped her off first before bringing Iwai back to the place she’d lived in for as long as they could remember: a condo on the far south side nearer to the warehouse district.
The night was pleasant and the company was even nicer, they should have known it wouldn’t last.
They were walking past a stretch of empty lots when it happened, of course, it had to be a stretch of empty lots, nowhere to hide. A man on the other side of the street started shouting at them, calling for Iwai.
“IWAI YOU WHORE!”
Well…
“YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST DROP ME LIKE THAT? I TOLD YOU YOU’D REGRET IT!”
The man was clearly inebriated as he walked toward them. Thankfully, the streets were deserted because he did not check for traffic as he stepped onto the road. Eraser pushed Iwai behind him as the man began to approach, and that seemed to have been the wrong move.
“WHO THE FUCK IS HE? YOU CAN’T GO A DAY WITHOUT GETTIN’ SOMEONE ELSE’S DICK WET CAN YOU?”
He was only halfway across the far lane of the road when he pulled a gun. He was well out of range for Eraser’s capture scarf and they were well within range for a pistol. It felt as if time stopped as the muzzle flash went off and they heard the bullet tink against the chain link fence behind them. They moved before they could even think of anything beyond the image of Eraser and Iwai laying on the ground, their blood seeping into the cracks of the concrete, and the light leaving their eyes.
They were across the street in the blink of an eye and a flash of green sparks that shone brightly under the low light of the waning crescent moon and dingy street lamps. The man was disarmed and knocked out before they even realized what they’d done.
As they stood over the man who lay unconscious on the ground, they felt paralyzing horror seep into their bones.
There was no way Eraser didn’t see that.
His hands shook around his grip on the gun and the silence of the night felt like it stretched on for an eternity. His back was turned to Iwai and Eraser and he couldn’t force himself to turn around, he didn’t want to turn around, he didn’t want to see the mess he’d made of things.
He could hear Iwai’s shaky, tearful breaths and he could hear hesitant footsteps approaching him, but still, he couldn’t move. He hadn’t breathed since he’d realized what he’d done. How long had he been standing here? He needed to breathe, he knew he needed to breathe, but his body wouldn’t obey his commands. He could hear his blood thrumming in his eardrums and his hair stood on end so violently that it felt like someone was pulling on it.
Fear had never gripped him so thoroughly. A thought idly passed through the panic, at least it couldn’t get any worse, or he figured that would be the case up until he heard Eraser speak…
“…Midoriya?”
Notes:
CWs
mild description of blood/gore
sexually explicit comments (only one line)
mentions of past injuries/abuse
PTSD symptoms
AHHHHHHHHHHH THANK YOU FOR READING!!!! I'M-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't wanna write any spoilers here for ppl just looking for the CWs but just know that I'm AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 120: Another Domino Falls
Notes:
Shout out to my betas for helping me with this chapter! (Penny, Beezus, & Spade❤️)
WE REACHED 5K KUDOS AND 200 DISCORD MEMBERS GUYS!!!
I cannot thank you all enough for your support. There were over ONE HUNDRED comments on the last chapter??? I'm,,,,, I just,,,, I don't have the words, thank you all so much.CWs
Dissociation
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…Midoriya?” Shota asked hesitantly, hoping to god that there was no way he just saw what he thought he did.
Ivy slowly and shakily turned around and looked at him with fear in their eyes. They didn’t deny anything, they didn’t ask him what the fuck he was talking about like he so desperately wanted them to. Shota couldn’t say how long the silence stretched out until Iwai piped up.
“What’s going on? Is he dead? What happened?”
She was starting to panic.
He should say something. He needed to say something.
“No, he’s still alive, just knocked out, everything’s fine, Iwai,” his brain supplied, working on autopilot.
It felt like the words came out of someone else's mouth, nothing felt real right now and he couldn’t take his eyes off of Ivy. They were shaking; they were terrified. He forcibly wrenched his focus back to the situation at hand, this needed to be dealt with first. They needed to call the cops and get Iwai home. Normally he’d just send her home with Ivy, but well, he didn’t exactly trust them to come back right now. No, he wasn’t letting that kid out of his sight.
“Ivy, unload the gun and hand it over,” he instructed.
Step by step. They were just going to have to do this step by step.
They did as instructed but they flinched when he held his hand out. Shota did his best to ignore that.
“Iwai, go with Ivy and wait in the alley here, behind the dumpster. I’m calling the cops, we’ll take you home once they leave,” he said and they both shakily followed his command.
As they left he shot Ivy a look that said ‘Make a break for it and you will regret it.’ If the way the kid’s eyes widened was any indication, then he’d say the message was received. He sent in a ping for the closest responding officer and waited, never once taking his eyes off of the pair hidden in the shadows for longer than a second.
***
Izuku felt like he was fighting himself and somehow losing on both sides. His survival instincts were telling him to run. Eraser wouldn’t hurt Iwai, she would be safe if he left her here and if he used OFA Eraser wouldn’t be able to cancel it out before Izuku had a big enough head start to shake him off his tail.
He could run.
He should run. The tension in his muscles was practically begging him to, but he couldn’t.
Running meant losing everything.
He would never get to see Uptown again, he would never get to see UA again, he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to anyone, he would have to cut ties permanently or Eraser would find him. Hell, Eraser would probably find him regardless and there would only be more hell to pay once he did. He didn’t even know anything outside of Musutafu, it’s not like he had a passport or any means to leave the country anyway. And besides all of that, he had OFA now. He couldn’t run; he had a responsibility beyond himself. His life wasn’t his own to fuck around with so long as he held this power, and it’s not like he could just pawn it off to anyone. He should’ve quit the second he made up his mind about taking OFA, continuing to go out as Ivy like he had was beyond selfish. What was he thinking?
If he ran he would lose everything and waste OFA. If he stayed… well he would probably still lose everything, but the world needed OFA to be in the hands of a hero. As much as he didn’t want to let go of it now that he was just starting to understand it, he knew that he would. Fuck, he was going to be quirkless again, he was going to have to give OFA back to All Might– how was he going to explain this to All Might? How was he supposed to tell his friends? The more he thought the more he felt like his lungs were rebelling against him and his inability to move . He needed to get out of here, his whole life was on the line he needed to run, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t run. He’d made a royal fucking mess of things and now he had to deal with the consequences.
***
“Short stack, what the fuck is going on?” Iwai asked as they settled themselves behind the dumpster.
They didn’t respond.
“Ivy, kid?”
She shook their shoulder and that was enough to get them to look at her. They looked terrified.
“You’re freaking me out kid, what’s going on? I missed something, what’d I miss? Are you hurt? I don’t… I don’t understand,” she pleaded.
“It’s f-fine, e-everything’s f-fine,” Ivy stuttered out.
Well, that was convincing.
“Clearly everything’s not fine, why are you still scared? He’s knocked out, you got ‘im… right? Is there someone else? I don’t…” she trailed off as she looked around for a threat but she couldn’t see anything.
The only other person out here was Eraserhead who was glaring daggers at the two of them. Wait, what was going on with him? Why was he staring like that? Is that what Ivy was afraid of? Did Eraser go off the deep end?
“Kid, is it him? Eraserhead? Is he up to something? Is he hurting you? I can get you out of town, just say the word–”
“No, no. It’s–it’s–it’s f-fine. He w-won’t hurt me. I can g-get myself out of town if I n-need to. Everything’s f-fine,” they replied hardly sounding any more convinced than they did the first time they said it.
“Cut the shit, kid. You’re scared and there’s nothin’ else here to be afraid of ‘cept that guy glarin’ daggers at us–”
“He w-won’t hurt me,” they stated again.
“Who you tryin’ to convince, you or me? Come on, the sirens are comin’, let’s book it once he’s distracted.”
“No.”
“The fuck you mean ‘no’? We gotta get out of here.”
“He’ll catch us if we t-try, but that d-doesn’t matter because he’s not going to hurt me. Everything is f-fine,” they insisted for a third time.
“If everything’s so ‘fine’ why don’t you get that sentence out without stutterin’,” she challenged.
“Iwai, p-please, just drop it, it’s–”
“If you try to tell me ‘it’s f-fine’ one more time I’m gonna lose it I swear to god. Either you tell me what’s goin’ on or we’re bookin’ it, you got about 30 seconds to make that decision.”
“Fine! Fine! He’s just– he’s mad. I’ve been lying to him for a long t-time and he just found out and he’s m-mad.”
Iwai took a moment to mull over their words. She hadn’t really seen what happened, one second she was burying her face in the back of Eraser’s shoulder like a damn coward and the next Ivy had taken that fucker down, and that was that. She wanted to believe them but they had looked so scared; they seemed to have pulled themself together a bit, but that didn’t erase what she saw. She trusted Eraser, she really did, but not as much as she trusted Ivy; Ivy was one of them, an Uptowner, they understood this place more than Eraser ever would, but that was beside the point.
She remembered how strung out and worried Eraser had been when Ivy had gone missing back in November, he really did seem to care about them. They were friends, maybe that’s why Ivy was so afraid; they were afraid of him being mad at them not because he was a threat but because that would mean they had let him down. That rationalization made more sense than anything else, plus if Eraser wanted to take Ivy down he wouldn’t have sent them away to deal with the police himself.
Making up her mind, she reached into her purse and pulled out an old receipt and an eyeliner pencil, scribbled her phone number on the back, and handed it to Ivy.
“You text me tomorrow or this whole damn city is gonna be after him, you got it?” she warned with a serious look in her eye.
Ivy just let out a nervous laugh.
“I’m not kiddin’, you go MIA after this then he’s as good as dead,” she reiterated.
The kid’s eyes went wide at that. They nodded and accepted the piece of paper without argument, glancing at it before slipping it into their pocket.
Good.
***
Shota’s mind was reeling as he waited. He did his best to focus on objectives and not what had just happened; he was so scattered that it wasn’t too difficult. He didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on anything besides making sure that the man at his feet stayed at his feet and Ivy stayed standing there behind that dumpster. Everything else was static, the sirens approaching, the words the officer said, the lights flashing were all happening somewhere else, somewhere he didn’t have the strength to concern himself with right now.
As he finally made his way back over to where he’d sent the kid to wait he saw Iwai walking forward to meet him, gesturing for Ivy to stay back.
“Eraser, if you hurt that kid, you’re a dead man,” she spat at him, venom dripping from her tone.
“I–what?” he replied dumbly.
“I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on but I know they’re scared of you right now and if I don’t hear from them again after this, you are a dead man, and that isn’t an empty threat. If I tell this city that you took down Ivy you’re gonna have to leave the country if you ever want to sleep soundly again. Understood?” she barked at him with more resolution in her tone than he’d ever heard from her.
Shota was so busy trying to pull the tattered remnants of his sanity together that he didn’t even know what to say to that.
Eventually, he choked out a quick “got it” just as Ivy tentatively approached.
“You d-don’t need to make t-threats, Iwai, it’s f-fine, I t-told you it’s fine,” Ivy insisted with a stutter.
God, that stutter. Even through the voice modulator, he could tell that was Midoriya’s voice.
The walk back to Iwai’s apartment was tense and quiet. Iwai walked between the two of them protectively and he made no move to stop her, he wasn’t going to hurt the kid. He had no clue what he was going to do, but he definitely wasn’t going to hurt him. They bid farewell to Iwai with no more than three additional threats on his life and an innumerable amount of pointed glares. As she finally let them shut the door behind her he saw the kid’s shoulders drop.
He still had no goddamned idea what he was supposed to say, so he walked aimlessly a block or two away and the kid obediently followed behind him. When they reached a suitably secluded area he turned around and looked at them, they were shaking again, or still shaking, he’s not sure that they ever stopped.
There was nowhere left to run, he needed to deal with this now.
A lost child. That’s essentially what was happening here. He knew how to deal with that.
“Does your mother know you’re out here?” he asked.
They let out a hysterical beat of laughter before they could stop themself. Despite not being able to see their mouth he could tell that they had just shut it abruptly.
“I’ll take that as a no then,” he answered his own question.
He didn’t know what was going on with the kid’s mother beyond what Hizashi had told him. That and the fact that a conference had been scheduled to talk with her about everything that had happened and notably hadn’t happened after the USJ. He knew the family wasn’t well off which made sense if they had been living in a staircase for a time and he also knew that she was concerningly absent in her son’s life due to her current employment. Other than that, he had no information on the woman. He could certainly attest to her absence though if her son was able to sneak out every night for hours on end for the past 3+ years.
For the past three years… three years… Midoriya was only 15. Shit… he was 12? There’s no way, there’s no fucking way.
“Ivy, how old are you?” he asked numbly, not that that sounded much different than his normal tone.
“F-fifteen,” they answered.
“Are you lying to me?” he shot back, hoping to god that the answer was ‘yes.’
They visibly cringed at the accusation before answering, voice so heavily muted with guilt that it was hardly audible.
“N-no sir.”
He couldn’t help the grimace that spread across his face at the moniker. Ivy didn’t call him ‘sir’. This wasn’t right. None of this was right and he felt like he was losing touch with reality. He needed to get a hold of himself, he was an adult and he needed to take care of this– this child .
“I’m taking you home,” he decided, “Is your mother there?”
Their eyes went wide at that before they responded.
“NO! N-no you c-can’t she’s– she’s not h-home, she–”
“When will she be home?” he interrupted.
The momentary fight they had left in them was squashed by that question and they seemed to deflate with it. The kid’s eyes started to water and he didn’t answer. They kept choking out nonsense syllables, but nothing coherent enough to even form a single word. His shaking was getting worse and Shota wasn’t sure if he was even breathing anymore.
“Kid, breathe, you need to breathe,” he tried to remind them, but he’s not so sure that helped.
They just backed away from him until they hit the wall of the alley and slid to the ground folding in on themself. He could hear them crying quietly as they mumbled something about “time, just a little more time.”
He was the adult here, so he did his best to pull himself together. He sat down in front of the kid a few feet away before he spoke, looming over them wasn’t going to help.
“Kid, you need to breathe,” he repeated.
He could hear his breaths come after that; they were clunky and forced, but they were there, so they’d have to do.
“When will your mother be home?” he asked again.
Any progress they might have made was immediately lost as the kid let out one ugly sob before stifling his volume. He curled in on himself and tried to force his tears to subside, but they didn’t and he gave up quickly.
“Never! She’s not coming back! She’s gone!” he shouted as much as he could between shallow breaths.
He had his face buried in his hands behind his knees as his shoulders shook violently with silent sobs. He took his mask off and tossed it to the ground. Shota couldn’t see much in the dim lighting but he could tell his voice was much higher based on the sound of his shuddered breathing. The sound twisted his heart painfully.
“Kid, what do you mean she’s gone? What happened?”
“She left! ‘Bout three ‘n a half years ago, she packed all her shit and she left; she’s not coming back,” he replied, the fight running out of him again as his voice broke on nearly every other word of the sentence.
Shota could swear he felt his heart break into pieces.
Zashi had said that Midoriya told them his Father allegedly worked in America, meaning that he didn’t really have any idea where he was. Still, he felt the need to clarify.
“And your father?”
“Haven’t seen ‘im since I was seven,” he rasped out, it was muffled by his hands still covering his face but Shota still heard him clear as day.
He was alone. He was alone and living in a stairwell, or at least he had been. How long had he been there? Where was he living now? How had no one noticed? It had been over three fucking years! How had no one noticed?! How had he not noticed? He was his goddamn teacher! He could feel his anger rising out of control, he needed to get a hold of himself, now was not the time to be thinking about his failures.
“I’m taking you home,” he declared after a full minute of calculated breathing.
“I d-don’t have a–”
“No, my home. You’re coming home with me. We’re gonna get some sleep and then we can figure this out in the morning,” he clarified, not waiting for an answer before he got to his feet and offered the kid a hand up.
It was strange to see his face, as hidden in shadows as it was, Ivy looked at his hand for a moment before taking it and scooped up his mask in the other. He secured the mask back onto his face before they left the cover of the alley, but the tears and the shaking didn’t stop.
Any trace of Ivy was gone and all that was left was a scared kid wearing a mask.
After he was back on his feet he refused to get within arms reach again. He walked several paces behind Shota and every time he glanced over his shoulder to check on him he flinched. The implications of that were not helping Shota in his efforts to get a hold of himself.
When they entered the light of the train station Ivy kept their head down like a dog that had been kicked one too many times. They didn’t look up at him once but they followed obediently regardless. When the train pulled into the station they took a seat as close to the door and what seemed to be as far away from Shota as they thought they could get away with.
He knew they were terrified, he knew they couldn’t help it, but it still lit a white hot fury in his veins. Fury at thier parents for abandoning them, fury at his previous school for having let him slip through the cracks, but more than anything else, fury at himself for failing them so epically.
In retrospect, the signs seemed so obvious, he hadn’t missed them, he’d seen them and willfully ignored them for years. He’d let this child risk their life and go home to an abandoned factory for years . He had failed as a teacher, he had failed as a hero, and he had failed as just a decent human being over and over and over again and now a child was crying and cowering away from him on the subway at 1 am because of it.
He wanted to tell them that he wasn’t going to hurt them, but he didn’t trust his voice and he doubted the kid would believe him right now anyway. So, he just sat there, watching them out of the corner of his eye while he tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now.
The Discord is (understandably) hype abt Iwai so I drew her. Here you go :)
Edit:
I tried to draw her from memory and it came out cute but incorrect; I made her face and eyes far too round. Cute enough to share tho so I'll just put it here.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING AND THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!! I'M SCREAMING AND CRYING
Chapter 121: Wake Up, Babe. New Lore Just Dropped.
Notes:
Shout out to the Beta crew again, Spade, Penny, Woomy, and Beezus <3
CW:
Dissociation
PTSD symptomsClick the link below and join the Discord!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hizashi couldn’t sleep. He had had on and off bouts of insomnia his whole life so, unfortunately, it wasn’t overly irregular for him. He’d been tossing and turning in bed for hours before he decided to just give up. He puttered out to the living room and switched the TV on to some nature documentary, something hopefully boring enough to lull them to sleep before they went to the kitchen to make some lavender chamomile tea. He doubted that would do much good after downing as much melatonin as could be medically advisable to no avail but it wouldn’t hurt to try.
The moment he sat the cup of tea down on the coffee table Bastard darted out from wherever he was hiding and stuck his face in it.
“Bastard! No! Shoo!” they chided as they grabbed their cup and shielded it.
Now grumpy and tired they settled back into the cushions and hesitantly sipped on their lavender chamomile cat tea. Stupid bastard cat. As if to apologize for her brother’s rudeness Kimchi trotted over and settled herself on his outstretched legs purring up a storm.
The tea he’d almost finished along with the warm purring cat and the utterly uninteresting documentary playing on mute with subtitles finally started to make his eyelids droop. He downed the rest of the tea, set the cup back on the table, and snuggled into the soft blanket he’d wrapped around himself as he did his best to read the subtitles through half-closed eyelids. He was just about to drift off when he felt the wall rattle the way it did when someone opened the front door and immediately he was wide awake again.
It was too early for Shota to be home, what was he doing home? He wanted to call out and ask but it wouldn’t have done any good since he didn’t have his hearing aids in, so reluctantly he removed himself from his warm cocoon of blankets and cats. When they rounded the corner to the genkan he was surprised to see that Shota wasn’t alone, Ivy was here too.
Shota jumped a little when he noticed them standing there. He looked off, something wasn’t right. Obviously, something wasn’t right if Ivy was currently toeing off their shoes in their genkan. Ivy glanced up at them too and flinched heavily like Hizashi was about to hit them despite them not moving a muscle.
That was… strange. This was all very strange.
‘Sho, what’s going on?’ he signed to him as he made his way out of the entryway and into the apartment followed by Ivy who was shaking like a chihuahua.
He ignored their question giving him a ‘wait a second’ face as the only acknowledgement that he saw him at all. He was talking to Ivy but his face was turned the other way so Hizashi had no clue what he was saying. However, given that he was pointing to the guest bathroom, he could surmise. After the door shut behind them Sho finally turned to him.
‘Can you go find some clothes that might fit them?’ he asked, ‘I’m going to set up the futon in the office.’
He was tense, very tense, and he didn’t answer their question at all. Something had clearly happened, but Shota turned away and went about his task before Hizashi could press the matter. Neither of them were visibly injured so they pushed down the mounting concern for their strange behavior and did what Shota asked of him.
They put in their hearing aids and fished around until they found some old merch samples that were too small for either of them unless they were looking for a crop top and a pair of capris sweats. Task complete, they doubled back to the office to see if they could figure out what was going on, as they passed the bathroom they heard the shower running.
In the office, Shota had just finished making up the bed and was laying a throw blanket across the foot in case they wanted two blankets. That was quite thoughtful, he didn’t bother to do that when Nem or Tensei crashed here.
“Sho, what’s going on?” he asked again.
He looked both frantic and exhausted when he looked up.
“Not now Zashi, just give me the clothes and go to bed.”
“No, Sho that’s not fair, I live here too I deserve to know why we’ve got a stowaway camping in our guest room,” he pushed.
Maybe it was too harsh, but he was sleep-deprived and worried. Shota clutched the throw blanket he’d been smoothing out in a clenched fist as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I will explain later after I get… Ivy settled. Please just go wait in the bedroom,” he replied with strained calmness.
His tone and demeanor were not helping their worry, but Shota was clearly distressed and they knew that pushing him right now wasn’t going to end well. They were fine, both of them were alive and well enough to not need the hospital, so anything else that Hizashi was worrying about could wait. Reluctantly, he placed the clothes he brought on the corner of the bed and nodded his head before turning around and going back to their bedroom.
***
After he robotically forced himself through the motions of setting up the pull-out futon he took the clothes Zashi grabbed for him and made his way to the bathroom. The shower was still running; he gave a courtesy knock before opening the door, putting the clothes on the sink, and blurting out the word ‘clothes’ in way of explanation before shutting the door again.
He moved over to the couch and sat down heavily next to Kimchi who was peeking out curiously from a messy pile of blanket. She paid him no mind and he did the same as he set his chin on his interlaced fingers and propped his elbows on his knees. He waited for Iv–Midoriya to finish up in the shower so he could direct him to the guest room/office. He tried his best to steady himself, but he felt like his mind was unraveling.
He’d never felt so incompetent in his 30 years of life.
He remembered a fleeting moment during the USJ break-in where he had wished Ivy was there to cover his back when he was picking his way through the army of uncoordinated thugs. God, you had to be careful what you wish for. Stuffing the racing thoughts down as much as he could he continued to wait. He just needed to get Midoriya settled then tell Zashi and then he could have a crisis.
Fucking hell, how was he supposed to tell Zashi?
He was pulled from that thought by the sound of the shower turning off, looking up he realized that the TV was on, playing some sort of documentary on mute and he hadn’t even noticed. He busied himself with looking for the remote which, knowing Zashi, was hidden in the mass of blanket that Kimchi was perched on top of. He did his best to extract it without disturbing her which was admittedly pretty easy because she was notoriously difficult to disturb. He switched off the TV just as the bathroom door opened and his heart stopped.
He hadn’t realized he was still clinging to denial until he saw his student in front of him. Ivy went into that bathroom and now, in the full light of his living room with no mask or makeup hiding his face, there was no denying that Midoriya came out. He was standing there with wet curls still dripping onto his shoulders. He was drowning in the t-shirt that would have been a crop top on Shota and he wondered how he ever thought Ivy wasn’t a child. He stared at him dumbly for a moment before he snapped himself out of it.
“Guest room is to your right, mine and Zashi’s room is the last door on the left if you need anything,” he stated bluntly.
Midoriya hesitated for a moment looking at him. He didn’t look any less terrified than he had before the shower as he quickly fumbled with the door handle and left the room with a stiff bow.
***
When Shota came back into their bedroom he looked more exhausted than they’d ever seen him. He paused in the doorway and Hizashi watched as his composure fell, his previously steady hands came up and shakily scrubbed across his face before carding through his tangled hair. His gaze went distant as he stiffly forced his legs forward step after step and sat down on the ottoman at the foot of their bed.
“Sho? What's going on? Why’s Ivy here? You’re kinda freakin me out,” he admitted.
They shuffled out from under the covers and went to sit next to him at the foot of the bed. He was staring at the black TV screen as he rested his face in his hand with his elbow braced on his knee.
“Ivy’s still homeless,” he started before chewing at his lip, “They’ve been homeless this whole time.”
“Oh shit, Sho. Really?”
“For nearly four years,” he said in confirmation.
Their hand reflexively shot up to cover their mouth as their jaw dropped.
“F-four years?” he stuttered out dumbly.
“God, Zashi that isn’t even half of it,” he said as he buried his face in his hands again.
He sounded completely wrecked like he was holding back tears.
“They’re okay, right? I just saw them, they’re okay,” they responded, half a question half a reassurance to themself.
“Physically, yeah.”
He lifted his head and looked up at them, his eyes were indeed glassy and he appeared to be fighting to maintain his composure.
“Zashi, I don’t even know how to— I don’t— there’s no way to ease you into this,” he said with a watery humorless laugh.
“Sho, just tell me, it’s only making it worse letting me think of a million different things that could have happened.”
Shota let out a slightly hysterical bark of laughter at that, “Oh, I assure you it’s much worse than what you could think of,” he said before rubbing at his face once more and turning back to face them, “they were—he–he was 12,” he choked out.
12? Was? What did he mean they were 12? 12 when what?
“Sho, what…?”
“He hasn’t seen his father since he was 7, hasn’t seen his mother since he was 12– er, christ, maybe 11– and he’s been homeless since he was 12,” Shota clarified bluntly.
His thoughts came to a screeching halt for a brief moment before they started bursting at the seams. Shota had been patrolling with them for over two years, they had been active almost a full year before Shota met them, and they had been homeless for nearly four years? Since they were 12? That would mean they’re only 15, maybe 16! 15?! It had been a long time since Hizashi was at a loss for words but he couldn’t think of a goddamn thing to say.
Shota glanced up at them again before continuing, “That’s still not all Zashi.”
That's not all!? What the hell does that mean? How could that not be all? They were so beside themself that it took a moment to get their mouth to cooperate.
“Sho, what do you mean that’s not all?” he finally asked.
“‘Member how I said Midoriya kinda reminds me of Ivy a few times?”
Hizashi swore he felt his heart stop. Shota couldn’t be implying what he thought he was implying. No, there’s no way. They would have noticed, someone would have noticed, they couldn’t have let him slip through the cracks so spectacularly.
“Shota?” was all he could force out. He couldn’t form the words together to ask the question he actually wanted to ask.
“Well, there’s a reason for that, ‘s cause he is,” Shota quipped flatly, “He’s– there was a guy trying to shoot at one of the ladies, a jealous ex or something and he was too far away an’ there was nothing to take cover behind so Iv–Midoriya used his quirk with the green sparks and all, ran over there faster than I could blink and disarmed him. He probably saved all three of us…” he explained shakily before trailing off.
Zashi could see through his own blurry vision that there were tears falling down Shota’s cheeks but he was too shocked to do anything about it; he was frozen. If he didn’t know Shota as well as he did he would have insisted he was joking, that there was no way that all of this was true, but Shota wouldn’t joke about this, and they saw Ivy in their living room. They wanted to deny it but the facts were in their apartment, he’d seen it with his own two eyes and, God, did it make sense? Every oddity was explained, every missing piece fell into place.
Hizashi was horrified. He hadn’t felt this shaken to the core since Oboro died. What did Shota mean he hadn’t seen his mother since he was 11? How could such a sweet boy have been living on the streets for four years? He was so timid, so scared of everything, how could that same kid be Ivy? Ivy was crass and loud and everything that Midoriya wasn’t. What happened to him? God, this poor kid. How did no one notice? Not just at UA, but his old school! It had been four years?! How was that possible? Part of him wanted to run down the hall and wrench the door open just to have visual proof because no matter how much it all made sense it equally made no sense at all, but the other part of him was frozen in place.
Shota had his face buried in his hands again and they could see his shoulders shaking, he was crying, they distantly registered that they could hear him faintly, he was so quiet like he didn’t want to disturb anyone with his sorrow. He was always like that, he hardly ever cried but when he did it was so reserved, like he wasn’t allowed to grieve audibly, like that was too much to ask and it broke Hizashi’s heart every time. This time was no exception. They forced through the shock and wrapped their shaking limbs around his middle as they buried their face in Shota’s trembling shoulders.
And they cried.
They cried quietly so as to not alert the kid down the hall that they were crying for.
***
Izuku was well acquainted with fear, he had an intimate knowledge of how it felt shooting up his spine; how it felt when his skin tightened at the nape of his neck as his hair stood on end. He knew what it felt like to be paralyzed by it, he knew how it takes over every thought in his mind and roots him in place.
Yes, Izuku knew fear well, he had been afraid for damn near 12 years now, he honestly didn’t remember what it felt like to not be afraid, but he had never known fear like this. He had literally just faced down the barrel of a gun, but he’d never felt fear like this. Everything was crumbling down around him and all he could do was watch. Now in the silence of Eraser’s guest room, he had nothing to distract himself from it. His hair was wet and he was cold and he was shaking and he felt like he was going to lose his mind. It felt like the earth had opened up beneath him and he was falling. His stomach dropped but he never reached the bottom, he just kept falling.
He wasn’t even having a panic attack, he knew what that felt like, and those ended, but this didn’t. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting curled up in the corner trying to pull himself together or connect himself to anything, but the sun had started peeking through the gaps in the curtain behind him. He watched as the line of light reached out further and further into the room but he was still stuck in place, rooted to where he sat. It was uncomfortable, the wall dug into his shoulder blades and although the floor was carpeted his tailbone was starting to ache, but still, he couldn’t move beyond the shaking of his limbs.
Everything was over. This was it. He had nothing to hide behind anymore, no amount of legal loopholes could save him now. He was gonna get kicked out of UA, he was gonna go to jail, at the very least this was going on his record. He could never be a hero. All Might was going to be so disappointed– and Eraser, God he didn’t even want to think about Eraser. He was so mad, he was furious, rage was practically radiating off of him. He fucked up everything, he just lost everything . His city, his dreams, his friends all just went slipping through his fingers.
God, it had to stop. This was torture, it had to stop! No amount of careful breathing was helping, exhaustion refused to carry him away. The light from the window was about to make its way back across the room from the far wall, but he still couldn’t fill his lungs properly. He couldn’t move his limbs from their rigor mortis stiffness. He wanted to scream and cry and run; he wanted to do anything , but he couldn’t.
He could hear gentle shuffling coming from the kitchen and he knew it was only a matter of time now. Eraser was going to come in here and deal with him soon. He didn’t know where he found the energy to still be so scared, but he did.
The gentle knock at the door sent ice through his veins.
He knew he should respond, that's what you’re supposed to do when someone knocks, but he couldn’t force a single word out. Regardless of his lack of a reply, the door opened to reveal Eraser, not wearing his jumpsuit for the first time that Izuku could recall. His hair was up and he looked beyond exhausted. That was Izuku’s fault that he looked so tired, he probably kept them both up all night and now they were tired and it was his fault and they were already mad– they were going to be so mad now and Eraser was coming closer and there was nowhere for him to run he was stuck in the corner– oh god, why did he sit in the corner? Eraser was saying something but he couldn’t hear him over the sound of his blood rushing through his veins. He was making a face and Izuku knew that the expression meant something but he couldn’t figure out what. He was getting closer and closer and Izuku just wanted to crawl out of his skin. He finally stopped at the foot of the bed and he was still making that–that face that meant something , his eyebrows were all scrunched up, and Izuku was trying to place it when all the sudden Eraser put a hand up, palm facing Izuku, and any pitiful amount of composure he had snapped.
That was a threat, a palm facing him like that meant burns and pain and he was cornered and scared and he couldn’t run– he couldn’t even make a sound. He was shaking and trying to protect his head before the blow came, the anticipation was killing him, but it never happened. He didn’t know how long he sat there trembling and waiting, but, eventually, he risked a peek to see what was happening, only to find nothing.
The door was shut and Eraser was gone.
Izuku was alone again and he took the opportunity to fill his shriveled spasming lungs with air.
Eraser was gone.
Wait– Eraser wasn’t Kacch– the hand wasn’t– he couldn’t have– he didn’t– he wasn’t going to hurt him. A hand out like that was supposed to mean the opposite, it was supposed to show that you didn’t have a weapon and you weren’t going to hurt whoever your palm was facing toward. Oh, shit. God, of course, Eraser wasn’t going to hurt him… right? He wouldn’t– he never– he– he wasn’t like that… right?
Fucking hell, why was he so pitiful? He couldn’t stop making such a massive fucking mess of things, what was his problem?
He sat there with his head in his hands and forced in unsteady breath after unsteady breath. Should he go out there? No– he couldn’t. He felt like he was going to collapse onto the floor if he tried to stand up right now and that realization only sent another pang of fear through his dead tired body. Someone would come back in again eventually and he would take a deep breath and not act like such a coward when they did.
This was Eraser and Mic. They were good. They weren’t going to hurt him. They would probably send him away, his life was still in fucking shambles, but they wouldn’t hurt him.
Breathe.
When another knock sounded from the door he tensed up, but he forced his shoulders back down and took in a deep breath. They weren’t going to hurt him. They weren’t going to hurt him. Breathe.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!! (I'm very busy at work today, I won't be in the discord to scream w/ y'all until 1 pm CST. I *will* read back tho so PLEASE keep #recet-chapter-discussion on topic.)
Chapter 122: Love, Safety, and other Foreign Concepts.
Notes:
Shout out to the betas for this chapter, Spade and Beezus. I'm sorry, I'll learn how to use commas eventually (she lied).
[ Join the discord, link below ]
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota was never happy to hear his morning alarm go off, but after last night and what felt like a sparse few minutes of sleep he could pretty confidently say he was far less enthused than usual. He heard Zashi groan next to him, they probably hadn’t gotten much sleep either. Reluctantly, he got up, silenced the alarm, and sat on the edge of the bed rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He was still sat there looking off into nothing when Zashi got back from brushing his teeth.
“Sho?” they called out gently.
He looked up at them slowly and sighed, “Yeah?”
He looked like he wanted to ask if he was alright but thought better of it. Of course, he wasn’t alright, how could he be? Ivy was a child. They were 12! For fuck’s sake, they were only 12!
“I’m gonna go make some coffee, why don’t you brush your teeth and freshen up a bit? Your hair is well… it’s interesting at the moment, let's say that,” they poked with a teasing smile.
He did as he was told, but didn’t bother trying to deal with his hair right now. He just put it up because he couldn’t stand to look in the mirror long enough to make himself look presentable. He was supposed to be getting ready for work, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going today, none of them were. This situation was too fucked up for words to describe and it took precedence above all else.
He needed to come up with a plan. He needed to make sure that Midoriya didn’t get caught for anything he did as Ivy, he needed to protect him, but he couldn’t do it alone. Hizashi would help, he knew they would, but they weren’t in a better position to do anything anyway. He needed to make sure nothing could ever be traced back to Midoriya and he needed to have Ivy’s case resolved so that no one ever went poking around in it again.
He knew the two people perfect for the job, he just had to hope to god that they’d agree to it.
For now, he needed to explain the situation in as little detail as possible to Nedzu so that he could buy time to come up with a plan. This kid was going to be cared for properly and he was going to be a hero like he’d dreamed of, even if it was the last thing Shota did.
He wouldn’t fail him, not again.
***
Hizashi went about the kitchen making coffee as quietly as they could so as to not wake Midoriya, should he even be sleeping. Honestly, should he even still be here. They wouldn’t have been surprised if the kid had made a break for it last night, but it almost certainly would’ve woken Sho and his shoes were still here so they remained cautiously optimistic. Shota didn’t seem too worried about that possibility last night and, as one of the most casually paranoid people they knew, if Sho wasn’t worried about it, they figured they shouldn’t be either.
When Shota finally came out of the bedroom, his coffee had been sitting at the table a little longer than he would have probably preferred it. He didn’t seem to care much about having his brew at the perfect temperature this morning though, seeing as he picked it up and downed half of it in one go.
“I told Nedzu I found Midoriya last night and that none of us will be at school today. He’s giving me until 6 pm to explain myself,” Shota said as he sat down heavily at the dining table with his mug.
“That’s generous,” they replied, both genuinely thankful and amused that Nedzu trusted them enough to give them 12 hours to cover up an untold number of crimes.
“Well, it took some negotiation, I’d rather not get into it,” he replied, looking off into the middle distance.
Hizashi almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation, but they bit their tongue. Now wasn’t the time.
“He’s still here, or at least his shoes are.”
“He’s not going to run, he’s got nowhere to go. That city is his life and UA is his future. If he was going to run he would have done it before we got on the train,” Shota insisted.
He looked so tired and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it, save, perhaps making him another cup of coffee, but that was a bandaid on a bullet wound at best.
“Do you think you should go check on him?” they asked.
He seemed to be doing his best to nurse the remaining half of his coffee, but was doing a piss poor job of it. There was maybe a quarter cup left at this point.
“…yeah,” he replied eventually.
Hizashi held his hand out for his mug and nodded his head in the direction of the guest room, silently prompting Shota to get up and promising him another cup of coffee when he got back. He scrubbed his hand over his stubble and sighed before relenting.
***
When Shota walked in the room Ivy– er– Midoriya was sat on the far side of the room, smushed between their two desks, curled in on himself and clutching a throw blanket. He was looking blankly off into the distance and subtly shaking.
“Kid?” Shota asked cautiously.
He didn’t respond, he didn’t even look up at him. There was no acknowledgment whatsoever aside from the slight tensing of his shoulders.
“Midoriya?” he tried again.
Nothing.
He walked a few steps into the room and that garnered a reaction, he didn’t even make it past the foot of the bed but Midoriya flinched and curled in on himself impossibly tighter.
“Hey, hey, kid it’s okay, it’s just me,” he tried to soothe but it didn’t do any good.
Slowly he lifted up a hand, palm out to show he meant no harm but Midoriya flinched even harder at that and hid his head between his knees covering himself with trembling hands. Okay, clearly he wasn’t helping the situation. He stepped all the way back to the door slowly and audibly before he spoke again.
“Midoriya, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, no one’s going to hurt you,” he called over to him.
He didn’t react at all, he’s not sure if he didn’t believe him or just didn’t hear him through his own racing thoughts. Either way, it was clear that Shota’s presence wasn’t helping.
“I’m going to leave, I’ll shut the door. We’ll both be out here if you need anything,” he offered before he left slowly and shut the door gently behind himself.
He paused on the other side of the door after he let go of his grip on the handle and tried to regain his composure. He felt his heart break in a million different ways for the second time in the last 6 hours. He was so scared. God, he was so scared. He’d never seen Ivy or Midoriya look that scared and he was scared of him.
Zashi must’ve heard the door shut because they came peeking around the corner looking for him. He must’ve looked a wreck because as soon as they caught sight of him they sped over and started guiding him away from the room. They didn’t speak until they’d gotten them both into the living room away from the guest room’s earshot.
“What happened, is he okay?” they asked, trying their best to not sound panicked and failing epically.
“I– yeah, well no. He’s terrified and I don’t– I can’t get near him, he’s– I don’t know if he even heard a word that I said,” he finally admitted.
Zashi herded him toward the couch and sat him down before taking their spot next to him.
“He barely responded to me. I only knew he knew I was there because I saw him tense up, but when I walked into the room he completely caved in on himself. He held his arms up to cover his head like I was going to run over there and kick him,” he continued.
Zashi took a moment to scrub his hand over his face and take it all in. He sat there thinking for a while before he looked back up at him, he looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know if he should or not.
“What, Zashi?”
They pursed their lips and glanced away for a second before answering, “Do you think he’d take it better if I went in?”
He was equal parts offended and understanding. Zashi wasn’t as big a part of this mess, but at the same time Ivy–er–Midoriya should trust him. They’d been working together for years, they–he should trust him. He must’ve made a sour face because Hizashi grabbed his hand and gently stroked a thumb across his knuckles.
“I don’t mean it like that, it’s just… well you’re just scary, Sho.”
He shot them a look for that.
“Don’t give me that look, you know you are, you do it on purpose. You scare the shit out of those kids every day and Ivy is very familiar with how brutal you can be even more than the rest of your students. But they–he’s never seen me so much as annoyed unless he’s watched news clips of me in a fight. He’s panicking and most of the interactions he’s had with you revolve around violence of some sort, whether it was directed at him or not. I don’t think that correlation is helping him right now, but that’s not your fault,” they explained as they gave him a sympathetic look.
It made sense, Shota knew it made sense, but the look of fear on the kid's face was sickening. The thought that Iv–MIDORIYA– the thought that Midoriya could be so afraid of him made his stomach churn.
“Yeah, okay. Yeah, just… let’s give him a minute,” he finally conceded.
Zashi pulled him into a hug, planted a kiss on the top of his head, and just sat there with him in their arms until they’d deemed it to have been long enough for Midoriya to have calmed down.
***
When Hizashi knocked and opened the door he was still somehow taken aback to see Midoriya there. Obviously, Midoriya was there, he knew that, he had just spent last night holding his husband and crying because Ivy was Midoriya and he was left alone far too young. Apparently, the memo didn’t fully make it to his brain until he saw him with his own two eyes because he stood shocked in the doorway for a split second before he composed himself.
The kid was sitting in the small alcove between their desks on the far side of the room with the throw blanket from the foot of the bed wrapped around him. The bed had not been otherwise disturbed; he clearly hadn’t slept. His expression was blank and distant, but he still glanced up when they walked in.
“Hey kiddo,” they greeted quietly as they made their way into the room.
The kid before them looked nothing like the Midoriya they were used to. The bags under his eyes made them wonder if he had fully washed off his eyeshadow and his gaze was dull; it didn’t hold any of his usual wonder or excitement, all that was left was fear. He was terrified and it showed in every line of his body. Hizashi shot him a sad smile and sat down with their back against the pull-out bed several feet away from the kid. He tried to back even further away but he was already pressed up against the wall so Hizashi adopted the least threatening stance they could and gave him a moment.
“I’m guessing you didn’t sleep much,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the bed.
Midoriya didn’t respond, he just looked at them, but from what Sho had said this already seemed to be going better than his encounter.
“Do you think you could eat some breakfast? We don’t have much, we have to go to the store, but we’ve got some miso from yesterday we were planning to reheat,” he offered.
The kid jerkily shook his head at that.
A response! A response was good, this was progress.
“Okay, we can wait a little while, but you’ll need to eat eventually,” they conceded.
They sat in silence for a while and Midoriya’s gaze drifted back down to the floor. He wasn’t looking at Hizashi but they could tell his focus was on them, like he was still scared that he was going to hurt him.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about, kid?” they asked after a while.
Again, Midoriya looked up but didn’t say anything, his expression didn’t change at all. He didn’t even move like he was about to speak, but it looked like his hands were fidgeting in the folds of the blanket.
“Is it hard to talk right now?” they asked.
His brow furrowed at that and he gave a shaky nod.
“That’s ok, that’s normal, it happens to me all the time. Sometimes it’s just so much that you can’t force the words out, right?”
He nodded again.
This poor kid. Selective mutism wasn’t really normal, well it was as a trauma response or as part of a disorder but it wasn’t normal normal. They couldn’t even imagine what this kid had been through. They themself had only gotten like that because for the first 12-13 years of their life every time they opened their mouth when they were upset, they ended up losing control of their quirk and hurting someone or breaking something.
“Do you think you could sign? I know you don’t know too much yet, but it’s something, right?”
The kid sat there for a moment thinking before he wiggled his hands free of the blanket and signed, ‘Yes.’
“Great! Now can ya tell me what’s on your mind?”
‘Too much,’ he signed back sloppily.
They barked out a laugh at that, “Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Can you tell me what you’re feeling? Aside from ‘too much’ ‘cause I’m sure that response still applies.”
Midoriya looked like he wanted to answer, like he was really thinking but after a long bout of silence, he still hadn’t responded.
“You don’t need to boil it all down to one thing and it doesn’t even have to be what you feel the most, just one thing you feel, anything,” he prompted again.
After another long pause, he hesitantly signed back, ‘Afraid.’
He couldn’t even look them in the eyes when he signed that, like he was afraid of the very fact that he was afraid; it broke Hizashi’s heart all over again.
“That makes sense, this is a lot of change and a lot of unknowns. Can you tell me something more specific that you’re afraid of?”
‘I don’t know what’s’ he paused before finger-spelling the rest ‘g-o-i-n-g t-o h-a-p-p-e-n.’
Hizashi nodded and slowly went through the way to properly sign the sentence in the future tense before he responded, “Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen either, not for sure. A lot of things are going to change, but they’re going to change for the better. You’re going to be taken care of, you’re going to have a proper roof over your head, and you’re not going to need to worry about where you’re going to get food. You’re going to have a home, but it’s your choice where you want that to be.”
Midoriya looked more and more confused with each word they spoke so they gave him a second to process. He opened his mouth like he wanted to speak a few times but nothing more than jumbled noises and starts of sentences came out before he gave up and looked back down at the floor. They gave him another minute to think before they spoke again.
“What’s the matter, Kiddo?”
He turned his furrowed brow back up to them as they signed ‘My choice?’
“Yeah, Kiddo, you’ve got a few options. You’re probably going to stay here for a while, but once we get things figured out you can go into the foster system for a couple of years ‘till you age out or get adopted or you could become a ward of UA or… um, well, Sho should probably be here for this, but we both have foster licenses so if you wanted to stay here… uh, you probably could.”
The kid was staring at him completely slack-jawed and he was back to stuttering out nonsense syllables. After a moment of sputters he gave up trying to verbalize again.
‘I don’t understand.’
“What don’t you understand?”
‘I l-i-e-d for years, I b-r-o-k-e the l-a-w, I don’t– you’re not mad? I’m not in t-r-o-u-b-l-e? Why are– I don’t understand,’ he signed as tears rose in his eyes.
“No, sweetheart, no. I’m not mad, we’re not mad, you’re n–”
‘What do you mean? He was f-u-r-i-o-u-s!’ Midoriya interrupted frantically.
“Sho? No, no, baby. No, he’s not mad at you, he’s– yeah, you’re right, he is furious,” he signed the word as he spoke it, “but not at you, he’s mad about what happened to you. He’s mad at himself that he didn’t do something sooner, but he’s not mad at you. You were doing what you thought you had to do to survive, we couldn’t be mad at you for that. This wasn’t your fault, you were– you are just a kid. None of this was your fault.”
Midoriya had been unsteady since they set eyes on him but now he was fully trembling as tears poured down his face and he forced his slack jaw shut. They slowly got up and grabbed a box of tissues from their desk and tried to hand it to him, but he had curled in on himself completely as his hands fidgeted in front of him. It took Hizashi a moment to realize he was signing the word ‘sorry’ over and over again.
“Kiddo, no, you don’t have anything to be sorry for, it’s okay, everything is gonna be okay,” they tried to soothe as they knelt down in front of him.
He was sobbing through heaving breaths almost inaudibly. If it weren’t for the faint sniffles and hitched breaths Hizashi would have wondered if their hearing aids had died. He cried just as unobtrusively as Sho and it took every bit of strength he had not to let his own tears fall at the sight. The kid couldn’t be more tense and curled in on himself if he tried. He didn’t have any idea what set him off, he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know if touching him would make it better or worse so they just had to sit there and try to talk him through it.
“I’ve got a box of tissues that I’m setting down to your left and I’m gonna sit right in front of you. I need you to breathe with me kid, c’mon, in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…”
Eventually, the kid’s breaths evened and he stuck a hand out to grab a tissue and pull it back into the cocoon of blanket and limbs that he’d stuffed himself into.
“I’m gonna bring you a glass of water and I want you to do your best to drink the whole thing, then I want you to get in bed and try to sleep, okay?”
The kid's puffy tear-stained face peeked up at him with a furrowed brow again.
‘School starts in a few hours,’ he pointed out.
Hizashi huffed out a small chuckle at that, “Kiddo, I don’t think any of us are up for that today,” they countered.
Midoriya tensed up at that and his newly steadied breaths stopped entirely ‘I can’t– you can’t– they’ll know– I can’t– I don’t–’ he signed hysterically, not getting out one thought before he interrupted himself with the next.
Since his face wasn’t buried in the blanket Hizashi slowly reached their hands out to still his, “Midoriya, it’s okay, we already called out, it’s okay. We just said that Sho found you last night and we’ll explain more when we know more, it’s alright. No one needs to know anything yet, we’ll figure it out. I know it’s easier said than done but you don’t need to worry about that right now. Right now you need to rest, it’s been at least 24 hours since you last slept, hasn’t it?”
He nodded with a shaking inhale.
“I thought so. I’m gonna make you some tea, it always helps me calm down. Is that okay? Do you like tea?”
“Y-you d-d-don’t have t-to,” Midoriya finally forced himself to speak because Hizashi still had his hands loosely clasped in his own.
“I know I don’t have to but I could use a cup right now too so would you take one?” he offered again.
Midoriya bit his lip and didn’t answer but Hizashi took that as enough of a response.
“I’ll bring you a cup, I’ll be back in a minute,” He said with a soft smile and left before Midoriya could argue.
Shota was sitting slouched at the dining table bouncing his leg incessantly and looking into his half-empty cup of coffee like it held the answers to the universe. When Hizashi rounded the corner his head shot up and he looked at them expectantly. They had left the office door open so they signed to him.
‘He thought you were mad at him,’ he explained with a frown.
‘I’m not! I–’ Sho tried to sign back but they interrupted him.
‘I know, Sho. I told him that; you’re mad at the situation, not at him. He thought I would be mad too, but he didn’t seem nearly as upset by the thought of that as he was about you being mad at him,’ he signed with a huffed laugh. He went around the divider wall to start making the tea he promised before continuing the conversation over the counter once he’d set the kettle to boil. ‘I don’t know whether or not he believed me, but I told him you weren’t mad. He’s terrified about what's going to happen, he was worried about legal trouble and where he was going to end up, and he was worried about what we told the school.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘The truth. I told him that he’s going to stay here for a while until we get things figured out and then he has a few choices, the foster system, becoming a ward of the school, or… staying with us,’ he admitted, ‘I know I probably should have waited for you to offer that, but he… I just…’
‘It’s fine Zashi,’ he signed back, but it looked like he wanted to say more.
Hizashi gave him a look that said to go on.
‘Did he flinch away from you?’ he asked hesitantly.
‘Yeah, a little’
They saw Sho’s face fall at that.
‘Baby I don’t think it was personal, I think it’s just because you went in there first. You left him alone and proved we weren’t going to hurt him. If not that, then he’s only more afraid of you because he cares far more about your opinion of him than he does mine. Just… we just need to give him some time, you know that,’ they tried to soothe.
Shota just looked back down to his coffee, seemingly resigned to the fact that they were right. They hadn’t seen him this distraught in years and they felt this frantic need to just make it better , but they couldn’t. It was like an itch they couldn’t scratch. They took a deep breath as they started to steep three cups of tea. Sho probably wouldn’t drink his, but it was worth a try.
Just gonna leave this here <3
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 123: Game Plan
Notes:
Shout out to Spade and Woomy for beta reading this one on short notice 🥹 ❤️❤️
click the link below to join the discord
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As Hizashi brought the kid some tea, Shota lost himself in his thoughts again. He had already had a venn diagram in his mind comparing Ivy and Midoriya. There was a lot of overlap, but as he continued to try and squish the two circles into one, the more stray parts fell out, assumptions that he had made about either of them that didn’t fit anymore now that he had the full picture. Age, for one, was certainly the most jarring revelation. Midoriya was too young to know the things he knew or make the jokes he made; he was too smart for his own good. That was another thing he was coming to terms with, Ivy never had an intelligence quirk or an agility quirk. They hardly ever used their quirk, if at all, while on patrol, which made sense. It was too distinctive and in most cases too powerful to be used against another human being.
He was horrified and impressed in equal measure. It seemed that there was very little that Midoriya wasn’t capable of. That kid was absolutely brilliant and Shota had to protect him. He had to make sure that he would be allowed to live up to his incredible potential, but he couldn’t do that alone. He didn’t have the authority to shut down or seal Ivy’s case file and he didn’t have the reach to make sure that any of the crimes Midoriya may or may not have committed never made their way back to him.
Nedzu knew how to hunt things down, he knew how to find the barest scraps of paper trails and connect seemingly unrelated bits of evidence into a concrete case. If anyone was capable of completely eradicating any proof of wrongdoing on Midoriya’s part, it would be him.
As for the case itself, well Tsukauchi was still the lead detective on it. He had only been adding things to the file that he couldn’t not add, things like other officer’s reports or witness statements. He had been making it difficult to pin down whether or not Ivy was involved in any incidents, so, on paper, Ivy was not very active, which was good, but not good enough. They needed to figure out a way for the case to be closed. They needed to ensure that, should the case ever be passed onto someone else’s plate, they wouldn’t go poking their nose into it and uncover anything Nedzu wasn’t able to fully erase.
Of course, that was all under the assumption that those two were willing to put their own careers on the line in order to save this kid. He knew Tsukauchi cared about Ivy; he only called Shota in on the case in the first place because he cared about Ivy, but he didn’t know whether he cared enough to risk everything. He also knew that Nedzu cared about Midoriya, he cared about all of his students. He had asked Shota about Midoriya’s well-being specifically several times after the USJ incident, but he didn’t know if the stoat would risk his job for one kid. Nedzu was a hero, an unconventional one, but a hero nonetheless. He was dedicated to saving people, but if he lost his title trying to save Midoriya, he wouldn’t be able to save anyone again. He may not be so forthcoming with his emotions, but Shota knew he had a fierce sense of protectiveness for his students; whether or not that sense outweighed his logical side was a gamble, but one that Shota had to make whether he liked it or not. They already had a meeting set for 6 pm tonight and there was no getting out of it, save for fleeing the country perhaps, but this was Nedzu; There likely wasn’t a corner of the globe that they could run to where he wouldn’t find them.
This was the only option, he just had to hope to god that it worked.
***
Aizawa:
UA conference room B, 6 pm. Urgent.
Well, that wasn’t a text he was expecting nor one that he wanted.
Tsukauchi:
Wym by urgent?
Aizawa:
Not a matter of life and death but time sensitive
He figured that was all the elaboration he was going to get, but it was better than nothing; it quelled his anxiety slightly. If it had something to do with the LOV case, he would have been contacted by Nedzu, so it was probably something else, which wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a matter of life and death.
Urgent but not life or death.
What the hell could it be? He had been woken up by the text and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get back to sleep now. He had thought working the night shift was bad, but working half night shifts and half day shifts was so much worse. He had been working under the chief detective, training in order to take his place when he retired in a few months, but working half his old hours and half new hours had him wondering whether or not it was worth it.
He rolled back over with a groan, shut his eyes, and hoped for the best.
***
Hizashi had been nervously puttering around the apartment, mindlessly tidying nothing in particular while trying to distract himself from his thoughts. Midoriya was dead on his feet. They’d needed to help him into bed because his legs gave out when he tried to stand up, so they had to assume he was asleep by now.
He felt like he hadn’t had a second to sort through his thoughts when, in all reality, they had been doing little else since the moment Sho had told him last night. He was standing motionless in the kitchen holding a broom and trying his best to make sense of it all.
Twelve.
He was only twelve.
How could someone abandon their son like that? How did a twelve-year-old survive on the streets for four years? How was this kid still alive? What had he had to endure in order for him to still be standing here today? How was he still so kind? How had his life not hardened him into something cruel?
He had felt a connection with the kid since day one, he always started out his classes with some sort of joke in English and it was rare that anyone ever picked up on it. He couldn’t get the kid out of his mind since the USJ, they’d been worried sick about him, wondering how he was coping with everything on his own. He had been hoping that the parent teacher conference would have settled his anxieties, but clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.
Four years.
Four fucking years.
They felt tears slide down their cheeks as they stared at the cabinet with unfocused eyes.
They remembered all the times that Shota had come home from patrol and gotten into bed as tense as a board, they remembered all the times that they had told him that Ivy was more competent than he gave them credit for, they remembered all the times they had told him to have faith in them. God, they were such an idiot. Would it have been catastrophic for Uptown if they had taken Ivy out of those streets? Yes, yes it would. Midoriya would have probably hated them forever, but at least he would have been safe . He was just a kid, he was just a little kid!
Their hand tightened around the broom handle and they shifted their grip so their palm was face down on the end of it before they rested their head on the back of their hand.
He was just a little kid.
He brought his other hand up to cover his mouth as he began to cry in earnest.
He was just a little kid.
Shota had gone out to get groceries and was due back any minute, they needed to pull themself together. He knew how much Sho hated to see him cry and they couldn’t both be having a breakdown, what if Midoriya needed them? They took a few shaky breaths and went back to sweeping up nothing and did their best to remind themself that things were going to get better.
Midoriya was safe now and things were going to get better.
***
“Evening, Nedzu, Aizawa,” Naomasa greeted with a small bow.
“Good evening detective,” Nedzu greeted in return.
Aizawa remained silent. He looked more tired than Naomasa had ever seen him. His normally expressionless face was sporting a frown which, in terms of the expressions he’d seen him make before, was pretty intense. Nedzu’s face betrayed nothing but he wasn’t sure if that was just his own inability to read him or if there was genuinely nothing to be read.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure,” he asked Nedzu as he took his seat across from Aizawa.
“I’m not entirely sure, detective, Aizawa requested you specifically for a case involving one of our students. Now that you’re here, I’m sure he can fill us both in.”
Aizawa took a deep breath and let out a sigh as he ran his hand through his tangled hair before he spoke, “Midoriya Izuku,” he said as he slid a file across the table toward him.
Tsukauchi shot a glance toward Nedzu but again, his expression betrayed nothing. Was this about One For All? Had Aizawa caught on? He was a smart man, Naomasa wouldn’t doubt it but he wasn’t about to give anything away.
“The one who got sent to the hospital after the USJ, right? What about him?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
Aizawa pursed his lips and shot a glance between the two of them. He’d never seen the man so nervous and it was making him uncomfortable.
“What I am about to say is to remain off record as much as it can,” he said hesitantly before he went any further.
Well, at least if this was about One For All, maybe Aizawa knew how important it was to keep it to himself.
“I cannot promise you anything if I don’t know what we’re talking about, but I will say that our student’s safety takes precedence over all else, including the law,” Nedzu replied cautiously.
That seemed to soothe Aizawa’s worry slightly and the nod of agreement Naomasa added had his shoulders relaxing even more.
“Alright, good. Okay…” Aizawa conceded before continuing. He turned to Nedzu as he spoke, “I have been working with a vigilante for over the past 2 years during my patrols on the north side of Musutafu. They go by the name Ivy. Tsukauchi’s higher-ups wanted the vigilante taken down, but they were doing good work, helping people in places we couldn’t reach. So he asked me to keep an eye on them, make sure they didn’t get themself killed and we’ve been working as partners ever since,” he explained.
Naomasa turned his gaze toward Nedzu to gauge his reaction. He was surprised Aizawa would compromise Ivy like this, but again, the creature’s face betrayed no sort of reaction.
“We were patrolling last night, like normal, and they…” Aizawa trailed off.
That sent a spike of anxiety through his chest, Ivy being taken out of commission would surely be enough to make Aizawa look that tired; he remembered what he was like when the kid went MIA that one night last fall. He would have been informed sooner than this if Ivy had been hurt, right?
“Aizawa, are they okay?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“They’re fine, well they–”
“What exactly does all of this have to do with finding one of our students living on the streets?” Nedzu interrupted with a sharp flick of his tail.
He was getting impatient– Wait, finding what? Naomasa had forgotten what they were meeting about to begin with, he’d forgotten about the file in his hands. He was starting to slot pieces together that he desperately hoped didn’t belong there.
“Midoriya is Ivy,” Aizawa responded curtly.
Naomasa froze with his jaw agape and waited for Aizawa to take back the words.
He didn’t.
He just sat in his chair and looked back and forth between the two of them.
“I don’t– he can’t– I thought Midoriya– he’s only 15, isn’t he?” Naomasa asked dumbly; the silence was becoming deafening.
“Yes, he is,” Aizawa responded cooly.
Naomasa looked over to the principal to try and glean any sort of information about how he was taking this, but again, nothing. His attention was brought back to Aizawa when he started to speak.
“I don’t want this on his record, permanent or otherwise. It would ruin his career, it would ruin his life. He’s–”
Aizawa was cut off by a raised paw. Nedzu finally returned his gaze but it didn’t answer any of his questions. He lowered his paw back down to the desk and the three of them sat in tense silence.
“Well, that certainly explains his rather advanced skill set,” Nedzu finally replied.
Now it was Aizawa’s turn to exchange a nervous glance with him. Nedzu didn’t have the first idea about what all that kid had done as Ivy.
“I agree, Aizawa, having this go onto Midoriya’s record would be an incredible waste of potential,” he added as he looked back at Naomasa and prompted him with a nod.
He was confused for a moment before he realized what he was asking, but in his defense, his mind had just been blown to bits.
“Yes! Yes, I– I don’t want that, I– yes. I agree,” he replied hastily once he figured out what was being asked of him.
Aizawa actually let out a sigh of relief at his response.
“So, what do we do?” Naomasa asked, “I mean, did you bring us here with a plan?”
“Yes, that’s the million-dollar question,” Nedzu chirped, turning his attention to Aizawa.
“We need to find a way to write off Ivy on paper and we need to start an investigation into Midoriya’s parents. I was hoping you two could handle the Ivy situation, he’s already the lead on Ivy’s case,” he nodded toward Naomosa before turning to Nedzu. “And we need you to make sure there is absolutely no trail that could lead back to Midoriya.”
“And Midoriya’s case?” Naomasa asked nervously, sparing a glance toward Nedzu again.
Midoriya’s case was not something he wanted just anyone poking their nose into; there was too much to be found there and the right detective with the wrong motivations could make this situation so, so much worse for everyone involved.
“I would like to handle it, if possible,” Aizawa answered, “There’s too much to hide and I don’t want someone uncovering things that you two are covering. I already know the situation and I know what to keep off of the record.”
The room fell quiet after that and Naomasa took that time to try and iron out his brain. That was a good idea, but Aizawa didn’t even know the whole story of what was already being covered up on Midoriya’s file. There was no way this investigation was going to conclude without Aizawa finding out about One For All, but he supposed there were worse outcomes. Aizawa cared about the kid, he wouldn’t do anything that put him in danger even if he did find out the whole truth. He knew that Aizawa was likely looking for an answer from him but, god, he just needed a minute.
He would have been 12 when he started. No wonder people were reporting that a child had taken them down, they were a child. An honest-to-god child, not even a teen yet, Jesus Christ… and they let him run around out there for years! He was just a little kid! A homeless, quirkless, little kid… how… how in the world? And now he has all the baggage of One For All on his shoulders along with potentially All For One still a lingering threat. This poor kid was in such deep shit.
“Detective,” Nedzu’s voice cut through his thoughts.
“Yes, sir, sorry– I… I was– what was the question?”
“If we go on record here to report the abandonment case to you, would you be able to ensure Aizawa can take the lead on it?” Nedzu asked, presumably for the second time.
“Um, I should– well… I can at least get him on the case. I have to assign an officer to it, though. I could keep it on my docket in an official capacity and have you do all the actual work on it but I won’t be able to help much with everything on my plate at the moment.”
“That’s fine,” Aizawa answered readily.
Wait, if he ‘found’ the kid last night, where was he? This had gone unreported for at least 18 hours now, right? Oh, Aizawa tell me you didn’t , he pleaded in his head before he asked the question he almost certainly knew the answer to.
“Where is he now? Midoriya, where is he?”
“He’s at home with Hizashi,” Aizawa answered as expected.
Great.
“Aizawa, that’s kidnapping,” he pointed out after taking a deep breath.
“What the hell was I supposed to do? Turn him in?” He shot back.
“Yeah, okay, just– that’s not going on record either,” he said as he massaged his temples, “Okay, come into the station, say… 11 pm, and ‘report’ this to me, say you just found him tonight and you did not have him illegally stowed away in your apartment for 24 hours, and we’ll… we’ll figure it out from there.”
“You want me to come in with the kid?” Aizawa asked.
“Yes, it’s still kidnapping if you claimed to have taken him home before reporting it.”
“What will happen with him? Will I be able to take him home afterward?” he asked, a subtle air of desperation in his tone.
Oh shit. Of course, he wasn’t going to want to let the kid out of his sight. He did his best to soften his voice without sounding patronizing before he answered, “It will probably be a long night, we will need to assign a social worker to his case and he will be put into the foster system so I don’t think you will–”
“I have a foster license,” Aizawa cut him off.
“You what?” he asked rhetorically.
On the hierarchy of mind-altering revelations, this news really shouldn’t have been so surprising after everything he just heard, but maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Whatever, that didn’t matter; his slightly shifted perception of Aizawa could wait.
“Okay, that’s– we should be able to work with that. I can’t guarantee anything but you should be able to take him home, they’ll need to place him somewhere, and if a solution presents itself so readily I can’t imagine they’d pass it up at midnight on a Thursday; they’re gonna want to go home just as much as you. If all else fails we can claim it's a safety measure after everything that happened with the USJ. Ultimately, it’s up to the social worker where he’s placed but staying with you is a logical argument, especially if that’s what Midoriya wants as well.”
The crease in Aizawa’s brow deepened at his last remark. Was Midoriya already unwilling to be there? Did he actually kidnap the kid?
“Aizawa, do you think he’ll want to stay with you? He doesn’t have the final choice, but if he doesn’t want to be there that will certainly sway the social worker to at least look for alternative placements,” he warned.
“I have no idea what he wants, he’s not speaking to me,” he admitted.
Naomasa couldn’t imagine what was going through that kid’s head right now, his whole world just came crashing down around him. He probably didn’t even know what he wanted so it wasn’t surprising that Aizawa didn’t either.
“Right, well, try and work this out with him, but the plan needs to stay in place unless you want a kidnapping charge on your record. He’ll cooperate that much, right?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes, I'm sure he’d do whatever I asked him to. Whether or not that’s what he wants is another question entirely.”
That response left him with a thousand more questions than before, but now wasn’t the time. So, he dumped them on top of the infinite pile of questions that tonight’s revelations had provoked and vowed to save those for another day.
“I will need to be debriefed on all of ‘Ivy’s’ escapades both on and off the record so that I know what I need to be covering up, however, that can wait for another time. I implore both of you to make a report of events for me to go over at a later date. We have a solid plan of action for now, is there anything else that needs to be discussed, gentlemen?” Nedzu asked.
Naomasa couldn’t think of anything else, at least not anything that he wanted to discuss in front of Aizawa. There was probably something they ought to talk about but his brain was far too scrambled to analyze the situation properly right now so he shook his head. The moment everyone confirmed there was nothing more to discuss, Aizawa hastily took his leave, likely to get back and debrief Yamada and Midoriya about everything. As he left and shut the door behind him Naomasa looked back to Nedzu.
“He doesn’t know, right?” he asked.
“No, he does not,” Nedzu confirmed.
“He’s going to find out,” Naomasa stated as a matter of fact.
“Yes, yes I imagine that he will,” Nedzu responded.
“Should we tell him?”
“No, I don’t think it’s our place to make that call. The only part of it that might pertain to his investigation is the boy’s recently changed quirk status and that is in his file. We can direct him toward Yagi if or when he has questions about that.”
Naomasa cringed at that, he would not want to be in Toshinori’s shoes when Aizawa found out the truth.
“We should warn him,” he asserted.
“How are we supposed to warn him without disclosing Midoriya’s personal information? He went to great lengths to hide all of this from us and I doubt he’d take kindly to us spilling the proverbial beans to his mentor.”
“He’s going to find out eventually,” he argued.
“Yes, yes I imagine that he will,” Nedzu responded again, steepling his paws under his chin in thought.
“So, what, we’re just gonna sit around and see who starts asking questions first?” he asked incredulously.
“We legally have no right to alert Yagi to the situation and morally it’s not our secret to tell Aizawa. So, yes, unfortunately, that is the option we are left with.”
Oh, this was going to be a shit show, but Nedzu was right. It was going to be a shit show regardless of what they did so they may as well not violate anyone’s trust in the process.
“I could suggest that he tell Aizawa for the sake of the kid’s education. Midoriya is pretty much all he ever talks about, it wouldn’t be out of place to slip the idea into a conversation,” he mused.
“Hmm,” the rodent thought on that for a moment before responding, “How likely do you think he would be to take your advice?”
“I don’t know, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, right?”
“It could, but if you trust your ability to suggest that without further questioning then I don’t see the harm.” Nedzu conceded.
He scrubbed his hands across his face and took a deep breath before speaking, “It’s worth a shot.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 124: Hand me my shovel, I'm going in!
Notes:
Shout out to Woomy Beezus Spade and Penny for beta reading this chapter! Sorry I'm posting a little late, my brain said it was Tuesday again and I foolishly believed it.
Click the link below to join the discord
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota had been gone for over an hour now and Hizashi was doing his best not to panic. They were going to do right by this kid, someone was going to do right by this kid. He just had to have faith in them. The safety of his students was always at the forefront of Nedzu’s mind and he may not know Tsukauchi all that well, but he had protected Ivy in the past.
They would do right by him.
He was unloading the dishwasher when he heard it. A pained scream came from the office followed by a loud thump and Hizashi had never moved so fast in his life. He was at the door and flinging it open in seconds. Midoriya was sitting on the far side of the room with the blanket half wrapped around him and half still on the bed. He was breathing heavily and he flinched when Hizashi came in, but it didn’t take him long to tune back into his surroundings.
“S-sorry,” he stuttered.
Oh, a nightmare. It was probably just a nightmare. That was… well it was better than a corporeal threat.
“It’s alright, Kiddo. Sorry for barging in, I just thought you were hurt. You’re okay though, right?” he asked to verify; he had fallen off the bed.
“Yeah, I'm f-fine. S-sorry,” he apologized again as he detangled himself from the bedding and got to his feet.
Hizashi studied him as he threw the blankets back onto the bed and immediately went about making it. He was shaking.
“Sho’s gonna be home soon and it’s almost dinner time. Is there anything you’d like?”
“W-what?!” Midoriya asked, eyes darting around the room looking for a clock.
“It was around 6:45 last I checked,” Hizashi offered.
The kid had been asleep for over 10 hours, he clearly needed it. If he had been running on the same schedule as Shota and not taking naps during off periods, he couldn’t imagine that he had a very healthy sleep schedule.
“S-sorry, I d-didn’t mean t-to s-sleep so l-long,” he apologized again as he frantically smoothed out the sheets.
Alright, less than one minute awake and he’d already apologized 3 times. Great.
“It’s fine, Kiddo. You needed it, but you need to eat too. Any requests?” he asked again.
“N-no– I don’t– w-whatever is f-fine, t-thank you,” he replied quickly.
Hizashi watched him as he fluffed up the pillows and straightened them out until the ancient pull-out couch looked like it came straight out of a furniture catalog. That was probably going to be something to look out for, obsessive tidying, feeling the need to erase evidence of his presence anywhere he went. They wanted to tell him he didn’t need to do that, but now wasn’t the time.
“Alright, I’m gonna get started cookin’ then, I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Let me know if you need anything,” they dismissed, shutting the door quietly behind themself.
They were starting to see the toll that being around this kid had caused Shota over the past few years, they felt like they were never going to stop worrying about him until the day they died. Doing their best to shake their anxieties off, they turned on some music at a low volume and started making dinner. K araage sounded nice, a good comfort food, easy to get down.
They were nearly done making it when Shota walked through the door around half past seven, looking equal parts exhausted and relieved. His eyelids were drooping, but he had a smile on his face and Hizashi had to curb his enthusiasm.
“They’re on board?!” he whisper-shouted excitedly, taking heed of the kid just one shut door away.
“Yeah,” he laughed as he spoke in grateful disbelief.
They put the tongs they were holding down and bounded over to him like an over-excited child, damn near tackle hugging both of them to the ground. They felt Shota’s laugh vibrate against his chest more than he heard it and they were smiling so wide it almost hurt their face. They grabbed Sho by the shoulders, held him out at arm's length, and shook him forcibly while they demanded to hear everything that had happened.
“Can I take my shoes off first?” he asked with a smirk still on his face.
“No!” they shot back immediately but let go of him regardless.
“It didn’t take much convincing, thankfully. Nedzu is going to make sure everything that can be scrubbed from the record is scrubbed from the record. Tsukauchi is gonna get Ivy’s case shut somehow, though we don’t know how yet, and I’m going to be the lead on Midoriya’s case so that nothing connecting him to Ivy is ever put into writing,” Shota explained as he pulled off his boots.
They let out a long relieved sigh and sat down on the step leading to the genkan for about half a second before springing to their feet again.
“Ah, I’m gonna burn the chicken!” they explained as they ran back into the kitchen
They could hear Shota laughing at them as he followed behind him.
“Smells good,” he said, peeking over their shoulder to look into the pan.
“Thanks, you wanna set some plates out and put the spare pot holder down so I can just bring the whole tray to the table? It’s pretty much done.”
Shota just hummed in response and did as requested. He was a little more withdrawn than he had been just a second ago and they knew that meant that they had gotten the good news first.
“So, what’s the bad news?” they asked as he returned to the kitchen.
“Nothing awful, we’re going to have to take him into the station tonight and report me finding him properly, ‘cept we’re going to say that I found him tonight otherwise I’m getting a kidnapping charge on my record. Tsukauchi said it’s going to be a long night, we’re going to need to get a social worker on the case and you’re probably going to have to come in before they approve us taking him home…” he trailed off for a moment but they could tell he wasn’t done so they waited patiently, “ If they approve us taking him home.”
“Oh, Sho, don’t say that. We’re taking him home, even if that means getting a proper kidnapping charge,” they joked, hoping to get the smile back on Shota’s face.
He just rolled his eyes and sighed.
They turned back to the pan, and flipped the chicken again, making sure that nothing stayed at the bottom for too long. After a minute or two they looked back at him, he was leaning his back against the counter and chewing at the inside of his lip the way he did when he was nervous.
“Did Tsukauchi make it seem like that was a real possibility? Him not being able to come home with us, I mean,” he asked
“No– well, yes, it is a possibility, but he seemed optimistic. Said that everyone was gonna want to go home and we’d probably get the go ahead for at least the night,” Shota answered.
“But long-term?”
“We didn’t get that far.”
***
Izuku heard the front door open. That meant that Eraser was back. Where had he gone? What had they been doing while he slept? Mic had told him that he didn’t need to worry about anything until “later” and it was feeling pretty damn “later” now. Mic had said they were getting started on dinner about 45 minutes ago, it was probably almost done. He should have gone out and helped, he’d been kicking himself for the last 45 minutes for not helping but every time he went to move it felt like his limbs were glued in place. He certainly wasn’t going out there now that Eraser was back– wherever he was probably had to do with Izuku and he’d made him go out and do things and he was just now getting back– how long had he been gone? FUCK he needed to help, he needed to do something . They gave him a bed and let him use their shower and now they were making dinner for him and he hadn’t done anything in return except disrupt their days and make them do more work.
A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.
“Dinner’s ready,” he heard Eraser call through the door.
He froze.
“You said he’s awake, right?” he heard Eraser’s muffled voice call back toward the kitchen.
He was supposed to respond. He needed to say something. He needed to go out there.
A knock sounded out against the door again.
“Midoriya? Can I come in?”
Jesus Christ, Izuku, just respond ! What the hell is your problem?
***
When Shota opened the door, Midoriya was standing on the far side of the bed facing the door with his hands held up like he was halfway through the motion of grabbing something. Except there was nothing within arms reach… and he wasn’t moving a muscle.
“You alright, kid?” he asked gently, doing his best to hide his concern.
Like he had unpaused a video the kid’s arms swiftly returned to his sides and he dipped his head forward in a bow much too steep to be reasonable.
“Y-yes, f-fine. S-sorry, I’m f-fine,” he stuttered out.
A blush was high on his cheeks and he looked down to his feet quickly.
That was… strange.
“Dinner’s ready. Zashi made karaage, you’ve had it before,” he prompted.
He looked pale and his hands were shaking, whether that was due to the fact that they hadn’t gotten the chance to feed him before he slept for like 10 hours or because he was scared, Shota didn’t know.
“You’re shaking, kid. When did you last eat?” he asked.
“I-I– um…” he trailed off and stood there thinking for longer than Shota would have liked.
“Well, if you have to think that hard about it then the answer is too long ago. Sit down in the chair there, I’ll bring your food in here,” he instructed.
He still didn’t know whether the shakes were nerves or low blood sugar; he figured it was probably both. Getting some food in him and not forcing him out of his current safe-ish space would likely help regardless of the root cause of the issue. He left without giving the kid time to argue, though he doubted that he would; he had yet to defy a single command since the, erm, incident.
With a heaping helping in hand, he went back to the guest room.
“I don’t expect you to eat all of this, but it heats up fine so don’t worry about it,” he assuaged before Midoriya got the chance to panic.
He set down the bowl of rice damn near spilling over with chicken and a tall glass of water.
“I do want you to finish the water, you haven’t had anything to drink besides a cup of tea since you got here, you’re dehydrated. Yell if you need anything,” he said, again not giving the kid time to argue before he took his leave.
He and Hizashi ate their meal in relative silence, chatting infrequently, but nothing of substance. He didn’t mind, both of them had a lot to think about anyway. Shota took their dishes when they were done since Hizashi had cooked; he rinsed them and set them in the dishwasher before returning to the dining table. Hizashi was sitting there looking at the grain of the wooden table top and bouncing his leg as he thought. They needed to talk about several things but now was not the time. Right now they needed to update Midoriya on what all had happened at the meeting earlier and tell him what to expect going forward. He was contemplating whether it would be better to go to him or have him come to them for that discussion when the door opened and the kid walked out with his dishes and quickly scrambled to the kitchen.
Zashi looked up at the noise and poised like he was about to talk but Shota kicked them lightly under the table before he got the chance to insist that they would do the dishes. They looked at him annoyed but he shot them a look that said “Shut it,” so they did.
“Cups go in the cabinet to the left of the stove and there’s tinfoil in the drawer under that. You can put some over the top of the bowl if you didn’t finish and stick it in the fridge; if you did finish then bowls go in the same cabinet as the cups,” he informed nonchalantly.
He remembered how awkward Ivy had been about their plates at Chiyo’s house and he knew they hated feeling like a burden. If Midoriya wanted to do his dishes then they would let him do his dishes. When he finished doing as he was told he walked back over toward the guest room but hesitantly stopped in front of the dining table. Whether he was waiting to be dismissed or to say something, Shota wasn’t sure. After a moment of silence, he assumed it was the former.
“Take a seat kid, we have some updates,” Shota prompted, nodding his head toward the chair to his left.
Midoriya sat down but didn’t scoot his chair in, like he was leaving himself room to run away should the need arise. He did his best to ignore that for now.
“You are not going to be held culpable for anything and you will stay enrolled in the hero course. You are going to be safe,” Shota stressed before he started explaining anything.
Midoriya’s nervous expression didn’t change much. Shota hadn’t expected it to, but he had hoped it would.
“I met with Nedzu and Tsukauchi and told them the situation,” he continued.
Midoriya’s minimal anxious fidgeting froze.
“They are completely on board, we are not going to let anything happen to you,” Shota stressed again.
Midoriya didn’t calm down in the slightest. Words weren’t going to settle his mind, he’s sure the poor kid had heard empty promises before, he knew “better” than to believe an adult would protect him. That’s… that’s ok. They’d just have to show him.
“Nedzu and Tsukauchi are going to scrub anything that might link Ivy to you from the record and Tsukauchi’s going to get the case shut. I will be handling your case and I will make sure you can’t be linked to Ivy.”
The kid tensed even more at that. He had been hoping that having a game plan would appeal to his logical side enough to settle him, even just a little bit, but somehow, it only seemed to make it worse. Anything he did or said only seemed to make things worse. He glanced over to Hizashi, but their face betrayed nothing. Surely, they would say something if he was fucking this up royally, right? Regardless of his floundering, he still needed to explain to Midoriya what was going to happen, so he pushed on.
“We’re going to need to go to the station later, we’ll probably leave around 10:30/10:45. We’re going to tell Tsukauchi that I found you tonight and immediately brought you there, otherwise, technically, this would be considered kidnapping,” he tried to give a subtle joking tone to that statement.
Hizashi smirked and huffed out a breath through their nose, but Midoriya didn’t react at all.
“We’re going to have to give a statement for the record and get a case started so that a social worker can come in and officially approve you staying with us,” he concluded, doing his best to keep any nervousness out of his tone.
The kid was chewing his lip and refused to look up at either of them. He wished he knew what was going through his head right now so that he could assuage his concerns, but he had no idea. The best he could do was make a guess and hope it helped.
“Is there anywhere else you would rather stay? I can’t guarantee anything, but we could try,” he offered reluctantly.
Like everything else he had tried, that only made the situation worse. Jesus Christ, he was so hopeless at this shit.
“N-no– or, I m-mean– this is f-fine– unless y-you w-want– I d-don’t– w-whatever’s the l-least t-trouble is f-fine,” he replied shakily, wringing his hands with enough force to look painful.
“Easy with your hands, Kiddo,” Hizashi butted in, “This isn’t about whatever is the least trouble, it’s about what makes you the most comfortable. That’s what we want.”
Midoriya only started wringing his hands harder at that. His gaze lowered again and started darting rapidly between nothing and nowhere. His breaths were getting erratic; of course, asking him to choose something for himself would set him off. Shota doubted he’d done something strictly for himself and no one else’s benefit in years. He knew he wasn’t going to like an intrusion into his personal space, but he looked liable to pop a finger out of place at the rate he was going, so Shota slowly reached out his hand and set it on top of Midoriya’s tangled digits. He immediately pulled them apart like he had been burned and shoved them under his thighs.
“S-sorry, s-sorry!” he apologized frantically.
Hizashi made eye contact with him in a way that said they were extremely concerned about that response as well.
“It’s alright, Kiddo, we just don’t want you to hurt your hands,” Zashi responded.
Midoriya still had his eyes resolutely trained downwards and his legs twitched every once in a while as if he was fighting himself trying to keep them still.
“Why don’t you stay with us, for a little while at least? We can figure something else out later if we need to, is that okay?” Hizashi offered.
“T-that’s f-fine, w-whatever i-is– i-it’s fine,” he repeated.
Shota fought the urge to sigh.
That part was supposed to be the easy part. He shot a look toward Hizashi that said “Tag, you’re it,” and they sent back a subtle nod.
“Kiddo, I know it’s difficult for you to talk sometimes, but you’re going to need to give a statement tonight. We thought it would be easier if Sho knew a little bit more about what was going on so he can speak up for you if it gets too difficult. Detective Tsukauchi will be there, possibly a social worker as well, and I know an audience isn’t going to make things easier. Is it alright if Sho asks you some questions now so he can help out later?” Hizashi asked.
Midoriya chewed at his lip but nodded readily like he hadn’t even stopped to think about what he actually wanted and just went with whatever Hizashi had asked. He could see Hizashi glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. They didn’t need to alienate the kid anymore by speaking in microexpressions right in front of him. Honestly, on second thought, Shota wouldn’t doubt his ability to read their microexpressions as well as they could after knowing each other for fifteen years; he was far too perceptive.
“I just want to get some things straightened out, you said you’ve been on your own for about three or four years now? Do you remember approximately when the last time you saw your mother was?”
“I g-got the e-eviction notice A-August t-third s-so a f-few months short of f-four years, but I hadn’t s-seen, um, my– I hadn’t s-seen her f-for a while b-before that. I d-don’t remember w-when, b-but s-she um, she wasn’t t-there for my b-birthday. I remember t-that,” he stuttered out quietly.
The last sentence sent a pang through his heart. He could imagine a little freshly 12-year-old boy waiting for his mom to come home on his birthday only to go to bed lonely. He pushed the gut-wrenching image aside and carried on.
“Which is when?”
“July f-fifteenth,” he answered reluctantly.
That was coming up– next month. He took a mental note of that. The only way this kid would be spending his birthday alone this year was over Shota’s cold dead body.
“Alright. Did you stay with anyone else for any amount of time? Did anyone know about your situation? Friends? Family? Neighbors?”
“N-no,” he confirmed what Shota had already expected.
This kid had been well and truly alone for four years. It would have been nigh on impossible to have a meaningful relationship with anybody without them not knowing about his living conditions. He hadn’t even known Ivy’s name, but he still knew about his living situation, or at least he had suspected.
“And your father has been out of the picture for a while now, correct? He was gone well before your mother was?”
“Y-y-yes. I was s-seven l-last I s-saw him,” he peeped out, the words barely audible.
That was unfortunate. The most they could pin on him would be failure to pay child support, which was of course under the assumption that he had, in fact, failed to pay child support. Midoriya looked about ready to combust and he was going to have to do this all over again later. They shouldn’t push him any more than they already had.
“Alright, that should be enough to get the case started. If we can't get any more than that done tonight, don’t worry about it… I know this is a lot. That’s all we had to tell you. You can stay out here and watch some TV or go back to the guest room, whatever you’d prefer. Just be ready to leave around 10:30,” he dismissed.
Midoriya’s gaze shot between the two of them rapidly as if he was trying to figure out what they wanted him to do before he stood up, quietly scooted his chair back into place, and darted back into the guest room. Shota waited a moment before resting his elbows on the table and rubbing at his eyes with a sigh.
Hizashi reached over and took his unoccupied hand in theirs, but they didn’t say anything.
***
Izuku immediately reported back to the Panic Corner™ when Eraser let him go.
Why were they doing this? They were all sticking their neck out for him. Why the hell would they do that? If he got caught by someone else he’d be taking down 3 heroes and one of Musutafu’s chief detectives. Why would they risk that? Well, he knew why Nedzu and Tsukauchi would risk that, they knew about OFA; they didn’t really have a choice so long as Izuku held the power. God, why did he do this? He knew he should’ve quit ages ago, he should have quit the second he decided to take OFA, now everyone was going to get fucked over and it was all his fault for being so goddamn selfish and not killing Ivy when he had the chance.
He was sitting between the two desks again and trying his best to physically pull himself back together. His breaths were tight spasms in his lungs and he was either getting too much or not enough oxygen, he couldn’t tell through the panic ripping through his mind. The dinner he’d just forced down felt like it was about to force its way back up.
It was 8:19 when he had checked the time in the kitchen, so it was at least 8:30 now. He had 2 hours before they had to leave. He needed to pull himself together, he was already making this difficult enough for everyone. He huddled in on himself in the corner in an attempt to make himself as small as possible. He was taking up too much space and too much time; he was causing too much trouble. Everything had spiraled out of control and his stupid fucking panicking was only making things worse.
He forced his breaths to be as steady as he could manage.
He was hoping that the air would fill his lungs more comfortably after a while but he’d been sitting there so long that he had lost track of time and his chest still felt like it was being crushed in a vice grip. Tension refused to leave his shoulders and he wondered when he’d ever be rid of it. He’d been either unconscious or in a state of fight or flight for nearly 24 hours at this point and he didn’t foresee it getting any better, at least not any time soon. There was no promise of reprieve and the thought made him want to crawl out of his skin. When things had gotten this bad before, he’d been able to escape himself as Ivy. He didn’t have that anymore. He’d never have that again.
A few tears escaped his eyes as he sat there like a man on death row, clawing his way through every last excruciating second with The Sword of Damocles looming above him. He tried to find comfort in the certainty of knowing things would get worse, but it was flimsy at best.
***
When Shota knocked on the door and entered the room Midoriya was sitting in the same spot between their desks that he had been this morning. Hizashi had said that he’d slept all day but he still looked so tired, he supposed having your whole life ripped out from under you would do that to a person. He was looking up at him, he was present at least.
“It’s about time to head out,” he informed.
The kid just nodded.
He looked so uncomfortable and Shota really didn’t want to force him out of the space he was in and tear him away from whatever pitiful amount of comfort it was providing, but he didn’t really have a choice. He’d had a blanket earlier, maybe taking that with would help? No, he wouldn’t want to feel like a child with their blankie, he was sure the kid was already humiliated enough as is.
“It’s kind of breezy out, I’ll grab you a jacket. Being decked out in Zashi’s merch is suspicious enough anyway,” he offered, giving the kid an out and a logical reason to not refuse the gesture.
“Meet you in the living room,” he dismissed himself to let Midoriya extract himself from the corner without an audience.
The next few hours were going to be difficult. He wanted answers as much as he didn’t. He knew he was going to uncover a lot of unpleasant details about the kid’s life over the course of this case, he knew that just because he didn’t know about them yet didn’t mean that they didn’t happen. It was going to be better for both of them in the long run for him to know all the nitty gritty details, he’d be able to understand and help the kid more if he knew the events that had shaped him, but at the same time, what he didn’t know wouldn’t keep him up at night. Ignorance was bliss and all that.
It was funny how much he had wished he had answers about Ivy and all of their mystery over the years, but now that those answers were finally being presented to him, it made him sick.
He grabbed the coziest and most nondescript hoodie he owned and took a deep breath before walking back out into the living room. Things were going to get better; this was rock bottom, there was only one way to go from here.
This is the apartment layout btw
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! Next week is (hopefully) going to be a double feature, I plan to upload on Monday and Friday bc it's kinda a 2 part chapter.
Chapter 125: Pandora's Box
Notes:
TWO chapters this week since they're kind of a 2-parter deal. Shout out to Spade for beta reading this last minute bc I'm stupid and forgot to send it again. We love a king with no sleep schedule <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Naomasa’s shift started at 9 pm and as the clock slowly rolled its way past 10:15 he realized he hadn’t even been pretending to get things done.
Midoriya was Ivy.
Toshinori’s boy was Ivy.
Ivy was a kid the whole time; they were 12, and homeless, and quirkless, and god, he had never felt like more of a failure than he did right now. Aizawa was due to bring the kid in in about 45 minutes and he didn’t know if he had the gall to face him after he had failed him for years. He was cycling through disbelief and debilitating bouts of guilt-ridden acceptance; he needed to pull himself together.
He’s not sure what he expected to see when Aizawa walked in, he didn’t know ‘who’ to expect; Midoriya or Ivy, but it was clear that he wasn’t getting either. He didn’t display any of Midoriya’s over-the-top politeness and he certainly didn’t have any of Ivy’s snark. He wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, his gaze never left his feet, and despite the warm air, he wore an oversized hoodie with the cuffs of the sleeves balled up in his fists covering his hands completely.
He looked terrified.
He didn’t hear a peep out of the kid all the way back to his office and as the three of them sat down it felt wrong to break that silence. Thankfully, Aizawa had no such reservations.
“You’re gonna need to talk, kid,” he said in a gentle but firm tone.
Midoriya just glanced up at him and nodded before fixing his gaze back onto his dirty shoes. He continued not to speak so Aizawa shot Naomasa a look and nodded his head toward the kid prompting him to start.
“I’m assuming Aizawa debriefed you about our meeting earlier this evening,” he started.
Midoriya nodded again, eyes still trained downward.
He really wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? Naomasa supposed he wasn’t owed that, but it would be nice to have something to work with.
“Right, let’s just get this over with then. I already know the basics, but I’ll pretend that I don’t. I’m going to record this conversation for the record so don’t say anything about Ivy or anything else incriminating, got it?”
Another nod, eyes still down.
“You’re going to need to answer verbally for the recording, Midoriya,” he warned.
He nodded again.
Fighting the urge to sigh, he gave one final warning about everything from here on out being on the record before he pressed record.
“Detective Tsukauchi interviewing Midoriya Izuku with the pro hero Eraserhead, Aizawa Shota. Before we start this interview I must state that my quirk is called lie detector, it is as it sounds and it is always active. If you lie, I will know. Do I have both of your consent to continue?”
“Yes,” Aizawa answered readily.
“Y-yes,” Midoriya added.
“Thank you. Eraserhead, please state your report.”
“I found Midoriya on my patrol on the upper north end of Musutafu well past curfew. I insisted on taking him home to inform his mother of his whereabouts to which he informed me would not be possible as he does not have a home and hasn’t seen his mother in four years. His mother packed her things and left just before his 12th birthday, shortly after that he got an eviction notice and he has been living on the streets since,” Aizawa stated clinically.
With each word, Midoriya shrank in on himself further and further. He was sitting hunched forward with his chin pressed to his chest and his hands shoved under his legs that were propped up on his tiptoes.
“True,” he said with no emotion, even though inside he was furious, “Midoriya, is Eraserhead’s account of events factual?”
“Y-yes,” he choked out.
Naomasa wanted to put every single case he had into a fire and spend every waking moment dragging that witch of a woman to justice. He was too close to this case, they were all too close to this case, but it’s not like they had any other options.
“True,” he said again flatly, “What about your father?” he continued.
“He works in America,” the boy replied with no emotion.
Naomasa hesitated, glancing at Aizawa before responding, “That’s a lie.”
“T-that’s what my m-mother told me,” he justified.
“True, but you don’t believe her?”
“No.”
“Why’s that?”
“He left after a f-fight when I w-was seven and never came back. I haven’t h-heard a thing from him s-since,” he fumbled out in explanation.
“So you think he left because of the fight with your mother?” he asked to clarify.
The kid made no move to answer his question and after a few tense seconds he shot a glance toward Aizawa, but he seemed to be waiting for an answer just as much as Naomasa was. A few more seconds ticked by before Aizawa spoke up.
“Kid?” he prompted.
Midoriya just shook his head.
“Alright, we can come back to that. Do you need a minute?” he asked in a tone more gentle than Naomasa had previously thought the man capable of.
Midoriya shook his head again and let the smallest amount of tension out of his shoulders. That was… concerning. They were definitely going to have to come back to that.
“Alright, that’s okay. If you need to take a break at any time, just say the word,” he added before continuing, “You said your mother packed everything before she left, are you certain she left of her own volition? You don’t suspect something may have happened to her?”
“It’s p-possible,” Midoriya conceded but he didn’t seem to believe that was truly the case.
“Why didn’t you report her missing then?”
“I didn’t want to be p-put in the s-system and she p-packed all her c-clothes and b-bedding, her t-toiletries, her jewelry, e-everything. She took things of n-no value t-to a thief; she d-didn’t want t-to be there anym-more so she l-left,” he replied shakily, looking up at him for the first time.
He didn’t need his quirk to see the resigned belief in Midoriya’s eyes, whether Midoriya Inko abandoned her son or not, he surely believed that she did. Naomasa preferred when the kid was looking at the floor; the empty, exhausted expression he wore did not suit a face as young as his.
“True. Did she display behaviors prior to her leaving that would have indicated her intentions?”
“Yes,” he stated simply.
Mercifully, he returned his gaze to his lap, but he didn’t offer any elaboration on his answer.
“True, behaviors such as?” he prompted.
For the second time, the kid made no move to answer his question and for the second time, Naomasa looked up to Aizawa to see if he had any sort of insight to offer. His face remained indifferent but he was sure that was just an act. He’d seen how frazzled he had been just a few hours ago but he was doing a remarkably good job of hiding that in front of the kid.
“Did she abuse you, Midoriya?” Aizawa asked rather bluntly.
Midoriya cringed at that and took a moment before responding, “Define a-abuse.”
“Did she physically harm you; hit you?”
“No,” Midoriya replied immediately.
“True,” Naomasa interrupted for the record.
“Did she yell at you or belittle you verbally?” Aizawa pressed on.
The kid took a little longer to respond to that, it had been four grueling years for him so he could excuse him having to think a little harder to drudge up the memories.
“Not often,” he eventually decided.
“True,” he interjected.
“Did she deprive you of basic necessities; food, water, clothes, bathroom access, things like that?” Aizawa continued.
Midoriya paused again to think about the question and that didn’t sit right with him, you tend to remember that kind of thing. As the seconds passed by it was seeming more and more like the answer was going to be yes.
“D-define deprive,”
Oh, hell.
“Did you have your necessities met before she left? Did she give you food and clothes?”
“T-technically?”
“What do you mean technically?”
“She left m-money.”
The room went quiet for a moment after that and Naomasa exchanged a charged glance with Aizawa.
“ Left money? Was she not home with you?” Aizawa broke the silence.
“No, n-not usually,” Midoriya replied hesitantly.
“How often did you see her?” Aizawa asked after taking a subtle calming breath.
“When?”
“When was the time before last you saw her, how long was that time period?”
“I-I d-don’t remember exactly–”
“An estimate is fine,” Naomasa butted in.
“…Maybe a m-month?” Midoriya guessed.
A month. A month? She regularly left an eleven-year-old alone for a month? He saw Aizawa’s eye twitch.
“That was all true. How long had she been so… absent?” Naomasa took back the reins, giving Aizawa a moment to collect himself.
“Um I d-dunno, she– she, um…” he trailed off and Naomasa could see that he was subtly shaking.
That was enough, he clicked off the recorder without bothering to ask the kid if he needed a break; he clearly needed a break. No one asked him about it as he got up, the room remained quiet as he filled a coffee mug up with water, brought it over, and set it down to Midoriya’s right. He did his best not to look at the kid, to give him some semblance of privacy, but he couldn’t help stealing a glance. He looked so small, he looked nothing like Ivy. Ivy was larger than life and never afraid; Ivy was too slippery to get a hold of, too mysterious to be bogged down by a broken home or the lack thereof. Ivy wasn’t real, Naomasa had known that in a distant sort of way all along but it was another thing entirely to confront it head-on. Ivy was a man, or well, a boy, just like the rest of them.
***
Shota was beyond irate, he didn’t have the words to describe how angry he felt in that moment. He hoped for Midoriya Inko’s sake that she had been kidnapped or killed in a hit-and-run or something equally horrible because when he got his hands on her she was going to wish that’s what had happened four years ago–
No.
He was a hero, not some psychotic murderous vigilante. He was a hero and this kid needed him to be calm right now. He needed to be calm right now. He was thankful Tsukauchi knew him well enough to pick up his slack even if he was sure that whatever the kid’s answer to the next question was would piss him off even more.
He was right, even the kid’s lack of an answer had his blood boiling. How long had he been alone if he was too upset to even answer that question? Years? Shota had a sneaking suspicion that his mother had started slacking off around the same time his father abandoned them. It didn’t excuse her behavior in the slightest but it made sense; if her spouse left her he could imagine the home he abandoned and the son he fathered would bring up some sour memories for her.
The click of Tsukauchi turning off the recorder echoed in the quiet room and as he left to get the kid some water Shota turned his attention back to Midoriya. He felt out of his depth, he’d helped this kid through a panic attack probably about a half dozen times in the last few years but everything was so different now and he didn’t know what to do. That’s probably exactly what the kid was thinking too though, maybe what he needed was for Shota to act like nothing had changed, to give him some semblance of solid ground when everything was falling apart.
Not allowing himself to think about it too much he walked over to Midoriya and knelt down in front of him. He flinched when Shota reached out his hand and set it on his shoulder, but it seemed like it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than the desire to not be touched so he held strong. He could barely hear his breaths, but it sounded like he was stifling hyperventilation, like he was too afraid to make even the slightest sound.
“Midoriya you need to breathe,” he reminded him quietly.
He got a single lurching inhale in response.
“Come on, kid, halfway there, but you gotta breathe out too,” he joked trying to lighten the mood.
He let out the breath all at once as a scoff of laughter. It was quiet and his split-second smile looked more like a grimace but he would take what he got.
“That’s good, keep going,” he gently grasped the kid’s left hand in his right and guided it to his chest, “Follow my breathing,” he instructed as he took deep exaggerated breaths.
He did his best to follow his lead for a while, forcing shuddered breaths in and out; he was making good progress when all of the sudden he just stopped. He took a sharp intake of breath and held it; the hand that was pressed to Shota’s chest curled into a fist around his jumpsuit and the slight shaking of his form spiraled into full body tremors as he collapsed in on himself. He buried his face in his knees and his shoulders shook as silent sobs wracked his body.
Shota was getting so tired of feeling his heart break every five minutes but he had a feeling that wasn’t going to stop any time soon. He did his best to keep his breathing steady as he pulled Midoriya against his chest, he wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do but the kid followed without complaint so he figured it wasn’t wrong.
***
Vivisection would be more comfortable, Izuku was sure of it. He felt like he had misplaced his grief four years ago and was just now stumbling upon it again; it was like no time had passed at all. His mother’s absence was a gaping wound that was being studied in a surgical theater by clinical hands. He needed them to stop, he needed it all to stop, but it was like a dam had been released, there was no boarding it back up until the water had run its course.
He couldn’t breathe. He felt so small, he felt like he was seven years old again, helpless and staring down his father’s wrath. He felt arms wrap around him and a hand rubbing gentle circles on his back and he did his best to focus on that before he lost himself. Those hands were safe, but he had thought he’d been in safe hands before only to be dropped–
No, those hands were safe, they had to be. They had to be safe.
Please, god, let them be safe.
***
Something had flipped in Midoriya. His gentle tremors and anxious fidgeting had started to calm down for a moment with Aizawa’s help and then something just snapped. Naomasa wasn’t surprised, he’d seen it before; people tend to break down when they’re finally safe, when they finally have a moment to realize all that had happened to them. It was the first step toward healing, but that knowledge never made it easier to watch.
He should call in a social worker, they were out of their depth, and the sooner they could get this poor kid home the better. He excused himself quietly to make the call in the hallway. The call was over all too soon and a selfish part of himself didn’t want to go back into his office, didn’t want to have to hear the kid struggling to breathe against the weight of his grief, but he wasn’t the one hurting right now so he slipped back inside and shut the door behind himself.
Not much had changed in the scant few seconds it took for him to make the call, Midoriya was still shaking with silent sobs with his face buried in Aizawa’s shoulder. The man himself was definitely looking worse for wear and Naomasa couldn’t blame him. His lips were pursed in a straight line and his eyes had gone a bit glassy which was an observation that he politely ignored.
This was a nightmare.
It felt wrong to leave but it also felt wrong to stay, he felt like a voyeur peeping in on a moment that he wasn’t meant to see, so he turned his attention to his computer and started pulling up the paperwork that was going to need to be filled out. The sound of the printer whirring in the corner drowned out Midoriya’s stifled sobs for a moment but eventually, it quieted and his ears were once again invaded by the heart-wrenching hitched breaths of the boy whose life was falling apart in his office.
He tried to busy himself with looking up Midoriya Inko in the system, but as was to be expected, nothing came up. The woman had been walking around with a clean record for over three years after abandoning her son; that was going to change tonight. He couldn’t wait to start a file on her, but he was going to have to; there were more pressing matters at the moment. Midoriya seemed to have started calming down, but it was difficult to say for sure as he was so quiet. He gave them another minute as he searched the boy’s father, Midoriya Hisashi, if the paperwork Midoriya had filled out for UA was to be believed.
Naomasa hoped very desperately that the paperwork Midoriya had filled out for UA was not to be believed. Midoriya Hisashi had several charges on his record from public intoxication to illicit drug possession, but the most important detail of his file was a death certificate. A death certificate from four years ago…
Goddamnit.
This wasn’t painting a pretty picture. The report said he died in Tokyo; overdosed on heroin. His next of kin was listed as one Midoriya Inko… who left her son shortly thereafter.
Great. That was just– just great. A woman falls in love with an addict, has a kid, loses her lover, neglects the kid but sticks around just enough to be there should he ever come back; and when he doesn’t, she abandons the boy completely. Sounds like a real stand-up family dynamic. Jesus Christ.
His father was dead and he, more likely than not, had no idea. How the hell was he supposed to tell him that? Not now, not tonight, there was too much going on tonight and he didn’t need anything else piled on his plate.
Fucking hell.
Naomasa pressed his palms to his eyes behind the limited privacy of his computer monitor and took a deep breath as quietly as he could. Hopefully, the social worker had a better idea of how to handle this because there had been very few cases in his career that were this messed up and the victim was still alive to endure it. How was this kid still alive?
A hushed conversation pulled him from his internal crisis, Midoriya seemed to have calmed down enough to communicate to some degree, which was good, because the social worker was due to arrive any minute now. Aizawa was still knelt in front of him, but Midoriya’s face was no longer buried in his capture weapon, and from the brief glimpse Naomasa caught he looked shell-shocked. He didn’t know what to do, but he did know that bringing someone else in wasn’t what the kid was going to want. Unfortunately, neither of them were social workers and needs must.
It would be better to not make him repeat himself at the very least, he could brief whoever was coming before they came in, or brief them as much as he could. He didn’t know if the thought of adding another person to his audience would set him off again or not so he just texted Aizawa his plan before taking his leave.
Notes:
Next chapter will be on Friday 💃
Chapter 126: If you don’t have a biological mama bear, police issued works fine.
Chapter Text
Naomasa’s plan was timed immaculately as he opened his office door to the sight of a stout woman poised to knock. She opened her mouth to speak but Naomasa put a hand up to cut her off before she started; Midoriya still needed a minute and thankfully, she seemed to understand his rather rude interruption. He nodded down the hall to signal her to follow as he shut the door quietly behind himself.
“This is going to be a rather peculiar case,” Naomasa started as he ushered her into an empty meeting room, “What do you know so far?”
“All I know is that it’s an abandonment case for a 15-year-old boy,” she responded succinctly.
“Why don’t you take a seat? I’m going to debrief you before we go in there, I don’t want to make him repeat anything in the state he’s in. The name’s Tsukauchi, by the way, Detective Tsukauchi,” he introduced himself and offered out his hand to shake.
“Miyoshi Masa, nice to meet you,” she replied, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.
He just nodded at her in response. He didn’t want to be rude but he just didn’t have the mental bandwidth for pleasantries at the moment.
“Alright, the kid’s name is Midoriya Izuku. He’s a hero student at UA and his teacher found him out on the north side of Musutafu earlier tonight. His father has been out of the picture since he was 7, his mother abandoned him just before he turned 12, and he’s been living on the streets for about four years now,” he stated bluntly.
To her credit, she didn’t react much beyond a surprised raise of an eyebrow at his last comment.
“I got a preliminary statement but we had to stop because it was too much for him. I am familiar with him already, I interviewed him after the UA break in about a month ago and we have a good rapport. He’s in my office right now with his teacher who has a strong rapport with him as well. They were together during the incident at UA, so they’re quite close. The teacher’s name is Aizawa Shota, he and his partner both have foster licenses and are willing to take the kid in, we just need you to sign off on it. I really do think it's the best placement for him. I’ve been working with Aizawa for years and can personally vouch for his integrity,” he finally concluded.
“Peculiar, indeed,” Miyoshi responded after pausing for a moment to take it all in.
Naomasa scoffed out a humorless laugh at that.
“He’s… distraught at the moment. Normally I would advise getting a statement out of the way, but kids aren’t really my specialty, not to mention his statement is practically his whole life’s story…” Naomasa trailed off letting Miyoshi pick up on his non-question herself.
“You have enough of a statement to start the case against his mother?” she asked.
“Yes, but there’s also… I was looking into our database, just to see if anything came up, there was nothing for the mother, Midoriya Inko, but the father, Midoriya Hisashi, was already in the system. He’s got multiple charges for drug possession and he was… he was found dead in Tokyo from an overdose 4 years ago. I don’t think the kid has any idea that he’s dead,” he explained.
“Well I don’t think you should tell him that right now if that’s what you're asking,” she replied.
“Yes, it was. I figured as much, but someone’s gotta tell him eventually.”
“One problem at a time, Detective,” she said with a practiced tight-lined smile.
“Yeah,” he sighed as he dragged his hand through his hair and pulled out his phone.
Tsukauchi:
Lmk when to bring her in
Aizawa:
Nows as good a time as any
“Aizawa says he’s as ready as he’s going to get,” he relayed to Miyoshi.
“Alright, are there any particular triggers I should know about?” she asked as she grabbed her bag and stood to follow him.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
***
When they entered the office she’d initially been sent to, the kid and his teacher were sitting in two plush office chairs that had clearly been scooted together recently if the misplaced side table and indents in the carpet were anything to go by. The man, Aizawa Shota, didn’t look like much. He was rather unkempt, but he had very subtly moved into a protective stance between the kid and the door for a moment before relaxing again. That was a good but concerning sign; why was he so on guard in the heart of a police station?
“Hello Midoriya-kun, I’m Miyoshi Masa. I’m a social worker and I will be in charge of your case,” she introduced herself, giving a nod of thanks to the detective for pulling a chair up for her.
Midoriya didn’t respond beyond a barely noticeable nod of acknowledgement.
“Can I call you Midoriya? Or is there another name you would prefer?” she continued.
Midoriya just shook his head in response; whether that was because he really didn’t mind it or because he just wanted to respond in the only way that didn’t require him to speak was unclear.
“Okay, you can call me Miyoshi or Masa, whichever you’re more comfortable with.”
Midoriya just nodded.
“The detective here told me you’re a student at UA, that’s very impressive. You’re in the hero course, aren’t you?”
Midoriya shot a nervous glance toward Aizawa briefly before nodding again.
Interesting. The detective hadn’t been exaggerating when he said that the two had a good rapport. Everything about the kid’s body language was telling her that he was scared of everything except for the man next to him. Well, that wasn’t true, he had let the detective settle into his blind spot which required some level of trust but he wasn’t looking toward him for reassurance like he was with his sensei.
“That’s amazing, there’s less than a hundred spots open for that course, isn’t there?”
Again, Midoriya glanced to his sensei before nodding.
“Forty,” Aizawa spoke for the first time, clarifying her statement.
“Oh my goodness, that’s even more impressive! It’s your first year there, right?”
He nodded.
That was good, they were only a month and a half into the term, if he had been there for a year and a month the oversight of his living conditions would have been beyond concerning and she definitely wouldn’t trust his teacher to be competent enough to care for him. His previous school certainly had some explaining to do, but that could wait for another day.
“I understand it’s been a rather tumultuous start,” that comment earned her a barely there smirk which she filed away to analyze later, “but beyond that, have you been enjoying it?”
Predictably, he glanced at Aizawa before nodding.
That won’t do. He needed to be able to speak, or not speak, freely. If he was scared of offending his teacher then there was no way she was going to get the full truth out of him and moreover, she wasn’t going to be able to speak freely about her concerns to Aizawa with Midoriya in the room.
“That’s good to hear, Aizawa-san, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”
The man in question looked vaguely surprised to be addressed, but he didn’t seem to emote much in general so for all she knew he was downright flabbergasted. He glanced at Midoriya the same way Midoriya glanced at him before he answered.
“Of course,” Aizawa conceded, standing up from his seat.
Midoriya seemed uncomfortable by the growing distance between them, but he made no move to stop it.
She got to her feet and led the man down the hall to the room that the detective had taken her earlier. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be disturbed here. She sat in the seat she had used last time and gestured for Aizawa to take the seat opposite from her.
“The detective told me you have a partner, are they available to come to the station?” she asked even though it wasn’t really a request; that kid wasn’t going home with anyone she hadn’t vetted.
“Yes, they’re on their way now, they should be here soon.”
The man spoke with as much emotion as he showed on his face, which was to say none at all. She was more than a little concerned that Aizawa was too cold to properly care for a severely traumatized child regardless of the trust they had in one another, but everyone was different. She needed more information before she could say anything with certainty.
Trust was a good start though.
“Tell me about Midoriya,” she prompted.
“What about him?”
“I know his situation but I don't know him and I don’t know you, so let's kill two birds with one stone; tell me about him.”
Aizawa was clearly caught off guard by the request but he took it in stride.
“He’s one of my first years, very dedicated, very intelligent. He’s shy on a good day though, I won’t be surprised if you don’t get a single word out of him tonight.”
She just nodded in response, wordlessly prodding him to go on.
“He gets along with nearly the whole class, all the staff as well. He was elected class president, but he forfeited it. He’s a good leader when he gets out of his own head enough.”
The information was useful, but it wasn’t really getting her anywhere, the man was too professional for her to read much into his sincerity.
“Detective Tsukauchi told me that you two were together for the duration of the break-in at UA, can you tell me about that?”
Aizawa hesitated for a moment before he responded.
“We weren’t together the entire time, mostly toward the end. A lot of the information is confidential so I can’t share many details with you, but we were both severely injured. It was traumatic, I don’t think you should bring that up with him,” he responded coolly.
“I wasn’t planning on it; he seems to trust you, which is good, but I need to know if that trust is well founded. You said you were both severely injured, but this was several weeks ago now, why wasn’t his mother contacted?”
“I was in the hospital for most of the ordeal. It is my understanding that we had attempted to contact the number we had for her on file multiple times, but she didn’t answer. There was a secondary emergency contact on file that did show up, though. Midoriya had fabricated texts with his mother as well as a phone call after he had been discharged from the hospital. The school had scheduled a wellness check meeting with who we had thought to be his mother, but obviously, that never happened.”
“This other emergency contact, why haven’t they been called tonight?”
***
Good god, if this woman made them call Yagi in right now he was going to fucking lose it. That man was the absolute last thing they needed in this situation, but Shota didn’t understand their relationship enough to explain why that was a terrible idea without making the whole thing sound very suspicious.
“The contact isn’t a relative, they’re just another teacher at the school. I don’t think that Midoriya wants any more people involved in this than there already are,” he responded hoping that would be enough to dissuade her.
“So you’re just making that decision for him?” she shot back.
“No, I– you can ask him for yourself if you want, but I’m sure his answer would be the same.”
She was eyeing him critically enough that he was tempted to activate his quirk, it felt like she was looking through his thoughts. The fear was illogical, it was illegal for people with mental quirks like that to use them professionally without disclaiming it. He was just paranoid that he was going to slip up and ruin the kid’s life somehow. He needed to calm down.
“Tell me honestly, Aizawa, do you think you are the best option for Midoriya or were you just the first person available? Regardless of getting more people involved, why are you so sure that you are a better option than who he had chosen to be his emergency contact?”
Well, that was… a cutting remark. Jesus Christ. He doubted that whatever bond Midoriya had with Yagi surpassed the 2+ years of partnership they had under their belts but he couldn’t exactly explain that to Miyoshi.
“They’re a high profile hero; putting Midoriya under their care would be a danger to both of them should their relationship be publicized,” he answered doing his best to keep the childish insecurity out of his tone, “Moreover, we don’t even know if they would be willing to take him in, I don’t think we need to present him with another opportunity to be rejected,” he tacked on.
She was trying to throw him off, he knew that, but he wasn’t going to let her. He knew he should be grateful that she was taking this seriously, Midoriya’s well-being should be her number one priority, but the situation was more delicate than she needed to be privy to.
***
Masa didn’t revel in getting a rise out of the man, but she needed to know that he was emotionally available enough to be there for Midoriya. She didn’t get much out of him but there was something , enough for her to be tentatively hopeful. The man seemed to care about the kid, but whether that was born of guilt for failing to catch this sooner or if it was genuine she didn’t know. Either way, she doubted that he would allow himself to let Midoriya down for a second time and that was good enough for now. Assuming his partner was similarly on board and Midoriya had no complaints she felt comfortable leaving him in their care until they could discuss things at a more reasonable hour. It was pushing 1 am and she was sure everyone wanted to go home as much as she did.
“Alright, I would like to speak with Midoriya as well as your partner before I okay a temporary placement,” she concluded.
“I don’t think you’re going to get much out of him,” Aizawa warned, seeming a bit antsy to get back to Midoriya.
That was a good sign, but also something to look out for. Smothering him wasn’t going to do him any favors in the long run.
“Yes, I know, but I will be giving him the opportunity regardless,” she insisted, not unkindly, “Please wait here, I’d rather not move Midoriya around more than necessary, assuming Detective Tsukauchi is amendable to me taking over his office for a minute.”
***
Izuku felt distant, which wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. What he felt distant from was new though, he felt like a rag that had just been rung out with extreme force and prejudice. It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, he didn’t feel bad, he didn’t really feel anything. He figured that he should probably be worried about that but he didn’t have the energy to care. He had been so wound up and tense and now it felt like it all had burst out of him and floated away, he felt lighter but he also felt empty.
“Midoriya?”
Oh, the woman from earlier was back… but Eraser wasn’t. He didn’t like that. And Tsuka was gone too now. He didn’t like that either.
“Can you hear me, Kiddo?”
Kiddo? Mic called him Kiddo, but she wasn’t Mic. He was supposed to be here too, wasn’t he? Where was he? How long had Izuku been here?
He felt himself nod in response to her question but he only half understood what she had even asked.
“Good, you seem tired. Are you comfortable going home with Aizawa and his partner to sleep tonight?”
He didn’t think he was going to be ‘comfortable’ anywhere but that certainly seemed like a better place to be than here, so he nodded.
“Do you feel safe with them?”
That was essentially the same question and he had the same answer so he nodded again.
The woman was handing him something now. He didn’t know how long he looked at it before he took it but she still had a pleasant smile on her face, so it probably couldn’t have been too long. It registered somewhere in his mind that it was a business card, but he couldn’t make out any of the numbers or words, it was all too fuzzy.
“I want you to call me if you don’t feel safe or you don’t want to be there anymore. I have my phone on me 24/7, but if it’s an emergency call the police first, okay?”
Why was she explaining the purpose of the police to him? He was going to be with two heroes anyway. What would he need to call the police for when they would be there the whole time? The police wouldn’t help someone like him anyw— wait, no. Spiraling. She was trying to help, she didn’t know what he was, Mic and Eraser didn’t know what he was, the police didn’t know what he was, everything was fine. Well, no it wasn’t, but they were trying to help, they weren’t going to hurt him, they would have done it already if they were going to hurt him… right?
Of all the emotions to creep back to him, why did it have to be fear?
He pushed the feeling back again and let it lazily float away until he didn’t feel it at all and the not unpleasant static-y feeling of emptiness returned.
He nodded again and she smiled at him before getting up and leaving the room.
***
Hizashi burst through the door not long after Tsukauchi had joined him, he looked a little frazzled and very worried.
“How’s he doing?” they asked immediately.
“Not great, but he was getting a bit better last I saw him,” Shota replied.
“That didn’t last long once you left, he was completely out of it by the time she came back to my office, I don’t think he even noticed me leaving,” Tsukauchi added.
He let out a sigh at that and watched Hizashi’s shoulders droop like he was frowning with his whole body.
“How long has it been?” they asked.
“I texted you right when she left her interrogation with me, so maybe nine, ten minutes?”
“Twelve,” Tsukauchi corrected, looking at the clock in the corner of the room.
“She’s gonna interrogate you too once she’s done in there,” he warned.
“Why do you keep saying ‘interrogate’? What did she do?” Zashi asked nervously.
“She was trying to get a rise out of me, it’s good that she’s taking this seriously, but don’t let yourself fly off the handle. She wanted to know how he’s been enrolled for over a month without anyone having caught this; she doesn’t want him sent to another negligent home, so just keep your cool. If she asks you why the emergency contact he had at the hospital wasn’t called, tell her he’s too high profile for that to be a safe placement or something,” he instructed.
Just as he finished his statement the door opened and Miyoshi-san walked in.
“Oh, hi, you must be Aizawa’s partner, I forgot to ask him earlier, but have you met Midoriya yet?” she asked.
“Hah! Yeah, I’ve met him, I work at UA too, I’ve got the kiddo for English,” Hizashi replied easily, expertly shaking off his apprehension before he turned around to greet her.
Miyoshi drew her eyebrows together in confusion before they raised in recognition.
“Oh! You’re Present Mic, I didn’t recognize you without the–” She cut herself off with a slight blush on her cheeks and gestured above her head wiggling her fingers in an intimation of Zashi’s ridiculous plumage.
Shota couldn’t hold back a snort at that, but he pursed his lips quickly and schooled his expression.
“Oi! Don’t you laugh at me, that’s half the point of a get-up,” Hizashi chided.
“Sorry, I–” she cleared her throat and turned her focus back to Tsukauchi and himself, “Your office is yours again, thank you for letting me borrow it. Midoriya seems rather out of it at the moment so be cautious about that. Present Mic, if I could have a word with you…?”
“Call me Yamada,” he heard Zashi dismiss as he quickly made his way out the door to check on Midoriya.
They hadn’t been kidding when they said he was out of it. Usually, Midoriya’s focus was a tripwire; he’d whip his head up at any noise in the classroom, but just now it had taken him a solid five seconds to even realize Shota was sitting in front of him.
He offered his hand out palm up in an effort to ground him and he looked at it for a long time before handing him the card he’d been holding. Shota huffed out a laugh at that and set the card down on the armrest before offering out his hand again. Midoriya eyed the offered hand again looking even more confused than he had the first time so Shota slowly moved his hand and wrapped it around Midoriya’s. He looked at their joined hands for a moment before shifting his focus up to Shota’s face. His expression was blank, but Shota could tell he was exhausted.
“We’ll go home soon then you can get some sleep,” he promised.
As worried as he had been in his own interrogation interview, he wasn’t nearly as worried about Hizashi’s. He knew how to field questions far better than Shota did; Midoriya was coming home with them and he was going to stay there for as long as he could keep him. He tried not to get his hopes up believing that he would stay with them forever– well obviously not forever, but until he graduated or whenever he went out to live on his own. He knew Ivy well enough to know that they wouldn’t want to stay anywhere if they felt they were being a burden, and he knew Midoriya enough to know that he was going to feel like a burden no matter where he was, so all they could do is make him feel welcome. They could do that, they could make him feel welcome in their home, or at least they could do their best.
Entertaining the thought that he was going to have to trust someone else to keep Midoriya safe wasn’t something he had the stomach to ponder right now anyway.
***
As Izuku sat there in Tsukauchi’s office with Eraser holding his hand, he never felt so much like a child. Some quiet, distant part of him was trying to fight it’s way out and gather up the remaining scraps of his dignity, but it was of no use; he didn’t have the energy to feel anything. Time felt more like a bowl of poorly set jello than a fixed linear line like it was supposed to. He had no idea how long he sat there, but eventually, Mic walked into the room with a gentle smile on their face. They said something, but the words didn’t mean anything to him, they got lost somewhere among the jello. Eraser squeezed his hand gently prompting his attention back. Eraser had a small smile on his face now too. Whatever Mic said must’ve been good then, or at least he hoped so.
After that, Eraser stood up, but he didn’t let go of Izuku’s hand. His mouth was moving when Izuku shifted his attention up, but just like with Mic, the sound that came out didn’t mean anything to him. He did it a couple more times before Izuku looked around the room to try and figure out if there were any clues pointing him toward figuring out what Eraser was trying to say. The lady from before was standing next to Tsuka at his desk and Mic was standing in the doorway swinging car keys around their finger and smiling at him. When his focused turned back to Eraser he nodded his head toward the door and it finally clicked. They were leaving now.
Oh shit, how long had he just been sitting there like an idiot?
He quickly scrambled to his rather unsteady feet and when he tried to pull his hand away from Eraser, his grip didn’t slacken at all. He held firm until Izuku had steadied himself and then he loosened it, he didn’t let go, he just released him enough for Izuku to pull his hand away if he wanted to. He felt untethered, he didn’t want to let go, but he did anyway. He needed to pull himself together.
***
When Hizashi walked into Tsukauchi’s office after his interrogation interview Midoriya appeared to be in the worst state they’d seen since last night. Shota was kneeling on the ground in front of him and holding his hand while the kiddo stared at his capture scarf without really seeing it. Shota had told them the first week of school how honed Midoriya’s spacial and situational awareness was and they had noticed it too. There was no sign of that skill in the boy sitting before him. Two people had just walked in the room and it didn’t seem like he noticed them at all.
“Hey, Kiddo,” they greeted.
No response.
“We’ve got some good news,” they tried again.
No response.
“I don’t think you’re gonna get a response Zash,” Shota replied quietly.
When Shota turned to speak to them Midoriya looked up and followed his gaze back over to Hizashi. They did their best to hide any concern on their face and gave him a calm smile.
“You’re coming home with us tonight, Kiddo,” they said slowly and clearly hoping that he would catch even a single word.
Not even the barest hint of recognition crossed his face. Damnit.
“We’re going home now, Midoriya. Is that alright?” Sho asked after calling the kid’s attention back to him.
Nothing.
“Can you stand up for me, kid?” Shota tried again.
Nothing.
Sho let out a small sigh at that and stood up slowly, and Midoriya responded to that. He looked up at Shota with wide eyes and started looking around the room. When his eyes fell on them they took out their keys and swirled them around their finger. Hopefully a visual cue would help. As he looked back to Shota, Sho nodded his head toward the door and the kid stood up like his chair had caught fire. He swayed on his unsteady feet but Sho made sure he didn’t fall.
“Hey, Kiddo, careful. We’re not in a rush,” they tried to calm him, but they doubted that he heard a word of that.
The kid took a shaky step away from Shota and they could see how that broke Sho’s heart; he tensed his shoulders and pursed his lips, but he didn’t make any move to try and get back into the kid’s personal space. Everyone stood still for a moment as Midoriya’s gaze flicked between the two of them.
“Just go, he’ll follow,” Sho prompted, nodding his head toward the door again.
Just as Shota said, the moment they took a step back, Midoriya took a step toward the door, still leaving plenty of room for Shota to exit before him; he didn’t seem to want to be surrounded. They nodded to the detective and the social worker before they turned and let the other two follow them down the hall. They payed attention, looking behind themself every so often to slow their pace and let Midoriya catch up. He looked exhausted and couldn’t keep up with his and Sho’s much longer strides.
They all got to the car eventually, but Shota needed to turn around in his seat and shake his seatbelt at the kid before he got the memmo and buckled himself in quickly with a blush high on his cheeks. He kept the radio on but at a very low volume hoping that it might calm the poor kid or bring him back down to earth, but it didn’t seem to help. He was just as out of it on the walk back into the apartment and he didn’t say a word to either of them before shutting his door so quietly that they’re sure that he had to have turned the knob from the other side and slowly twisted it back into place.
“Have you ever seen him like that?” they asked Shota a few seconds after the door shut.
Shota just stood there chewing on his lip for a moment before shaking his head.
“No, I mean they’ve had– or at least I think they’ve had flashbacks in front of me and they’ve been lost in their own head before, but not like that– I mean there was a few times they were out of it, but they snapped back. I don’t…” Shota trailed off and ran a hand over his face before sitting heavily on the couch.
Kimchi came over and brushed up against his leg and he dropped the hand that wasn’t holding his head up down to pet her absent-mindedly. He was looking off into nothing and didn’t seem like he was about to move anytime soon.
“We should get his stuff tomorrow. Do you think that’s gonna be too much for him to handle?” they asked as they sat down next to him.
Shota let out another sigh at that and brought the hand that had been petting Kimchi back up to his face. With his eyes pressed into the heels of his hands and elbows resting on his knees he looked so small.
“...I don’t– I don’t know Zashi– God, I don’t know anything,” he said in a quiet, broken voice.
They draped an arm over his back, running their hand along the curve of his spine for a moment before sliding it up against his scalp, making sure not to pull on the curls.
“Frankly, it would be crazy if you did know what to do in this situation, Sho; it’s– it’s…” he paused for a moment trying to find the words, “unprecedented,” he decided.
Sho let out a humorless huff of laughter at that and shook his head.
“We’ll figure it out together,” they insisted, “He’s safe now and we’ll figure it out.”
They had no clue how they would, but he knew that they would. Somehow, some way, they would figure this all out.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! Back to Wednesday uploads next week :/
Chapter 127: If you don’t have a domestic mama bear, feral works fine
Notes:
Shout out to Beezus for the beta read <3
join the discord thru the link below
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
No amount of sleep was going to make today bearable. As his alarm went off he fought the urge to throw his phone out the window and pretend that the last 30 or so hours never happened. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling and reminding himself that he was an adult, he gently slapped Hizashi awake. He could imagine that his expression upon waking didn’t look all that dissimilar to the one his husband was currently sporting. This was… an unspeakably shit situation. They had until 2 pm to get the guest room in a livable enough configuration for the social worker to make Midoriya’s placement a little more permanent than a few nights. That meant getting whatever personal possessions he may or may not have wherever it was that he had set up camp.
The thought of the dark, mildewy staircase that he had found Ivy in last year was never far from his memory and now it was back in the forefront of his mind with awful clarity. He hoped to god that the kid had found somewhere nicer than that. Though, even if he had found somewhere nicer, it was almost certainly still in an abandoned warehouse which could only get so habitable. It felt like someone was squeezing his heart in a vice grip and he knew it was only going to get worse once he saw how the kid had been living for years.
Pushing the thoughts from his mind as best he could, he made sure Zashi was getting up before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth and fix his bedhead. His hair needed a wash, but that could wait for tonight. Zashi was walking into the bathroom as Shota was walking out and they nearly body-checked each other.
“Ah, sorry Sho! Get dressed, I’ll get started on breakfast while you go talk to Midoriya. Think he’d be alright with an omelet? All the fixin’s?”
“Yeah, ‘s probably fine. He’ll eat anything. I don’t know his preferences, he hasn’t complained about anything before,” he answered.
Hizashi pursed his lips at that and nodded before slipping past him and into the bathroom.
He pondered his minimal closet for a moment before deciding on some joggers and a crewneck. It was similar enough to what Midoriya normally saw him in, but not as threatening as being suited up. Hopefully, it would put him at ease, even just a little bit. Zashi had gotten dressed while he was brushing his teeth and when he walked out of the closet he could see them standing in front of the mirror tying their hair up in a messy bun with their toothbrush hanging out of their mouth. The utterly mundane sight elicited a pleasantly warm feeling in his chest; he was glad he wasn’t doing this alone.
With a deep breath, he headed over to the guest room.
When Shota knocked and opened the door he was glad to find that the kid was not balled up in the corner this time, however, he was balled up and sitting with his back against the ‘headboard’ of the pullout couch. The bed had either not been slept in or it had been immaculately remade and he was leaning toward the latter because the kid was dead on his feet last night; there’s no way he didn’t sleep. Thankfully, he looked a lot less scared than he had yesterday morning, but that wasn’t exactly a high bar to pass.
“Hey, kid,” he greeted.
Midoriya didn’t move, he just looked up at him with his eyes. He looked beyond exhausted. The bags under his eyes were bordering on looking like bruises, but he still sat there, tense as ever. The amount of adrenaline and cortisol pumping through his system had to be taking a toll on his body and Shota wished he would just calm down . He was safe now, he had to know that, right?
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
He nodded.
“How much?” he asked to clarify since the kid looked just as tired, if not more tired, than last he saw him.
‘Few hours,’ he signed back.
Still not talking. That… wasn’t ideal. At least he was coherent enough to reply.
“Well, that’s better than nothing,” Shota replied with a sad smile, “We’ve got a few things to do today, we’re gonna need to go out. Why don’t you get ready? Zashi’s making breakfast, it’ll probably be done by the time you finish.”
He didn’t miss the way the kid’s grip on his own shins tightened the more Shota talked. Today was going to be difficult, but 24 hours could only last 24 hours. Things would get better with time and nothing was going to impede the progress of the clock ticking down.
Seemingly against his own will, Midoriya nodded, and with that, Shota took his leave.
Hizashi, blessedly, had a cup of coffee waiting for him when he got back to the kitchen. He took a swig of it and shot them a grateful look, which they returned with a smile.
“Anything I can help with?” he asked as he put the mug back down on the counter.
“Yeah, you could put the kettle to boil. Make sure there’s enough for at least two cups, unless you want one too, then make it three,” Hizashi replied as he busied himself at the stovetop
He did as requested and as he clicked the pot on he heard the office door open and the bathroom door shut quietly. He was up, that was good.
“How’d it go?” Hizashi asked, following his gaze up toward the bathroom door.
“He’s still not talking, but he signed. He only slept a few hours and he looks exhausted. Overall, he’s better than he was last night. Not that that says much,” he replied quietly to make sure he couldn’t be overheard.
“That’s good, that’s progress,” they insisted.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a tired sigh.
***
As Izuku scrubbed at his face in the mirror he did his best to take in deep breaths. It was just breakfast, he’d had dinner at the Shinso’s before, it would be like that. Except Shinso was there, not some other adult, and the Shinso’s didn’t know he was a criminal, and they weren’t sticking their neck out to protect him from facing the legal consequences he deserved to face– no. No, no, no, that wasn’t helping. It was just breakfast. Just breakfast, just breakfast, just breakfast. He could do this. Everything was fine.
He could sit at a table with his… um… teachers(?) and have awkward small talk or… something… Well, he couldn’t really talk very well right now. No, he was fine, he could talk, he could scrape up the words that felt like they were plastered to his vocal chords, he could do it, he’d done it before.
He did his best to not look at himself in the mirror as he wiped up any water he spilled on the sink while washing his face, fluffed the towel up, and hung it back up where it had been.
He needed to go out there now.
He didn’t want to go out there.
The longer he stood there the more paralyzed he became. They made food for him and he was going to have to eat it even though he felt nauseous and then he was going to dirty up their dishes and he didn’t know where all the dishes went, he would be too slow trying to put them back if they even let him wash them– oh god, they were probably going to insist on washing them like Shinso-san did. They made all this food for him and he was going to eat it and then he was going to make them do more work cleaning everything up and GOD he didn’t ask for any of this– he didn’t want any of this, he could do it himself. He didn’t need help, he didn’t want help!
His hands were shaking again– if they ever stopped to begin with– and he did his best to breathe.
Just breakfast.
It was just breakfast.
Before he could spiral any more than he already had, he opened the door. Mic and Eraser were moving around each other in the kitchen wordlessly and Eraser looked up at him as the door opened. He was standing at the counter chopping up some veggies that Izuku couldn’t see from this distance.
“Got ready faster than I thought, we’re almost done. You wanna steep this tea for me?” he asked casually.
“I told you to make the tea, Sho,” Mic chastised playfully without turning away from his task at the stovetop.
“Got distracted chopping up the veggies which you forgot to do, so blame yourself,” Eraser quipped back, setting two mugs on the counter across from him so that Izuku could reach them without having to navigate the already occupied kitchen.
“I forgot you like peppers in yours, sue me. You’re getting a burnt one now,” Mic shot back.
Eraser just rolled his eyes.
This was… this was okay. This was– well he wouldn’t say this was nice, his heart was still trying valiantly to beat straight out of his chest, but their banter made it a little more bearable. Having something to do helped too.
“I just turned the kettle back on, it should be ready any second now,” Eraser said, addressing Izuku again, “You want peppers in yours? He’s making omelets. They’re just bell peppers, they’re not spicy.”
“Oh, um, w-w-whatever is f-fine,” he forced the words out.
Eraser just nodded and passed the kettle over as it clicked off.
His hands were shaking but he didn’t spill anything as he poured the water into the mugs and unwrapped the tea bags. He stuck the bags into the water and glanced at the clock to check the time before realizing he had no idea how long tea was supposed to steep for. Was it a minute? A couple minutes? Should he just leave them in there? He fiddled with the packaging which he had foolishly ripped, doing his best to line the text up and read the instructions. One to two minutes, okay, one to two minutes. Was this the kind of tea people put other stuff in like sugar or something? Was he supposed to do that too? There was nothing set out and he wouldn’t even have the first idea how much sugar, if any, either of them would want so he just kept his mouth shut.
“You want to set those cups on the table? I usually sit on the end there and Zashi sits in the one to the right,” Eraser said, gesturing to the far end of the table that faced the rest of the room.
He placed the mugs where instructed and glanced back at the clock, a few more seconds.
“Tea’s for you, kid. I got my coffee,” Eraser corrected, pointing to the cup that Izuku had placed in his spot.
Oh… um… where was he supposed to sit then? He wanted to sit further away, honestly, he’d rather sit in the office like he had last night, but that was rude, so he put the mug in the spot opposite from Mic’s and closest to the front door without seeming strangely far from the other two.
His hesitance in choosing distracted him from the tea steeping and he almost knocked his cup over in his haste to take the teabag out of Mic’s. He took it out and realized that he had nowhere to put it and it was dripping. He was too caught up in his predicament to notice Eraser walking over with a plate and a mug. His sudden presence startled him and he jumped, causing him to drop the teabag, the string, and the tab back into the mug.
***
When he walked over the kid nearly jumped out of his skin. He was leaning across the table enough that the burn scar that Chiyo had mentioned was peaking out on his exposed midriff and Shota did his best to ignore that. He’d made him drop the tea bag into Zashi’s cup and now the kid was frozen in place looking back and forth between the cup and Shota like he was about to walk over there and break the plate over his head.
“‘s alright, kid. I got it,” he tried to soothe as he fished the bag out of the mug and set it on the napkin he was holding.
Midoriya jerked back as Shota’s hand approached the mug and he did his best to ignore that too. He set Zashi’s plate down and gestured for the kid to add his tea bag to the one on the napkin in his hand. He did as requested, but he didn’t seem to be able to hold eye contact for longer than a split second.
Today was… gonna be a long day.
“You can sit if you want. Zashi’s got the last one on the pan right now,” he said, forcing his tone to remain nonchalant.
He walked back to the kitchen without waiting for a response because he knew that he wouldn’t want to be crowded right now; he needed to grab cutlery and throw out the tea bags anyway. Hizashi shot him a questioning look when he walked back around the counter and he shot back a look that said ‘not now’. He took his time gathering the cutlery and, thankfully, Midoriya had seated himself by the time he got back, he didn’t know what he was going to do if he was still frozen where he had been.
Hizashi walked in with a plate for Midoriya and himself shortly after he’d set the cutlery out and the kid only tensed up more when they all sat down.
“T-thank y-you,” he stuttered out, looking down and wringing his hands in his lap.
“No problem, Kiddo,” Hizashi replied with a smile.
He didn’t even go to pick up his fork until he and Zashi had already started eating and, not for the first time, Shota wondered what his home life had been like before his parents skipped town. Why did he seem so prepared to be hit? The thought made him sick so he did his best to push it from his mind. The silence was becoming a bit awkward, but he didn’t want to stress him out anymore than they already had before he got a suitable amount of food in him, so he just stewed in the quiet. Once Midoriya had eaten about three-quarters of his food, Shota spoke up.
“We’re going to have to get your stuff today. The social worker is going to be over at 2 pm and if you don’t even have a change of clothes, she’s not going to deem us fit to care for you. We might have to do some shopping too, but that can probably wait.”
As was to be expected, the kid tensed up and froze. God, if he never saw him do that again, it would be too soon.
“It’d be better to do it sooner rather than later, will you be ready to go after breakfast?” he asked, trying not to call attention to his reaction because, more likely than not, addressing it was only going to make it worse.
“Y-yeah– I– um, y-yes. T-that’s f-f-fine,” he responded, his stutter worse than Shota had ever heard it.
He stuffed another bite of his omelet into his mouth, presumably so he wouldn’t be expected to speak again, and Shota let him be.
***
Izuku had never felt more awkward than he did sitting in the passenger seat of Eraser’s car. He’d been giving him directions to the warehouse district, but it didn’t seem like Eraser really needed them. He responded to each prompt with a vague grunt of acknowledgment, never looking around to see what turn Izuku had meant, like he was already headed that way. It made sense, he probably knew he lived in the warehouse district, just not which specific building. Should he just shut up? They were almost in the warehouse district at this point, he was going to need directions soon enough so he just kept prompting him anyway.
They were going straight at a stop sign when a woman who had been sitting on some porch steps smoking a cigarette shot up and ran straight in front of the car.
Oh.
Oh shit.
That was Iwai.
Fuck.
He did not text her like she had asked, there was too much going on and he had forgotten.
She was yelling and gesturing wildly. Her words were muted but Izuku’s pretty sure he caught the words ‘Eraser you piece of shit, get out of that goddamn car,’ before she looked over to Izuku and went silent and wide-eyed.
“Goddamnit,” Eraser muttered with a sigh as he rolled down his window just enough to speak through it.
Iwai walked over to the driver’s side of the car with a murderous look in her eye.
“Roll that goddamn window down or I’m gonna break it. What the fuck is going on? Is that–”
“Iwai!” Eraser, thankfully, cut her off.
The streets weren’t busy but they weren’t empty, this was not a conversation to have at the top of one’s lungs outside.
“Just get in,” Eraser said as he pointedly looked around to the few people watching this scene unfold.
Iwai looked up too and Eraser waited until her anger settled slightly to resignation before he unlocked the doors.
“You got 60 seconds to explain ‘fore I claw your throat out,” she said as she sat down in the back seat and slammed the door behind her, “Who the fuck is this?” she asked, gesturing toward Izuku her hand adorned with a threateningly long and well maintained manicure.
He had been frozen since she had stepped out in front of Eraser’s car and that question did not help his predicament.
“This is a very delicate situation, you can’t–”
“I do what I damn well please. Kid? Who’re you?” she asked again.
Izuku could feel himself shaking as he glanced between Eraser and Iwai. He couldn’t force himself to speak, and even if he could, he had no clue what to say.
“Iwai. Please, just…” Eraser trailed off, seemingly also having no idea what to say.
“…Shortstack?” Iwai asked again, her voice much quieter than it had been.
Neither of them said a word and that seemed to be enough of a response for her.
“Eraser what the fuck? They look 12. What the hell is going on here?” she started again.
“I can’t tell you anything. I’m taking care of the situation. He’s going through enough as it is, he doesn't need any more prodding.”
“Wait, aren’t you that kid from the sports festival? You’re like what, 15?” she mused aloud, ignoring Eraser entirely, “SO YOU WERE 12?! WHAT–”
“IWAI,” Eraser interrupted her harshly.
Izuku flinched despite himself. He’d never heard Eraser yell unless he needed to be heard over a distance. He didn’t like it. He tried to remind his panicked brain that he wasn’t yelling at him, he was yelling at Iwai, and she was fine, and he was fine, and everything was fine, but the memo didn’t make it from his rational side to his emotional side. Adults were always yelling at him, they never yelled at the other kids even if it was their fault. It was hardly ever his fault, but they always blamed him– but it’s not like things would have gone wrong if he wasn’t there to begin with. All the problems stemmed from him, so they may as well shout at the source of the issue.
He distantly recognized that they were still speaking and now the car was moving and he did his best to listen, but they had gone quiet by the time he had started trying to actually make sense of the noises they were making. Eraser had pulled the car over properly and now he was getting out and so was Iwai.
“I’ll be back in a second, you alright?” he asked before he left.
He shakily nodded his head. Eraser didn’t look very convinced, but he shut the door anyway. He watched as the two of them walked over to a nearby alley and he waited. Why did everything have to be such a goddamned mess? Why did he have to make everything such a goddamned mess?
***
“Explain,” Iwai demanded quietly when they made their way to the relative privacy of the alleyway.
“Iwai, you don’t know the half of–”
“Then fucking tell me!” Iwai interrupted him for what felt like the 20th time in the last minute and a half.
He was getting fed up. He understood the concern, he understood it far too well, but she was causing a scene and that was the last thing Midoriya needed right now.
“Quit interrupting me. You do not have the right to his personal information. He is safe and you will keep anything you know to yourself,” he shot back, not bothering to try to appear less intimidating like he usually did with scared civilians.
“What right do you got getting testy with me? That kid’s scared shitless of you,” she accused.
“He’s scared shitless of everything and the more of a scene you make the more afraid he’s going to be. You need to calm down,” he shot back.
“Calm down? Calm down?! How the fuck can you expect me to calm down, you’ve been running around with a fucking tween letting them risk their life every night–”
“I know what I’ve done, I don’t need a reminder,” he interrupted quietly through gritted teeth.
“It sure seems like you do, Mr. Nonchalant. You just take him home like a fuckin stray and pretend like none of this ever happened? We aren’t gonna forget, how the fuck are you expecting to explain this to the rest of the district, huh?”
His fragile composure was failing him as he just stared back at her expectant and judgemental gaze. He felt his eye twitch and Iwai’s indignant expression faltered for a moment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Matching her anger wasn’t going to help anyone right now.
“I am doing the best that I can,” he finally replied, sounding far more earnest and vulnerable than he had meant to.
She didn’t have anything to say to that.
Her shoulders dropped and her gaze fell with it. She looked back in the direction of the car before turning back to her feet. Her eyes were darting back and forth between nothing and Shota knew that she was just trying to make sense of it all. Tsukauchi had the same look on his face when he’d told him yesterday. She took a few unsteady steps backward and sat down on an overturned crate before burying her face in her hands.
The car was obscured from this angle so Shota had no means of checking on Midoriya and he didn’t like that, but he also didn’t want to leave Iwai like this. He walked toward the opening of the alley to check on him, but Iwai’s head popped up before he got the chance.
“Wait–”
He turned back around. She was sitting there in sweats with her hair up in a messy bun and no makeup to dramatize the tears running down her cheeks. He hadn’t recognized her when she had first run out; he wouldn’t have risked driving past her in the first place if he had. Seeing her like this only made it worse, she was so out of her element, she was disheveled and tears were falling unbidden from her eyes. He knew she had only been so short with him because of her own worry. He was doing his best not to hold it against her but seeing her now, any anger he had melted away.
“I just want to check on him, I’m not going anywhere,” he assuaged before returning to his task.
Midoriya was still sat in the car but he was chewing at his nails and, from the shake of his shoulders, he assumed he was also bouncing his leg. He glanced up at Shota so he held up one finger, indicating that he’d be back in a minute before turning back to Iwai.
“They okay?” Iwai asked when he turned back around.
“He’s fine– or as fine as he can be,” he answered.
Iwai looked up at him, but didn’t hold his gaze for more than a second. Her eyes were still flicking around from object to object not really focusing on anything in particular. He waited like she had asked him to until she finally spoke up.
“You’re gonna take care of ‘im, right?” she asked, her tone colored heavily with guilt.
“Yes, Iwai. He’s got a fleet of teachers at UA who will die before they let anything happen to him, All Might included,” he replied, hoping that would be enough to set her at ease.
She let out a watery laugh at that.
“Course he’d have number one wrapped ‘round his finger,” she scoffed.
She didn’t know how accurate that statement was, hell, Shota didn’t even know how accurate that statement was. All Might was on his endless list of concerns about the kid, but he wasn’t anywhere near the top, so his curiosity would have to wait for now.
“As far as I know there are only five people who know about this, the two of us included. You can’t tell anyone, his future is on the line–”
“I know, I know…” she trailed off, dismissing him with a wave, eyes still not focused.
“Iwai, swear to me,” he insisted.
“Yeah, I swear. Add me to your fleet of teachers. I won’t speak a word of this,” she responded with conviction, properly meeting his eyes as she spoke.
“Thank you,” he replied simply.
He stood there a moment longer as Iwai appeared to be trying to pick up her stray bits of sanity. God, did he know that feeling. A few seconds later she looked back up to him with a smirk.
“So, Eraser, you a daddy now?” she asked, looking awfully pleased with herself.
Shota’s stomach dropped to his feet. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t need to have another crisis foisted upon him. He must have made a face because she was now cackling at him as he scrubbed his tired hands over his tired face. He was not a dad, no, he was not Midoriya’s father. He was his caretaker, he had already been his caretaker, it was just a little more personal now.
“You two are makin’ me pick up my bad habits,” Iwai interrupted his thoughts as she pulled another cigarette out of her pocket and lit it, “You look like you could use one too,” she said as she grabbed another and held it out for him.
“I’m not trying to get murdered when I get home, thanks,” he replied lazily.
“You got a honey at home? Too bad, I was hopin’ the kid could use a mom,” she said with a smirk, blowing smoke out of her mouth as she did.
He just rolled his eyes, not bothering to correct her.
She took another drag and blew it out before turning her focus back to him.
“Go to him. Kept ‘im waiting long enough,” she said nodding her head in the direction of the car.
He eyed her critically for a moment before nodding and taking his leave. He could feel her gaze tracking him as he walked away, but she didn’t follow.
That certainly wasn’t ideal, but it could have gone much worse. Of all the uptowners to recognize them, she was definitely the lesser of all evils.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 128: Uprooting
Notes:
I'm uploading this on my phone so if the format is busted then yell at me on the discord.
Shout out to Spade and beezus for beta reading <3CW
Dissociation
Panic attacks (mild)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Shota got back to the car, Midoriya remained quiet. He had his hands tucked under his legs and he didn’t look up at him for a second. He didn’t know where he was going from here,; he was going to need directions, so he just sat there and gave the kid a minute. Shota was about to ask if he was alright but he spoke up before he got the chance.
“I’m s-sorry,” he said down toward his lap.
He had his shoulders shrugged up protectively around his neck like he was ready to get hit again. The more he did that the more nauseous Shota became. He had a feeling that he was going to find out a great deal of things about the kid that were going to make him feel that way before this investigation was all said and done.
“You have no reason to apologize,” Shota insisted.
“I w-was s-supposed to t-text her b-but I f-forgot,” he argued weakly.
“You have more than enough shit going on right now, kid. Other people’s actions are not your responsibility and there was no harm done anyway,” he returned.
Midoriya didn’t have a response for that; though, Shota assumed that that had more to do with the fact that the poor kid could hardly force words out of his mouth than it did with him conceding the argument. He was biting at his lip as he continued staring down at his lap and Shota wished so desperately that there was a single thing he could do to make him feel better, but there wasn’t. He just needed time.
“I’m gonna need directions, kid,” he prompted after a moment.
Midoriya flinched at the reminder before sputtering out a reply.
“S-sorry, b-block t-twelve.”
He had been giving him turn-by-turn directions up to this point which he hadn’t really needed, but he didn’t want to discourage him from talking. Now it seemed like he didn’t have the strength left to force himself to speak. He was glad he set a boundary with himself there, but he wished that the whole ordeal with Iwai didn’t happen; he had been struggling enough and it wasn’t about to get any easier once they got there.
He buckled himself up and headed in the vague direction of block 12. He probably was no longer going the most efficient route, but they would get there eventually. As they drove past decrepit buildings with caved-in roofs, he was pleasantly surprised to find the warehouse on block 12 to be in fairly good condition. Some of the bricks had cracked and there were craters in the walls where they had fallen, but the holes didn’t seem to have gone all the way through to the inside.
Midoriya was glancing around nervously, likely making sure no one saw them. It pulled at his heart to think how he must have been watching his back 24/7 for the past 4 years. It did wonders for his situational awareness, but at what cost?
“P-park o-over t-there,” he spoke up, pointing to one of the shipping bay doors.
He did as instructed, put the car in park and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Midoriya didn’t move from his hunched-over position but he could see the way he was shaking. This wasn’t going to get any easier, they just needed to get it over with.
“You ready?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Y-yeah,” Midoriya lied.
Shota took a subtle deep breath and got out of the car. He went to the trunk and grabbed the boxes they had brought, by the time he had done that, Midoriya had also exited the car. He followed him over to the garage door that had been propped open by an old truck wheel hub and Midoriya hesitated at it. He looked at the small opening then at Shota, and then at the boxes. He wasn’t going to fit through that gap, at least not comfortably, that was for sure. Seeing the issue, he put the boxes down and went to try and pull the garage door up, but it only moved about an inch before it got stuck.
“Is there another way in?” he asked as he stood back up.
Midoriya looked nervously back and forth between him and the door for a moment before speaking.
“I– um, n-no. I c-can– I, um, I c-can p-probably g-get…” he trailed off with a blush before giving up and reaching down for the door like Shota had.
Except this time, with the horrible sound of screeching metal and a flash of green sparks, the door slid up and stayed up, likely held by the friction of the rusty tracks.
Midoriya stood there, seemingly ready to get scolded for quirk use, but Shota just chuckled.
“That’ll do,” he said, picking up the boxes and cautiously walking under the guillotine of a door.
The building inside was nowhere near as bad as the last place had been. It had its own particular odor though. It looked to have been a brewery and it had a lingering hoppy smell to it. Midoriya walked ahead of him and Shota noted that parts of the floor were rather sticky, which likely had something to do with the smell. There were windows lining the upper portion of the walls so the lighting was actually fairly good, at least in the middle of the day. He could imagine that you wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing at night though.
Midoriya led the way through the towering machinery toward the far end of the building and stopped in front of a large flammables cabinet. Just like he had at the garage door, Midoriya looked nervously between Shota and the cabinet before squatting down, picking up the behemoth, and pivoting it on the far two feet like an oversized door. Behind the cabinet was an actual door, but he didn’t move to open it, so Shota waited. He dug his hand into his pocket, pulled out a key, and unlocked the door before hesitantly pushing it open.
Well, if nothing else, the kid certainly seemed safe from intruders here. That was likely true of the old warehouse as well, but that was more due to most people having enough self-preservation to not step foot in that death trap than anything else. Shota’s sure that was likely why he had picked it. Stairwells were far more structurally sound than most other parts of a building and Shota didn’t doubt that Midoriya was smart enough to use the warehouse’s decrepit nature to his advantage. This place was far less threatening, so hiding and barricading the entrance was a better strategy to keep him safe. He was caught between being proud that Midoriya thought all of this through and being horrified that he had to do it in the first place.
The room behind the door wasn't as well-lit as the main chamber of the warehouse, the ceiling was lower and the windows were thin panels at the top, likely for privacy’s sake. There was enough light to see by, but half the room was still shrouded in shadow, or at least it was until Midoriya flicked the light on.
Wait… what?
With the room properly lit, he could see a wire leading down from one of the windows and toward what looked to be a generator or battery of some sort. His brain took a moment to catch up with what he was seeing, there was a counter along the back wall that had a mini fridge and what looked to be a hotplate. String lights bordered a good portion of the room and a lamp placed in the dark corner covered any shadow that the string lights didn’t reach. The walls were peeling and so was the flooring, but otherwise, the room seemed fairly clean. It didn’t smell as much in here and that was a balm to his soul.
There was a desk in the corner which the lamp had been placed on top of and there was a small couch against the wall furthest away from the windows, likely to conserve heat while he slept. As he swept his eyes over the room for a second time he noticed a cork board, or what appeared to be a cork board, it was difficult to tell with how many knives were sticking out of it. He took a step closer and saw that the board was covered with slips of paper that had names written on them, several of which he remembered from the arrest reports after the block 8 raid. Not every name had a knife sticking through it, so he assumed those were the names of people still at large.
It was a little macabre. It reminded him of how kids would ask their parents to hang their drawings or good grades up on the fridge. The fact that this was Iv–Midoriya’s equivalent had him biting the inside of his cheek in an effort to hold back a reaction.
Midoriya was standing off to the side looking at him expectantly, so he did his best to shake himself out of his own head.
“Start getting smaller stuff or fragile things together. We’ll put those in their own box,” he instructed.
Midoriya shuffled away to do as he was told without a word while Shota started to fold up the boxes and tape the bottoms. Midoriya was shuffling through the drawers of the desk and pulling out kitchen implements and Shota did his best to remain calm. How the hell did he have power here? Don’t get him wrong, he was glad he did, but he was beyond confused. This place was in a far better state than he had been expecting and he was honestly impressed. The kid had built a home out of this shitty room and Shota was glad for it. He had been wondering how the hell he had made it through the winters and it seemed as though he survived by being too smart for his own good.
He brought a box over to the desk that Midoriya was rifling through, he shifted over to a nearby cabinet in response and Shota tried not to take it personally. He started piling mismatched cutlery and cooking utensils into the box, but he looked up when Midoriya turned around and froze where he stood.
He was holding a well-worn pot and looking between it and Shota.
“I p-probably d-don’t need all t-this,” he said quietly.
He was turning to put the pot back where he had gotten it from when Shota spoke up.
“You can take whatever you want, kid. We’re not gonna make you leave anything here unless it’s a health hazard,” he answered quickly.
This was something Hizashi and him had talked about last night. He knew that homeless people or even people just struggling with money had a tendency to hoard things because there was no guarantee that they’d ever get anything better than whatever trash they had found. He had expected this, and he wasn’t going to force the kid to give anything up, even if it was illogical to keep it. They could take it all back home and let him let go of things at his own pace.
“Y-you p-probably have b-better p-pots,” he argued weakly.
“This is your stuff. You can keep whatever you want to keep,” he reaffirmed.
He could see the kid’s white knuckle grip on the pot in his hands so Shota held out the box for him to set it in. Again, he nervously glanced between Shota and the offered box before hesitantly handing the pot over. He gave him a nod and went back to packing other kitchen supplies into the box. When he got to the dishes, he hesitated. There were several chips on the surface of the plate around the edge and the bowl had a small crack forming on it. These weren’t technically food-safe, but they appeared to be the only plate and bowl that he had.
“You have something I could wrap these in? A shirt or blanket? Something soft,” he asked anyway.
Midoriya had his head buried in one of the cabinets and jumped when Shota spoke, causing him to smack his head, which he politely ignored.
“Y-yeah,” he replied, rubbing at the back of his head as he scrambled over to another cabinet.
Inside the cabinet were stacks of neatly folded clothes and blankets. Midoriya grabbed a few shirts and brought them over to him quickly.
“Thanks,” he responded cooly.
Midoriya went back to what he had been doing and Shota let him be. He finished packing up the box and set it aside, but didn’t tape it shut yet. When he turned back around Midoriya was stuffing his clothes into a beat up looking duffle bag.
“You have anything to add to this box, kid? It’s pretty much all kitchen stuff,” Shota asked, making sure he wasn’t shoulder-deep in the cabinet before he spoke this time.
Midoriya glanced over to two large pots on the floor next to Shota before replying.
“…n-no.”
The water looked fairly clean. He probably used it for cooking or washing up. Shota let it be for now, they wouldn’t fit in the box anyway.
“Do you want me to start packing up the rest of the desk?” he asked, glancing at the slightly ajar drawer that seemed to hold something he couldn’t make out.
“N-no! I m-mean I can d-do that,” he replied quickly.
He was glad he asked. The kid looked very uncomfortable as he darted over with another box and quickly stuffed a stack of notebooks face down into it before throwing some textbooks on top of them.
“Is there anything I can help with?” he asked more generally, hoping not to nose his way into anything Midoriya didn’t want him to see.
He was concerned about the books and why he had seemed so keen on hiding them, but they were just notebooks, he doubted they posed a threat to anyone and Midoriya had a right to as much privacy as could be responsibly allowed.
Midoriya stood there looking around the room with clenched fists, so he gave him a moment to try and come up with an answer. When he saw the kid’s chest start to rise and fall a little too rapidly with his breaths, he spoke up again.
“Why don't I start getting the appliances? We’ll leave the lights and fridge for last, but I can get the fan and the hot plate and stuff like that,” he offered.
He had overwhelmed him with choices and decisions, that was the wrong move. Appliances seemed innocent enough, he had to hope that was a safe option.
“O-okay,” Midoriya replied after a moment.
Shota nodded and went to reinforce the bottom of one of the boxes with another layer of tape. They wouldn’t be able to shut the top, but a few things would fit in here. He gathered up the hotplate and fan along with a radio and what looked to be a very old space heater. That was probably a fire hazard… but it was spring, he wasn’t going to need it any time soon and hopefully, he’d be comfortable enough to let it go by the time winter rolled around again. The lamp and string lights would fit into the box, but that was an issue for later so he set it aside for now.
When he turned around Midoriya was wrestling with the zipper on his duffle bag. There was still a pile of folded blankets in the cabinet so Shota walked over with a new box and dropped them in along with a first aid kit and a sewing kit. There was one cabinet that he seemed determined to avoid, but it appeared to be all that was left, aside from the fridge, lights, and generator(?)
After stewing in awkward silence for a moment Midoriya went over to the cabinet and pulled out a suitcase. He set it at his feet and didn’t say anything. Shota looked down at it, then back up to Midoriya’s very uncertain expression. He really didn’t want to know what was in there, but given Midoriya’s reaction it was most certainly something he shouldn’t have.
“What’s in the suitcase, Midoriya?” he asked reluctantly.
Midoriya very pointedly did not look him in the eye as he bent down, unzipped the suitcase, and hesitantly opened it. Shota looked down and tried his very hardest not to react. He bit down on a smirk that quickly became a smile and turned his head to the side as a chuckle turned into a full-on laugh. He looked back at the kid who was smiling nervously and started laughing even harder. A seasoned vigilante was standing in front of him wringing his hands with a suitcase full of stolen knives at his feet and Shota was already at a breaking point, something had to give. There had to be at least a hundred knives in there and that wasn’t counting any of the ones that had been on his person two nights ago, nor the ones that were currently pinned to the corkboard.
Eventually, the kid started laughing too and, god, that was music to his ears. Once they had both gotten the giggles out of their system, Shota spoke first.
“You wanna grab the ones on the corkboard and throw ‘em in? We can go through it all later, but that’s getting hidden in the back of Zashi’s closet until the social worker is gone,” he said, his voice still a bit unsteady from laughter.
Midoriya looked up at the corkboard and the smile quickly fell from his face. Shota wanted to kick himself, he felt like an idiot for so casually suggesting that. Of course, taking those knives out wasn’t just taking those knives out. That kid had worked his ass off to get those people behind bars and that was the physical reminder that he had made a difference.
“We can’t leave it here, kid. There’s no guarantee that this place won't be roped into the investigation,” he said gently.
“I h-have some s-stuff in a c-closet across the hall. Should f-fit in the l-last b-box,” Midoriya replied, ignoring Shota entirely.
He let it be for now and followed him out to the hall. The storage closet was mostly empty save for a few shelves stocked with various hand tools, only some of which Shota could identify. What the hell was this kid not capable of? Well, he could answer that question pretty easily, asking for help was certainly not one of Midoriya’s seemingly endless skills.
A lot of these tools were power tools and they looked older than dirt; they probably weren’t safe either, but that was something they could go through at home as well. Maybe he could bring them in to Power Loader and get his opinion. He’s not sure how he would phrase that request without prompting an interrogation, but he’d figure that out.
One problem at a time.
He carried the box back over to the other room and set it by the other three. Four boxes, a duffle bag, a backpack, and a suitcase full of knives. That was all this kid had to his name. It was so sad that he almost wanted to laugh.
“Why don’t we start taking these to the car?” he suggested.
Midoriya shakily nodded his head and slid a collapsiable hand cart out from under the couch and started piling the boxes inside. The cart looked like it had seen better days, but the wheels still reluctantly turned when pulled; it only fit two boxes, but that was more than could be comfortably carried by hand, so it was still helpful. Shota scooped up the duffle bag and led the way back to the car.
After another few trips and a brief excursion to the roof to retrieve a solar panel (where in the hell did he get that?), all that was left was the suitcase and the corkboard. He didn’t need to prompt the kid again, he was standing in the middle of the room and staring at it, he knew what needed to be done.
***
Izuku felt like he had been gutted.
Leaving had never been something he had done of his own volition and today was no exception. Leaving meant losing. Izuku had lost a lot of things in his life, but that didn’t seem to make it any easier each time it happened. It felt like a part of him planted itself into whatever “home” was. Every time he left he did his best to uproot it and bring it with him, but it never released its stubborn hold. It stayed in place until his clumsy hands killed it and all that was left was a dead husk of what it used to be.
He was no stranger to killing off parts of himself, he’d done it enough times to know that they always stuck around to haunt you. But this? This was too much. Ivy was too much of him. He couldn’t kill them, he would hardly have anything left of himself.
He’d done his best to kill Deku, Ivy was slipping through his fingers, and all that was left was Izuku. He didn’t know who Izuku was. He didn’t even know if Izuku existed in the first place. He’d only ever let little parts of him out. Izuku was just a sparse, disorganized group of traits at best, he wasn’t a real person. He was something different, a scared creature that held up different masks in hopes that he wouldn’t scare everyone away from what he really was. Whatever he really was.
Maybe he was nothing.
Maybe he was something.
He didn’t know.
What he did know is that he wasn’t anything right now. Or at least whatever he was was just out of arm’s reach; he didn’t have the strength to move any closer. He had never felt so lost, not even the day he had left his old apartment and wandered through Uptown aimlessly. That apartment wasn’t real, it wasn’t his, but this was. This was his… or at least it used to be.
***
Midoriya had been standing in the middle of the room motionless for nearly five minutes now. Shota needed to do something.
Slowly and audibly he walked further into the room from where he had been standing by the door in a wide semi-circle until he was standing in front of the kid. He had been looking at the corkboard but his eyes didn’t move at all when Shota’s body blocked his view. He didn’t have any sort of expression on his face, he wasn’t shaking, he wasn’t tearing up, he wasn’t doing anything besides breathing and standing. He wasn’t even blinking.
“Midoriya?” he tried to call his attention.
Nothing.
He was catatonic. This had been happening far too much in the past couple days; this kid needed help, serious psychological help. Dissociating to this level was not normal. He chalked it up to the amount of stress he had been under, it usually wasn’t this bad, or at least Shota hoped it wasn’t.
“Midoriya?” he tried again.
Nothing.
He was hesitant to touch him. He was scared enough as is and giving him a panic attack wasn’t really a better alternative to the state he was in now.
“Izuku?” he tried, hoping for anything.
He drew his brows together ever so slightly.
That was… something. He’s not sure what that meant, but it was more of a reaction than he had gotten before.
“Izuku?” he asked again, stepping ever so slightly closer as he did.
He blinked and Shota noticed the barest gleam in his eye. Whether that was recognition or just him finally allowing his eyes some moisture, he wasn’t sure.
“Izuku?”
His eyes went glassy, but they didn’t shift focus.
Shota stood there for a moment and waited. Tears started to build in his eyes and fall down his cheeks, but he didn’t seem to notice them at all. His expression remained blank and his focus vacant.
He knew why people dissociated, it was because the situation they were in was too much for their brain to handle, so it just kinda… turned itself off or took a metaphorical step back. Midoriya’s reality at the moment was not a good place to be so he didn’t doubt that the tears meant he was coming back.
He took another small step forward, now just barely within arm’s reach, and crouched down so that his face was level with the kid’s focus.
“Izuku?”
It took a second, but Shota saw his pupils shrink as he adjusted his focus so that he was actually looking at him rather than past him. He quickly shifted his gaze to the floor and took in a hitched and painful breath before releasing it as a barely audible cry. He immediately brought his hands up to his mouth to silence himself entirely.
“Can I put a hand on your shoulder?” Shota asked gently.
Midoriya flinched without him even moving and scrambled backward; he tripped over his own feet and hit the ground hard. He had landed on his butt so Shota figured he was fine, at least physically, but he buried his face behind his knees and wrapped his arms around his shins. He was so small curled in on himself like a frightened child— he was a frightened child. Shota was angry and heartbroken and he had no clue what the fuck he was supposed to do. He was just standing there while this kid’s life fell apart and he had to take the pieces and crush them into dust. He wished so desperately that he could sit down and help him piece it back together, but he couldn’t. He would be able to help him build a new life, but he couldn’t keep this one.
This part of his life was over and those knives needed to be taken out of that board.
It was already past noon by this point and it was at least a 35-minute drive back home. The social worker was due to show up at 2 and they needed to get his things settled before she got there. They didn’t have time to do this slowly. He quietly took in a deep breath and knelt down in front of Midoriya, well out of arm’s reach.
“Izuku, can you hear me?” he asked as gently as he could.
“T-that’s all that's l-left– p-please– that’s all t-that’s l-left,” he heard the kid choke out between silent sobs.
He had a feeling that Izuku had meant more than just the fact that that was all that was left to pack.
“No, it’s not. Ivy isn’t gone, Ivy isn’t going anywhere. What you’ve done, all that you’ve accomplished isn’t going anywhere,” he insisted.
Izuku let out one audible sob at that before silencing himself again. The sound was nauseating, it was the same awful wail he had heard the night he had found them in that stairwell, when they had assumed that no one was around to hear them crying their heart out. He would give anything for him to never cry like that again, but that wasn’t going to happen. So, instead, he sat there with him and he waited. He gave him as much time as he could, but he wasn’t calming down at all.
“Can you try and breathe for me?”
He heard his lurching inhales shudder like he was trying to follow instructions, but he couldn’t. He kept trying and the pained whimper he let out upon failing for the third time was almost as bad as the wrecked sobs. Shota was glad the kid’s head was down because he couldn’t suppress the wince that took over his features for a moment.
His erratic breathing only got worse after that and the hands that had been fisted in the fabric of his sweatpants moved to his hair. His knuckles were blanched and he could tell he was gripping at it with enough force to hurt, maybe even enough to displace the roots.
“Hey, it’s alright, easy on yourself. Relax your hands,” he tried to instruct him gently.
He didn’t want to force his hands away, he had already shown that he was averse to touch right now and that was going to push him over the edge for sure, but he wasn’t listening. His hands stayed fisted in his hair and his whole body was trembling with how tense he had become.
“Izuku, you need to let go of your hair, you’re hurting yourself,” he tried again.
Nothing.
Shota couldn’t just sit there in good faith. He had to do something. He took a deep breath and activated his quirk as a precaution before shuffling forward and gently grabbing one of the kid’s hands.
The reaction was instantaneous. The poor kid let out a pained yelp and scrambled away from him, but at least he had released his hair. He had pressed himself against the far wall next to the couch and was looking back at Shota with wild eyes for a split second before his expression fell. He looked around the room and let his taut muscles relax, though, his shaking didn’t stop. When his eyes settled on the corkboard above Shota’s head he paused. He looked at it for a moment before standing up and walking over to it. His eyes were distant again as he walked past where Shota was knelt on the floor as if he wasn’t even there and started pulling knives out of the board robotically.
He dropped them into the suitcase each time his hands became too full to grab another one with no expression on his face. Shota wasn’t sure whether this was a better way of dealing with the situation or not, but at least he was dealing with it. He watched as he pulled the last knife out and started peeling the pieces of paper that had been taped to the board off, stacking them neatly in a pile on the counter. Once he was done with that, he turned back to the suitcase and shook it around until he seemed to have found what he was looking for, a lighter. He took the stack of papers and placed them on top of a metal filing cabinet and lit one before throwing it on top of the stack.
His expression remained blank as he watched it burn and Shota was too stunned to say a word. He stayed in place until the flame died down to embers and fizzled out entirely, he watched as Midoriya blew the ashes away and scrubbed at the scorch mark left behind with his elbow. When he was done he tossed the lighter back into the suitcase, zipped it up, and started walking out of the room without a second glance.
He was dissociating again, but this time it seemed to be on purpose. That was certainly a way of dealing with things. Shota gave the room one last look over, and upon seeing nothing of note, he got up and followed the kid out the door. Midoriya was already down the hall and into the main chamber of the building so Shota shut the door behind himself, he looked at the flammables cabinet briefly before deciding that there was no way he was going to be able to move that back into place on his own, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to make Midoriya come back and do it. It felt like putting it back was the respectful thing to do, a thank you to the place and what it had been for Midoriya; it would have been healthy, a literal closure, but the kid didn’t seem interested in the slightest. So, with a sigh, Shota followed him back to the car.
When he got outside, Midoriya had just finished tossing the suitcase in the back seat. He didn’t look at Shota, he didn’t look back to the building that had been his home for god knows how long, and Shota just let him. He got into the driver's seat and glanced over at the kid who seemed determined to keep his focus trained forward and he fought back a sigh before starting the car and driving away.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 129: In the Clear
Notes:
Shout out for the one beta comment I got from Woomy, that possessive apostrophe is *so* added, let's goooooooo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hizashi had been done rearranging furniture for several hours now. They’d moved Sho’s desk to their bedroom and emptied their's out for Midoriya to use. They hardly ever used their desk here– and if they did it was only to grade papers which they could do at the dining table anyways. Midoriya still only had a pullout bed to sleep on, but given how long getting his stuff was taking they had to assume that shopping was not in the cards today. He’d stuffed the random things that had been occupying the closet into various other places around the apartment and moved the couch bed into the corner so that it wasn’t just sitting in the center of the room awkwardly.
They had planned to have leftovers for lunch, but he was so nervous that he couldn’t stay still, so he started making some onigiri just to have something to do. He waited around for a while but at the one hour mark, he figured he should stick the onigiri in the fridge. He paced and tidied the already tidy apartment until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he decided to bite the bullet. A text wouldn’t be too disruptive if it was a bad time to interrupt. Shota could ignore a text if he needed to.
Hizashi:
Whats the sitch?
Shota:
We’re on the way back now. ETA 13 min.
He let out a sigh of relief before narrowing his eyes at his phone screen. Shota better not be texting and driving.
Hizashi:
This better be Midoriya texting me >:[
Shota:
It is
The image brought a smile to their face. Giving someone your phone was a good way to show you trusted them. Hopefully, that message had gotten across.
Hizashi:
Alright, thanks Kiddo ❤️
They went and sat on the balcony to wait and, as promised, approximately 13 minutes later they spotted Sho’s car pulling into the lot. They wasted no time in darting down the stairs to meet them so that they could help bring things up. When he got there they had already started unpacking things. Sho had two boxes in a fold-up cart and a duffle bag in the other hand; Midoriya had his signature yellow backpack slung over his shoulders as he picked up– wait, was that a mini fridge? They shot Shota a confused look and he just pulled a suitcase out of the backseat and handed it to them.
“Hide this in the back of your closet,” he instructed, not explaining anything.
Alrighty then, questions later.
They stuck one of the last two boxes on top of the suitcase and led the way back up to the apartment, opting to take the elevator this time.
Midoriya hadn’t said a word since they had come down, but he didn’t seem as vacant as he had last night. He was present to some degree, but to what degree they had no clue, so he let him be. They set the box down next to the bathroom door so that it would be close to the kid’s room but not in the way as they went to their bedroom to hide this suitcase of something in the back of their closet as requested. They were tempted to take a peek and see what was in there, but they figured it was Ivy’s gear or something and it wasn’t their business to poke around anyway; Sho wouldn’t have let them take it with them if he hadn’t okay-ed it.
By the time he felt like the suitcase was sufficiently hidden enough Midoriya seemed to have taken another trip down to the car. He was wheeling the cart through the living room with the last box, something that they couldn’t recognize, and a SOLAR PANEL??? Well, that answered the mini fridge query but left him with more questions than he started with. He followed Midoriya into the guest room to find Shota cutting open boxes and setting them on the bed. The two moved around each other silently, the kiddo looked more relaxed than they had seen them since he got here but something about that didn’t sit right with them.
“There anything I could help with?” they asked from the doorway.
“You wanna grab the hamper and get a load started?” Shota prompted, nodding his head toward the duffle bag and open box full of blankets at the foot of the bed.
He acquiesced and let them be, Sho would fill them in when he got a second. The clothes were actually pretty clean, most of them didn’t really need a wash but he tossed them in regardless; it only took up one load to wash all the clothes anyways. Everything was threadbare and patched in several places, Hizashi was honestly impressed by the level of skill the kid seemed to have with mending. Maybe they could get him a sewing machine– well, he was getting ahead of himself. One thing at a time. They had a feeling it was going to be enough of a struggle to force the kid to accept basic necessities first.
When he walked out of the laundry room to see if there was anything else he could help with he found Shota sitting on the couch and the door leading to Midoriya’s room was shut. Shota looked up at him but didn’t offer anything.
“Everything okay, Sho?” they asked hesitantly.
Shota huffed out a bitter scoff at that before answering.
“As okay as could be expected. He’s dissociating again, but this time it seems to have been on purpose which is… troubling. His living conditions were far better than I had expected though, which was a pleasant surprise. He has a solar generator somehow– I didn’t ask how. You saw the mini fridge and he had a heater and a lamp– bunch of shit. It was still an abandoned warehouse, but it was leagues better than the last place he was in.”
“And the suitcase…?” they pushed.
Shota let out a real scoff of laughter at that, but the smile that adorned his face turned sour quickly.
“Kid has a bad habit of sticky fingers when he sees a knife. I’d seen him take a few in the past, but I didn’t know how bad it was,” he explained sounding achingly fond.
“That whole thing was just knives? It weighs a ton!” they shot back, doing their best to keep their volume down low enough to not be heard through the wall.
“Mostly knives, yeah. Didn’t get a chance to look through it all. There’s easily a hundred in there maybe two hundred. They’re– he’s… he’s ridiculous,” Shota replied with a bittersweet smile, “He had some trouble with that though…” he trailed off and the small smile on his face fell.
“Whaddya mean?”
“He had a cork board up with names of people from the gang and he’d driven a knife through each one that had been arrested. It was… difficult for him to take that down.”
Hizashi could only imagine how hard that had been for both of them. That kid had built his whole life around Ivy and Sho had been right there with him for the past two years. They had no doubt that taking that gang down had been Midoriya’s crowning achievement, Ivy’s legacy was Midoriya’s crowning achievement, giving that up couldn’t be easy to stomach. His heart ached for him.
“Yeah, that… that sounds rough,” they offered lamely, sitting down next to Shota.
They could hear the kid shuffling things around in his room as they sat in silence. Willingly dissociating was something that concerned them greatly. Midoriya needed therapy, probably years and years of it. Given the way he acted as Ivy and the way he acted in school, they assumed that he probably had a personality disorder, but they didn’t know enough about that kind of thing to be able to help. He needed a professional; that kid was not going to want to see a professional. He could hardly talk to Sho about what had happened to him so he was pretty sure that a stranger was not in the cards.
They felt so lost and they knew Shota felt the same way. They just didn’t know what to do. The social worker was due over in less than an hour and they had yet to eat lunch, that was a much more fixable issue. That was something they could deal with.
“I made some onigiri a few hours ago– ended up sticking it in the fridge. You want me to heat it up?” they asked, finally breaking the silence that had fallen over them.
“What’s in it?”
“Tuna.”
“‘s fine cold. I don’t know if he’ll eat right now.”
“I’ll bring him some. We can just eat here, you wanna put something on?” they asked as they stood up, gesturing toward the TV.
“Not really, no. Don’t mind if you wanted to though.”
“It’d probably do us good,” they said, pausing on the other side of the couch before they left the room completely.
“Yeah…” Shota agreed but made no move to turn the TV on.
***
Masa was eager to see Midoriya again. He had been so out of it when they met, she’d hardly been able to get a read on him through that on top of her own exhaustion. The whole situation was very strange. This wasn’t the first time she had worked with a child who had been homeless, but four years was a long time. It seemed impossible that no one had noticed anything for that long. He had to be very crafty, not only to still be alive, but to have kept his living conditions secret all the while.
She had also never worked with heroes, at least not like this. They were frequently involved in the beginnings of a case, but this was the first time that a hero had insisted on taking the kid they saved home with them. She supposed that had to do with the fact that they were also the boy’s teachers. She remembered how the detective had introduced this as a “peculiar” case; he hadn’t been lying.
She had gotten a good first impression of the couple at least. She didn’t doubt that they were a suitable placement, but she could imagine it was uncomfortable for the kid to suddenly be in his teachers’ home.
Walking up to the door, she pressed the buzzer to be let in. It didn’t take long for the door to unlock and she made her way up to the fourth floor, apartment 401; she knocked gently. When the door opened she was greeted warmly by Yamada-san and offered a pair of guest slippers. Aizawa-san wasn’t far behind, standing between the kitchen and the genkan.
The apartment was nice, it didn’t smell bad or like cleaning supplies as if they had scrubbed everything in a hurry before she got here; it was inviting and it looked tidy. She hadn’t expected a hovel, the two had what, like five jobs between them? If they didn’t have the time to clean they certainly had the money to have someone do it for them. Their schedules had been one of the few things that she was still concerned about. Any hang-ups she had about Aizawa’s harsh exterior were scrubbed from her mind when she saw how gently he had handled Midoriya after she had returned from her interview with Yamada. She had high hopes for this placement.
“Could I get you anything to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water?” Yamada asked as she walked into the main area of the apartment.
“No, thank you, I’m alright,” she dismissed.
The living room and dining room looked similarly well maintained to the kitchen and genkan. From the looks of it, it seemed as though they had a cat as well if the cat tree next to the television was anything to go by. She was about to ask after Midoriya when she heard a door open somewhere down the hallway and the boy in question walked out. He looked anxious, his gaze was flicking between the three of them rapidly and he sent an awkward wave in her direction. He had been near catatonic last she saw him, so she supposed this was an improvement.
“Afternoon Midoriya,” she greeted kindly.
“A-aftern-noon M-Myoshi-san,” he replied with a stiff bow.
“How have you been settling?” she asked.
She wasn’t expecting a genuine answer, but she felt it polite to ask anyway.
“F-fine, it’s been– I’ve– um, it’s o-okay,” he stuttered out.
She wondered if that was a nervous tic or if he always spoke with a stutter, she made a mental note to ask about that. Speech therapy might be prudent; unlearning that would only get more difficult as time went on.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she responded with a smile.
He glanced over at Yamada awkwardly before speaking again.
“Is, um, i-is the laundry r-ready to be swi-switched?” he asked quietly.
“Oh! Yeah, it probably is, I’ll go do that–”
“No! Er, um, I mean I can d-do it,” Midoriya insisted.
She caught the expectant look that Aizawa shot to his partner before they relented and let Midoriya handle the laundry. Interesting, she filed that information away to analyze later.
“Alright, that’s fine. The laundry room is through the kitchen back there. Let me know if you need help with anything,” they said as Midoriya quickly scurried past the three of them and into the kitchen.
“He’s still getting his room situated, we went and got his things earlier today,” Aizawa brought the group’s focus back.
She glanced toward the laundry room before speaking up quietly enough to not be overheard.
“How did that go?”
“Not great but better than expected in a lot of ways. He had a solid setup and shelter. He’d gotten his hands on a generator and he had a makeshift kitchenette; he was in the back office of an abandoned factory,” Aizawa answered flatly, though she thought she heard the slightest tinge of pride in his words; perhaps his emotions were just too subtle to be read most of the time, she could get the hang of that.
“Oh, that’s… impressive,” she replied, honestly a touch astonished.
Aizawa nodded in agreement.
Just as she was about to speak again Midoriya walked back into the room. Like he had when he had first left his room, he looked at the three of them like he was making sure that they weren’t about to shout at him before he proceeded. She didn’t have the first clue what all he had been through, she didn’t know what his home life had been like before he was abandoned, but she had to assume it wasn’t great if the way he was behaving was anything to go by.
“I’d like to talk to you in a minute, but first I wanted to speak with Aizawa and Yamada. Do you mind waiting in your room?” she asked, making sure to keep her tone as light as she could without sounding patronizing.
He sent back a shaky nod and scurried back to his room as quickly as he had come out. He was probably isolating himself. That wasn’t good, however, it was preferable to most other reactions he could be having. She noted how the door shut silently as if he had turned the door knob from the other side and twisted it back into place. He was making himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. Again, that wasn’t great, but it was a fairly normal response. She hoped that these tendencies lessened, but only time would tell.
“How much can he hear from in there?” she asked after waiting a few seconds for the boy to move away from the door.
“Not much. The walls a pretty well soundproofed but the doors aren’t,” Aizawa answered
“Why don’t we talk on the balcony, it’s a nice day for it,” Yamada offered.
She agreed with a nod and let them lead the way. Yamada pulled out a chair for her at the small table and gestured for Aizawa to take the other while they sat crisscrossed on a bench by the door. The balcony was as well maintained as the apartment was, possibly even more so. There were several planters with flowers hung over the ledge and one with some tall leafy plant sitting on the ground in the corner. They all looked to be in very good health.
“How did the night go? Is he settling well?” she asked the same question she had asked before because she expected a more honest answer from them than she did from Midoriya.
“Well enough, he’s hardly left his room or spoken to either of us,” Aizawa answered.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she replied with bittersweet reassurance, “You said you went to get his things today?” she prompted him to elaborate on that.
“Yes, we did. He was anxious the entire time but when we were nearly ready to leave he hit a breaking point and started disociating purposefully in order to power through it.”
Hmm, that was troubling, but again, not something she wouldn’t have expected. She was glad to hear that Aizawa seemed to have a grasp on trauma responses, which made sense with him being a hero. Though plenty of heroes didn’t know that kind of thing, she had both seen and heard horror stories about how poorly heroes handled victims after an incident and she was happy that these two didn’t fall into that category of “hero.”
“That doesn’t surprise me either. I had a concern that I wanted to bring up with you two, I saw that you both have had foster licenses for quite a few years now, but you’ve yet to use them. I was wondering why that is,” she asked, changing the topic.
“Oh, yeah… we’ve always wanted to, but we just never had the time needed to do it properly, we’re both working constantly and that’s just not something to bring a kid into. But with Midoriya, well, he’s a near perfect fit; he’s with us at work all day! That’s not to say we’re not going to cut back on our hours though, we know that time at school isn’t the same as time at home. He's been alone long enough, we’re not going to do that to him again. He’s probably going to wish we did since he’s so independent, but that’s a bridge we can cross when we get to it,” Yamada answered smoothly.
Something about the way both of them answered everything seemed too perfect, she felt like there was something she was missing, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. She had no reasonable argument against them and her gut told her that the kid was safe here; he was going to be taken care of, she could leave him here in good conscience, but there was still something off. That something was going to keep her up at night.
She was going to keep an eye on them, but right now, she saw no reason to not allow this placement to become more permanent. Midoriya needed some form of certainty and these two seemed all too ready to provide that. She still needed to see the rest of the apartment to make sure it was suitable before she left, but she didn’t think that was going to be an issue.
“I’m glad to hear that, that was my chief concern with this placement. Midoriya is going to need someone at home with him with some degree of regularity, and you are right, he is probably not going to appreciate that very much. A lot of his freedom is being stripped from him, similar situations– neglected children, I mean– I often find that they tend to lash out, they become angry because they are being “babied” after taking care of themselves for so long. This is quite an extreme case of that, I would advise you to be prepared for any number of things, violent outbursts, running away, self-isolation, resentment towards the two of you, I wouldn’t take anything off of the table. This is a lot for someone to take in, his whole life was just upended, he’s going to need patience, lots of patience. I would highly recommend getting a therapist or counselor for him and yourselves if you don’t already have one,” she warned.
Aizawa seemed contemplative about what she was saying, but Yamada had his lips pressed into a fine line and he was glancing over to his partner excitedly. It appeared as though he had caught the underlying hint that she was prepared to approve Midoriya staying with them.
“I’d like to speak with Midoriya and see his room before I leave. He left this in the detective’s office last night,” she said, extending her hand to offer her business card, “I will be giving him another one, but any of you can reach out at any time, though I would prefer you only reach out for emergencies after 8 pm.”
Yamada took the offered card with a grin on his face and when Aizawa turned to look at them his lips curled up ever so slightly at the ends.
“Thank you. His room is the door to the far left in the hall; knock gently,” Aizawa advised as Yamada slid the door open for them.
She did as instructed and heard a quiet thump from the other side of the door before she spoke.
“Midoriya? It’s Miyoshi-san, may I come in?” she asked.
“Y-yeah, sorry I was just t-trying to– and then it– I m-made a m-mess.”
She opened the door halfway through his rambling to find him sitting on the floor and gathering various tools that seemed to have fallen out of the bottom of a broken box.
“I-I’ll clean it u-up, s-sorry,” he continued as he furiously stuffed the mess into another intact box.
“It’s alright, looks like the box broke on you, that’s not your fault,” she reassured him.
She looked around the room as he continued his task. The rest of the room looked very neat, there was a bookshelf that was mostly empty, it held a few kitchen utensils, a first aid kit, a radio, and something else she couldn’t quite make out from where she was standing. Aside from the tools he was wrestling with on the floor, the most interesting thing she spotted was a mini fridge with a hot plate on top of it. It looked far too old and beat up to have belonged to Aizawa and Yamada so she had to assume it was Midoriya’s. Aizawa hadn’t been kidding when he said the boy had a solid setup.
“That’s a lot of tools, do you like to build stuff, Midoriya?” she asked.
“Um, y-yeah, when I c-can. I f-fix stuff m-mostly.”
“Oh, is that how you got all of this?” she asked gesturing toward the fridge and the, er, generator(?) it was plugged into.
“Y-yeah, found them at the d-dump.”
“Wow, that is… very resourceful. You fixed all of these?” she asked with genuine awe.
“I b-bought the hot p-plate,” Midoriya tried to deflect.
“But everything else you fixed up on your own?” she pressed.
“Y-yes, um, I think so,” he replied, looking over the appliances once more before turning back to her, “Yes.”
“That’s incredible, Midoriya,” she remarked as she looked around the few items in the room.
The boy in question had a blush on his cheeks that was quickly spreading to the rest of his face, so she let the subject drop. He looked to have a good space set up for him and if he had clothes in the wash right now then that was good too. She had no doubt he could probably use a new wardrobe, but that could wait a little while longer; she could see a school uniform hung up in the closet.
“You left this at the station last night,” she said as she handed him her business card again.
“S-sorry,” he stuttered with wide eyes as he took it.
“That’s alright, there was a lot going on, I don’t blame you. I would have forgotten it too,” she reassured him.
He apologized far too much, it was upsetting, but she ignored that for now.
“Do you remember what I said? You can call me whenever you need to, I have my phone on me 24/7,” she reminded him.
“Oh, um o-okay,” he replied hesitantly before slipping the card into the top drawer of his desk.
“I know I asked you last night but you were a little out of it, do you feel safe here?”
“Yes, I know I’m s-safe here,” he confirmed.
He didn’t sound very reassured by his own reassurance and that was interesting phrasing. Knowing you’re safe and feeling safe were two different things and she had a feeling Midoriya knew that all too well.
“Do you like Aizawa and Yamada? I mean before all of this happened, you were on good terms?” she asked.
“Y-yes, they’re very k-kind,” he replied.
He sounded sad when he said it but he didn’t sound disingenuous. He probably didn’t feel like he deserved any of the kindness they were showing him. Hopefully, that feeling would fade over time.
“And that hasn’t changed, has it?”
“No, ma’am,” he confirmed quickly.
She studied him for a moment, his body language still told her that he was terrified of everything, that much hadn’t changed since their last meeting. She had a feeling there wasn’t much she could do about that though.
“Staying here isn’t your only option, you know. I can find you somewhere else to stay if you want me to, that’s my job,” she offered.
“Th-that’s o-okay. H-here is– here is o-okay,” Midoriya hastily denied.
That was interesting. The thought of leaving seemed to cause him more anxiety than the thought of staying. That would be good if the thought of staying didn’t cause him as much anxiety as it did; as it was, the sentiment was bittersweet at best.
“Let me know if you change your mind, alright?”
He only nodded in response as he looked back down to his lap. He obviously wasn’t comfortable with her here; there wasn’t really anything else to say anyway so she bid him farewell and made her way back out into the common area. Yamada and Aizawa were sitting on the couch. Something was playing quietly on the TV but it was paused quickly when she walked past the threshold of the hallway. They both looked up at her expectantly.
“Would you mind showing me around the apartment?” she asked.
Yamada sprung off the couch quickly and assented enthusiastically; Aizawa seemed unphased by their theatrics. The two had an interesting dynamic but it seemed to work well for them. Opposites attract, she supposed.
As she had suspected, the apartment was in good shape all around. She had nothing to complain about and she had a feeling Yamada was going to be rather excited about what she had to say next. She waited until they were back in the living room with Aizawa before she spoke up.
“I have no reservations about letting Midoriya stay with you two,” she stated plainly with a soft smile.
As expected, Yamada’s face split with an ear-to-ear toothy grin. Aizawa remained largely unphased but when his husband turned that blinding smile in his direction a little bit of it seemed to rub off and a grin graced his features as well.
“As I said earlier, I strongly recommend getting him a therapist or counselor and you can talk to me if you need assistance finding local practices. I don’t think there’s a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist in Musutafu that I haven’t at least heard of so I can help steer you in the right direction. You should give him some time to settle, but the sooner the better,” she advised.
They both nodded in agreement.
“That’s all I had for you, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I will be back to meet with you in a week’s time.”
The two of them exchanged a wary look at her last statement and she raised an eyebrow as she waited for an explanation. They appeared to be silently communicating something between themselves that she didn’t have the context to decipher.
“Midoriya should be doing an internship next week. He hasn’t decided where yet so we aren’t sure whether he will be in town or not,” Aizawa explained.
Ah. That was… troubling. Leaving so soon for an extended period of time didn’t seem like a great idea, but at the same time, forcing him to miss out on a normal school experience seemed like a bad idea as well. He needed normalcy, holding him back was only going to make things worse.
“The internships last a full week? Or is it five days?”
“Full week,” Aizawa replied.
Stripping him of his independence was jarring enough, forcing it further would drive a stake between them. Whether he stayed or left was his choice and she couldn’t take that away from him.
“I think it would be best to let him make his own decisions about that. I assume all offers are vetted by the school?”
“Yes, of course,” Yamada answered.
“Alright, then my next visit can wait until he’s back. Make sure he has a phone before he leaves.”
The two of them glanced at each other again at her last comment.
“Got it,” Aizawa replied quickly, not explaining what that glance meant.
Curious.
“Good. Have a nice rest of your day gentlemen,” she dismissed herself with a polite bow of her head before taking her leave.
Heroes were a peculiar bunch, or maybe they were just a peculiar bunch, she didn’t exactly have a great sample size. They were good people though, that much she could say with confidence. Midoriya would be safe with them.
Notes:
thanks for reading 💃
Chapter 130: Shop 'til You Drop
Notes:
I honestly have no clue who all betaed this but I know at least Spade did.
Shout out to Beezus Penny Woomy possibly just because. Irdk if they've read this yet
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Midoriya had crept out of his room damn near silently before the buzzer for the dryer even sounded. Shota had gone off to shower and Hizashi wouldn’t have even noticed Midoriya if he didn’t just happen to look up when he did. He was so quiet, even worse than Sho who, despite living together for a decade at this point, still managed to scare the shit out of them on at least a weekly basis. Thankfully, they managed to not jump out of their skin as he passed by; he probably would have apologized 16 times before they got him to drop the non-issue.
When Midoriya walked back out with a hamper full of clothes they spoke up before he could scurry off again.
“I wanna help you with that, Kiddo. We need to go through what you’ve got and figure out what you need,” he said hoping to nip his denials in the bud.
“I d-don’t need anything, I’m f-fine. You don’t have t-to do th-that,” he tried to deny regardless.
“All of your clothes fit in one load of laundry. That’s not enough,” he pointed out.
“I w-wear my unif-form most of the t-time anyway. I d-don’t–”
“Kiddo, this isn’t negotiable,” he interrupted as kindly as he could, “It’s not just up to us anyway, the social worker isn’t going to be happy with us if we don’t make sure you have proper clothes. You have enough to scrape by, but you need more than the bare minimum. You deserve more than the bare minimum.”
Midoriya wasn’t looking at them, he had his eyes glued to the hamper in his hands and he was making no move to respond.
“Come on, lets toss that onto the bed and we can go through it together,” he prompted gently.
Midoriya obeyed immediately and without complaint. As much as they didn’t want the kid to fight them on this, his compliance didn’t make them feel any better. It felt like coercion and it didn’t sit right with them, but it needed to be done.
“Okay, let’s sort everything into types, shirts in one pile, pants in another, underwear we’re going to get you more of regardless because I don’t think either of us want me to study those for their structural integrity, same with socks, you can just throw those in a drawer or whatever you want to do with them for now,” Hizashi started as they walked into the room.
Midoriya already had a blush high on his cheeks and they waited by the door as he picked all his underwear and socks out before Hizashi walked in and took a seat on the corner of the bed. They sorted through things in silence and the kid seemed to be avoiding eye contact, so they just let him. If that was going to make this easier, then it was fine. He’d glanced at the things he’d tossed into the wash and seen the patching he’d done, but he didn’t get a super good look at it. Now that he was getting the chance to see things up close he was even more impressed, there were repairs he would have never noticed if he weren’t looking for them.
“You’re pretty good at sewing,” he remarked as he folded a very well worn All Might T-shirt that was almost faded beyond recognition, “I wouldn’t notice half these patches if I wasn’t looking for them.”
He got a stuttered thanks in response, but other than that he remained silent. Hizashi just went back to work, they hadn’t expected to start a conversation, but it would have been nice. They noticed a pair of black cargo pants that had an additional seam up the front of the left leg– hah, these must be his Ivy pants; That stitch was probably from when Chiyo had to cut the leg after Sho threw them at a fire escape. He smiled and shook his head as he folded them. This kid must have so many stories, he looked forward to the day that he was comfortable enough to share them. Though, he imagined most of them weren’t as bittersweet as that one was… in hindsight at least.
He couldn’t hide the smile on his face when he picked up a black hoodie with the “Put Your Hands Up Radio” logo on the front of it.
“You got style, Kiddo,” they joked as they held it up.
Midoriya’s face went from the persistent light blush he’d been sporting since Hizashi stopped him in the living room to completely beet red. He looked like a strawberry and it was adorable.
“I can get you plenty more of these, but they might not be so vintage,” he quipped as he folded it.
He still looked uncomfortable, but he huffed out a breath through his nose and was pressing his lips together in an awkward approximation of a smile. That was something at least…
The green hoodie that they knew he wore on patrol had certainly seen better days. The sleeves were more patch than they were original fabric, but it was sturdy. It wasn’t fraying anywhere and it was obviously well taken care of. He folded it with care and set it on top of the other hoodie.
The rest of the clothes weren’t overly remarkable. There wasn’t a single article of clothing that hadn’t had to be repaired at one point, but they were all still usable, if a little threadbare. They had a feeling that Midoriya would just patch them up whenever the worn bits got too bad. He had two hoodies, two t-shirts, seven long sleeve shirts, no shorts and four pairs of pants, two of which were his patrol pants and nothing was the same size. He didn’t even have a proper coat, how the hell had he been getting through the winters? Layers, they supposed, but that wasn’t good enough.
“Alright, this is a good start, but you need more clothes. How much of this fits you properly?”
“I, um, I d-dunno. They all f-fit.”
“Just because they physically fit onto you doesn’t mean they fit you correctly, but that’s okay. We’ll figure out what size works best tomorrow. We’re going to get you some basic necessities, clothes and toiletries being the biggest concern at the moment,” he informed.
Midoriya didn’t look pleased about that, but he didn’t argue.
“Any dinner requests?” they asked, not expecting an answer.
Midoriya shook his head.
“Alright we’ll probably just have leftovers then, I’ll start heating it up soon,” he said before walking out of the room.
He shut the door gently behind himself and turned into the living room only to see Shota already heating up dinner. Hmm, great minds think alike… or maybe it was just 7 o’clock.
***
Izuku was not looking forward to tomorrow. The thought of going to the mall at all would have been enough to put him off, but he knew they weren’t going to let him buy anything himself. He couldn’t really buy anything himself anyways, all of his money had been taken up by tuition and he only had like a few thousand yen left. What was considered a reasonable amount of clothes? How much were they going to spend on him? He didn’t want any of this! He barely ever went anywhere outside of school or patrol and, well, one of those was no longer an option.
Accepting food from All Might was one thing, he really did need that but– oh god he was going to have to get him to cancel that now. He did his best to refrain from screaming into his pillow.
This sucked so much.
He could hear them getting dinner ready in the kitchen and he didn’t want to leave the room. Well, that’s not true, he did want to leave the room, he had been eyeing the window and resisting the temptation to bolt for a while now, but that wasn’t going to get him very far. They couldn’t physically stop him from leaving, but obligation kept him tethered well enough that it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t even hungry. They had been giving him so much food that he could hardly stomach it, he really didn’t want dinner at all. Three meals a day was a truly insane amount of food. He’d been eating as much as he could of what they offered, but he was going to have to stop, or at least slow down. He felt nauseous and he was pretty sure they would take more offense to him running away from the table to puke than they would from him not finishing his plate.
He felt like a grade A asshole for stressing out about having too much food and the thought sent another wave of exhaustion through him. There wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do without feeling guilty anymore,(?) and he was so tired. Regardless of his own feelings, he got up when he was called and sat down for dinner. He was too scared to offer to do the dishes so he ran back to the guest room to hide. As he sat on the bed with his legs pulled up against his chest, he wondered if he was ever going to be able to breathe past the suffocating cloud of guilt that surrounded him. He hoped he would, but hope had left him wanting before and he had no doubt that it would do it again.
***
Shota told them that he had errands to run and left the apartment about 15 minutes before he and Midoriya did. He was just going to walk to the store a few blocks away to get the kiddo a phone, so Hizashi made sure to give him time to get out of sight before they left. He doubted that Midoriya knew this side of town well enough to guess where Shota was headed if they saw him, but he’d rather be safe than sorry; today was going to be stressful enough as is.
They listened to some music in the car on low volume as they drove along, but they turned it off once they found a parking spot.
“Okay, we’re gonna have a pep talk before we go in there. I know you don’t want us spending money on you, I know it’s uncomfortable, but let me explain it from our perspective. First of all…” he trailed off as he tapped at his phone screen before showing it to Midoriya, “this is my bank account.”
He tried not to laugh as the kiddo’s eyes went wide looking at the number on the screen.
“I have three very well paying jobs, Sho has two, and this isn’t even our joint account. We have more money than we know what to do with and this is after throwing a good deal of it at charities. Nothing you pick out today will affect our finances enough to matter even a little bit,” they explained, pausing for a moment to let the words sink in.
“Besides all of that, even if we were living paycheck to paycheck, we want to provide you with the things you need. If you had the money to buy your friends anything they wanted just to make them happy, wouldn’t you?” they asked.
Midoriya didn’t answer that, he sputtered out some nonsense syllables before giving up, furrowing his brow, and looking down at his lap.
Alright, that was probably too much too soon. They stayed quiet and gave him a few minutes to think before they spoke again.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about, Kiddo?”
His brow only furrowed more at their questioning. He started biting at his lip and wringing his hands too. Now wasn’t the time to talk, not if it was just going to stress him out more than he already was.
“I know it’s probably hard to figure out what you’re feeling about all of what’s going on and it’s even more difficult to talk about it, so we don’t have to do that right now. Let’s just focus on what needs to get done instead. I made a list of things that we need to get today and another list of things that we could get today, but could also wait for another day if it’s too much all at once,” they explained as they handed over the two lists.
Midoriya took them in an unsteady hand and started looking over them. He seemed to be calmer when he had something to do, that’s probably why Sho insisted that they let him do his laundry and dishes. They made a mental note of that. They would prefer that Midoriya felt comfortable enough existing without feeling the need to do something for them in payment, but hopefully, that would come in due time. Baby steps.
They waited for him to review the lists and when it looked like he was done, they opened their door and got out of the car, wordlessly prompting him forward. As expected, he followed their lead, falling in step, or half a step behind them as they made their way to the mall’s entrance. It was still pretty early on a Sunday morning so it wasn’t too busy, but that was going to change soon; they’d better get a move on. In the interest of saving time he picked a store that he knew would have all the clothing items they would need and didn’t bother asking Midoriya where he’d like to go. Talking seemed to be an issue for him right now and they doubted that he had the first idea as to what store they should go to anyway.
“Okay, we should be able to find all the clothes you need here. Men’s section is over this way but I get half my clothes from the women’s section, so it doesn’t really matter. Whatever you’re more comfortable with,” they said, gesturing toward the sections.
That was a pretty tame decision, hopefully, that would be a good one to start off a day of forcing the poor kid to make choices he didn’t want to make.
He looked around nervously and headed toward the men’s section without a word.
Good! Decision one of, um, many, complete!
***
Izuku was doing his best to keep his cool, but the list Mic gave him was too much. He couldn’t even wear half the stuff that they wanted him to get in public; he hadn’t worn shorts or T-shirts out for years because of his scars and he didn’t think he was going to get out of buying those without explaining that. He really didn’t want to explain that. There were a few articles of clothing that he could begrudgingly admit would be nice to have, but seven T-shirts and three pairs of shorts did not make that list.
He went to grab a basket, but Mic grabbed a cart, so he put it back.
This was… fine.
He stood at the front of the men’s clothing section and his feet got stuck in place. It was late May, there weren’t very many long sleeves. There would probably be a clearance section with some out of season stuff, right? He had no clue where that might be though. The “normal” prices he could see from here made him nauseous. Why was a singular T-shirt ¥3,500? And why the hell were those jeans ¥9,500?! He was doing his best to remind himself that Mic and Eraser were apparently richer than god, but his feet still remained in place. This was too much for him, he didn’t need all of this, he didn’t want all of this. He wanted to go back home to the brewery where he couldn’t bother anyone and–
“Kiddo?” Mic’s voice cut through his thoughts.
He couldn’t find the words to respond, he could barely even look at them.
Mic walked around until he was standing in front of him and he resisted the urge to stare at his feet.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked
Huh?
“I have a pretty good guess but I wanna hear it from you,” they said with a laugh and a glance toward his shirt.
His green shirt. Oh, hah, yeah. Half his clothes were green, but that was only in part because it was his favorite color; it was easier to patch things when everything was the same color, it blended together better.
“G-green,” he replied.
“Yeah, I figured. C’mon, lets go look for some green stuff. You’ve got a convenient hair color for that… or do you think the favorite color is because of the hair? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Mic mused as he led the way into the racks.
He was trying to distract him, he knew he was. It wasn’t not working, he had wondered that in the past, but it led to too much introspection for his taste so he just let sleeping beasts lie. For now, he chose to believe that Mic was asking a rhetorical question because he didn’t have the proper words to answer him at the moment.
“What’s your opinion on graphic tees?” Mic asked, holding up a sage green T-shirt with a few abstract lines that came together to sort of resemble a minimalist mountain landscape.
Oh god, it had to be the first question, didn’t it? Why couldn’t he have just gone over to the jeans instead of getting stuck in place like an idiot? Jeans were fine! He had no problems with jeans! He was growing out of his anyway, he could use a new pair of jeans. He had burn scars covering most of his forearms from the Yakedo raid, they were kind of faint but they were still obvious against his pale skin and that wasn’t even to mention the ugly gnarled flesh that peaked out from under short sleeves on his shoulder. The burns his father had given him were disgusting, they had healed poorly; he couldn’t force people to look at that, he could hardly stand to look at them and they’d been a part of his body for over half his life now.
“-doriya, Midoriya look at me.”
His attention was brought back to Mic’s face. He looked concerned.
“Good, Kiddo, can you hear me?”
Goddamnit what did he miss? What did he do?
He nodded his head quickly.
“Can you tell me what triggered that? Was it something about that shirt in particular?”
He nodded again.
“Okay, then we won’t get that one. Can you tell me more specifically what was wrong with it?”
Goddamnit godfuckingdamnit no! No he can’t! Not without questioning!
“Hey, c’mon, stay with me, it’s alright. You don’t have to explain it in detail, I just want to know what it is so we can avoid it.”
…what?
Surely he didn’t mean that. T-shirts made up like half the list, they couldn’t avoid half the list. God, it was just a fucking shirt, he needed to pull himself together.
“I d-don’t like sh-short s-s-sleeves,” he forced himself to stutter out an explanation.
“Oh,” Mic looked up and furrowed his brow like he was thinking for a moment, “Okay, that’s fine, lets find some long sleeves. Might be difficult with summer around the corner, but I’m sure we can find something,” he dismissed easily and walked off to the next few racks, glancing around and ignoring anything with short sleeves.
…w…what?
Just like that? He was gonna drop the issue just like that?
He was a little dumbstruck as Mic walked away but he got his wits about him quickly and scurried after them.
“What about this?” they asked, holding up a dark green crew neck.
He tried to glance at the price but Mic was standing in front of the rack where it was posted.
“Doesn’t matter how much it costs, kid, do you like it?”
“I, um, y-yeah, it’s n-nice,” he answered reluctantly.
“Okay, good. I’m gonna guess you’re a small. I think it’s supposed to be a little bit fitted, but if you don’t like that we can get a bigger size. I’ll grab both a small and a medium and you can decide after you try it on,” he explained as he dropped two shirts into the cart and kept walking.
As he walked away Izuku couldn’t help but glance at the price. ¥2,500 wasn’t awful… he could probably get pretty much the same thing at a thrift store for half the price though.
Richer than god, Izuku. They are richer than god.
He took a deep breath and dutifully followed after Mic again.
***
Midoriya seemed to be doing much better after they took T-shirts off the list. He cringed when they walked over to the shorts so they wordlessly took those off too. They had a feeling it was to hide the scarring that Sho had told them about and the thought broke his heart. They had a good idea of how most of those scars were acquired, but not all of them. Chiyo had marked down what she could remember on a chart and the slashes and stab wounds made sense. The burns on his arms as well, but the burn that apparently covered half of his torso remained a mystery. That would probably be a part of Sho’s investigation, they’d figure it out eventually, so there was no use asking about it now.
They made sure to pick out some light weight pants and shirts for the warmer weather so that he would have something to wear and not overheat. It was probably better for his health to keep the scarring covered up when exposed to the sun anyways, but they would have to get them looked at by a professional to know for sure.
He didn’t show much interest in any one thing over another. The wardrobe he selected was very plain and they supposed that was because he had never gotten the chance to find a style for himself. They hoped that he would be comfortable enough to try someday, but today was not that day. Today was for the essentials. They ended up with 10 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, and a few packs of underwear and socks. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for now. He made a point to purposefully forget to pick up hangers until they got in line and sent Midoriya to the other side of the store to pick them up while he paid for the clothes. They didn’t doubt that the kid was keeping a running tally already, but on the off chance he wasn’t, there was no need for him to know the total price of the trip, it would only stress him out more.
Midoriya stayed with him as they went through the line again after apologizing three times for not getting back fast enough. He patiently dismissed the apologies each time and stuffed the second receipt into his pocket with the first.
The mall was starting to fill up now, shoppers were milling about and looking through the windows while they chatted loudly and blocked the walkways. It wasn’t crazy, nothing he would have noticed if he had been here on his own, but he could see they way Midoriya shied away from the louder groups of kids and stuck Hizashi in between himself and anyone that got too close. That was equal parts upsetting and reassuring, they didn’t like that he saw threats everywhere he went, but it was good that they themself weren’t considered a threat as well. Or at least they were considered to be a lesser threat.
“Alright Kiddo I think that’s enough mall for today; it’s getting a little busy. We’re gonna stop somewhere else for toiletries and then we can head home,” he informed and started leading the way back to the car.
The look of relief was palpable and they had to do their best to keep a straight face. They didn’t think they would ever find someone who hated malls more than Sho did, but those two were a lot more alike than he would have thought at first glance.
Midoriya insisted on carrying all the bags, and they let him. If feeling useful helped, then they wouldn’t take that away from him. Thankfully, the walk wasn’t too far and the car hadn’t gotten too hot in their absence. Ever since he brought up his dislike for short sleeves earlier, they had become acutely aware that they had never seen Midoriya out of his usual full length pants and sleeves; they were sure that combination had resulted in heatstroke before, but it wouldn’t happen again, not on their watch. Just because he was used to overheating doesn’t mean he had to be. The lightweight fabrics they got today and access to air conditioning would certainly help that issue as well.
“What kind of music do you listen to, Kiddo?” they asked as they adjusted the car’s AC and turned on the radio.
“Oh, um, I d-dunno, just whatever’s on the r-radio,” he replied with a shrug.
“We gotta find your sound! Sho doesn’t care too much for music one way or the other, he just listens to whatever I put on. He’s a stick in the mud, he doesn’t know how to jam out,” they complained light heartedly as they put on a good mixed variety station and turned it up a bit.
They did their best to pay attention to Midoriya’s reactions to each song that came on as they drove along, but he didn’t do much besides match his nervous leg bouncing to the beat. He had a good sense of rhythm at least! That was more than he could say for Sho. He might do good with drums or bass, but they were getting ahead of themself again, they needed to get him to accept basic necessities before they tried to get him to pick up any sort of hobby. Plus he seemed to be more inclined to pick up sewing or building of some sort with all the tools he had. They could hold out hope for a musician in the making though. If a radio was among the very few personal affects he owned then he could reasonably say he enjoyed music to some degree. There was hope! They pulled up to the pharmacy corner store after only a few songs, so the musical exploration had to pause for a moment.
“I made another list for this store, but these are all must haves, I’m afraid,” he explained as he handed over another list and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
As he had before, Midoriya followed half a step behind them as they walked into the store. It was much less crowded here and the kiddo seemed very relieved by that. He led the way over to the hair care isle first. The kid’s hair was in a sad state, they’d only seen him with it down a few times but it had been ridiculously frizzy each time. He probably needed a haircut desperately and they doubted he’d used conditioner once in the last 4 years, it certainly looked like that was the case at least. The hair cut would have to wait, but product would be able to tame it well enough until they got around to that.
“Do you have a brand preference?” they asked, gesturing to the shelves of shampoo and conditioner in front of them.
“I, um… no,” he answered in a way that made it sound like he hadn’t even seen these products in his life.
“What have you been using?” they asked casually, but they feared the answer.
“B-bar s-soap,” Midoriya replied as he stared down at his shoes.
Terrific.
God, his poor hair.
“Okay, well it looks like you’ve got a good amount of curl to your hair. This is what I get for Sho, so if it doesn’t work out for you we can just give it to him,” they offered, hoping the promise of nothing going to waste would ease his anxieties.
He just nodded his head in response. He looked tired, not that that said much, he had looked exhausted to varying degrees for the past three days, but he looked more tired than he had this morning. They wondered if they had ever seen this kid well rested. They probably hadn’t and honestly, they feared what a well rested Midoriya was capable of if he’d done all that they’d seen him do while running on fumes and living in an abandoned warehouse. The lil’ listener was so amazing, they were looking forward to helping him shine as bright as he was meant to. That was going to take a while though, so, for now, they’d have to settle on making his hair shine. They could tell he had a beautiful mane waiting to be unleashed from its dry, frizzy prison.
“Okay, deodorant should be the next isle over,” they pressed him onward.
***
How the hell was shopping more tiring than training with All Might? And how the hell could he be so tired and not able to sleep? Stress. Stress was probably the answer to both of those questions. Mic dragged him through damn near every isle of the store until the basket he was carrying was threatening to spill over and his legs were threatening to give up on him. He had heard the phrase “shop til’ you drop” before, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be taken so literally.
Mic sent him off to start the car while he waited in line so that he couldn’t see the total price again, not that the gesture really did much. He had seen what everything cost, he knew exactly how much they had spent on him today, but he was so goddamn tired that he didn’t bother trying to fight it.
He sat down in the car and cranked the AC like Mic had asked him to even though they hadn’t been in the store long enough for the car to get that hot. The air chilled his skin quickly, but he didn’t do anything to change it; he was exhausted and the cool air was giving him a very limited bout of artificial energy. He stared through the windshield at the brick wall they had parked in front of and wondered how the fuck he ended up here. The amount of incredibly improbable events that had to have occurred for him to be sitting here right now was a statistical marvel and he found himself laughing at the absurdity of it. He shut himself up quickly because he realized that he probably looked insane and he did not want to explain this to Mic. What would he even say? “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m totally not off my rocker. I was just having a laugh because my life is so fucked up that I don't know what else to do!” Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well.
He kept his mouth shut and forced his eyes to stay open as he waited.
He was so goddamn tired. He just wanted to go home, but he was never going to get to go back there. Everything was different now and he did his best to come to terms with that. If the way he had to hold back tears and press his lips together to stop their trembling was anything to go by, then he’d say that his best wasn’t good enough.
The drive back to the apartment passed in a blur that he didn’t even try to pay attention to. Mic didn’t try to talk to him again and he was grateful for that, he’s not sure he would be able to keep his breakdown at bay if he had to speak right now. He kept his eyes on his lap because he felt like even the sights of this unfamiliar part of town would be enough to set him off. God, he was so pathetic.
***
By the time he got back to the car, Midoriya looked vacant. He glanced up to them and said a quiet “thank you” that felt more performative than like actual gratitude, which was fine. He didn’t need to be grateful, Hizashi fully understood why he wasn’t grateful, the kiddo didn’t ask for any of this, he didn’t want any of this, and they knew that.
The nervous bouncing of Midoriya’s leg did not adjust to the beat of the radio on the short drive back home which was disappointing but not unsurprising. They had been out for a few hours and he was already tired when they left; they might need to get Midoriya on some melatonin too, they’re not sure how much he was sleeping but it clearly wasn’t enough.
He only got the chance to pick up one singular bag before Midoriya scooped the rest up, and again, Hizashi just let him. It’d be nice to have a free hand to open the door anyway and he did not seem to be struggling with the weight. They led the way back upstairs and saw Sho’s shoes in the genkan before he spotted him puttering around the kitchen making lunch. Their eyes caught and Sho raised an eyebrow in question, asking how it went. They pursed their lips and raised their brows to say that it was kind of a shit show, but it could have gone worse.
As they walked further into the apartment past the genkan Sho looked at him and raised a brow again before shooting a pointed look toward the dining table and the new phone still in its box that sat there. Was now a good time for this? He shifted his focus back over to Midoriya who was biting his lip and looking at the box on the table as well.
Alright, looks like now was the time whether they wanted it to be or not.
“‘s yours, kid,” Sho spoke up casually.
His lip was trembling despite it being trapped harshly between his teeth and his brow was furrowed in a way that made it look like he was in pain. He walked over to the table, set one of the bags down, and used his free hand to pick the box up and shove it into one of the bags. When he turned around to look at them his eyes were glassy as he bowed and forced out another stiff and insincere “thank you” before making his way back to his room.
That could have gone worse, they supposed. The poor kid was probably having a breakdown behind the shut door, though. They went to the bathroom and set down the bag of toiletries on the sink, they strained their ears as they walked past the kid’s door but they couldn’t hear anything. He had expected as much, he had hardly heard anything while he was in the room with the kid as he had a breakdown. Crying silently was a learned skill and it made him nauseous to know how good Midoriya was at it.
“I assume that it didn’t go well?” Sho asked as he walked back into the living room.
“It went fine. He got overwhelmed but we got what we needed to get,” they replied as they plopped down in one of the bar stools at the counter.
They should get another one of these, there were only two.
“I’d give him time and bring him lunch after we’re done, he’s probably having a breakdown right now,” they added as they watched Sho finish up the sandwiches he was preparing.
He nodded his head, set a plate in front of them and grabbed them both drinks before he took his spot to their left. Neither of them said anything as they poked at their food, but Hizashi knew they were both turning the same thought over in their heads, it never felt so wrong to do the right thing.
Notes:
Thank you all for reading!!!
Chapter 131: they ask you how you are and you just have to say that you're fine even though your not *really* fine but you just can't get into it becau-
Notes:
Shout out to Spade and Beezus for beta reading. Join the discord and personally thank them for every non run on sentence.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He had school tomorrow.
He couldn’t just go to school tomorrow.
What was he supposed to do? Just act like nothing happened? All three of them had been out for the same two days, people were bound to pick up on that, right? What was he supposed to say? Just hit ‘em with a “family emergency” like he used to do with Eraser?
The tremor in his hands had yet to fully settle and he hadn’t been able to focus on a damn thing for longer than 15 minutes without finding himself staring off into nothing and contemplating every way in which he had irreparably fucked up everything. People were bound to notice that. Part of him wished that his peers didn’t give enough of a shit about him to notice like his old classmates at Aldera. It was easier to hide things when no one cared enough to ask why he was limping. Or why his eyes were so dull and vacant. Or why he kept jumping every time a door down the hall slammed shut.
God, everything was so much easier when no one cared.
He’d gotten enough texts from All Might and his classmates that he had run out of minutes on his phone so he couldn’t reply even if he had wanted to. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hear their concern, but he wasn’t going to have a choice about that come tomorrow. Well, come later today at this point; it was 3 am.
He would have to tell All Might the truth. He had been a part of the whole ‘meeting with his mom’ plan, he was going to know that something was up when the meeting never happened. He had been planning to tell him the truth anyways, just because everything went to shit didn’t mean that he got a free pass.
Izuku groaned quietly and looked up at the ceiling. This was all such a fucking mess and he wished he could just sleep through the fallout. He wished he could sleep at all, actually; the 10 hours he had gotten Thursday were coming back to bite him.
He didn’t want to be here, he wanted to go home, his actual home, not some guest room. He’s not sure if being here was better or worse than being in some random foster placement. At least if it was some random family they would have been prepared to deal with him, they would have expected to give up their space and time. Mic and Eraser didn’t ask for this. He was supposed to help people, the last thing he ever wanted to be was a burden for someone else to bear and now he’d twisted everyone’s arm and forced them to help him.
He didn’t want help.
This was such a nightmare, he wished he could sleep and have actual nightmares, those were far more inviting than this.
He’s not sure whether he actually slept or if he just laid in bed dozing for a few hours. He was leaning toward the latter because he was still absolutely exhausted when he heard shuffling beyond the door. It sounded like someone was in the kitchen and a brief glance at the clock told him that it was probably the usual time that they got up to get ready for work. He didn’t move despite knowing that whoever that was making that noise was probably getting breakfast ready. He should help them, or at the very least offer to help, but he was so tired and every time he saw either of them white hot guilt forced itself through every chink in his armor.
He was a coward, so he stayed put.
Eraser had made breakfast today. It made sense, Mic took much longer to get ready. It looked delicious but it tasted like sand. Though he expected that wasn’t due to Eraser’s cooking skill; anything would have tasted like trying to eat sand right now.
He finished his plate and got ready for school. He waited in the guest room until they called for him and he sat in the back seat of the car silently. They didn’t try to force him to talk, which he was grateful for. When they walked into the school Mic broke away from them to go to his homeroom and he followed Eraser to theirs, where he walked in and took his seat at the desk in the front. Was he forcing him to stay here by proxy? Eraser knew that he walked into the room last second most days, they usually walked in at the same time. Was he trying to help somehow? Because this wasn’t helping. He quite desperately wanted to go sit in his little hidden alcove and wait until his classmates didn’t have enough time to question him before the bell rang, but instead, he walked to his seat and sat down.
Iida wasn’t even here yet, no one was here yet. They were over 30 minutes early. Eraser was going through some papers at his desk and Izuku reveled in the awkward silence while he had it because he knew it wouldn’t take long before his classmates started showing up.
“Midoriya!” he heard Uraraka exclaim upon entering the classroom, Iida in tow, “Where have you been? I texted you like a million times!”
He did his best to not cringe away as she darted over to him but given the way that she slowed her pace, he had to assume he didn’t do a great job of it. Eraser was still sat at the front of the room bent over the papers at his desk. He didn’t look up at them, but Izuku could tell he wasn’t paying attention to the papers at all.
“S-sorry, I know. I– um– we– there was, um, a f-family emergency,” he peeped out.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My pushing probably didn’t help– and then the messages stopped going through so I– I'm sorry, I was just really worried… Is everyone okay?” she asked hesitantly.
Iida remained uncharacteristically quiet. God, he shouldn’t have said family emergency in front of him, that was insensitive. He could have just said he wasn’t feeling well or something, he probably looked tired enough to sell that lie.
“Um, y-yeah, everyone’s f-fine,” he dismissed with a cringe; way to rub it in Izuku.
“Aizawa-sensei and Yamada-sensei were out as well so you didn’t miss too much, not that you really need to catch up in English anyways. You guys were out on a mission, right? How’d it go?” Uraraka changed the subject and target of the conversation smoothly.
Eraser looked up from his desk with a bored expression like usual.
“Yes, it went fine,” he lied.
God, he was making other people lie too. He felt sick.
“That’s good,” she replied, not letting any disappointment she may or may not have for Eraser’s lack of elaboration show.
“I’m glad you’re back Midoriya,” Iida dismissed himself back to his desk with a polite nod.
“T-thanks, Iida.”
“So we’ve got two days before internship picks are due. I looked through the agencies you highlighted and I think I’m going to go with Gunhead. Have you narrowed down your massive list?” she asked with a playful jab.
“N-not as much as I should have b-by now,” he answered honestly.
He’d been doing his best to think about that and not everything else going on around him, but his efforts had largely been in vain. He had no clue what he wanted. Both Mic and Eraser had offered him an internship, going with Eraser might help build back the pitiful remnants of their partnership, and going with Mic might help him build a persona that wasn’t so goddamn pathetic, but at the same time, he would rather go with literally anyone else. He had invaded their home and he had to be at one of their jobs already, they needed a corner of their lives away from him. Selfishly, he didn’t want to have to deal with them any more than he needed to; he had enough things reminding him about how much he had messed up, he didn’t need to be around the two people who he’d fucked over the most 24/7.
“Well, what do you want to work on most? That helped me narrow down my choices,” Uraraka offered.
God, he wanted to slam his head through the desk. The only hero he could think of with a similar quirk who could help him with quirk control was All Might and, well, he’d helped him about as much as he could at this point, plus he didn’t offer out internships anyway. He didn’t want to sound cocky, but he didn’t feel like he really needed to work on hand-to-hand combat like Uraraka, so that ruled that out as well. Public persona seemed to be the only major issue he had right now, so he should probably focus on that. He had gotten a lot of high-ranking heroes on his list, he should go through those and see what would be the best fit.
“That sounds like a good plan! Sometimes you just need to talk it out, right?” Uraraka replied.
For fucks sake he was too tired to keep his mouth shut. He’d said all of that out loud. He was such an asshole, goddamnit. He spared a look up to Uraraka but she still had a pleasant smile on her face so either she wasn’t mad or was a great liar. He averted his gaze quickly and kept his mouth sealed shut.
More people had gathered since they had started talking and he spotted Todoroki making his way to his seat. He nodded at him in greeting so Izuku nodded back. He was going to be interning with his father and Izuku didn’t envy him.
Actually, Endeavor had sent him an offer as well, or at least his agency had. He was the highest-ranked hero on his list, plus he might be able to keep an eye on Todoroki if he went with him…
No, that was an awful idea. Endeavor couldn’t teach him a damn thing about public personas when his was so shit to begin with– well, he could teach him what not to do…
Hmm.
His first internship being at such a big agency would look good on paper, he would be able to keep an eye on Todoroki, and he might be able to learn how to deal with the media from Burnin’. He’d at least learn how to not deal with the media from Endeavor.
Why was he talking himself into this? This was a terrible idea.
He was going to do it anyway, wasn’t he?
Goddamnit.
There wasn’t too much time left until class started, almost everyone was here by now. Thankfully, Uraraka chatting about nothing at him deterred anyone else who may have asked questions about his absence. When the bell rang and everyone was in their seats, Eraser stood up and started class like nothing had changed at all.
***
First and second period passed without much fanfare. Midoriya looked exhausted in English and Hizashi was glad that he didn’t really need to pay attention to the lesson. One less class to catch up on would do him good. He had been hoping to construct a JSL curriculum for him to follow so that he didn’t have to take another class on and be forced into a room with a whole new group of peers to pester him, but that was going to have to wait. Today he just kept an eye out and let the kid blink far too slowly to not be considered micro-napping.
It wasn’t until third period that anything of note happened.
“Yamada!” someone burst into the empty teacher’s lounge on their break period damn near shouting, causing them to jump a good few inches off their chair.
“What?” they asked, looking up half concerned and half annoyed to see Yagi staring back at them with a panicked look in his eyes.
“Sorry,” he said before looking around the room and turning back to them once he’d confirmed it was empty, “The meeting. Nedzu said the meeting was canceled and Midoriya hasn’t been in class for the past two days. He hasn’t been– Nedzu won’t tell me anything and I–”
“He’s fine, Yagi,” Hizashi cut him off.
He raised his eyebrows and pulled out Sho’s chair to sit next to him after that.
“What do you know?” he asked in a very serious and hushed tone.
“I can’t tell you anything more than what Nedzu can. It’s an open investigation–”
“Investigation?! What’s there to investigate? Is he still with his mother? Has she been questioned? Is–”
“Yagi, I can’t tell you anything,” he cut him off again.
The man stared at him for a moment with a desperate pleading look in his eyes before he dropped his gaze to the floor and ran a hand over his face. He settled his fingers into his hair, holding his head up with his elbow propped on his knee; He looked like he might actually be sick with worry. They wanted to tell him that Midoriya was safe now, actually safe, he was with them and they weren’t going to let anything else happen to him, but he couldn’t.
“He’s safe now. I saw to it personally,” they did their best to assure him.
“So he wasn’t safe,” Yagi surmised, looking at him begging for any sort of answer.
Hizashi couldn’t give him that answer and they knew Yagi knew that so they just gave him a sad smile and repeated himself.
“He’s safe now.”
He heard a cracking sound and both of their attention was brought to Yagi’s left hand, which had apparently been holding onto the armrest of Sho’s chair far too tightly because it had been completely crushed. They heard him curse in English under his breath before he stood up, swapped Sho’s chair out for his own undamaged one, and left the room without another word.
Hizashi had expected questions, but he hadn’t expected that. It was obvious that Yagi was concerned for the kid, but that was more real emotion than he’d ever seen from the man. He’d come to learn that Yagi and All Might were two very different people, but in either state, his emotions were something he held close to his chest. That was not close to his chest and Hizashi didn’t know what to think about that.
They were glad someone in the kid’s life actually seemed to give a damn about him because lord knows he needed that, but why was All Might seemingly so personally invested? He had stayed with Midoriya in the hospital after the USJ too. Was it guilt or did something else happen that day that they didn’t know about? Trauma bonding was a hell of a way to build a relationship, but it wasn’t exactly healthy.
He was scheduled to be working with 1B today for heroics, but they sent a text to Sho to tell him to keep an eye out anyway. They weren’t going to let anyone else hurt this kid, not over their dead body. He couldn’t imagine All Might would do anything malicious, but he didn’t want him pestering the poor kid right now.
***
The day was exhausting and it was even more exhausting to know that he wouldn’t be going home after school finally let out. He had to go back to Mic and Eraser’s place and continue to take up their space and time. He did his best to ignore that for the time being as he waited outside the locker room. He had told Iida and Uraraka not to wait up for him but there was another peer that he needed to speak with before he left.
“T-Todoroki?” Izuku called for Todoroki’s attention as he exited the locker room.
He looked up quickly as if surprised to be addressed, though the emotion didn’t register on his face at all. He nodded back at him, greeting him wordlessly.
“Could I t-talk to you for a s-second?” he asked, glancing around at their classmates who were currently paying them no mind as they trickled out of the locker rooms.
“Yes, I have time,” Todoroki confirmed but made no move to leave the common space they were currently occupying.
Izuku nodded his head, indicating that he wanted Todoroki to come with him before he started walking away, sparing a glance over his shoulder to make sure he was following. He brought them off to the side, into a mostly disused hallway. It wasn't exactly private, but it was good enough for what he hoped to be a quick conversation
“I was t-thinking about accepting Endeavor's internship offer,” he started.
Todoroki raised an eyebrow at that.
“Why?” he asked with no intonation.
Well, that was a loaded question, one that he wasn’t sure whether he should answer truthfully.
“He’s the h-highest ranked o-offer I got– looks good on p-paper,” he responded with a half-truth.
“Okay,” Todoroki replied just as flatly as before.
“Is that alright w-with you?” Izuku clarified the question he actually meant to ask.
Todoroki stopped and thought for a moment, which Izuku was glad for, he had worried that he was just going to say it didn’t bother him regardless of whether it did or not.
“Yes, I don’t mind having you around,” he decided after a moment.
Oh… that was… that was sweet. But it still wasn’t really what he was asking.
“T-thanks– that’s n-nice but, um, I m-meant is it going to m-make your father m-mad? I don’t want to cause p-problems for you,” he clarified further.
“Yes, it will probably make him very angry,” Todoroki responded with the tiniest hint of a smirk.
“And that’s… okay?” he asked tentatively.
“I’m finally doing what he wants, I doubt he’d do anything to risk me changing my mind,” he replied, the slight uptick of his mouth turning into a proper smirk.
It was rare that Todoroki emoted at all, much less positively, so Izuku couldn’t stop the matching smile that crept across his face.
“So have t-things been b-better? Since the sports festival I m-mean?” he asked hesitantly.
“Better than it would have been if I had lost without using my fire,” Todoroki replied, the smile falling from his face.
“S-sorry,” he replied reflexively.
“For what?”
“No– I just m-mean– I wish you didn’t have to d-deal with him at all.”
Todoroki just shrugged at that. There wasn’t anything to be said.
“He usually sics his interns on Burnin, he only ever takes them on for publicity’s sake so that if they ever make it big he can say they got their start with him. I will be working with him, though, special treatment,” he said unenthusiastically.
“So we probably won’t be working together much?”
“I’ll see what I can do, I’ve managed to get soba for dinner three days in a row now just cause I asked. Like I said, he doesn’t want me changing my mind again.”
Izuku couldn’t help but laugh at that, it was so childish, he was glad Todoroki was still capable of being childish. Plus the smirk was back on his face and it was difficult to not let that infectious grin spread.
“Alright, then it’s a p-plan. I’ll see you Monday b-bright and early,” he said with a smile.
“You’ll also see me tomorrow bright and early,” Todoroki pointed out.
He wasn’t sure whether that was Todoroki trying to make a joke or not, but he laughed anyway. The smile on Todoroki’s face told him that that was, in fact, him trying to make a joke and that only made Izuku laugh more.
This felt good. This felt like a purpose. For the last few days, he had been completely lost with no other objective than to make it to the next day and be as unobtrusive as he could, which was a losing battle from the get-go. Getting more intel on the Todoroki family was a concrete goal, it was something he could focus on and work toward that had absolutely nothing to do with him. He was so tired of himself, he had thought about little else besides himself for the past four days and to say he was sick of it would be an understatement.
He waved goodbye to Todoroki and set off to work out the next order of business. Hopefully, Mei was still in the labs, he knew they were open until 4 and he doubted she would leave before then unless she was being kicked out. Mic and Eraser had told him that they didn’t leave until around 3:30 anyway, so he had time.
When he made his way down to the support course classrooms he was damn near tempted to give up his spot in the heroics class just to get his hands on these labs. There were tools he didn’t even know existed lining the walls along with the top of the line version of every tool he had ever set eyes on. It was beautiful.
He could see Mei going to town on some sort of metal something with an angle grinder. The awful sound of grinding metal went on for longer than he would have preferred before she finally put the tool down.
“Mei?” he asked as she pulled out a hammer and started wailing on the piece of sheet metal she had just been grinding down.
She gave no sort of hint that she heard a damn thing. That didn’t surprise him given the racket she was making.
“Mei!” he called, louder this time.
She still had a single-minded focus. A bolt fell off her bench and rolled to a stop at his feet. He figured she’d notice him when she went to pick it up so he just waited, but instead, she bent down, picked the bolt up off the floor, and continued ignoring him. She had to have seen him, right? Before she started making too much noise to hear his own thoughts over again he spoke up.
“MEI!”
Third time’s a charm. Her focus shot up to him and she looked surprised for a split second before a grin that would have been off-putting to most spread across her face.
“Ten million! Did you come back for more of my babies?”
“Y-yes actually– well, kinda. I need a f-favor,” he started hesitantly.
“Ooo do you need a custom baby? I can do anything, just give me an outline and 24 hours!” she exclaimed, her manic grin only getting wider.
“I– yes, a custom order, so to s-speak, but can y-you keep it b-between us?” he murmured low enough that no one else would be able to hear.
Everyone else seemed to give Mei’s workstation a wide berth, which was helpful. The scorch marks on the wall told the story as to why that was the case. Mei raised an eyebrow at that and looked around them as well, taking in her surroundings for probably the first time in several hours if Izuku had to guess.
“Depends on what it is. I’m not risking my access to these labs,” she replied, eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“N-nothing crazy, I just n-need an audio recorder. Something small and d-discrete,” he explained as little as possible.
She squinted her eyes at him suspiciously again. He’s not sure what she was looking for but after an awkwardly long moment of silence, she seemed to have found it.
“If something goes wrong you didn’t get it from me and if something goes right you owe it all to Mei Hatsume Industries, got it?” she decided.
“O-of course,” he agreed.
“Good. I’ll have something ready by the end of the day tomorrow,” she replied before returning her focus to the poor piece of metal in front of her.
God, where was Mei when he was trying to stake out block 8?
“T-thank you,” he added between hammer strikes.
Mei just waved him off and didn’t even look up.
Alright, that was that done, now all he needed to do was look into what went into building a legal case against someone for child abuse. That sounded… that sounded like something he shouldn’t be doing on either the school’s or Eraser’s wifi. He doubted that they would look through his search history at, um, home(?) but he really didn’t want to get into a conversation about that and they didn’t live too far from the university library. He didn’t want to be stuck in that room any longer than he needed to be. If the current state of his life wasn’t enough to drive him crazy on its own, then not having gone out for the past 4 nights would have done the trick anyways. He couldn’t stand the thought of a fifth night cooped up in that room.
Yeah, going to the library sounded pretty nice right about now.
***
When they all got home from school Midoriya immediately made for his room and shut the door behind himself. Shota held back a sigh and looked up at Hizashi. They had their lips pursed in a way that said they weren’t very happy about that either, but there was nothing for it.
“You still have that grading to do? We could work together out here,” they offered.
He simply nodded in response and started unpacking his bag onto the dining table. They had just barely gotten themselves settled by the time Midoriya’s door opened and he walked out in his street clothes. He nodded at them politely but didn’t say a word before scrambling to the genkan. Hizashi exchanged a confused look with him but he stood up quickly when he heard the gentle rustling of the kid putting his shoes on.
He rounded the corner just in time to see him stand up from tying his shoes and make his way toward the door.
“Kid, where are you going?” he asked calmly.
Midoriya nearly jumped out of his skin in response.
“The, um, the l-library?” he answered, though it sounded more like a question.
“The university library?” he asked to clarify.
“Y-yes sir,” Midoriya confirmed.
“That’s on the way home, we could have dropped you off,” he pointed out.
A guilty look spread across the kid’s face at that.
“I d-didn’t think about that, s-sorry.”
“It’s not a problem, do you want me to take you there?” he asked even though he almost certainly knew the answer already.
“No! No, you d-don’t have to d-do that! I like w-walking,” he denied quickly.
Yep… that’s what he expected.
“Okay, that’s fine. Do you have your phone?”
“Um, y-yes.”
“It’s charged?”
“Y-yes.”
He didn’t know how to say what he needed to say in a way that didn’t sound patronizing, but the silence was becoming overbearing and he needed to say something .
“You can’t just– we need–” he gave several false starts to a sentence before taking a deep breath, “I want you to ask before you go places. If you just leave and we don’t know where you went we will get worried.”
He did not like the dumbstruck look Midoriya had on his face in response to that. It was like the thought didn’t occur to him that they gave a shit at all. He stood there for a moment before sputtering out apologies and asking if it was alright if he went to the library. He told him it was fine as long as he kept his phone by him and was back in time for dinner. Part of him felt silly for imposing rules like that on him, he was a seasoned vigilante for fucks sake! He could take a stroll on the nice side of town, but at the same time, he was still a kid.
This was all too confusing and he had no clue what he was doing.
“Sho?” Hizashi called from the dining table.
He was standing in the empty genkan and staring at the closed front door silently. He should probably go back to the table now. He didn’t respond, he just walked back and took his seat. They sat in silence for a while before Hizashi spoke up again.
“Sho, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, just angry that the kid doesn’t understand being treated with basic human decency,” he dismissed.
They sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes.
“I think you handled that well. This is a difficult thing to navigate, there’s not much of a guidebook on how to care for a child who’s been an adult for years,” Hizashi said after a while.
Of course, they saw right through his dismissal. He scrubbed a hand across his stubble and took in a deep breath before standing again.
“Coffee?” he asked as he walked to the kitchen.
He didn’t see the disappointed look on Hizashi’s face but he could hear it in their tone.
“No, I’m good.”
Every armrest in a 5 mile radius when Toshinori knows that Izuku is in peril:
(ref to ch 92 where he did the same thing while watching Izu in the entrance exam)
Notes:
Thanks for reading! Feel free to hmu with title suggestions in the discord in #recent-chapter-discussion
Chapter 132: No One is Adult™ Enough to Handle This Shit
Notes:
Shoutouts to Spade and Beezus for beta reading this for me <3
Join the Discord at the link below 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Toshinori felt like he was going to fall apart at the seams. He had only caught glimpses of Midoriya yesterday and he looked awful. The bags under his eyes were worse than they had been at the height of their training, but he hadn’t reached out to him. Midoriya clearly didn’t want to talk about whatever had happened, but the worry was eating him alive. He was going to be with class 1A for heroics today and he tried to tell himself that seeing him in one piece would be enough to soothe his nerves, but he wasn’t very convincing.
Midoriya didn’t seem any more rested today than he had the day before and he was just as skittish and shy as he had been the day they met. He hadn’t realized how much progress the boy had made until it was gone. His performance in class was admirable, but he knew the boy was capable of more– though perhaps not right now he wasn’t.
He kept an eye out for him; he didn’t linger close to Toshinori’s side like he usually did and that realization stung more than he cared to admit. What had happened? And why didn’t he feel like he could come to him for help? He would figure out how to give that boy the world if he only just asked for it.
The moment class was dismissed Midoriya fled to the locker rooms without sparing him a glance. He didn’t want to be overbearing but he needed to speak with him. He’d hardly been able to sleep not knowing what was going on. He didn’t need the full story, but he needed to hear from Midoriya himself that he was safe now. He wasted no time in changing back into his normal suit in hopes that he could catch Midoriya before he left.
***
“Midoriya, my boy!”
He should have known better than to choose the disused hallway All Might had shown him as a hiding place. He wasn’t exactly hiding from All Might, but he wasn’t not hiding from him either. The last few days had been exhausting and his guilt had been eating at him like a ravenous dog. He had planned to tell All Might the truth anyway. Just because that plan didn’t really pan out didn’t mean he was off the hook. All Might deserved to know the truth.
“H-hi All M-Might,” he greeted in return.
“I…” All Might started but quickly trailed off; he was tense as his eyes searched Izuku’s body for injury, “Are you alright?”
He instinctively went to say yes, he was fine, but that wasn’t true by any metric and All Might didn’t deserve to be fed another lie.
“I’ve b-been better,” he settled on.
“I don’t– there was supposed to be a meeting. It was canceled and everyone’s been rather tight-lipped about the whole thing. I– you don’t need to tell me what happened, but you’re safe now, right?” All Might asked; he looked so sad and worried and, god, the guilt was so overwhelming he could hardly breathe through it.
“Ye-yeah I’m– yes. I’m s-safe now… I’m s-sorry,” he choked out.
“No, my boy, you have nothing to apologize for, this–”
“No, I d-do. I lied to you,” he forced himself to look him in the eye as he said that, “c-constantly f-for months. Ever since the d-day we met, I’ve been lying through my te-teeth.”
Before All Might got the chance to respond to that, someone walked past the opening of the hallway. They didn’t look down to check out what was happening, and even if they did they would only have been able to see All Might as Izuku was hidden behind a crook in the wall, but still, All Might offered an out.
“Do you want to speak privately? Or another time?” he asked, “You don’t need to tell me anything. As long as you’re safe, I couldn’t care less about whatever you lied about,” he added, though Izuku could tell it wasn’t true; he cared a lot about what Izuku had been lying about and he had the right to know.
“Yeah, that’s p-probably for the b-best, s-somewhere else I me-mean,” he replied.
All Might studied him warily for a moment before nodding.
“Come with me,” he said before turning on his heel and leading the way to somewhere.
Izuku followed dutifully.
The room he was led to looked to be a meeting room of some sort. It looked private enough; it seemed unlikely that anyone would disturb them, but even so, Izuku locked the door behind himself. If he was going to bring up OFA in any capacity, he didn’t want someone to wander in and overhear it. He sat down on the couch across from the armchair All Might had settled in and held his backpack to his chest like a scared child with a teddy bear. He knew he probably looked pathetic, but well, he felt pathetic, so he may as well look the part.
All Might looked like he had a thousand questions but he was too polite to ask any of them and Izuku just wanted to get this over with.
“My mom left. Y-years ago,” he forced himself to speak before he could chicken out of the conversation.
All Might didn’t say anything, he just stared back at Izuku blankly. He was really hoping that he would ask follow-up questions or lead the discussion somehow, but Izuku knew he wasn’t owed that so he forced himself to continue.
“I’ve been, um, on m-my own for almost f-four y-years.”
His hands were trembling where he had them gripped onto his backpack.
“…What do you mean, ‘On your own?’” All Might asked after a tense moment of silence.
“I’ve um– I’ve– It’s j-just b-been me– I don’t…” he sputtered out before trailing off.
He couldn’t force himself to spell everything out. He had been homeless; he didn’t think that in and of itself was something he was ashamed of, but well, you learn something new every day.
“Where– you live in an apartment. Your mother must have at least paid rent, when did you last speak to her?” he asked.
“I– I d-don’t l-live in the a-apartment…” he tried to explain but the words wouldn’t make it out of his mouth.
“What… what do you– If you didn’t– then where? Surely you don’t mean…” All Might trailed off.
The look on his face was begging Izuku to take back his words, but he couldn’t. He ran out of lies and all that was left was the ugly truth.
“I d-didn’t want t-to be p-put in the s-system. N-no one w-wants the q-quirkless k-kid. It was b-better t-that way. I’m s-sorry I d-didn’t tell you– I’m s-sorry–”
“No. Stop,” All Might cut off his blubbering.
He was crying. When did he start crying? Why was he always crying?
He forced himself to look back up at All Might, but he immediately regretted it. He looked angry and the urge to apologize again was difficult to stomp down. All Might had told him to stop and he wasn’t stupid enough to disobey a direct order when he was already mad. All Might’s hands were shaking as he dragged them through his hair and Izuku could feel his pulse in the pit of his stomach. When All Might looked back up at him, his expression softened and he looked contemplative for a brief second before he spoke.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Izuku had no clue how long he sat there staring dumbly back at All Might before he spoke again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” All Might all but pleaded.
He looked devastated, he looked betrayed, and it was almost too much for Izuku to stomach. No honest answer he gave would do anything but upset All Might further so Izuku didn’t say anything. He watched him as he propped his chin up on his fists and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. He looked out into nothing for what felt like an eternity before his focus returned to Izuku.
“None of what happened to you was your fault, the way you were treated was not your fault… I– someone should have–” he cut himself off and scrubbed at his face.
Eraser had essentially told him the same thing; they were far too forgiving. They blamed the fact that he was a kid like that made up for all the lies he told, but it wasn’t even true. He wasn’t a kid and he hadn’t been since he was four years old; of all people, he would have expected All Might to understand that. Everything he did and every lie he told was a deliberate decision that he made, and those decisions hurt people. He wasn’t a child, what he did was wrong and he knew it. Why was everyone so eager to let him off the hook?
“N-no, it wasn’t f-fair to you. You t-trusted m-me and I u-used that against you.”
“You should never have been put in the situation to make that decision in the first place, it–”
“But I was, and I did,” Izuku cut him off, “Whether or not someone else is to blame, I broke your trust and I did it intentionally,” he insisted with more resolve than he knew he had in him.
“No, my boy, no. You lied to protect yourself; any perceived breach of my trust was collateral damage,” All Might argued back; he sounded so tired.
Why the fuck wasn’t anyone mad at him? And why was he mad that no one was mad at him? He wanted to scream at everyone and ask them all why they were being so stupid, but he bit his tongue.
“I’m sorry that I failed to notice you were struggling so much. I had all the pieces, I should have put the puzzle together,” All Might added after a long moment of silence.
The apology only made him angrier. He wasn’t a goddamn child, he didn’t put the pieces together because Izuku didn’t let him! He had been fighting to get everyone off his ass for years. No one noticed because he didn’t let them! It was deliberate! It was willful! It was premeditated! And everyone was just cooing at him like he was a kitten left in a box on the side of the road. He wasn’t some helpless victim, why the fuck wasn’t anyone mad at him?!
“The people you’re staying with, do they treat you well?” All Might asked either ignoring or not noticing Izuku’s mounting fury.
“Yes,” Izuku answered shortly.
“Good… that’s good,” All Might replied, only sounding half present in the conversation, “You’ll tell me if they don’t? Please… please tell me if they don’t.”
He looked uncertain and guilty for even asking, and Izuku felt worse lying to him again.
“Yeah, I w-will.”
Eraser had every right to treat him poorly. He didn’t expect him to, but he wouldn’t jeopardize the man’s career if he did.
“T-they’re expecting m-me, uh, h-home s-soon,” Izuku said, glancing at the clock to sell his point.
Another lie. He did it without even meaning to. He wasn’t expected anywhere for another half hour, but he kept that to himself. He was selfish and he was a coward.
“Oh, I’m sorry for keeping you, my boy. You can…” he trailed off gesturing toward the door, “I just… need a minute,” All Might added as he looked at the floor.
It felt wrong to leave him here like this, but it also felt like he was sitting in a pot of slowly boiling water, his burning shame only got worse and worse the longer he stayed. A primal survival instinct deep in his gut was telling him to run and he was too spineless to stand up to it, so he obeyed it like a dog with its tail between its legs.
***
Toshinori sat in the meeting room and stared off into nothing until the golden light from the window started to shine directly into his eyes. The sun was setting; he had been here for hours, but he still didn’t make any effort to move. He didn’t know how much longer he sat there until the door swung open to reveal Nedzu.
“You’ve been in here for quite some time, Yagi,” the stoat greeted softly.
“He was homeless, wasn’t he?” He asked, ignoring Nedzu’s observation.
“I cannot answer that,” he responded in a tone tinged with too much regret to mean that the answer to Toshinori’s question was no.
“Who’s leading the investigation?” he asked, hoping for any sort of answer.
That had nothing to do with Midoriya’s personal information, he could answer that question. Nedzu shut the door behind himself and walked over to sit down on the couch across from him where Midoriya had been earlier.
“Your secrets are safe, you don’t need to–”
“That’s not what I'm concerned about,” Toshinori cut him off.
“In an official capacity, Detective Tsukauchi has taken over the case, however, given that his plate is rather full at the moment, Eraserhead will be doing the majority of the ‘footwork,’ so to speak.”
“Aizawa?” he asked without even meaning to reply.
“Yes, he was the one who found Midoriya last Wednesday night, or rather, Thursday morning,” Nedzu replied politely.
Oh.
That didn’t sit right with him. He took a moment to parse out why, and when he arrived at a conclusion he wished he hadn’t poked the bear. Aizawa had gotten to the root of this issue in hardly more than a month of knowing Midoriya; it had nearly been a year since they had met and he had failed to notice.
Perverse jealousy and self-loathing settled heavily in his chest.
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” he asked more bitterly than he had intended to.
“Do you want more people involved in this case?” Nedzu challenged.
No, he didn’t, but he did want to know why the hell he wasn’t involved in this case. Both the detective and Nedzu knew what Midoriya was to him, he should have been questioned at the very least seeing as though he’d known the boy nearly a full year now and failed to report the obvious signs he’d displayed.
“The case is in good hands, Yagi. Aizawa is a thorough man, no one will escape justice and Midoriya is safe. Though I would be prepared to let him in on your little secret; I fear he’s too diligent to not figure it out sooner or later,” Nedzu added after he didn’t respond.
Hm, that’s why Naomasa had brought that up the last time they spoke. He tried not to feel angry at his friend for not having told him what was going on, but it burned in his gut regardless.
“You are not the only one who failed to notice the signs. Midoriya is clever, he hid everything from many people for quite a long time. I’m not sure how long he would have been able to pull the wool over my eyes if it hadn’t been for certain exacerbating circumstances, and you know how rare it is for something to sneak under my radar. Sitting here and beating yourself up is not helping anyone. Go home. Get some rest. Midoriya needs steady people to rely on and you will not be that if you sit here all night,” he admonished.
Nedzu had such a logical way of navigating emotions. He’d known him for many years, he knew the creature didn’t feel things the same way humans would, but he had a very thorough understanding of the human psyche. It was odd, usually intellectual types didn’t waste their efforts on emotions, but Nedzu studied them like anything else: meticulously, leaving no stone unturned. He had a clinical type of wisdom that Toshinori was rarely, if ever, able to find fault in. Still, he stayed in place until the stoat slid off of the couch and left the room, pointedly leaving the door open on his way out.
Eventually, he got up on unsteady legs and made his way home in a daze.
Home.
Homeless.
His boy had been homeless for years .
How had no one noticed? How had he not noticed? The boy had admitted he was short on food for god’s sake and that didn’t even tip him off! What kind of hero was he? A child was struggling right under his nose for months and he had done nothing .
Blessedly, he was able to get himself home before tears started to slide down his cheeks. He sat on the couch and stared at the far wall as they fell silently. He didn’t know how to make it up to him, he didn’t know that there was anything he could do to make it up to him. He had failed miserably, and there was nothing he could do to fix that.
How could he have done that to him?
How could his mother have done that to him?
How could anyone look at that boy and not see what Toshinori saw?
There was too much guilt and self-loathing mixed in with his anger for him to feel it properly. He wished he could just be angry; that would be easier to cope with, he knew anger well. He knew how to stuff it inside a jar and bury it behind all the other things he needed to concern himself with. Guilt, however? Guilt clung to him too closely, every time he tried to push it away it would stick to him. The more he fought it the worse it became, like a mouse in a glue trap. He had been stuck in that trap to varying degrees for decades, but now he was well and truly pinned. His heart was pumping wildly, sending adrenaline through his veins, begging him to get away from the wretched feeling, but he knew better than to waste the energy trying to fight it.
He was stuck where he sat on the couch and there was no escape from it. There was no escape from what he had done, or rather, what he had failed to do. He felt as lost as he did the day Nana had died, he felt like a child, he felt clueless.
Toshinori woke up on the couch with his bones screaming bloody murder at him. Everything hurt, but he supposed that was well deserved. He sat up, slowly stretching out his limbs. He hadn’t taken his evening medication and he had slept on the couch, that was the perfect recipe for an awful morning if not an awful entire day.
His pain had woken him up, the sun seemed to have just begun rising from what he could tell by the lighting in the room. Hopefully, it wasn’t just a gloomy day. Rain certainly wouldn’t help the aching in his bones. He stood up, supporting his weight on the armrest of the couch, and stayed still until he was sure that his legs wouldn’t give out from under him when he took a step forward. He immediately made his way to the bathroom and started running a bath; he had work today and he couldn’t be seen walking around like his muscles were going to snap if he moved too quickly. Usually, his left hip was the only persistent ache he dealt with. He supposed that meant the meds were doing their job.
The hot water helped immediately. He should have taken his meds so that they had time to kick in by the time he got out, but he was too relieved to leave now. He stayed there until the water grew cool and he heard his alarm going off in the other room.
He toweled dry, threw a robe on, shut the alarm off, and made his accursed breakfast smoothie to chase the handful of pills he had to take in order to stay functional. Some days he took them without any sort of introspection, but some days the thought of them left a bitter taste on his tongue. Today was one of those days. Perhaps his brain was trying to latch on to anything other than yesterday’s revelations. It wasn’t working; he was just miserable twice over.
The ache in his bones settled for the most part, but the pitiful remnants of his stomach were not pleased with him skipping meds and a meal. He felt nauseous, he had to force down his breakfast– slowly and torturously. It felt like drinking tar, and he couldn’t imagine that it tasted much better either. He brushed his teeth and dressed himself, but didn’t bother trying to fix his hair; he couldn’t bear the thought of looking in the mirror. It looked like a rat's nest no matter what he did so there wasn’t really any point.
Staring at his front door with his shoes on didn’t seem to clue him into the fact that it was time to leave now. The task of turning the knob and opening the door seemed to be too much for his limbs to handle. He had been arriving to UA obscenely early ever since the USJ, but today he stood there in his genkan until he would be late if he stayed a second longer. The sterile white paint on the door failed to give him answers to the questions he didn’t have the strength to ask.
Notes:
Poor Toshinori. Thankfully, for armrests everywhere, he wasn't sitting in a desk chair for this conversation; who knows the untold horrors that may have befallen if he had been. I really want to get into his character more but there's just so much that I want to write and I'm never going to finish this gd fic if I keep going on tangents into every little thing I want to develop.
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 133: *guard dogs barking in the distance*
Notes:
shout outs to Woomy and Spade for beta reading... I think Beezus too. I don't remember tbh.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Mornings had started to fall into a new rhythm. Shota would walk with Midoriya to class and sit at his desk rather than sleeping in the teacher’s lounge for an extra half hour before classes started. He hadn’t expected Midoriya to follow him, but he had been. He’d just wanted to be accessible should the kid need him, though it seemed like Midoriya thought that he was caging him into the classroom. Either way, it was probably good to force him to socialize a bit. He’d been isolated for long enough; his friends certainly seemed happy that he was in class early enough to chat with him.
Another sad thought struck him as he watched them out of the corner of his eye, Midoriya hadn’t had friends before this, had he? Maybe acquaintances, but you can’t hide that much of your life from actual friends. That’s probably what had happened with whatever the situation with Shinso was.
…He’d likely need to be brought into the investigation because of that.
Goddamnit.
That was… that was going to have to wait for another day, the kid was still settling. Maybe he could get some information out of Shinso during the internship without having to divulge any of Midoriya’s personal information. That was a long shot, but he could hold on to hope for now.
The rest of the class filed in and the bell rang as he sat there thinking about Midoriya’s case. He’d yet to really start it, he’d been too busy getting everything settled at home. He wasn’t going to be able to put that off for very much longer.
“Internship choices are due, have them ready. I will be coming around to collect your forms shortly,” he announced as he stuffed the paperwork he had made no progress on back into a folder.
As Shota gathered all of the internship submissions, he didn’t even try to not peak at who Midoriya had chosen, he glossed over everyone else to review during lunch, but he couldn’t brush aside his curiosity for his… um… charge’s (?) choice any longer than he already had. When he read the name at the bottom of the paper he had to stop himself from doing a double take in front of the entire class.
Endeavor?
He chose Endeavor?
Of all of the crazy out-of-left-field options he had thought of, Endeavor didn’t even make the list. He could remember at least three times offhand that the kid had shit talked that man– granted, he had done that as Ivy, but they were one and the same. Given the discussion questions Midoriya had answered for his class, it didn’t seem like Ivy’s morals and values were any different from Midoriya’s, despite the dissonance between their personalities. Ivy hated Endeavor, they had said so quite explicitly on several occasions, so why the hell would Midoriya choose him?
He shouldn’t have read it, he wasn’t going to be able to focus properly until he talked to Hizashi about this. He turned his back to the class as he picked up a piece of chalk and sighed as subtly as he could manage before he started the lecture.
***
Eraser did not seem pleased by his choice of internship. His brow raised as he read it and his step faltered before he turned around to try and hide the sigh he let out. He couldn’t make him change his decision, could he? Izuku couldn’t tell him why he’d chosen who he’d chosen, if he did then he would insist on handling the situation himself, but A.) Eraser had enough shit going on right now, and B.) Izuku knew full well that there was information that he could get undercover that a proper investigation would never even brush the surface of. If this situation had gone unchecked for so long, then Endeavor either knew how to shut people up or cover his tracks. He would be able to catch narcs sniffing around his business, but Izuku was unassuming; a man that arrogant would never think that his downfall would be at the hands of some random kid, and he needed to use that to his advantage if this plan was going to work.
Moreover, anyone else leading this investigation would have to report it, Izuku didn’t. He would gather the intel, he would make the case, then he would present it to Todoroki. If Todoroki didn’t want to report it, then he didn’t have to. Ripping him out of his home wasn’t Izuku’s choice to make. He knew firsthand how awful that was, to have your whole life torn to shreds. Todoroki would be 18 in 3 years; if he would rather not disturb the peace and wait it out, then that was up to him. His siblings were already old enough to live on their own– why they still lived in that house of their own accord wasn’t something he had an answer for, especially if they weren’t allowed to interact with Todoroki. Hopefully that was something he would figure out over the course of his snooping.
More than any of that, he needed this selfishly. He had a purpose again, he couldn’t bear to have it taken away like everything else. They were going to ask him about this, he knew they would, and he needed to come up with a solid argument as to why he made this decision. He had a feeling that that argument was going to be due tonight at dinner. He fought back the urge to let out a sigh of his own and started taking notes.
***
Shota: (9:47 am)
🏢lunch
Shota sent off the code emoji they used to use in high school which was short for “meet me on the roof”. They used to have lunch up there when the weather permitted. He spent a lot of his free time on that roof, when the campus was too loud and home was too quiet. The little code started when Oboro or Hizashi would text him asking where he went and eventually he just started responding with that because it was easier.
Hizashi: (9:48 am)
Did something happen?
Shota: (9:48 am)
Not anything crazy but we need to talk and I need some air
Hizashi: (9:48 am)
👍
***
“Have you seen Yagi today? He looks awful,” Hizashi said as they stepped out onto the rooftop and spotted Shota.
“Mm, no. I assume he’s continuing to not take the lack of info well?” Sho replied.
“I didn’t ask. There’s nothing I can tell him anyway,” they answered.
Sho just grunted in acknowledgment as they sat down next to him.
“So what’d we need to talk about?” they prompted.
“Few things– you remember what happened on the first day of classes with Midoriya and Shinso?”
“Oh, shit,” they cursed, seeing where this was going.
“Yeah, I’m going to try to talk to him about it during the internship without spilling the whole story, but I doubt we’re going to be able to get away with not interviewing him about what happened between him and Midoriya,” Sho said in a tone that indicated he had more to say.
Hizashi waited patiently.
“I don’t think he had friends before UA. I think he ‘dumped’ Shinso for lack of a better word because he was getting too close to figuring out he was homeless…” he trailed off, so they waited for him to continue whenever he found the words, “He didn’t have anyone besides me and that– that cat.”
Oh.
They hadn’t forgotten about that night, they didn’t think they ever would, but it seemed as though his brain had put up a block preventing him from recontextualizing the incident. Midoriya would have been 14 when that happened. Only 14 years old and he was ready to put a bullet through his head and end it. The worst part is that Hizashi couldn’t blame him. The fact that this kid was still alive was nothing short of a miracle, several miracles, actually. Frankly, an innumerable amount of miracles. They remembered the night Sho had found Ivy sitting a little too precariously on the ledge, that was less than a year ago.
They really needed to get this kid in therapy.
“Well he’s got friends now, and he’s got us. We won’t let him down again, Sho,” they insisted after a long while of sitting in silence.
“That doesn’t change what happened,” he remarked bitterly.
“No, it doesn’t,” Hizashi agreed.
They started picking at their food when Shota didn’t bring up another topic. They both needed a minute to deal with what Shota had said. Eventually, he spoke up again.
“He chose Endeavor for his internship,” he stated with an undertone that said he was not pleased.
Hizashi nearly did a spit-take.
“Endeavor???” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah, he hates Endeavor; I don’t know why he picked him,” Shota confirmed.
Hizashi very generously tried to think of anything that Endeavor had to offer Midoriya and after several minutes of staring off into the middle distance, all he could come up with was that it looked good on paper. Endeavor was the highest-ranked hero to have sent out offers, but from what Sho had told him about Ivy, the kid didn’t much care for chart toppers.
“He’s on the approved list of agencies. As his teachers we have no right to stop him,” Sho continued.
“But as his guardians, we do,” Hizashi finished the thought Shota had started.
Shota hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t clarify his thoughts on the matter. He wanted to know what they thought first. He thought it was an awful idea. Endeavor had very little if anything of use that he could teach Midoriya, and after being informed that the kid had burn scars covering half his torso, they doubted being around Endeavor would be good for his mental health. It was a terrible choice, but it was his choice. He had just gone from near complete freedom to not even having the choice of going back home, however shitty said home was.
The social worker had said it herself, this was Midoriya’s choice, they couldn’t take that away from him.
“I don’t think we should tell him he can’t go with Endeavor. We can discourage it, but he needs to be able to make the choice himself. He’ll have other internship opportunities in the future and if he does want to go the limelight route, then this is a strategic choice,” they concluded.
“Yeah,” Sho shot back with disappointment in his tone.
They sat for a long time after that, they’d both finished their lunches and they needed to head back inside soon. If someone really needed them they would have gotten a message by now, but there was certainly something someone wanted from one of them by now, they’d been up here for nearly half an hour.
“I don’t know where to start,” Shota said apropos of nothing.
“Don’t know where to start with what?”
“The case. I want to give him time, but anything I start digging into is just going to make things worse.”
“Nothing about this case is going to make anything better for him until it’s over, Sho,” he pointed out
He waited for a moment before he stood. He hoped that Sho would follow his lead, but he didn’t.
“I don’t want to make things any worse than they already are,” he said without looking up to them.
They frowned and let out a sigh before they walked over in front of him and offered a hand to help him up.
“We don’t have a choice, love,” they reminded him with as much sympathy as they could.
He met their eyes for a moment but dropped his gaze quickly. They watched as he worried his lip and sighed before taking their hand. He felt like he needed an entire week off in order to even begin to adequately start processing everything that had happened in the last few days, but time kept on ticking. The world wasn’t going to stop and wait for them to catch up, he knew that, but god, wouldn’t it be nice if it did?
As expected, the moment they walked back into the building they were met by someone who had been looking for them. Though, given who it was, they figured he hadn’t been looking very long. Nedzu stood in the hall next to the roof access door and smiled at them as they entered.
“Ah, gentlemen, I didn’t want to interrupt, but I felt it pertinent to inform you of something regarding your charge. Forgive me if he’s already informed you, though I assume that he hasn’t. He had a chat with All Might yesterday afternoon. I don’t believe that he knows that you two have taken him in for housing, but he does know that he was abandoned and that you are leading the investigation, Aizawa,” Nedzu informed.
Shota looked at them at the same time they looked at him. They were furious and Sho didn’t look much better.
“I told him not to press,” they said, turning back to Nedzu with a clenched jaw.
“I do believe the information was offered of his own volition,” Nedzu informed.
Goddamn devil’s advocate.
“If you would like to continue this conversation I would recommend we do that privately, though there isn’t really more to be said,” he added before turning around and walking away.
They shared a charged look with Shota before turning on their heel and making their way toward the teacher’s lounge.
“Hizashi, what are you doing?” they heard him call after them.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” they replied without turning around.
“Talk to him or make a scene in front of half the staff?” he challenged.
“I’m not gonna make a scene–”
Shota cut him off with a hand on his shoulder, halting him mid-stride.
“We can talk to him later; we don’t need to try and hash this out mid-day. You already said he looks awful and I doubt either of us are going to come out of that conversation wanting to teach for the rest of the day anyway, so just cool it.”
They shot him their best ‘I know you’re right and I hate you for it’ look, but Shota just rolled his eyes.
“Come on, we need to get ready for class anyway,” Shota insisted and started dragging him in the opposite direction, away from the teacher's lounge and toward their classrooms.
***
Both Aizawa and Yamada had been glaring at him for the latter half of the day so he wasn’t very surprised when they asked to speak with him once classes had wrapped up. They ushered him to a disused classroom and shared a charged glance with one another before turning their focus back to him. Their combined stares were a little intimidating but he didn’t let his trepidation show.
He wondered briefly what he could have messed up so badly that he needed a joint lecture, but he didn’t have to wonder for long; Aizawa was never one to beat around the bush.
“What all did he tell you?” Aizawa demanded.
Ah, yes, Midoriya. Toshinori looked between them for a moment. How much did Yamada know? They were talking about Midoriya, right? Why was Yamada involved, but not him? He was missing something but he didn’t know what and he didn’t like that. He’d missed too much when it came to Midoriya and he feared what else may be hiding just outside his field of view.
“Midoriya, you spoke to him yesterday. What did he tell you?” Aizawa prompted again, seemingly far too impatient to let him catch up.
Well, Yamada wouldn’t be here for this if he wasn’t involved in the case, plus, given their conversation the other day, they already knew more than he did.
“He told me his mother left him several years ago… and he’s been on his own ever since,” he replied solemnly.
“I told you not to press him, Yagi,” Yamada spoke up in a tone much colder than he had ever heard from them.
The guilt that had hardly settled in his gut churned with renewed vigor. He had been beating himself up enough, Yamada’s accusation and clear disappointment did not help. It felt like this feeling was going to eat him alive from the inside out; it felt like his guts were being chewed up, and he had more experience than most as to what that actually felt like. Thankfully, he also had more experience than most at ignoring that feeling.
“I didn’t– I just– I found him in a back hallway by himself after school and he was– I just asked him if he was alright. I wanted– I needed to know he was safe. I’ve already failed him so much…” he trailed off, half because he didn’t have the words to talk about how he felt right now, and half because keeping secrets was so deeply ingrained into his mind that he stopped himself before he could say too much.
Nedzu had said that Aizawa was going to find out sooner or later and he didn’t doubt that. He knew Aizawa was a thorough man, but did he trust him? Not only that, now that he knew it was possible that All for One was still alive, could he live with himself putting Aizawa in the very dangerous circle of people who knew the truth about his power– well, about young Midoriya’s power now. God, he had failed that boy so many times. He needed to tell him the whole truth now that he knew that All for One could still pose a threat, but he clearly had enough on his plate–
“Yagi.”
Yamada’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Sorry, I was– I got lost in my thoughts. My apologies. What were you saying?” he apologized quickly.
“This is an ongoing investigation, you can’t go poking your nose in it, and besides that, you shouldn’t press him for any more information. He is in a fragile state right now, the situation is very delicate. He needs to focus on himself and his studies,” Aizawa stated flatly.
“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean for–” he cut himself off and took as deep of a breath as his remaining lung could manage, “Let me know if I can be of any help, please. At any time, for anything.”
Aizawa’s critical gaze latched itself onto him. He had been looking at him this whole time, but now it felt like he was being dissected. The man had a very intimidating glare; it certainly kept the students in line and now that it was turned onto him up close and personal, he could see why. Whatever he was looking for he either found or gave up because his eyes flicked over to Yamada who seemed completely unaffected by the look he was receiving. The two of them had known each other for quite some time, so he had probably built up a tolerance to that critical eye. It was something about mental type quirks, he thought, young Shinso seemed to have that ability as well, though he usually used it to stare daggers at his protege for reasons that Toshinori was not privy to. He had been meaning to ask, but well, that was going to have to wait.
“Do not talk to him about anything that is involved with his home life or his past. If he offers any information on his own then bring it to me immediately,” Aizawa instructed after having a silent conversation with Yamada.
“Understood,” he replied with a stiff nod.
As prickly as Aizawa was, he appreciated him being one of the few people who didn’t shy away from Toshinori’s rank and title. He treated him like he would treat anyone else, which was refreshing even if it was usually rather unpleasant. Yamada was similar, but he generally treated everyone with the same level of enthusiasm and kindness, so it was less noticeable in their interactions. He wanted to trust them, he really did, but he couldn’t loosen his grasp on such a closely held secret so easily. He had a feeling it was going to be forced from his grip before he allowed himself to give it of his own volition.
Aizawa sent one more glare in his direction before nodding and leaving the room without another word. Yamada exited in a similar fashion which left Toshinori feeling like he had done something wrong– well, something beyond the obvious. Yamada was never that cold to anyone.
What was going on?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 134: Codenames
Notes:
Shout out to Beezus for beta reading this one <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As soon as heroics let out Izuku made his way to the support course labs. Mei had told him that she needed to tweak a few things on her design yesterday and he wasn’t allowed to see it until it was perfect, which was fine by him. Beggars can’t be choosers and she was making his life about a thousand times easier by doing this for him. He wouldn’t be able to throw something together with as much grace as she could and he certainly couldn’t do it without raising questions from Mic and Eraser.
“Ten Million!” she exclaimed upon spotting him walking around the corner.
Guess that nickname was going to stick. He didn’t really mind, he’d been called worse.
“Hi, Mei,” he greeted politely
“You’re just in time, my babies are complete! I made the same hardware in two different casings because I wasn’t sure which would be better, I’ve got a pin and a pen. They’re both equipped with audio and video recording capabilities and they’re linked to a cloud so there’s plenty of storage. They hook up to this watch–” she grabbed his wrist and fastened a nondescript smartwatch to it, “You can play back video and audio on this which will connect to any Bluetooth headset– it’s got speakers but they’re kind of crappy. Through here you can sort the files and use the voice and facial recognition features to help– it will recognize voices and faces that it has heard or seen more than once and sort them into folders automatically. I didn’t have the time to make the pen functional so I got two pens– one’s just a pen, but if you use that one it’ll be less conspicuous if you’ve got the other one out to record stuff. As for the pin, I used an All Might pin to conceal it because it matched your backpack, so I hope you’re an All Might fan,” she concluded as she forcibly spun him around and presumably affixed the pin to his book bag.
He didn’t fight the manhandling partially because he mostly trusted her and partially because he was too gobsmacked to do anything but stare forward with his jaw agape. She did all of this in 48 hours? In her free time within the past 48 hours? Holy shit. She was going to be the biggest name in support technology before she even graduated high school at this rate! He knew she was good, but this was just ridiculous.
“Any questions?” she asked after spinning him back around to face her.
“I–I… um…” he sputtered out dumbly, too shocked to properly form his thoughts into sentences.
“Well, you know where I’ll be if you have any. You can leave now, bye,” she dismissed him quickly and went back to a much larger project that she was working on.
Izuku stood there staring until he saw her flip her goggles down and pull out a blow torch, so he promptly closed his eyes and turned around, shooting a thank you over his shoulder which he was almost certain she didn’t hear and even if she did she definitely ignored it. He took the watch off and stuffed it into the small pocket he had sewn into the bottom of his bag to hide his phones along with the pens, but he left the pin where it was. It didn’t look out of place and the longer he had it the less conspicuous it would be if he just stuck it on before interacting with the Todorokis.
Things were looking good. Everything was on track as long as Eraser didn’t make him change his internship choice. He really hoped that Eraser wasn’t going to make him change his internship choice.
***
That kid had to change his internship choice. Going with Endeavor was an abysmal decision. He’d been stewing on it ever since he forcibly evicted the All Might fiasco from his mind. He’d planned to go on patrol again tonight, but that wasn’t going to happen if they were going to have a discussion about all of this, so he was helping Hizashi make dinner.
It was nice, in a way– being forced to be home more. He was a workaholic and he knew it, they both were and as grim as the circumstances were, it was nice to be home and spend time together. He could count on one hand the number of times they had made a meal together in the last 3 months and that number had increased tenfold in the last two weeks. It was a silver lining, he supposed, he usually wasn’t the greatest at finding those, so he did his best to hold this one close to his chest.
They moved around one another quietly while Hizashi hummed along to the radio. It was soothing in a way that made him a little disappointed when they finally finished cooking and set the table. He knew what conversation was coming next and he didn’t expect it to be relaxing in any capacity. He wanted Ivy back so badly; Ivy would just cuss him out if they disagreed with him. He didn’t have to guess when he pushed things too far with them, with Midoriya he didn’t know when he was getting too far before he was already there and the poor kid just started shutting down.
Dinner was passing with little fanfare, Hizashi tried to get a conversation going about how everyone’s day went, but there was so much overlap between the three of them that it just seemed repetitive. It had been a long time since he felt so awkward in a social interaction, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth knowing that it was with two of the people he was closer to than most anyone else in the world. He sucked it up and did his best to not let the thought sour his tone when he spoke.
“We wanted to talk with you about your internship,” Shota started.
If he was reading the way Midoriya looked up at them and then back down at his plate correctly, then he’s pretty sure the kid saw this conversation coming.
“Why did you choose Endeavor? I know your opinions on him and they’re less than favorable…” he trailed off and waited for the kid to fill in the blanks.
“He’s, um, he’s the h-highest ranked of-ffer I got,” Midoriya peeped out.
“We both know you're far too intelligent to be making decisions based on an arbitrary and outdated ranking system. You’ve said so yourself,” he pressed.
The kid started worrying the knuckles on his off-hand, a nervous tic. He might be pushing this too far.
“It looks good on p-paper. It’s stupid to p-pass it up just b-because I d-don’t like him.”
He exchanged a look with Hizashi, they didn’t look any more convinced by that reasoning than he was.
“Are you even aiming for limelight heroics? You haven't spoken highly of it in the past– which is fine– so why change your tune now?” Hizashi spoke up.
“I d-dunno, I j-just figured it’s b-better to keep my options o-open. I m-might not get this opport-tunity again so I should take it while I’ve g-got it, right?” he replied as he poked at the rice on his plate.
“We’re not gonna make you change your decision, Kiddo, but we talked about it and we don’t think Endeavor really has much to offer you. This is for your education and we don’t think you’re going to learn much from him,” Hizashi explained
“I’ve b-been patrolling for y-years. I d-don’t need the same kinds of e-experiences that the rest of the c-class needs,” he argued quietly.
That was the closest thing to confidence that he had heard from Midoriya since the USJ, which in hindsight he realized was most likely Ivy talking, not Midoriya. He filed that revelation away, it wasn’t important right now. Midoriya did have a point though, it was telling if the No. 2 hero had nothing to offer him; he was leagues ahead of his peers and, honestly, Shota wasn’t sure that the hero track at UA was the most logical option for him at all, but that was an entirely different can of worms. He needed a normal experience for once in his goddamn life anyway, UA was doing a pretty piss poor job of offering that so far, but hopefully that trend wouldn’t continue.
“It’s only going to b-be for a week anyway. I’m just going to use it f-for a resume p-point and I can p-pick another agency for my next r-round,” he continued after no one else spoke up.
He glanced at Hizashi who raised his eyebrows in a way that said ‘kid’s got a point’ before he returned his attention back to Midoriya. They were right. This may not be the most logical choice, but this internship was likely the shortest that Midoriya would have, therefore it wasted the least amount of time for the most optimal results on paper.
Why the hell was he agreeing with this? It was an awful idea.
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense,” he conceded.
Midoriya’s eyes were flicking between the two of them like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wished he would just calm down but that wasn’t going to happen so he turned his attention back to his dinner. The rest of the meal passed in relative silence and for the first time Shota stopped and wondered if he was ever going to get Ivy back. The kid in front of him wasn’t the Ivy he knew, the thought that the Ivy he knew was gone for good made something in his gut churn.
He poked at his food, but couldn’t stomach half of it. It seemed that Midoriya was running into the same issue. Hizashi was subtly glancing between the two of them as he ate and he did his best to ignore their eyes for now. He pushed around his rice and forced down a few more bites until a suitable amount of time had passed for him to be sure that Midoriya was done with his food.
“I’ll take your plate. You’re done, right?” he asked as he stood.
The kid looked equal parts afraid of being called out and relieved that Shota had freed him from the obligation of choking down more than he already had.
“Y-yes sir, t-thank you,” he answered after hesitating, taking a moment to assess the situation as if he were trying to figure out what Shota wanted his answer to be before he gave it.
The part of him that worried that he was never going to get Ivy back cringed at the title. He didn’t want to be called ‘sir’ in his own damn house, and he especially didn’t want to be called ‘sir’ by his friend– no, not his friend. They were– he was not his friend, not anymore. Was he ever? He’d known Ivy was a good deal younger than him the whole time, he had been a mentor of sorts– they had been a teacher and a student since the beginning, that hadn’t changed, but– god, this was too confusing. Ivy had been– they were– he had trusted them with his life, he had faith in their skill like he would with his fellow heroes, he had respected them as a peer– he still did! But they were also a child, they were a terrified traumatized child and as much as he tried to shove those two things together they refused to click in his mind.
Ivy was his partner, his friend, his peer, but Midoriya was a child, he was his student, he was someone that Shota was supposed to protect with his life, not the other way around.
“Sho?” Hizashi walked into the kitchen and interrupted his train of thought.
He had been standing here and staring at the counter for longer than would generally be deemed acceptable, hadn’t he? He glanced back to the dining room over the counter to see if Midoriya had been watching him have a crisis, but thankfully, it seemed like Hizashi had dismissed him back to his room.
He scrubbed at his face and took in a deep breath before responding.
“Yeah?”
“What’s the matter?”
He just looked at them and gestured vaguely in a way that said ‘what the fuck wouldn’t be the matter right now?’
“You look like you have something more specific on your mind,” they pressed.
The bastard knew him too well.
“I don’t– I can’t talk about it. Not yet,” he replied, doing his best to communicate properly like Hizashi deserved.
“Alright, that’s fine. Take the time you need. Why don’t you let me take care of the dishes? Go sit down, I’ll join you in a bit,” they instructed as they took the dishes that he had put on the counter and then proceeded to stare at for an unknown length of time.
He watched him as he scraped the few usable leftovers back into the tupperware they had come from and rinsed the plates before putting them in the dishwasher and starting it. He had told him to go sit down, but he needed something to hold onto right now. Watching Hizashi go through the tedious and familiar motions of cleaning up dinner was mundane. He needed mundane. Like every other nonsensical thing he did in response to confusing emotions, Hizashi seemed to understand his inaction perfectly. They didn’t say anything and gently grabbed him by the elbow as he left the kitchen. He followed dutifully and let Hizashi push him into bed and curl himself around him under the covers.
They laid there together while Shota tried to pull the fractured bits of his mind back together and at some point, he drifted off to sleep. For the first time in lord knows how long he slept soundly through the night. He knew that was going to come back to bite him tonight but right now he didn’t care. Sunlight was peeking through the blinds and shining onto Hizashi’s face as he slept. At some point he had gotten up and changed into his PJs because he was wearing them now and he definitely hadn't been when they first got into bed. Their hair was fanned out around him on the pillow and Shota just watched them breathing deeply as they slept until the alarm went off and forced him to shake them awake.
‘You sleep alright?’ they signed after blinking up at him and yawning.
‘Yeah, I’m probably going to regret that come tonight,’ he replied.
‘You could always just drug yourself to sleep like I do, does wonders for your caffeine addiction,’ they joked as they rolled out of bed and put their hearing aids in.
“You say that like you're putting yourself under every night. It’s melatonin, not hard drugs.”
“Semantics. Get dressed, we’ve got stuff to do.”
He watched them walk to the bathroom until the door shutting blocked his line of sight. He rolled over and took a moment for himself before he forced his body upright. Hopefully today went smoothly, the kids were due to pick their codenames this afternoon and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about what Midoriya had settled on.
***
Nemuri was making her way down the hallways headed toward class 1A, and she was looking forward to it more than she usually would. She felt like she hadn’t seen Sho or Zashi in ages, which was criminal considering that they all worked together. Even still, for the past few weeks it was like their paths never crossed, they were only around for lunch half the time and, when they were, they looked too beat to even try and start a conversation with, so she was looking forward to today. She was going to be working with class 1A to iron out their hero names and Shota was going to be there too. He usually just passed out in the corner, but she was hoping she would be able to get a word in with him while the youngins brainstormed.
They had been dead tired and, from what she’d heard, they’d been calling out on patrol shifts as well. Or at least Hizashi was– he hadn’t been out once in nearly two weeks! The tabloids didn’t have the hottest gossip on Shota, but something was going on with both of them. They had been leaving school before she even got back to the teacher’s lounge after her last class! Granted she didn’t exactly rush there, she took her time gathering her things and chatting with students, but they had always stayed at least an hour after classes before. There was too much going on at the same time and she had too little information on the matter for her liking.
She could hear him addressing his class on the other side of the door so she wasted no time butting her head in.
“What you pick today could be your code name for life! You better be careful or you’ll be stuck with something utterly indecent,” she cooed at the group.
“Midnight is going to have final approval over your names, it’s not my forte,” Shota introduced after her timely interruption.
He went to slink away, as she had expected, but she subtly grabbed him by one of his shirt sleeves before he got too far.
“Your hero name should reflect who you are, it should embody how you want to be seen by the world. I will be giving you ten minutes before we start sharing with the class so make it count!” she finished her spiel before turning to Shota and lowering her voice, “Eraser, a word?” she asked and jerked her head in the direction of the door.
Thankfully, he followed with minimal grumbling.
“What is going on with you two?” she asked with no preamble the second the door shut; Shota would know what she was talking about.
He sighed like he had expected that question.
“A lot, Nem, I can’t get into it,” he replied, scrubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Can’t or won’t? Is it a case?” she pressed.
He looked at her with those tired eyes for a while as if he was waiting to see if she dropped it, but she held firm.
“It’s a personal matter and a case. As I said, it’s a lot. We’ve got it under control,” he stated calmly as if that explained anything.
“Personal and a case– as in you were the victims or you’re on the case and personally involved somehow?”
“The latter,” he replied.
“That sounds like a conflict of interest,” she pushed.
“It is, but there’s nothing else for it. I can’t tell you most of it and what I can tell you I won’t because it’s a sensitive issue. If we need your help, you will be the first to know. I will tell you eventually, but I don’t imagine that it will be any time soon.”
That… that didn’t help her concern at all. That made it much worse, actually. She knew she was too nosey for her own good, but her curiosity was going to tear her apart until she figured out what the hell he was talking about.
“For once in your life, don’t press; you’re not going to like what you find if you do. Hizashi and I are fine and the case is just a matter of wrapping things up after an incident. No one’s in danger anymore, so just drop it,” he added with a look in his eye that said he was begging her to listen.
She wished she could just listen. She trusted that Shota knew best here, but she couldn't help the way her mind went in a million different directions trying to figure out what could have possibly happened.
“I can see you trying to figure it out, don’t bother. The amount of mental gymnastics you’d need to do to come to the correct conclusion isn’t going to happen,” he interrupted her thoughts before they even left the runway, turned on his heel, and reentered the classroom without another word.
He made no move to hide the fact that he had pulled his phone out, likely sending a message off to Zashi telling him not to let her nag. Damnit, she should have gone for the weakest link first, Hizashi was far more likely to blab than Shota was. This was incredibly frustrating, he knew her too well. What the hell could have both of them in such a state?
A personal case… was it something to do with one of their families? As far as she knew Shota hadn’t spoken to his folks since he graduated high school and Hizashi’s family was doing fine if their socials were anything to go by, but they would hardly post about tragedy befalling them, would they? It kind of harshed the mood and if it was still an open case they might not be allowed to even if they wanted. Maybe she should poke around there, that’s about all she could do right now anyway. She doubted they would have talked to Tensei and not her but she could ask him too– or maybe she shouldn’t, he had enough going on…
God, these men and their life-altering catastrophes, she was going to go gray at this rate. She could only hope that these two hadn’t gotten themselves as deep in shit as Tensei had.
***
Shota did not miss the way that Midoriya’s eyes flicked between the two of them as they walked back in the room. The kid knew Nemuri was a friend of his, but did he really think he would just go spilling all of his secrets to her? He tried his best to tell himself that it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t that the kid didn’t trust him anymore– or apparently never did– no, he was just afraid of everything and everyone. Just because Shota was included in ‘everything and everyone’ didn’t mean anything.
Time. Just give it time, Shota. He’ll bounce back.
He only half listened as the class went through their choices and were subsequently sent back to the drawing board. Tenya and Todoroki picking their own names was… concerning. Most kids that passed through the hero course had been workshopping names for themselves since they could talk; Tenya especially was never one to be unprepared, so why didn’t they have anything to offer? That was something he would have to look into when he had more than a scant few minutes of free time a day.
When Midoriya was finally called up he did his best to hide any sort of reaction, however, internally, he couldn’t hide his anticipation. He had been wondering what the kid was going to pick as his code name, he couldn’t imagine calling them anything other than Ivy so he sincerely hoped that Midoriya was more creative than he was. As Midoriya walked up to stand in front of the class he noted how he was steadfastly looking anywhere besides Shota himself. He gave no sort of reaction to that but when he turned the board in his hands around to show the class Shota had to duck his face behind his capture weapon to hide his grin.
Jade.
That was… perfect. The botanical root, for lack of a better word, was a subtle callback toward his work as Ivy. It was simple, personable, and refined. It was respectable.
“Oh! How simplistic! No flavor text? Whatever, it’s perfect! Take a seat, Jade ,” Nemuri thankfully dismissed him without any notes.
After he skittered back to his seat his eyes caught Shota’s for a split second, just long enough for him to send a nearly imperceptible nod of approval back to him. He looked down at his desk and pressed his lips into a straight line in response. He was still looking to him for reassurance and that patched up some raw part of Shota’s heart. They could get through this, he hadn’t ruined everything; not completely, at least.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 135: 🎵Workin 9-5, what a way to make a livin’🎵... or not make a living… because you’re an unpaid intern…
Notes:
Shout out to Woomy and Penny for beta reading this one <3
Thank them yourself in the discord, join at the link below 👇
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As the days passed by Midoriya only shut himself in his room more and more. Between the two of them, they’d only seen him come out to use the bathroom once and they didn’t think he was even showering, at least not here. He had access to the showers at school so he didn’t really need to shower at home and he certainly knew how to keep himself passably fresh without shower access by this point anyway. Needless to say, they were worried, but he and Sho made sure he had food and water. He was provided everything he needed and he was due to leave for internships in the morning anyway, they had decided it would be better to not stress him out before that.
He wasn’t dirty, so the talk could wait.
Their nerves, however, did not get the memo. The morning Midoriya was set to leave, Hizashi felt like their chest was too tight. They didn’t want to let go of him, he was safe with them, he was finally safe with them and now they had to let Endeavor of all people sub in as his caretaker for a week? He saw the way it was affecting Shota as well, the tension in his shoulders got worse and worse by the day. He had started going on patrol again, though he’d only been out once and he had been disappointed by the lack of questioning Midoriya had about how that went. He didn’t speak unless spoken to and his curiosity didn’t seem to have enough pull to outweigh his vow of silence.
He had to remind both himself and Shota that Midoriya had kept himself alive for four years. Four incredibly reckless years, but four years nonetheless, and he was still alive, they had to give him more credit. He wasn’t made of glass, he was tougher and more resilient than anyone they’d ever met, they knew that, Shota knew that, but that didn’t seem to help much.
***
Seeing Midoriya to the train station and watching as he zipped away felt like getting a root canal without novocaine. Midoriya wasn’t even his kid, why the fuck did people have kids? This was awful. Though, he imagined most kids didn’t get into as much mortal peril as Midoriya did.
It was just a week; Midoriya kept himself alive for years. Shota needed to get a goddamn grip on himself.
“I have outlined the week for you here,” he addressed the one student who was still with him as he handed over an itinerary, “We will be training with binding cloths in the daytime, assuming that that’s something you're interested in, I think it would be a good tool for you to have, but I’m biased. If that doesn’t interest you we can find something els–”
“No! That’s fine, that’s good,” Shinso interrupted him before he could continue.
He ignored the interruption, the kid was clearly nervous. He was almost as bad as Midoriya.
“We will also be working on close-quarters combat, hand to hand and with a weapon. Whether or not you want to use a weapon, you need to know how to disarm an opponent. I still have classes to teach in the morning so you don’t have to come in until after lunch. I’d advise you to sleep in as much as you can because we will be doing patrols after dinner. We will have a few hours' break for that during which I will be sleeping, but you can do whatever you want. I’ll dismiss you at 6 and we will reconvene at 9. I’ll expect you to be suited up and ready to go, we’ll be patrolling a neighborhood near yours, if that’s alright with you,” he rattled off the plan as they walked.
He was going to take the kid on his old patrol route, though he would be sure to avoid the area where they had first met eight years ago; he’s sure the kid didn’t want a reminder of that night. He had toyed with the idea of bringing him to Uptown, it had been relatively calm since the gang was disbanded, but after what had happened with Iwai and Midoriya he decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Plus if the ladies saw him around with another student they would not hesitate to tease him relentlessly, which he would very much like to avoid. He only had 5 patrols scheduled with Shinso, he could keep an eye on Uptown on the nights he gave the kid a break.
“Yes, that’s fine,” Shinso confirmed.
“Today is the exception, I was excused from classes to take everyone to the station so we will be training all day and not going on patrol tonight,” he clarified.
Shinso nodded to show that he had heard him and they made the rest of the walk back to UA in silence. He realized that Shinso displayed a lot of the same mannerisms that Midoriya did, he wondered if that was just trauma related or because of whatever connection the two had had before Midoriya jumped ship and ran. Hopefully, he would be able to figure that out over the course of the week.
***
When Izuku stepped onto the train with Todoroki and Iida he felt like he could finally relax for the first time in over a week. Being around Mic and Eraser was exhausting; he couldn’t even breathe without feeling guilty and it was driving him mad. Here on the train, he wasn’t anyone’s problem. He sat down in the middle of a row of three empty seats, Todoroki sat to his right, and he expected Iida to take the seat to his left, but he sat down in the row of seats on the opposite wall.
He hadn’t been the same since his brother was hospitalized; he hardly ever spoke and the tension in his spine was even stiffer than his usual perfect posture. Sitting across from him gave Izuku a good view. He was tenser than ever and there were bags under his eyes, if Iida wasn’t easily twice his size it would be like looking in a mirror.
“Who are you interning with, Iida? I don’t think you ever said,” Todoroki spoke up.
Izuku wasn’t sure if he had picked up on the tension and was trying to alleviate it or if he hadn’t picked up on it and was cluelessly bumbling into the conversation, but either way, Izuku could kiss the ground he walked on. He had no clue how to navigate the situation and if Todoroki wanted to just brute force it then Izuku was not going to stop him.
“Manual,” Iida answered shortly
“Oh, M-Manual is in Hosu t-too! Maybe w-we’ll see each other around,” Izuku tried his best to further the conversation.
No sooner than he finished his sentence did he realize several things at once. One, Manual made no sense for Iida to intern with and two, Hosu was where Inginium was attacked. From the limited research he had gotten the chance to do among all the chaos happening around him he remembered that the Hero Killer had a pattern, he would take down several heroes in the same city before moving on to the next. More likely than not, Stain was still in Hosu, and, more likely than not, Iida knew that.
He was going after him, wasn’t he?
God fucking damnit, how did this get approved by Eraser? He was probably too busy with Izuku’s mess to put the pieces together and deny the request– fuck this was all his fault! What was he supposed to do? Should he text Eraser? No, he was busy and Izuku had troubled him enough. The only other adult at school he could contact- besides Mic who was a no-go for the same reason- was All Might, but at this point, what could he do? It was all conjecture, he had no proof that Iida was planning to go after Stain, and moreover, what were the chances that he even got the opportunity to try? He would be with Manual 24/7 and as far as Izuku knew, Manual was a pretty stand-up hero, he wouldn’t be a target for Stain and he didn’t seem like the type to be negligent. Even if he was wrong about him and his public persona was just for show, it would be extremely bad for publicity if the son of a famous hero family was hurt under his watch.
He should warn Manual at the very least– how was he supposed to warn Manual? He was supposed to be at the station to pick them up, right? Or at least someone from his agency should be there. That would be his only shot, he couldn’t afford to mess this up.
The ride felt like it took a short eternity, but in reality, it was only a little over an hour on the bullet train. They hardly talked on the way there which was probably for the best, he needed to focus, he had a plan and he just had to hope it worked because there was no plan B here.
The relief he felt upon seeing Manual at the train station was immense. Endeavor was standing further back and glaring at anyone who approached; Burnin was with him too, so the crowd was minimal but enough to be distracting. This was going to work. He grabbed his notebook and a pen out of his backpack, zipped it up, and headed straight for Manual.
“Manual! I’m a big fan, can I get your autograph?” he asked with a dopey grin to sell the act.
Manual turned to him with a surprised look on his face. He wasn’t very high up in the ranks, it was probably very rare that he had people come up to him like this and Izuku felt bad for faking him out, but it had to be done. He turned his notebook toward the hero and watched as he read the short sentence written in large print on the page.
‘I think Iida is after Stain, keep an eye on him’
To Manual's credit, his expression didn’t falter, he discretely flipped the page and signed his name as requested for the sake of selling the story before handing the notebook back with a knowing look.
“It’s always good to meet a fan, you have a nice day, kid,” he dismissed with a smile.
He was still worried, but that settled him considerably. Manual took him seriously and he was going to make sure Iida was safe. Izuku didn’t really have any other choice than to trust him, so he scrambled back over to Todoroki who was watching the interaction passively. He made no remark as Izuku returned to his side and they started their way toward Endeavor.
It didn’t take long for Endeavor to spot them.
“Shoto,” he greeted with a grin far more pleasantly than Izuku would have imagined that he was capable of.
The far more familiar sneer graced his features when he spotted Izuku at Todoroki’s side.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he looked down at him the same way someone would look at a steaming fresh pile of dog shit left on their porch.
“He’s with us, sir,” Burnin spoke up.
The angry look on Endeavor’s face was so satisfying that it almost took his mind off of his worry for Iida. Almost.
The temperature in the car was absolutely stifling, and no one besides him seemed to be paying it any mind, which he supposed made sense; two of the three other occupants in the vehicle had flames for hair and the last one’s quirk was essentially just temperature regulation, so they were far more equipped to deal with the heat than he was. It was a distraction from the awkward silence at least. Not a good distraction, but a distraction…
Thankfully, the drive was short and he was able to scramble out of the backseat quickly. As soon as the four of them entered the front doors of Endeavor’s agency, Izuku was wordlessly dismissed by the man in question.
“Shoto, with me,” he ordered, not bothering to even look over his shoulder to see if the directions were followed.
Todoroki glanced at him and he gave a small nod of reassurance back before he followed his father.
“Alright, kid– oh…” Bunin turned to him but cut herself off when she looked at him, “Guess that car was a little hot for you, our bad,” she laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.
Sweat was dripping down his face and he did his best to not jump out of his skin at the unexpected contact.
“Hah, it’s f-fine,” he dismissed.
“You look like you’re about to get heat stroke, grow a spine an’ speak up for yourself,” she shot back in a way that somehow made the phrase ‘grow a spine’ sound… well, not nice, but caring, at least.
“Looks like you’re workin’ with me. Locker rooms are on the second floor, get suited up and meet me on the top floor, my desk is in the back left,” she ordered before launching herself up a gap in the middle of the stairway rather than actually taking the stairs.
Okay, getting right into it, I guess.
He took the stairs up to the second floor and, thankfully, ran into Todoroki who was likely on his way to do the same thing that Izuku was. He shot a smile to him as they walked into the locker room together, but he quickly ducked his head as he made his way to a bathroom stall to change. Hopefully, he would continue to not be called out on that. Todoroki didn’t seem to care, but if Burnin and Endeavor were a good representation of the attitudes of the people working here, then he could see someone taunting him about it, whether it was with malice or not. The agency brand seemed to be leaning heavily into either completely missing social cues (Todoroki) or not caring about them in the first place (Burnin and Endeavor)– or at least they had been so far.
After getting all his gear in place, recently approved throwing knives and new less approved surveillance pen included, he made his way back to Todoroki’s side. He was finishing up getting the various bits and bobs on his belt settled, but he turned his attention up to Izuku regardless, his previous task paused for the moment.
“Would you like to stay the nights at our house? The lodgings here are… spartan,” Todoroki asked apropos of nothing.
At this rate, Todoroki must think that the look of shock on his face was just its resting position, given how often he elicited it without even trying.
“Did, um, did you ask your f-father if he was okay w-with that?” he replied once he schooled his expression.
“No, but it’s not out of the ordinary to have a friend stay the night, is it?”
He had to bite down a spiteful laugh at that question, he certainly wasn’t the right person to be asking about whether or not something was “ordinary”, but he supposed neither was Todoroki. The opportunity to snoop around the actual household was tempting, but he didn’t want to put Todoroki at risk just to get some evidence that may or may not be worth it. Did Todoroki not realize what an imposition that was? It wouldn’t be the first social nicety that escaped his notice, so he should probably point it out.
“N-no, but we’ll be here the whole w-week. I d-dont want to imp-pose.”
“You could just stay in the guest house,” Todoroki offered.
Oh, yeah. They were rich rich.
It was still an imposition that he wasn’t all that comfortable with, but they probably lived in a house big enough that it was entirely possible that they would never see each other if they didn’t want to. Izuku certainly knew how to make himself scarce.
“I- um, I wouldn’t mind that; it s-sounds nice, b-but I don’t want you to get in t-trouble with your f-father over it,” Izuku pointed out his real concern candidly.
Todoroki just shrugged in response.
He finished his fiddling with his belt and turned to walk out of the locker room without another word. Izuku got the hint and followed and they walked the rest of the way to the top floor in silence; they parted ways with a nod as Todoroki went to his father’s office and Izuku headed for Burnin’s desk. She was typing away at her computer so Izuku waited within her line of sight until she was done.
“I told you to grow a spine, didn’t I? How long have you been standin’ there?” she said after a minute or so when she glanced up.
“I didn’t want t-to interrupt,” he argued.
“Well, I wanted you to. This paperwork isn’t exactly how I like to spend my time,” she said with a sneer toward her computer as if it had personally offended her.
He chuckled at that, Eraser used to complain about paperwork too. That was another thing he was going to miss about being Ivy, no paperwork.
“Oh don’t you laugh, pawning off paperwork is what interns are for,” she shot back with a smirk.
He was starting to get her sense of humor, he imagined Kacchan would be a lot like her if they had remained friends. It was nice.
“P-pawn it off on me and I’ll mess it up on p-purpose and send it right b-back to you,” he took a gamble and poked back.
The almost feral ear-to-ear grin he got in response told him that his gamble paid off.
“There’s that spine. I like you, kid,” she said as she stood up and started walking toward the stairs.
He looked around for a second before deciding that he was probably supposed to follow her.
“We’re throwing you in the deep end, your first patrol starts now,” she said when he caught up.
He bit his tongue and didn’t correct her. He wouldn’t call a Monday afternoon patrol with a pro at his side “the deep end.” He started in the deep end four years ago, this was barely dipping a toe in– That confidence felt foreign, that wasn’t him talking. It had been weeks since he’d heard that voice in his head and he had missed it. He straightened his shoulders and let the feeling flow through him as they stepped out onto the street.
“I like to patrol from above, can you keep up?” Burnin’ asked as she used her quirk to float a few feet off the ground.
He glanced over to the buildings around him looking for pathways on facades and rooftops. There were a good number of ways for him to maneuver around, but he wouldn’t be nearly as fast as he was in Uptown; this wasn’t his city and he was going to need to keep looking for new paths as he went.
“I can try,” he answered honestly.
When he turned his attention away from the rooftops and back to her she had an eyebrow raised.
“I was kidding,” she deadpanned.
“Oh…” he answered awkwardly.
“You weren’t kidding,” she pointed out.
“Er… no?”
“Oh, well I’ve gotta see this,” she said with a smirk before shooting up toward the rooftops.
Her taunting made him smile, she really reminded him of Kacchan, or at least what Kacchan could have been if things had gone differently. He imagined this is kinda what having a sibling was like, egging each other on to do stupid things for fun, but still caring; he noticed that she did not go far enough to be out of reach if he were to fall.
“The hell are you waiting for, spider boy?” she jeered.
He let a smile spread across his face as he took off running, jumped, and launched himself off a dumpster, onto a window sill, and then grabbed onto the side of a fire escape. He scaled the side of it rather than using the stairs because it was faster and didn’t stop until he was perched on the ledge of the roof 12 floors above street level. It probably wasn’t a great idea to do that without stretching first, but he didn’t think he pulled anything.
He looked back at Burnin once he had his feet planted and she let out a long high pitched whistle like she was impressed. He did his best not to preen at that.
“What exactly is your quirk?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s a s-strength enhancer,” he stuttered out, he was losing his cool.
“Hm.”
She floated there for a second and looked him up and down. With no preamble, she glided over behind him, hooked her arms under his armpits, and flew them both over the side of the building. For the record, he did NOT let out an undignified squeak in response to that.
“Part spider or not, I dunno what the dead intern paperwork looks like, but I don’t want to find out, especially if you’re not around to do it for me,” she said after getting her laughter under control and setting his feet back on the ground, “So patrol numero uno will be at street level exclusively.”
What? She just saw him scale a building without breaking a sweat! This was BS. He wanted to argue, but he bit his tongue. He’s 15, he’s never been on patrol, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing; breaking that illusion would be a death sentence.
“Nothin’ too crazy today, just walking around and making sure nothing goes wrong. Stop to help here and there, but usually, patrols around this time and area are to keep the peace, not break up incidents. That’s not to say they never happen though! There was an armed robbery down the street last week so look alive, newbie,” she explained and shook his shoulder as she said the last bit.
He would very much like her to not do that. He did his best to subtly step out of arm’s reach as they walked. A lot of people stopped her for an autograph during their patrol, she was Endeavor’s chief sidekick after all, so it made sense. He was ignored for the most part, but a few people recognized him from the sports festival and asked for his autograph too. It was very strange; the unfamiliar moniker looked sloppy coming from an unpracticed hand. Jade was new, he didn’t know who Jade was yet and the messy loops of his signature drove that point home rather painfully. It’s not like he’d ever practiced writing “Ivy,” but he had painted countless strands of it on the walls of the stairwell, it was familiar to his hands in a way that Jade wasn’t.
Not yet at least.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 136: That's a wrap on day one.
Notes:
I honestly have no clue who betaed this. Woomy and Penny definitely read it and Spade and Beezus possibly read it (?) Not sure if any edits were made... but they read it!
Fuck it man, idk. I've been waking up insane all week and I have no clue what's happening anymore. Beta credits to me if no one else.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Jade’s first patrol was as uneventful as promised. Criminals would have to be incredibly stupid to pull something in the blocks surrounding Endeavor’s agency in broad daylight; his sidekicks swarmed the streets like ants on a picnic blanket and his wasn’t even the only agency in the city. Even still, there was paperwork to be done. Why the hell was there paperwork that had to be done to report that absolutely nothing of note happened? It was a relatively simple patrol log, they just had to outline who they were, where they went, and when they were out, but it was still annoying.
He’d just finished up the log at Burnin’s desk when Todoroki and his father walked into the room. Endeavor walked past everyone without so much as a nod of greeting until he made his way to the massive door leading to his office. Burnin was making an ill-advised cup of evening coffee at the table nearby when he called for her.
“Burnin, with me. Bring your intern,” he ordered before stepping into his office and leaving the door open.
Having overheard the whole thing Izuku was already nearly at Burnin’s side when she turned around to call for him, causing her to startle and nearly spill coffee on herself. Thankfully, the hot liquid splashed straight up and back into the cup.
“S-sorry!” he quickly apologized.
“You’re too damn quiet!” she barked with no real heat, “C’mon, I assume you heard ‘im.”
She walked away without another word so he matched her steps after scurrying to catch up. The office was obnoxiously opulent, which he could have guessed based off the doors alone; they looked like they were too big for a person of average strength to open at all. A small forest of trees must have gone into their construction
“I have had a patrol schedule drawn up for the four of us, Shoto insisted that patrolling together would offer more experience,” Endeavor spoke as soon as the doors shut behind them.
He gestured at a paper on his desk, indicating that that was the schedule. Izuku could tell by the tone of his voice that he thought this was a stupid idea, but Todoroki wasn’t wrong; patrolling with a group was very different than patrolling with just a partner. He had only gotten the chance to do that a few times when Hawks wormed his way into the support gear case in Uptown, but it shifted the dynamic drastically. Getting used to patrolling with one person had its benefits, but it also had its downfalls. Remaining flexible would be advantageous in the long run.
“Several of these patrols would be outside your normal hours,” Endeavor continued.
That was… almost thoughtful. Izuku genuinely didn’t think he was capable of that. It’s not like he was asking if she could take the patrols, he was ordering her to, but informing her in advance was kind of nice… if you squint at it.
“Noted,” she replied as she took the paper, skimming over it briefly before handing it to Izuku.
It accounted for a morning, afternoon, and evening patrol in the coming days, but no night patrols, which seemed like an oversight. Evening patrols and night patrols were vastly different. Was it a safety concern? Or did they not want to go out at night? It certainly wasn’t an easy sleep schedule adjustment over the span of a week, but nighttime was when the city needed patrolling the most; crowds and daylight deterred a lot of crime on their own but neither of those protected the city once most people were tucked into bed–
He was pulled from his thoughts by a swift smack to the back of his head, courtesy of Burnin.
She was glaring at him with a look that told him he had said all of that out loud. Todoroki looked contemplative and Endeavor was looking at him like he was shit stuck to his boot, which wasn’t a new development.
“He makes a good point,” Todoroki spoke up before Endeavor got the chance to.
He probably did that on purpose, he was shifting focus away from Izuku so that he wouldn’t get yelled at. He was too kind, but he really wished he hadn’t done that. Izuku would much rather get yelled at than have someone get yelled at in his stead.
Endeavor’s mounting anger sizzled down with a sneer.
“I’ll have it redrawn,” he conceded with malice that he made no attempt to veil.
He took the paper from Izuku’s hands violently enough that he was surprised he didn’t get a papercut and incinerated it immediately.
It was equal parts sad and funny how much that was exactly how a toddler would react when they didn’t get their way. He was a grown man throwing a tantrum and Izuku made damn sure that he bit his tongue as he thought that; ending up as a scorch mark on Endeavor’s carpet was not how he wanted to go out.
“Can Midoriya stay with us for the week?” Todoroki asked after an awkward silence fell over the group.
Izuku’s stomach dropped to his feet. Did Todoroki not know how much he was pushing his luck? Or did he just not care? He was far to brazen with his father’s temper for Izuku’s comfort.
Endeavor looked over at his son with a face that said there was going to be hell to pay and Burnin’s shocked expression told him that she knew that too, it looked like she was mentally planning what she would say at the funeral.
“No one else is interning right now, it seems rude to leave him in the agency lodgings alone. He’s my friend so it shouldn’t be an issue, it’s not like he’s a stranger,” Todoroki continued.
Izuku was doing his best to make a face that communicated just how much he thought Todoroki should shut the fuck up, but Todoroki wasn’t even looking at him. He tended to focus very intensely on whoever he was speaking to, and if his father’s expression of fury wasn’t enough to shut him up, Izuku doubted his face would have made a difference anyway.
“We will discuss this later, Shoto,” Endeavor replied through clenched teeth.
“When? We’re going home now, aren’t we?”
OH MY GOD TODOROKI, SHUT UP! PLEASE, GOD, SHUT UP! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
Izuku’s mental pleading had no effect on the duo who were staring at each other with enough intensity that he could swear the room’s temperature had gone up at least 10 degrees. He glanced back over to Burnin whose face probably looked very similar to his own expression; a mixture of horror and begging for Todoroki to stop.
After a long while of glaring at his son, he turned his focus back over to Izuku and his eye was actually twitching.
“Very well, gather your things,” he bit out from behind clenched teeth
Izuku, ever the coward, took the clear dismissal and ran with it; Burnin was not far behind. The door shut behind them again, and the guilt-ridden relief was palpable.
“Well, it was nice knowing you, Jade. Do me a favor and make sure you’re off agency property before he kills you,” Burnin said under her breath with a nervous laugh before clapping him on the back again and walking away.
This was going to be… interesting.
***
Capture weapons were magic and Eraserhead was a wizard. That was all Hitoshi had gathered from the first incredibly long day of his internship. They had worked in one of the gyms on campus for nearly 10 hours and he felt like his limbs had turned to mush. This week was going to be hell.
“How was your first day Toshi?” his mom called excitedly down the hall once she heard the door swing shut.
“He’s trying to kill me,” he replied as he kicked off his shoes and walked to the dining room.
“Somehow I doubt that,” she shot back as he sat down heavily at the table, “Dinner’s gonna be done soon, go wash up.”
Thankfully, her back was turned to the disrespectful face he had pulled at her instruction. He just sat down. Regardless, he stood up and trudged his way upstairs. He’d already taken a shower at school, so he just washed his hands and changed into his pajamas. His bed had a magnetic pull that was very difficult to resist, but he managed to get himself back downstairs against all odds.
Not for the first time, he missed training with Midoriya, he had taken how gentle he was for granted. That thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. For the first day since classes started, he hadn’t been forced to look at the curly mess of green hair, or the concerning lack thereof, all day. He couldn’t go a day without his bitter thoughts returning to the same place. He’d yet to properly talk about it all, much to his mom’s chagrin, but he still didn’t know what to feel yet. He guessed that was why he was supposed to talk about it.
A week away from him would probably be a good time to sort everything out. If talking about it only made him angrier he didn’t want to end up taking it out on Midoriya, he seemed to have enough going on anyway. He’s not sure why he had been gone for a few days last week but he heard whispers that it had been a family issue. He didn’t know how much of what Midoriya had told him while they were friends was a lie but he was certain of at least one thing, his family life was fucked.
He told his mom about his day as they ate, but once that conversation lulled, he sucked up his hesitance and pivoted the conversation.
“Midoriya’s interning with Endeavor,” he stated plainly.
He saw his mother’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline before he looked down at his plate.
“That’s, um, impressive,” she replied cautiously.
“I’m not surprised,” he shrugged, “Endeavor’s son is in our class, I think he just went with him so they could hang out or something, they sit together at lunch.”
“It’s good that you’ve both got friends,” she replied, clearly trying to remain impartial before Hitoshi elaborated on what he was actually trying to talk about.
That statement was a stretch, though. He’s not sure he could consider Tokoyami and Tsu his friends. Tsu only sat with them at lunch half the time and whenever she wasn’t there the two of them hardly ever spoke a word to each other. He supposed they were as close as a group of nonconversationalists could be.
“He was out for two days last week because of a ‘family issue’. Or at least that’s what I heard,” he continued.
He saw his mom’s expression fall at that. She wore her concern openly. He knew she had forgiven Midoriya for what he’d done without even knowing what was going on and he wished he could do the same, but he couldn’t. He was still so goddamn angry and he hated it.
“Do you know if the school is involved?”
“No, I don’t know anything past what someone said that he said to someone else so I don’t even know if it’s true.”
He was worried about him too, he’d looked awful ever since he got back, but anger clouded his concern more than he’d like to admit.
“Do you think we need to contact the school about it?”
“I don’t know…” he trailed off and his mom just waited patiently, “I don’t know what to do,” he finally admitted.
“About his safety or about what happened before?” she asked.
He really should be worried about the former, no matter what had happened between them he should be putting his concern for Midoriya’s safety first. It made him sick to his stomach to realize that he hadn’t been. What kind of hero was he if he was putting his petty grudge before someone’s well-being?
“Both, I guess,” he answered as he mindlessly pushed around the food on his plate.
“Have you talked to him at all?” she asked.
“I talked to him the first day. He said he was sorry but he didn’t explain anything, so I told him to, um… I told him to leave me alone unless he was going to tell me the truth…” he trailed off and chewed at his lip before he brought up the next bit, “We were together at the USJ too. He just ordered us around though… he probably saved our lives… everyone’s lives, actually,” he admitted quietly.
“Do you want to talk about that?”
“Not really…I– we all got scattered across the building and Midoriya got Tsu and I out of the place we were stuck in, but then he doubled back to help Aizawa-sensei who was… who was in the middle with–with the leaders, I guess. They were about to, um… kill him when Midoriya… well he stopped them and stalled until All Might showed up. They both got hurt pretty bad; Tsu and I stayed with them until the ambulances took them away,” he gave a very brief overview and glossed over all the things he couldn’t talk about yet, he didn’t know if he was ever going to be able to talk about that, but he was already being vulnerable so he figured he might as well just spill his guts.
His mom had her hand over her mouth in shock, but she pulled herself together quickly.
“Toshi, I’m so sorry. That–” she cut herself off, “Do you want me to contact the school about Midoriya? You don’t have to do anything, I can handle it,” she offered.
“I don’t know.”
“Well he’s not going to be home all week, right? We can figure it out, we’ve got time,” she tried to soothe.
It didn’t really make him feel any better. He didn’t think anything was going to make him feel better at this rate.
“What do you want to happen?”
“What?”
“With Midoriya, what do you want to happen between the two of you?”
“I want everything to go back to how it was,” he replied ruefully.
“That’s not going to happen. What’s done is done. Do you still want to be his friend?” she asked.
He was so goddamned lonely, he’d been so goddamned lonely since the day Midoriya left. Yes, he wanted to be his friend again, he wanted that more than anything, but every time he saw his face all he could see was fear and it made him sick. Midoriya was scared of him just like everyone else and it made him want to tear his hair out.
He didn’t trust his voice right now so he just nodded his head.
“Alright, then you need to talk to him.”
“Why does it have to be me? He’s the one that lied.”
“Toshi, we have no idea why he felt the need to lie t–”
“But he did! So why should I have to be the one to fix it?” he interrupted and immediately felt bad about it.
“You shouldn’t. It’s not fair, but you know better than most that very little in life is fair,” his mom returned kindly.
She didn’t chastise him for raising his voice, she already knew that he regretted it.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized anyway.
“It’s fine, Toshi. You’re going through a lot,” she dismissed.
They sat in heavy silence as the minutes ticked by and the remains of his dinner got cold.
“I think I should talk to the school, nothing about this sits right with me and if we’re wrong, the worst that happens is they look into it and find nothing,” his mom eventually interrupted the silence.
“No, it’s fine, I can– I’ll talk to Aizawa-sensei tomorrow,” he insisted.
She must have felt the conviction behind his words because she didn't argue with him. She didn’t prod him or ask if he was sure, she just nodded and took their plates of mostly finished cold food to the kitchen. Proper manners told him that he should offer to help, but the bone-deep exhaustion was stronger, so he bid his mom goodnight and threw himself into bed.
If there was one thing getting your ass handed to you was good for, it was a solid night’s rest, one that he was going to need to get through tomorrow.
Notes:
Hitoshi's BACK baby!
Thanks for reading!!!If anyone has any tips on how to stop waking up insane that would be great. I wake up every morning feeling the way you do when you accidentally take a midday 3 hour nap,,, I'm like,,, having fever dreams... do I have a fever? I'm so cold.
*climbs into the kiln to warm up*
Chapter 137: The Hellish Todoroki Family
Notes:
Woomy is the only one I know for sure made edits to this, Penny read it too but idk if he made edits. Thanks to both <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku sat in the back seat of Endeavor’s car for the second time today and it wasn’t much less stiflingly hot without Burnin adding to the heat. It seems as though the temperature was Endevor’s fault entirely because he had sat next to Todoroki for a one and a half hour train ride this morning and he did not notice any sort of temperature fluctuation at all. As if Endeavor wasn’t already intensely unpleasant to be around, he had to make anyone that got close sweat their ass off too. He was doing his best not to bounce his legs because that was only making him sweat more, but he was extremely nervous. He didn’t know what Endeavor had said or done to Todoroki after Izuku left his office but Todoroki hadn’t spoken a word since then.
He had planned to walk off his nerves in the city once most of the agency left for the day, but that wasn’t going to happen now. It was probably for the best, on the off chance he ran into an incident he’s not sure he would have been able to stop himself from intervening, and a vigilante charge was not something he needed on his record, not with everything Eraser was covering up for him already. Maybe he could take a walk around the grounds here, there was certainly enough space for it, they had driven for over 2 minutes past the front gate before they got to the house. Hell, he could probably take a walk in the house; it was massive, easily as big as the entirety of his first warehouse. Four people lived here? Really? That was truly ridiculous.
Despite Izuku’s distaste for the over the top and unnecessary flaunting of wealth, he had to admit that the traditional architecture was absolutely beautiful. The way the setting sun shone over the carefully manicured ponds and flower fields was stunning. It was such a waste for only four people to be able to enjoy it though.
Endeavor pulled into a garage and got out of the car without a word or glance back to the two of them. Izuku himself had never hosted anyone, but he didn’t think that was the general polite procedure one was supposed to follow. Todoroki waited for him by the door to make sure that Izuku didn’t get left behind, but he still didn’t say anything so Izuku just followed his lead. They took their shoes off and he took the offered guest slippers before following Todoroki down a series of hallways.
“You will be staying here,” Todoroki finally spoke as he opened a door.
The room was as big as his office had been in the brewery but it was very sparsely furnished. There was a futon and a combination dresser vanity as well as a small kotatsu off to the side. It was very nice, not very homely, but nice nonetheless. Even though he was still sweating from the car ride he eyed the kotatsu greedily. He always thought those things looked so cozy but he had never gotten the chance to try one out.
“The bathroom is the next door over and my room is the door after that,” Todoroki added.
Once Izuku responded with a nod of understanding he went to walk away but Izuku stopped him.
“Wait!”
Todoroki hadn’t even fully turned around yet, but he stopped in his tracks and returned his attention to Izuku. He nodded his head, beckoning for Todoroki to pass the threshold of the room and join him. He did as silently instructed and shut the door behind himself.
Izuku set his backpack down and subtly fiddled with the pin Mei had given him, making sure that it was on and recording.
“Did he– was your father mad at you?” Izuku asked tentatively.
“Yes,” he answered flatly.
“Did he, um, d-do anything about that?” he pushed.
“He shouted at me,” Todoroki admitted.
His everpresent eye contact broke and he looked down at the floor.
“He didn’t hurt you?”
“No.”
That was good, at least. He’s not sure he would have ever forgiven himself if Todoroki had gotten hurt because of him.
“Why did you do that? I mean, d-didn’t you know he would get mad?” he asked after a moment just to satiate his own curiosity
“He always has a reason to be angry, I might as well get something I want out of it.”
“And you wanted m-me over?” he asked incredulously before he had the forethought to bite his tongue.
“I’ve never had a friend over. I’ve never had a friend to have over. It sounded nice.”
His admission caught Izuku off guard. Though, he supposed he should be used to it; Todoroki tended to say what he thought without much of a filter and for some reason he liked Izuku.
“I hope I d-don’t dissap-ppoint,” Izuku replied with an awkward laugh.
“You don’t,” Todoroki answered plainly.
The flush on his cheeks could no longer be dismissed by the heat of the car he had just escaped from. That was far too earnest for him to handle with any amount of grace. The air was thick with a tension that Izuku was sure only he could feel.
“We will probably be having dinner soon, I’m going to make sure Fuyumi made enough for all of us,” Todoroki dismissed himself after Izuku spent too long staring blankly back at him.
When Todoroki came back to collect him for dinner his nerves were higher than they’d been all day, but he did his best to shove the feeling down. He tucked the pen Mei had given him into his blazer pocket and checked that it was recording. He had fiddled with the settings on his lunch break and made sure that the video feature was off on both the pen and the pin because that seemed like too much of an invasion of privacy. He could turn it back on if he felt the need to do so.
The entirety of the house seemed to be just as traditional as the architecture. The floors were tatami and the dining table was a low to the ground chabudai. Todoroki took a seat at the table but he tamped down his anxiety as much as he could and followed his nose and ears toward the kitchen. He needed to make a good first impression if he was going to get any sort of information out of his siblings and it would probably do him good to at least try to get into Endeavor’s good graces. He figured the latter was a losing battle but it was worth a shot.
Todoroki watched him as he left but didn’t question him. The kitchen wasn’t far from the dining room and a woman who had white hair with a spattering of red strands was gathering things together. That must be Fuyumi, the eldest sibling.
“Hello T-Todoroki-san, is there anything I can help w-with?” he asked from the doorway.
“Oh, hi, you must be Shoto’s friend. Midoriya, right? You can just call me Fuyumi otherwise it’s going to be a rather confusing dinner between the four of us,” she greeted.
That felt… wrong. He didn’t call anyone by their given name– well except Kacchan… kind of. That was different though… and not necessarily in a good way. He did his best to force his way through the awkwardness, but he did a rather piss poor job of it.
“Alright F-F-Fuyumi-san,” he stuttered out.
She smiled at him regardless.
“You can take these plates out if you don’t mind. Thank you,” she requested, her gentle smile not faltering for a second.
She seemed kind, she must take after her mother– or at least who her mother used to be.
Izuku picked up the plates and turned around to leave only to find the doorway already occupied. He did his best not to jump out of his skin but the plates in his hands clattered together anyways. The young man in the doorway was looking at him quizzically. He had short white hair, but he still bore a striking resemblance to his father. This must be Natsuo, the middle child.
“Hello, Todoroki-san,” he greeted with a nod.
“Er… hi,” he shot back with an inflection that made the statement sound more like a question.
“Oh, hey Natsu. This is Midoriya-kun, Shoto’s friend. He’s taking your job,” Fuyumi introduced him with a playful smile.
“Oh, s-sorry,” he instinctively apologized.
Natsuo put his hands up and shrugged his shoulders in a way that said he didn’t mind at all.
“There anything else I can grab for you?” he asked Fuyumi as he stepped out of Izuku’s way.
He didn’t hear her response because he took the clear dismissal and quickly made his way back to the dining room. Todoroki was sitting where he had been when he left but he stood up when he saw that Izuku had brought plates. They set them out together and Natsuo followed shortly after with some rice and a pot holder to protect the table. When he was done with that he headed back toward the kitchen, Izuku figured that was because there was more to grab, so he followed.
“So what’s up with the kid? Shoto’s never had friends over, I didn’t think he was allowed to have friends in the first place,” he overheard Natsuo in the kitchen.
He must have followed too quietly again, he should probably announce his presence, right?
“I’m not sure, Shoto just came over here while I was cooking. He told me he had a friend over and to make sure that I made enough food for five,” Fuyumi responded.
“He came into the kitchen while you were cooking?” Natsuo asked as if that was something out of the ordinary.
“To the door at least,” Fuyumi responded.
“He’s the kid that beat him in the sports festival, the one that made him use his fire,” Natsuo said in a disapproving tone.
“I don’t think he made him do anything, Natsu. There’s no way Dad invited him over, so Shoto must have asked. They’re actually friends, or at least I think they are. You’ve seen how different he’s been since he started at UA. Just be nice, okay?” Fuyumi chided him.
There was a stretch of silence after that and he decided now was a good time to interrupt and pretend he hadn’t just overheard all of that. He made sure his footsteps were audible as he rounded the corner.
“Is there anything e-else I can help w-with?” he asked quickly just in case they hadn’t heard him already.
“Oh, hi! You could, um, grab some cups, Natsu will bring a pitcher for water,” Fuyumi answered nervously, probably worried that he had overheard their conversation.
He made sure that no hint that he had heard anything showed on his face as he took the cups and went back to the table quickly. Todoroki helped him set those out as well and Izuku put the dots together after what he overheard. He wasn’t helping because he wouldn’t go into the kitchen if the stove was in use, likely because of what happened with his mother. That… wasn’t great, it also didn’t help the investigation. His mother was already out of the picture, it was his father that needed to fuck off. Fuyumi was old enough to care for him and she seemed fairly well adjusted too, which was a pleasant surprise– He was getting ahead of himself again. He didn’t know what any of them wanted yet and moreover, he did not have sufficient evidence for anything past a mildly effective smear campaign.
Head in the game Izuku, stop spacing out.
He took the offered spot next to Todoroki because he had a feeling he was not wanted in the kitchen right now. As was to be expected, they sat in awkward silence until Endeavor walked in, at which point they sat in tense and awkward silence. Fuyumi and Natsuo entered from the kitchen not long after and Izuku saw the way both of them tensed their shoulders after spotting their father. The reaction was subtle but undeniable. Fuyimi quickly settled herself, but Natsuo made no attempt to hide the scowl on his face.
“Alright everyone’s here! If you don’t like anything please don’t feel the need to eat it, I really don’t mind,” Fuyumi said cheerfully as she set down the food that she’d prepared.
The meal passed in bouts of awkward silence but the food was so good that he almost didn’t care. Fuyumi tried to start conversations a few times to very little success. Todoroki seemed to have gotten his conversational skills from his father, which was to say none at all. Natsuo seemed a little bit more socially inclined, he just didn’t have much to say. He was going to medical school apparently and most of what he had to talk about went over everyone’s head. Once all familial routes had been sufficiently explored she turned her focus to Izuku.
“Midoriya-kun, how about you? I hardly know the first thing about you, where are you from?”
Oh no. Small talk, his greatest weakness.
“I’m from M-Musutaf-fu,” he answered.
“Oh well that’s convenient for school, Shoto’s got a 45 minute train ride every day, right?”
Todoroki just nodded. He did not expect Todoroki to save him from the conversation, but it would have been nice if he did.
“Yeah, it’s c-convienent. I applied to K-Ketsubutsu and Shiketsu as well, those w-would have been awful c-commutes,” he replied.
“Oh, yeah, it’d probably be better to move at that point,” she agreed.
He held the awkward conversation far better than Todoroki and his father had and they spent the rest of the meal chatting between the three of them. He learned a little bit more about Natsuo’s schooling and what he was hoping to specialize in; by the end of it he actually found himself relaxing in the pointless chatter. Despite their father, the Todoroki children were quite pleasant.
He helped clean up the meal as much as they would allow and by the time he was finished with that Todoroki had been swept away by Endeavor. Natsuo caught his confused eye searching around for him and explained that they were probably training now. He did his best to keep the disappointment off his face and made his way back to his room alone.
He didn’t have much homework assigned over the week off from regular classes, but he had a bit and he worked on it sparingly. If he did it all at once, he would no doubt find himself bored out of his mind by the end of the week, especially if Todoroki was going to be busy training every night. So, as the allotted homework for the night was completed all too soon, he turned back to his things in search of something to do when his eyes landed on his phone. His new phone, the one that actually had cell service and “unlimited data.”
Needless to say, he found himself scrolling on it for hours, but in his defense, he had several years of not being afforded this luxury to catch up on. He had kept pretty up to date on the news, but not so much on pop culture and the font was seemingly endless. Once it hit 11pm he figured he should probably try to sleep. He didn’t have his hopes up for his efforts being fruitful, but not trying to sleep certainly wouldn’t replenish his energy so the choice seemed obvious.
After 2 hours of lying there, he decided that it wasn’t going to happen. The unfamiliar silence of being out of the city was unsettling and he wasn’t very good at sleeping to begin with. He had planned to go on a walk tonight anyway and 1 am seemed like a good time to do it. Snooping around would be more productive than staring at the back of his eyelids and trying not to think about all of his problems waiting for him back in Musutafu.
His mind kept drifting back to Shinso of all things. He had no reason to lie to him anymore, he had nothing left to get caught for, not really. There were certainly things he still couldn’t tell him, but the truths Shinso was looking for weren’t among them. Some part of him wanted to tell him everything, what happened with his parents, who Ivy was, and why he suddenly had a super powerful quirk, but he knew that he couldn’t. Ivy was confidential and OFA was even more so. All he could really tell Shinso was that he was abandoned and that he had never trusted them enough to ask for help.
He could imagine that that would be a nasty surprise, well, not really a surprise. Shinso already knew that Izuku didn’t trust him and he had made it quite clear how he felt about that. So what was he hoping for here? To make Shinso even more mad? To rub salt in the wound? To spell out just how much he didn’t trust them? That he had felt safer living on the street than putting even the smallest amount of himself in their hands? Maybe he did. Maybe he wanted someone to be mad at him.
It was all too confusing and the oppressive silence of his borrowed room wasn’t helping, so he left.
The rest of the house was equally silent. He walked down hallways full of doors he didn’t have the courage to open as he had no clue what they led to and he really didn’t want to open a door to find someone snoozing on the other side. That felt a touch too invasive for him. Whether Endeavor was as side or back sleeper was not the kind of information he was looking for.
He had his phone and his pen tucked into his pocket, the audio recorder was running, though he didn’t expect to pick anything up on it. He was glad that he had it though, because when he walked past the dining room he saw that he was not the only one up and about at such an odd hour. Fuyumi was sitting at the table in the kitchen, the high top one that was more of a western standard. He hardly made any noise as he walked, but she whipped her head up regardless. That level of situational awareness wasn’t common among civilians; he supposed hypervigilence was just a product of her upbringing.
“Sorry, I didn’t m-mean to scare you,” he broke the silence of the night.
“No, you’re fine. I didn’t expect anyone up at this hour. You should be sleeping, you’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
She was so caring, like she needed to make up for the deficit in this house. She probably raised Natsuo on her own, now that he thought about it. Once their mother was out of the picture Endeavor’s focus would have been on Todoroki entirely. Maybe they had a nanny, they were certainly wealthy enough for it. He wondered how lonely they must have been here as children, how lonely Todoroki must still be.
“Midoriya-kun?”
“S-sorry, yeah. I sh-should, but I can’t. Insomnia or something,” he explained awkwardly with a shrug.
“I have just the brew for that! Do you like tea?” she asked with a smile.
It was 1 am, how the hell was she so cheerful? Moreover, why was she up at 1 am?
“You d-don’t have to do that. You should b-be asleep too, don’t you have s-school tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I do,” she frowned as she looked at the clock hanging on the wall, “Maybe we could both use that tea.”
Before he could protest she stood up and made her way to the kettle on the counter.
“Take a seat, if you can’t sleep you might as well rest,” she instructed as he stood there awkwardly.
He took the offered seat across from where she had been sitting and he couldn’t help but glance over at the papers spread out across the table. She must have been grading because the pages were littered with barely legible kanji that had clearly been done by an unpracticed hand. It was cute, he could imagine some little kid sticking their tongue out in concentration while they clutched their pencil in a fist. He wished he could have had a teacher like Fuyumi when he was that age, maybe things would have been easier… or maybe they wouldn’t. Getting treated like trash by someone who treated everyone else with such kindness would have stung more than already rude adults treating him poorly.
She was only kind to him because he had a quirk now.
That wasn’t a helpful train of thought, but it was one that had been creeping up on him often. He bit back a sigh and returned his attention to Fuyumi who was pouring hot water into two mugs for them. He had a quirk, and she was kind; that's all he needed to concern himself with right now.
“So, not even your first day of hero work was enough to tire you out?” Fuyumi asked as she sat back down in her place across from him.
“N-no, I guess not. Thank you,” he replied as he took the offered tea.
She took a small sip of her own tea and It must have been too hot because she grimaced and blew frosty breath over it before trying again.
“That’s some hardy insomnia,” she joked before she took a another tentative sip.
Izuku snorted out a laugh despite himself. Hardy was a nice way to describe his insomnia. Personally, he would have used “hellish” or “unbearable” but hardy works too. He hadn’t been expecting to find anyone up at this time, he had been prepared for snooping, but not small talk. This was a good opportunity though, he shouldn’t waste it.
“H-how about you? What has you u-up at this time?” he shot back.
“Same as you, I guess. I don’t know if I’ve got insomnia, but something runs in the family, we’re all terrible sleepers. You fit right in,” she joked again.
Did she use humor as a method of deflecting? Probably. As for insomnia running in the family, he could probably guess as to why that was. Hypervigilance doesn’t generally lend itself to a healthy sleep schedule. Did the whole family include Endeavor? Either way that was good to know, he’d need to be careful while he snooped, he couldn’t count of people being asleep.
“That’s alright though, just means that I have plenty of time to get my work done,” she insisted after he didn’t reply.
Excessive positivity, that was an interesting coping mechanism, a bit delusional, but probably healthier than most other things she could be doing.
“Yeah, that’s a s-silver lining,” he replied half sarcastically.
“There’s always one, you just gotta look for it,” she replied so genuinely that Izuku felt bad about joking.
Fuyumi didn’t seem like the type of person to spill their guts like Todoroki did. If Izuku wanted to dig deeper he was going to have to put something on the table first. 1 am was a good time for this kind of talk, he supposed. Hopefully she didn’t think this was too out of left field.
“I’m not very good at f-finding those,” he admitted.
She frowned and looked down at her tea. He didn’t think she would just dismiss him after saying something like that, she was too caring. She wouldn’t talk about her own problems so he had to trick her into talking about his problems in order to learn about hers. He just waited and hoped the silence prompted her to speak.
“I don’t blame you, it’s not easy most of the time,” she finally replied.
Bingo. He had an in, now he just had to play his cards right.
“How do you do it?”
She looked surprised by his question. It was certainly out of character for him to say something like that, but he figured she didn’t know him well enough to know what was in or out of character for him yet. Maybe he underestimated her observational skills, or maybe she just didn’t expect that kind of question from anyone. Natsuo didn’t really give off the vibe of someone who talks about their feelings and Izuku had no clue what kind of people, if any, she befriended in her life outside of this house. Did she have anyone to talk to? He felt bad manipulating her like this if that was the case. Well, he felt bad regardless, but that just made it worse.
“Practice, I guess. You’ve got to stop and take a second to think about the good things you’ve got whenever something bad happens. It’s natural for us to focus on the bad, it’s a survival tactic; if something’s wrong you need to be able to recognize it and fix it, but if something’s right then you don’t need to worry about it. It’s helpful in some ways, but it trains our brains to fixate on the negatives. You’ve got to train it in reverse to see the positives,” she explained.
Oh. That was… huh.
He never thought about it like that. She was right, it was a survival tactic. He’d had so much to worry about for his whole life, if he didn’t focus on the issues and fix them he would have ended up dead either from lack of food and shelter or lack of preparation and skill needed to to protect himself from the various shady figures he encountered both on and off patrol. He was hardwired to focus on negatives in order to survive…
That was kind of sad, wasn’t it?
Somehow Fuyumi wasn’t sad like him though. Maybe she was delusional, or maybe he could be happy like her one day, if he tried. He hoped she wasn’t just faking it, he hoped she really was happy. He was under no disillusions that she had no struggles, I mean, look at her family; there’s no way she wasn’t still struggling with all of this, but she had a job that she seems to like, she loved her family however she could. She’s making the best of what she has and finding joy where she can.
Maybe he could do that too.
“I wish I had a better answer than that,” Fuyumi said remorsefully, pulling him out of his head.
Shit, how long had he been sitting there like a dumbass?
“N-no, that was… that was helpful. Th-thank you,” he stuttered out, still a little stupified from his epiphany.
She watched him with an expression Izuku didn’t know how to read. It was soft, but most of the expressions he had seen from her were soft. He didn’t feel threatened, but it was certainly uncomfortable. He was about to ask her what was going on when she spoke up.
“I’m glad. You’re a good friend to Shoto, he’s been happier than I’ve seen him in… ever, I think. Thank you for taking care of him,” she said with a melancholic smile.
He was still partially stuck in his own head and he was not prepared for the change in topic nor the unabashed compliment. Maybe he was wrong to say that she wasn’t like Todoroki, he did the same thing constantly and Izuku didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Oh–I, um, it’s n-nothing–”
“It’s not nothing. I don’t know how much you know about Shoto, but he’s had a rough go of things. He’s known you for a month and I’ve noticed the difference even though I barely see him
Oh god he needs to pull himself together, she’s offering out the perfect segue on a silver platter, he can’t mess this up.
“How come you barely see him?” he asked as casually as he could.
“He’s busy with training,” she dismissed.
“We train at school, does he train at home too?”
“Yeah, him and dad train a lot,” she replied with a sadness in her eyes.
Izuku did his best to feign ignorance and pressed for more information.
“That makes sense, he’s the number 2 hero and Todoroki was almost top of the class in our apprehension test. How long has he been training?”
She hesitated at that question.
“Dad’s been working with him on quirk control ever since it came in,” she finally settled on an answer.
‘Quirk control’ was a nice way of putting things, he supposed.
“Oh, well it shows. Have they been doing that for 10 years then? When do you get to see them?”
“We have family dinners whenever we can.”
This was all too surface level, he needed more, so he pressed again.
“That must have been lonely.”
He could see by the look on her face that he had hit a sore spot; she had been lonely.
“It wasn’t too bad, I had my brothers– er, brother,” she lied.
Pressing more was a gamble, but it was one he had to take if this was going to get him anywhere.
“That doesn’t seem fair. Endeavor just left you guys to fend for yourselves?”
“No, no he didn't, he was still here. He was just busy with Shoto… He trained with all of us, but Shoto has so much potential…” she trailed off and took another sip of her tea.
He could see the sadness in the curve of her shoulders. She was mourning the family she could have had. Izuku had a feeling that she would never stop mourning the family she could have had, especially if she still thought that what had happened was for the best. Sure, Todoroki had incredible potential, but that doesn’t matter. Just because one kid came out ‘right’ doesn’t mean you get to discard the rest. That negligence is probably what killed Toya, she had to see that, right?
“You still deserved to have a dad though,” he insisted gently.
He could tell by the crease in her brow that he was pushing his luck.
“I did–I do have a dad, it’s just– it’s complicated.”
“I get it. My parents w– aren’t around much either,” he had to correct himself from talking about them in the past tense; he wanted to level the playing field and share a bit, not drop the tactical nuke that was what had actually become of his ‘family.’
Fuyumi huffed out a breath from her nose and smiled with no warmth.
“I guess you really do fit in around here,” she joked.
Sharing his own anecdote seemed to have calmed her down, he needed to be careful about this, he couldn’t make it seem like an interrogation or she would shut him out and he wouldn’t get anything. Hopefully, that was enough to have made a difference because he really did not want to get into his own family issues. Against his better judgement, he steered the conversation back to the Todoroki family.
“I don’t know about that… Endeavor doesn’t seem to like me much.”.
“I don’t think he likes anyone much,” she replied quietly as she looked into her tea without really seeing it. She straightened the slouch in her spine and her eyes went wide, apparently she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She must be tired. “That was mean, I didn’t mean– he’s just difficult to get along with sometimes,” she backpedaled.
When she finished her frantic denials and apologetic hand waving she returned her eyes to Izuku. He did his best to give her a look that conveyed that he understood and that she didn’t need to sugarcoat things. If he was reading the way she dropped her gaze and let the slouch return to her shoulders correctly, then he figured that his point had been communicated.
“I know what happened, or at least some of it. I know things are… less than stellar around here. I think talking about it helped Todoroki. I feel like you want to fix things, but you can’t fix problems by ignoring them. Or at least that method hasn’t worked for me,” he shot back, hoping that some honesty and humor would get her to open up more.
She just looked at him again for an uncomfortable bout of silence, that same soft expression on her face. It was a while before she spoke again.
“You’re a good kid, Midoriya-kun,” she said.
He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. They sat there together in the dim light of the kitchen and drank their tea in silence. When she put her empty cup down he took it and washed both in the sink before drying them and putting them back into the cupboard he had seen her take them from.
She just watched the whole time.
When he turned his focus back to her, her gaze dropped, like she had just realized that she had been staring. She looked at her hands clasped together on the table and blinked sluggishly. She looked exhausted but she made no move to get up.
“Y-you should go to bed, Todoroki-san,” he prompted her quietly.
She looked up with a barely there grin and a look that said she wasn’t the only one who should be following that advice.
“We should both go to b-bed,” he corrected himself.
She nodded and started gathering up the papers strewn across the table, and he just left her to it. They exchanged goodnights and he made his way back to his room. He was tired, but he had a feeling that he was going to be kept up by mulling over their conversation for a while yet.
Notes:
THANKS FOR READING!!!
I am forcing every female character to speak at least 100% more than they did in canon, or at least I am with the adults, there's too many damn kids to keep track of.
🗣️let🗣️women🗣️speak🗣️Horikoshi
Chapter 138: [title tbd...]
Notes:
No clue who betaed this, general shout out to my bitches, I love you bitches <3 (Beezus, Parker, Penny, Riot, Spade, and Woomy)
Sorry for the late upload today, I had a lot of work to do when I got in that couldn't be put off.
CWs:
mentions of suicide
suicide attempt
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi lost count of how many times he had become intimately acquainted with the taste of the mat covering the floor of the gym, but here he was again with a face full of rubber or whatever the hell this stuff was made out of. He had half a mind to stay there, he would be here again in a matter of seconds, why bother getting up? He didn’t even realize that he had let out a pained groan until he heard a laugh huffed out from above him. He scrambled up quickly after that.
“Why don’t we pause for lunch, you look like you could use a break,” Aizawa stated flatly.
Hitoshi did his best to keep the unending gratitude off his face as he nodded in agreement, though, the pleased smirk on his sensei's face told him his efforts were mildly successful at best. This man was a sadist, Hitoshi was sure of it. He missed yesterday’s training where his biggest threat was accidentally hanging himself while trying to use his capture weapon like Aizawa did.
Aizawa left the room and Hitoshi assumed he was off to eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge or wherever it was that he usually ate, so he didn’t think twice about laying down on the ground next to his stuff for a while before grabbing his bento. He just needed to catch his breath and verify that his limbs weren’t broken. He laid there staring at the ceiling for a while and vowed to never get on Eraserhead’s bad side. His musings were interrupted by the gym doors opening and Hitoshi was surprised to see Aizawa returning with his own bento. The lower half of his face was hidden behind his scarf, but he could have sworn he saw the gleam of a smirk in his eyes when he spotted Hitoshi plastered pathetically to the ground.
Yeah, definitely a sadist.
“It’s ill-advised to eat while lying down,” he quipped as he took a seat next to him.
“It’s ill-advised to kill children, and yet…” he found himself poking back before he could think better of it.
“You’re mouthy for a corpse,” Aizawa replied rather than reprimanding him.
Hitoshi bit back on a laugh and stayed sprawled out on the ground while Aizawa started to eat. He’d been saying sarcastic little jokes like that all day and Hitoshi had gradually started to understand Aizawa more and more. He was still bizarre and damn near impossible to read, but at least he was funny. He kind of reminded him of Midoriya. A little too mysterious, quick witted and even quicker on his feet. Though, Midoriya was far less brutal in his training.
***
Shota watched Shinso out of the corner of his eye as he laid on the floor. He had his eyes closed but his breathing hadn’t evened out in the way that would if he had fallen asleep, so he let him be for now. He could see how he and Midoriya would have been friends, they had the same dry, sarcastic sense of humor and his damn near boundless determination reminded him of when he first started sparring with Ivy.
He was considering prodding the kid upright when he got up on his own accord and fished out a bento from his bag. Sitting down and eating with someone like this reminded him of rooftops in a way that made his heart ache for several reasons, for several people he didn’t think he was ever going to get back at this rate. The wild gravity defying hair of his student didn’t help matters. Those nighttime rooftops with Ivy were in the past and the bright daylight rooftops with Oboro were even further buried. He pushed away the unhelpful comparisons and brought his mind back to the matter at hand. He needed to get information on Shinso and Midoriya’s relationship, so he started out with an innocuous question.
“You said you had training before, where did you learn?” Shota asked casually.
“I was part of a local dojo, the one on block 40…” Shinso trailed off.
It sounded like he wanted to say more but he stopped himself, so Shota just waited and hoped that the uncomfortable silence would encourage Shinso to continue.
“I also learned from, um, Midoriya. He taught me the basics and told me to join a dojo,” Shinso rewarded his patience with a convenient segue.
“How long did you two work together?” he probed for more information.
“I knew him for a couple years before, um– we only worked on martial arts for a few months, maybe like five? Usually only once a week.”
That was a good timeline, but he needed more than that.
“You two were close then?” he pushed.
It was certainly out of character for him to ask about a student's personal life, but he was hoping Shinso didn’t know him well enough to pick up on that yet.
“Yeah… we were pretty close. He used to come into the library my mom works at, he was there most days.”
So his mother was involved too, that was… well that was good and bad. Good that there was an adult he could question, but bad that there was another person he had to drag into this. How many people was Midoriya hiding from?
“Have you two reconciled with whatever happened at the beginning of the year?”
The surprised look on Shinso’s face told him that he was pushing his luck with that question.
“Oh, that… um, no. Not really.”
He needed to veer this back into his lane. He was his teacher, he shouldn’t be poking into things not related to his student’s education.
“It’s only a matter of time before you two get teamed up in class; is that going to pose an issue?”
A faint blush spread across Shinso’s cheeks. That probably sounded like a reprimand, which was not his intention, but if it got him information he wasn’t about to correct it.
“No– I– we can work together. It’s not a problem–”
“You glare at the back of his head every day,” he interrupted the lie before Shinso got the chance to finish it.
He clamped his mouth shut and turned his gaze down to his lap.
“I told you at the beginning of the year, if this feud affects your education then it becomes my problem as well. You spend more time glaring at him than you do looking at the board. Your grades aren’t an issue, but they could be better if you paid proper attention,” he made an attempt to reel back the ridicule, but he’s not sure how successful he was.
“I’m sorry, sensei, I–”
“I don’t need an apology, you’re a good student. I already told you, your grades are fine, however, if they could be better, then I would like to resolve the situation. It’s my job to oversee your education, if this is a hurdle for you, I’d like to help you get past it if I’m able,” he clarified, “but I can’t do that if I don’t have more information,” he added.
Shinso took a moment to mull over what he had said. He looked like he wanted to explain but he was just looking for the words to say it, so Shota waited patiently.
“We were friends for about two years, like I said, he came into the library and I did online school there so I saw him at least four days a week. We weren’t usually there on weekends and he wasn’t there on Tuesdays. He used to come over to my house for dinner once a week too and that’s when we’d practice together. We didn’t– we never talked about quirks at least not our own. I didn’t tell him mine and– well he found out and at first it was fine, but then he started acting all scared of me and eventually, he told me that he was moving to America; I never saw him or heard from him again until the first day of class. That was like last April, so over a year ago now. But obviously, he never left. He lied to me,” Shinso explained reluctantly.
“And have you tried talking to him?”
“Yeah, I talked to him the first day; he just apologized and refused to explain. He said he wasn’t scared of me, but he was obviously lying again, so I told him to leave me alone until he had an explanation and we haven’t really talked since.”
He did his best to keep his face neutral through the whole explanation, but it felt like someone had twisted a knife in his heart. Last April was when Midoriya’s cat died. It looked like it had been shot, and if the kid had lived in that staircase, then the people they were looking for that night were probably looking for him. Midoriya’s throwing knife target wasn’t very well hidden from the opening in the wall, if you stood at the right angle you could see it from outside and if that cat didn’t distract whoever was snooping around, then they very well could have found his camp and waited until he got back from patrol. They could have shot him in that dark stairwell and, more likely than not, his body would never have been found.
Midoriya probably put those pieces together too, he knew they were after him and that they were getting close. Did he cut ties to anyone else so that they wouldn’t get hurt? Or was he right about his first hypothesis, he cut them off because they were getting too close to figuring out his ‘home’ situation? The timing seemed too conspicuous; the cat had to be a catalyst, right? He needed more concrete dates to know for sure. He could check with Tsuakauchi on the report for when he turned that gun in, it had been the day after he had taken it from Midoriya, but he couldn’t get a date from Shinso without being incredibly suspicious. Did he even need the date? Did it matter to the investigation which came first, or was that just his own concern and morbid curiosity talking?
“Did, um, do you know why he was out last week? Is he alright?” Shinso asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Yes, I know why he was out,” he replied in a forced level tone.
“Are you sure? I mean like did you just get an email or did you actually talk to his mom?” Shinso pressed.
That certainly piqued his interest. He raised his brow and looked over to Shinso who was picking at his nails and not looking up at him. He knew something, didn’t he?
“Why?” he asked rather than answering.
“He said– or well I heard from someone else that he said that it was a family issue. I just wanted to know if everything is alright, but I guess I could just ask him–”
“No, you specifically asked if his mother had talked to us, why?” Shota interrupted his backpedaling.
Shinso looked very uncomfortable with the line of questioning and Shota knew that was for a reason, he needed to know that reason.
“I– well I never met his mom but she was– there was this one time he came into the library and he was really sick, he must have had a fever because he was kind of, er, loose lipped, I asked him what he was doing there and he said he had to email his school from a fake email because his mom wouldn’t call him in; and there was another time where we were together and– well he said that his mom was out of the country and he was home alone. I think he’s alone a lot but he said he had someone checking in on him pretty consistently– a family friend that taught him how to fight so, I mean he had to see him pretty regularly for him to have gotten that good. We kept an eye on him too, but we never really had anything we could have reported to anyone, so we just did the best we could– and now he was out again so I was worried that something happened,” Shinso explained all in one breath.
That was… a lot to take in. So Midoriya had been using him as a scape goat for the Shinsos. That was…– he tried his best to not feel guilty about that, if he hadn’t been there then Midoriya would have just come up with another lie. Some messed up part of his brain felt better knowing that he wasn’t the only adult in the kid’s life that had failed him so spectacularly. Shinso-san had some type of mind reading quirk, didn’t she? and he was still able to evade her notice, so maybe he wasn’t such a failure– no, that was– god, none of this should be taking his focus away from the investigation. He was too close to all of this but there wasn’t a better alternative. He had to do what he had to do.
“So you do know what happened? You’re sure?” Shinso interrupted his train of thought for a second time.
“Yes, I am sure. Midoriya is fine–” he cut himself off, saying he was fine now gave too much away, “I saw to it personally, you don’t need to worry about him,” he assured.
Shinso looked at him critically, studying his face for any hint that he wasn’t being fully truthful, but thankfully, he didn’t push the matter. Whether or not that was due to Shota’s poker face or the fact that Shinso realized he didn’t have any business snooping around further was impossible to say, but he hoped it was the former. All Might had already gone poking his nose into Midoriya’s business and the poor kid didn’t need anyone else prodding him for information. It was good that they cared, but he was going through a lot already.
***
The joint patrol with Shoto and Endeavor was stunted both socially and physically. Burnin did most of the talking for the group and walking around with Endeavor collected a crowd no matter how hard he glared at them. He dismissed them briskly most of the time but the group of middle schoolers that seemed to be on their way home either did not pick up on the fact that Endeavor wanted nothing to do with them, or they ignored it. Either way it was kind of funny.
Burnin was signing notebooks and doing her best to play damage control for Endeavor’s poor social skills, Endeavor was trying to shake off the gaggle of tweens, and one of the kids was talking to Todoroki about his quirk, so they were all pretty occupied. He didn’t blame them for not noticing what was going on on the other side of the tracks.
A man standing there waiting for a train had tensed up the moment they walked into the station so Izuku had been keeping an eye on him. He didn’t look overly suspicious, just some business man, though he was out early for someone Izuku assumed to be a 9-5er; It was only 3 o’clock. He kept glancing over at Endeavor and their group so Izuku hid himself behind a pillar so that he could keep watch without being noticed. They couldn’t take him in for acting suspicious and he wasn’t going to pull anything if he knew the number two hero was watching him, so Izuku would wait until he acted.
His plan rewarded him, Endeavor was turning to leave the station in an attempt to ditch the entourage and Izuku could feel a breeze coming down the tunnel as a train barreled into the station. The man’s face twisted painfully and he sent another glance toward Endeavor, making sure his back was turned before he stepped forward, his foot deliberately catching on a warped floor panel. He started falling onto the tracks and Izuku could see the train’s lights breaching the tunnel. Time froze and Izuku bolted after the man as fast as he could manage. With a flash of green sparks and a gust of wind, he vaulted over the gap and tackled the man back onto the station floor.
He felt the train clip his boot as they tumbled on the ground.
That was too close.
He could hear people screaming, but he ignored it, his focus was on the man he had pinned to the ground beneath him. His breaths were ragged as he squirmed out from Izuku’s grasp and curled in on himself. He was breathing, he was alive. He was hiding his face from everyone as he cried.
He had to get him out of here, an audience was not what he needed right now.
Unfortunately for both of them, Izuku had an audience of his own.
“Jade! Are you alright?!” he heard Burnin’s voice come from above.
She had flown over the top of the train. Endeavor and Todoroki were still on the other side, but he figured that wouldn’t last for long.
“Yes, we’re both fine. I’ve got the situation handled,” he said with confidence, hoping that it would be enough to communicate that she should leave.
It was not enough, and just as he had suspected, Todoroki came climbing over the top of the train less than a second later. There was fear in his eyes that settled when they met Izuku’s. He nodded at him to let him know that he was fine, just in case he hadn’t heard him answer Burnin. Endeavor flew over the top of the train as well; to the average civilian, it would have been quick, but Izuku knew he was faster than that. He had taken his time to check on the situation and it made Izuku sick. ‘Jade’ knew how to handle himself, but Endeavor didn’t know that. He was letting a petty grudge against a 15 year old get in the way of his work. Seconds made all the difference in heroics and his laissez-faire attitude could have been the difference between life and death.
He stomped down his observations, now wasn’t the time.
“Shoto, try to melt that panel flat, if you can,” he instructed and returned his focus to the civilian in front of him.
Hopefully, the order would tell people watching that this had been an accident, not a suicide attempt. Of course, it had been a suicide attempt but the judgement that hung heavy in the air wasn’t helping anyone so he did his best to dismiss it.
“Let’s get you out of here, sir,” he spoke to the man gently.
The man didn’t react, he just stayed where he was on the dirty ground curled in on himself painfully tight. Izuku bit his lip and gently rested his hand on the man’s back. He needed time, so Izuku gave it to him. He sat on the ground next to him and rubbed soothing circles between his shoulder blades until his trembling settled down and his limbs slackened. He was still crying, but he seemed more present, so he tried to get his attention again.
“Sir, let’s get you out of here. Can you stand?” he asked quietly.
His question seemed to prompt the man to remember where he was, and Izuku felt the muscles beneath his hand tense up again.
“It’s alright, let me help you. I’m sure you don’t want an audience right now. Let’s go somewhere else.”
At that the man shakily obeyed. He got up to unsteady feet and allowed Izuku to usher him out of the station and away from the prying eyes that inhabited it. He ignored Endeavor pulling Shoto away and he ignored Burnin perching herself on the roof behind where he got the man to sit down.
The man tried to deny what had happened, but Izuku didn’t let him. It didn’t help anyone to feign ignorance. It took a while but eventually the man dropped his denials and told him that his name was Hiraoka Michi. Izuku sat with him while he broke down for a second time and he listened as the man told him he had been let go, how his family had fallen on hard times and he couldn’t find a new job. He told him how he knew there was a security camera in the station and he hoped his life insurance would be enough for his family to pay rent for long enough for his wife to find employment or marry someone else who wasn’t such a failure. He listened while Hiraoka-san called himself an idiot, how he knew the plan was stupid, but he was just so goddamned tired.
Izuku knew how that felt. Hiraoka-san already knew he shouldn’t have done what he did, he didn’t need coddling, he needed the truth, so Izuku gave it to him.
“There’s food pantries all over town, the government has programs that can help you provide for your family. Libraries are a great resource, they can help you find pantries and shelters if things come to that. It’s not enough, but it’s something. No amount of money is ever going to make up for your absence. You are invaluable and giving up is not an option, not when you have a family. They need you just as much as they need food on the table and a roof over their heads,” he insisted with a gently firm tone.
Guilt pulled at the man’s expression and Izuku did his best to focus on that and not his own experiences of family letting him down. It was different– they didn’t– No, no. Not now, Izuku. He didn’t think that Hiraoka-san would try that again, the remorse was evident, but he still couldn’t just leave him here to his own devices.
“Call your wife and let her know when you’ll be home,” he instructed when the man made no move to respond to him.
He looked up with a furrowed brow but he didn’t reach for his phone.
“I can’t leave you here with nothing keeping you from trying that again. Call your wife, she’ll be expecting you home. You won’t let her down,” he insisted.
The guilty look on his face only deepened, but he obeyed this time. Izuku stayed and listened to the conversation to make sure that he didn’t try to back out. Tears fell from the man’s eyes as he spoke to his wife but he didn’t let it color his tone, like he didn’t want to worry her. That didn’t sit right with Izuku. When he ended the call he walked them over to the street and hailed a cab. He wasn’t supposed to do this, but he paid for his fair with his student transit pass and the man looked about ready to cry again at the gesture.
“Talk to your wife. You aren’t in this alone, she’s your partner for a reason, isn’t she?” he said before Hiraoka-san took his seat in the cab.
“I don’t want to worry her–”
“You were ready to make her grieve half an hour ago, Hiraoka-san, talking to her won’t hurt her more than that would have,” Izuku cut him off quickly.
It was harsh, but it’s what he needed to hear.
Hiraoka-san nodded as guilt pulled at his features again. He knew what he needed to do and Izuku couldn’t do anything but trust that he would see it through. He watched as he got into the cab and it drove him away. He kept watching it until it was out of sight. The footsteps behind him didn’t startle him because he knew she had been there the entire time. Burnin gently laid a hand on his shoulder before she spoke.
“You handled that like a pro,” she praised solemnly.
He had been worried that she didn’t have the tact to deal with things like this, but her tone surprised him. She sounded like she was yelling most of the time, but that’s just the way she spoke. It was nice to hear an inside voice, it made her sound like a real person. He wondered how much of her personality was a persona, but that wasn’t important right now so he discarded it quickly.
“Thanks,” he answered in the same melancholic tone.
“Are you alright?”
He smiled sadly as he turned around.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured her.
She studied his face intently, as if looking for a way to disprove his statement, but she didn’t find anything. He was as okay as he ever was. He’d seen and been through situations far worse than that one, it was sad, but not enough to really rattle him.
“Let’s break for lunch, it’s well overdue, then I can show you the wonderful world of incident reports,” she joked, though her volume was still respectfully low.
“Oh, joy,” he shot back sarcastically and started walking in the direction of Endeavor’s agency.
He heard Burnin snort out a laugh behind him. The interaction reminded him so much of working with Eraser that it hurt to think about. He filed that moment away quickly. Here and now, focus on the here and now, Izuku.
The rest of the day followed without much fanfare, they rejoined Endeavor and Shoto after lunch and incidents were minimal. They did their paperwork on it and went back to the Todoroki household for a second time. Dinner was similarly awkward, but he thought he was starting to get the hang of things, conversation flowed smoothly enough and he was pretty sure he was the only one who was feeling awkward about it. He could only hope that he did a good job of hiding it.
Just like yesterday, Todoroki was ushered into the training room with his father, leaving Izuku to his own devices. So, against his wishes, he was doing his homework at the Todoroki family dining table. He had caught Fuyumi here last night and he was hoping he would be able to catch Natsuo in a conversation as well. There wasn’t anything productive he could do while Todoroki was training with his father; any lurking would be noticed through the translucent shoji walls, so he planned to plant a bug to oversee tomorrow night’s training session.
Thankfully, it didn’t take too long before Natsuo walked into the room to get to the kitchen and sent a nod of greeting toward Izuku as he went. Izuku sent one back and steeled himself, he had to get Natsuo to sit down and talk with him and, given the sneers he had seen aimed at Endeavor, he had a feeling he knew how to do that. When Natsuo walked back out of the kitchen with the water bottle he’d presumably just filled, Izuku spoke up.
“Do you know when T-Todoroki will be d-done training?” he asked.
Natsuo’s face twitched into an expression of anger for a split second before he schooled himself.
“They’re usually at it for hours, I wouldn’t wait up,” he advised.
“That s-seems a bit excessive…” Izuku baited.
Natsuo didn’t seem like he would turn down an opportunity to shit talk the old man and Izuku was all too happy to provide.
“It is, the man’s insane and obsessive,” he bit out.
Well, that was far easier than he had expected it to be.
“No love l-lost with you,” he joked
He just hummed ruefully in response.
“Explains the startling l-lack of ‘#2 dad’ mugs in the c-cupboard,” Izuku tried again.
Natsuo promptly burst out laughing at that and Izuku couldn’t help the smile creeping up his cheeks.
“God, I would get one of those for him in a second if it wouldn’t get me beat,” Natsuo said once he got his laughter under control.
Just like he had with Fuyumi, he didn’t want to make this conversation seem like an interrogation, he had to give something in return. Humor seemed to be getting him on far enough with Natsuo so he figured that was a safe road to travel.
“I’d get one for m-my dad t-too but he’s been at the store for s-seven years so, m-might take a while.”
It was only half true, but it was still funny. It wasn’t funny when kids had jeered that at him in middle school but there was a kind of power in reclaiming the joke.
Natsuo did a poor job of concealing his laugh.
“I see why you and Shoto hit it off.”
“Y-yeah, we’re cofounders of the UA shitty d-dad club,” he replied.
He bit his lip when he realized he’d let out a curse word. Hopefully, Natsuo didn’t care. He didn’t seem like the type to care, but he was looking at Izuku with a surprised expression and a raised brow.
“Y’know Fuyumi described you as a ‘very polite young man,’” he shot back dryly.
A blush spread across Izuku’s cheeks. He couldn’t talk like that here, this wasn’t Uptown and Izuku was lead to believe that fancy rich people don’t curse… or at least they weren’t supposed to, it wasn’t ‘proper’.
“I contain m-multitudes,” he defended weakly.
Natsuo scoffed out another laugh before taking his leave, shooting an unconvinced sounding “got it” over his shoulder as he walked away.
Well, that wasn’t as much as he had been hoping to get from him, but at least he had a glowing character review from all of Endeavor’s children now. It hardly made the case but it would certainly help it on the condition that he got more concrete evidence. He cringed at what ‘more concrete evidence’ entailed. He didn’t know what was going on behind the closed doors of the training room but he had a feeling that was where he was going to get his evidence.
He’d plant the bug tonight.
The doors held themselves a little bit off the floor, just enough for the pen to fit nestled under them. He hadn’t seen the inside of the training room but he figured it was just as sparsely decorated as every other room in the house, so he couldn’t count on being able to hide anything in there. What he could do was tape the pen to the underside of the door. It would be small enough to not impede its function and Izuku doubted either of them would look closely enough to spot it.
This was going to work, whether it caught evidence or not… well Izuku didn’t know what to hold out hope for.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 139: Fuck a Silver Lining
Notes:
Possible betas: Penny Woomy and Beezus. Idk, they all at least read it so ty <3
btw Burnin's real name is Moe Kamiji which will be relevant to know for POV comprehension
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi wasn’t too prideful to admit that he was nervous for his first patrol; he didn’t have a great track record for nighttime walks through the city. He forced himself to focus on the facts that A.) he would be with Eraserhead the whole time and B.) he knew how to defend himself now… at least to some degree. Most of his classmates could still beat his ass, but he was good enough to get into UA, that had to count for something.
So far things had been largely uneventful, they had stopped some creep who was following a lady around but that didn’t really involve any sort of confrontation. Aizawa just started walking with the woman and sent a glare over to the man behind them who promptly scurried off. They walked her home and she thanked them, but since then, little of note had happened. That fact made Hitoshi consider how shit his luck was, they were out here quite literally looking for trouble and coming up short, but just wandering around on his own had earned him two of the most traumatizing experiences of his life? That's some bullshit if you asked him. The night was still young though– well, young relative to daylight, technically 12:36 am was the next day but there was still plenty of dark skies ahead of them.
He was a little on edge and kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, so when a voice called out from a nearby alley, he did end up jumping a little… but only a little.
“Eraser! Look what the cat dragged in! What the hell are you doin’ on this side of the city? Uptown finally wear you out?” a woman’s voice echoed off the brick walls.
Aizawa sighed quietly, seeming to resign himself to social interaction. Hitoshi felt that sigh in his bones and he had to hold back a laugh.
“Sakura,” he greeted the woman with a nod.
“Oh don’t act too excited to see me, people might get the wrong idea,” she said teasingly as she approached, “Wouldn’t want that, would we?” she added, laying her hand on Aizawa’s chest and winking.
Suddenly, Hitoshi felt supremely uncomfortable.
Aizawa gently lifted and discarded the woman’s hand with the same bored expression he always wore. She laughed as she turned her focus to Hitoshi.
“Oh, you get yourself a new lil’ sidekick for every district?” she asked.
He saw Aizawa tense at the question.
Wait, Aizawa had a sidekick? And he patrolled Uptown? Hitoshi didn’t think anyone patrolled Uptown, that’s why it was like… that .
“He’s a student, behave yourself,” he admonished before she could even start.
“Aw, you’re too cute Eraser, empty nesting. Couldn’t go a couple weeks without Ivy? How are they doing? I assume you keep in touch?”
Aizawa sent a glare her way that would have probably turned a lesser man to stone and did not answer her question. She seemed relatively unaffected by the look, but he had clearly communicated whatever it was that he had wanted to communicate.
“Damn, okay. Didn’t know you were rollin’ with baby narc over here. What’s your name anyways, kid?” she pivoted the conversation and turned her attention back to Hitoshi.
Narc? What would he be narcing about? Was Ivy the sidekick she had been talking about?
“Mind Jack,” he introduced himself flatly.
She looked at him then back to Aizawa and then back to him as she bit her lip, seemingly trying to hold in a laugh. She looked away from both of them and made a face before releasing her lip and turning back to Hitoshi.
“Eraser Head and Mind Jack… Answer me honestly kid, are you a clone of him grown in a lab?” she asked, cocking her head toward Aizawa before breaking out in a fit of laughter.
Hitoshi could only hope that the blush he could feel spreading on his cheeks wasn’t visible in the low light. He was suddenly grateful that Aizawa didn’t deem him skilled enough to take his capture weapon on patrols yet, because that would have really been the final nail in the coffin.
“Not last I checked, no,” he answered as cooly as he could manage.
She laughed again at his monotone response, which, Hitoshi realized too late was far too similar to Aizawa’s flat drawl. He saw the man in question rolling his eyes in his periphery.
“Did you need something or were you just interrupting our patrol for your own amusement?” Aizawa butted in, clearly fed up with her antics.
His change in tone wasn’t lost on her. Her laughter cut off abruptly and her smile fell.
“Don’t know why you’re even bothering over here. I could take a nap in lingerie on this side of town and I’d wake up with a blanket on me. Things have been getting worse in Uptown with…” she trailed off and gave Hitoshi a once over before continuing, “ them gone.”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on things. I’m not taking a student into Uptown. If anything major develops let me know and I’ll handle it,” he snipped back.
“Nothin’ major would develop if–”
“It’s out of my hands, Sakura. Now is not the time,” Aizawa interrupted her with cool anger.
“You’re bein’ awfully suspicious about whatever the hell happened to them in the first place. Y’know, we only trusted you ‘cause they did,” she jabbed right back.
This conversation was a rollercoaster and the tension in the air was palpable. Hitoshi wanted to leave as much as he wanted to stay; he shouldn’t be hearing all of this, but it was like a train wreck, he couldn’t look away.
“Are you threatening me?” Aizawa asked incredulously.
“I’m just saying you shouldn’t be surprised if people stop cooperatin’ with you. I trust you, I know you better than most of them back there, but people are talkin’ and they ain’t talking nice,” Sakura responded, saying the last bit in a low tone.
What the hell was going on here? He was learning far more about Aizawa than he had expected to and he was pretty sure that he had never felt more awkward in his life.
“Noted,” Aizawa replied flatly.
She huffed an annoyed breath out of her nose and rolled her eyes at him. Once she was done giving Aizawa a disappointed glare, she turned back to Hitoshi.
“You keep an eye on him, Eraserbaby,” she said in an exasperated tone before ruffling his hair and walking away.
That was… maybe one of the weirdest things that he had ever witnessed. He had so many questions, but he knew better than to ask them. Eraserhead had always been mysterious and getting more information about him only made it worse.
***
Their patrol was going nicely. Wednesday evenings weren’t Moe’s normal hours, but she’d done evening patrols before. They tended to be more lively than afternoons, but not usually as bad as a proper nighttime patrol. There was still some light in the sky during this time of year and that scared off the more sinister characters.
Or at least it usually did.
There was a picket line camped out in front of city hall, they were protesting some sort of local legislation. It was something to do with public works funding she thought; Moe didn’t stay as up-to-date on those kinds of things as she probably should, but the protesters had been out for a few days now and they were peaceful so she didn’t mind them. However, it seemed as though not everyone was so unbothered. The four of them were walking a block over when they heard shouting to which they all responded without hesitation.
By the looks of it, five people were trying to get the protesters to leave and when they refused, things started to get ugly. They were certainly leaving now, but apparently their fleeing was too little too late and these people were looking for a fight.
They’d have their fight, but they weren’t going to like how she gave it to them.
She was about to charge in when a large hand caught her by the shoulder, holding her back. The two interns charged ahead and she tried to wrench her shoulder out of its restraint, but it was no good. When she realized who it was that was holding her in place she stopped struggling quickly.
“Don’t interrupt unless absolutely necessary. I want to see him deal with this on his own,” Endeavor commanded.
She did as ordered but it did not sit right with her. Playing it fast and loose with your son was one thing but if Jade got hurt… his parents had no personal stake in the Endeavor agency, they wouldn’t hesitate to file a lawsuit and possibly start a smear campaign depending on how pissed they were. Hell, even if nothing went wrong, they were still in public and bystanders were witnessing them doing jack shit while their interns handled the situation, that wasn’t exactly a good look. And none of that was to even mention that they were kids for fucks sake! Startlingly competent kids, but kids nonetheless.
Every second she spent standing there was another year off her life.
There were five people, four men and one woman. Two mutation quirks, one emitter, one unknown, and one transformation quirk if the rapidly growing rocky figure was anything to go by.
Shoto had cemented the unknown man in place with ice and managed to freeze the big guy’s feet to the ground as well, but she could tell that wasn’t going to hold him for long. Jade was tied up with three opponents who had him surrounded, two men, who must be twins– or at least brothers, looked to have tire mutation quirks and they were taking every hit Jade dished out. Their rubberized hulking mass had no issue bouncing the force right back to their opponent. A woman with an electricity quirk was paired up with them and, again, their rubbery forms had no issue taking the waves of sparks sent toward the three of them, but Jade was not so lucky. He’d been dodging it well enough so far but it was only a matter of time before a shock hit him, and if that in and of itself wasn’t enough to take him down, then whatever damage the other two men could do while he was immobilized certainly would.
Shoto was still struggling with a behemoth man who had some sort of golem quirk. He had upgraded from freezing the man’s feet in place to encasing him entirely, but the golem kept moving, cracking himself free, ripping up slabs of the road, and stomping down to break off the ice and asphalt stuck to him. His fire only served to dry the man's skin out and Shoto seemed hesitant to use it any more than he already was.
Jade was still fighting with the two men and she noticed he was getting further and further away. Why wasn’t he trying to take out the woman? Clearly his force was not going to take down the tire boys, so why not shift tactics? And where was he going?
All of those questions were answered succinctly as she watched Jade walk over to a railing composed of spaced out poles connected by a chain threaded between the length outside of a bar, likely put up to stop drunks wandering into the street upon exiting the establishment. He grabbed the chain and with one yank he broke it free from the poles it was bolted to and swung it out like a lasso, hitting both of the men and pulling them together in an unwelcome metal embrace. She didn’t think that would be enough to hold them for long, their limbs weren’t really restrained and, if left unattended, they could simply untangle themselves, but she should have figured Jade was smarter than that. He waited until the woman with the electricity quirk poised to fire at him again and, with a strength that showed that he had only really been toying with the tire boys this whole time, he kicked them into her. The three of them went down in a screaming pile and the unpleasant smell of burning rubber filled the air.
Returning her attention to Shoto, she saw how he had put up an ice barrier around the golem man, sufficiently keeping civilians out and caging the man in, at least to some degree, it would take him a while to get through the barricade and ideally that delay would be enough time to stop further destruction. It was a good tactic, but it was only buying time. Moe wasn’t even sure what she would do against an enemy like that, probably call for backup if she was being honest, but Shoto was holding his own.
“SHOTO GET ME UP TO HIS LEVEL,” she heard Jade shout as he charged into the fray with the golem.
Ah, backup. Good.
Shoto made a series of pillars not dissimilar to the ones she had seen in the sports festival, ones they both knew that Jade had little to no issue maneuvering around with grace, a skill which he proved again. He jumped between the pillars, which steadily increased in height until he reached the last man standing. Leaping from the final pillar with a flash of green lightning he came down hard on the giant, punching the junction of his neck and shoulder with a loud crack followed by an even louder crash as the man’s unconscious body hit the ground.
Thankfully, Jade didn’t hit the ground quite as hard. As the dust settled she saw that he had stuck the landing and rolled with his momentum. He was stretching his arm out in circles like it was sore, but he was moving it, so it was unlikely to be anything but sprained at worst.
She spared a glance over to Endeavor; he looked absolutely furious and was glaring at her intern. He wouldn’t start shit with a 15-year-old in the middle of a crowd, he was hot-headed, but not that stupid, so she had no qualms about getting as far away from him as possible. The first three perps that Jade had taken down needed to be properly cuffed and that was something she could do. Anything that she said or did to get the boss’s attention right now was only going to end poorly, getting out of the way was the best call for everyone.
***
“That would have been much easier if we had switched opponents,” Izuku said with a laugh as he made his way back to Shoto.
Shoto looked at the first guy he had frozen to the street who was still uselessly struggling to get free, then to the other three who Burnin was wrestling into handcuffs, then to the golem man who had shrunken back down to normal height after hitting the ground, and he laughed.
“Yes, that would have been far more efficient,” Shoto agreed with a smile.
A smile which quickly faded when Endeavor walked over to them.
Oh, he was angry, like really angry. Shit. They should have switched opponents, Todoroki didn’t get the chance to look good for the bystanders and their cameras. That was probably why Endeavor was so mad, Izuku stole his son’s glory… again.
“Shoto, with me. We will continue patrol, they can deal with the paperwork,” he ordered tersely.
He noticed that he had left Burnin to cuff all five offenders, but he was pretty sure that that did not exonerate him from paperwork. Shoto was involved in the takedown, even if he didn’t land the ‘final hit’ on anyone, and Endeavor was still a witness. He knew better than to bring that point up though, so he kept his mouth shut. Endeavor’s anger was palpable and the tinge of fear in Todoroki’s eyes did not go unnoticed either. He felt a dire need to keep Todoroki away from him, but he knew that anything he tried would only make things worse. So he watched him walk away while bile churned in his gut.
Burnin took care of cuffing everyone and Izuku called in the police with a practiced ease that he forgot he wasn’t supposed to have before it was too late. Whatever, he didn’t think anyone besides the operator heard him anyway. He saw Burnin reach for her comm so he shouted over to her.
“Already called it in, cops are on their way.”
She gave him a surprised look but thankfully she didn’t question him.
“Good work, Jade. Now we wait,” she said awkwardly as she took her post next to the restrained criminals.
There were no civilian casualties as far as he could tell. The protesters had tucked tail and ran, which he couldn’t fault them for, and everyone left milling about were just random passersby who weren’t close enough to have gotten injured. So Izuku stayed put next to Burnin in case any of the idiots decided to try and make a break for it.
Participating in the turning over of criminals to the police was even more dull than watching the process from the rooftops. Where was Eraser to do all the boring shit for him? He silently bemoaned the bureaucracy of it all because by the time the charade was over, patrol had ended for the night.
“Come on, Newbie, time for your first proper incident report. It’s as fun as it sounds, I promise,” Burnin cooed as the police drove away.
This was going to be a long night. Though, not as long as Todoroki’s, he’s sure.
***
By the time the paperwork was completed, Endeavor and Todoroki were long gone, leaving Izuku in the hands of the Flaming Sidekicks and their “spartan” lodgings. Burnin passed him off to one of the male sidekicks to show him around and thankfully they had a spare toothbrush for him. They didn’t have a change of clothes but his boxers and undershirt were good enough. They were a bit ripe, but he’d dealt with worse. He probably wouldn’t be able to go for a nightly walk like this. However, he was far more worried about Todoroki than he was about himself. What was his father going to do that required ditching witnesses? They would be back too late for the usual family dinner, would Natsuo and Fuyumi still be around? Would they be able to help? Was Todoroki all alone?
His frantic worrying had to wait until the shift swap was over and everyone had settled. He didn’t have headphones and he couldn’t have anyone overhear whatever might be waiting for him on the recording device. The sleeping quarters were shared, which meant that Izuku probably wasn’t going to sleep tonight at all, but that was besides the point, the point was he didn’t have anywhere private to check the tapes. He had set the pen up in the training room like he had planned and he hoped to god that if anything happened, it happened in there.
It was half past midnight by the time the locker rooms finally cleared out. Izuku shut himself in the furthest stall and lowered the volume as much as he could while still being able to hear it. Sure enough, his bug had picked something up. From around 8pm to 11pm his watch told him there was consistent activity. Izuku didn’t want to see what was waiting for him, but he hit play anyway.
Todoroki and his father were still in their hero uniforms when Todoroki was roughly shoved through the doorway. What followed after was a brutal training regime that made Gran Torino seem soft, or maybe Izuku was just scared of fire. Endeavor did not give Todoroki a break, he was relentless, barely waiting for his son to get up before charging at him again. It went on for ages, most of which Izuku skipped through for his own sanity’s sake until Todoroki stopped getting up.
He watched the scene play out before him; based on the timestamp, this had been less than an hour ago.
“Get up!” Endeavor barked after Todoroki didn’t immediately get to his feet.
“It’s been hours, I–”
“I don't want to hear your excuses! The real world won’t coddle you and you will never make it to the top if you refuse to train to your limits. Your performance today was pathetic, it was shameful, GET UP!”
He watched as Endeavor walked over to Todoroki who was still laying on the ground, closed his fist around his friend’s arm, and hauled his nearly limp form up onto unsteady feet. That must have hurt, that probably left a bruise. Izuku did his best to focus on making a game plan moving forward and not on the awful sensation of bile churning in his stomach. Would documenting the bruise be necessary if he had this footage? Taking a sneaky picture in the locker room was very much not something he wanted to do but there was no way of asking for a picture without raising suspicions.
His thoughts were abruptly halted by the part of his brain that was still watching the footage. Endeavor let Todoroki go and he wobbled around trying to catch his balance, his whole body was shaking, either from fear or exhaustion, Izuku wasn’t sure. Before he even got his feet planted Endeavor sent another wave of flames at him and he fell back several feet and onto the ground with a sickening yelp of pain.
“I didn’t make you to be a second-rate failure! That boy was running circles around you, Shoto! GET UP!”
He didn’t get up.
Izuku watched as Todoroki curled into the fetal position and brought his arms up to cover his head, he listened to his heavy breaths, and he was glad to have skipped dinner tonight; he didn’t trust his ability to keep it down right now. He could see the rage building in Endeavor's body language and he was so scared that he was about to go over and kick his son, but Izuku thanked gods that he didn’t believe in when he turned on his heel toward the door instead.
“I expect you to be up at dawn,” he ordered over his shoulder before slamming the door on his way out.
The jostling shifted the camera slightly making it so that two-thirds of the view was just the floor, but thankfully Todoroki was still visible in the upper third of the frame. He still wasn’t moving beyond the subtle trembling of his limbs. Izuku could still hear him struggling to regulate his breaths. Seconds turned into agonizing minutes and his breathing was only becoming more erratic, he shouldn’t be watching this. This was too far, this wasn’t evidence anymore, this was a vulnerable moment that he wasn’t meant to see, but he couldn’t look away.
After a few minutes, he noticed a layer of frost developing on the floor surrounding Todoroki. The ice spread out from where he was scrunched in on himself and Izuku watched as it got thicker and thicker until it covered Todoroki in a layer of frigid crystals. A few more minutes passed and eventually, his breaths came steadier and his trembling subsided. He must have been using the ice to ground himself; that was smart, or maybe it was instinctual. Either way, it was upsetting to imagine how many times Todoroki had been through this song and dance.
Once he was able to stand up, he used his flames to melt away the evidence of what he had done. He stood in the middle of the room staring blankly into nothing for several minutes before he finally limped out of the room with silent footsteps and shut the door behind himself so gently that it would have probably been impossible to hear if the mic hadn’t been attached to the door itself.
The screen went black and quiet; he just stared at the dim, empty room blankly.
This was his fault.
Endeavor was mad because he had been faster than Todoroki today and this was all his fault– no, no. Todoroki said it himself, Endeavor always has something to be angry about… right? This would have happened regardless… it… it wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t his fault.
His insistence felt hollow and it did nothing to settle the burning guilt in his gut.
His hands shook as he grabbed his phone and sent a message to Todoroki, one that hopefully wouldn’t rouse any suspicions.
Midoriya:
We finally got all the paperwork done, Burnin explained everything in great detail :|
How’s it on your end?
He was sure that the sarcasm in the first line would be lost on Todoroki but he didn’t really care, he just needed to hear from him, to know that he was okay– Well, he clearly wasn’t okay, Izuku had seen as much. It didn’t look like he was hurt too badly, physically at least. Endeavor wouldn’t hurt Todoroki irreparably and Izuku did his best to let that fact calm his nerves. This footage was enough to start a case, surely.
Silver lining. He had to look for the silver lining, just like Fuyumi-san told him.
Anyways, here's Sakura <3
I would die for her.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 140: 🎵Here we go again 🎵
Notes:
Shout out to the beta readers for this one, Beezus, Penny and Woomy <3
CWs:
vague mentions of gore and death
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was right, he didn’t sleep. Hardly even a wink. He rested to some degree but at this point he was used to the exhaustion. He had the day off, for the most part, and he wished he had his homework to work on, or anything, actually. They were scheduled to have their first nighttime patrol today so he was stuck here doing a whole lot of nothing until Endeavor, Todoroki, and Burnin were scheduled to show up at 8pm.
It was currently 8am.
He sighed heavily into the stiff bunk bed beneath him.
Todoroki had texted him back an hour and a half ago but it didn’t make him feel any better. He just said he was fine and apologized for sleeping through his text message. Izuku knew it was a load of bullshit, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it.
Around 10 am all the other bunk occupants had left for their patrol shifts and Izuku did his best to let the currently empty room calm him enough to actually sleep. Even though anyone could walk in at any time he still managed to get in a few hours until someone came back into the room and passed out on a bunk on the far wall. The door opening startled him awake and he figured that was the best he was going to get here. He was glad Todoroki had invited him over to his house, he knew what a full week of sleeping like this would do to him and he would like to avoid that if at all possible.
He still had a little over 7 hours before patrol tonight and he killed a few of them in one of the training rooms but he was hesitant to exhaust himself. His hero uniform, sans the armor and belt, looked close enough to a tracksuit that he figured he could get away with wearing it in public, so he set out to explore the city. Hosu was a big place and he did better in environments he was familiar with. The patrols they had taken already covered a good bit of the map but there were still some blind spots, so he was making a point to fill those in.
Come tonight’s patrol, he was going to be very glad he took the time to do this.
Several hours into his wandering, his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten anything in the last… shit, 29 hours. He should probably do that. It was around dinner time and he hadn’t had anything since lunch yesterday. He missed Fuyumi’s cooking, but the canteen at Endeavor’s agency was the only place within walking distance he was going to get food without stealing it because he steadfastly refused to spend the money Eraser gave him, so he headed back.
The few remaining hours he had left to wait seemed to stretch on into eternity, but thankfully, the clock kept ticking, and eventually, 8 pm rolled around. He waited in the locker room for Todoroki and, against his better judgment, he took a creepy stalker picture of the bruise blooming on his bicep. It felt disgusting, but he was mostly clothed and Izuku needed as much evidence as he could get.
Aside from the bruise, Todoroki looked no different than he usually did, which wasn’t reassuring. How often did this happen for him to look so unphased? He did his best to shove his concerns to the back of his mind, he had a solid case, but now was not the time to discuss it. They both needed to be focused for patrol and regardless, he wasn’t letting Todoroki go home without him; he would be safe tonight if it was the last thing Izuku did. He couldn’t imagine Endeavor would insist on training after an 8 pm to 4 am shift, so he would talk to Todoroki when they got back to his house.
Or would it be better to wait until the internships were over? Whatever, he’d play it by ear.
It was difficult to face Endeavor without giving in to the urge to inflict severe blunt-force trauma, but somehow Izuku managed. He stayed as far away from him as possible and it seemed like Burnin noticed his poorly concealed fury, but no one else in the party did. He just let her think that it was because he had been ditched at the agency last night.
They were able to traverse the city more freely with the normal bustlers of the day back in their homes for the night, so they covered ground quicker. That’s not to say the streets were empty though, there was no lack of pickpockets and purse-snatchers, but Izuku was hesitant to stop the former. He didn’t want Endeavor to get mad that Izuku was the only one to have noticed them, but in all fairness, you learn how to spot pickpockets quite well when they were a constant threat to your livelihood. He had successfully managed to stop the first one he saw with a pointed glare and a flick of the eye toward Endeavor, but he just let the second one go. The perp looked down on his luck and the man he stole from looked wealthy enough to spare it; Izuku wasn’t going to risk Todoroki’s safety over a nicked wallet from a rich man.
Incidents were minimal for the first hour and a half, which of course, is when everything went to shit. Suddenly, the air grew tense; something shifted, he couldn’t say what, but it gave him a headache. Before he could even begin to question it, a horrible shriek that he had heard echoing in his dreams for the past month sounded out a few blocks away. A glance toward Todoroki told him that he wasn’t going crazy, the fear in his eyes was mirrored.
That was a Nomu.
Survival instinct told him to run the other way, but something stronger had him running toward it. Endeavor had already taken off and Burnin was staying back to make sure that they were following. They got to the source of the awful screaming just in time to see a couple torn apart. The blood on the concrete and the sight of that vile creature made something in him snap, but it was too little too late. The couple were dead and Endeavor was incinerating the Nomu before Izuku could move a muscle.
He may be a shit human, but he was a damn effective hero.
Some part of him wanted to hold out hope that it was over, but in his gut, he knew it wasn’t.
Both Shoto and Burnin were looking between the eviscerated couple, the ashes of the Nomu, and Endeavor standing in the middle of it all with an unmasked expression of terror and revulsion. The eerie moment of silence was broken when monstrous roars and visceral screams of horror started coming from all directions. The cacophony pulled them from their trance and Izuku’s resolve planted itself firmly.
“They aren’t human, kill them,” he ordered all three of them before gunning it to the closest cries he could hear.
***
Patrol was a little more lively tonight. Hitoshi had helped stop a mugging and Eraser had noticed a pickpocket and intervened. They’d chased off a group of vandals and brought in someone who was stumbling around and smelling heavily of… well Hitoshi didn’t know, but it was certainly drugs, and a lot of them if the man’s behavior was anything to go off of. He was getting into the groove of things; he wouldn’t say he was comfortable, but that was probably for the best. A healthy amount of trepidation was a good thing.
He was beginning to get to somewhere adjacent to relaxed when something in Aizawa’s pocket buzzed and his spine went stiff. Hitoshi was about to ask what was going on when all the color drained from Aizawa’s face as he read something on his phone and he immediately broke out into a sprint. It was all Hitoshi could do to keep up so he kept his questions to himself for now. He wanted to ask where they were going but he didn’t really have the breath for it and Aizawa ended up answering his question anyway. He was holding his phone up to his ear and talking to someone on the other end.
“Meet me at the residential area off block 32.”
Wait, that was his neighborhood. Yeah, that was certainly the direction they were headed in. What the hell was going on?
“Would the train be faster? They might have the route cut off– No, Zashi I don’t care what traffic laws you have to break, get here now. ETA 10 minutes. Tell them your address, kid,” Aizawa barked into the phone before aiming the last statement to Hitoshi and passing his phone over.
He did his best to pant out the address to whoever was on the other end of the line (was that Yamada-sensei?) and handed the phone back to Aizawa. He expected him to continue the conversation somehow, but he just hung up and doubled down on sprinting. Sweet Christ, Hitoshi had to work on his cardio. The only thing keeping him in stride with Aizawa was the look of fear he had seen in his sensei’s eyes; he had only seen that look once before and it was when he was concussed out of his mind at the USJ, so if Aizawa was booking it, then so was Hitoshi.
When they got back to his house, there was not a car waiting for them, a fact which Aizawa was not pleased by if the muttered curses were anything to go off of. Hitoshi took a second to force air into his shrivled lungs and Aizawa seemed to have somewhat composed himself by the time Hitoshi was able to speak.
“What–”
He didn’t even get the question out before Aizawa answered him.
“There’s an attack in progress North of here, we’re not in danger but I need to report there ASAP,” he explained, not nearly as out of breath as Hitoshi felt that he should be.
That did not answer his questions– well, it answered a few of them, but it was not enough of an explanation for the 12 minutes of torture he just put his body through. He’s pretty sure he could taste blood.
“Where?” he asked.
Aizawa looked hesitant to reply which was confusing to him. He could just google it, why was he trying to keep the information from him?
“Hosu,” he answered after a brief moment of contemplation.
It took him a minute to put all the pieces together. Something about Hosu was significant, but he couldn’t figure out what until it hit him like a truck. Hosu was where Endeavor’s agency was.
Midoriya.
He’s sure the color drained from his face because Aizawa’s expression softened before he spoke.
“Get inside,” he instructed gently.
He had about a thousand more questions but before he could voice any of them a car came screeching down the street. Yeah, sure enough, that was Present Mic. Aizawa wasted no time getting to the passenger’s seat. He sent one more firm command to get inside before the door shut and the car peeled down the road.
He stood there dumbstruck for a moment but his mom must have heard the squealing tires because he heard her voice call down to him from a window upstairs.
“Toshi?”
He barely had the breath to choke out one word questions to Aizawa so he certainly didn’t have the breath to yell up to his mom and explain what was happening.
Inside. He should get inside; he needed to check the news, standing here wasn’t helping anyone.
***
Kohaku was curled up in bed half asleep and barely reading when a spike of fear cut through her mind like a red hot knife. It wasn’t the most unusual thing to have happened, she had grown used to other people’s emotions bleeding into her with no warning, but this was violent, it was damn near debilitating. It was the exact same feeling that had gripped her when UA had called about the break-in on campus, a nauseating dread that she was about to lose someone precious, that her son was dead. Back then, the person on the other end of the line was quick to assure her that Hitoshi was fine, but this time the feeling didn’t stop. She was about to get up and check on the neighbors when the feeling doubled and the screech of tires sounded out from in front of the house.
When she made her way to the window to see what was going on a car was burning rubber down the street again and Toshi was standing in the front yard trying to catch his breath. Thankfully, the feeling faded as the car left, but Toshi was still standing there scared and lost.
“Toshi?” she called out to him.
He looked up at her and said nothing before turning away and marching into the house.
When she got downstairs Hitoshi was standing in the living room wearing his full hero gear, shoes, and all, and he had the news on. The newscaster was reporting on something banal and Hitoshi was ignoring it as he flicked through another news site on his phone. She had questions on the tip of her tongue but her attention was interrupted by the Newscaster on the TV stuttering before a banner on the bottom in bright red font said “Breaking News.”
“This just in, I’m getting word of an incident in Hosu. There seems to be an attack spanning several blocks on the north side of the city, some sort of… creature is on the prowl– several creatures, and they are violent. Anyone currently in Hosu should take cover and stay inside, lock and barricade doors if possible. Several heroes are already on the scene, Endeavor chief among them. We’ve got a chopper on site which we will cut to in a moment, but viewer discretion is advised.”
Kohaku’s heart dropped at the mention of Endeavor. Midoriya was with Endeavor, several of Toshi’s classmates were there, right? When the camera cut to an aerial view of the city she felt a fear that wasn’t hers spike dramatically. Toshi went pale as he stared at the screen. Again, she didn’t get the chance to even ask what was going on before she got an answer.
“Nomu… the USJ– those things– Shit nonononono,” Hitoshi spoke in fractured sentences and the breath he had barely caught was coming shallow and quick again.
Nomu? The thing that had gone toe to toe with All Might? There had to be at least 5 of them within the limited view of the TV screen. This was not good, why the hell was Midoriya always in the middle of this kind of thing?
Notes:
Here we go, lads, it's time. Time for shit to hit the fan again, Izu's had it too good for too long, right?
Chapter 141: Vigilante Justicing 101, Back to the Basics
Notes:
It is November 6th, 2024.
I will be laying down face-first on the pavement of a busy intersection if anyone needs me.*Sign of the Times by Harry Styles can be heard playing faintly over the sound of cars honking and tires screeching*
CWs:
Canon typical violence, blood, and gore.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku was kind of glad that he didn’t have the mental bandwidth to be sick right now because if he had a split second to stop and actually take in his surroundings, he’s sure there would be bile churning in his gut. There was so much blood, human and otherwise, spilled in the streets and he was hacking apart these monsters with a ferocity that he didn’t know that he had in him. It seemed as though they all had regenerative capabilities to some degree, but the other quirks they held varied wildly, meaning that each fight was different. Thankfully, they all had the same weakness, the brain. Regeneration couldn’t heal if there wasn’t something to prompt it to do so.
A handful of heroes ended up in the same plaza and a moment of quiet passed over them while they waited for the next scream to sound out. It was in that interim that Izuku heard the sentence that shifted his focus entirely.
“Where’s Tenya?”
He hoped beyond hope that he had heard that wrong, but when he whipped his head around, there was Manual. He was looking around in every direction and Iida was nowhere to be seen.
That goddamn fucking idiot.
Izuku was gone in a flash of zigzagging green across the rooftops before he could even stop to think about what he was doing.
On the topic of incredibly stupid decisions, Izuku had a feeling that, even if this ended well, it wasn’t going to end well. He had gone rogue, he was technically on patrol, he technically had permission to intervene in incidents, but he certainly didn’t have the clearance to run off on his own. The situation was litigiously charged at best and downright illegal at worst. He had the All Might pin Mei made in one of the storage pouches on his belt, he should record everything; no one else knew about it, either it could exonerate him in court or he could delete it. It would either help or make no difference, so the decision was pretty obvious. He clipped it to his collar as he ran.
The city passed by around him in a blur, he helped evacuate civilians only when strictly necessary ie when a smoldering chunk of a balcony almost fell on two women trying to escape a burning building. Other heroes were working on evacuation, but no one else knew where Iida was. Well… shit. No one else knew where Iida was. Meaning no one else knew where he was either. He doubted anyone would find the time to check their phone in the middle of this shit show, but he started sharing his location with Burnin and Shoto regardless; something was better than nothing.
After several tense minutes of him zipping across rooftops, something that was much easier when using OFA, he spotted exactly what he feared he would; Iida was on the ground unmoving as a masked figure stood above him, sword poised to cut his throat. The alley moved around him before he even realized he had lunged forward. The sole of his foot connected with the Hero Killer’s chest with a crack and the man rolled back violently bouncing off the pavement every few feet until his back hit the far wall.
That was way harder than he should have hit someone without a regeneration quirk, but he didn’t really have the empathy to care. Somehow he was still conscious but he was dazed enough for him to check on Iida. Shit, there was another hero here too.
“Midoriya? How…?” Iida looked up at him with his eyes but otherwise remained completely still.
Paralysis was one of the quirk theories posited online about the Hero Killer. The few surviving witnesses had alluded to that in their statements, and it made sense. It’s not easy to take out a trained hero, so Stain had to have some sort of trick to keep them from fighting back.
“Injuries?” He interrupted Iida’s confused questioning none too kindly.
“Get out of here, this doesn’t have anything to do with you–”
“Iida, injuries, now,” he repeated in a tone that left little room for argument.
“He– he stabbed my shoulder and now I can’t move,” he admitted shamefully.
So it’s likely activated by blood somehow. Alright, that complicates things. Izuku could see about a dozen knives Stain had stored in various places on his person and that wasn’t even to mention the spikes on his clothing, namely the boots. Okay, just don't get hit then… haha… easy.
“You showed up to save your friend’s life, you even made a big entrance, but I have a duty to kill him and this so-called pro–”
“ A duty? ” Izuku, in his blind panic and rage, found himself interrupting The Hero Killer, Stain mid-monologue with an indignant sneer.
Alright, looks like everyone is staying firmly on the track of making incredibly stupid decisions tonight. Izuku needed to keep him yapping, he needed backup. If one nick in this fight meant him going down then all three of them were as good as dead. That’s why Stain always singled heroes out before killing them. Could he win this fight on his own? Eh… possibly, but he didn’t like his chances. If he could cut Iida in full armor then Izuku’s lightweight guards weren’t likely to be of much use.
Fear rose sharply in his chest as Stain got to his feet.
“Yes, child , a duty. This country is rife with false heroes. Those who take up the mantle but know nothing of honor, motivated solely by money, fame, and glory. It is my purpose to purge them, so step aside or get culled,” Stain proclaimed in a nauseatingly self-righteous tone.
That was a shit argument if he ever heard one. Stain was probably used to monologing to his victims, wasn’t he? A real captive audience. Maybe he could bait him into a debate. He was already glaring at him with murder in his eyes so it wasn’t like it was going to make this situation any worse.
“Who gave you the right to play God?” he asked, lacing his tone with as much false confidence as he could muster.
“You imputent little brat–”
“He’s a kid and you’re going to kill him over one bad decision?” he challenged before Stain lost himself to blind rage.
“It was a decision born from an already corrupted mind,” he tried to insist through gritted teeth.
“No, it was born from a traumatized child who you forced to watch his brother’s life get destroyed,” Izuku spat right back.
“There is a rot in his brain that has already taken root. I don’t expect you to understand that yet. I can only hope you learn the truth in time and our paths do not cross again. I will not give you another warning, step aside, boy,” The Hero Killer strained the words out through gritted teeth.
Stain was close enough now for Izuku to see his eye twitch in anger. The scared child in him said that he needed to step down and mind his business before some other kid’s beat down became his instead, but he had never been very good at listening to that voice, so he held his ground.
“What rot? The idea that he has the right to take justice into his own hands and cast final judgment without opposition? Sounds familiar, actually,” he challenged again and, by some act of god, his voice did not waver.
Normally, the anger fading from an opponent’s face would be a good thing, but the fact that it was replaced with a wolfish grin accompanied by a depraved laugh kind of harshed the mellow a bit. The sound echoing off the walls of the alley made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Of course, you would hardly be a hero if you left now, would you?” Stain pointed out, his voice tinged with a sweetness that betrayed the situation they were currently in.
He raised his sword and let his feet settle into a fighting stance. He had no clue how Stain fought, all he had were logical guesses at best. Izuku was well and truly scared, he felt like he was being stalked by a cat who liked to play with its food.
A plan, he needed a plan.
Like music to Izuku’s ears, he heard the familiar crackling sound of Shoto’s ice approaching from the mouth of the alley. No more cat and mouse, now was his chance. He needed to time this right, the moment Stain noticed the newcomer, he would strike. A split second of distraction was all he needed. Shoto was far more suited for long-range attacks; if Izuku could throw him off his rhythm and he came in before Stain could reorient himself, that might be enough. He hoped it would be enough. There was no time like the present to find out.
The instant there was a flash of recognition in his eyes, Izuku charged.
Stain was much faster than he would have thought possible, he was poised to strike by the time Izuku made it to him which was a fraction of a second. His katana was wickedly sharp; Izuku could tell because of how close it was to his face, which, needless to say, was far too close for comfort. He had no choice but to dodge. He ducked down only to be greeted by a knife that his opponent had been wielding with his other hand. The detached analytical side of his mind that was not as terrified by this situation as it should have been thought of how he wished Stain could teach him how to use blades like that. He quickly filed that frankly psychotic musing away and did his best to focus on not getting stabbed in the face.
Izuku was already out of his line of sight, this was a blind stab, a well-aimed one, but blind nonetheless. His view was blocked by the other arm which was still swinging forward from his first attempt to cut him. Izuku grabbed his knife from its holster on his hip, used his forearm bracer to deflect Stain’s blade, and let the cool steel of his own weapon glide its way across his opponent’s knuckles.
He continued his dodge, rolled straight between Stain’s legs, and immediately lept up out of the way in preparation for Shoto’s strike. A comforting chill and the creaking sound of ice shot toward them so Izuku turned himself around like a cat in midair to see what was happening below. Stain had jumped with him and, to Izuku’s horror, was holding a pair of throwing knives aimed at Shoto. He reacted as quickly as he could, but the knives had left Stain’s grasp before Izuku could stop him.
A solid punch sent Stain falling hard onto the jagged ice below and he was not in good shape after that. Even still, he managed to dodge out of the way before gravity brought Izuku down for a second hit. The ice shattered around the impact and the resulting debris blocked his line of sight. That split second of cover was enough; Izuku felt a sharp line of pain against his bicep. He whirled around as fast as he could to see one of the more off-putting things he had ever witnessed in a fight; Stain had unleashed a freakishly long tongue from his mouth and it was moving to lick the blade that had just cut Izuku’s arm. That was probably part of his quirk; he had to consume blood to paralyze? That would make sense seeing as though Izuku was still moving right now. He threw one of his knives into Stain’s hand and it nestled itself cleanly between his bones and straight through to his palm, forcing the hilt of the weapon out of his hand and onto the ground.
Alright, with both of his hands pretty out of commission, this should be an easy fight.
…or it would be… if he could move.
Fuck. He was too late.
He was stuck in place, stood between Stain and the rest of the alley’s occupants. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see if Shoto was okay after Stain had thrown his knives. He couldn’t turn to see now and he wasn’t sure if the lack of action was due to Izuku being in the way of any attack Shoto might send toward Stain, or if the silence was due to injury.
“You’ve got fight in you, kid. It’d be a shame to see that drive go to waste. Stay put while I deal with these phonies,” Stain cooed at him in a mocking tone as he walked past Izuku and out of his line of sight.
The following moments were the longest of his life. From the sound of it, Shoto was still fighting, but Izuku had no way of knowing what was going on. He heard a few cries of pain and each time he feared the worst, but he could still feel the heat of fire behind him and shards of ice periodically danced across the alley’s floor. He was pleading with his body to just move and, to his elated bewilderment, it did. It was sluggish at first but he pushed through the strange feeling of lethargy.
Was there a limit to how many people he could paralyze at a time? Did it become less effective the more people he used it on? Did different blood types not react the same as others? Whatever the answer was to why he could move now, he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He turned around to see that Stain had yet to make his way to Shoto and the others, or at least he had been sent back if he had. Shoto had two knives sticking out of his right forearm and one in his left thigh. He shouldn’t be moving, it was only going to cause more damage, but it’s not like he had another choice.
No more blood was going to be spilled tonight, at least not by Stain’s hand. He was surrounded and Izuku once again had the element of surprise. He wasn’t going to let him hurt his friends again.
Stain was charging at Shoto, sword drawn, and he was fast, but he wasn’t as fast as Izuku. With speed that he had only the loosest control over, Jade charged forward. He grabbed at the loose strands of ratty cloth that flowed behind Stain as he ran and pulled hard. Seeing as though one of the cloths was connected to the crude mask he wore, Stain stopped fast, his head whipping back as the rest of his body continued forward with his momentum.
He tried to move his knife up to cut himself free from Jade’s hold, but Eraser pulled that move on him before on the few occasions he had been able to use his capture scarf against him in one of their spars, so he saw that coming. He kicked the weapon out of Stain’s hand and kept pulling him closer. There was a fury in the man’s eyes now that wasn’t there before, one that might have worried him if his face wasn’t approaching Jade’s fist with frightening speed.
Stain staggered back from the impact and that moment of fumbling was enough for Shoto to freeze his feet down, causing him to stumble and fall backward. His head bounced off the pavement and he laid still after that. Shoto looked more than a little bit horrified, but Izuku wasted no time stepping forward and stripping the weapons off his limp form. Once the most easily accessible were taken care of he flipped him onto his stomach and stripped the wraps from his arms; they were going to need those. He used the strips of cloth he had grabbed earlier to bind Stain’s wrists behind his back. Only once he was satisfied with the restraints did he check for a pulse
“He’s alive,” he assured Shoto before resuming his task of checking for concealed blades.
The amount of knives he pulled off of him was genuinely comical and if some of them made their way into Izuku’s pockets… well that was for him to know and no one to find out. By the end of it, there was a pile of knives that put his old corkboard to shame plus one pair of spiky boots. He added the laces from his boots to the cloths tying his wrists because the fabric looked far too tattered and easy to rip; he was not taking chances with this lunatic.
By the time he finished his task, Iida was beginning to stir. Izuku didn’t say anything to him though. Shoto was still losing a lot of blood, on second glance, they both were. Native, the other pro that was in the alley, still seemed to be stuck in place, but Izuku didn’t see any dire injuries, so he kept his focus on his friends. Ideally, he would have them sit still until an ambulance arrived, but given the state that the city was in, he didn’t think that was going to be soon enough. They at least needed to get out of the alley and to somewhere they could be picked up.
“Native I need your wraps,” he informed the hero rather than asking.
He walked over and unwound the seemingly decorative wraps from his lower legs. There was a good patch of blood on his left shoulder, but it wasn’t spreading much, so it wasn’t a priority. Izuku barely acknowledged the clearance to use part of his costume as he rushed back to his friends. Iida still had blood spilling down his arm and the pool on the alley floor was far too big for comfort so he set about tending to him first. He ignored any complaints with a sharp glare and did not warn him that the splash of alcohol was going to hurt. Sure, it was petty, but he was pissed. He pressed some gauze to the wound and bound it tightly with one of the strips of cloth he had taken.
He repeated the process with Shoto, leaving the knives in his arm, but taking the one in his leg out; it was an ill-advised choice in most situations, but they were still under threat of attack, and if they needed to move, leaving the blade in his leg was only going to hurt him more. Worst comes to worst, he could cauterize the wound himself if bleeding out became a real threat. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Native was moving by the time Izuku got to him and he helped take care of his own first aid as best he could.
The chaos of the inner city was still raging on, but it was distant. They could probably risk getting out of the limited cover of the alley if it meant help would be able to locate them. The alley would have been accessible but the fight had rendered it a bit… rugged. There probably wasn’t much permanent damage, but the ice was too uneven for anything but an off-road vehicle to drive on.
“Native, help Shoto, we need to get somewhere an ambulance can access,” he instructed as he hauled Stain’s limp form over his shoulder.
God, he was heavy. He was lean but built like a brick. Izuku certainly wouldn’t be carrying him with such ease if it hadn’t been for OFA.
“Kid, your arm–” Native tried to argue.
“It’s fine, I’m not going to bleed out,” he dismissed as he held his phone between his unoccupied shoulder and cheek to call for the police and an ambulance.
As was to be expected, there was a wait for ambulances. He felt his skin crawl having to just sit and wait while the rest of the city went up in flames, but if something happened and he wasn’t here, well, this little troupe wasn’t in great shape to defend themselves.
“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TWO IDIOTS THINKING?!” a familiar grating voice called out from above.
Ah, Burnin. Seems like she got around to checking her phone. She darted down toward them and Izuku had the feeling he was about to get grabbed by the ear so she could yell directly into it. Thankfully, Stain’s body was currently blocking that avenue of attack. Upon noticing that, her focus shifted and the look of anger on her face morphed into wide-eyed shock.
“Is that the goddamn Hero Killer?” she asked incredulously as she touched down.
“Yes, I’ve already called for Police and an ambulance,” he replied, hoping that talking business would put off the inevitable berating he was about to receive.
“Jesus, kid, put him down, you’re bleeding,” she instructed.
“I know, it’s the least of the injuries. Shoto has three relatively small and shallow stab wounds, Iida has a rough and large stab wound in the shoulder, and Native does as well, though, it’s not as bad as Iida’s,” he reported clinically, dropping the Hero Killer to the pavement outside of the alley none too gently.
“Do you have quirk canceling cuffs?” he spoke again when she didn’t answer.
He should probably have asked Native that. Though, he probably would have offered them if he had them.
The look that crossed Burnin’s face was almost identical to the one Eraser gave him every time he did something stupid as Ivy; a mixture of impressed disbelief and unspeakable irritation. It was almost reassuring. She took a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath before answering.
“Yes, I do,” she replied and reached behind to her belt to grab them.
As she knelt down to fasten the cuffs in place a sharp pain and a sense of dread pierced through Izuku’s brain. Before he could even do anything about it another, more tangible piercing pain shot through both his side and his ears. The unmistakable shriek of a Nomu rattled his skull and an awful pressure enveloped his torso as the ground grew further and further away from him. A set of wicked talons had grabbed him and a winged Nomu was ferrying him away. He was already up too high to survive the fall but it’s not like he had much of a choice here, he had to fight back. He stabbed and slashed at the thing’s ankles wildly and all of the sudden, it just stopped. It froze in place, its claws still stuck around Izuku’s torso, but it stopped flapping its wings and the ground was once again fast approaching.
Burnin was at his side in a second but there was only so much she could do to hold him and the hulking mass of a Nomu suspended. She slowed their descent, but not enough. He was trying to pry its claws off of him, but it was getting difficult to breathe and panic was starting to set in.
His vision was getting cloudy and the last thing he remembered seeing with full clarity was a great big glacier rising up to meet him as the ground barreled toward the three of them.
***
Tenya felt sick. The blotches of red blooming out from the bandages covering Todoroki’s injuries were stains that would never wash out from his own hands. Midoriya would hardly even look at him and Tenya didn’t blame him for a second. He would never be half the hero that either of them were already. Stain was right about him, he should have died in that alley, he didn’t deserve to walk among his peers.
He kept his mouth shut as they moved toward the street and waited for the authorities. He had so many apologies on the tip of his tongue, but they were empty so he didn’t bother trying to voice them. He kept his head down, he’d done enough damage.
When an awful monstrous shriek mixed with a more familiar voice crying out in pain, he was snapped out of his own self-pity. One of the creatures that had been attacking the city was there and gone in the blink of an eye, taking Midoriya with it. The hero who had met them here, Burnin, was quick to follow, but the moment she let go of the Hero Killer, he lunged, licking blood off the ground with an awful wet slurping sound. He had no clue whose blood that had been, but it wasn’t his, so he tackled the still-bound man to the ground before he had even properly gotten his feet beneath him.
It was difficult to keep him in place with one functionally useless arm, but Native quickly followed, grabbing some cuffs off the ground and affixing them to the Hero Killer’s wrists. It didn’t do much to keep him in place, at least no more than the work Midoriya had already done, but it took his quirk out of the equation, which certainly eased Tenya’s nerves. Between the two of them, they managed to keep him in place.
He looked up to see where Todoroki had gone, and to his horror, he spotted him sprinting down the street with a fresh stab wound in his thigh.
***
Shoto saw the Nomu coming too late to warn anyone. He tried in vain to reach for Midoriya’s hand as he was ripped away from the group, but he was flying above the rooftops within seconds. The pain that had been radiating from his leg and arm became nothing but the vaguest hint of background noise as panic flooded his senses. He ran on his injured leg as if it hadn’t just had a throwing knife lodged into it up to the hilt even though he couldn’t do much but watch. Midoriya was still fighting, but even if he won, he was easily 20 stories above street level. If he won, he would fall to his death.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. The Nomu went stiff and the two started plummeting fast. He felt the barest hint of relief when Burnin made her way to Midoriya, but their fall wasn’t slowing nearly enough, so Shoto did the only thing he could think of, he stepped forward with his right foot and sent out the biggest ramp of ice that he could.
It was steep and it wasn’t very smooth, but it caught them. The trio, still stuck together rolled down the structure and landed at Shoto’s feet in one piece. All exposed skin that he could see was pretty scratched up from the jagged ice, but it looked superficial for the most part.
Before he could even take in the sight of them properly, Burnin lunged up with a shock of her hair in hand and plunged it into the still Nomu’s brain which sizzled and melted, leaving the smell of burnt meat lingering in the air. He knew why she did it, it was better to be safe than sorry, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant to watch. After she was sure that was taken care of, she moved to sever the claws holding Midoriya in place, which again, wasn’t very pleasant to watch, but he was safe now and that was what mattered.
But he wasn’t moving.
Or he was, just very sluggishly.
There was a ragged wound on his side that had blood blooming out of it quickly and he seemed dazed, like he was moving through a thick fog. His eyes were moving around without really seeing anything. Shoto knelt down next to him and put pressure on the wound causing Midoriya to let out a pained groan. That seemed to have centered him though, because after a few seconds, his eyes focused on Shoto, and he started laughing.
Why the hell was he laughing?
“Got a bad track rec-rd wi- the things. Vende-ta ‘gaist my lungs,” he explained with a chuckle, there was blood staining his teeth. (I’ve got a bad track record with these things, they’ve got a vendetta against my lungs)
“Shit. Shut up kid, this isn’t funny. Don’t move, laugh, or try to talk, it’s only gonna make it worse,” Burnin barked at Midoriya before she started speaking into her comm, “Send at least one ambulance and police unit to my location STAT, we have a hero student in critical condition and Stain The Hero Killer is currently in custody. Four others on site are injured as well, severe but not critical, Stain Included.”
Midoriya’s hand was gripped around Shoto’s wrist where he was pressing into his wound as hard as he could. He was pulling at him like he was trying to move him.
“Midoriya, stop. You need pressure on this,” he argued.
He lightly tapped the stab wounds on Shoto’s arms in explanation. The knives had been dislodged somewhere in the commotion and they were bleeding a lot more than they had been because of that.
“Damnit, Shoto,” Burnin chastised with no real heat when she realized what was going on.
She quickly took his place keeping pressure on Midoriya’s ribs and the transfer made him wince again.
“Five minutes, guys, stay with me Jade,” she updated them on what someone over the comms was saying.
He felt helpless just sitting there waiting and, of all the times he did not want to see his father, this ranked pretty highly. Unfortunately, the bastard seemed to have a 6th sense for that, because here he was. Thankfully, with a few other heroes in tow. They took over holding Stain down from where he had apparently been struggling beneath Native and Iida, but Endeavor marched straight over to the three of them.
“What is going on here, Shoto?” he demanded.
He knew he should answer, but he could hardly think through the pain and panic. Thankfully, Burnin answered him and Shoto just let the conversation fade into the distance as he focused on Midoriya’s steady raspy breaths. The sound of sirens approaching was the only other thing he kept an ear out for.
Notes:
*Incoherent sobbing*
Thanks for reading...
Chapter 142: H-hopital
Notes:
Shout out to Beezus, Penny, and Woomy for beta reading this one and the last one, I forgot to credit them because of the state of things...
CWs
Hospitals
Nightmares
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Every second of traffic felt like an hour and Shota had half a mind to ditch the car and book it, but even with the frequent bouts of standstills it was still going faster than he could on foot, and the trains had, in fact, been stationed. Unless he sprouted wings all of the sudden, driving was the fastest way to Hosu.
Zashi had turned some music on in an attempt to calm his own nerves, but Shota had never seen someone sing along to the radio so tensly. If he wasn’t equally in duress he might have laughed at the sight. As it was, he was spending his time reading the road signs and checking the ETA on the GPS as if that would make either of them change any faster than they already were.
His phone ringing was a very welcome break from the stressful monotony.
“Hello, is this Aizawa Shota?” a woman on the other line asked.
“Yes,” he answered quickly.
“This is Hosu City Hospital and we have you listed as Midoriya Izuku’s primary emergency contact, is that correct?”
“Yes, yes, how is he?”
He fumbled with the phone, turning the speaker on so that Hizashi could hear too.
“He is currently in surgery, but things look promising and we expect that he will be fine,” she informed succinctly but not unkindly.
“Surgery for what?”
“He has a puncture wound that resulted in internal bleeding.”
Jesusfuckingchrist how the hell did he always – Alive. He is alive. Shota took a moment to close his eyes and breathe.
“We’re 35 minutes out,” Hizashi answered for him.
“Good, he should be out of surgery by then. Just ask reception and they will send you in the right direction,” she answered politely and hung up the phone.
The hospital was probably pretty busy right now so he couldn’t fault her for the abrupt dismissal.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Zashi said aloud, though, Shota wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to reassure.
The proceeding half hour was much more relaxed, Hizashi was singing along to the radio normally now, but he was still tapping his fingers against the wheel nervously. The weighty feeling of not knowing had been lifted and air started to find its way into his lungs with much more ease, he didn’t even realize he had been struggling before. They parked and calmly walked to the room that the receptionist sent them too.
Shota was surprised to see Tenya and Todoroki in the same hospital room as Midoriya, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been. This whole class was a disaster magnet, but Midoriya certainly took first place on the hierarchy. The catastrophe in question still seemed to be sleeping off the surgery, Tenya was lying on his side facing away from the rest of the room, whether or not he was asleep was unclear, but Todoroki was sitting up straight in his bed; he turned his head to them as they entered.
“Aizawa-sensei?” he said in a confused tone before moving his eyes to Hizashi.
His brows furrowed for a moment, clearly trying to figure out who that guy was and why he was here, because Hizashi was fairly difficult to recognize out of uniform. Eventually, recognition crossed over his face.
“Yamada-sensei? What are you doing here?” he asked once he answered his first unspoken question.
Of course, he had to ask.
“A call was made for all nearby heroes to report to Hosu and I am listed as an emergency contact for all of you,” he replied honestly.
He left out a few bits of information like the fact that they were not at all nearby and he certainly wasn’t a primary contact for the two of them. He assumed their primary contacts answered because he had only gotten a call for Midoriya.
Thankfully, the answer seemed to have satisfied him, because he didn’t push the matter any further.
“How is everyone?” Zashi asked quietly with feigned nonchalance as he picked up the chart at the foot of Midoriya’s bed.
“Iida got stabbed in the shoulder with a sword and I had three throwing knives hit me in the arm and leg. Midoriya only had a cut on his arm, but then a Nomu tried to fly away with him and its talon punctured his lung,” Todoroki reported, concise as always.
What the hell did they get themselves into?
“A sword and throwing knives?” Shota pushed.
“We ran into the Hero Killer,” he explained
Thankfully for everyone in the hospital, Shota knew his husband very well and he was already erasing Hizashi’s quirk when he reacted.
“YOU WHAT?” he exclaimed and immediately apologized.
It seemed as though Tenya had been sleeping, because he certainly wasn’t anymore. Similarly, Midoriya shot up out of the sleep of the dead silently, and then with a cry of pain.
“Ah! Kiddo, I’m sorry! It’s alright, just me being a loudmouth again,” Hizashi soothed quickly.
His eyes were darting around the room, but Shota wasn’t sure how much he was really taking in. He held Hizashi back from getting too close for both of their sakes until Midoriya’s eyes gained a little clarity.
“‘raser?” he slurred out once he finally recognized something. (Eraser?)
“Yeah, kid. You’re alright, you’re in the hospital.”
“‘Roki and Iida?” he asked frantically once his confused recognition turned to concerning memories.
Shota stepped out of his line of view to show him that they were both there and in one piece.
“Everyone’s fine, Kid.”
The heart rate monitor, which had been beeping rapidly since he woke up, slowly started to calm down. Once the fear fell from his face, it became clear that he was still fighting off the anesthetics, he blinked owlishly and fell back against his pillow with a thump, seeming to not have expected it to be so far back. He let out a groan and his sluggish delayed expression settled on a wince. All that thrashing about could not be good for him fresh out of surgery.
“Can I check to make sure you didn’t tear your stitches?” he asked before getting any closer, scaring him again was not going to help the situation.
“‘m pre’ty sure i’s alright,” he tried to dismiss, laying his hand over where Shota assumed the injury was. (I’m pretty sure it’s alright.)
“Someone needs to check it, either me or I’m calling a nurse in,” Shota clarified what his request actually meant.
“No! Nonono. Not tha nurse, no nurse. No… no nurse,” Midoriya responded with panic in his voice.
That was… concerning. Why was he so afraid of the nurse? He fought the urge to sigh; yet another trauma response to investigate. He tucked that tidbit of knowledge into his back pocket and ignored it for now.
“Alright, I can’t promise that, but if the stitches held, then no nurse, okay? May I check it?”
“I can, I can ch-check,” he tried to deny but his hands were weak and shaking, connected to an IV, and a heart rate monitor, so he gave up quickly.
Shota shot a look to Hizashi that said ‘get out of the way’ and slowly went to draw the curtain around Midoriya’s bed. He knew the kid had scars that he probably didn’t want anyone seeing, so he could do his best to mitigate that, but not checking the wound was not an option. He could hear the other kids murmuring to Hizashi on the other side of the curtain but he ignored it readily. He’d been tearing his hair out in the car with Hizashi for two hours waiting to make sure that this kid was okay. He needed to make sure he was okay.
Thankfully, his gown was tied on the side that the injury was on, likely for ease of checking. The poor kid was stiff as a board and barely even breathing so Shota did his best to make quick work of it. He tried not to look at the scars, but the gnarled flesh peeked out from the edge of the gown and it was impossible not to see it. Chiyo had said this covered the entire right side of his torso? God, that must have hurt. He gently peeled away the gauze and bandages to check the stitches. There was blood on the white gauze, but that was to be expected fresh out of surgery. None of the stitches seemed to have torn, which Shota was very grateful for. Just as quickly and as gently as he took them off, he pressed them back into place and helped Midoriya tie his gown securely shut.
He looked shellshocked, like he had at the police station two weeks ago, but he shook it off much more quickly this time. Even still, he refused to look Shota in the eye.
“You alright?” he asked after Midoriya seemed to have come back to himself.
“Yeah, ‘m f-fine,” he predictably dismissed.
He didn’t think he’d live to see the day he thought this, but he missed Ivy’s scathing dismissals of his concern, calling him a mother hen and telling him to piss off. He missed a lot of things about Ivy, but their humor was chief among them. They always took a joke well no matter how serious the situation or how inappropriate the joke was. They were quick to laugh, and Shota wasn’t sure that he’d heard Midoriya laugh once in the two weeks that he’d been with them. He didn’t think he could change that, but getting him high on painkillers was probably the easiest time to try.
“You’re setting trends I’m not too keen on; are you planning on puncturing a lung every time a Nomu shows up?” he asked with mock sincerity.
To Shota’s immense relief, a smile spread across the kid's face and he choked out a pained laugh. Maybe it wasn’t a good call to make with a freshly unpunctured lung.
“I said tha same thing to Sho’o but he di’n’t think it was funny,” he said through suppressed giggles in an attempt to minimize how much his wound got jostled. (I said the same thing to Shoto but he didn’t think it was funny.)
“I assume you said that right after it happened?” he asked in an overly exasperated tone.
“Don’ see how tha’s relev’nt,” he replied with a smirk that said that he very much did see how that was relevant.
Shota couldn’t help the genuine scoff of laughter that overtook him. It was more from relief than anything, not only relief that Midoriya was alright, but relief that a glimpse of Ivy was still in there somewhere. As glad as he was to have some part of them back, Midoriya needed to sleep. They all did, this whole situation was exhausting and Shota hadn’t even been there for it.
“You should sleep, we’ll be here.”
“Dun like sleep’ in hospit’l,” he retorted groggily.
“Yeah, I don’t think many people do. Stop getting your lungs pierced and maybe you’ll stop having to stay the night in here,” he shot back.
“Mmm, I’ll pick ‘nother organ nex’ time– ‘ntestines or s’mthin’ been a while since they’ve been stabbed. Got too much of ‘em an’way, they can take it,” he slurred (I’ll pick another organ next time– my intestines or something, it’s been a while since they’ve been stabbed. I’ve got too much of them anyway, they can take it.)
Shota quickly shot him a look that said both, ‘you’re insufferable’ and ‘shut the hell up’ because the curtain certainly wasn’t enough to make this a private conversation. He didn’t want to have him spilling any more secrets that he didn’t have a valid cover story for. Getting stabbed in the intestines was definitely something the average person would have several questions about.
Unfortunately, that reminder was enough to scare away whatever drug-addled bit of Ivy that had snuck out back into hiding. His gaze dropped to the sheets covering him and his shoulders sank like he was doing his best to appear even smaller than he already was.
“It’s fine, Kid,” he tried in vain to soothe his nerves again.
“N-no it’s– I, um– I m-m’ssed up… a-again–” (I messed up again)
“We can talk about it in the morning, just get some sleep. Do you want the curtain open or closed?”
Trying to change the subject only made him chew at his lip harder. Shota could see the sluggish gears turning as he tried to decide whether he would rather hide behind the curtain or be able to see incoming ‘threats’ and the thought hurt. He just wanted the poor kid to feel safe for once in his life. Eventually, he decided that he would rather have them open and Shota obliged.
Hizashi was sitting quietly in the armchair between Tenya and Todoroki’s beds. Tenya had returned to laying down facing away from the room, but Todoroki was still sitting up and staring across the room to Midoriya’s bed. He must be worried. The kid’s behavior had not slipped his notice. His poor social skills, distaste for fire, and designer quirk painted a pretty clear picture of his childhood. He seemed to have stuck himself to Midoriya’s side ever since the sports festival and it seemed as though whatever the hell had happened tonight only made the situation worse. Having friends was good, but codependency was not, he’d need to keep an eye on them.
“Get some sleep,” Shota instructed him gently.
He glanced over at Midoriya again before answering.
“Yes, sensei,” he complied, reluctantly forcing himself to lay back.
He was much too stiff to be anywhere close to sleeping, but laying down was good enough.
“Take the spare bed, I’ll take the chair,” Shota turned his focus to Hizashi who was also nervously glancing toward Midoriya.
They could talk later, but Hizashi had been up for damn near 20 hours at this point, he needed to sleep. Everyone was okay, they could sort it out in the morning.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” they tried to argue.
“I woke up 5 hours ago and I am far more accustomed to sleeping in uncomfortable places. Just take the bed.”
“You woke up from a nap 5 hours ago,” he pointed out.
“Semantics, you need sleep more than I do. Quit arguing, we’re keeping everyone up,” he shut down any more debate by grabbing Hizashi’s arm and physically pulling him out of the chair.
“Pushy,” they sneered with no real bite.
A blanket was thrown at him after he had already closed his eyes and he was too tired to argue about it, so he just accepted the gesture quietly.
***
Izuku did not like sleeping in a room full of other people. It’s not like he didn’t trust anyone here; honestly, he was probably far safer sleeping here with 2 pro heroes and 2 heroes in training than he was anywhere else, but he still couldn’t relax. It wasn’t exactly external threats he was worried about anyway, seeing a Nomu again and smelling the air rich with blood and destruction didn’t bring up pleasant memories. He didn’t want to deal with whatever fallout would result after waking up screaming. He’d already done it in front of Mic once and he was not looking for a repeat performance. Unfortunately, the drugs in his system weren’t giving him much of a choice; his eyelids were drooping and he was asleep before he could even try and fight it.
Unsurprisingly, he was awoken by visions of blood and gore, but thankfully, he remained silent aside from a dramatic gasp and the shuffling of sheets. It was still enough to have woken Eraser and Todoroki who were both looking at him expectantly.
“S-sorry, ‘m fine,” he mumbled groggily.
By the looks of it, dawn had just begun peeking through the blinds. He wasn’t going back to sleep.
“You didn’t pull the stitches, did you?” Eraser asked.
Izuku was getting deja vu.
“No, they’re f-fine,” he dismissed.
“They’re probably going to redress them soon anyway,” Eraser mused, seemingly more to himself than anyone else.
He stood up from the chair he had been sleeping in and stretched, causing a cacophony of creaks and cracks that Izuku was surprised didn’t at least wake Iida if not Mic, sans hearing aids, as well.
“I’m getting coffee,” he announced once he settled and promptly walked out of the room without a sound.
Izuku couldn’t help the chuckle that fell from his mouth, that was incredibly on brand. Todoroki was rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he shifted his attention back. His hair looked pink in the middle due to his bedhead, but Izuku kept that observation to himself. Neither of them said anything until Eraser came back with two steaming styrofoam cups in hand and nudged Mic awake. He gave them a second to wake up properly and they both grimaced at the first sip of coffee. He heard Mic mumble something along the lines of ‘why does it taste like rubber?’ before Eraser turned his focus back to the rest of the room.
“What happened?” he asked plainly.
No one moved to wake Iida, and Izuku didn’t comment on that.
“Nomus attacked, I don’t know how many, they weren’t as strong as the one at the USJ, though. We were fighting them in the inner city when Midoriya ran off. I tried to follow him but I lost his trail a few times. When I caught up he was fighting the Hero Killer in an alleyway and Iida was on the ground. There was another hero there too, but I don’t know his name. We defeated him, but we all needed medical attention so we moved to the street where an ambulance could reach us and that’s when a flying Nomu took Midoriya. Burnin got there at some point and her and I managed to get him down safely. Other heroes showed up after that and the ambulance wasn’t far behind,” Todoroki reported succinctly.
At which point everyone turned to Izuku. He felt his stomach churn with guilt. If he hadn’t earned himself a vigilante charge outright, there would at least be a trial of some sort, the exact thing that Eraser didn’t need other people poking their noses into while he was doing his best to cover everything up.
“I-I, um, I’m s-sorry–”
“I don’t want an apology, I want a report,” Eraser cut him off without any real heat, though it stung regardless.
“Yes, s-sor–” he cut himself off, “I heard the hero Manual asking a sidekick if they had seen T-Tenya and I was already w-worried he was after S-Stain–”
“You were already worried? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I t-told M-Manual, at the t-train station when we first g-got here a few d-days ago.”
Eraser closed his eyes for a moment and took a steadying breath before speaking. Izuku could see Mic had put a hand on his shoulder to calm him. He was angry. Goddamnit, of course he was angry.
“Continue,” he instructed with no emotion.
“I- I didn’t th-think, I j-just ran to find him, and I was r-right. Stain had paralyzed him and was about t-to cut his throat, s-so I stopped him. I had sh-shared my location with Shoto and B-Burnin on the way there so I st-stalled for b-backup and, um, T-Todoroki told you the r-rest,” he stuttered out quietly.
“I don’t think we need to tell you how that was incredibly reckless,” Mic spoke up before Eraser got the chance to, “Don’t tell anyone else about this, I can’t believe you didn’t have an NDA shoved in your face before you even got out of the ambulance. I don’t know where this is going from here, but the fewer people that know, the better. The legalities of what happened are… unclear at best,” he admitted reluctantly.
“There’s no way they’re getting charged for this,” Eraser interjected.
“You can’t say that for sure, Eraser.”
“Tried? Possibly, but charged? I doubt it. Todoroki have you spoken to your father yet?” Eraser asked.
“No, I think he’s been busy with everything else that happened.”
“Has Manual been around?” Mic asked.
“No, not that I saw and I’ve been with Iida the whole time aside from when he was in surgery.”
Mic and Eraser looked at each other, seemingly having a telepathic conversation before Eraser cocked his head toward Iida and Mic got up to wake him. They talked in hushed tones that Izuku couldn’t fully make out from the opposite corner. Once Iida finished waking up properly, Mic took him out of the room, presumably to get his statement in private since it was a much more touchy subject for him. Eraser, to Izuku’s dismay, called the nurses in to check over his and Todoroki’s vitals. They changed his bandages, but other than that, there wasn’t much they could do; anyone with a healing quirk was preoccupied with patients in much more critical conditions, but Eraser assured them that Recovery Girl would take care of them once they got back home.
The elephant in the room remained ignored until around half past 8 when a large man with a dog quirk walked in with Manual in tow and introduced himself as the chief of the Hosu City Police Department. He held himself like he knew his presence, he was well aware that he was intimidating and he was not trying to hide it.
“Could I have a moment with the students…?” he trailed off as he looked at Mic and Eraser, waiting for them to introduce themselves.
“Pros, Present Mic and Eraserhead. We’ve already been caught up on the sitch, no need to kick us out,” Mic replied with a pleasant tone and a smile, but his countenance betrayed that he was not leaving under any circumstances.
He had not thought of Mic as remarkably intimidating before, but he bore his kindness like a knife. Izuku made sure to take note of that. He hadn’t been planning to cross Mic, but he certainly wasn’t going to now.
“Very well,” the man replied in a tone that said that it wasn’t actually ‘very well’ at all.
The chief started a lecture on quirks and licensing and the importance of adhering to the law, but Izuku was finding it hard to take him seriously because he said the word “woof” at the end of every other sentence. He was being incredibly rude, so he bit his lip, stiffened his spine, and did his best to pay attention even though he was already quite well-versed in vigilante laws. Maybe it was Eraser’s assurance from earlier or Mic and Eraser’s joint threateningly protective presence or maybe he was still just high on painkillers, but he found that he wasn’t nearly as scared as he probably should be. He still had the good sense to keep his mouth shut when the chief of police called their actions a “gross abuse of power” that deserved “severe punishment.” Todoroki, however, did not seem to share that notion.
“Now wait a minute, if Iida hadn’t stepped in, Native would have been murdered, and if not for Midoriya, both of them–”
“Todoroki that’s enough,” Eraser interrupted before turning toward the chief, “Chief Tsuragamae, I think we both know that attempting to take this to court is a waste of time. The legalities of the situation are muddled in the context of a city-wide attack, they had clearance to defend which in itself could be enough to get this case dismissed. That aside, there is not a valid jury in the country that would prosecute them for taking down the Hero Killer. They just made it through an incredibly traumatizing experience and I do not appreciate you threatening them further,” he stated with calm finality.
The room went deathly quiet and the chief looked at Eraser like he couldn’t believe his audacity and, to be fair, Izuku himself could hardly believe his audacity and he knew damn well how prickly the man could be.
“So you propose this infraction goes unpunished simply because it turned out favorably?” Tsuragamae broke their silent staring contest, truly a foolish endeavor against Eraserhead.
“No, I don’t. It was idiotic and incredibly reckless, but I do think that turning this into a learning opportunity requires more tact than blind threats and it should fall under the jurisdiction of their teacher, which would be me. That being said, the situation does still need to be resolved on paper, so, I assume you have a plan going forward seeing as though pressing charges is not a viable option,” Eraser pressed.
It was difficult to gauge emotions on a canine face, but Izuku was pretty sure he was smirking.
“Yes, we do. The final choice is up to them, but we are prepared to release a statement saying that Endeavor was the one to take him down. The burns and other injuries line up nicely. You three would get no legal punishments, at least,” he said with a pointed look toward Eraser, “but you would also get no recognition,” he concluded.
Izuku could see that Todoroki was bristling at the idea of letting his father get all the glory, but if he knew what was good for him, he’d comply. Izuku nodded his consent and the other two followed his lead.
“Good, then the truth stays in this room. Whether or not a conviction would pass in court, this incident would be a blemish on your personal records, one that could very well serve as an issue when you go to get your licenses, so I trust all of you to keep this to yourselves. That being said, on behalf of the Hosu Police Department, I would like to thank you three,” Tsuragamae said with a deep bow, his tense tone softening considerably on the last sentence.
Izuku, for his part, was stunned speechless, Todoroki was still scowling at the man, and Iida looked extremely uncomfortable. Needless to say, the proceeding silence was extremely awkward.
“I wish you well, boys,” Tsuragamae dismissed the tension and took his leave.
Manual didn’t follow and the silent pressure between the six of them was reaching a bursting point quickly.
“I need to apologize,” Iida finally interrupted the stillness, “I was reckless, and stupid, and I endangered all of you. I was–I am so angry, but that isn’t an excuse. It’s my fault you were brought into this mess, and you both got hurt because of my mistakes. It doesn’t fix anything, but for what it's worth, I’m sorry,” his voice shook as tears spilled from his eyes, dropping straight to the ground from where he bowed as deeply as he could manage.
Any lingering anger Izuku still held in his chest melted away. He understood why Iida did what he did. Hell, Izuku had done the same thing the night that Hoshino tried to shoot Eraser in the back of the head. That night and his actions weren’t something he liked to think about and he hadn’t even had the decency to apologize. He probably should have, but the situations were different, his actions hadn’t been premeditated, Iida’s were. He pushed the comparisons out of his mind quickly, it didn’t matter, what did matter is that he understood quite intimately where Iida was coming from.
“I can’t say that it’s okay, b-because it wasn’t–it isn’t, but we are. We’re all okay. I’m n-not angry with you, I… I understand,” Izuku offered an olive branch.
“I’m not angry with you either,” Todoroki followed suit.
Iida bit his trembling lip and tears continued to stream down his cheeks collecting at his chin and falling to his chest when he gave a stiff nod in response.
“Just don’t you dare do something like that again,” Manual added, with a kind sternness.
Eraser was watching him with an expression that Izuku didn’t know how to read, but Mic was looking at him with an approving smile, so he did his best to focus on that instead. He wasn’t looking forward to the drive back to Musutafu. He assumed Todoroki would be with them for the first half of it since they needed to stop and pick up Izuku’s stuff, plus it was on the way regardless. Once he was gone, though, god this was going to be a long talk, wasn’t it?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 143: Family Dynamics
Notes:
Shout out to Beezus, Penny, and Woomy for beta reading <3
CWs
mentions of neglectful/abusive parents
alcoholism
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“Ah, good morning Manual,” a tall, prim and proper woman said kindly upon entering.
It didn’t take Izuku long to figure out who she was, Iida was her spitting image; this must be his mother. Her focus quickly shifted to Iida but she did a double take when she saw Mic and Eraser.
“Oh! Shota, Hizashi! It’s been ages!” she exclaimed with genuine glee.
Izuku could see the tension in the smiles they both showed her. Interesting. He knew they were both friends with the elder Iida son, it made sense that Iida-san would know them, and he expected the social tension from Eraser, but not Mic. They didn’t like her for some reason. Still, they let her catch up with them while she completely ignored her son.
Ah.
Well, that answers that question. He’d only ever heard Iida talk about his brother, never his mother or father. Hm, absent parents, wonderful. At least he had his brother…? Recent events were starting to make a lot more sense now. Iida never talked about friends before UA either, his brother must have been everything to him: a guardian, a mentor, a sibling, a friend, seemingly the only meaningful relationship he had. Of course, he went and did something stupid like this.
Izuku distantly remembered all the time he had spent staking out block 8 after Eraser had almost been shot… and the mess he had ended up in after an ill-advised one-man mission he undertook without consulting anyone… or asking for help in any way…
He quickly stuffed that thought back into the depths of his mind.
Iida was sitting in his bed again, absentmindedly fiddling with the bedsheets while his mother talked to Mic and Eraser. Todoroki was intently studying the conversation between the three of them and Manual was standing awkwardly by the door. They made eye contact when Izuku looked over so he sent a pointed look toward Iida and then back to Manual. Izuku was on the opposite side of the room with a conversation going on between him and Iida, and he didn’t think anyone would be very pleased with him getting up and going over there to relieve the tension in his shoulders. Given his track record, Todoroki was unlikely to look away from his current focus and so that left Manual as the only option to fix the situation without causing a scene.
Thankfully, he got the message, sat down in the chair next to Iida’s bed, and started chatting. Iida-san proceeded to talk to Mic and Eraser for another 15 minutes before they finally got her to pay attention to her son. Had she seen him last night? Did she really just come in here for the first time since her son nearly died and ignore him for just shy of 20 minutes? Some bitter part of Izuku’s mind said well, at least she cared enough to show up at all , but honestly, if he were in Iida’s shoes, he would have preferred that she didn’t.
Izuku could imagine his mother walking in with an irritated expression on her face, one that she would hide from everyone else in the room. Whenever they weren’t looking she would glare at him for making her pay for more medical bills. She’d sit there holding his hand too tight and talk to Iida and Todoroki for just long enough to be considered polite and then she’d leave without another word to Izuku himself. His friends would say how nice she was and she’d scream at him when he got home. Despite being a nurse, she wouldn’t help him take care of the wounds. He’d have to climb up the stairs past the broken elevator and taste blood in his mouth every day because she would be gone to wherever it was she went off to after she finished shouting at him. She wouldn’t–
“Kiddo?” Mic’s voice cut through the fog that had enveloped his mind.
He blinked himself back into the present moment to see that Manual had left and Iida-san had taken the seat next to Iida’s bed. Eraser was talking to Todoroki about taking him home and Mic was looking at him with unmasked concern.
His eyes landed back on Iida for a moment. He looked sad. Any tension that Manual might have helped alleviate had returned despite the seemingly pleasant conversation he was having with his mom.
The shitty parents club grows, he supposed.
“You alright?” Mic drew his attention back again
“Y-yeah, s-sorry,” he answered quickly.
Mic didn’t look convinced by the obvious lie, but they didn’t push it.
“We’re probably gonna get going soon. There’s not much more for you other than bed rest and pain meds, but we can take care of that at home. Recovery Girl is gonna see you tomorrow morning once you’re all rested up,” they explained with a gentle smile.
Izuku just nodded. He was glad his mother wasn’t here.
The ride back to Musutafu was uneventful and quiet with, at best, 1.25 conversationalists in the car. Mic tried, but eventually, the only noise was the sound of him softly singing along to the radio. Fuyumi had taken the day off of work to be home for Shoto even though she wasn’t permitted to see him in the hospital, something which Izuku noted to add to his ever-growing list of concerns about this family. He had to lie about needing to use the bathroom so he could discreetly pry his pen off the bottom of the training room door, but he successfully retrieved it without questions, so he’d call it a win.
The silence of the car, which had been slightly awkward with Todoroki there, was damn near unbearable without him. Eraser kept white-knuckling the steering wheel before forcing himself to relax over and over again ad nauseum. Mic just kept singing along to the radio like nothing at all was out of the usual. He occasionally asked for Izuku’s opinion on a song or a station, but he didn’t have much input because he was too distracted waiting for Eraser to snap. Sure, he wasn’t as bad as his mom would have been, but he was clearly angry. Why wasn’t he saying anything? And why was Mic pretending that everything was fine?
He spent the rest of the day walking on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it didn’t. They picked up lunch and ate dinner together and nothing more was said about the issue. He holed himself away in the guest room again, which he noted, now had a proper bed instead of a pull-out couch, and did his best to stay as quiet as possible.
When he heard a knock on the door, he was sure that this was it, he was about to get berated, so he steeled his nerves and told them to come in.
***
When Shota opened the door to Midoriya’s room, he saw what he had expected to see. The kid was not in bed resting, he was sitting at his desk and working on what looked to be math homework which wasn’t due for at least another 4 days. Is this what Hizashi felt like trying to deal with him after the USJ incident? He owed that man an apology, didn’t he?
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah, ‘m f-fine,” Midoriya answered immediately.
He looked haggard and he was due for another dose of pain meds, he was certainly not alright.
“I meant mentally,” Shota clarified
“N-nothing I haven’t d-dealt with b-before,” he tried to dismiss with the barest hint of humor in his tone.
Shota didn’t laugh. He might have with Ivy, but right now he was Midoriya. He was 15. He was the same age as Tenya, 15 years younger than Shota. He’d known Tenya since he was a baby; he was still just a kid. Midoriya was still just a kid.
It felt like pulling teeth, but they needed to talk about this, about anything. They’d both wanted to talk with him before internships but they didn’t want to stress him out before he left for the week. Now, when he was healing, was not really a better time, but, with the kid’s track record, it didn’t seem like a ‘better time’ was a very common occurrence for him.
“That doesn’t make it any better, besides it was a city-wide attack, not an isolated ambush, and Stain isn’t just some run-of-the-mill criminal. You faced him on your own, you’re allowed to be shaken up.”
“There w-were other pros e-everywhere and St-stain was two v one,” he argued weakly.
“Todoroki said you were already fighting when he got there.”
“I heard him c-coming I was j-just stalling before th-that. T-Todoroki’s the only one who f-fought him al-lone,” he said the last part much quieter, his tone tinged with guilt.
“It’s not a competition on who’s most traumatized,” he shot back before biting his tongue, Hizashi should have been the one to talk to him, he was terrible at this, “Look, I know it’s not easy to talk about shit like this, I’m not exactly an open book about it myself, but bottling it up will kill you if you let it. I don’t want you to have to learn that the hard way.”
Shota didn’t know what he expected, Ivy’s snark telling him to piss off, or Midoriya’s timidity continually denying that anything was wrong, but he wasn’t expecting confusion.
“What?” he prodded the kid to explain the bewildered look on his face.
The furrow of Midoriya’s brow only deepened at that.
“You’re looking at me like I’ve grown a second head,” he clarified the question.
“I’m j-just– I don’t– you’re n-not– why aren’t you m-mad?” Midoriya finally stumbled out an actual question.
Shota took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was a teacher, he knew how to deal with kids. Midoriya was a kid, just treat him like any of the others. He wouldn’t want special treatment anyways.
“I am, I’m furious, but what the hell else were you supposed to do? If you hesitated a second longer to properly explain to your superiors what you were doing then Tenya would be dead. I can be mad all I want, but this was the best outcome by far. I am not saying you have permission to pull a stunt like that again; risks like that are going to kill you one day, but I meant what I said to the chief, further threats aren't what you need right now. You can deny how rattled you are, but you have enough piled on your plate at the moment. You get one freebie. One . Test me on that and you’ll be wishing that I had you running suicides.”
The confusion on Midoriya’s face turned to anger for the briefest moment, it was so quick that Shota wasn’t certain it had even been there at all. His expression settled on the same look of guilt it had been since he woke up and Shota didn’t know what to do about that. He knew that a punishment wouldn’t help, it may alleviate the guilt a little bit, but the guilt wasn’t the issue. The flagrant lack of self-preservation was the issue and no amount of guilt was ever going to change that. Like every other hero worth their salt, Midoriya valued his own well-being far less than that of others. At 30 years old he was still trying to beat self-preservation into his own head and Midoriya was worse than he ever was, he was suicidal regardless of anyone else being in danger and that was not a good trait to have in heroics.
He needed help that Shota did not know how to give.
“Get some sleep. You’re going to need it for Recovery Girl tomorrow,” he said because there was nothing else to say.
Midoriya put his pencil down and nodded so Shota just shut the door. It took a concerted effort to not slam his head into it once it latched. He had no idea what the fuck he was doing and he could only hope that his floundering wasn’t so obvious to Midoriya.
***
Izuku didn’t understand why Eraser wasn’t mad at him. He got mad at Ivy all the time, but now that he was just “Midoriya” all he got were calm admissions of anger. Why did that bug him so much? He felt like he was being handled with little kid gloves, sure, but did he really want people to be angry with him? His mother would be angry with him, she would be furious, she might even throw things. Why was that something he was waiting for? The thought was unhelpful, but he couldn’t push it out of his mind as he laid in bed.
Staring at the ceiling in the dark didn’t give him any answers, but thankfully, being fairly severely injured was good for something and he fell asleep faster than he had in quite some time.
***
Izuku heard crying down the hall, that was Mama. Why was Mama crying? He’d already shut himself in his room for the evening, but he couldn’t just ignore her, what kind of hero would that make him? Strengthening his resolve, he took in a breath, quietly opened his door, and peered into the hall. He couldn’t see anything from where he was so he took a few steps out.
Mama was sitting all bunched up on the couch with one of those smelly drinks that made Papa angry. He faltered when he saw that, but Mama didn’t seem angry, she seemed sad. Papa hadn’t been home in a long time and he felt bad for being relieved by that when it made Mama so sad. He chewed at his lip and stood there just out of view for a while before he mustered up the courage to go over to her.
He went around the far side of the couch and sat down, but she still didn’t seem to notice him. He sat there quietly for a moment not knowing what to do now.
“Mama?” he called softly, trying his best not to startle her.
She jumped anyway, spilling some of her drink onto her blouse in the process. She started cursing under her breath as she blotted at the stain with a tissue. She sounded angry now, Izuku didn’t like that, but he stayed put.
“What, Izuku?” she asked bitterly.
He faltered at her tone, any pitiful amount of bravery he had managed to scrounge up left him quickly.
“I-I– y-you’re crying, I w-wanted t-to help. I d-don’t want you to b-be s-sad,” he stuttered out uselessly.
Mama didn’t say anything to that, but she didn’t need to. The look on her face said enough to have him scooting away as far as the couch would allow. He’d never seen that look on her face. She was angry, she was furious. Tears were welling in her eyes and she looked at him with what he could only describe as hatred. Her hands were shaking and her knuckles had gone white against the bottle in her hand.
He was scared, he wanted to run away, but she was still crying. He could feel his pulse fluttering against his neck, but he stayed. He stayed until she furrowed her brow, closed her eyes, and turned away. He stayed until she finally spoke.
“If you want to help, then leave. Get out of here, I don’t want to see you,” she said between clenched teeth and hitched breaths.
He didn’t know what she meant by that and he was too afraid to ask, but it was summer; the sun would be in the sky for a few more hours. He could leave, whether that was what she had meant or not, if that helped, then he could leave. He got off the couch, grabbed the keys from the key ring by the door, slipped on his shoes, and left without a word. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go, but if this would help Mama feel better, then he could do it.
The summer heat was oppressive and muggy and he walked around aimlessly. He followed random roads until he found himself at a beach. It wasn’t a very nice beach, there was trash everywhere, but the sun over his shoulder shone on the water in a way that made it look like it was glittering. It was pretty. He stood there and watched it until there wasn’t any more sunlight left to sparkle against the water.
When he got home, Mama was asleep on the couch. She didn’t look so sad anymore. That was good, he didn’t want her to be sad. Going away seemed to have helped. That… that was good. If going away made Mama happy, then that was good. That was something he could do.
He made his way back to his bedroom as quietly as he could. He shut his door, tucked himself into bed, and turned off the lamp he had left on earlier. He ignored the way his chest felt too tight and he ignored the tears that ran down his face. He ignored the fact that not even Mama wanted him around anymore, and he went to sleep.
***
Izuku woke up with tears dried on his cheeks. He sighed and scratched at the itchy salt that had stuck to his skin as he checked the time: 5:08 am. He didn’t have to be up for another hour and a half but he sat up anyway. He didn’t remember what he had dreamt about, but he didn’t care to risk revisiting it. He’d gotten a solid 8 hours of sleep and that was more than enough.
He threw the covers off of himself and slung his legs over the side of the bed. His throat was dry, he needed water. Mic and Eraser wouldn’t be up for another hour, he could probably go get some water without disturbing anyone. He sat there for a moment before making a decision, he grabbed his empty water bottle and pulled the door open as quietly as he could. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the threshold so he cautiously made his way to the kitchen. His water bottle was too big to fit in the bathroom sink and the shower would have been too loud, so the sink in the kitchen was his only option if he wanted to fill his bottle more than a quarter of the way full before it started spilling out into the bathroom sink.
He kept his ear perked and his eyes trained in front of him, careful not to kick any of the little cat toys with bells that he had seen laying around. Navigating around the kitchen in the light of the microwave’s clock and the first rays of sunlight that didn’t make it far past the living room was difficult, but eventually, he found the sink. He managed to fill up the bottle without fanfare and followed the same procedures on the way back to the guest room that he had used when he walked to the kitchen.
Success.
He shut the door behind himself quietly and went to go curl up in the bed again, but he stopped in his tracks. There was a fluffy mass curled up on his pillow and the achingly familiar sight made him feel like his heart was being wrenched from his chest. His bottle fell to the floor with a loud crash and he hardly even had time to curse his own fumbling hands before he heard footsteps shuffling quickly down the hall. They came to a stop outside his door and he heard Eraser call to him from the other side.
“Midoriya?”
“S-sorry, I’m s-sorry. I d-dropped my– it was an a-accident,” he stuttered out.
Eraser opened the door halfway through his non-sentence. He looked at him, then down to the water bottle on the floor then back up to him before his shoulders dropped.
“No, it’s fine. Sorry, I’m a bit jumpy– not used to someone else in the house,” he explained, his voice deeper than normal; it was rough with sleep, he had woken him up.
“The c-cat, um, s-scared m-me. W-wasn’t there w-when I left to f-fill my b-bottle. I’m s-sorry I woke you up,” he said, gesturing to the mass of fluff who hadn’t moved past glancing up to see what the racket was about.
“Ah, Kimchi. Yeah, she’s a creature of habit I guess. She usually slept on my desk which was the one that was right there,” he explained.
Oh goddamnit. It wasn’t enough to take their office, he had to take the cat’s favorite napping place too, didn’t he? He bit down another apology because he had seen the way everyone’s features scrunched up the more he did it. They were getting tired of him.
Eraser eyed him critically and he saw the way his brow furrowed slightly and a frown tugged at his lips when he realized what the real issue was.
“Do you want me to take her? She’d prefer our room, but we usually don’t let them in there because Bastard likes to try and suffocate us while we sleep,” he said with a joking tone in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“No, n-no, she can st-stay. It’s f-f-f-” his words caught too much on his lie and he had to take a breath before he tried again, “It’s fine.”
Eraser didn’t believe the piss-poor denial and Izuku couldn’t bear to look at the pity in his eyes so he looked away and bent down to pick up his bottle. Thankfully, it seemed to have fallen flat on the bottom and it didn’t look to have sustained any damage. The downstairs neighbors probably weren’t too happy, but there wasn’t much he could do about that so he did his best to scrub the thought from his mind. Eraser was still stood in the doorway and Izuku ignored him as he finally took a drink of water.
“Zashi’s gonna be up soon, why don’t we make some pancakes? He’ll be elated,” Eraser suggested apropos of nothing.
Izuku just looked back at him with a confused expression.
“Were you going to go back to bed?” Eraser challenged, seeming to know full well that he wasn’t.
“W-weren’t you going to go back to b-bed?” he shot back nervously.
“I’ve been getting more sleep lately, I’m fine. I’m going to make pancakes, join me or don’t, it’s up to you,” he concluded and left the room, pointedly leaving the door open.
Izuku knew what he was doing. He was trying to help, but it made him angry and he still didn’t know why. He sat on the bed and looked over at Kimchi curled up on the pillow. She was dozing peacefully and paying him no mind. It felt like someone was scraping the walls of his ribcage with a pitchfork, but he held his hand out and rubbed his fingers together loud enough for her to hear. She lifted her head with a little prrrp and shoved her face into his outstretched hand with no hesitation. He pulled away like he had been burned by the contact.
No, that was too much.
He got to his feet quickly and walked out toward the kitchen where Eraser was gathering ingredients. He glanced up from his task briefly as Izuku took a seat at the counter, but didn’t say anything until he appeared to have gotten out all the required supplies.
“You ever made pancakes?” he asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“You wanna learn?”
“S-sure.”
“Generally, you’d follow a recipe but a friend of ours taught us this one in high school and we’ve made it so many times that I just remember it by now. They’re American style, ‘fluffy as a cloud,’” he explained putting the last bit in air quotes, “You start with the dry ingredients 2 cups of flour, half a cup of sugar, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, and a couple pinches of salt.”
Izuku watched as Eraser measured everything out and poured it into the big metal bowl between them.
“You wanna mix that up for me?” he asked, handing Izuku a whisk.
Izuku took the whisk and started his task without responding verbally. He mixed it thoroughly, making sure to scrape off the bottom while Eraser fetched another smaller bowl.
“You mix the wet ingredients separately… I’m sure there’s a reason why, but I don’t know it,” he said with a shrug as he started putting away the dry ingredients.
Izuku made sure to note where everything went.
“One egg, quarter cup of butter, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, and one and a half to two cups of milk. We’ll add more if the batter’s too thick later,” he continued as he added ingredients to the second bowl.
When he was done he pushed it over to Izuku and took the first bowl that he had been mixing. He got the memo and started mixing the ingredients in the smaller bowl as well. After a few seconds, Eraser gestured for him to hand over the bowl and whisk.
“Now we combine them slowly. You pour in a little of the wet ingredients then bury that under the dry stuff and just keep doing that until it’s mixed up, but you don’t want to over mix it because then it won’t rise right… mm that’s probably why you mix the wet ingredients separate,” he mused aloud.
“It’s okay if there’s a few clumps,” he said after he finished mixing everything, “doesn’t look like we need to add more milk.”
He nodded his head gesturing for Izuku to come over to the kitchen side of the counter, so he scrambled out of his seat quickly, though he regretted that when he felt the stitches on his chest pull a bit. He walked the rest of the way at a more reasonable pace.
“You ever used a gas stove, or just that hot plate?” Eraser asked as he set a frying pan onto one of the front burners.
“I’ve u-used a g-gas stove,” he confirmed.
“Alright, you put the heat pretty low, like 3 or 4, and let some butter melt in the pan so the batter doesn’t stick,” he said as he waited for the pan to heat up.
“Most people probably measure this properly, but I just eyeball it,” he added as he scooped a ladle full onto the pan.
They watched it sizzle until it bubbled.
“It’s probably good to flip when you see the bubbles.”
He flipped the pancake over with a spatula.
“Gotta use a plastic spatula on coated pans like this or it’ll scratch it up,” he commented as they waited for the other side to cook.
Izuku took in all the information silently until Eraser lifted his head up quickly as if he had just remembered something.
“Supposed to add toppings before you flip it. Guess this one’s gonna be plain,” he explained as he grabbed something from a cabinet and a couple containers of berries from the fridge.
“You wanna cut up those strawberries? They’re too big, cut ‘em in little slivers– cutting board is in that cabinet there and the knives are hanging above it,” he said gesturing to the magnet strip that held a few knives and the cabinet below it.
He fumbled around the cabinet until he found a collection of cutting boards and he picked the smallest one. He didn’t really know what the different types of knives were used for in cooking but he grabbed the smallest nonserrated one– it would do the trick. He cut a few into fourths all parallel with each other so they would lay flat when baked into a pancake before he stopped and looked up at Eraser. He was yawning as he sprinkled some chocolate chips onto the uncooked side of a pancake and Izuku waited for him to finish before he spoke up.
“H-how many?” he asked, gesturing with the knife toward the cutting board.
“That’s enough. If you add too many the pancake won’t have any structure.”
He flipped the pancake over before he spoke again.
“Why don’t you do the next one?” he offered nonchalantly.
A familiar spike of anxiety drove itself through his chest and he did his best to squash it down and remind himself that it was just a goddamn pancake, there was only so much he could fuck up.
“O-okay.”
Eraser waited a little while before he took the pancake off the pan and stacked it on top of the first one he had made on a plate to the far side of the stove. Once he was done he stepped out of the way and nodded his head over to where he had been standing, wordlessly instructing Izuku to take his place.
The first one went without a hitch, he laid the strawberries down onto the batter as it cooked, making sure that they were spread out evenly. He made another one with blueberries and a third with strawberries and chocolate chips as per Eraser’s suggestion. It was… nice. It was actually nice. He did his best to ignore the way that thought tugged on his heartstrings.
Eraser took over making the rest of the pancakes and told him to sit and rest because he’d already moved around more than he should have. He took his seat at the counter back and noticed there was one more chair here than there used to be. Did they get him a chair? The thought made him bite his lip in an attempt to keep it from trembling. Thankfully, his excessive emotional reaction was interrupted when he heard dramatic sputtering and curses coming from down the hall. A moment later the cat that wasn’t in the guest room came running out of the hall like a bat out of hell. He and Eraser shared a glance before Mic’s voice rang out from their bedroom.
“Shooooou,” he spat out in a whining accusatory tone.
Eraser snorted out a laugh and pursed his lips.
“Told you Bastard tries to kill us in our sleep,” he commented, going back to making pancakes without another word.
The cat in question made his way to the entrance to the kitchen, sat down, and started yowling at Eraser. Izuku was starting to understand the name now. Eraser just rolled his eyes and skirted around him with plates and cutlery to set out on the dining table. Mic walked out into the common area as Eraser was setting the plates on the table. His eyes landed on Eraser then shifted up to Izuku at the counter, then to the stack of pancakes that could be seen sitting next to the stovetop. A huge smile spread across their face and their eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store.
“Pancakes?!” they asked with more enthusiasm than anyone who had woken up less than a minute ago had any right to possess.
For the first time in the past few weeks, Izuku felt like things might turn out alright. Probably not anytime soon, but eventually. In a few year’s time when this whole mess was over and he could finally get out of their hair, maybe they could all go back to what they used to be. Foolishly, he held that small shard of hope tight in his hand, as if he hadn’t learned how sharp those shards could be, as if he didn’t know how many times he had let its jagged edges cut him in the past. Each time he told himself it would be different, or maybe he just hoped. He hoped that the hope wouldn’t hurt like it always did; the irony of that was not lost on him.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! Hope you enjoyed the fluffy pancake fluff <3
(Yes, it was Oboro's recipe, he had a brand to maintain after all)
Chapter 144: A Series of Serious Conversations
Notes:
Shout out to Beezus for beta reading this. I would say Penny too but the only edits he made were the ones I told him to add while I was reading it over his shoulder as he read it and I don't think that counts. Also Woomy read it as well, but I assume it was the most flawless piece of writing that he had ever seen bc he had no notes.
CWs
discussions of abuse
trauma responses
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Hitoshi was thankful that Aizawa was thoughtful enough to inform him that his classmates were relatively unscathed before the night was through. His mom had been sitting there biting her nails next to him while they both intently watched the news. The next morning the press released a statement saying that Endeavor had caught the Hero Killer and if Hitoshi hadn’t already been informed that Midoriya was okay, he may have just spontaneously combusted from stress. You would think that borderline hating someone would make you worry less about them, but that was clearly not the case.
Monday.
He would talk to Midoriya on Monday.
He had no clue what he was going to say to him, but he was going to do it, he was sick and tired of being angry. He was under no disillusions that he would come out of that conversation not angry, but he hoped to at least be less angry.
***
Izuku was getting tired of the feeling that accompanied going back to school post-catastrophe. First the USJ, then his, erm, “family issues,” and now this. They hadn’t even been in school that long, how has this already happened three times? He supposed this level of incident frequency wasn’t new to him, but having other people know about said incidents was. The process of reassimilating was much easier when no one cared.
Iida, Todoroki, and him were usually among the first to arrive at class, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad.
Thankfully, everyone seemed distracted by telling their own stories for a good long while, but eventually, the conversation pivoted the entire class’s attention to them. Izuku didn’t miss the way that Todoroki tensed up when Hagakure praised Endeavor for “saving” them. He didn’t want the glory for taking Stain in, but he definitely didn’t want Endeavor to have it. Todoroki’s expression agreed with him.
Izuku was doing his best to ignore the conversation so that he wouldn’t end up sticking his foot in his mouth, but of course, that's exactly what happened. He couldn’t keep his horrified reaction in when Kaminari said that the Hero Killer was “actually kind of cool.”
“Kaminari!” he snapped before he could think better of it.
The whole class went silent, not having expected an outburst like that from him. Kaminari quickly apologized and Iida took over damage control, which Izuku was grateful for. He shifted the group's attention away from Izuku and onto himself, but he could still sense a pair of eyes on him, the familiar set that had made a habit of boring into the back of his skull: Shinso.
Their eyes met for a moment, but neither of them broke the silence even though it looked like Shinso wanted to. Izuku just turned around and did his best not to think about it, he had enough going on right now. All Might had texted him saying that they needed to talk during lunch and he also needed to talk to Todoroki about his… um… sleuthing. Two talks that he was very much not looking forward to. He needed to explain things to Shinso as well, but he’d need to get clearance from Eraser about it first and after everything that had happened this week, he just wasn’t ready. He knew that that wasn’t fair to Shinso, but he did his best to ignore that as well; he could only handle one catastrophe at a time.
***
Hitoshi had caught Midoriya’s eye several times throughout the day, it was like he already knew that he wanted to talk. He did his best to convince himself that that would make it easier, but he’s not so sure that it did. He had planned to talk to him at lunch, but when the bell rang and he was about to pull him aside, he turned tail and ran in the opposite direction of the cafeteria.
What the hell was that about?
He kept looking over to Midoriya’s usual table all period, but he never showed up.
Alright, Tuesday then.
He’d talk to Midoriya on Tuesday.
***
Toshinori was more nervous than he had been about a conversation in a long time. He knew that Midoriya was still recovering from the incident in Hosu, but he couldn’t put this off any longer. The Nomu were proof of his worries and if he was right, which he desperately hoped that he wasn’t, then Midoriya was in grave danger. If All For One was still alive, then he had painted a target on his boy’s head. He was not sure whether he was worried that Midoriya would be mad at him, or wouldn’t be mad at him. That kid was far too forgiving, but he had the right to be angry about this, to be angry at him . However, Toshinori had the feeling that he would just push it all under the rug.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a quiet knock at the door so he called for Midoriya to enter.
“H-hi All M-Might,” he greeted with his trademark nervous stutter.
Toshinori had noticed him speak without a stutter a few times, so he knew it was just a nervous tic. He spoke much more clearly when he wasn’t so anxious, like in the hospital when he was as high as a kite on pain meds, or when he was talking to his friends. He wished he wasn’t so nervous around Toshinori, but, as All Might, he was used to it.
“Hello, my boy. You look like you’re doing well, I heard you ended up in the hospital,” he broached the topic with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.
“Oh, y-yeah, but I’m f-fine, um, what did- uh- you wanted to t-talk to me?”
He had hoped to catch up with him more, but this conversation really shouldn’t be put off.
“Yes, it’s very important, actually. I’m… I’m afraid I haven’t been fully honest with you about One For All,” he started after Midoriya had taken his seat.
His expression was unreadable and he didn’t say anything, so Toshinori continued.
“Not about the power itself, but where it came from,” he reassured, “As you know, you are the ninth wielder, the power is old and its origin is even older. The story goes back over a hundred years ago to the dawn of quirks. The Dark Age, which I’m sure you’ve learned about. As you know, the world was in upheaval, but there was a man who was erased from history books. It’s the type of shameful history that people don’t like to think about. He had the power to take quirks, he could either give them away or keep them for himself. He became very powerful and manipulated people into following him while he ruled over the chaos as a tyrant. His name by this point is lost to time, but his quirk was called All For One.”
Toshinori paused to see Midoriya’s brows raise in recognition, but he still didn’t know how to read that. He waited for a question or a response, but he got nothing, so he continued.
“Hardly anyone stood up to him, and those who did didn’t stand a chance. The only one who lived through opposing him was his brother, presumably because whatever last bit of humanity he had left stopped him from killing his own flesh and blood. In an attempt to win over his brother’s favor, All For One forced a quirk onto him. They had both been under the impression that he was quirkless, but when the stockpiling quirk All For One gave him combined with his own latent and useless ability to pass on quirks, One For All was born. The quirk passed from wielder to wielder until it was strong enough to take down All For One. My injury,” Toshinori stopped himself from grasping at his side, but he could tell Midoriya had already noticed the aborted motion, “was from that fight.”
Midoriya was listening to him with the same inscrutable blank expression and there was no more hedging around the issue that he could do.
“There was a side effect to All For One’s quirk, however, it didn’t work on some people– or it did, but the process left them essentially brain dead, they became like mindless living dolls incapable of speaking… just like the Nomus…” he trailed off.
Finally, Midoriya’s expression shifted to something tangible, surprise, even if it was just for the briefest moment. His expression quickly fell back to the strange, just left of neutral, face it had been since he sat down and silence hung heavy in the air until Midoriya eventually found the words to break it.
“S-so All F-For One is s-still…?” Midoriya trailed off and left his question unasked.
“We think so, yes. I had suspected it after the first Nomu, but now it seems foolish to keep denying it,” he answered what he knew Midoriya was getting at.
He was waiting for anger or fear, but still, there was nothing. He just sat there and took in the information like Toshinori was reporting on the weather. Did he understand the gravity of the situation? Was he in shock? His life had been one catastrophe after the other, had he just grown used to it?
“I never meant to put this all on you, my boy, but you need to know the danger you’re in. No one can know that you hold One For All. Right now, the league’s focus is still on me, and we need to keep it that way. The less they know the better,” Toshinori stressed.
If nothing else, he needed to make sure Midoriya knew how to keep himself safe.
His hands were curled into fists, bunching up the material of his pants by his knees. The white-knuckled grip made the pale scars adorning his right hand fade to nearly invisible. Whether the action was out of fear or anger or both, Toshinori couldn’t say. He was far too aware of how the boy held things close to his chest; he knew how skilled he was at hiding how he felt, and, not for the first time, Toshinori was cursing that talent.
“Alright,” he finally spoke up, his tone calmer than ever.
It wasn’t alright, they both knew that it wasn’t alright, but it also seemed as though they both knew there was nothing for it. Nothing could be done; they both had a shit lot in life, and it tore at his heart to know how his boy was used to that feeling.
“Are you alright?” Toshinori finally asked, “With everything that happened in Hosu… and this,” he clarified, hoping that it wasn’t obvious how little experience he had with talks of this nature.
The corners of Midoriya’s mouth twitched up into somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
“I’m f-fine,” he forced out the predicted response.
Toshinori might not be the best at this, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Midoriya was far from fine. Given everything that has happened to him in such a short span of time, hell, even in a long span of time, it would be insane for him to be alright. He’s not sure why he had even bothered asking, it’s not like he could help. He was having trouble sleeping himself and he hadn’t even been there, though, he supposed that was why he was having trouble sleeping. He had slept through the whole disaster. Midoriya was fighting for his life and Toshinori was just snoozing away.
He fought back a sigh. This was such a mess and he had no clue how to even begin to salvage it.
“I am here… to talk, I mean!” he clarified with an awkward laugh.
He hadn’t meant to offer out a catchphrase. It certainly wasn’t the time for jokes, but it made Midoriya laugh, so he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
“Th-thanks All Might,” he said with a sad smile.
***
He should be scared, he knew that he should be scared… and he was , but not for the reasons he ought to be. Finding out that you have inherited an all-powerful arch nemesis that could go toe to toe with All Might should probably have you sticking your head in the sand, but it didn’t. He just felt tired. He had had a target on his head for years and it seemed as though it just kept getting bigger.
He was better off alone where no one could get caught in the crossfire, but he was selfish. Cutting Shinso off hadn’t entirely been because of the gang’s looming threat, but it had certainly been a part of it. It had been one of the hardest things he had ever done and he couldn’t bear to do it again. Honestly, he didn’t think it was feasible to do something like that again. Eraser was a stubborn bastard who would hunt him down to the ends of the earth and dropping out of school now would have the police on his tail anyway.
He couldn’t face this alone and that, more than anything else, is what scared him.
***
Tuesday rolled around and again, Hitoshi steeled his nerves. He was going to talk to Midoriya today. He was actually in the cafeteria, there was no getting out of it. He would wait until they both got their lunches, then ask him to talk.
Easy.
Midoriya was a few people ahead of him in line which meant he would be sitting with his friends by the time Hitoshi got the chance to ask, so he was going to have to do that in front of them which was less than ideal, but that was fine, he could do it, he’d certainly faced down worse.
After getting his tray, he turned around and started making his way toward Midoriya’s usual table, only to find that he wasn’t there. Again. He was just in front of him, he couldn’t have gone far. He looked around the room for the familiar shock of green hair and spotted him walking out the door with Todoroki.
He was avoiding him.
He knew he was looking at him differently ever since he got back. He knew that Midoriya knew he wanted to talk and now he was avoiding him, wasn’t he?
He felt his grip on the tray in his hands grow painful but he ignored it and sat at an empty table in the corner of the room. An anger that he had grown far too familiar with settled heavily in his gut. If Midoriya wanted to ignore him, well, two could play at that game.
***
Gearing himself up for the second difficult conversation of the week, Izuku pulled Todoroki away from the group and asked if he would have lunch with him outside so that they could talk. He agreed without complaint and, a few minutes after they sat under the shade of a tree and set their trays down on the grass in front of them, Izuku bit the bullet.
“Todoroki, do you want to get out of Endeavor’s house? Like if you could leave, would you?”
Todoroki looked away for a moment to think about the question. His brow furrowed as if weighing the pros and cons before he turned his attention back to Izuku.
“Where else would I go?” he asked.
“I don’t know, um, say you could just live with your siblings or something… and never see your father again. If you could do that, would you?”
“Yes,” he replied this time with no hesitation.
“Alright, good, that’s, uh, that’s good…” he trailed off awkwardly, unsure how to broach the topic he had brought Todoroki here to discuss.
In the end, he decided that Todoroki would prefer he just be as direct as possible.
“You know the way your dad treats you is illegal, right? He shouldn’t be putting his hands on you ever, that’s abuse. He could get arrested for that or at the very least get his hero license and parental rights revoked. If you told the authorities, I mean.”
Todoroki’s expression turned to confusion.
“But it’s just training. He never hurts me outside of training,” he argued.
“He makes you train though. If you said that you didn’t want to, would he let you stop?”
“…No,” Todoroki admitted after a moment of silence, “He’s the number two hero though, I doubt much would come of an investigation. He has more than enough money to keep people quiet.”
“That doesn’t matter if you have irrefutable proof,” he insisted.
“But I don’t,” Todoroki shot back.
Izuku met his intense gaze and chewed at his lip. There was no more beating around the bush, he had to tell Todoroki what he’d done and what he’d seen.
“I do,” he stated simply.
Todoroki responded with a simple raise of his eyebrow, silently prompting him to elaborate.
“You’re allowed to hate me as much as you want after this, I just– I needed to give you the option to get out of there. I… I have proof of everything, your statement about your parents’ marriage, your sibling’s statements about the dynamics at home, and… and proof of what your father considers “training.” I have it all recorded– I planned it all before the internships, but– but I won’t turn it in! Not unless that’s what you want,” he forced the admission out of his mouth.
He couldn’t look at him while he spoke, but now that he had laid all his cards out, he looked back up to Todoroki, though he was unable to keep the grimace off of his face. What he had done was a complete invasion of privacy and something he was fully prepared to not be forgiven for, but he was used to losing friends at this point.
“What do you mean you recorded proof?”
His voice was as flat and toneless as it ever was, it would probably not have been noticeable to anyone who wasn’t paying as close attention to Todoroki as Izuku had been, but he could hear subtle tension. He was not happy and Izuku couldn’t blame him.
“I… um… I had an audio recorder on me p-pretty much the whole t-time and I, um, I p-planted a bug in, uh, in the t-training room the night b-before you guys– or he, I d-don’t blame y-you for that– the night he d-ditched me at the a-agency-”
Cold anger made its home in Todoroki’s eyes and Izuku knew whatever friendship they had been fostering between them was over.
“You did that on purpose? You sent me after the villain you knew I couldn’t take down on my own just so that you could get proof of my father beating me?!” Todoroki all but shouted.
He’d stood up with clenched fists and Izuku didn’t even register how he shrank in on himself before he spoke.
“No! No! I didn’t mean for– I didn’t even know his quirk! I went after the g-group of three before– I never would have left you with him if I knew! I never wanted you t-to get hurt, I w-wasn’t th-thinking I just– there were civilians– I didn’t think about how y-your father was w-watching! I’m s-sorry, I-I’m so s-sorry–” he cut himself off abruptly when he realized he couldn’t hear Todoroki anymore.
He couldn’t see Todoroki anymore, actually, and it took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that was because he had hidden himself behind his own arms. He was huddled up against the tree he had been leaning on with his legs tucked to his chest and his arms covering his head. He forced his arms down and his eyes back up.
Todoroki was still standing in front of him with one outstretched hand frozen between them as he stared at Izuku with concern.
Shame flared hot in his gut; he was acting pathetic just so that Todoroki wouldn’t be mad at him. This was childish, he needed to get a hold of himself.
“I’m s-sorry,” he said again as he forced his limbs back into a relaxed posture.
Todoroki didn’t say anything for a while. He lowered his hand back to his side once Izuku forced his stiff limbs to slacken, but he didn’t say anything, he just looked at Izuku like he was a petri dish under a microscope for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
“You didn’t provoke him on purpose?” Todoroki finally asked.
“No, I would n-never do anything t-to risk your s-safety,” he replied with as much conviction as he could manage.
“Alright,” Todoroki responded simply.
“A-alright w-what?”
“I believe you. I apologize for accusing you of that,” he clarified.
Izuku couldn’t do much more than stare back at him dumbfounded.
“Midoriya, are you okay?” Todoroki asked after another unprompted staring contest.
“W-what? I mean, yeah. I’m f-fine.”
“Are… are you safe at home?” Todoroki echoed back the question Izuku had asked him so long ago.
Izuku laughed.
He didn’t mean to, it just happened. It was hardly an appropriate response so he bit his tongue quickly.
“S-sorry, I didn’t m-mean to l-laugh– I’m– yes, I’m safe at, um, h-home,” he assured him.
“I don’t believe you,” Todoroki replied bluntly.
“…um, I d-don’t… I…” he trailed off dumbly not really knowing what to say to that.
“You flinch constantly,” Todoroki pointed out.
“Yeah, I, uh, s-sorry?” he apologized but his confused tone made it sound more like a question.
“I doubt it’s your fault.”
Well… that was debatable. He had purposefully stuck himself into most of the incidents that had traumatized him, but he wasn’t about to explain that.
“I am fine, or um, s-safe at… home,” he choked the last word out even though it felt wrong, “I, um, I d-didn’t used to b-be, but I am n-now.”
The explanation seemed to satiate his worry for the time being, though Izuku doubted he was going to drop the issue entirely. After the incredibly strange accusation at the sports festival, Todoroki would stare at him and All Might during heroics as if trying to prove his theory that they were somehow related. He hadn’t brought it up again, but Izuku could tell he was still mulling it over trying to figure out what kind of relationship was going on between them. Izuku was extra cautious around him when it came to anything having to do with All Might and he had a feeling that he had just prompted another investigation. He supposed that was only fair after what he had done.
“So, um… the, uh, e-evidence… what… what d-did you w-want me to do?”
Todoroki looked at him again, but the expression he wore made Izuku feel like he was thinking about him more than he was thinking about his question. It wasn’t until he looked away that he saw any sort of sign that Todoroki had actually heard him. He took a moment to think about it before he spoke.
“Nothing.”
Izuku had expected that answer, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t disappointed.
“For now, at least. I… I have to think about it,” he added before Izuku could prod him.
That was fair. It was a lot to drop onto someone. He didn’t know what else to say, so he didn’t say anything, he just turned back to his lunch which he had barely touched and kept poking at it until it was time for them to go back inside. Todoroki didn’t seem mad at him, at least not anymore, but he still felt sick to his stomach just knowing that he knew what he did. He knew the silence that hung between them was no different than it used to be, but it felt heavier now, heavy with the lack of anger he knew that he deserved.
He pushed away any feelings he had on the matter as quickly as he could. Done with one awful conversation and on to the next. One step at a time is all that he could do.
He had to talk to Shinso.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! Strap in for whatever happens next hehehehe.
Chapter 145: Turning a New Leaf
Notes:
Shout outs to... honestly I'm not sure... prolly good ol reliable Beezus, Penny, and Woomy. Thanks for beta reading <3
CWs:
past traumas
discrimination
homelessness
parental neglect
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Things with Todoroki seemed almost completely unchanged after their talk. He still followed Izuku around like a mostly silent shadow and sat with him at lunch. For all intents and purposes, it was like nothing had happened at all. He didn’t seem angry and Izuku was glad he hadn’t ruined their friendship. On the topic of ruined friendships, Shinso seemed to have taken up glaring at him with renewed vigor. The first two days after getting back from internships he had seemed concerned, he kept looking at Izuku like he wanted to say something, but he never did.
He wanted to talk to him, he wanted to explain everything, he wanted his friend back, but he wasn’t so naive as to think he would get his way on that last bit. At the very least, Shinso deserved an explanation. He had told him at the beginning of the year that he didn’t want to hear from him unless he explained himself, he could explain himself now.
Shinso started glaring at him again on Wednesday and he had no clue what to do about it. It seemed as though he had missed his brief window of opportunity in which Shinso actually seemed willing to talk. He rationalized that it served him right, he didn’t deserve to get off the hook easy and dump the truth on Shinso while he was still fresh off the fear of thinking that Izuku had died in Hosu.
He needed to talk to Eraser, he knew he did. He just really didn’t want to. He was already taking up so much of his time and space, it felt like forcing himself into a pool of boiling water each time he went to bring it up, but Shinso deserved the truth.
***
Shota was sitting at the dining table grading papers as Zashi was making some tea and coffee for them when he heard the kid’s door quietly creak open. He never came out into the living area when they were home and Shota had given up any hope that he would come out without them asking any time soon, so he figured he was just going to the bathroom.
He was pleasantly surprised when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Midoriya standing in the entryway to the dining room from the hall. He was fidgeting with his hands and looking at the two of them without saying a word.
“You need something, kid?” he prompted.
His question got Zashi’s attention and they whipped around with a huge smile on their face.
“Hey, Kiddo!” they greeted cheerfully.
They both waited patiently for Midoriya to say whatever he came in here to say.
“I-I, um, I wanted to know if I could go out t-today?” he finally spit out.
Shota spared a glance over to Hizashi and he looked elated that the kid was asking for anything. They’d probably go buy him a pony right now if he asked. They walked over and handed him his freshly brewed mug of coffee and he cupped the warm ceramic between his hands before answering.
“Sure, where’d you wanna go?” Hizashi replied for him.
The kid started wringing his hands even harder at that and his gaze dropped to the floor. His sheepishness was driving Shota mad. He wanted Midoriya to be a snarky little shit, he wanted him to be a terror, he wanted him to leave his clothes on the bathroom floor and let dishes pile up in his room like a normal teenager. He wanted him to stop being so afraid of everything. It hurt to know that he was afraid of them, but he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it. All he could do was wait. So he did, he waited patiently for his answer and didn’t let his annoyance broadcast.
“Um, to a frie– to a classmate’s house, Sh-Shinso’s house,” he finally answered.
Oh… that was… unexpected. As far as he knew, those two hadn’t talked since the internships. He’d asked Shinso to keep him updated on the situation and he hadn’t said anything about it.
“You knew Shinso before UA, right?” he asked cautiously.
He nodded.
Shota spared another glance toward Hizashi. He looked concerned. He’d updated them on his conversation with Shinso during the internships, but with everything that had happened after that, he had yet to follow up with Shinso-san. They still had to be interviewed and he didn’t know the best way to approach the situation. He wanted to keep as much of Midoriya’s personal information to himself as he could, both out of respect for his privacy and for his safety. The less everyone else knew the better, he didn’t want anything tying Midoriya to Ivy to be on any sort of record, not even word of mouth if he could help it.
“Kiddo, how much did Shinso know about your situation before UA?” Hizashi asked gently, saving Shota from his own indecision.
Oh, goddamnit, he saw the kid’s eyes go distant in response, he was shutting down, or at least attempting to. Hizashi put down his tea, pulled out a chair, and guided Midoriya to take a seat before they took their own seat next to him. The kid’s eyes were still focused, that was good. He watched his husband adopt a non-threatening pose before speaking again.
“No one’s in trouble Kiddo, we just want to know what the situation is, ya dig?” he spoke softly.
He watched the kid’s expression as he forced himself back into the present. It was subtle, but he had been getting a lot of practice with picking up on his microexpressions lately.
“H-he doesn’t know anything, I-I lied t-to him f-for years–” he cut himself off to catch the breath that was running away from him. Shota watched as the kid steeled himself again and looked up at them, “He deserves to know the truth, I-I need t-to tell him the t-truth.”
Well, shit. That complicates things. Hizashi looked to him as if he had any more idea on how to deal with this than they did. Great, ball’s back in his court. He set his mug down and ran his hand across his stubble. This was a bad idea, the fewer people who knew the truth the better. Goddamnit, why did this have to be the first and only thing the kid ever asked for?
“You want to tell him everything?” Shota asked to clarify.
Izuku went back to chewing at his lip but he maintained eye contact, he didn’t recede back into himself, so that was something, that was progress.
“I don’t– he’s going to have q-questions and I–I don’t– I can’t lie to him again,” he responded.
“We can’t–” he cut himself off, unwilling to outright deny the only request the kid had made so far, “Will he keep his mouth shut or is he going to go around telling everyone?” Shota asked, probably a little too harshly.
“I–I don’t know, I don’t t-think he would but I–I don’t know,” he admitted.
Shota looked back to Hizashi but they looked just as unsure about this as he did. On the one hand, it would be good for the kid to talk to someone, anyone about what happened to him, it would be good to have someone his age in his corner to support him, god knows he could use all the support he could get. But on the other hand, Shinso still held a grudge; knowing about this situation would give Shinso a hell of a lot of leverage over him. It was truly a potentially life-ruining secret and if Shinso just started telling people he’s not sure they could save Midoriya from the fallout.
Shinso seemed like a good kid for the most part. He couldn’t imagine that he would do something like that, but the potential that he could didn’t sit well with him. He’d just gotten Ivy safe, they were finally safe, jeopardizing that for any reason went against every fiber of his being.
“I can t-tell him that I can’t t-tell him s-some things, i-if he asks,” Izuku offered but he didn’t look happy about it.
That sounded like a good compromise, he looked over to Hizashi and he seemed to agree.
“Yeah… yeah, okay. Just don’t tell him anything about Ivy, we still need to figure out how to settle that on paper,” he conceded.
After a moment of tense silence Zashi spoke up, “Do ya want a ride, Kiddo?”
“N-no that’s– it’s okay, I–I’ll just take the train,” he quickly turned down the offer.
“You sure? It really isn’t a hassle for me, I like driving,” they pushed.
“No, I want to take the train, I–I need to– I just– I–”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain,” Hizashi cut off their stuttering, “You need some time to yourself, I understand.”
Midoriya shut his mouth and gave a tiny nod.
“Let us know when you get there,” Shota chimed in as a dismissal.
The kid looked ready to bolt so he gave him an out which he gladly took, scrambling over to the genkan and putting his shoes on before shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
The two of them sat in silence for a while, taking in what just happened.
“God, I hope this goes well,” Hizashi said into the tense silence, “He needs to talk to someone.”
Shota just hummed in agreement. This had to go well, he couldn’t bear to see that kid fall to pieces again.
***
It felt like no time at all before he was standing in front of the Shinso’s door, for all the thinking about this he did he had no clue what to say, he just knew that he needed to say something. He sent a text to Mic and Eraser letting them know that he had made it to his destination. Before he could back out, he knocked on the door and waited. He wished he could take it back and run away the second his knuckles made contact but he forced himself to stay put.
After a few seconds, the door swung open and Shinso-san opened the door with a confused expression that quickly melted into an ear-to-ear smile.
“Oh, Midoriya! Look at you! You look great! Have you grown? I swear you barely came up to my jaw last I saw you!” she exclaimed as she pulled him into a hug.
He was gobsmacked and couldn’t do anything but return the gesture. When she finally let go and looked at him again her smile looked sad.
“Is everything alright? Toshi told me about you, about what happened…” she trailed off.
“I, um y-yeah. Everything’s alright. I’m– I just– I wanted to talk t-to Shinso, if that’s– if he wants to, I wanted to…” words escaped him as he looked at her.
Why was she still happy to see him? Shinso told her what he did, didn’t he? She knows he’s a liar. Why does she still look so concerned?
“Why don’t you come in kiddo, I’ll go ask him if he wants to listen, okay? I’ll be right back,” she said as she ushered him into the house and trailed up the stairs.
He could hear muffled speech but he couldn’t make out any words or tone so he just waited nervously until Shinso-san came back down the stairs with Shinso behind her.
“I’ll let you boys talk, I’ll be in the dining room,” she said as she dismissed herself down the hall.
Shinso was just looking at him with a tired expression, he didn’t even bother to fully descend the stairs. He stood halfway up them and gestured for Izuku to follow as he turned on his heel and went back to his room. Izuku quickly took off his shoes and scrambled after him.
Shinso shut the door behind them and it felt so much like the last time they’d spoken to each other like this, when Izuku lied to him and didn’t even have the decency to look him in the eye. He did now. Shinso deserved that much.
“What do you want, Midoriya?” he asked sounding as fed up with him as he always did these days.
“I… I wanted to–” he cut himself off, his throat was closing up and it was hard to choke out the words.
God, he was pathetic. He was such a crybaby, this wasn’t about how he felt, he needed to pull himself together.
“I’m sorry, I–”
“Yeah, Midoriya. I know you’re sorry, I don’t need to hear you say it again,” Shinso interrupted.
“I know, I-I wanted to explain, I will explain, I’ll tell you everything… everything th-that I c-can, i-if you still want to know,” he finally choked out.
Shinso sat down on his bed, backed up against the wall, and looked at him expectantly. When words continued to fail him Shinso nodded his head toward his desk chair wordlessly telling him to sit down. Izuku did as asked of him and fidgeted with his hands trying to find the words. Shinso just let him, he waited patiently for him to figure out how to say what he needed to say. Even after everything he was too kind.
“I, um, I’m… I’m living with Aizawa-sensei now,” he started.
Shinso raised his eyebrow at him, that clearly wasn’t what he’d expected to hear, but really, how could it be?
“What?” he asked after a moment.
“I-I’m living with–”
“No, I heard you, I just– why?”
God, he just had to say it, rip the band-aid off. It wasn’t going to get any easier.
“He, um, h-he found out that I– that I was, um… h-homeless,” he forced out.
Shinnso was just staring at him slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Izuku gave him time to process that. He waited for the realization that he never trusted them enough to ask for help to sink in, he waited for Shinso to realize he had been lying to him since the beginning.
“W-what?” Shinso blurted out dumbly.
Izuku could barely force himself to say it once, he couldn’t say it again, so he just waited.
“I– I don’t understand, you were homeless?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
Izuku just nodded as Shinso stared back at him.
“For how long?” he finally asked, breaking the tense silence.
He still didn’t get it. Maybe he was in denial or maybe he just wanted to force Izuku to spell out all his lies as penance. He bit his lip and let his gaze drop to the floor, he grasped his hands together in his lap in an attempt to stop their shaking, but it was ultimately fruitless. He forced his eyes to meet Shinso’s again before he spoke.
“F-four y-years…”
Izuku watched as the realization dawned on Shinso’s face. He looked horrified, he looked disgusted, he looked betrayed and furious. That last one felt right to him. Of all the people he had told in the past few weeks, no one had looked so angry, at least not for more than a split second. Shinso held that look on his face for an uncomfortably long time before it dropped and he looked like he was about to cry.
“The whole time?” Shinso asked, his voice wobbling.
Izuku couldn’t force the words out so he just nodded again.
Shinso stared at him with his mouth agape and he could see tears starting to well in his eyes. Izuku couldn’t watch, he was just as much of a coward as he was last year. He settled his gaze on his hands where his nails were currently picking away at his nail beds, they were starting to bleed but he didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop.
It felt like an eternity before Shinso spoke up again, “Midoriya… I’m so sorry.”
Izuku shot his head up in surprise. Sorry? Why the hell was he sorry? He couldn’t stop the bewildered “What?” That slipped out of his mouth.
Shinso looked as confused and distraught as Izuku felt.
“W-why are y-you sorry? I l-lied to you about everything f-from the beginning!” he exclaimed.
He didn’t know why he was mad that Shinso wasn’t mad at him. Someone had to be mad at him! Clearly, the adults didn’t see him as anything but a child but Shinso was a child, the ‘oh he’s just a kid’ excuse wasn’t going to work here.
“Midoriya, are you kidding? Are you lying again? I swear to god if you lie to me about this I’ll never fucking speak to you again,” Shinso threatened.
He sounded caught up between heartbroken and furious. Izuku didn’t like how the anger made him feel better. The flash of shame and the red hot spike of self hatred that had his shoulders frozen stiff felt right, the almost painful way the hair stood up on the back of his neck was what he deserved. Even still, he was just about ready to tear his hair out to make it stop.
“N-no! I s-swear! You can a-ask Aizawa-sensei. I’m n-not going to lie to you a-anymore, I’ve done enough o-of that,” he admitted.
Shinso looked dumbstruck, he had the same look on his face that Eraser did when he found out he was Ivy. His eyes were downcast flicking back and forth but focusing on nothing as if he was sifting through memories trying to recontextualize them.
“I-I don't understand, why didn’t you tell us? We could’ve, we could’ve…” he trailed off as he looked to Izuku for answers.
He owed Shinso those answers but he couldn’t tell him everything. For both of their safety, he still had to lie a little bit and it had bile churning in his gut. Shinso deserved to know what he used to be, what he still was.
“I was scared that you– I didn’t want you to know that– that I– I didn’t– my parents–”
God, just spit it out Izuku!
“I thought I was q-quirkless until five months ago and I didn’t– I was afraid that– everyone always– fucking hell!” he cursed his inability to speak and buried his hands in his hair as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, “I was a fucking coward and I couldn’t bear to hear you guys call me a goddamned Null or pity me like everyone else.”
He was getting frantic, he shot to his feet and started pacing.
“But I’m not! I’m not!” he quickly added, “I’m not, but by the time I figured that out I already ran away from you guys and I couldn’t just come back, not after what I’d done. I never thought that I would make it into UA, I never thought that I would make it–” he cut himself off, Shinso didn’t need to know that much, he still didn't want his pity.
“I just, y-you guys were the only p-people who ever cared about m-me and you were the only ones who d-didn’t know I just thought that it–it couldn’t b-be a coincidence. You c-couldn’t– if you knew you couldn’t– but I-I’m not! I’m n-not anymore! I-I’m sorry Shinso, I’m s-so sorry. You deserved a better friend and I couldn’t be that for you so I took away your choice and I left because I was t-too much of a coward to wait for you to leave me,” he finally finished and looked back to Shinso.
Tears were streaming down his face but his expression was blank, he was just staring at Izuku as the seconds ticked by into eternities.
“I-I can go. I’ll l-leave you alone. I just thought, the cat’s out of the bag and y-you deserved the t-truth,” he stuttered out and made to leave.
“No, wait a minute… I just… I just need a minute, just… just wait…” Shinso drew out each word slowly.
He was processing, Izuku knew that, but he didn’t want to stick around for whatever emotion he settled on. He didn’t want to see the fallout. It was selfish, but he still couldn’t bear to have Shinso rebuke him, but if Shinso wanted to shout at him then Izuku deserved to stand here squirming and let him.
After an eon, Shinso finally looked up at him.
“What do you mean you thought you were quirkless? You didn’t get your quirk until five months ago? That’s– that’s unheard of, I don’t— swear to me that you’re not lying Midoriya,” he demanded with steel in his tone.
“I’m n-not! I d-didn’t have a q-quirk until five months ago. I-I swear! I was t-told I-if I got it a-any s-sooner that the f-force of it would have b-blown my limbs off. You c-can’t tell anyone, p-please d-don’t t-tell anyone.”
Technically it wasn’t a lie, but technically Izuku never said he wasn’t homeless for four years. If he thought about it that way he very rarely lied to Shinso; he knew deep down that that wasn’t true but he couldn’t tell him the full truth. It wasn’t safe and he’d caused Shinso enough pain already.
Shinso took another moment of silence to mull that over. He sat there still as could be like everything had frozen in time just so that he could put all the missing pieces into place.
“Midoriya, we wouldn’t have turned you away. I wouldn’t have– I would never– you were my best friend. I wouldn’t have cared about you being quirkless, I already thought you might’ve been or at least you had some sort of fucked up quirk like me. I… I’m so sorry I didn’t– I should’ve said–”
“No, Shinso. You don’t have anything to apologize for, it’s not your fault, it’s mine! I’m the one who lied to you for years!” Izuku interrupted.
“How the hell is being homeless your fault, Midoriya?! You were what, 12? What happened to your parents, why weren’t you in foster care? How was any of this your fault?” Shinso insisted.
It was Izuku’s turn to start staring like a gaping fish.
How was this his fault? Everything was his fault! He drove his parents apart, he drove them away, he ruined their marriage, he ruined their lives, and all they did was return the favor. Sure they weren’t very kind; they hurt him irreparably but he deserved it, didn’t he? Surely someone would have done something about it if he didn’t deserve it… right? The neighbors had to have heard, the hospital visits, the nurses, the teachers, they were all the same, they all hated him. He was unloveable, he was a Null, that’s just how it was, how it is, that’s who he is. Nothing’s changed, this borrowed power doesn’t change what he is, but he can't tell Shinso that.
Tears were obscuring his vision and his ears were ringing.
“Midoriya, what happened to your parents? What do you mean you ruined their lives?” Shinso repeated
Shit, he was mumbling again, wasn’t he? How much of that did he hear?
“I’m a Null– they were– I…was”
He couldn’t spit the words out properly. It still hurt after all this time, how could it still hurt after all this time? They never loved him, no one ever loved him, not the real him. No, people only loved the fake versions, little portions of him, curated facades that were more digestible. He should have understood that by now, should have come to terms with it, but apparently not.
“Stop calling yourself that!” Shinso barked angrily before composing himself, “Are they still alive, your parents?” Shinso asked.
Are they still alive? How was he supposed to know that?
He just shrugged.
“Did– did they abandon you?”
Abandon was a loaded word, it implied a victim, it implied that there was only one person to blame, a right and a wrong. It was too black and white to explain what had happened between him and his parents. Yeah, his parents did leave him, but it was for their own good, he ruined their lives. They wouldn’t have left if he was worth staying for, but he couldn’t find the words to voice that so he just had to nod.
Shinso looked shell-shocked, his mouth was agape and he brought his hand up to cover it. Izuku couldn’t look. He bit his trembling lip and closed his eyes. He heard Shinso shuffling around but he just stayed rooted where he stood.
Suddenly there were arms around his shoulders and his face was pressed against Shinso’s collar.
He was hugging him? Why was he hugging him?
“Midoriya I don’t care that you were quirkless, I wouldn’t care if you still were,” Shinso mumbled into his hair.
He didn’t care? Half of him believed that, and that half was burning with fury. He could’ve had a home, a family but instead, he slept in a cold, damp warehouse for years because he was a goddamn coward, but the other half of him couldn’t believe that. Surely that was just something you say in hindsight to make someone feel better, right?
Whether he believed him or not didn’t matter right now, what mattered right now was Izuku felt like he was falling apart and the thought of Shinso not hating him was the only thing holding him together. He wrapped his arms around Shinso’s back, and even if this was a pity hug, even if Shinso never wanted to talk to him again after this it felt so good to think that he would. He couldn’t stop the tears from falling down his cheeks and wetting Shinso’s shoulder and Shinso let him. He held him close and let him huff out shuttered breaths and half-formed sobs. He hated feeling so pathetic but he couldn’t stop the tears from falling, he couldn’t force himself to push Shinso away again. He knew he should, but he couldn’t.
Notes:
IT'S HAPPENING!!! WHAT'S THE PROCEDURE EVERYONE?
STAY CALM!
STAY FUCKINNG CAAAAAAALM!!!!!!!!
thanks for reading :)
Chapter 146: Retrospect
Notes:
Shout outs to the usual suspects (Beezus Penny Woomy) for beta reading this chapter <3
CWs
Past trauma
Dissociation
Homelessness
Knife(?) not super relevant
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Of all the reasons Midoriya had to lie that Hitoshi had thought of, none of them were as awful as the truth. Part of him hoped that he was lying again, hating Midoriya was so much easier than the white-hot guilt that was pumping through his veins right now. God, he had to be lying, right? There was no way he was homeless for four years.
He thought of the way he always took a shower here whenever he could.
He thought of the way he always kept his leftovers from dinner.
He thought of the way he had to lie to his school to stay home sick.
He thought of the way he had never been to an arcade or played Nintendo or watched cartoons.
He thought of the way he spent so much time in the library, the only free place to loiter in town.
Oh, god…
He felt nauseous. How could they have missed this? How could they have let him suffer like that? He started coming to the library because he had nowhere else to go, they had been there since the beginning and they had done nothing .
Midoriya was crying his eyes out into his shoulder and Hitoshi just held him tight, tight enough to hurt, tight enough that his muscles protested the treatment. Midoriya held him back just as tightly, like they were both worried that the other was going to slip through their grasp again.
Quirkless.
He was quirkless.
He was more like Hitoshi than he ever thought he was. He’d never met a quirkless kid, but he knew the horror stories, he’d seen the statistics. In his darkest moments, he had consoled himself with the thought that at least he wasn’t… at least he wasn’t just like Midoriya was.
God, he couldn’t even imagine.
How was he still alive? How did he even make it to the point where he got his quirk? He was alone and quirkless and homeless and– Holy shit. No. Nonononononononono. That text, the night before he left them, that text had sounded like a goodbye. The thought had crossed his mind when he’d first gotten the message, but it was too painful to entertain.
It was a goodbye, wasn’t it?
Was he going to kill himself that night?
The tears that had been falling silently from his own eyes turned rougher as his chest started shuddering. He tried his best to keep himself steady for Midoriya’s sake, but weak sobs still forced themselves up his throat. He wanted to keep him safe and close but he couldn’t hold him any tighter than he already was.
Please, this had to be another lie, it had to be.
***
Kohaku was going mad, she had never felt so many emotions from her boys and they were so strong she couldn’t even separate who felt what, there was guilt and disgust and horror and sorrow and fury. The ever-present fear that followed Midoriya like a cloud was crushing and she just had to sit here and wait. She wanted so badly to run in there and soothe them, she wanted to take the weight of their feelings and throw it out the window but she couldn’t. That wouldn’t help them and it wasn’t fair to even consider doing that. They needed to feel whatever it was they were feeling and Kohaku needed to let them.
She needed to let them sort it out and trust that if she needed to know about something then Toshi would tell her. Tapping her leg did nothing to ease the tension in her shoulders as she waited, and waited, and waited. She waited until she felt a rush of so many emotions that it made her sick, she felt frantic to just make them stop and they weren’t even her own feelings. That was enough, she needed to do something and her feet were already taking her up the stairs before she had made up her mind.
She could hear muffled crying on the other side of the door and her knock garnered no reaction, so she just opened the door and damned the consequences. They were both standing in the middle of Hitoshi’s room as they held each other and cried. Hitoshi looked up at her with his brows furrowed, biting his lip in a vain attempt to stop it from trembling. He was looking at her like he was pleading for something to make the feeling stop, but she couldn’t do that, it wasn’t fair. Anything that altered moods could be addictive and she vowed a long time ago to never become that for someone else.
She allowed herself to exude a calm that blanketed what they felt, but she didn’t take it away. They needed to feel it and she needed to let them. The repeated reassurance didn’t make it feel any less wrong. She walked over and gently laid a hand on Midoriya’s back, she was pretty sure he knew she was there but she didn’t want to scare him in case he didn’t. She wrapped her arms around the two of them as best she could and kissed Toshi’s forehead like she used to do when he was a kid, he hadn’t felt this lost since he was little. Tears were falling down her cheeks despite her best efforts to stop them; she didn’t even know why she was crying yet and some selfish part of her didn’t want to find out, she didn’t want to feel this grief a second time.
At some point, one of Midoriya’s hands had shifted to grip the back of her shirt. The action was so similar to the way Hitoshi used to hold onto her when he got scared as a child. He used to walk up to her and reach his tiny shaking hand up to fist it in the fabric of her clothes when his words failed him; as if she were an anchor and he was lost at sea. She didn’t bother trying to stop herself from planting a kiss onto the mess of curls that were still buried in Hitoshi’s shoulder.
“It’s okay sweetheart, I’ve got you. It’s okay,” she soothed to whoever was listening.
“I’m s-sorry, I-I’m s-so s-s-sorry,” Midoriya’s voice sounded out, shaky and muffled against Toshi’s collar.
She felt Toshi’s anger spike at his apology, but she ignored it for now.
“It’s okay,” she repeated, though she could feel how unconvinced he was by the reassurance.
The three of them stood there for so long that she lost track of time, they stood there until they had no tears left to cry. She finally let go to grab tissues for their snotty noses and Midoriya refused to look at either of them as she did. He stepped away out of arms reach and neither of them were fast enough to catch him before he rather violently sat on the floor and drew his legs up to cover his face. He wasn’t crying anymore but she figured that had more to do with the fact that he was too worn out to continue than it did with feeling any better about the situation.
“Midoriya, sweetheart, it’s going to be alright,” she said as she much more gently crouched down in front of him.
He just shook his head and she could feel it as he started packing in his emotions and sealing them up again. She looked up to Hitoshi to see if he had any sort of explanation, but he was just staring kind of shellshocked at the two of them. She pulled a chair over for Toshi to sit down and draped a blanket over Midoriya’s shoulders. They were starting to calm down slowly, or at least Hitoshi was; she couldn’t tell what Midoriya was feeling anymore.
She felt helpless, so she did the first thing she could think of. They had all the stuff for Katsudon, it would be an earlier dinner but she didn’t care. Her restless hands needed to have something occupying them and she didn’t know how else to help. Words certainly weren’t going to get through to Midoriya but hopefully, actions would.
“I’m gonna make some dinner, I think. I’ll call you two down when it’s done.”
Midoriya gave no sort of reaction and Hitoshi just nodded as he stared off at nothing.
She did her best to not think about what could have happened, whatever Midoriya had told Toshi to upset him that much; wondering was only going to give her a million different things to stress out about that may or may not have even happened. It didn’t help anyone, least of all her. The familiar motions of preparing dinner weren’t enough to distract her though.
Was he being abused at home? He’d never said much about his father– did he– No, no, god, no she needed to stop. She was so lost in trying to not get lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear Toshi’s footsteps until he was right next to her. She whipped her head up looking for Midoriya, but he wasn’t following behind.
“He’s upstairs still, I got him to sit on the bed,” Hitoshi answered her question before she got the chance to ask it.
She put down the knife she was using to chop up the veggies–god she really should have been paying proper attention to what she was doing, thankfully her hands were unscathed. Toshi was looking at her like he wanted to say something, so she gave him her attention. She wanted to hear what he had to say as much as she didn’t, but if he wanted to talk now then she would listen.
“He was…” he trailed off and she could both see and feel the way it hurt to force the words out as he spoke, “He was homeless. For the whole time we knew him, right up until last month. His parents abandoned him. Aizawa found him and took him in.”
…what?
Kohaku felt her stomach drop.
That couldn’t be true. No, there's no way that was true. Midoriya was only 12 when he first started coming into the library for god’s sake! There’s no way he could have lived on the streets for four years! There’s no way, there’s just no way– he couldn't– they wouldn’t have– he– no, no, no, no, no.
Her thoughts were running away from her and she felt like she was going to be sick. She couldn’t have let this happen– how– how could she have let this happen?
For the first time since her husband died, Kohaku broke. This was too much, this was all too much. She couldn’t breathe and her boys needed her to be calm right now; they needed her to be alright, so that’s what she would be. She hadn’t used her quirk like this for over 7 years, she didn’t want to risk growing calloused to other people’s suffering, but right now it was all she could do. She tamped down her guilt and her grief until it was nothing more than a faint whisper in her ear and then she threw a fake sense of calm over top of it to muffle it completely. She would let it out later. When she was alone she would drop the facade and watch as it clawed itself out of the cage she’d stuffed it into and tear her apart.
“Okay,” she replied in a level tone, “He’s safe now. It’s going to be alright.”
“Mom, you can’t– aren’t you– wait… did you just–”
She cut him off before he could ask anything.
“Not now, Toshi, please. Yes, I’m– I’m horrified, but that’s not helpful right now. I can unpack that later,” she insisted.
“That’s not fair, you’re just leaving me here to deal with it on my own,” he argued, tears brimming in his eyes again.
Another surge of mortification hit her so hard that she physically recoiled, she winced and braced herself on the counter. As she looked down she realized that her vision was clouded with tears as well. That shouldn’t be possible, but she figured she was out of practice. The latch on the floodgate released and she let out a single heaving sob before boarding it back up again. Not right now, she couldn’t fall apart right now. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and looked back up.
“Someone needs to be calm right now. We can talk about this later,” she explained in a much more strained tone.
The look Hitoshi gave her would have been sickening if she allowed herself to feel it properly.
“I’m sorry,” she added.
Some part of her meant that, but that part of her wasn’t here anymore. All she had right now was cold hard logic. Things were out of control and someone needed to hold it together.
“I promise I will talk to you later, but Midoriya needs–” something in her fought back and she faltered, “someone needs to be steady for him.”
Her hands were shaking. She’d chopped enough veggies, she could make do with this.
“Please stay with him, I don't want him to be alone if I can help it,” she dismissed Hitoshi.
She heard footsteps retreating after a tense moment of silence and went back to preparing dinner.
***
He wondered if this was ever going to get easier. He’d barely told Eraser half of what had happened to him and he told Shinso even less, yet he still felt like a gutted fish. It felt like he was scooping up his entrails and stuffing them back into his stomach to very little success. He didn’t feel as distant as he had at the station, but this feeling in comparison to that did not feel like progress. He looked up to find himself stuffed into the corner of Shinso’s bed which he mostly remembered being guided toward. Shinso was sitting a few feet away with his back against the wall looking off into nothing, but he looked up when he saw him moving out of the corner of his eye.
He looked like he had about a thousand questions, but he didn’t say anything, he just looked back down at his lap.
“I’m s-sorry,” the words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Midoriya, don’t– please, just… just don’t. I don’t want your apologies any more than you want mine,” Shinso dismissed him.
He felt the need to apologize for apologizing, but he kept his mouth shut and let the silence stew between them.
“How– how are you even alive? Where did you go? I don’t– god– you don’t have to answer any of that,” Shinso asked and took back his questions in one breath.
These were the questions Shinso deserved an answer to. Shinso deserved an answer to all of his questions, really, but these he could answer… mostly.
“Upt-town, in the warehouse d-district. It really wasn’t that b-bad,” he answered because Shinso deserved to know the truth.
“Jesus Christ,” Izuku heard him mutter in a judgemental tone as he buried his face in his hands.
“Uptown has a lot of g-good people,” he defended.
“It’s the slums, Midoriya, the crime rate there is higher than anywhere in the country besides, like, Osaka,” Shinso argued back with a sneer.
“You don’t live there, you don’t get to talk shit about–” he cut himself off, “I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry.”
God, and now he was apologizing again.
“No, you’re right, that– that wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”
Okay, maybe Shinso had a point about not wanting to hear his apologies any more than Izuku wanted to hear his.
“I still– I don’t get it, there’s no way you never– there’s a body found there like once a week and you were twelve, did you have someone– wait, you had stitches in your leg, why did you have stitches in your leg?” Shinso whipped his head up at him at the sudden revelation and Izuku’s heart fell to his stomach.
He knew that there were going to be questions he couldn’t answer, he had expected this, but that didn’t make it feel any better.
“I c-can’t t-tell you that. I know you d-deserve the t-truth, b-but I can’t t-tell you that,” he forced the words out.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me that? Can’t or won’t? I mean you don’t have to tell me– that’s not what I meant,” he shoved his hands into his face for a second time before mumbling to himself, “God, I’m fucking this up so much.”
“I can’t tell you a l-lot of things, for a lot of p-people’s s-safety, y-yours included,” he explained.
Shinso looked at him blankly for an uncomfortably long time before speaking.
“That is an infinitely more alarming response than just telling me the truth, I think.”
Izuku couldn’t help the snorted laugh that forced itself from his throat. He couldn’t imagine that the full truth would be less concerning than what Shinso was thinking of, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. His nervous laugh seemed to have been contagious because Shinso was laughing humorlessly and shaking his head.
“I can t-tell you p-part of the truth, but I don’t think that’s going to b-be any less alarming,” he added with a grimace.
Shinso had his knees bent with his arms bridging the gap between them as he rested his head on his forearms.
“Just tell me,” he said in an exasperated tone that only sounded half playful.
“I g-got stabbed,” Izuku admitted plainly.
Shinso slowly lifted his head to face him and he looked absolutely horrified. Izuku couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out, but he quickly slapped a hand over his mouth. Why the hell was he laughing? This was serious, he should not be laughing. Shinso was still looking at him unblinking and he was pretty sure that he wasn’t breathing either.
“You’re laughing like that’s a normal thing to happen,” Shinso pointed out.
“W-well, you weren’t wrong ab-bout Uptown having one of the h-highest crime r-rates in the country,” he replied because there was really no way to answer him that wasn’t concerning.
Shinso looked at him and opened his mouth several times as if he was about to say something but decided against it before he scrubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath. Izuku felt the urge to laugh again but this time he bit it down.
“Do, um… did you want to talk about… it?” Shinso asked awkwardly.
“I p-probably sh-shouldn’t,” he answered.
“You keep saying that and it’s only making me more concerned,” Shinso mumbled under his breath.
He didn’t have anything to say to that, so he didn’t. He just pretended that he didn’t hear the muffled words and let himself fall away again as he stared at the bedspread beneath him.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! I wonder how dinner's gonna go 👀
Chapter 147: Letting Old Wounds Scar
Notes:
Shout outs to Beezus Penny and Woomy as usual <3
CWs
Dissociating
Past trauma
Grieving
DJ <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Midoriya followed him down the stairs like a ghost when his mom called them for dinner. After Hitoshi had asked a few questions he just sort of spaced out again and he had yet to return from wherever it was his brain had run off to. He was responsive though, just not verbally.
He had no clue what he was thinking. What memories could possibly be running through his mind right now? Hitoshi wanted to know every single detail of the past four years of Midoriya's life as much as he wanted to un-know the last hour of his own so that he didn’t have the faintest clue what had happened to his friend. Every thought that popped into his head was painful.
He was angry at himself for not realizing what was happening, he was angry at Midoriya for not telling him sooner, and he was angry at his mom for shutting all of this out and making him deal with it on his own. He understood why she did it, but it didn’t make him any less furious, so he made no effort to conceal it as he joined her at the dining table.
“Is Katsudon still your favorite Midoriya?” his mom asked as they sat down.
Midoriya’s face pinched into something painful for a split second before he nodded.
How did he eat before? Four years – how did he get food for himself? How did he get water? How did he make it through the winters? Someone had to have helped him, right? He was 12 for god’s sake! Who was the ‘family friend’ he talked about? Were they real? They clearly weren’t actually a family friend if they were real. As much as Midoriya insisted there were good people in Uptown, he doubted he found someone willing to help him out of the kindness of their own heart, not for nothing in return at least.
He’s sure that many of his questions would be answered with an “I can’t tell you that for your safety.” …whatever the hell that meant. Did he really want to know what kinds of people Midoriya had associated with? Probably not.
Was he involved with the gangs or something? How else could he have kept himself safe from them without joining their ranks? That could be where he learned how to fight, he had said his teacher was brutal; that certainly lined up with this hypothesis. Oh god, he was some gang’s little pet project, wasn’t he? And he got brainwashed into thinking that whatever grooming they were doing to him was legitimate care– he always saw the good in people, even to his own detriment.
Was Aizawa helping him cover up his past crimes then? He found out he was in a gang and saved him? Yeah, that made sense, he apparently patrolled in Uptown now, he probably recognized Midoriya somewhere he shouldn’t have been and figured out what was going on. He proved to all of them he was more than willing to stick his neck out for his students at the USJ, Hitoshi didn’t doubt he’d do it again.
Wait, could that mean that Midoriya left to protect them? He was still having a hard time believing that he didn’t have a quirk until 5 months ago, but Midoriya hadn’t provided any other explanation as to why he left. He had said at the beginning of the year that it was better if they weren’t around him or something like that, did he mean safer? What kind of trouble had he gotten himself into?
He had so many questions but now wasn’t the time. He trusted Aizawa though, he just had to have faith that he could protect him.
That was much more easily said than done.
***
When her boys made their way to the dining room, she could feel anger radiating off Hitoshi, but Midoriya was as quiet as he ever was. They both sat down silently; their eyes were blank, clearly lost in their own heads. She hoped that they weren't so lost as to not hear her.
“Toshi filled me in– at least the bare bones of it…” she faltered and trailed off as she looked at Midoriya, “I’m so sorry that happened,” she continued when she got a better grip on herself.
“It’s n-not your f-fault,” Midoriya finally spoke.
She knew that any insistence that she was, at least in part, to blame would be dismissed immediately, so she didn’t even try.
“You’re living with Aizawa-san now?” she prompted him to speak about it, about anything.
He just nodded.
“How is it? It must be strange living with your sensei,” she said in hopes that the comment would give Midoriya the permission to speak poorly of Aizawa if he wished to.
“It’s f-fine. He’s… very kind,” he replied in a voice even smaller than the one he had used when they first met.
Now probably wasn’t the time to be pushing this. She trusted Aizawa implicitly, Midoriya was safe with him. Right now what they needed was a little bit of levity.
“I think Toshi would disagree with you on that,” she poked playfully.
Hitoshi looked up at her with a confused and half-hearted glare.
“If my memory serves me, you accused him of attempted murder last Monday,” she clarified.
Thankfully, Hitoshi seemed to have picked up what she was trying to do. He pushed aside his resentment for a moment and played along.
“God, don’t remind me. One-on-one lessons with Eraserhead aren't all they’re cracked up to be. He’s brutal, you don’t know the half of it, Greenie.”
To both of their surprise, Midoriya burst out laughing at his remark. The sound was like music to her ears and she couldn’t help but join in, it was infectious. After hearing him sobbing into her son’s shoulder for god knows how long, this was a nice change of pace.
“W-worse than m-me?” he asked when he got his laughter under control.
“He made training with you seem like a luxury vacation– threw me into the mat about two or three times per minute for hours on end. If I even learned anything I think it was knocked out of me, I probably have permanent brain damage,” Hitoshi quipped sarcastically.
The smile on Midoriya’s face turned sad, but it didn’t fall.
“Th-that sounds ab-bout right,” he agreed.
“Oh, you did spar with him at the beginning of the year… I forgot about that, but you can actually keep up so it hardly counts.”
“You keep up with Aizawa-san?” she butted in.
She knew he was skilled, but keeping up with a pro as a 15-year-old was more than “skilled;” that was insane.
“N-no it was just l-lucky he d-didn’t expect the knife and–”
“The what?!” she interrupted again.
Midoriya’s lips sealed to a fine line and, with wide eyes, he glanced over at Hitoshi whose face mirrored his. Only, Hitoshi had his lips pressed together because he was poorly attempting to hold in a laugh.
“It’s fine, school-sanctioned knife,” Hitoshi assured her, “I think Aizawa-sensei pulled a weapon on him first anyways,” he added with a smirk.
“H-he did,” Midoriya agreed quietly with the tiniest smile on his face as if he too was holding back a laugh now.
“You boys are going to be the death of me,” she complained fondly
She could still feel Hitoshi’s anger simmering under the surface, but she knew he wasn’t faking this. He was glad to have Midoriya back, he was glad to have their stupid banter filling the dining room again. She was glad too and that’s about all she let herself feel until they bid Midoriya farewell, sending him back to Aizawa-san for the night with promises to make plans for him to come over again soon.
“I think he’s in some sort of legal trouble,” Hitoshi said the moment the door swung shut.
“What?” she asked on instinct.
“I kept asking him about stuff and he kept saying there are things he ‘can’t tell me for my safety,’” He said putting the last bit in air quotes.
Kohaku didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t want to think about the things a twelve-year-old would have had to do to survive on the streets; it made her sick. Hitoshi was watching her intently.
“He said he lived in Uptown,” he added coldly.
He was trying to get her to react, she knew that, and he was doing a damn good job of it. She knew the types of unsavory things that went on on the north side of town and god, he was only twelve. He was just a baby, he was so little and scared, god , he was always so scared.
She didn’t realize she was crying until Hitoshi started hugging her. Guilt hung around her neck like a noose and she could barely breathe through it. She was gasping through choked-out sobs and as bad as she felt about doing this to Hitoshi, she knew it would have been worse to fall apart in front of Midoriya. That poor kid didn’t need to deal with her shame. Hitoshi didn’t either, but he needed to know that he wasn’t alone in it. She had left him alone for hours and that was another pang of guilt to add to the mountain that was crushing her, but she would do it again. For Midoriya, she would do it again.
“Did he tell–” she cut herself off with a shuddered breath and tried again, “Did he tell you anything else?”
“Nothing specific, nothing that’s going to make this any easier,” he replied after studying her face intently.
She wanted to ask what that meant, but the way Toshi had said it made her think that she was going to regret asking once she knew.
“I’m sorry–”
“I know,” he interrupted her.
He was still angry but he seemed to understand. It was just a shit situation, there was nothing for it. He turned on his heel and walked away after that, up the stairs and back to his room. He needed time, this was… this was a lot, they both needed some time.
She dragged herself to the living room and fell heavily onto the couch. The old springs creaked under her weight, but they settled when she did and the resulting silence was oppressive.
She should do the dishes, clean up dinner.
She stared at the blank television.
She remembered how calm Midoriya had been when that man had tried to mug them. He was probably used to things like that, wasn’t he? How many times had something like that happened to him? How many times had he been attacked? Assaulted? How many people had hurt that precious little boy? How was he still so kind through it all?
Tears had yet to stop streaming down her cheeks.
She should get some water or something.
She didn’t bother blinking them away, her vision was blurred and distorted.
Why would his parents abandon him? Why didn’t he end up in the system? Why did he never ask for help? He never refused it, he accepted the food she gave him, he stayed in their house when they had offered it. She should have done more, why hadn’t she done more? How did she miss this? How did a little kid hide all of this from them?
She felt hollow, like everything had been scooped out of her chest and left her nothing but a husk, a facade of flesh and bone that held nothing of import. Some distant part of her realized that this was probably shock, she’d felt this before. She didn’t want it to pass, the other side of shock was much more painful.
So she sat.
She sat and stared at the blank television with unseeing eyes.
***
The sun was starting to set when he finally left the Shinso’s house. He felt about a thousand pounds lighter than he did on the way here. There was still a mess of emotions coursing through his veins, but he knew better than to mess with them; it wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on the past. A lot of shit happened, thinking about what ifs and should haves wasn’t going to change that.
The anger that he had neatly packed into jars and set in the back of his mind were rattling and clinking together, threatening to break one another with their insistence to be heard. He just scooted them further apart and ignored them.
The summer air was warm against his skin and he wasn’t given a curfew, so he decided to walk for a bit. His feet took him into town, the nice side which he was far less familiar with. He wandered aimlessly for a while until he found himself staring through the window of a flower shop. There was a cat inside sitting curled up on the counter, a long-haired tabby that looked a lot like Kimchi.
He had apparently stood there staring at the cat long enough for the store clerk to notice. The bell above the door ringing as she opened the door caught his attention; he turned his head toward her and was surprised to see her looking back at him.
“You looking for something? You seem a little lost,” she said with kind concern.
“Oh, n-no sorry, I was just– I g-got distracted. Y-your, um, your cat is cute,” he offered out an incredibly awkward explanation.
“Oh, hah, yeah, she’s a sweetheart too, you can come in if you want. She loves attention,” the woman offered.
He remembered the other day when he tried to pet Kimchi and how well that had turned out. He hesitated on the sidewalk biting his lip until she spoke again.
“Come on you look like you could use some cheering up,” she nodded her head toward the shop and held the door open for him.
Ah yes, his face was probably still a wreck after how long he had spent violently sobbing into Shinso’s collar. Unless he wanted to be incredibly rude, which he didn’t, he was left with no choice but to obey. Needless to say, he stepped into the small shop quickly.
Unsurprisingly, the smell of flowers hung heavily in the air.
“Her name is Lotus.”
The cat in question seemed uninterested in anything that wasn’t the sunbeam coming through the window and blanketing her in a golden cocoon that was perfect for an early evening nap.
“I suppose I should introduce myself too, hah, I’m Muramoto.”
“Midoriya,” he replied succinctly with a polite nod.
“You walked in on her favorite napping time, I’m not sure she would move of her own volition unless the shop caught fire,” Muramoto-san joked.
He thought of DJ’s favorite place on the roof, a little spot that hid her from anything but an aerial view and got optimal sunlight throughout the day. His heart clenched as he remembered how she used to loaf up there for hours. Apparently, dinner had rehydrated him enough to cry again, he felt tears fall on his cheeks with a flash of embarrassment.
“Sorry, I’m s-sorry–”
“No, it’s alright, I could tell you were having a rough go of it, it’s okay,” she cut him off.
He opened his mouth to excuse himself as swiftly as possible but, almost completely unbidden, the wrong words fell from his mouth.
“Can I buy some flowers?” he asked.
“Yeah, ‘course,” she replied with a smile.
He had a destination in mind now, but he still wanted to get out of this situation as quickly as possible so he grabbed the pretty and relatively cheap bundle of flowers labeled “chrysanthemums” and set them on the counter.
The clerk smiled as he set them down. She rang up the purchase and Izuku handed over some of the cash Eraser had given him in case he needed anything during the internships. He hadn’t wanted to spend any of it but this… this was more important than what he wanted.
“I hope these work out well for you, kid,” Muramoto-san said as she handed them back with the receipt.
He stuttered out some sort of thank you even though he had no clue what she had meant by that and left the shop post haste, his feet taking him in a much more familiar direction. In his scrambled head, he realized, far too late to properly thank the woman, that she had discounted the flowers by 75%. More tears slid down his cheeks but he wiped them away and kept walking with a purpose.
The warehouse on block 15 was more decrepit than he had remembered it being. The hole in the wall didn’t use to be that big, but the three bricks he had left stacked on top of one another were just how he had left them. A few weeds and persistent sprigs of grass had grown over the small grave. He removed the flowers from their plastic wrapping and knelt before the patch of dirt to set them down.
They would rot here.
He tried not to think about that.
“S-sorry I haven’t b-been back to s-see you. Things have b-been,” he paused to let out a humorless laugh, “I d-don’t think crazy is enough t-to cover it,” he forced the words out through his tears.
“I b-brought you flowers. They’re–” he cut himself off with another mirthless scoff of laughter, “They’re my favorite color, sorry about that. I panicked. G-green is p-pretty though… can cats see green?”
Just like that, his sniffles and tears turned to weeping. He had cried too much today, he was so tired. His emotions were on a trip wire and realizing he wasn’t thoughtful enough to make sure he brought a color of flowers that she could see sent him over the edge. Shrunk in on himself over a tiny grave, he wished that he could hold her again.
He wasn’t sure it would make him feel any better, given the state of things it seemed more likely to make him feel much, much worse, but he forced himself to his feet and through the hole in the wall. The inside of the warehouse didn’t look to have faired any better than the outside had in his absence. However, the door to the staircase stood undisturbed.
He didn’t have his flashlight on him so he used his phone, it didn't work nearly as well, but it was better than going in blind. His shaky limbs took him down the stairs and he refused to look at the strands of Ivy painted on the walls. Eyes on the floor Izuku, eyes on the floor.
Seeing as though there was nothing else here, it was easy to find the small plush that he had left behind. It had seen better days. It was musty, the hair was matted in some places, and it looked like a rat had tried to nibble on its foot before realizing it wasn’t food. It was in one piece, though, it was better off than he had feared it might be. If its fluff had been harvested for rat nests or it had been gone altogether he may have just fallen apart completely here in this cold dingy stairwell. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time , he thought bitterly. Before he did exactly that, he dragged himself up the stairs again.
It was starting to actually get dark now, he could no longer see the setting sun above the sea of warehouses. He probably should be getting back to Mic and Eraser’s, they were going to get worried.
He took some time to arrange the flowers neatly on top of DJ’s grave and sit in front of it while holding the– frankly disgusting– plushie to his chest. He could wash and fix it up when he got… home, he supposed.
Bonus scene in the end notes
I was gonna delete it bc it was kind of awkward but it was cute and gave some character so here you go
Notes:
The sun had set. Shota was just about to send the kid a text when he heard the lock on the front door disengage and he breathed a sigh of relief. Every minute that ticked past sundown had him more and more on edge. Zashi shot him an ‘I told you so’ look from the other end of the couch and he returned the gesture with a death glare. Hizashi wasn’t so intimately acquainted with how much trouble Midoriya could get in if you turned your back on him for more than a second, he had every reason to worry, thank you.
He’d been putting off going on patrol until he knew that Midoriya was home, so he stood up and met him at the door. He was fully suited up anyways, there was no point in trying to hide the fact that he was waiting for him.
The kid’s eyes were red and swollen from crying and he held a decrepit cat plush in his hands, the same one that Shota had seen in the old warehouse stairwell. He’d been in Uptown. Goddamnit. See Hizashi? I had plenty cause for concern. Nevertheless, he was glad that he had left that plush where he found it, he could imagine that it would have felt like losing the cat all over again if it hadn’t been there when he was finally ready to retrieve it.
Though it likely would have been in a much better state now if he had grabbed it when he found it…
“Stick it in a pillowcase and throw it in the wash, it’ll be faster than trying to clean it by hand,” he said because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to say.
The kid looked wrecked and he needed to leave, now was not the time to try and get into it. Not that he thought he would have wanted to in the first place. Zashi was better at all of this shit anyway.
“Thanks,” Midoriya replied simply.
The look on his face and his tone made it sound genuine, more genuine than the half-assed tip deserved. Kid made it sound like he just told him how to achieve Nirvana or something. He assumed that meant he had done something right, or at least he hoped.
“Yeah,” he answered just as succinctly.
They scooted around one another in the narrow genkan as Midoriya took his shoes off and Shota put his on and grabbed his scarf from the coat rack. He didn’t say anything else but he gave a solemn nod before disappearing around the corner, presumably to his room.
Like most of their interactions lately, Shota didn’t really know what to make of that. The kid was home safe, and that was going to have to be enough to sate his curiosity. He’d ask Zashi about it tomorrow.
***
Midoriya looked largely the same as he had when he left, though the exhausted and cried-out eyes were new. He was standing in between the living room and the dining room holding a ratty stuffed animal and looking a little lost. At least he didn’t just make a beeline for his room, this was progress.
“Did you eat yet?” they asked.
“Yeah, a-ate at the Sh-shinso’s,” he answered.
“So I take it it went well?” they cautiously pressed for details.
“Y-yeah, I g-guess…” he trailed off and didn't look like he wanted to elaborate.
They weren’t sure whether or not they should be taking him at his word on that assessment given the fact that he seemed to have been crying his eyes out for some time. He was about to ask when his phone vibrated in his hand with a text from Shota.
Sho: (9:37 pm)
He went to the old old warehouse to get that cat plush
That’s what his cat looked likeAh yes, Shota speak for ‘he’s grieving his cat’ and ‘I told you I had a reason to worry.’ If Sho's timeline was accurate, the cat had died around the same time that he had cut off the Shinsos. It would make sense that opening one wound opened the other.
He was still standing there as well. What was he waiting for?
“Didya need something Kiddo?”
“I, um, do you h-have laund-dry? I d-don’t have enough for a full– and I wanted t-to, um…” he trailed off gesturing to the dirty plush in his hands.
They had to suppress a grimace. That thing was half covered in mold, it probably shouldn’t go in the wash to begin with and he definitely didn’t want it mingling with his underwear.
“I think we should give the little guy a spa day first– get some of the big debris off before we stick it in the wash,” he suggested.
“Oh– I– yeah, Eraser just told m-me– s-sorry,” Midoriya sputtered out a non-explanation.
He was going to give Shota the benefit of the doubt and believe that he didn't see all the mold on that thing if he had suggested that the kid put it in the washer. Otherwise, they would be having words about how the washer was not a miracle filth incinerator.
“No problem Kiddo. Grab your laundry and I’ll grab ours, we can probably get a full load going together after we do a precursory rinse of that cute lil’ biohazard,” he poked good-naturedly.
Midoriya chuckled shyly at his phrasing and nodded in agreement.
Chapter 148: title pending...
Notes:
Merry Christmas bitches! Have a longer chapter.
Shout outs to Beezus Penny and Woomy for beta reading (probably I don't remember)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hizashi didn’t have much to fill him in on about whatever had happened with Midoriya after he’d left for patrol. They said that he said that the talk “went good, I guess” which meant nothing as far as he was concerned. The kid could get hit by a bus and he’d say he’d had a good day from a hospital bed.
He’d seen Shinso talk to Midoriya once or twice in class and it didn’t seem hostile, though it was difficult to tell because he didn’t catch a word of the conversation (plus Midoriya always looked kind of scared no matter what was going on and Shinso always looked kind of pissed no matter what was going on). He’d tried to ask about it over dinner the other night, but all he got was the same prepackaged response of “it’s fine.”
Regardless of how the talk went, he needed to interview the Shinsos. As much as he was ashamed to admit, he had yet to actually look at the files Tsukauchi had sent over. In his defense, there was a lot going on. Even still, putting it off was the main reason he hadn’t started it yet. If he were an actual employee being assigned this case, he would likely have been fired by now.
He could hardly admit it to himself, but he didn’t want to know what awaited him in those files. He didn’t want to know what that kid had been through, he was already so guilty about it; adding specifics was only going to make it worse. He was being selfish. He knew he was being selfish, but, god, he wasn’t wrong. He didn’t even make it through the first file on one Hisashi Midoriya before his blood was boiling with rage and shame.
The man’s life was one charge after the other, a petty criminal from the age of 16 onwards. The first charges were theft and underage drinking, the trend continued to public intoxication and aggravated assault, and those charges must have put up enough red flags for him to get busted for drug possession.
None of those were the most concerning details though. No, what caught Shota’s attention was the man’s quirk and current status.
Hisashi Midoriya
Quirk: Fire Breath
Status: Deceased
He was found dead from a heroin overdose in Tokyo four years ago.
Those burns were from his father, weren’t they? They were from his own goddamn father and the bastard wasn’t even alive to pay the consequences. He died right around the same time that Midoriya reported that his mother had left him and that series of events painted a pretty clear picture. Inko Midoriya was, according to her son, hardly ever home even before she left for good. No report was ever filed for the burns that Izuku received so Shota presumed that Hisashi had gone into a drug-fueled/drunken rage, almost killed his son, fled the scene, and never came back. Inko didn’t report anything and waited for him to return, which he apparently did not, seeing as though he died on a bender. Once she was notified of his death, she had no reason left to stay, so she didn’t. The last known whereabouts of Inko Midoriya was a flight to China, from which Shota could find no record that she had ever returned.
A look at Midoriya’s medical file told him that the burns were from “a campfire accident” which Shota didn’t believe for a second, it only strengthened his theory that his father had been the one to cause them. From what little he knew about Hisashi and Inko Midoriya, they did not seem like the type to bring their son camping. Moreover, where the hell were they ‘camping’ in the middle of the city? The report was Musutafu Central Hospital for Christ’s sake.
Midoriya didn’t even know his father was dead.
God, he was going to have to tell him.
He felt sick.
There wasn’t much he could do with an international investigation and there was nothing he could do about a perpetrator who was already dead.
“God fucking damnit,” he sighed to himself and scrubbed at his face.
“You alright, Sho?” Zashi asked from the other side of the table.
‘Hisashi Midoriya is dead; he had a fire quirk as well as a drug problem and Inko Midoriya seems to have fled the country,’ he signed his answer succinctly, letting Hizashi draw his own conclusions.
The kid was one closed door away and he didn’t want him overhearing this.
His husband quickly mirrored his posture, elbows propped on the table, shoulders slumped, and his head in his hands.
“Izuku doesn’t know he’s dead,” he added quietly, realizing too late that he had used Midoriya’s given name; it felt wrong to call him Midoriya now that he had a better understanding of what they had done to him.
“Yeah… okay. I’d say ‘God fucking damnit’ is a fair assessment of the situation,” Hizashi remarked without humor.
They sat in silence for a long while before Hizashi spoke up again.
“We should just tell him, there’s never going to be a good time for it and if we keep waiting around trying to find one it’s only going to get worse and worse when he realizes how long we’ve been keeping the information from him. He’s on good,” their voice tilted upwards making it sound like ‘good’ was a question more than it was a statement, “terms with Shinso now, right?”
‘He’s got someone to talk to about dead dads, even if it’s not the same kind of grief. Which is, of course, assuming that he even cares if the bastard is dead or alive, he made it seem like there was no love lost when he talked about him in the hospital after the USJ,’ Zashi switched over to signing mid-response, knowing full well he had a skewed perception of how loudly he was speaking.
‘He’s going to connect the dots on the timeline and realize that Inko only stuck around until she was sure he wasn’t coming back. Whether or not he cares if he’s dead, he’s going to care about that,’ Shota pointed out.
Hizashi thought on that for a moment before asserting that their opinion hadn’t changed, they needed to tell him as soon as possible. Shota reluctantly agreed, it wouldn’t do anyone involved any good drawing it out. The conversation petered out and he went back to reviewing the files Tsuakuchi had sent over when his eye caught on another detail.
“Oh, goddamnit,” he cursed again.
“What?” Hizashi questioned the outburst.
“His birthday is next week,” he explained.
Hizashi shoved his hands to his face again and let out a groan.
“Wonderful. That’s great, yeah. Happy birthday, Kiddo, your dad is dead!” they said with sarcastic cheer which was muffled by their hands still over their face.
“Well, yes, I agree that’s not great timing but like you said it never will be. I meant that I had wanted to do something for his birthday. I doubt he’s ever had a proper celebration. He… he said something about it at the station.”
Zashi looked up at him with that insufferable adoring smile he wore whenever Shota did something thoughtful, the one that had him seriously considering making a concerted effort to not be thoughtful. He rolled his eyes and hid behind taking a sip from his coffee.
“That’s so sweet Sho,” they cooed.
“Shut up,” he deadpanned.
“No, it is! What did you have in mind?” they asked excitedly.
“I figured he probably doesn’t want to spend any more time with us than he already is,” Hizashi frowned at that but didn’t disagree, “I need to interview the Shinsos for the case, and afterward, maybe I could ask if they’d be willing to host? We could have his friends get together there. Something small, he wouldn’t want a big fuss, he probably wouldn’t even want this much of a fuss.”
Hizashi was smiling at him again.
“Would you wipe that grin off your face, it’s unsettling,” he snipped.
“No, I will not,” they dismissed the request immediately, “That sounds lovely, though, I think you’re right about the fuss. He might not appreciate it at first, but we need to give this kid some good memories.”
He rolled his eyes at the stupid smile still on their face, but he didn't disagree. He did, however, grab the spiral notebook he was about to start writing notes in as well as the files, and stood to leave. He needed to get out of here and clear his head and if he was going on a walk he may as well have a destination in mind. The Shinso’s residence was about a 45-minute walk from here, which would give him enough time to make a mental list of interview questions. He’d procrastinated long enough, the band-aid needed to be ripped off, it was time to get to work.
“No, c’mon Sho, where are you going?” Hizashi complained.
“Shinso’s,” he answered succinctly.
“What? Shouldn’t you schedule that? What if they’re not home?”
“Then I end up going on a walk for no reason, worse things have happened,” he snipped back more testily than he had intended.
Hizashi must have understood what he needed, they always understood what he needed. They didn’t prod him further or try to stop him, they just nodded and let him go. They would talk about all of this when he got back.
Walks always helped him clear his mind. Being aware of his surroundings in public was hardwired into his brain so it made it more difficult to spiral when he was already half occupied. He still had to put his train of thought back onto the rails pretty frequently because it kept returning to the fact that Hisashi Midoriya was dead and he would never get the chance to wring his goddamn neck. Part of him wished that some other person gave Izuku those burns so that he could– No, you’re a hero Shota, pull yourself together.
He ended up having to do a few laps around the neighborhood to get his thoughts together enough to conduct an interview. By the time he was done seething with rage, it was getting dangerously close to a reasonable dinner time and he remembered what happened last time he had been here at a reasonable dinner time. He would like to not be force-fed today, so he quickly made his way to the Shinso’s.
He knocked on the door and took a few steps back. He was beginning to think that no one was going to answer when the door finally swung open and Shinso stood there with the same face he could imagine a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar would make. Ah, yes, home visits from a teacher were usually not good. Was he doing something he ought to get in trouble for? He raised a brow, half in question and half just to tease the poor kid.
“Aizawa-sensei, what, um, why are…?” he trailed off, likely realizing that there wasn’t a polite way to ask ‘what the hell are you doing at my house?’
“Is your mother home?”
“Um, yes, she– yes… why?”
“I have some questions about her interactions with Midoriya before UA, is this a bad time?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she’s just reading. I’ll go– come in, actually– yeah, um, I’ll go get her,” he awkwardly invited him into the genkan before bolting up the stairs.
He could hear hushed conversation but he couldn't make out any words. It didn’t take long for Shinso-san to make her way to the top of the stairs.
“Aizawa-san, hello, Toshi said– here,” she cut herself off to pull a pair of guest slippers from the closet at the end of the stairs, “Toshi said you had questions about Midoriya?”
“Yes, thank you. You’re not under investigation, I'm just getting as much information as I can without forcing it out of him,” he attempted to ease her obvious tension.
It did not work.
“Alright, would you like tea or water or–”
“Water would be nice, thank you, Shinso-san,” he cut her off before she could offer anything else.
“Of course, follow me. We can sit at the dining table or the living room, whichever you prefer,” she said as she led him down the hall and gestured in the direction of both options.
He took the same chair at the dining table that he had the last time he was here.
“How is he? He was– well he wasn’t doing great last I saw him,” she asked before he even got the chance to set his things on the table.
He hadn’t been worried about her, but the immediate reassurance that she was not part of the problem was nice anyway. She looked a little haggard, she had bags under her eyes that told him that she probably hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she’d last seen Izuku. She really did care about him. He wondered how he had evaded her concern for so long, that kid was far too cunning for his own good.
“He’s healing,” he said because he didn’t know how else to answer that.
He didn’t really know how he was doing, he didn’t talk to them.
“That’s good, that’s… yeah. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know, I–” she cut herself off as her voice filled with too much emotion.
She shook her head and dismissed whatever she was thinking about as she set a cup of water down for him and took a seat across the table.
“You had questions?” she prompted.
She looked about ready to cry and they hadn’t even started. This was going to be a long interview, wasn’t it? He had been too busy thinking about questions to mentally prepare himself for tears, but it was too late now.
“When and how did you meet Midoriya?”
“It was about four years ago now, he came into the library right at opening and just kept showing up.”
She sniffled, but her voice was steady when she answered.
“Did you notice anything odd about him during that time?”
Shinso-san bit her lip and continued to wrestle with the tears she was trying very hard not to shed.
“Y-yes, there were– there were several concerning things that I noted over the time I knew him,” she admitted.
“Things such as?”
She let out a humorless laugh and a few tears fell down her cheeks despite her best efforts.
“He was scared, all the time. He was always s-so scared,” she covered her mouth as a quiet sob forced its way up her throat, but only one.
As soon as the broken sound left her mouth, she stilled. The grief and guilt on her face vanished and she dabbed away any tears left on her cheeks. Her expression was neutral when she turned back to Shota. The process took less than 30 seconds and it reminded him all too much of Izuku, how he could pack away his feelings on the turn of a dime.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized and paused for a moment, “My quirk lets me feel other people’s emotions, I can’t turn it off, it also allows me to control them, my own included. It doesn’t help anyone if I’m a blubbering mess through this,” Shinso-san explained.
Ah, that… made sense. It felt a bit invasive to know that she was reading him so intimately, but he squashed that down as best he could because he knew she could probably feel that too. Whether or not she knew what he was thinking, she kept her reaction off her face.
“…Understood, please continue,” he prompted after a moment of tense silence.
“Midoriya was very good at concealing his emotions, better than anyone I have ever met. Most people are an open book to me, but he wasn’t, he still isn’t. Most of the time the only emotion he let slip out was fear. I didn’t know how to broach the topic, so I… didn’t. I kept an eye on him as best I could because there wasn’t anything I could really report. He came in with a black eye once, but Toshi said he got it at school.
There was another incident, which I didn’t witness, where he came into the library sick and told Toshi that he had to send a fake email from his mother to get out of school, but he was gone before Hitoshi could alert me. He was MIA for a week after that and when he came back I asked him if he was safe at home, he said he was, but his parents were rarely there. Of course, rarely was generous seeing as though they were never home, there was no home in the first place…” she trailed off and her eyes went glassy for a moment before she steeled herself again.
“Sorry, he told us that a family friend checks in on him regularly and we believed him, so we let it be.”
She must have felt his guilt, followed by fear, followed by desperately trying to shove both of those feelings down because she paused and looked back up at him with a crease in her brow.
“Did he… did he actually have someone? I don’t…– sorry, you aren’t obligated to tell me anything, I apologize–”
“No, it’s alright. I understand,” he admitted.
He knew how awful she must feel about this, he knew far too well how hard she must be kicking herself, and now she knew how much he understood that, goddamnit. How the hell did Izuku hide from her so effectively when Shota could barely get through a conversation? He internally sighed, for all the good that did in hiding anything from her, and decided she deserved some form of the truth, if only to make her feel a little better.
“Yes, he did have someone.”
She eyed him warily, likely both feeling and hearing the disappointment laced into that paltry reassurance.
“Someone… good?” she pressed warily.
Shota bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know how much she could feel from him nor how much she could extrapolate from those feelings, but he knew that if he lied to her he would most certainly get caught up in it somewhere down the road, so he settled for another partial truth.
“Not good enough.”
He didn’t know how to read her expression. He supposed there was no expression to be read if she was suppressing her own emotions. Dwelling on it wasn’t helping, so he moved on.
“There is an incident reported on his file that lists you as the person whose care he was turned over to. An attack which also involved your son.” he pivoted the conversation away from himself.
“Yes, someone tried to mug them while they were walking home. They were fine but Midoriya claimed his parents were out of the country so the officer let him go with me rather than holding him until they could reach his… parents. He stayed the night here and told me the, um, family friend would be seeing him the night after so he wouldn’t be alone.”
He clenched his jaw and steadfastly looked at his notes as he jotted down her response.
“Is there anything else you could think of that may help the investigation?”
She looked down at the table and started worrying at her lip as she thought, so he waited.
“This family friend, do you… have you spoken with them? I don’t know much about them but Midoriya talked about them minimally. He–”
“We have already spoken to them, Shinso-san” he cut her off, selfishly not wanting to hear what she had to say.
He was glad to know she hadn't sussed out that it was him they were talking about, but he didn’t need to hear any more about his own shortcomings.
“Alright,” she answered reluctantly, obviously wanting to ask more.
He was about to start the closing remarks of the interview when she sat up straight and spoke as if she had just remembered something.
“Oh! He had stitches once, in his leg. He told us he fell off a dumpster when it happened but now I doubt that’s the truth. I don’t know how he managed to get stitches without raising suspicion– well I guess I don’t even know that he ever actually had stitches, I never saw the injury.”
Hah, well that’s one answer he had. He knew full well how he had managed to get stitches for his leg without dealing with the hospital and their prying questions.
“Alright, when was this?” he asked even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“Some time in the summer last year. I think it was toward the end of break for Toshi so probably late August ?”
Yeah, he figured that was it. He did, in fact, have stitches, ones that he gave himself on a rooftop. Shinso-san didn’t need to know the details on that.
“Got it. Anything else?”
He gave her a moment to think before he spoke again.
“You can call me if you remember anything of import,” he reassured when she didn’t have anything to add.
“Thank you, Toshi’s got your number, it’s alright if I contact you that way?”
“Yes, that would be preferred.”
He trailed off, now would generally be the time when he would dismiss himself, but he had more to say and he was unsure how to pivot the conversation from interrogation to something more akin to a parent-teacher conference.
“Did you have another question Aizawa-san?” Shinso-san saved him from his own floundering
“Yes, though, it’s not to do with the investigation. How did the conversation over the weekend go? I know they stayed after school together on Monday, but Iz-Midoriya doesn’t… talk to us very much.”
Shota could see that she had caught each little slip-up he fumbled over in that statement. Namely, almost calling him Izuku and referring to an “us.” Izuku had told him that he had not brought up Hizashi, likely because he knew that their relationship was a fairly well-kept secret. No one besides their minimal friends and Hizashi’s family even knew he was married.
Graciously, she didn’t bring it up.
“It was… it was a lot, but I think it went as well as it could have gone.”
“They’re on good terms then?” he asked to clarify.
“I would say so. There’s obviously still a lot to sort through, but Toshi at least wants to be friends again and I don’t doubt that Midoriya wants the same.”
Good, that was good… because he didn’t really have a backup plan.
“Midoriya’s birthday is this coming Saturday. I don’t think he has ever celebrated it and I sincerely doubt he wants to spend it with me. I know it’s an imposition but I was hoping you would be willing to… host… something,” he explained awkwardly.
She was giving him another version of that goddamn smile Hizashi gave him. Was it really so hard to believe he did nice things? Why did it always elicit that face?
“Yes! I would love to! Yes, of course,” she replied once her voice caught up to her thoughts, “Did you have something in mind?”
“Nothing extravagant, just a few classmates, assuming that Shinso-kun is also amendable. I don’t know his opinions on his peers.”
“Do you want me to call him in here? We could just ask him,” she offered.
He bit the inside of his cheek and tried his best not to be envious of how easily she could talk to her son when talking to Izuku felt like pulling teeth half the time.
“Yes, that’s probably a good idea.”
“Alright, I’m gonna shout for him,” she warned before turning toward the hallway and yelling, “TOSHI!”
God, if he did that to Izuku he’d probably end up taking the poor kid to the hospital for a heart attack. He’d been with them for a month now and things were certainly better than they were at the beginning, but that wasn’t exactly a high bar to clear.
He heard Shinso’s footsteps thumping down the stairs in short order and he had to bite his tongue to prevent a comment about his audible footfalls slipping out; he wasn’t his teacher right now. He stayed quiet as Shinso-san explained the situation and the little traitor made the same damn face that his mother did, albeit, more subdued.
“Yeah, that sounds good. I sat with him and his friends during lunch a few times. They’re… um, they seem… nice,” Shinso answered hesitantly.
He wasn’t sure if the hesitance was because he was lying or social anxiety, but he was leaning toward the latter. He couldn’t imagine what issues Shinso would have with them, they were agreeable. Loud, but agreeable.
“How many friends are we talking?” Shinso-san asked warily, seeming to have picked up on the social anxiety radiating off of her son.
“Three,” he and Shinso replied at the same time.
“Oh that’s perfect, it’ll be fun, Toshi. It’s not like they’re strangers anyways. One’s Todoroki, right? You mentioned him after…” Shinso-san trailed off.
He could imagine when the topic of Todoroki being friends with Izuku came up, so he didn’t ask.
“Yes, Todoroki, Iida, and Uraraka,” he confirmed.
“Do I know them? They were in the sports festival, right?” Shinso-san asked no one in particular.
“Yeah, Uraraka is the girl with the gravity quirk and Iida’s Ingenium’s little brother. They were both in the final round,” Shinso answered.
“Ah, mhmm, I can picture them,” Shinso-san replied with a morose undertone.
What was that about? Probably Ingenium, he’d been big news a couple weeks back. He dismissed the thought readily, one problem at a time.
“I know his favorite food, but we just had it when he was last over–”
“Favorite food?” he interrupted.
“Oh, yeah, he likes katsudon. Though I don’t know if that’s his favorite or if it’s just the only home-cooked meal he’d had up until that point…” she trailed off morosely .
He remembered the time Ivy had insisted on bringing dinner for him instead of the other way around, it had been katsudon. He made him his favorite food… that was… heartbreakingly adorable.
“No, that sounds right. He’s said something about katsudon before,” he replied in a forced level tone.
“Anyway, you don’t happen to know his sweets preferences, do you?” Shinso-san asked hopefully.
Ah, this one he did know.
“Strawberry, he likes strawberry-flavored things.”
“Oh, that’ll be good. Is there anything he needs? Something we could get as a gift?” she asked.
“I can get him anything he needs , If you’re going to get him something, get him something he wants . I don’t think he’ll be big on gifts, or any of this, really. It will probably make him uncomfortable, but I want him to have a normal experience for once.”
She was smiling at him again… he fought back the urge to sigh.
“As for what he wants, Shinso-kun probably has a better idea of that than I do,” he admitted.
It’s not like he could say he’s got a thing for illegal knife collecting, that probably wouldn’t go over well.
“Oh, um… he likes to draw and write a lot, maybe a notebook or a sketchbook and some nice pencils. He likes heroes too, I don’t think I've ever seen any merch– …oh,” he cut himself off as if he had just remembered something upsetting.
Shota raised an eyebrow in silent question.
“He, um, the first thing he did at the library before we even started talking, was looking into how much old All Might merch sold for. He probably sold his stuff online…” Shinso-kun trailed off.
Of course, it was All Might merch, it had to be All Might, didn’t it? He did his best to not let his annoyance show but the little smirk on Shinso-san’s face told him that his opinion didn’t go unnoticed.
“I’ll talk to All Might, I’m sure he can get something more interesting than random trinkets from the store,” he reluctantly volunteered, “Shinso-kun, if you could be the one to invite the others, I would appreciate that. I don't think Midoriya would want the class to know that he’s living with me now and I imagine that if I tell Midoriya our plans he will spend the entire week stressing out about it,” he less reluctantly voulentold.
“Yeah, I can do that,” Shinso-kun confirmed with the expected amount of enthusiasm.
“Good, Shinso-san, could I interview Shinso-kun now?” he pivoted back and asked, as it would be illegal to do so without her express permission seeing as though he was a minor.
“Oh, um…” she trailed off and looked to her son waiting for him to nod before she continued, “Yes, I’ll be upstairs?” she said in a way that implied it was more of a question than a statement.
Shota, in turn, did the same, looking at Shinso-kun and waiting for him to nod before he replied.
“Yes, I will let you know if we need you for anything, thank you.”
Shinso took the seat that his mother had vacated and he waited until he heard a door latch upstairs before he started.
“When and how did you first meet Midoriya?”
“He came into the library my mom works at around 4 years ago and eventually we started talking,” he gave the expected response.
“Did you notice anything odd about him during that time?”
“Um… yeah he was pretty weird. I mean it's weird for anyone to show up at the library that early and that consistently, especially kids. What kid wants to spend all their time at the library? He was always researching something. Like I said at first, he was probably selling his All Might merch to get by, but he also looked up how to repair a bunch of things as well as martial arts training stuff which… makes more sense in context, I suppose.”
“Alright, anything else? Not just initial observations, anything you can think of during the entire time you knew him,” he clarified.
“Probably not anything my mom didn’t already say. He had a black eye once but I think he got it at school, though now I’m not so sure, that was around the time when he first started coming in. Then there was the time he was sick and had to send a fake email to get out of school and then another time he said he had stitches in his leg. He told me the other day it was because he had been stabbed– don’t tell my mom that, she doesn’t need to know what actually happened, he told us he fell off a dumpster,” he continued.
Hm, yes, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. He was well aware of that when it came to Midoriya’s situation. It was very kind of him to think to spare her that heartache.
“I understand, I won’t tell her,” he assured, “Though, this situation isn’t just difficult for Midoriya and the pool of people you can talk to about it is limited. I won’t push you one way or the other, but I will say I’m not a great conversationalist. Of course, you can still talk to me if you’d like to.”
Shinso smiled at the mildly self-deprecating jab, though it looked more like a grimace.
“Is he alright?– Well, no obviously not, that’s a stupid question–”
“He’s doing better and I don’t doubt that the trend will continue,” Shota cut off his fumbling.
He could see the same awful look of guilt weighing down the kid’s shoulders that he held on his own. He didn’t think there was much he could say to change that, but he felt like he should at least try.
“You were also a child, Shinso. You couldn’t be expected to notice what the adults in his life didn’t,” he stated firmly.
As he had expected, Shinso didn’t look convinced.
“He was my best friend, I should have noticed. I did notice, I knew there was something wrong but I didn’t do anything !”
“You did plenty. Being there for him was more than anyone else had done for him,” he argued, though the words felt empty.
“It wasn’t enough,” Shinso insisted under his breath.
It felt all too much like he was talking to himself.
“You aren’t the one who abandoned him, nor are you the one who made him feel like he couldn’t ask for help. His parents are to blame, not you,” he forced the words out even though it felt like they burned his tongue.
His insistence only seemed to make Shinso angry and Shota couldn’t blame him. If someone tried to tell him that he would be hard-pressed not to snap at them. Their situations were different though, Shota was an adult– he was a hero for god’s sake; he should have known better.
“I think that’s enough for now. Please let me know if you remember anything that you think might be of import,” he concluded the interview for both of their sakes, “or if you just need to talk,” he added.
Shinso looked down at the table and worried at his lip the exact same way that his mother had not 20 minutes prior. Again, Shota waited for him to speak.
“He said there was a lot of things he couldn’t tell us for our safety… I don’t really know what he meant by that. Is… um, is he in trouble?” Shinso cringed as he spoke.
Shota studied him for a minute. He looked genuinely fearful that Midoriya was going to get caught for something. He trusted the kid, he really did, but he couldn’t answer that. Knowledge was dangerous whether the wielder intended to use it as a weapon or not.
“I cannot answer that and I trust you to keep those concerns to yourself. Rumors like that will ruin his reputation before he even gets a chance to establish it,” he warned, a little more forcefully than he needed to.
“Yeah, of course– yeah, um, sorry,” Shinso fumbled out an anxious reply.
“I didn’t intend for that to be a scolding, I just need you to understand the severity of the situation,” he backtracked.
“I do– or I don’t cause I don’t know what happ– not that I need to– Sorry, yes, I understand,” Shinso answered, sounding thoroughly scolded despite his attempt at reassurance.
He didn’t think that repeating himself would make any difference, so he didn’t bother, he just stood and took his leave. Shinso-san met them at the door and he narrowly avoided a dinner invitation on his way out.
They meant well, they were good people. He hoped that Izuku could find a soft place to land with them.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 149: Tonal Whiplash: The Chapter
Notes:
Beta read by bitches who had nothing to say. If there are mistakes then blame Penny.
Happy New Year!!! 2025, let's go.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Likely surprising to no one who knew what happened last time he had celebrated his birthday, Hitoshi did not like celebrating birthdays. One dad hate-crime-murder-combo is all it takes for the whole process to seem like more trouble than it’s worth, he supposed. Neither he nor his mom had celebrated a birthday in 7 years. Even with all his baggage, the prospect of being in charge of orchestrating Midoriya’s birthday wasn’t as upsetting as he had thought it would be. Maybe his trauma meter got filled up at the USJ or maybe it had just been long enough for him to finally start to get over it. Well, over the birthday part… not the rest of it. He honestly didn't think he was ever going to be over the rest of it.
His dad wouldn’t want him to be so hung up on birthdays, he’d known that for 7 years, maybe it was finally getting through his thick skull. Doing something for someone else was always easier than doing it for yourself anyways; he could do this for Midoriya.
They’d made a plan, Aizawa was going to hold Midoriya back from lunch for a little bit and he was going to ask everyone over this weekend… super easy. Just ask a bunch of people he hardly knew over to his house… a bunch of people who had been side-eyeing him ever since he had started occasionally sitting with them… yep… easy.
“Oh, hi Shinso! Do you know what Aizawa-sensei held Midoriya back for?” Uraraka greeted him as he took his seat.
As expected, they only talked to him if it had something to do with Midoriya. Good thing he could make this about Midoriya and not himself.
“‘Cause I asked him to,” he answered honestly.
Uraraka tilted her head like a confused puppy, Iida somehow both raised and furrowed his brow, and Todoroki actually made a microscopic facial shift, just enough to look vaguely confused.
“Midoriya’s birthday is this Saturday and I’m hosting a surprise party, you’re all invited,” he explained.
“OOOOOOH! This will be so fun I didn’t know his birthday was coming up!” Uraraka exclaimed.
“Neither did I, thank you for alerting us Shinso-kun!” Iida added.
Todoroki had a slight frown on his face, but otherwise, he said nothing.
“What’s the plan? Oh! We need to get gifts too! What would he like?” Uraraka mused aloud.
“I’m getting him some sketchbooks and some nice pencils,” he offered.
“Does he draw?” Uraraka asked with a sad lilt to her tone as if she was upset that she didn’t know that already.
Hm, Midoriya was touchy about those notebooks, he probably shouldn’t have said that. Good, good, good, he was already messing this up.
“Yeah, or, um, at least he used to,” he answered, hoping they would drop the subject.
“Hm, I wonder why he stopped,” she replied.
“He does seem rather involved in his studies, though that’s admirable, it does not help narrow down gift options,” Iida added.
He could imagine that being damn near top of the class and juggling homelessness didn’t leave much time for hobbies. Furthermore, hiding homelessness didn’t lend itself to letting people get close enough to you to know what you’d like for your birthday. He was glad to have called dibs on his gift idea because he genuinely didn’t know what else Midoriya even liked.
“You two could steal your parent’s credit cards and get him a gaming console. He sucks at video games, but he had fun when we played them,” he half-joked to Iida and Todoroki.
It was something he would have said to Midoriya when they were still friends– or no, they are friends now– whatever. He was hoping the transitive property of humor applied here, Greenie was friends with him and they would have joked about that, and now he was friends with these people and they… maybe joked about that? Iida and Todoroki actually didn’t seem to have any sort of grasp on sarcasm, that was probably a bad call.
As he should have expected, Iida looked scandalized and Uraraka laughed, but Todoroki just looked pensive. Wait, was he actually considering it?
“I don’t know much about video games, could we get him one to play on a computer?” Iida suggested.
Hitoshi thought about the old laptop Midoriya had brought into the library years ago.
“Unless he’s gotten a new computer I don’t think his laptop could even run a game of solitaire,” he cringed.
“How much is a console? Maybe we could pool funds,” Iida proposed.
“Oh, I was joking, they’re pretty expensive, probably at least ¥40,000 for a new one,” he answered.
Neither Todoroki nor Iida made a face like that price was out of the question. Man, being rich must be nice. Uraraka, however, had gone quiet, she looked nervous, but Hitoshi knew better than to bring it up.
“Why don’t we make a group chat, we can plan there,” she suggested when she caught his eye.
She typed something into her phone frantically and Hitoshi noted that the phone in question, was, in fact, a flip phone. Alright, yeah, being rich was nice, he supposed. She handed over her phone to add his number into and he clicked the physical buttons on the device in order to do so. That was one thing modern phones lacked, the buttons gave a nice satisfying click, you didn’t get that on a touch screen.
“Good suggestion, Uraraka, and just in time, Midoriya is en route,” Iida warned, “Subject change! Todoroki, go,” he prompted with a dramatic arm chop.
Hitoshi bit his lip to hold in a laugh. Why was Todoroki his go-to for conversation topics?
“I think Hawks was grown in a lab to act as a government puppet,” he deadpanned.
No amount of biting his lip could have held in the laugh that escaped him in response to that. He didn’t remember the last time he had heard Todoroki say that many words in a row and that’s what broke the trend? Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one laughing, Uraraka, who he was quickly discovering was the only sane person here, giggled. However, it sounded like a long-suffering laugh, like she was used to this kind of thing from him.
“Think about it, no one has topped the charts that young in history. He’s charismatic and his quirk can be used for any field of heroics. He’s too perfect, something’s got to be off,” he insisted.
“Who are we talking ab-bout?” Midoriya asked, having joined the group halfway through Todoroki’s conspiracy theory.
“Hawks; Todoroki posited that he was grown in a lab to act as a ‘government puppet’,” Iida answered with a straight face.
“The birds work for the bourgeoisie,” he muttered mostly to himself.
Uraraka who was closest to him snorted in response. He looked up surprised that she had even heard him much less got the joke; she was smiling and giving him a knowing look. He turned back to Midoriya who was standing with his tray halfway to the table with an incredibly concerned look on his face. Were they all conspiracy theorists? Was Uraraka really the only other sane person here?
***
Shota called All Might aside earlier today to tell him he needed to speak with him at lunch and he was beginning to regret it as the time drew nearer. He knew his distaste for the man was childish, but it is what it is. Hizashi had told him that if he just acted like he didn’t hate the man then things wouldn’t be so bad because Yagi was “a chronic people pleaser” and the more you seemed to dislike him “the more he fell into his hero persona.” Whatever, it was a quick favor, the conversation shouldn’t take long.
Yagi walked into the room just after Midoriya walked out, he heard them chat briefly in the hallway, but it was nothing of import, just awkward niceties. Though, Midoriya didn’t sound as frightened by a 7-foot-tall skeletal stranger running into him as Shota would have guessed he would be. Maybe he’d seen him around before.
“Hello Aizawa, you wanted to see me?” Yagi asked from the doorway.
“Yes, close the door please,” he answered, trying his best to make his ever-present monotone not sound like a personal judgment.
Yagi looked tired, more so than usual. He hadn't been in the news much, at least not that Shota had seen, so it wasn’t from hero work. What kept All Might up at night, he wondered. Probably hacking up blood. Hizashi wasn’t wrong, he should probably try to foster a little more sympathy for the man even if he fundamentally disagreed with him on most things.
“I’ve been informed that when Midoriya’s mother left he sold his All Might merchandise to make ends meet. His birthday is this Saturday, I assume you see where I’m going with this,” he wasted no time getting into it.
“Oh! Yes! I have plenty of backstock that I can get my hands on! I didn’t know his birthday was coming up, I guess I never asked… hm. Things have been… hectic,” Yagi trailed off as he looked over Shota’s shoulder at nothing.
“That’s putting it mildly,” he muttered mostly to himself.
The corner of Yagi’s lip twitched upward with a sad half-smile in response.
“Don’t get anything huge or extravagant, keep it small, and don’t overwhelm him,” he warned.
“Yes, I've gotten the sense that he doesn’t accept kindness very easily,” Yagi said with a humorless laugh.
“That’s putting it mildly,” he repeated himself.
Yagi didn’t bother faking a laugh at his poor attempt at humor, he just frowned in agreement.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Yagi asked
“No, not that I can think of. His friends are organizing a surprise party last I heard. I think it’s best we leave them to it,” he answered.
“I don’t just mean his birthday, I meant anything. With him or the case…” Yagi trailed off.
He had to bring it up, didn't he? This is about Izuku, not your pride, Shota . He’d filed the paperwork he needed to file to get an international BOLO out for his mother, but for such a small case there was very little chance that anything would come of it. If All Might kicked up a fuss about it though? Well, then people would be more inclined to listen.
He really didn’t want to work a case with All Might.
“I don’t suppose you have connections in China?” he asked before he could back out of it.
“What kind of connections?” Yagi answered with a question of his own.
“His mother, Inko Midoriya’s last known whereabouts was a flight to China four years ago. On paper, she has yet to return to the country,” he explained.
“Oh, I see. I’ll see what I can do,” he answered.
His hands were fidgeting with his pocket now like he was restraining himself from making calls immediately.
“She also has dual citizenship in Korea; born in Japan to a Korean mother and a Japanese father, might be worth checking out if the China lead runs dry. I’ve gone through the conventional channels to get investigations started in both countries, but I’m sure you can imagine that my name doesn’t have as much pull as yours.”
Yagi scoffed good-naturedly at the light jab.
“Yes, I have noticed that bureaucracy runs much more smoothly for All Might than it does for Yagi.”
“I’m sure it does,” he deadpanned, realizing too late that it probably sounded like another jab at him.
Yagi pursed his lips and looked at the floor with a nod. Damnit.
“Anything else?” Yagi asked, clearly looking for a dismissal.
“No. I think it’s best for him to get this situation handled swiftly, so thank you,” he tried to make his words sound as genuine as he meant for them to sound.
The smile on Yagi’s face told him that he had succeeded.
“Of course, like I said, I want to help in any way that I can,” he replied.
He nodded to the taller man and wordlessly dismissed him by turning his attention back to the papers on his desk; short essay responses he’d been meaning to grade all week.
***
Hitoshi didn’t get around to checking the group chat that Uraraka had made until he got home.
xxx-xxx-xxxx: (12:13 pm)
heyo this is uraraka
xxx-xxx-xxxx: (3:02 pm)
I am Iida!
Of course, he would wait to send that message until school was officially over even though they had tacit permission to use their phones during lunch. Hitoshi supposed that left the last number to be Todoroki.
Uraraka: (3:15 pm)
so whats the plan
Shinso: (3:36 pm)
My place at noon on Saturday
We don’t have much of a plan, just hanging out
Can everyone make that or should we change the time?
Uraraka: (3:39 pm)
ill be there
ur in musutafu right?
Shinso: (3:40 pm)
Yeah like a 15 min train ride from UA
Iida: (3:40 pm)
I have no other plans. Barring catastrophe, I will be there!
Well, 2 out of 3 was good. He was considering texting Todoroki directly to actually get a response out of him, but it wasn’t that urgent. He could afford to give him time. If he didn’t respond by tomorrow then he could just ask in person.
Thankfully, the situation didn’t make it to such drastic measures as face-to-face social interaction.
Todoroki: (8:57 pm)
I am not sure whether my father will allow me to go or not
I will be sure to get a gift regardless
Shinso: (9:03 pm)
Just tell him it's a study group. What’s he gonna do, prohibit you from getting a better education?
Todoroki: (9:04 pm)
That might work
Thank you for the suggestion
Iida: (9:05 pm)
Lying is not a viable suggestion!
Uraraka: (9:10 pm)
cmon iida its for midoriya >:[
He ignored the ensuing conversation about integrity in which Iida would inevitably cave because, as much as he tried to play lawful good, there was only so much one could do in the face of Midoriya being disappointed. He had big ol’ puppy dog eyes without even trying; when he was actually sad they were a lethal weapon. He’s pretty sure he only stayed mad at him for as long as he had because he spent so much time staring at the back of his head. He was still mad at him to a degree, but it was difficult to hold onto amidst all the guilt.
The more he thought about their relationship the more things started to make sense in context. If Midoriya really was quirkless for most of his life, then that would explain why he ran out of the arcade that one time they almost ran into one of his classmates, it also made sense why he was so scared to tell them anything. If he had been kicked while he was down his whole life then Hitoshi could imagine that vulnerability would not be his strong suit; it takes one to know one, he supposed. It hurt to think that Midoriya would think that they would do that to him, but he wasn’t any better, he had feared the same about Midoriya before he found out about his quirk.
All his anger did was drive him around in circles and it was quickly running out of gas. The guilt, however, had no problems filling in the gaps left behind.
The anger had been much easier to cope with.
Uraraka: (9:22 pm)
hey shinso i think iida and todoroki are actually going to get midoriya a switch
i dont know what to get him
i dont have the money to buy anything so i was going to make something but after what you said at lunch today i realized i dont actually know much about him :(
do you have any ideas
Shinso: (9:23 pm)
I haven’t talked to him in over a year until last week so I don’t know that I know him much more than you do. He’s a pretty private person. The only other interests of his that I know about are heroics related. Parkour, martial arts, and heroes in general.
He’s going to be overwhelmed if they do end up getting him a switch so it’s probably better if you get something small anyways.
He hoped to ease her guilt a bit with that. Midoriya did not make himself easy to get to know and that wasn’t her fault.
Uraraka: (9:25 pm)
that makes sense
i could make a cake for everyone!
Shinso: (9:25 pm)
That’s a good idea, it’ll be for everyone so he can’t feel bad abt it
Uraraka: (9:26 pm)
…
Shinso: (9:26 pm)
What?
Uraraka: (9:27 pm)
i have remembered that i dont have any baking pans… or most baking ingredients … or an oven
Shinso: (9:28 pm)
…what?
Uraraka: (9:28 pm)
i room in a hostel all i have is a stovetop and a microwave :’)
its basically a dorm
He was going to regret introducing his mother to her, wasn’t he? Well, at least she was the most normal of the three, he had a feeling he was about to gain a quasi-sibling after this.
Shinso: (9:30 pm)
You can come over early and use our kitchen
Uraraka: (9:30 pm)
ty :’’)
***
Ochaco had no clue what to expect going over to Shinso’s house. She honestly had no clue what to expect from Shinso himself either; neither he nor Midoriya had explained what happened at the beginning of the year or why they were friends again now. She tried to ask Midoriya, but he very clearly did not want to talk about it so she let the subject drop. Shinso had gone from glaring daggers into Midoriya’s head all day every day to sitting with them at lunch more often than not, the situation was weird, to say the least.
She didn’t know what really went down between the two of them, all she knew was that Midoriya lied about leaving the country and ghosted Shinso; which, honestly sounded like a pretty crappy thing to do, but she knew Midoriya well enough to know he wouldn’t do that if there wasn’t a good reason for it. She didn’t know Shinso enough to know that he wasn’t the reason. He seemed nice, but the way he had been looking at Midoriya for the past few months made her hesitant to buy into him so easily.
Sure, she was biased, Midoriya was her friend and Shinso wasn’t, but knowing that logically didn’t change how she felt emotionally. He was funny, if nothing else. Watching him interact with Iida and Todoroki was hilarious because at least 60% of what he said was laced with lethal amounts of sarcasm that the other boys were completely immune to. She’d heard Midoriya make a handful of jokes over the last few months, but with Shinso at the lunch table that tally had doubled in a week’s time. They made each other laugh constantly, it was refreshing. She hadn’t noticed how unhappy the two were separated until they were together again.
All in all, she was a little nervous, but she wasn’t worried.
The house that Shinso’s directions led her to was nice, it wasn’t extravagant, but it looked to be in a pretty good area and there were two floors, it even looked like the place had a backyard! She triple-checked that the number on the front of the house matched the number Shinso had sent her and cautiously knocked. Thankfully she didn’t have to wait very long before a familiar plume of purple hair peeked through the doorway.
“You made it, I was starting to worry. I think I would end up in Tokyo if I tried to get to your place without GPS and I’ve lived in this city my entire life,” Shinso greeted.
“You should practice, it’s a good skill to have!” she replied.
“We could drop you off in Tokyo and make you find your way back,” she heard a voice call from down the hall.
That must be Shinso-san. She could see where Shinso got his humor from.
Shinso just rolled his eyes and opened the door for her.
“You better get used to that, she’s only gonna get worse when Midoriya shows up. It’s like an echo chamber of sarcasm,” Shinso warned her as he led her down the hall and into the kitchen where the voice from earlier had originated.
“You must be Uraraka, I’m Kohaku or Shinso-san, whichever you prefer, I don’t mind either way,” the voice in question introduced herself.
“Nice to meet you, Shinso-san,” she answered.
“I told Toshi to tell you not to bring all that, we have plenty!” Shinso-san chided her while taking the grocery bag out of her hands.
“I told her!” Shinso defended himself.
“He did, he did, I just figured if you didn’t need the strawberries it wouldn’t hurt to have extra to snack on, and everyone could use eggs and sugar, right?”
“Thanks, kiddo. We have everything on the recipe you sent, why don’t you take the eggs and sugar home with you? Toshi, you wanna rinse these and set ‘em in a bowl for later?” Shinso-san said as she passed the strawberries to her son.
So far, neither of the Shinsos had been anything but kind to her; she still held a grudge for Midoriya’s sake, but her grip was getting looser by the second. Her curiosity, however, was becoming more and more of a problem because if the Shinsos weren’t secretly horrible, then why the heck did Midoriya do what he did?
***
Hitoshi wasn’t completely hopeless at reading other people. Sure he was pretty damn excluded from most socialization as a child, but he’d picked up enough from reading and people watching to know that Uraraka did not like him, or at least she held a grudge. She joked around and never acted like she disliked him, she never made him feel unwelcome, but there was something nagging at him, some imperceptible coldness about her whenever he was around.
He couldn’t blame her either, really he should be grateful she made an effort to hide her distaste at all because he didn’t deserve that kindness. His own grudge seemed so childish now that he knew the truth. There’s no way he could have guessed what was going on behind all the lies Midoriya told, but he had known something was going on and yet he still clung to his anger because it was easier.
Uraraka was trying at least, that was more than he could have said for himself.
He’d been washing dishes for the two of them as they made them because making a cake wasn’t really a three person activity, but it felt wrong to just leave Uraraka alone here with his mom. So, he just stood there awkwardly washing one dish like every three minutes or so. He was playing a game with himself of how many times he could wash the mixing spoon before they noticed, so far it was three times but his mom had given him a look so he’s not sure if he had gotten away with that last one or not.
Eventually, the moment he was dreading arrived, they put the cake in the oven and his mom excused herself, leaving him alone with their guest. He had a feeling that the look she had given him after washing the spoon had more to do with the fact that she knew they needed to talk about something than it was about his shenanigans.
“30 minutes you said?” he asked to clarify as he set a timer on his phone.
“No, I said 25-30 minutes, you set the timer for the lower number in case it burns,” she corrected him kindly.
“That would make more sense,” he mused under his breath as he adjusted the timer.
An awkward silence fell over the room and Hitoshi counted the seconds before Uraraka asked the inevitable question.
48 seconds.
“Can I ask what the, um, situation is with all of this… I mean you and Midoriya weren’t even on speaking terms–”
“It’s a long story,” he interrupted.
Great! Yeah, interrupt her. A widely accepted way to get into someone’s good graces, Hitoshi. You really nailed that.
“Well, we’ve got, what? 24 and a half minutes?”
“23 minutes and 54 seconds,” he corrected.
“Is the 36 second difference going to be a problem?” she asked sarcastically.
“Yeah, it takes exactly 24 and a half minutes to explain, sorry.”
“You don’t have to tell me, I mean, it’s not really my business, I just… I don’t know what to think,” she trailed off and let the awkward silence return.
73 seconds.
“It was a misunderstanding. Midoriya thought I was better off without him around so he lied and left– well, not really left, but you know what I mean. It’s not his fault,” he relented.
“That didn’t even take 24 and a half seconds,” she pointed out.
He scoffed out a laugh at that. Uraraka had a hidden side, she wasn’t usually so sardonic, maybe that was for Iida and Todoroki’s benefit; if the three of them were slinging faux insults at each other constantly they would probably be very confused, he and Midoriya together were already bad enough.
“I don’t suppose I’m going to get any more explanation than that?” she pushed.
“It’s not my business to say anything else. Midoriya… he’s been through a lot. I don’t think you sh– no, I know you shouldn’t ask him about it,” he warned.
“Yeah, I got that feeling. He’s odd, I guess– like he’s scared to be himself half the time,” Uraraka replied solemnly.
That was a good way of putting it. Midoriya seemed to bounce between dispositions constantly; he was a timid frightened mess one second and then a cool level headed tactician the next. Then there was the part of him he’d seen last time he was over, angry and defensive and self-deprecating at the same time. Hitoshi didn’t know all the different sides of his friend, he didn’t really know who Midoriya was anymore. Maybe Midoriya didn’t even know who he was supposed to be.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Uraraka interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
He stifled a laugh at that question, he had asked Aizawa the same thing just a few days ago. Maybe they were both in the hero course for a reason.
“Just being there for him like you have been is enough,” he answered, remembering what Aizawa had told him.
“Doesn’t seem like enough,” she replied.
“No, it really doesn’t, does it?”
The silence returned for a third time, but this time it was more sad than awkward. He didn’t really explain anything, but it felt like they were on the same page now, or at least he hoped they were.
“Alright! Let’s start making that frosting!” his mom barged into the room excitedly, shattering the melancholic atmosphere that had been gathering there.
Notes:
Thanks for reading 💃
Chapter 150: It's My Party and I''l Cry if I Want To
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny and Woomy for the last minute beta reading <3 thank you!
So funny story, I fucked up the timeline and put Izu's birthday in June even tho his canon b-day is in July bc I'm dyslexic and a little bit stupid. Anyways, it messes with my plotlines too much to fix it so June is CMA Izu's canon birth month. Whoopsies, sorry not sorry (He's a Gemini instead of a Cancer now. Honestly... I could get away with saying that was intentional)
Reminder for Discord peeps and announcement for everyone else:
⚠️ I am going on a break ⚠️
This is the last chapter I have written as of rn and I don't like uploading w/o a bit of a backlog bc I feel like I don't have time to make each chapter as good as it's could be. I need to return to the content mines in my mind palace. I'm not sure how long it'll take but I'll still be in the discord to keep y'all updated.CW:
Subtle panic attacks
Mentioned past traumas
Mentioned neglectful parenting
Mentioned past food scarcity
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord for updates on when my 'break' will be over.
Things had been different ever since he talked to Shinso, they’d been better. Shinso still had that angry furrow to his brow every once in a while, but it never stayed for long. He’d been living with Mic and Eraser for about a month now and he had his friend back plus three new friends. It all felt too good to be true. Sure there was still a massive looming threat over his head at all times, but that wasn’t really new for him. If he didn’t think about that, or the fact that he was living with his teachers, or most of his past, then he almost felt normal. He felt like one of his peers.
It was such a foreign feeling; belonging.
Shinso had asked him over to hang out this weekend and Izuku was almost giddy at how utterly mundane the offer was, just hanging out at a friend’s house like teenagers do. He’s not sure what he had expected of that invitation, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“SURPRISE!!!”
The sudden noise and presence of far more people than he had expected scared him half to death and he dragged Shinso most of the way back down the hall toward the door before he realized that he knew these people and everything was fine… probably. Shinso-san, Iida, Uraraka, and Todoroki were all standing in the dining room with a banner hung on the wall behind them that read ‘Happy Birthday.’ He damn near had a second heart attack thinking that he had missed Shinso’s birthday before he remembered what day it was.
It was his birthday… they were all here for him .
…and they were all looking at him with concerned expressions… likely because he was staring blankly at them… and still holding half of Shinso’s weight as he tried to get them both away from the ‘threat’ in the other room.
Shinso hit the ground with a loud thump.
“Oh, god, I’m s-sorry, I didn’t– I th-thought–”
“It’s fi– WAH– quit thowin’ me around,” Shinso interrupted his fractured apology as Izuku quickly pulled him back up to his feet.
…Maybe a little too quickly.
“S-sorry,” he apologized again.
Uraraka giggling from the other room broke the awkward tension of the moment.
“So I guess we actually pulled off the surprise part?” she asked a little nervously.
He didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything but stand there like a gaping fish.
“I believe he is more than suitably surprised,” Iida answered for him.
He didn’t know what to say, he hardly knew what to think. All he knew was that he felt bad, like he had done something wrong. Why did they do all of this? There were presents wrapped up on the table and there were decorations hung around the room and Shinso must have asked everyone over even though he barely knew them. Why did they do that?
Oh, god everyone was looking at him.
“Why don’t you guys go take a seat in the living room, Toshi you can show everyone how to play Mario Kart or something. Have some fun, I’m gonna get started on dinner. I hope you don’t mind katsudon again, Kiddo. Two times in as many weeks, you might get sick of it,” Shinso-san interrupted his rapidly mounting internal breakdown.
“You’re not going to teach me how to play Mario Kart, I’m going to teach you how to eat my dust,” Uraraka chimed in with her very particular brand of charming intimidation.
Well, at least it seemed like she was getting along better with Shinso, Izuku had not missed the pointed glares she sent his way when he wasn’t paying attention. He wanted to explain that he was the one in the wrong, not Shinso, but he really didn’t want to get into it with her and she hadn’t been unwelcoming toward him anyway, at least not outwardly.
“What’s Mario Kart?” Todoroki asked.
Even Iida looked at him funny for that one. Still, he started explaining it in great detail, completely missing the little smirk on Todoroki’s face as he did so. With all the emotions suddenly foisted upon him, Izuku couldn’t help but laugh. It was rare that Todoroki made a joke, but that just made them even funnier when he did. Iida’s incredibly earnest explanation of Mario Kart went unfinished as everyone laughed along with him.
“Well played, Todoroki, but do you actually know how the game works?” Iida asked, only mildly put out that he didn’t get the chance to finish his explanation.
“No, I don’t,” Todoroki admitted.
Iida was more than happy to fill him in with a few interjections from Shinso and Uraraka as they booted up the game. Izuku was still reeling a bit, but not nearly as much as he had been at first. He took the seat closest to the exit like a child clutching a safety blanket and hoped that no one would notice.
Shinso only had two controllers so they all took turns playing. As was to be expected, it wasn’t much of a competition. He, Todoroki, and Iida couldn’t place above 8th to save their lives but Uraraka and Shinso were constantly flipping back and forth between 1st and 2nd place. Watching them fight was honestly more entertaining than playing the game. Todoroki and Iida seemed to agree because they were on their 5th rematch when Izuku finally plucked up the courage to excuse himself for a moment.
Shinso-san was still in the kitchen preparing dinner when he left the living room.
“Don’t even offer to help, Mister. I’m not having it, not today,” she warned him playfully before he got the chance to open his mouth.
Hm, she knew him well.
Seen.
He felt seen, that's why he was so uncomfortable.
He wasn’t supposed to be seen, it wasn’t safe. Being seen led to being caught and the wild prey animal at the core of his being was telling him to run while he still had the chance.
“Too much going on in there?” Shinso-san asked when he failed to speak.
He tried to remind himself that she was safe, that she was allowed to see him, but it still felt like a rabbit was kicking at the walls of his rib cage in an attempt to escape. These were his friends for fuck’s sake. Why was he panicking more than he would if someone came at him with a knife in a dark alleyway?
He nodded in response to Shinso-san before he got too lost in his thoughts again.
“Why don’t you take a seat, it sounds like they’ll be entertaining themselves for a while yet,” she replied with a soft, knowing smile.
He hesitantly took the offer. He felt like he needed to go back in there, they had thrown this party for him, he needed to participate in it, but he had already excused himself so it would be weird to go back now. He had planned to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes, but he might as well sit here, he had no pretenses to maintain with her anyway.
“It’s alright to be overwhelmed, Kiddo. You’ve spent a long time hiding away, but you don’t need to do that anymore. No one’s expecting you to adjust right away either; it’s going to take time and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
He must have lost his touch with evading her notice.
She didn’t wait for him to say anything, she just went back to what she had been doing, thus taking any of the pressure he’d felt to force out a response. She was too kind, too thoughtful. He could never even hope to pay her back for everything she had done for him. That sentiment was becoming more and more prevalent in his life, there were too many people giving, giving, and giving and he would never get the chance to catch up to them. Every good deed felt like another weight added onto his shoulders.
“I have a feeling that it is about to be very loud,” Todoroki announced his presence from the entryway to the living room before grabbing a seat at the table next to Izuku, “Uraraka has had a blue shell for the past two laps and she has yet to use it.”
Izuku felt like laughing and crying in equal measure. Did Todoroki come in here just to warn him? He must have heard him talking to Shinso-san. The warning came not a second too early too, Shinso was shouting before Todoroki even fully settled in the chair.
“YOU’RE DEAD TO ME!”
Izuku snorted out a laugh which was completely drowned out by Uraraka’s cackling.
“Uraraka, that was very unsportsmanly,” he heard Iida chastise, though it didn’t have any bite to it because a.) he was clearly holding back his own laughter and b.) he hadn’t warned Shinso either.
“Do I need to confiscate the Wii before the TV becomes a casualty?” Shinso-san joked.
“No, Iida made sure that the wrist straps were being used properly,” Todoroki answered flatly.
Like most of the things Todoroki said, Izuku wasn’t sure whether he had meant that as a joke or not, but both he and Shinso-san were laughing regardless and Todoroki didn’t seem to mind.
“Why don’t you two go wash your hands? I’m almost done here and it’ll be easier if you aren’t all waiting in line for a turn at the sink,” Shinso-san prompted them, nodding toward the bathroom down the hall.
They did as instructed and the other three were waiting for them in the dining room when they returned. Shinso was patting his hands dry on a towel from the kitchen and Iida and Uraraka swapped with him and Todoroki, not brave enough to risk getting in Shinso-san’s way as she moved around the kitchen.
She reluctantly allowed Izuku to help set the table as he was the only other person who knew where everything went besides Shinso. Iida and Uraraka came back shortly and politely thanked the three of them for dinner which was delicious as always.
Just as he was starting to worry that the meal was going to be ruined by awkward silence, someone spoke up.
“You have a lovely house, Shinso-san, a backyard and everything in the city,” Uraraka remarked to make small talk.
“Oh, yeah, it’s wonderful, we’re never selling it. It’s an old family house from my husband’s side so it’s been paid off since before I was your age. We’re very lucky to have it,” Shinso-san replied.
He’d always wondered how they could afford this place on a single income, but he had been too awkward to ask about it. He had a feeling it had something to do with Mr. Shinso and figured it was none of his business.
“Oh, and you have a swing on the tree out there? That’s so cute!” Uraraka pivoted the conversation away from the obvious elephant in the room.
“My dad made the swing,” Shinso pivoted it right back with a little smirk on his face that told Izuku that he was messing with Uraraka on purpose.
What had happened since the last time he’d seen these two that brought them close enough to so amicably be at each other’s throats?
“It was broken for years– one of the ropes came untied and we didn’t have a ladder. I told Greenie that what like the second time you came over? We were obviously friends by this point, but we didn’t know each other super well, so you can imagine my surprise when he wall jumps up our fence to get up to the branch it was tied to and fixes it like it’s nothing,” Shinso reminisced on something less touchy and saved them all from the conversational pit he’d dangled them over in the first place.
“You wall jumped up our fence?!” Shinso-san butted in.
“I– well, the swing– and I could–” he sputtered out a weak justification.
“That branch is at least 15 feet up!” Shinso-san interjected.
“Hey, in his defense, you said we weren’t allowed to maim each other, you said nothing about maiming ourselves so he was behaving well within the parameters you set out for us,” Shinso argued, gesturing accusatorily with his chopsticks as he did so.
“Oh my God,” she grumbled under her breath as she pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.
Izuku risked a glance around the table, Iida was looking out the window, leaning forward so that he could see how high off the ground the branch was with a vaguely impressed expression, Todoroki was smiling softly as he listened to their shinanigans, and Shinso and Uraraka were both visibly struggling to hold back their laughter.
“Oh, I see how it is. It’s all permitted when he’s the one suplexing me through the crust of the earth but the second he’s at risk suddenly it’s too dangerous,” Shinso jabbed again sarcastically.
“Obviously, yes. He’s my favorite son, I can’t have him getting hurt!” Shinso-san shot back without missing a beat.
Shinso gasped dramatically in mock offense and Shinso-san full belly laughed in response.
“Shinso-san you can’t get upset with him, 15 feet is nothing. My parents once got called into my pre-k class because the teacher lost track of me and they found me on the roof puking my guts out because I learned the hard way that I can use my quirk on myself,” Uraraka added her 2 cents.
Shinso-san gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, but everyone else was laughing with varying amounts of horror so she broke down and joined them.
“If you’re g-gonna be mad at one of us for climbing too high, it should b-be Shinso. He was dangling from the rafters in the gym last week ,” Izuku brought the conversation back to the present before Todoroki started chiming in with childhood anecdotes; that would certainly be an even worse mood shift than the topic of Mr. Shinso was.
“Was this one of Aizawa-san’s ‘murder attempts,’” she asked with a raised brow.
“Yes, one of many,” Shinso scoffed.
The rest of the meal was filled with the same free-flowing conversation that settled warmly in his chest. Part of him was still reeling, trying to insist that none of this was worth the effort, but the rest of him had never felt more honored to be where he was. Unfortunately, the former part of him took over once the dishes were stacked in the sink and the gifts that had been on the table were brought out again.
Izuku had been trying his best not to think about this part. Barring the cat plushie from Shinso and the throwing knives from Eraser, he hadn’t gotten a gift since he turned four. Well, did OFA count? Probably. Regardless, he didn’t know what the procedure was for opening gifts besides like saying thank you. It was already uncomfortable being the center of attention, having to accept handouts on top of that wasn’t his idea of a good time.
Those knives and that plushie were kind of his prized possessions, though. Maybe the receiving part was supposed to be bad and it was just an unspoken rule that you had to act grateful in the moment and then you get to be actually grateful later. Unfortunately for him, the moment was now. Shinso was the first to shove a gift into his hands and look at him expectantly.
Izuku took as subtle of a deep breath as he could and pulled the tissue paper out of the bag, grabbing the first thing he saw: a spiral-bound sketchbook. The pages were nice and smooth– hot pressed, not too heavy but much thicker than the composition notebooks he was used to. He ran his fingers over the faux leather cover and bit his lip. He felt like crying, he didn’t know how to respond.
“There’s more stuff in the bottom,” Shinso helpfully spoke up.
He choked out a thank you and fished his hand back into the bag until he found something. A pencil, a nice mechanical one with an all-metal casing, and one of those replaceable erasers.
“There were three sizes of that, .5, .7, and .9mm or something. I figured they’d all be useful for different things and they’ll last you forever cause you can replace the erasers too,” Shinso explained.
Sure enough, there were two more pencils and a pack of eraser replacements at the bottom of the bag as well. One of these pencils probably cost more than every writing utensil he owned, sans the pens he had stolen from Eraser– those were nice pens… he should probably give those back.
“Should be one more thing,” Shinso’s voice called him back.
Izuku reached his hand back into the bag without giving himself time to think about it, thinking about it was only making it worse. This was all so overwhelming. He pulled the last item out, but he didn’t recognize what it was and the confusion must have shown on his face.
“It’s double-sided tape, people use it for scrapbooking I think. It works like those white-out dispensers– the non-liquid ones– you just drag it across the back of something and it sticks tape to it, then you can just slap it on whatever else. I know you have old notebooks and stuff, thought it might be nice to use the new paper but not leave a notebook half full,” Shinso explained.
Izuku wasn’t sure how successful he had been with keeping his emotions off of his face, he knew his expression had to be neutral at best; he hadn’t even been thinking about putting on a smile and acting grateful, he’d been too busy focusing on not crying. Now, however, he knew he was failing epically. He clenched his lips between his teeth in an effort to stop their trembling and he could feel his brows furrow, but he couldn’t move them back up to a more neutral position.
“Thanks,” he forced out, though his breath caught on the single word.
“Yeah, no problem, Greenie. I hope you like them,” Shinso replied with a bittersweet smile.
“Alright time for the next one, what’d you boys get him?” Shinso-san interrupted the moment to save him from his own thoughts.
“This is from both of us!” Iida announced, pushing an even bigger gift bag across the table toward him, “and Shinso-kun in spirit, as well.”
“I just gave you some advice, that doesn’t make the gift from me,” Shinso argued.
“That’s why I said in spirit!”
“We had no clue what to get him, your contribution was invaluable,” Todoroki insisted.
Shinso put his hands up in mock surrender before gesturing for him to actually open it.
Just like the other bag, this one seemed to have several things in it, but they were all wrapped up in more tissue paper so he couldn’t tell what was what; he just grabbed the one on top. It was a copy of the game they were just playing, Mario Kart, but it looked like a newer version. It seemed like Shinso didn’t give them very good advice because he had nothing to play this on.
“Oh… um… thanks, guys,” he replied, unsure of how he was meant to respond to this situation.
“I should have put that on the bottom, open the big one,” Iida instructed.
Izuku didn’t like where this was going, surely there was no way, they wouldn’t spend so much money on him, they’d only known each other for a few months! There’s no way… they got him a Switch.
“You guys have to return this,” he insisted with a voice more level than he had expected to come out of his mouth.
“Is it broken?” Todoroki asked, sitting up straighter in his chair to get a better look.
“No, It’s– I can’t– it’s t-too much! I–”
“Come on Midoriya, you need to practice if you’re ever going to beat me and Shinso,” Uraraka interrupted him.
“It’s a different system, I will dominate the Wii version until the day I die,” Shinso insisted.
“So are you already dead or did I misremember that last round?” she shot back.
The two of them started arguing back and forth about “cheating” vs “strategy” but it all sounded like static to him. How expensive were these things? Tens of thousands of yen, surely. He couldn’t accept this, it was too much. God, his hands were shaking.
“My parents got me one for my birthday a few years ago and I hardly ever used it, but you can play that game online! We could play together from our own homes! I am usually free from 7-9pm on week days,” Iida offered him over the background noise of bickering.
“I’m pretty sure Natsuo has one, maybe I could join occasionally,” Todoroki added.
It felt wrong to just give in, but he didn’t have any valid argument to deny them.
“That s-sounds good, th-thank you,” he forced himself to stutter out.
“Enough, enough, you’re both pretty, girls,” Shinso-san cut off the other two arguing, “It’s my turn, here you go Kiddo,” she said as she set down a crookedly wrapped box; a book, maybe?
By this point, his brain felt like mush, so he just peeled back the tape and let the paper fall away from the object. It was a three-ring binder that had little stylistic doodles of food on it. There was no label on the front, so he opened it up in search of an explanation. On the inside, there were tabs listing various food groups. He opened it up to a random page to find it filled with Shinso-san’s neat scrawl; it was a recipe book.
“My parents gave me one as a graduation present, it’s a bit early for that, but I thought you’d like it anyway. My katsudon is on the first page, it’s got all the family recipes in it so don’t go spilling our secrets, alright?” Shinso-san warned with a smirk that told him that she didn’t really care all too much about secrets.
He’s not sure if his hands had stopped shaking in the first place, but they were shaking now. So much so that he couldn’t read the words on the page right in front of him– or, no, everything was blurry, not just the book. Goddamnit, he was crying.
“Oh, I’ve gone and done it now. Come here, sweetheart,” he heard Shinso-san talking as he was pulled into a hug.
He tried not to think about the gesture behind giving him a book of her family’s recipes, ones that had been passed on from parent to child, but he wasn’t very successful. He thought about how he had learned to cook on his own, about all the admittedly sub-par meals he had made for his mother that had gone untouched in the fridge because she was never home, he remembered when he had decided to stop trying to cook for two because she didn’t leave enough money for that. He remembered how he started cooking again after All Might had forced groceries on him, he remembered sharing what he made with both him and Eraser.
Food had always been an incredibly isolating subject for him; it was a necessity that forced him out of the safety of his room or into the danger of the cafeteria. It wasn’t a comfort and it never had been until he met Shinso-san, Eraser, and All Might. He remembered how warm he had felt the first time he had stayed over for dinner, the katsudon she had made nourished him in ways he could never replicate on his own, and now she was giving him that power, the power to take their home home with him.
God, he had to stop thinking about it.
He forced his thoughts down, pried himself from her gentle embrace, and scrubbed the tears off his face.
“Thank you Shinso-san, this m-means a lot. I– just th-thank you,” he forced his voice as steady as he could manage.
“Of course, Kiddo. You can always come over here if you can’t get the recipe quite right,” she said with a wink and he knew she really meant that.
He didn’t know what he did to deserve all of them in his life, but he was so incredibly grateful for it.
“Well, I’m afraid that my present isn’t as exciting, but it’s not a party without a cake, right?” Uraraka spoke up from behind him.
He hadn’t even noticed her move to the kitchen through his minor breakdown.
“Shinso-san and I made this together! I think she put the recipe in the book,” she continued as she walked back to the table with a covered cake tray
“I just printed out the one we used. It’s not a family recipe so it doesn’t get the full archival treatment, but I figured if it’s any good you might want to keep it. My own recipe book is half printouts anyway,” Shinso-san replied, stage-whispering the last bit as if it were a shameful secret.
Privately, he was glad that Uraraka hadn’t gotten him another gift like everyone else, he’s not sure his heart could take it. The cake was for everyone, so it was easier. Plus, he knew that she wasn’t particularly well off, he would have felt awful if she had felt like she needed to spend whatever money she did have on him.
He neatly slotted all of the gifts he had been given into the big bag that Todoroki and Iida’s present had come in and let Uraraka set the cake on the table in front of him. The moment he saw it he felt like the whole world turned sideways, like something had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart into stillness.
When he finally managed to peel his eyes away from the cake everyone was looking at him.
“St-strawberry?” he stuttered out dumbly
“Yeah, it’s strawberry shortcake with cream cheese frosting,” Uraraka confirmed with a hesitant smile.
“H-how did… how did you kn-know that–” he cut himself off.
Uraraka was looking at Shinso and nervously chewing at her lip.
“Ai– um, your… uh dad said you liked strawberries. Is that… you aren’t allergic or anything, right?” Shinso explained awkwardly.
“No, I’m– my… my m-mom used to get me the s-same thing for my… before–” he clicked his jaw shut.
They didn’t need to know anything else, they could gather more than he would have liked already. All the tears he had been forcing down for the last 20 minutes or so were choking him, so he cleared his throat.
“It’s my f-favorite,” he reassured Uraraka, though his watery eyes and shaky timbre probably weren’t helping his case.
“Oh, good!” she replied.
She said it in a way that told him that he had made everyone uncomfortable; too much faux cheer as if she was trying to lift the mood back up. He hated it, he hated what he was doing and he hated what they were doing for him. He clearly wasn’t worth it seeing as though he’d gone and ruined it several times.
“I–” he tried to apologize, but, to his horror, the single syllable turned into a sob.
He quickly covered his mouth. Jesus Christ, he was 16 years old and crying in front of all his friends at his birthday party like a toddler.
***
Midoriya had been overwhelmed since the moment he first walked into the dining room and saw everyone there. Kohaku had felt him routinely pushing the emotion down throughout the night. She knew that he would reach a breaking point, she just wished that he would have had the chance to do so privately.
She could sense how guilty Uraraka felt as well
“It’s not your fault, sweetheart,” she whispered to the girl with a hopefully reassuring shoulder pat.
Just as she turned her attention back to Midoriya, he got to his feet and stopped to say something, but decided against it and settled on gesturing for them to give him a minute before walking down the hall and into the bathroom.
That poor kid.
She looked back at the group of kids still with her and it was difficult to tell who was feeling what. Uraraka and Toshi both felt pretty guilty, someone felt confused and concerned, and someone else felt angry. Given their expressions, she had to assume that it was Iida and Todoroki respectively. She hadn’t expected anger; that was interesting. He wasn’t angry at Midoriya, she could tell that much, so he must be angry for him. How much did he know about the situation?
“I fear I may be out of the loop,” Iida spoke up, looking around at everyone else.
“Don’t worry about it, Iida. Just give him a minute. I don’t know what’s going on either, but it’s not our business,” Uraraka answered before Kohaku could find the words to explain what was going on without giving anything away.
“Ah, my apologies,” he replied seeming rather deflated.
“It’s alright, Kiddo, I know you just want to help,” Kohaku placated quickly.
“I’ll tell you what I told Uraraka earlier: he’s been through a lot, you shouldn’t ask about it, and there’s not anything more you could do to help. Mom, do you think one of us should…?” Toshi stepped in, nodding his head toward where Midoriya had gone and wordlessly finishing the question he had left unasked.
“I’ll check on him in a minute, he’s too overwhelmed right now… I, um, I probably should have said this earlier, my quirk lets me feel other people’s emotions and I can’t turn it off,” she answered and explained to the the rest of them.
No one seemed offended, so she would take that as a win. She didn’t want to drop the bomb of the rest of her quirk on them right now, hopefully, Toshi wouldn’t mind; everyone was uncomfortable enough as is.
“Singing happy birthday and everything is going to be too much, why don’t you guys cut this up now? We can take something off his plate and replace it with cake,” she said with a smile.
They all seemed like the type to feel better if they had something to do, so she left them to it. She excused herself to wait outside the bathroom door until Midoriya had calmed down a bit, but after a couple minutes of it only getting worse she went ahead and knocked.
“Midoriya, it’s me, sweetheart. Can I come in?”
There was no audible response, but the pang of loneliness she felt told her that he could use some company. Thankfully the door was unlocked.
At first, she thought he wasn’t in there at all, but as she walked into the room she realized he had stuck himself behind the door. He was sitting on the floor with his legs pulled up to his chest, his face buried in his knees, and his arms holding his shins as close to himself as he could manage. His shoulders were shaking like he was crying but his unsteady breaths were the only thing she could hear.
“‘m(?) sorry,” she barely heard him apologize, voice muffled by his legs.
“No one’s mad at you– and that’s not an empty reassurance, not coming from me,” she said as he knelt down in front of him and shut the door.
He didn’t seem very reassured
“You wouldn’t be mad if this happened with any of them, would you?” she pressed.
“No! ‘Course I– I just– I d-don’t wan it to b-be like this, I– everything was n-normal I just wanted to– I just wanted to be–” he cut himself off with a muffled sob.
Her heart broke for him. He just wanted to be normal; she knew that feeling well.
“Did Toshi ever tell you what happened to his dad?” she asked.
The subject change caught him off guard enough to look up at her, his eyes were red and puffy from crying and tears were still streaming down his cheeks. He shook his head.
“He was killed… a hate crime cause of his quirk. We were out for Toshi’s birthday when it happened. Neither of us have been able to bring ourselves to celebrate our birthdays since,” she explained, “I don’t say that to make you feel bad, I just want you to know that normal is relative and true ‘normal’ is not nearly as common as you think it is. Everyone has their own stuff going on and I know for a fact that no one here is upset with you, only upset for you. You shouldn’t have had to go through all of the things that you went through, but you did, and it’s okay to not be okay because of it.”
“I-I’m so s-sorry, tha-that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, it was, but it was ages ago. There’s nothing to be done about it now. Don’t ignore everything else I just said, alright? You wouldn’t expect me or Toshi to brush that off and no one’s expecting you to brush this off.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, but he didn’t say anything, he just looked at the floor and chewed at his lip. He looked like he was mulling something over so she gave him a minute, he would talk when he was ready.
“The first t-time, the first time I thought she might’ve really l-left was my b-birthday. She used to leave a c-cupcake, strawberry shortcake with cream cheese fr-frosting in the fridge. I didn’t always see her, b-but there was always a cupcake. M-might’ve b-been a few days off, but it was always there… until it wasn’t… how come she g-gets to ruin things when she’s not even here?” he asked weakly.
“She’s got a track record with that, doesn’t she?” Kohaku replied a little bitterly.
Thankfully Midoriya laughed at the ill-advised joke.
“Yeah, she does.”
“Well, this is no store-bought cupcake, it’s a whole entire cake, and it’s on the right day. Or at least I think it is– it’s on the right day, right?” she asked, hoping to bring a little levity.
He huffed out a laugh and nodded.
“Good, otherwise I would have to give Aizawa an earful next time I see him,” she joked.
Midoriya’s eyebrows furrowed at that and he looked back down at his knees.
“Did he have you do all this?” he asked barely loud enough for her to make out the words.
“He didn’t twist our arms– we were glad to do it– but he did ask if we would… He cares an awful lot about you, I felt it myself. He’s such a big softie, isn’t he?”
Her reassurance prompted a wobbly smile, one that looked like it was threatening to turn into more tears.
“You deserve this, Kiddo– the thoughtfulness and the effort, that is, not the having a breakdown on my bathroom floor.”
As expected, the comment resulted in a teary laugh.
She was running out of things to say when the silence was interrupted by a commotion in the kitchen. Toshi was making a vague disgruntled argument that she couldn’t really make out and Uraraka seemed to be laughing at his expense while Iida much more audibly reprimanded the two of them for ‘making a mess’.
“Well it sounds like they found a way to entertain themselves again,” she remarked.
“Shinso and Uraraka seem to b-be getting along,” he replied as he scrubbed the tears from his eyes with a fond smile.
“Like a house on fire, yeah; I thought you two acted like siblings. I think I acquired a new kid tonight.”
“You’ve got a t-track record with that, d-don’t you?” he parroted her words back to her.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” she said with a surprised laugh, “You need a minute, or are you ready to go see what sort of havoc they’re wreaking?”
“N-no point in waiting until m-y eyes aren’t all puffy I guess,” he replied with a rye wry laugh.
He got to his feet and helped her creaky old bones up too, but she didn’t let him go without a hug; he had a lot of lost hugs to make up for and she was going to do her part. She gave him a second to get as composed as he could on short notice and then they walked out together.
Kohaku was not all that surprised to see a piece of cake smushed across the table when they reentered the room.
“What did you two do?” she asked with a threateningly raised eyebrow.
“She shoved cake in my face!” Toshi complained.
The frosting in his hair and the dirty dish towel in his hands corroborated that claim, but the innocent look on Uraraka’s face did not. The subject in question was sitting primly perched on one of the dining chairs with her legs crossed and daintily eating a forkful of her own slice of cake.
“I wouldn’t do that, that’s highly undignified,” she defended in a put-on posh accent, “I simply said we should taste the cake and make sure it was good enough for Midoriya, which it is. You’re welcome.”
Midoriya’s responding laughter was probably sweeter than Toshi’s hair at the moment. She could tell they put this all on to make him laugh, so she couldn’t be mad about the admittedly pretty small mess. They were good kids, they’d take care of each other.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Reminder for Discord peeps and announcement for everyone else:
⚠️ I am going on a break ⚠️
This is the last chapter I have written as of rn and I don't like uploading w/o a bit of a backlog bc I feel like I don't have time to make each chapter as good as it's could be. I need to return to the content mines in my mind palace. I'm not sure how long it'll take but I'll still be in the discord to keep y'all updated.
Chapter 151: Worthy of Consideration
Notes:
We're so back baby
Shout outs to Penny and Woomy for beta reading this one
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
It was getting late, Zashi had already fallen asleep on him as they ‘waited’ for Izuku to come home. Shinso-san had texted him to let him know she was driving all the kids who didn’t have a chauffeur home herself, so he should be back any minute now. Shota hadn’t been paying attention to whatever was playing on the TV for a dangerously long time and his eyelids were drooping; surely the door opening would wake him up, right? He could rest his eyes for a second…
…He woke up to his foot being nudged.
He’d forgotten how quiet the kid could be.
“Sorry, I just thought you would p-probably hurt your neck s-sleeping like that,” the foot nudger in question explained.
He grunted a vaguely thank-you-shaped sound and nodded. The kid was right, his neck already hurt and it had only been like 20 minutes. Hm, she must have dropped Uraraka off first. He yawned, rubbed at his eyes, and was surprised to see Izuku still standing there when the resulting blurriness abated. Though he was thankful that he was still there, Zashi would have killed him if he didn’t wake them up in time for Izuku to see his gift.
“I, um… I just wanted– I– th-thank you for– you d-didn’t have to do all that for m-me,” Izuku stuttered out sheepishly.
He wanted to insist that it was practically the bare minimum, and yes, he did need to do that in order to maintain his status of being a mildly decent human being, but he knew Izuku wouldn’t want to hear that, so he didn’t bother arguing the point.
“You have fun?” he asked instead.
“Yeah, I– yeah.”
“What’d you get?” he asked another question because Izuku was still standing there with a gift bag in hand; lingering wasn’t a common occurrence and he didn’t want to do anything to scare him away.
Izuku pressed his lips into a fine line and his eyes went wide, but he didn’t leave.
“T-Todoroki and Iida got me a Switch,” he explained the reaction.
Shota snorted out a laugh in response and the shuffling was enough for Zashi to start stirring.
“It pays to have rich friends,” he remarked as Hizashi slowly found his way back to wakefulness.
“Shinso got m-me some stationary stuff, Shinso-san made me a recipe b-book, and Uraraka made the c-cake,” he answered with a small but genuine smile.
“Go’ cake?” Zashi mumbled groggily.
Shota laughed at his obvious sweet tooth and was glad to see Izuku smiling too.
“Past tense cake, Zash,” he clarified.
Hizashi frowned as he stretched the sleep out of his bones.
“I b-brought it back w-with me, Shinso-san m-made me take the whole thing,” Izuku reassured.
“Oooo… Oh! Happy birthday, Kiddo!” Zashi finally fully woke up.
“Not technically,” Shota corrected, pointing at the clock which had ticked past midnight.
“Don’t be a party pooper,” they shot back, shoving his face away as they stood up.
Shota just rolled his eyes at their antics. He would never understand how they could be so energetic less than a minute after waking up. He watched as Hizashi had the same conversation he had just had with Izuku, though, he was far more animated about it; they had the kid pull everything out of the bag and show it to them.
They were good gifts, he was glad Izuku had such thoughtful friends.
“Well, you got one more, Kiddo, well two more– two for one? Three for two? It’s from us and All Might and there’s two of them,” they explained, tripping over their own words in excitement.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing crazy, I made sure of it,” he butted in when Izuku made the same face he made before telling Shota he’d gotten a Switch.
“It’s in your room already, c’mon!” Hizashi urged them forward.
“I think gift-giving is his love language, he’s always like this,” he muttered to Izuku as they followed behind.
“Sho, come here– don’t turn the lights on yet! It’s a surprise!” Hizashi pulled him forward and slapped his hand away from the light switch before he could flip it on.
They pulled him aside and let Izuku flip the light on once they were out of the way. It didn’t take him long to find the difference as it was pretty obvious. Two gaudy red, blue, and yellow posters now hung in sturdy frames on the walls, each of them were signed and apparently ‘vintage’ according to Yagi.
“A friend of mine from high school– she was in general studies– ended up going to trade school and she’s a woodworker now, she made the frames. Obviously, the posters are from All Might, but this was Sho’s idea, check this out,” Hizashi explained
He pressed on the right side of the frame, a mechanism clicked, and the frame popped forward swinging out from a hinge on the left. Behind the poster revealed a hidden cabinet just deep enough to fit a gridded organizer; in each little cubby was a knife. It didn’t fit Izuku’s entire klepto collection, but if they had ordered enough to fit all of them the whole room would be covered floor to ceiling. He figured he could just stick his favorite ones in there and the rest would stay stuffed away in the suitcase.
Hizashi was practically vibrating with excitement and Izuku was standing frozen in the doorway with his mouth agape. Shota wasn’t surprised to see his eyes getting glassy; Izuku cried a lot. He hadn’t been sure if that was just because of the circumstances that brought him here or if he was just a crier, but it was starting to seem like it was the latter. It was nice to see this part of him; Ivy wasn’t really a crier. Sure they cried, but that was different, those were ‘I’m having a crisis’ cries and it had only happened like 3 times. Ivy didn’t let themselves feel enough to cry any more than that, but Izuku did. That was probably a good thing, right? Zashi was always going on about “feeling your feelings” like it was a good thing.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Hizashi cooed as Izuku’s tears finally spilled over his cheeks.
“You like it, right? It’s a good cry?” they clarified as they pulled him into a hug.
He could see Izuku nod against Zashi’s chest. The hug didn’t last long and when Izuku pulled away he looked nervous. He was looking at the floor, focus darting around but never staying long like he wasn’t actually thinking about what he was seeing, and he was chewing at his lip. After a moment of contemplation, Izuku looked up at him. He gave a few false starts to his sentence before he finally got the words out.
“Thank you,” he said simply, though the resolve behind those two words spoke far more than the words themselves.
“‘Course, kid,” he replied easily, doing his best to imbue the words with as much sincerity as Izuku had.
He’d never been very good at that, his voice was too monotone. It made him seem like he didn’t care, which in all fairness was true a lot of the time, but this was not one of them.
“No, I m-mean– it’s not just–”
“I know what you mean, my answer is the same,” he saved him from trying to scrounge up words for the feelings that were so clearly written across his face.
The poor kid bit his lip to keep it from trembling. He didn’t need to spread himself out so thin. After a few beats, they seemed to reach an understanding; he turned his attention to Hizashi and thanked him just as earnestly.
They dismissed themselves to get some real sleep pretty quickly after that, with the proper lighting in Izuku’s room it was clear to see how exhausted he was. They all needed some sleep. Neither he nor Zashi spoke until they were well out of earshot and in their own room.
“That went well, don’t you think?” Zashi asked once they closed the door behind them.
“Yeah, I’ll have to ask Shinso-san how the rest went,” he replied.
“He said he had fun,” they argued.
“Doesn’t mean he did, could just be saying that.”
“I’m sure he had some amount of fun. It was the picture perfect, stock standard party, it’s just what he needed whether he knows it or not. You said it yourself, he needs normal experiences,” Hizashi insisted.
Normal experiences. He wished he could guarantee normal experiences for this kid forever, but he was already harboring another bit of trauma for him up his sleeve. He didn’t want to taint this experience with the news that his father had passed, but Zashi was probably right, they were usually right about things like that. He hoped that Izuku wouldn’t be mad for keeping this from him, he just couldn’t help the niggling feeling that if he had told Izuku beforehand then that party would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back… again.
“Yeah…” he trailed off.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I still haven’t told him,” he answered reluctantly.
“I know.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this,” he admitted.
“Well, do you think he’d do better with the information if he had something to do afterwards? Like a distraction?”
“Maybe, probably, I don’t know.”
“Thursday night, then. Make a plan and stick to it. If he would feel better with a distraction, he’ll have school the next day, and if he’d rather be alone, he’ll only have one day of school to get through—or he could stay home! I’d be sure to offer that option because you know he won’t ask for that himself," they laid out a plan like it was obvious.
How did they do that? They just knew what to do all the time, it was insufferable.
“Yeah, okay. Thursday.”
***
When Mic and Eraser left for the night, Izuku just sat down at the desk chair and stared at the wall. He knew tears were running down his face, but he paid them no mind, he’d dehydrate himself or they’d stop of their own volition eventually.
No one had ever afforded him this much thought before, he’d never allowed someone to know him well enough to do so in the first place. The fact that so many people both knew him and cared enough to think about him was… it hurt. It hurt to know that they cared about someone with a quirk, someone who he apparently was now, somehow that someone didn’t feel like him. He liked to think they would still have cared if they knew who he used to be, but he wasn’t so naive. Shinso had said he wouldn’t care and part of him believed that, or maybe he just wanted to believe that.
Did everyone always have this capacity for kindness? What was so wrong about not having a quirk that he wasn’t granted even a glimpse of this before? Some part of him wanted to tell them the truth, maybe he just wanted to sabotage himself. Either way, that wasn’t an option, he’d already pushed his luck telling Shinso what he had told him.
Who he used to be was exactly that, it was the past. He wasn’t that person anymore. He is who he is now and, for better or worse, people care about that person, that’s what he needed to focus on. He was so grateful for what he had now, it was only ruining a good thing to dredge up the past.
***
Midoriya: (9:07 am)
Thanks for the posters, they’re so cool!
AM: (9:12 am)
Of course, my boy! I wanted to say happy birthday yesterday but I didn't want to ruin the surprise so happy belated birthday!
Young Midoriya had texted him about the gifts he had passed on to Aizawa Sunday morning. He wished he could have seen his reaction in person so that he could know whether he actually liked them, or not, but he trusted Aizawa when he told him that gift giving was going to be a difficult endeavor and it’d be better not to pressure him. He had caught a glimpse of the boy in the halls earlier in the day, but they hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to any meaningful degree since the rather dreadful All For One discussion. He hoped that he’d be the first out of the changing rooms again today so they could chat even if it was only for a little while.
It seems fortune favored him today because he could see a spot of green enter the gym before anyone else joined them.
“Good afternoon, young Midoriya!” he greeted.
“Hi All M-Might.”
“Did you have a nice birthday?” he asked a little quieter once Midoriya got closer.
“Oh, y-yeah it was good. Shinso threw me a s-surprise party,” he answered with what looked to be a genuine smile, Toshinori honestly didn’t know anymore.
“How wonderful!”
“Yeah, it was really nice. I’ve never– it was g-good,” Midoriya fumbled through and doubled back on himself.
He could imagine what the end of that sentence was going to be, he’d never had many birthday parties himself, not since he was very young. The first time he celebrated it in ages was his 21st birthday in the States. Dave had found out about his lackluster celebrations in the past and went on a crusade to remedy that. Apparently, 21st birthdays were “special” in the States… needless to say, he didn’t remember most of that night, but the moments he could recall were some of his favorite memories from his college years.
“It’s nice to have a friend like that,” he replied knowingly; further elaboration on that point probably wasn’t school-appropriate.
“Thanks for the p-posters again. Are those original p-prints?” he asked with an air of excitement.
He was glad to see the boy getting excited over things a child is supposed to be excited about.
“Yes, nothing but the best for you, my boy!”
“You didn’t have to go through the trouble those are-”
“You’re worth the trouble,” he cut him off resolutely.
Toshinori reached out a hand to pat his head, he didn’t flinch away from him like he used to when they had first met. He did his best to focus on the positives of that realization and not the nausea in his gut that surfaced when he thought about why he flinched in the first place.
“Th-thank you,” Midoriya repeated again.
***
Shoto hadn’t meant to eavesdrop– well, that wasn’t true, he did mean to eavesdrop but he figured it was only fair after what Midoriya had done for him. He’d poked around Shoto’s life without prompting to give him a ticket out of there so Midoriya deserved the same in return, right?
Midoriya had said that things were better for him now, but if things were really better, then why hadn’t Midoriya’s parents hosted his birthday themselves? Several things didn’t sit right with him and the strangely close relationship he had with All Might was one of them.
Midoriya was much quieter than All Might was, so he couldn’t hear any of his half of the conversation, but All Might knowing when his birthday was and getting him a gift went past the normal student-teacher bond, or at least it did as far as he knew. Was All Might playing favorites? Did they know each other before UA? Was it as simple as having a similar quirk? Not for the first time, he wished he knew how normal relationships functioned. He couldn’t say for certain if any of their behavior was irregular and thus he couldn’t extrapolate anything off of it.
He was kidding himself, wasn’t he? Midoriya was much better at this, he was just stumbling around with no real purpose and being nosey, he should just join them.
“Young Todoroki! Good afternoon!” All Might greeted him like he always did and Shoto nodded in response like he always did.
He couldn’t bring himself to believe that All Might was doing anything nefarious and perhaps that was childish; there were probably people who believed that Endeavor was just as virtuous, but no matter which way he looked at it he couldn’t find a believable scenario where All Might was the problem. Even still, if he knew what was going on between those two, maybe that would help him figure out what the real issue was.
He just wanted Midoriya to be safe too, but he had no clue how to do that.
***
Why the hell was Icyhot spying on Deku?
Katsuki had just walked around the corner to see him standing just out of sight of the pair, or at least who he assumed to be the pair talking. Deku was always out of the changing room first– damn teacher’s pet. He couldn’t hear Deku but he could hear All Might talking to someone. The words were difficult to make out at this distance but he’s pretty sure he heard “birthday” and “wonderful” which wasn’t exactly a helpful pool of clues to piece together. Was it someone’s birthday?
Oh, yeah, Deku’s birthday was a few days ago, right?
Whatever, it’s not like he keeps tabs on that kind of shit. Why the hell did All Might know that though? He didn’t get a happy birthday on his birthday, the fuck makes Deku so special? Tch, he really was the teacher’s pet. He could barely even look at the nerd without Hobo-sensei glaring daggers at him ever since school started and he’d been buddy-buddy with All Might since day one as well– Loudmouth too, now that he thought about it. Since when had Deku been fluent in English anyway? God, that asshole pissed him off.
The more he watched him the less sense he made, he could fight like a monster, but the moment the exercise was over he was back to wringing his hands and stuttering, looking more pathetic than a wet chihuahua. He had some sort of beef with Troll Doll and now they were practically skipping around campus hand in hand– it’s like everything he did he had to do the opposite as well.
Katsuki had been planning on getting some answers out of him but there had yet to be a time when Hobo-sensei wasn’t looming over them and Deku hadn't scurried away to hide in whatever crack in the wall he disappeared into when no one was looking. He would say he’d seen how Deku had changed since starting UA, but that wasn’t a remarkable observation, he’d done little but change, which was the strange part. He used to be such a predictable coward, but now it was a complete toss-up every day.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one looking for answers, even his own damn friends were snooping on him. Not that he expected Icyhot to figure it out, he was a clueless bastard. Katsuki was going to get to the bottom of this though, it was just a matter of time.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! We're back to the normal Wednesday upload schedule now 💃
Chapter 152: Daddy Issues ⚠️ HEED THE CWs ⚠️
Notes:
Anyways enough fluff, right? Shout outs to Penny and Woomy for putting the beta in beta readers 😁🥰
I will put the ⚠️ emoji b4 and after the scene where all of these warnings are applicable in case you want to skip it
⚠️Extreme trigger warnings⚠️
Graphic descriptions of child abuse
Violent, angry, drunk man yelling
Grievous injury
Flashbacks
PTSD
Neglect
Misogyny at its finest
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Shota could faintly hear Izuku laughing in his room. It sounded like he’d been on the phone for an hour or so, probably Tenya again. Apparently the two had been playing video games together. The morning after the first time they had heard him chatting in his room Zashi had asked him who he’d been talking to in the car on the way to school, and that’s what he told them. Both of those two could use some normal teenage boy activities and Shota trusted that Tenya would not let the practice interfere with their school or sleep schedules. Not that Izuku had a sleep schedule to speak of; most nights when he came back from patrol he could see a dim light showing from underneath his doorway. It was possible he slept with a light on, but he doubted the kid would do something so ‘wasteful.’
It was Thursday night. He told himself he was going to tell him tonight. Zashi was in the kitchen prepping some lunches for tomorrow, even if he could break a promise to himself, he couldn’t break a promise to Hizashi. Izuku needed to know, it was his right to know.
There was no way that Tenya would allow them to stay on call on a school night past 9 o’clock and it was 8:48 right now. He could feel each second tick by painfully.
He was laughing, for god’s sake, he was happy! How was he supposed to go in there and ruin that?
Shota sat at the table not even bothering to pretend he was working anymore, he hadn’t spared the papers in front of him so much as a glance in at least 10 minutes. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t realize Hizashi was done in the kitchen until they took their usual seat next to him at the table.
“I haven’t heard anything in nearly 15 minutes now, I think he’s off the call,” they informed him.
“Yeah,” he agreed but made no move to stand.
“You still think it’s better to do this solo?”
“Yeah,” he regretfully restated.
Izuku wouldn’t want to have an audience for this. Honestly, Shota didn't doubt that he’d rather get the news via text message so no one had to see him at all, but that wasn’t going to happen for obvious reasons.
“It’s gonna be alright, Sho, he’s bounced back from worse,” they tried to reassure.
He wanted to argue that he shouldn’t have had to bounce back at all because none of this should have happened in the first place, but they both knew that. There was nothing for it. What happened happened and he had to do what he had to do.
He stood up and made his way to Izuku’s door without another word. He knocked quietly and he could see Izuku tense up in his mind’s eye.
“Y-yeah?” he heard his answer muffled through the door.
Shota took that as permission to open the door and, just as he had expected, Izuku was sitting tensely at the head of his bed.
“Hey, I’ve… got some news,” he started.
“Okay… what is it?” Izuku answered nervously.
He looked scared, he always looked so damn scared.
“Can I take a seat?” he asked, gesturing to the vacant desk chair.
He figured it wouldn’t help either of them if he was looming over him as he spoke. When Izuku nodded he left the door open and sat down. He doubted Hizashi would eavesdrop and he felt better knowing they weren’t far in case he fucked this up royally.
“It’s about your father,” he clarified, hoping to ease him into the reveal rather than slapping him across the face with it.
“My… um… okay,” Izuku responded, clearly uncomfortable.
Just rip the bandage off, Shota.
“He’s dead.”
Izuku’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t act as though he even heard Shota speak at all, he was just frozen in place. His focus went distant like he wasn’t really looking at anything.
“Kid?” he pushed after a solid minute of silence.
“How?” he asked quietly.
“An overdose, no suspicion of foul play, just an OD,” he answered plainly.
Izuku just nodded slowly, still not looking anywhere in particular, his eyes unfocused and haunted. Shota wished that the bastard was still alive so that he could knock his teeth in for putting that look on Izuku’s face.
“When?”
He didn’t want to answer that question, he didn’t want the poor kid to connect the dots that he had connected, he didn’t want him to know that his mother had likely only stuck around in hopes that her husband would come back.
But he deserved to know.
“A little over 4 years ago,” he answered, doing his best to keep any hint that the timing was significant out of his tone.
He didn’t doubt that Izuku would see the same connections that he saw, but in case he didn’t, he wasn’t want to help him along. He could see the flicker of recognition pass over Izuku’s face and it just about broke his heart. It was only a flash before his expression returned to blank and distant. After a moment, he looked back up at Shota.
“Okay,” he replied quietly and with no inflection.
“Do you want to ta–”
“No,” Izuku cut him off before he could even finish his sentence.
He wanted to ask if he was alright, but that was stupid, he clearly wasn’t alright.
“Is there anything… anything I could do?” he asked awkwardly.
“No– I… l-leave… please. I j-just want to b-be alone,” Izuku answered shakily.
He didn’t want to do that, he didn’t want to leave him alone to suffer like he had been for his whole life, but forcing the matter wouldn’t do any good either.
“If you’re not up for school tomorrow, let us know,” he offered.
Izuku just nodded.
“We’re just down the hall if you need anything, at any time,” he stressed the last bit, he doubted Izuku would wake them up for company, but he had to let him know it was a welcome option.
“That was… fast,” Zashi noted tensely when Shota came back to the table to pack his work up for the night.
“Wasn’t much to say. I told him what happened, he didn’t want to talk, and he asked me to leave.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Tell him no?”
Hizashi sighed at that and let his shoulders drop.
“No, I guess not. I think one of us should check on him in a bit though,” they suggested.
“Yeah, ok. I’ll check on him before bed,” he agreed.
***
⚠️
Eraser closed the door behind himself as he left and the quiet click sounded like a gunshot; like slamming doors and screaming and he had just wanted a drink of water. He had just wanted some water. He knew better than to come out of his room when Papa was angry, but he was so thirsty and Mama was supposed to be home over an hour ago, Papa had been angry about it, but he was quiet now, he’d been quiet for 15 minutes. Maybe he’d fallen asleep– he did that a lot, he’d lay down on the couch and fall asleep really quickly.
Izuku could probably get a drink without waking him up, he was very good at being quiet. He got as far as filling up a cup in the kitchen sink before he heard a noise, it was the front door opening very quietly.
Oh, good, Mama must be home!
He could hear her quietly shuffling toward the kitchen with the telltale swishing sound of plastic bags that said she had gotten groceries. He was about to go help her carry them when all of the sudden there was a loud crash and he could hear several things rolling across the floor.
Oh no, that probably woke up Papa.
He heard her mumble some words he wasn’t allowed to say under her breath and he thought about trying to sneak back to his room, but he wouldn’t be able to do that without passing through their view of the hallway. It felt like everything froze for a few moments, neither he nor Mama moved a muscle as far as he could tell, but it was too late now, Papa had woken up.
“I’ko? Where the fuck’ve you been?” he slurred.
“I was at work and then I stopped at the grocery store on my way back,” Mama answered in a pleasant tone.
“Spose’ to be home ‘n hour and a half ago, took you ‘n hour and a half to get four bags of groceries?” Papa spat back.
“The train was delayed, someone tried to derail the train ahead of mine to distract some heroes or something. I didn’t get the whole sto–”
“Bullshit,” he cut her off.
“It was on the news, I’m sure you can look it up.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he shouted at her.
Izuku could hear her scooping the fallen groceries off the floor and wondered if he should hide in the cabinets instead. No, he was getting too big for that now, he would have to take something out to fit and it would make too much noise.
“What exactly do you think I was doing Hisashi? Cheating on you after a 12-hour shift while still wearing my scrubs?”
“I didn’t even have to say it ‘cause you know what you did!”
“No, you didn’t have to say it because you accuse me of cheating on you every time I’m late. You’re drunk, sleep it off,” she disregarded his rambling.
Izuku could hear her making her way toward the kitchen and there wasn’t anything he could do but let it happen.
“I just had a 12-hour shift then had to stand on a train for an hour with all these groceries, I’m not in the mood to deal with your– Oh, Izuku, good, can you put these away for me?” she sighed with relief when she saw him standing there frozen with terror.
She set the groceries down on the counter and he had to catch a jar of sauce before it rolled off and shattered on the floor. He slowly and carefully placed it back on the counter as if his father wouldn’t notice he was there if he moved slowly enough. Mama paid no mind to any of that and walked down the hall to their bedroom.
“You’re just gonna ignore me? You fuckin’ bitch,” Papa cursed down the hall after her.
Again, Izuku stood still, not even daring to breathe and hoping against all hope that Papa would just walk away. Why couldn’t he have just walked away? The moment Papa’s eyes settled on him the look of anger on his face doubled in intensity. Izuku didn’t dare duck out of the way when Papa went to grab him by the arm, it only ever made it worse if he didn’t cooperate.
“This is how I know you’re a fuckin’ skank, I didn’t make a goddamn Null,” Papa yelled as he dragged Izuku down the hall.
He went to open the door but apparently Mama had locked it. She had looked really tired, she needed to sleep, so he couldn’t blame her. Papa started pounding on the door with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Izuku’s bicep and kept screaming insults at both of them. Izuku did his best to ignore everything he said, but he felt tears rolling down his cheeks regardless. He could see the door bow each time Papa’s fist hit it and he was surprised that it hadn’t broken yet. Flames were starting to fall from Papa’s mouth with every other sentence and Izuku was scared.
He needed to get out of here, he needed to get away from this, he needed–
“M-Mama wanted me to p-put away the gr-groceries,” he reminded Papa during a brief lull in his tirade.
Stupid, stupid, stupid . He’d probably forgotten he was even there, he should have just kept his mouth shut, he should always keep his mouth shut, he should never draw Papa’s attention for any reason. He was just so scared and he wanted Papa to leave Mama alone so she could sleep– stupid, stupid, stupid.
As Papa slowly turned his head down to look at him he could feel all the blood drain from his face. He was so scared that he felt dizzy with it.
“You fuckin’ talkin’ back to me?” Papa asked, cool anger seething in his tone.
He shook his head, he knew better than to speak again.
“I don’t care what your whore of a mother wants, YOU RUINED OUR GODDAMN LIVES YOU GENELESS FREAK!”
Fire flung from his mouth like spittle and he flinched away right as Papa was adjusting his grip. He knew better than to run, he knew better, he knew it would only make it worse, but his body didn’t listen. The second he was free he started scrambling away. He didn’t get more than 3 feet down the hall before that hand closed around his arm again; it felt like it was going to be wrenched off of him completely with how roughly it was pulled. He was so disoriented and dizzy and scared that he didn’t even know where he was until he hit the wall.
When he looked up to see Papa staring down at him, he realized he was cornered. He had never been more afraid in his life. Papa was still screaming, flames still sputtering from between his lips and there was nothing Izuku could do, he was trapped. He didn’t know what Papa was saying anymore and his failure to respond only seemed to make him angrier. He was desperately trying to figure out what Papa was saying, he was trying to figure out what he was supposed to say to make him stop but he couldn’t even hear much less think. He studied his face trying to see if he could glean any insight but then Papa took a deep breath.
Izuku knew better than to wait and see what happened after that. Curling in on himself was the best he could do. He covered his head with his arms and pressed his eyes closed so tightly that he’s not sure whether the lights he saw were from the pressure or the flames. The pain he felt as the fire touched him was nothing he had ever felt before. It was so hot that he couldn’t tell if he was freezing or burning. He was pretty sure he was screaming and he could smell his own skin cooking.
The lights were gone. Did he open his eyes? Was the fire gone? Why was it still so hot? He could hear more shouting, but it was Mama this time. Why was Mama shouting? Mama never shouted, so something bad must have happened. Yeah, it must have been bad. Everything hurt; he couldn’t really make sense of anything past the agony.
⚠️
He couldn’t tell what was going on around him. Everything was just white hot pain, but there was something rough and wet rubbing against his nose… What? Something sharp was digging into his legs and shoulders, and little puffs of warm air were blowing against his face. His ears were ringing, and all he could see was grey and green.
Oh.
A cat, that was a cat.
Kimchi? When did she…?
All of the stale air he had been holding in his lungs rushed out in a huff and he deflated with it.
It wasn’t real, he was okay, Papa was– Hisashi was dead, he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. That was nearly a decade ago, he wasn’t helpless anymore, he wasn’t… he wasn’t…
Air rushed into his lungs so forcefully that it felt like someone had punched him in the gut.
Oh, he forgot to breathe in… that was… that was important to do. Spots were dancing in his vision and he leaned forward to hold his head in his hands. It felt like the room was spinning and something sharp was poking at his shin.
Kimchi. Oh yeah, that’s right. She was… oh, she had been in his lap, hadn’t she? Did he knock her over? She was looking up at him with the claws of her right paw lightly hooked into his pant leg.
“S-sorry, I… s-sorry,” he forced out a shaky apology.
She reminded him so much of DJ that it made him nauseous.
“‘M alright, s-sorry. Y-you don’t have t-to– D-did you get sh-shut in here? S-sorry.”
He was rambling to a cat.
He wanted to get up and open the door for her but he could barely move and he doubted his legs would support him right now. Also, there was a cat in his lap again, so he couldn’t get up.
“Mrrp,” she trilled at him.
“Y-you’re so p-precious.”
“Prrrp,” she responded in a way that made it sound like she was well aware of how precious she was.
Every part of him felt like a raw open wound. The DJ plushie was lying on the bed next to him and when he saw that the last string holding him together snapped. His lungs spasmed with sobs that he tried to hold back, but it was a futile effort.
Why was he even crying? He wasn’t sad that Hisashi was dead, he was a horrible person. He was a mean and violent bum who mooched off of his mother for years. That man deserved what happened to him, but Mama still loved him– No! That shouldn’t matter either! Ma– Inko wasn’t much better, sure she never hurt him physically but she was mean, she left him– and yeah, sure he was a Null, but he was still a person, right? He was still… God, she left him because Papa was never going to come back, didn’t she? She never loved him, he was only ever an obligation, an anchor weighing her down.
“Mrrrow,” Kimchi interrupted his train of thought.
She was staring up at him and flicking her tail like his tears upset her. Why did she care? All he’d ever done was avoid her.
She headbutted his chin and got tears in her fur for her efforts, though she didn’t seem to care.
She was a spoiled cat, she had no concept of quirks or worth or anything, all she did was love. None of his flaws mattered to her, she just wanted everyone to be happy like she was. He wished it was all that simple. She was so sweet.
He let himself bury one hand into her soft fur and just rest it there until the tears stopped running down his face. She made herself at home in his lap and laid down once his breathing started to even out. He’s not sure how long he sat there like that, time, like everything else, was distant right now.
Eventually, there was a knock at the door, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer it. It was quiet for a while and then the knock came again; he was supposed to answer that. A voice on the other side of the door warned him that they were going to come in, but still, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything.
The door opened to reveal Eraser, looking a little concerned and wearing his pajamas. What a strange sight. The events that brought him here were so improbable.
“You make a friend?” he asked, gesturing to the cat in his lap.
He looked down at her dozing, and his hand was still resting on her back. He felt the vibrations of her purring and the steady rise and fall of her breaths. He looked back up to Eraser and nodded.
“She hates it when anyone but Bastard is upset, but I think that’s just because Bastard is always upset,” Eraser explained.
God, what a good cat.
“You alright, kid?” Eraser asked and cringed slightly the moment the words left his mouth.
No, he wasn’t alright, but that wasn’t unusual. He would be fine, he’d come back to himself eventually. He didn’t have the words to say that right now though, so he didn’t say anything.
“Guess that was a stupid question,” Eraser backpedaled.
Izuku huffed out a little laugh at that.
“Is there anything we can do?” he asked instead after a beat.
Izuku just shook his head.
“I meant what I said earlier. If you need anything at any time, just let us know, we really don't mind. We want to help.”
He was so kind. He wanted to say thank you or that he was sorry that they had to deal with all of this to begin with, but he hardly had the motivation to breathe much less speak, so again, he just nodded.
“Can I leave the door cracked so she can leave to use the litter box if she needs to?”
Another nod.
“You’ll let us know if you're not up for school tomorrow? I can get you the notes,” Eraser offered for a second time.
He nodded again.
Hopefully, tomorrow would be better.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 153: ♫ The Apple is Miles From the Tree ♫
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny and Woomy for beta reading like always <3
CWs:
Vague mentions of child abuse
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
This is not meant to be a ship fic, but the title of this chapter is from the song "Your Son" by Robert Simon French (also you can head cannon whatever the fuck you want). I highly recommend giving it a listen because it tears my soul to shreds every time I hear it
Izuku had been off ever since Thursday night. He’d hardly come out of his room all weekend and despite trying to mask it, it was pretty clear that something was wrong. He’d been holding himself differently lately, he’d seemed happier, but of course that was only obvious in hindsight because he was back to how he used to be now. He was still talking to his friends though, so he wasn’t completely isolating himself. Shota had been worried enough that he’d called the number that the social worker had left with them, she wasn’t scheduled to come around very often anymore. She assured them that Izuku would be okay and gave them a few things to watch out for, but other than that, time was the only thing for it (a recurring theme that Shota did not like very much).
He was admittedly a little lost in his own thoughts as he walked down the hallway and it took him a second to process the voice calling out to him.
“Ah, Aizawa! A word, if you have the time?” Yagi called from down the hall.
He took a deep breath, reminded himself that Yagi was not his enemy, and halted his step so that he could catch up.
“Perhaps in private?” Yagi clarified in a hushed tone once he was within earshot.
Oh, so it was about the case. He almost hoped that it wasn’t big news, neither he nor Izuku could take another hit of big news right now. With trepidation, he filed the two of them into a disused classroom.
“I got word from the Chinese front; as far as they know, she is no longer in the country. As you suspected, she allegedly left on a flight to Korea shortly after arriving. I’ve yet to get word from any of my Korean contacts,” Yagi explained regretfully.
Shota had to hold back a sigh of relief, if Yagi had just told him they found her or that she was dead he might have blown a gasket then and there.
“Alright, thank you, Yagi. This is certainly a faster turnaround than I would have gotten.”
“Yes, of course, anything I can do to help.”
“Is that all?”
“No– well, yes in terms of information, I was just… I’ve noticed he’s– Midoriya, I mean– he’s been a little off and I was– not that it’s really my business, of course–”
“Spit it out, Yagi,” he interrupted the other man’s floundering.
“Is he alright?”
How the man before him was the same man who had been masterfully playing the media with carefully curated speeches for the past 3 decades was beyond him. When Yagi wasn’t “All Might” he was incredibly awkward and downright sheepish, or at least he was around Shota, though that probably had more to do with his own rather brash demeanor. The dichotomy was remarkably similar to Izuku and Ivy, which was a realization that prompted far more concerns than Shota currently had the capacity to spare for Yagi.
Regardless of any of that, it was clear to see how much the man cared for Izuku. Adults caring for him had been startlingly sparse in his life and Hizashi had told him how Yagi had been there for Izuku after the USJ. Shota really shouldn’t be so critical of the man.
“He’s… he’ll be fine. Recently got some troubling news, it’s not my place to say what. I don’t know how advisable it would be to ask him yourself… but I won’t stop you,” he replied.
Yagi’s eyebrows shot clear up to his hairline, the olive branch was obviously unexpected.
“I’m going to pivot my efforts to his previous school’s incompetence until one of us hears back from the Korean front… If you leave now you should be able to catch him before lunch,” he said by way of dismissal and didn’t wait for Yagi’s reply before taking his leave.
He heard the other man sputter a vague thank you, but he ignored it; he had work to do. Requesting Izuku’s school records would be far less suspicious coming from UA than it would be from the police. He didn’t want to give them a chance to sweep evidence of their negligence under the rug before he got his hands on it.
***
Toshinori wasted no time heading toward 1A’s classroom. The bell was about to ring any second and he needed to find Midoriya before he settled into the lunchroom. Pulling him aside was one thing but walking into the busy lunchroom and picking him out of the crowd felt like a step too far. His worry spiked a bit when he heard the bell ringing, but he wasn’t too far now, he could still catch him, right?
“Midoriya, my boy! I’m glad I caught you! Could we have a word?” he called out when he spotted the familiar shock of green hair.
Toshinori saw the way Midoriya cringed at his request and part of him wished that he could take it back. He knew the boy well enough to know that he wouldn’t say no to him even if he wanted to and asking in front of his friends was even worse. He’d just been so worried and Aizawa seemed to think that he might be able to help.
“Oh, um, s-sure, I’ll m-meet you guys at the t-table. I have a p-packed lunch today anyway,” he answered and dismissed the group.
None of them looked very happy to leave, but they did, and Toshinori was guiltily glad for it. He had hoped to spend lunch with the boy but he supposed that was as much of a dismissal as Midoriya felt comfortable giving, that was alright. He pulled the two of them into a disused classroom like Aizawa had done with him not 5 minutes prior and let his form drop before pulling two chairs away from their desks to sit at. Midoriya took the offered chair and started picking at his nails the way he often did when nervous. He clearly didn’t want to be here so Toshinori wasted no time in getting to the point.
“I was just– you’ve seemed down these past few days. Are you alright?” he asked.
Midoriya froze at that; he furrowed his brow in confusion for the briefest moment like that was the last thing he had expected him to say.
“I, um, yeah– or I m-mean I will b-be. I don’t even know why– s-sorry, I’m f-fine,” Midoriya stuttered out.
“You’ll have to excuse me for not being convinced by that,” he replied with a light-hearted chuckle.
Midoriya huffed a breath out of his nose in an approximation of a laugh but the grimace on his face betrayed that it was half-hearted at best.
“S-sorry, I just–,” he cut himself off with a quiet noise of frustration and worried at his lip before continuing, “Did your… w-were your p-parents– what were they l-like?”
Toshinori was so taken aback by the question that he couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. He was glad Midoriya felt comfortable enough to ask that of him, but he hadn’t even thought about his parents in, god, it must have been years. That was sad, wasn’t it? Time had a way of distancing people though, that’s just how things worked. It had been nearly 40 years since his parents died, and he’d like to think that they wouldn’t blame him for moving on.
“They were… they were kind, they were good people,” he said wistfully.
There wasn’t much else to say about them, most specific details of their personalities had been lost to time. All he remembered was what they made him feel. Maybe it was nostalgia or rose-tinted glasses, but the memory of them made him feel warm and happy.
Midoriya’s brow furrowed again but this time it looked more like a flash of anger.
“They d-didn’t… they didn’t care that you were– that you d-didn’t have a q-quirk?” he asked so quietly that Toshinori barely even heard him.
The question felt like a punch to the gut. He had spent his whole life trying to ensure that no one had to suffer the same fate as him, that no little kid had to grow up like he had grown up, but here Midoriya was, having lived in the same hell that he had. For all the good he had done, for all the change he had fostered in this country, it would never be enough. It may be a new age but people were still people, they still did the same awful things they always did.
“Oh, my boy, of course they did, but things… things were different in my day, my parents had a lot more to worry about than whether or not their son had a quirk,” he answered with a sad smile.
“Yeah, s– of course they did, s-sorry that was a s-stupid qu–”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant, that’s not a stupid question. I’m not… I suppose I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Things were just… different…” he trailed off lamely.
He was botching this. On the bright side, it seemed as though Midoriya wasn’t as against talking as he had thought he would be, but that didn’t help so much if he had no clue what he was trying to get at.
“What brought that on, what’s troubling you, my boy?” he tried, straight to the point, no room for confusion.
“It’s n-nothing. I j-just, this whole i-investigation is getting to me. It’ll be over e-eventually, there’s nothing t-to do about it. I should get to l-lunch, s-sorry All Might,” Midoriya dismissed himself quickly and didn’t spare a second for Toshinori to press.
Damnit.
He shouldn’t have rushed in like that.
***
Midoriya was acting off. He looked so sad and distant and it was pretty obvious that something had happened if you knew him well enough. Hitoshi couldn’t say with confidence that he knew Midoriya well, but he knew him well enough to know that there were hidden depths to him that he would never let see the light of day. He tended to hide things away, his emotions more than anything, but even Todoroki had noticed something was off. Midoriya had been stopped by All Might in the hall and told them he’d meet them at the table, but everyone had gotten their food already and he had yet to join them.
“Is Midoriya okay?” Todoroki asked him privately with the full audience of everyone else at the table.
Uraraka cringed a bit and glanced at each of them in turn.
“Yeah, I noticed he was a bit… I dunno he’s been quieter,” she added her own concern.
“Yes, he seemed to be in a good mood when I spoke to him Thursday evening, but ever since he’s seemed rather tired,” Iida threw in his two cents.
And now everyone was looking at him and expecting an answer, terrific.
“I don’t know, he hasn’t talked to me any more than he’s talked to you guys, but you’re right; something seems off. He doesn’t really like to talk about that kind of stuff too much, I don’t know if it would be a good idea to ask him or not. It might be good to let him know we’re thinking about him, but it also might make him feel worse,” Hitoshi answered honestly.
“That’s a good point,” Uraraka replied solemnly.
The table shared a moment of contemplative silence before she spoke up again.
“Maybe if only one of us asked it would be like the best of both worlds,” she suggested tentatively with an expectant glance toward him which he did not miss.
He’s not sure how he felt about being the group’s Midoriya whisperer. Sure, he knew the most about what was going on with him but he wasn’t any better with talking about feelings than Midoriya himself. Uraraka should be the one to do this, this whole group was incredibly emotionally stunted aside from her.
“Yeah that…” he trailed off and sighed before accepting his fate, “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.”
***
Izuku was going to crawl out of his own skin. Everything felt like it had been shifted two inches to the right and it left him completely off kilter. He was angry and sad and so goddamn confused about hearing that his father was dead. He felt like he was going to lose his mind if he spent another second alone with his thoughts, so when Shinso asked if he wanted to come over and test his newly refined Mario Karting skills, he agreed before he even remembered that he needed to ask Eraser if that was okay. It felt like a stupid thing to have to do, but, like most things nowadays, it was out of his hands.
He had felt bad when he lied to Uraraka and told her he wasn’t taking the train with her anymore because his mom had gotten a new job, but he was glad to see that apparently she had been riding with Shinso these days. The three of them were sitting together now and it was so nice to be around them, like the smallest bit of weight had fallen off his shoulders.
“D-do you think your mom would mind Uraraka coming t-too?” he asked.
The question had been aimed at Shinso but Uraraka was the one to answer.
“Oh, I’ve got too much homework to do, I’ve been putting it off and I really need to get it done tonight. Plus I don’t think the TV would survive us playing each other again,” she joked but something in her tone felt a little off.
She was lying about something, but Izuku supposed he wasn’t in the position to criticize that kind of thing, so he let it go. If she didn’t want to hang out with them, then that was… fine. They bid her farewell when they got off at Shinso’s stop and she smiled pleasantly at them like she always did. Izuku didn’t know what to make of that so he did his best to push the subject from his mind; it was a nice day out which was a much better thing to devote his attention toward.
Shinso was blabbing on about the book he was currently reading like he had a tendency to do when he didn’t know what else to say. He was nervous about something– what were they keeping from him? Was it the same thing or did they both have things they were hiding?
It’s a nice day, Izuku, the sun is out, there are more pleasant things to focus on; their business is their business.
“That’s enough about a book you’re never going to read, it’s not even really that good anyways,” Shinso trailed off.
Izuku huffed out a small laugh to show that he had been listening. Companionable silence had never seemed to bother Shinso in the past so he didn’t feel the need to fill it as they walked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Shinso broke the silence himself.
“Are you alright?” Shinso asked like he was talking about the weather, nonchalant as anything.
GAAAAAAHHHHH. This was supposed to be about literally anything else besides how he was doing. He felt misplaced anger flare up in his chest but he tamped it down quickly. Well, at least he knew what they were conspiring about now, a covert wellness check.
“No,” he found himself answering honestly despite his inclination to do the opposite.
Shinso seemed just as surprised by his candor as he was if the double take he did was anything to go by.
“Did… did you, um, did something happen?” he asked awkwardly after he recovered from the initial shock.
First All Might and now his friends? He was losing his touch with keeping everything under wraps, or maybe people never looked close enough to notice before.
“Have I been… is it that obvious?” he answered with another question, ignoring what Shinso asked entirely.
“No– well, yes at least for people that know you. Iida just thought you seemed tired and Uraraka said you’d been quiet. You haven't been like exuding a depressive aura if that’s what you’re worried about,” Shinso answered.
They walked in silence for a while after that. Izuku didn’t know what to say and it seemed that Shinso didn’t either.
“We’re taking a detour, this seems like a ‘gently swinging at an empty park’ kind of conversation. You need the ambiance or it won’t work,” Shinso spoke up as a park came into view.
“It won’t work ?” he repeated with a raised brow.
“Yeah, trust the process, Greenie,” Shinso confirmed as he walked off the sidewalk and onto the mulch surrounding the playground they were passing by.
Shinso slung his backpack off his shoulders and set it down against one of the poles holding the set of two swings up. Izuku didn’t really know what he was on about, but he followed his lead. They sat on the creaky swings and watched cars or the odd jogger pass by the park’s entrance for a few minutes.
“So… what happened?” Shinso asked again.
“I’m n-not sure, this weird guy brought me to a secluded park and m-made me sit here in silence for quote-unquote ‘ambiance’,” he answered coyly.
“You’re insufferable,” Shinso deadpanned back at him.
“You asked!” he insisted with a laugh.
Shinso rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the smirk on his face which turned into a chuckle when he realized he couldn’t hold it in. The levity didn’t last for long though, after a moment the “ambiance” settled back in.
He had been stewing in his own thoughts for the past 4 days now, maybe it would help to let it out. He already felt better for having just admitted that he wasn’t doing alright, plus Shinso asked in the first place; it wasn’t like he was pushing this all on him apropos of nothing, right?
Maybe it was okay.
“My… My d-dad’s dead,” he admitted quietly.
He heard Shinso’s sharp intake of breath but he couldn’t bring himself to see whatever emotion was etched onto his face.
He knew he should probably wait to see if Shinso wanted to hear the rest of it. That news was already a lot, he shouldn’t just word vomit everything he had been keeping in, but it was like a dam had burst and nothing could stop the shaky rant from leaving his mouth.
“I h-haven’t seen him in nearly a d-decade and he was– he-he was a t-terrible person, I d-don’t understand why I’m so… so… I d-don’t even know! He was– he hurt me… I should be glad that he’s…” he trailed off realizing what he said too late, that was more than he had wanted to reveal to anyone.
“He was still your dad though–” Shinso tried to insist but Izuku interrupted him.
“No he wasn’t! He was just some guy that h-hated me, he was never–” he cut himself off before he could say too much again.
He took a deep breath or two and let silence fall over the park. The sound of birds chirping from the bushes, the distant traffic, and the high-pitched screeching of the swings made enough noise on their own, he didn’t need to add to it. He took a moment to think about what he was even trying to get at before he spoke again.
“Angry. I’m angry that he’s dead,” he decided.
“Cause you’ll never get the chance to shove your success in his face?” Shinso guessed.
He huffed out a laugh at that but he didn’t disagree.
“That s-seems shallow,” he observed.
“It seems natural. I’d feel the same way. You didn’t get any closure or whatever.”
Closure? He hadn’t been expecting closure in the first place. He hadn’t really expected or wanted to see Hisashi ever again. Maybe Shinso was right, maybe some part of him had wanted Hisashi to have seen him in the sports festival, some part of him wanted to have proven that he wasn’t a useless Null, not anymore. And even if he was, even if he had never gotten OFA, he still fought Todoroki quirkless, he still patrolled Uptown quirkless, he was still… worth something , right?
Aside from all of that, there was another part of himself buried as deep as he could manage that was angry that Hisashi wasn’t alive to suffer anymore. Some sick vindictive part of him wanted that man to hurt as much as he had hurt Izuku. He wanted him to still be an addict searching desperately for another hit and living most of his life in the worst stages of withdrawal, he wanted him to be shivering in the cold and eating out of the trash like Izuku had done for years.
He wanted Hisashi to be miserable.
And what did that say about him? Maybe he was his father’s son after all.
“–doriya? Are you– can you hear me?” Shinso’s voice broke through his perverse reverie.
“Yeah, I– s-sorry.”
“What was that about?” Shinso asked cautiously.
Not for the first time, Izuku was tempted to completely spill his guts to Shinso, hell, to anyone. He wanted to lay it all out on the table and beg them to say that it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t deserve it. He wanted someone to take all of this shit out of his hands and tell him that they would take care of it and he could rest now. He was so goddamned tired and the more that things changed for the better the more they changed for the worse.
“Do you… do you think I’m a b-bad person?” he allowed himself to ask.
“Are you serious?” Shinso replied incredulously.
God, he shouldn’t have asked. He knew better than to think other people would–
“No, Midoriya– what the hell? No, you’re not a bad person,” Shinso swiftly cut off his spiraling with such conviction that he couldn’t stop himself from checking that the emotion wasn’t just a trick in his tone.
His face looked just as sure as his voice was. He had stopped swinging, sat up straight, and looked Izuku directly in the eyes.
“You are the most selfless person I’ve ever met, you saved my life when I was too busy being mad at you for being homeless,” Shinso argued.
“You d-didn’t know–”
“That’s exactly my point! You never blamed me at all even when I was being a complete dick to you! Why would you even think that? Because you’re not mourning your abuser properly?”
“I’m not mourning him at all,” he rebutted under his breath.
“What?” Shinso asked even though Izuku was sure he had heard him.
God, was he really going to say this?
“I’m not upset that he’s dead, I’m upset that he’s not alive to suffer more,” he said with all the vitriol he felt.
He watched Shinso’s face pale at his words. He watched as he realized that Izuku was far more depraved than he had thought. He watched as Shinso’s expression twisted in disgust when his brain finally processed what Izuku had said.
Why did he keep trying to drive Shinso away? Was it self-destruction or concern for who Shinso kept company with? Given what he had just said, he assumed it was the former, he clearly wasn’t so altruistic.
“What did he do to you?” Shinso asked, revulsion evident in his tone.
“S-sorry, a-apple doesn’t fall far from the t-tree, I g-guess,” he stammered and folded in on himself like a coward; at least his father had the spine to stand behind his principals.
“Midoriya, stop that, you’re not your father. I didn’t– I shouldn’t have asked that. I didn’t mean it like ‘what could he have possibly done to have deserved that reaction’, I meant it like ‘how horrible was he to have pushed you that far’,” Shinso clarified.
Izuku didn’t have anything to say to that; Shinso didn’t really want the answer to that question, even if he thought he did.
“I– you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I mean, obviously you don’t have to, but if you think it might help– I– well I’m not exactly a stranger to violent and/or tragic backstories. My mom told me that she told you what happened to my dad, or at least part of it. I saw the whole thing and I was at the USJ too. I’m not trying to compare trau– I just– you’re not going to scare me away is what I mean,” Shinso fumbled out inelegantly.
He searched his face for a moment, hunting for any hint of insincerity, but he didn’t find any.
“He was a deadbeat and a drunk… an angry drunk and I was an easy t-target. He…” Izuku hesitated before he finished that statement, this wasn’t something he could take back, but the concerned and angry look in Shinso’s eyes pressed him forward, “He had a f-fire quirk and he… he liked t-to use it.”
He looked down as he spoke and left his statement open-ended. Shinso could fill in the blanks on his own. He could feel Shinso’s gaze on the side of his face but he couldn’t bring himself to look at the expression he wore, he just kept looking down at his shoes and lightly kicking the woodchips beneath him. It felt like they sat there long enough that the sun should have gone down by now, but logically he knew it could only have been a few minutes at most before Shinso responded.
“I completely and totally agree with you,” he stated in a voice that sounded distant but still rang heavy with the conviction that it had earlier.
Izuku finally met his gaze with a raised brow. He was, at this point, fairly well versed in Shinso’s angry expressions, but he had never seen one quite so violent as the one that currently graced his face.
“He should still be alive so that he can suffer. His existence makes me want to believe in a god so that I can find solace in the idea that he’s boiling in a pit of sulfur for eternity,” Shinso explained with even more ire than Izuku had.
That was… graphic and unless Shinso had been taking acting lessons behind his back, then it was pretty plain to see that he meant what he had said with every fiber of his being.
Izuku didn’t know how to feel about that.
As it was, he was staring back at Shinso with wide eyes, and his mouth pressed firmly shut so as to not be gaping like a fish.*
“If you’re a bad person for thinking that, then so am I,” Shinso continued when Izuku failed to respond.
Shinso wasn’t a bad person, Izuku knew that like he knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. Shinso was one of the best people he had ever met, so either he was a terrible judge of character, or maybe… maybe Shinso was right.
“My mom’s gonna start getting worried, should I text her that we stopped for a bit or do you wanna keep walking?” Shinso asked.
“N-no that’s– we– we can go,” he replied shakily.
Thankfully Shinso took him at his word and not at his tone because he wasted no time scooping up his backpack and continuing on their way. They took turns wordlessly kicking a particularly large wood chip down the sidewalk until Shinso managed to kick it into the gutter and it fell through the grate. Maybe it would find a new life as a tiny bit of beachwood. It was a shame though, because it had been distracting him from the fact that Shinso clearly had something he wanted to say; now that they had nothing else to do he seemed to be gearing up to say it.
“Do you– is, um– does your name not bother you? Midoriya, I mean– cause it’s, well y’know the family name… not exactly… good memories I guess,” Shinso finally spoke up hesitantly.
That was something he hadn’t actually thought of before. Midoriya was technically the “family” name, but they had never really been a family. No one in his memory had ever referred to them as “the Midoriyas”, he had never felt much affection for his father, and his mother had been distant for so long that she was hardly any closer to him in his mind than his father had been. He didn’t have a family– he was his only family, his mother and father just happened to share the same last name.
So, no, the name Midoriya didn’t really bother him, he’d been called much worse after all.
“I’ve just been me for so long that I d-dunno it– they aren’t my family. I’m j-just me. What else would I g-go by anyway?” he asked.
It’s not like he was going to take Eraser’s last name instead, Mic didn’t even take Eraser’s name– plus they weren’t even adopting him, he was just there .
“Izuku?” Shinso answered in a lovingly condescending tone, like he was a bit of a dumbass for asking the question to begin with.
Oh… that was– yeah okay maybe he was a bit of a dumbass for asking that, but “Izuku” didn’t really feel right either. He didn’t know who “Izuku” was, he was still trying to figure that out. He couldn’t imagine introducing himself as Izuku to anyone.
“I d-don’t want strangers calling me by m-my given name, that f-feels… wrong,” he replied.
“Well, we’re not strangers. I’m pretty sure most friends of going on three years, however non-contiguous, would normally be on a first-name basis by now,” Shinso clarified.
Oh… no one had called him by his given name since– well, it was better not to dwell on that. Did he want that? To open himself up like that again? It felt like more than just a metaphor, it felt like a leap of faith.
But the sun rose in the east and set in the west; Shinso was a good person. Izuku had more faith in that than he did in most things.
“Yeah… okay– that’s– yeah,” he agreed hesitantly.
“Alright, Izuku, then you can call me Hitoshi, or Toshi– my mom calls me that, no one else has ever… well that’s not important, call me whatever you want to call me,” Shinso answered.
“Whatever I want?” he repeated with a shit-eating grin.
“Nope! No, I take that back immediately, Hitoshi and Toshi are the only options,” Hitoshi quickly corrected himself.
They laughed as they walked and Izuku kept coming up with increasingly terrible nicknames, all of which Hitoshi emphatically denied permission to use. When they made it back to Hitoshi’s house, Shinso-san greeted them each with a bone-crushing hug.
This felt right, this felt like what family was supposed to be.
*This image appeared in my brain after I wrote that scene and it made me laugh too much to not draw it. (Fun fact, I'd never drawn Hitoshi b4 this... sorry Toshi. Yellow diamond being called a clod lookin' face.)
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 154: Just When You Thought it Couldn’t Get Any Worse
Notes:
Shout outs to my beta boys Penny and Woomy
CWs
systematic oppression 💃
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shota’s not sure who managed it, Yagi or Shinso, but ever since Tuesday, Izuku had been in much better spirits. He’d sent Yagi after the kid and then he’d gone home with Shinso after school; it was a 50/50 shot for who turned his mood around, but he was leaning toward the latter. If he were Izuku, he would imagine that talking to a friend would be much less stressful than talking to an adult, especially one as idolized as All Might.
With things just barely having gotten better, he was hesitant to risk opening another wound by poking into his previous school, but it had to be done. UA’s name bolstered enough authority to get things moving rather swiftly; his request for Izuku’s records from “Aldera Jr. High” had been fulfilled by the end of the day. They were, at first glance, unremarkable. His grades were oddly low for the level of intelligence that Shota knew he had, but they weren’t failing. Plus he knew far too well the amount of stress the poor kid was under outside of school, so the grades could be overlooked, but something about that didn’t sit right with him. He’d put a pin in that thought for now.
Something that far more overtly seemed out of place was the number of disciplinary actions taken against him. He couldn’t imagine Izuku doing a damn thing to earn him any sort of disciplinary action, but his file stated that he had served detentions practically every other month. He could see Ivy getting detentions like that, but not Izuku, and he highly doubted that the kid walked into a middle school cussing out his teachers. No, that honor had been saved for him and Tsukauchi.
It really was an honor, now that he thought about it. The chance to see that side of Izuku was rare… but that wasn’t important right now.
What was important, however, was an extended leave of absence that was listed to be granted by the nurse on staff meaning that the injury either happened at school or was discovered there, both of which should have prompted enough of an investigation to uncover the kid’s living conditions.
Brilliant. ‘Cause the kid didn’t have enough negligent adults in his life already, did he?
He knew he was going to have to pay the school a visit, but evidence of just how bad it could have been did not bode well. He had hoped the situation wasn’t going to be too dissimilar to Shinso-san’s, where Izuku was far too clever for his own good and manipulated well-meaning adults into looking the other way, but an injury that prompted a full week’s absence without any record of investigation didn’t fit that bill. There could have been some misunderstanding or missing documentation, but he wasn’t holding out much hope for that.
If he moved around his schedule slightly, he would have time Thursday afternoon to go check things out in person. There had been enough delays in this case because of him, so he wasted no time in making the arrangements.
***
Nothing about Aldera Jr. High looked out of place upon first inspection. The grounds were well maintained and the building had a suitable enough security system– which was to say the secretary needed to buzz Shota in at the gate as well as the front door. It wasn’t exactly Fort Knox but at least random people couldn’t just walk in. Overall, it seemed incredibly unremarkable, he hoped against all logic that it would stay that way.
“Good afternoon Aizawa-san, the principal should be out any minute, I’ve let him know that you’ve arrived,” the secretary greeted him as he walked into the main office.
He silently nodded his thanks and took a few steps to the side so as to not loom over her as he waited. There were security cameras outside and he’d spotted one on the ceiling aimed at the main entrance as well. Hopefully, they kept logs of past footage, or better yet, hopefully he wouldn’t need that in the first place.
The principal here had been in his position for the past 13 years, so the entirety of Izuku’s tenure in the school district. He knew most principals weren’t quite as involved as Nedzu, but Shota was hoping he knew enough about his students to be of use.
“Ah, Aizawa, right? Good afternoon,” a portly man stepped out of a room down the short hall and greeted him.
“Afternoon Naoki-san,” he nodded back politely.
“Come, join me in my office,” he beckoned Shota forth.
“You were the one to request the records on Midoriya Izuku?” Naoki asked in a tone just left of neutral.
He seemed to have some opinion formed of Izuku already, whether it was positive or negative was difficult to say. He should remain impartial until he got a better feel of the situation.
“Yes, I am. He’s a very… remarkable student,” he baited, his natural monotone aiding him by way of letting the statement be vague in whether it was sarcastic or earnest.
Naoki laughed bitterly.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it,” he agreed conspiratorily.
Goddamnit, why the hell was everyone in this kid’s life out to get him? Was he just the universe’s scapegoat? He just barely managed to keep himself from taking an audibly deep breath as he fought the urge to strangle the man with his own poorly fastened tie.
“Quite, hence why I’d like more information on his past schooling and his teachers' experiences with him,” he replied with no inflection.
“Yes of course, I was quite surprised to see he got accepted into UA in the first place,” the man mused as he clicked away on his computer for a moment.
Shota bit his tongue and waited to see what Naoki was doing. The printer whirred to life behind him shortly thereafter.
“Here’s a list of his past teachers and their current room numbers, many of them have classes going right now so I’m not sure how much of their time you’ll be able to get, but you could at least exchange contact information, I’m sure,” he explained with a pleasant grin, passing the sheet of paper over the desk to Shota.
“Hm, thank you for making this investigation so easy for me Naoki-san,” he replied, taking satisfaction in the untold honesty of that statement.
“Yes, of course, anything I can do to help the heroes of tomorrow,” he replied cluelessly, “Would you like an escort around the school or do you think you can find your own way? There’s signs all over the place and the room numbers are pretty straightforward.”
“I’m sure I can manage on my own,” he assured him with one last forced polite nod before taking his leave.
Why couldn’t this kid have had one singular safe place in his life? Shota wasn’t sure what all they were hiding here, but he wasn’t going to push his luck today, playing nice and coming back with a warrant was the only way forward. If he gave off even the slightest hint that this was an investigation into the school and not Izuku then they would clam up and give him nothing.
He gave himself a moment to finally take a theatrically large calming breath or two once he had rounded the corner away from the office. Shmoozing wasn’t his preferred method of investigation, but he knew from practice that it could get you quite far, he just needed to keep his cool.
Once he felt more confident in his ability to not strangle the next adult he saw, he headed for the furthest room on the list, the classroom of one Morita Hachiro, one of the 2 PE teachers they had on staff. If anyone was likely to notice an injury, it would be the PE teachers. Hopefully, he would be able to shed light on the situation.
He ended up having to trek out to the back of the school to find him. He was watching over what appeared to be a game of American football, what a strange choice of activity.
“Morita-san?” he asked as he approached the only adult present.
“Hm? Yes, that’s me,” the man answered.
“I don’t know how widespread the information is yet. I’m a representative from UA looking into one of our students, Midoriya Izuku. Naoki-san said you were a former teacher of his.”
“Oh, yes, I was,” Morita responded in a way that didn’t reveal a damn thing.
“How did Midoriya behave while under your watch?” he asked, hoping to keep focus on Izuku and not the school.
“Is he under some sort of investigation?” Morita asked incredulously.
“Legally, I can neither confirm nor deny that, but I will say there are a few things about him that don’t add up on paper,” he gave a calculated response.
“Hm… well, he was pretty unremarkable as far as I can remember. He wasn’t very athletic, kind of a wallflower. I was really surprised to hear he got into UA, the whole staff was, we thought it was a joke, but well, good for him, I suppose, right?” he said with a nonchalant smile.
Morita was not talking about Izuku the same way that Naoki was, he didn’t seem to have any sort of ill will at all. So this left 3 options: one, this man was an incredible actor, two Shota had completely misread the situation and any perceived biases that the staff had against Midoriya, or three, this man was completely oblivious and genuinely had no clue what Shota was trying to get at. He was leaning toward option number three, maybe it would help to lead him by the hand a bit more.
“His file lists a troubling history of disciplinary actions. Did you witness anything like that?”
“Oh yeah, he tended to rile up the other kids whenever he did talk to them… which tended to end up in fights. He never seemed to learn his lessons,” he said with a good-natured laugh.
“Did that ever happen in your classes?”
“Did it? Let me think… oh yeah, yeah, I had to send him to the nurse once and he ended up out of school for a week! I feel kind of bad about that one now, but he was a stubborn kid and wouldn’t let me see the injury so there wasn’t much I could do.”
“Do you remember what caused the injury?” Shota asked, doing his level best to not forcibly jog this man’s memory.
“I…hm. We were out here when it happened, I remember that. He was… yeah he was covering it with his arms and he refused to move them so it was on his chest, maybe a broken rib? I don’t remember it was years ago at this point. The nurse might remember, you could try asking her– Oh damnit did they just score again, did I miss a touchdown? What are we at then like 12-6? NO NO NO, GIVE IT ANOTHER GO, SECOND YARD LINE,” Morita mused half to himself, and half to Shota before shouting directions at his class.
“Did I miss a score? They always forget about the PATs… those are 2– no, 1? Wait…” he continued mumbling.
Shota had no clue what he was talking about and it only seemed like Morita himself only half knew what he was talking about. He was counting on his fingers and looking up at the clouds with a furrowed brow like he was putting a lot of effort forth in the proceedings. Yeah, it seemed like option number three, this man is a dumbass, was the most likely answer.
“Thank you for your time Morita-san,” he dismissed himself with no preamble.
Morita just waved him off as he continued his intense mental maths. Surely, the nurse would have a more detailed memory of injuries that happened under her watch. He made his way back to the front of the school where he had seen a sign pointing toward the nurse’s office and soon came face to face with a woman who could have passed for Chiyo’s evil twin. She was a short stout old woman with her greying hair pulled back into a bun and she had a scowl that seemed to be permanently etched into her face.
“Midoriya? Yes, I remember him, always getting into trouble,” she said when he explained why he was disturbing her.
“So I have heard. Do you remember the incident that happened three years ago? We’re trying to clear up allegations at the moment. He was injured in gym class and sent here then you granted him leave for a week,” he prompted.
“Oh that, yes. I think it was a burn, a quirk mishap, I don’t really know. His mother is a nurse, she took care of it,” she answered without looking up from her computer, she was doing a passible impression of someone who was diligently working but he could see the reflection of a game of solitaire in her glasses.
A burn from a “quirk mishap” that resulted in Ivy taking a week off of patrol of their own volition? Yes, he’s sure that Izuku’s mother took very good care of that from across the ocean. Any further interaction with this woman was going to result in Shota screaming at her for incompetence at best and malicious negligence at worst, so he elected to cut his questioning off there.
“Thank you for your time Shishido-san.”
She just hummed in response and didn’t bother with any sort of polite dismissal. Why the hell was she still working this job that she clearly had no interest in? She looked like she was primed to retire 15 years ago. Whatever, it didn’t matter– well it did, but thinking about things that were just going to piss him off more wasn’t helpful so he brushed the thought away.
He still had time to talk to a few more people, but it was starting to seem like he wasn’t going to get much more information without a warrant. He didn’t usually have much of an issue putting aside his feelings and playing whatever role was required to get the information he needed, but he was too personally invested in this case. It seemed he didn’t have the strength of will required to lay back and agree with all these people about how Izuku was such a nuisance.
One more person, he could talk to one more person and then he’d leave.
Izuku’s previous homeroom teacher seemed as good a choice as any, so he made his way to the classroom listed. He knocked briefly and then opened the door, not bothering to wait for an answer. A blonde man was sitting at the front of a class who appeared to be taking a test if the volume level was anything to go by.
“Ogami-san?”
“Yes?” the man in question looked him up and down with mild disdain.
“I’m a representative from UA, I have some questions for you. I trust your class will remain on their best behavior if you step out for a moment,” he spoke up with a clear threat in his tone as he looked over the group of students.
Most of them looked suitably spooked but he could see a few faces glancing around as if they were searching for an ally to cause trouble with.
“Of course, that’s up to them, I’ll be sure to let you know if they decide to break that trust,” he added, flaring his quirk up for a split second; long enough to threaten but not long enough for anyone to realize what his quirk actually did.
The few students who had been looking around resolutely settled their gazes on the papers in front of them after that. Good.
Ogami shot a look over his class, seemingly scanning it for trouble, before deciding that Shota’s threats appeared to be working as intended. Shota ducked back out into the hallway and waited for the other man to join him. The man had already judged Shota based on his appearance, so he didn’t have high hopes for his moral integrity. He didn’t expect to come out of this conversation any less angry than he’d entered it.
“Hello…?”
“Aizawa.”
“Hello, Aizawa-san. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I have concerns about one of my students, records not quite adding up on paper, things swept under the rug, stuff like that. I was told you were his homeroom teacher last year,” he baited the hook again through figurative gritted teeth.
“Oh, yes I was. Both students from Aldera Jr. High came from my class, actually,” he said smugly as if the stuffy academic had anything to do with his students passing the hero course’s entrance exam, “Those two were always at each other's throats, I’m not surprised things haven’t changed. I assume you’re talking about Midoriya?”
Bakugo, how had he already forgotten about Bakugo? God, with everything going on, the bullying at the beginning of the year had completely slipped his mind. It seemed so trivial in comparison to everything else. It was Bakugo, wasn’t it? The burn that had Ivy out of commission for a week… Bakugo had done that. He had hurt Izuku badly enough that he’d forced him away from the only things that made him happy.
“Yes, I am,” he forced out a reply.
“Hm, figures. The boy was a habitual liar, always riling his classmates up. He pretended to be quirkless for 11 years and didn’t have any friends because of it. I’m not really sure why he did it; of all the things to lie about, right? There's something to be said about dedication, I suppose. I assume it was for attention, but why he’d want the attention that being a Null gave him is beyond me. He’s a very troubled individual and no amount of intervention seemed to help,” Ogami ranted.
“He pretended he was quirkless…?” he trailed off, his mind too overwhelmed with the current of vitriol spewing from this man’s mouth.
“Yeah, it was the strangest thing! When we all saw the sports festival we were speechless, half of us still thought he was lying about getting into UA in the first place. I mean the kid was spineless, he let everyone walk all over him for years and he could’ve flicked them down the block! Maybe he just wanted to be an underdog or he liked playing the victim or something, I really don’t know; I’m not a psychologist, but he’s certainly one of the strangest kids I have ever worked with and I’ve been at this for over 20 years,” he said with a laugh.
Shota had to bite down on his tongue hard enough that he tasted blood to keep himself from outwardly reacting to Ogami’s words. This was so clearly not the Izuku he knew. The way this man spoke about him with such disdain made his skin crawl. What did he mean he pretended to be quirkless? And why the hell did this man think it was appropriate to call a child a slur in any context? Moreover, what the fuck did he mean that no amount of intervention helped? Any amount of intervention would have helped!
God, he needed to get evidence out of this man, an admission, anything , but his hands were clenched into fists and it was taking all he had not to punch him in the face. Okay, okay, deep breath in, think like a bigot, deep breath out. The awkward silence was stretching on too long, he needed to play into it or he was going to lose his chance.
“That doesn’t sound like the kid I have in my class, there’s something off about him though so I don’t doubt it. I’ve been running myself ragged trying to deal with his… eccentricities, but I’m at my wit’s end. I would have just expelled him by now, but you saw the sports festival, he’s got an incredible quirk, I'd hate to see it go to waste, how did you keep him in line?” he asked hoping that he kept the anger from seeping out in his tone.
“Oh, well, his peers did most of the work, he made a social pariah out of himself and we generally just left them to it. I feel kind of bad about it in hindsight– he’s clearly mentally disturbed, putting himself through all that for no good reason. It took a whole village as the saying goes, but I suppose your village doesn’t have the same motivations now that he’s dropped the act. Have you spoken to his parents? They might have a better idea.”
Blatant admission of negligence… good, great, that was… wonderful. Though it didn’t excuse anything, he was starting to understand why Bakugo acted the way he did.
“We’ve been in contact, but I can’t speak so candidly about his issues with them,” he lied through his teeth.
“Oh yeah, parents with their rose-colored glasses. ‘No there’s nothing wrong with my little terror’ ” he said in a mocking tone, “That makes sense if he’s getting enabled at home… anyway, I should get back to my class, I trust them about as far as I can throw them. Did you need anything else?”
“Nothing urgent, Naoki has my contact information if you can think of any helpful tips,” he reluctantly admitted.
Ideally, he would never hear from or see this man again unless it was in a courtroom, but if he wanted to offer more evidence, then who was Shota to stop him?
“Understood, good luck with that one,” Ogami said with a laugh and ducked back into his classroom.
If that man didn’t lose his license at the very least by the end of this case, Shota was going to kill him himself. Why was this school employed by misanthropes and idiots? Why would Izuku “pretend to be quirkless” and why did everything in that kid's life have to be so remarkably fucked up?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
💩 🤜 🪭
Chapter 155: Questions and Non-Answers
Notes:
Shout outs to the usual suspects (Penny & Woomy)
CWs
Vague mentions of partial nudity (humorous), gore, and past abuse
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Setting aside his confusion on why Izuku would pretend to be quirkless left him with a burning pool of guilt and rage in his stomach. He had forced Izuku to sit right behind someone who had put scars on his body. He had forced him to spend seven hours of his day in the same room as someone who tormented him. He had allowed things to get to the point where that student nearly killed him.
Burns, why did it have to be burns? Burns were some of the most painful injuries Shota could think of and they had plagued Izuku for so long. He hadn’t forgotten the uncharacteristic panic on Ivy’s face after he had kicked the door into that flame-filled room they had gotten trapped in during the Yakedo raid. They had been shut in a cupboard for hours hiding from a man with a fire quirk and they never stopped fighting. That kid had been through too much.
Shota had taken the latter half of the day to go investigate Aldera and he’d made it back home before Hizashi and Izuku, so he found himself staring at the droplets of water sliding their way down the shower wall. He was too angry right now, he couldn’t let Izuku see him like this. For once he was hoping that the kid’s track record of getting home and shutting himself in his room would be reliable. He had heard Zashi obnoxiously calling out “Honey, I’m home!” about five minutes ago, so he knew he didn’t have long before he came busting through the bathroom door. With a sigh, he turned the faucet off and stepped out of the shower.
He was glad he brought his towel out to the bedroom because Hizashi chose the exact moment he exited the bathroom to swing the bedroom door open.
“Christ, Zash, would it kill you to knock?” he snipped at them after they quickly shut the door behind themself.
“It’s my own room!” they argued petulantly.
“And I’m not trying to flash the whole hallway.”
“I don’t mind,” they replied with a shit-eating grin and a cartoonish eyebrow raise.
He shot them a glare, stepped into his closet, and shut the door behind himself to change. He could hear muffled arguments about ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ from the other side of the door but he had no issues ignoring them. Regardless of his knowledge of what Shota had been doing earlier, Zashi always knew when he was upset, so he had no doubt that they were just trying to lift his mood and make him laugh, but now wasn’t really the time.
He got dressed quickly and reentered the bedroom to see Zashi perched on the ottoman at the end of the bed patiently waiting for him. They smiled a little sadly at them to let him know they were ready to listen.
“I don't have a good feeling about that school,” he started.
“Did you expect to?” Zashi asked skeptically.
“No, but you know how he is, he’s too smart for his own good. He probably could have flown under UA’s radar if not for exacerbating circumstances. I guess I was just hoping it was well-meaning people falling short,” he admitted.
“But you don’t think that’s the case anymore?” they pressed.
“No, I don’t. They all had this attitude about him, they all expected that I was investigating him , not the school. Like I was trying to get him kicked out of UA or something. One of them– well, it’s not spelling anything good. I’m getting a warrant, I don’t want to give them time to get suspicious in case they are hiding something.”
“Alright, that sounds smart. What else? I have a feeling that’s not all,” they replied.
Shota hesitated before explaining. He knew Hizashi needed to know what was going on but some stupid part of him didn’t want to tell them. He already failed to protect Izuku from what happened, he felt like he needed to at least save Zashi from the truth.
“The injury that was on his file, none of them had much to say about it. It happened in gym class and apparently, he didn’t let anyone look at it, likely because it was bad enough that he knew he’d be sent to the hospital. He somehow weaseled his way into convincing them to turn him over to his mother’s care since they knew she was a nurse, which obviously never happened.”
“Okay, that seems like some serious negligence,” they agreed.
“Yes, that’s my point, they just told me all of that like it wasn’t an issue,” he stressed.
“Wait, how did he get burned in gym class?” Hizashi doubled back.
Shota took a deep breath in and let out a sigh as he sunk down into the office chair that had been relocated to their room after Izuku moved in.
“A ‘quirk accident,’” he said, putting it in air quotes to communicate that he didn’t buy that story for a second.
“Why’d you say it like that?”
“Do you remember Bakugo’s behavior at the beginning of the year?”
He saw the realization dawn on Hizashi’s face; the horror and fury that he had been stewing in for the past two hours was mirrored perfectly.
“You think Bakugo did that?” they asked, clearly hoping that wasn’t the case.
“He was out for a week with a burn, not just any old quirk can do that. I haven’t looked into the registry for his other classmates’ quirks but it lines up…” he trailed off.
“What are you still not telling me?” they pressed.
“I spoke to his previous homeroom teacher and he claimed that Izuku ‘pretended to be quirkless for 12 years’… He called him a– he called him the same thing Bakugo called him on the first day of classes,” he explained, finally letting his face distort with disgust like he had been stopping it from doing when talking to the staff at Aldera.
“He what? Wait someone on staff called him– an adult called him that?” they asked incredulously.
“Yes, openly and casually directly to my face after I had introduced who I was,” he replied, relieved to have someone reacting like they were supposed to react to that information.
“What the… none of this makes sense,” Zashi trailed off as he looked at nothing trying to scrounge up a logical explanation written between the lines.
“I’m aware,” he replied tensely.
Hizashi’s mouth distorted into a grimace, but they didn’t say anything.
“Why are you making that face?” he pushed.
“Cause you’re not going to want to hear what I have to say,” they answered.
He reluctantly shot them a face that said ‘just tell me.’
“We need to talk to him about this,” they said sympathetically.
He closed his eyes and took in a deep exhausted breath.
“You’re just going to be hitting your head against a wall if you don’t. You can’t ask anyone at the school until you get a warrant, Bakugo’s certainly not going to tell you, and you shouldn’t wait and go in blind if there’s a possibility that they could hide evidence,” they argued.
“I didn’t say you were wrong, you don’t need to sell me on it. I just… god, this is all such a fucking mess,” he said as he scrubbed his hands over his face.
They sat in tense silence for a moment before Shota got to his feet and made his way for the door.
“Wait, you’re going now?” Zashi asked surprised.
“I’m not turning this into another several week ordeal,” he answered.
“Do you want me to come with?”
That was a good question. He was angry right now and he didn’t see that changing any time soon, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hide that from Izuku, not completely. It would probably be better to have Zashi there to balance him out.
“I… yeah, call him out to the living room, make sure he’s got everything due tomorrow done first.”
***
Something was going on, Izuku didn’t need to be a genius to notice that. Eraser had left school early today for something and now he was hiding away in his bedroom. If it had anything to do with him, then he didn’t want to know so he firmly shut the observations out of his mind and started working on his homework.
He didn’t even get 15 minutes into it before there was a knock at the door. He was surprised to see it wasn’t Eraser, it was Mic.
“Hey, Kiddo. Whatcha workin’ on?” he asked.
“Just the essay for e-ethics.”
“That’s not due for a week, right?”
“Um, yeah… I just wanted to g-get a head st-start,” he answered with a blush.
“Nothing wrong with that! Good thinkin’ ahead. You have anything you still gotta do for tomorrow?”
Oh god, what was he hedging around? He wished they would just get to the point.
“No, the next thing d-due isn’t til Monday.”
“Jeez, kid, you’re on top of things. Don’t tell your friends but I was always a procrastinator,” Mic said in a stage whisper, “I didn’t learn to get ahead of things like that until I was nearly done with college.”
“Your s-secret’s safe with me,” he replied with a little laugh.
“D’ya mind stepping away from that essay for a bit?” they asked hesitantly.
Gah, what now? That was his ‘we need to talk’ tone. They hadn’t used that since they dragged him to get a trim, started forcing him to stop taking showers at school, and actually use the fancy expensive shampoo that they had gotten him here. Sure his hair was more manageable than it had ever been in his life, but it still felt wrong. He didn’t like using up their hot water and making them spend their money on him.
“Uh, no that’s f-fine,” he lied.
“We wanted to talk to you in the living room,” he explained with an apologetic smile.
We? Fuck, what was such a big issue that it required both of them? Did he do something wrong? Did he not clean the bathroom right? Did he forget his dishes? Did he leave his shoes on again? Did he do all of those things in rapid succession?
“You’re not in trouble,” Mic assured him.
The reassurance didn’t help in the slightest, he was never not in trouble, he had never not been in trouble. Wait, did this have to do with what Eraser was doing after all? Goddamnit, that was even worse. He wished he could just jump out the window, but he obediently followed Mic out into the living room instead. Eraser was already sitting in his usual spot and Mic was taking his place next to him so Izuku sat down in the armchair closest to the guest room.
“I paid a visit to your Junior High this afternoon–” Eraser started.
Izuku didn’t even hear the end of the sentence before his blood stopped pumping through his veins with all the force of a truck hitting a brick wall. He commanded his heart to continue beating through sheer force of will and tried to cover up his momentary episode, but it was too late. Eraser had stopped talking and they were both looking at him with a concerned expression.
“You aren’t in trouble, Sho just has a few questions,” Mic said once Izuku’s hearing came back online.
Not in trouble? Not in trouble?! All Might was going to kick his ass, they were going to find out about his quirk and then they were going to– No. No. They were not going to find out about anything, he had a contingency plan for this already, just stick to the script, Izuku.
“Ok-kay,” he nodded shakily.
Letting his actual fear come out a bit would sell his story. Everything was fine, this was going to work, it was a good plan. All Might said this was a good plan.
The two of them spared a glance at each other before Eraser spoke again.
“I didn’t get the chance to talk to many people but I spoke with the nurse and one of the PE teachers about an injury you sustained on campus three years ago,” Eraser continued.
Oh god, not that. Fuck fuck fuck why did it have to be that?
“They claimed there was a quirk accident that led to you being injured enough to be granted a week off of school… I know you and Bakugo went to the same Jr. high and had a rough history, please be honest with me, did Bakugo do that to you?” Eraser asked.
Jesus fucking Christ, why now? Why did they have to dredge this back up now? Kacchan was leaving him alone, he hadn’t spoken a word to him since the sports festival! They were fine, everything was fine! Why, why, why?
“It was– he didn’t m-mean t-to,” he stuttered out inelegantly
“But he did do it?” Eraser interrupted, disappointment evident in the line of his shoulders.
“He d-didn’t m-mean to, he’s b-been better–”
“Kid, better isn’t good enough he–”
“No! No, he’s n-not he just– n-no one ever t-told him n-no b-before you. He l-listened, he hasn’t caused any p-problems since… since the…” Izuku trailed off, his mind getting a bit lost in the memories.
“Kiddo, no one should have had to tell him that treating you like that was wrong,” Mic said kindly once Izuku stopped talking.
They weren’t going to let this go, not unless they had more context. It wasn’t Kacchan’s fault, not really. As much resentment as he held for his former friend, he knew it wasn’t his fault he turned out like this. Everyone encouraged him, he was taught to hate like that. Kacchan had been working his whole life to get into UA just like Izuku had been, if that was taken away from him now, he would be so completely and thoroughly crushed. He couldn’t do that to Kacchan. It had only been a few months and he’d changed so much, he could be a hero and a damn good one, Izuku couldn’t let some Null hold him back from his future.
“I didn’t st-stop him, n-no one st-stoped him. It’s n-not his f-fault he–”
“Why?” Eraser interrupted him.
“Wh-what?”
“None of this makes sense to me. Why didn’t anyone stop him and why did he call you what he called you on the first day of class?”
Okay, yep, here it goes. Deep breath Izuku, stick to the script.
“I– My q-quirk is um… It didn’t really w-work,” he started the explanation.
“It didn’t work?” Eraser pressed.
“It was t-too m-much for my b-body to handle, I wasn’t st-strong enough so it b-broke my b-bones if I tried to use it– it st-still does if I’m not careful. Th-the entrance exam and the USJ I, um, I over d-did it that’s wh-why I– But im g-getting better! I’m not– I can use it m-more, I’m still t-trying to–”
He didn’t realize he had looked down at the floor as he talked until Mic spoke up.
“Kiddo, it’s okay, we know you’re trying, we just didn’t realize how much of a struggle that’s been for you,” he tried to calm.
He risked a glance over to Eraser and he almost wished he hadn’t. He looked angry, but the expression faded the moment they made eye contact. He didn’t know whether he preferred the anger to be aimed at him or at what had happened to him in the past. He knew that Eraser was on a bit of a crusade with his case, he knew that Eraser cared about him, that he was angry that the things that had happened happened at all. Hell, Izuku would have done the same thing should their positions have been swapped, but this wasn’t worth it. There were too many people against him in this and it was pointless to try and bring them all to “justice.” Plus they weren’t even wrong, he was a Null.
“So everyone thought you were quirkless until UA?” Eraser asked tensely.
“I, um, yeah, I g-guess,” he answered.
“What changed?
“I p-practiced, I got st-stronger so that I could u-use it, but I m-mean no one would have b-believed it, it was easier to j-just play along I couldn’t r-risk drawing attention to myself. I d-didn’t mean for it to– I n-never told, um, B-Bakugo so he th-thought I was lying to m-make him l-look stupid. He’s been b-better, he really has,” he insisted, though it sounded weak to his own ears.
***
Shota felt the missing puzzle piece fall into place. It was all starting to make sense. It didn’t make the situation any better, no, it was still awful, but at least it made sense. He remembered Ivy saying something about having broken bones before on several occasions, so he guessed he had an answer to that now. It also made sense why Izuku was convinced he would never be a hero and why he was so focused on patrolling, he was trying to get stronger. Was increased strength training his ‘day job?’ He was probably calling off patrol so often to nurse the injuries caused by trying to figure out his quirk all on his own. Did he– never mind, that was besides the point right now, he could sort that out later.
What’s important right now is that Izuku had been living in close proximity to his bully for months and they hadn’t done a damn thing about it.
“I understand that the entirety of the blame can’t be put on Bakugo’s shoulders, but Hizashi’s right, he should know better than to treat people like that. Do you really think he deserves to be a hero after everything he’s done?”
“He’s ch-changing, he’s d-different now,” Izuku insisted weakly.
Shota could imagine the thoughts running through Izuku’s mind, he could imagine the guilt that Izuku would feel if Bakugo was expelled on his behalf. Both him and Hizashi were too empathetic for their own good, they were so stubborn in seeing the best in people. In his eyes, Bakugo did not deserve his spot in the class, there were a thousand bleeding hearts out there like Hizashi and Izuku that deserved it more than him, but Izuku had already had so much agency taken away from him. Shota wasn’t the one who got hurt here, Izuku was; so long as Bakugo continued to not pose a threat to Izuku’s wellbeing, it should be Izuku’s choice what happens to him.
“Alright,” he decided.
Both Hizashi and Izuku looked at him with surprise on their faces.
“I will be watching him, if he steps a toe out of line he is gone. I don't think he deserves his place in my class, but this is your choice. So long as his behavior remains cordial he can stay, but if he steps so much of a toe out of line, he’s gone. I am not going to let him hurt you again,” he said resolutely.
Hizashi shot him a smile that said they approved of his decision and Izuku stared at him like a gaping fish. Shota wasn’t sure whether the part that surprised him was giving him the choice or an adult assuring him that they wouldn’t stand by and let him get hurt, but either way, it made his stomach churn. Common courtesy should not be so foreign.
***
Izuku got out of the living room as quickly as he could. He had to warn Kacchan, right? This was bad, he would never forgive himself if Kacchan got expelled. God, he didn’t even want to think about what Kacchan would become if he had his dream ripped away from him. Izuku couldn’t let that happen.
Yeah, he definitely needed to warn Kacchan. He needed to make a plan.
He sat down heavily in his desk chair and let his forehead hit the table with a thump. Why did everything have to be such a goddamn mess all the time?
***
Somehow Shota left that conversation with more questions than he had going in.
Why would his school have assumed that he was quirkless? There are plenty of people out there with unusable quirks– well, not plenty, but it wasn’t unheard of. Aldera should have received Izuku’s records listing his quirk just like UA had. Did all of this really come down to misfiled paperwork? Shota supposed it was possible that the staff was too bigoted to listen to Izuku and his mother was too negligent to advocate for him, but something about that still didn’t make sense to him.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Hizashi spoke up.
“I… I don’t know, it just doesn’t make sense,” he mused more to himself than to them.
“Bigots don’t have a tendency to make sense, babe,” they countered.
“No, that’s not– never mind. I don’t know yet, I need to look into some things first.”
“Alright, just let me know if you need to bounce ideas around,” he offered, pausing for a moment before continuing more hesitantly, “I think we need to talk about things going forward though. If his previous school thought he was quirkless, then I highly doubt he has had any sort of quirk counseling, and there’s also the issue of regular counseling… things keep piling up. I think I’m going to talk to him about it tomorrow– obviously I don’t want to force him, but he needs help, Sho.”
“God, I know, but he’s going to hate it,” he groaned.
“That’s fine. He doesn’t need to like it. Keeping everything undisturbed might seem better, but it isn’t going to help him in the long run, you know that. It will probably make things worse, but that’s what he needs, he needs to feel everything he’s been repressing so he can move past it, otherwise, he’s just going to be lugging it around for the rest of his life. He’s had two months to settle, it’s time to get to work,” they explained confidently.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he admitted.
“I always am,” they replied with a smirk.
Shota just rolled his eyes at them and let himself fall back into his thoughts. There was still a piece missing from this puzzle and he was going to find it.
***
Katsuki was leaving UA after another uneventful day when he heard something very unexpected.
“Kacchan!” he heard the only person who had ever called him that whisper shout at him from down a disused hallway.
Sure enough, Deku was standing there waving him over and looking around like a weasel peeking out of their borough, like someone was about to come over and bite his head off at any minute. This might as well happen, he had more than a few questions for the runt anyway.
“What?” he barked back.
As he had expected, Deku clammed up and looked around again to make sure no one was watching them. The fuck was he so afraid of? He had the nerve to shush him before waving him over again.
“Don’t fucking shush me, Deku,” he spat back but followed down the hall regardless.
“Kacchan, please, this is serious, just listen to me–”
“I’m not going to listen to you, you’re going to listen to me, what the fuck is going on with you? Where the hell did that quirk come from? You owe me an explanation after–”
“Aizawa-sensei knows about wh-what you did in m-middle school,” Deku cut him off.
…Shit.
Wait, no, he would have expelled him already if he was going to be expelled, right? What the hell was Deku trying to “warn” him about?
“Okay, and?” he shot back.
“Kacchan he’s g-going to expel you if you–”
“I know. The jackass has made that pretty damn clear,” he cut him off.
Where the hell did Deku get off in playing the hero, acting like he was saving Katsuki from expulsion? Nerd never knew how to mind his own goddamn business and now he was up on his high horse poking his nose where it didn’t belong again.
“No, this is re-recent, he j-just talked to me y-yesterday,” Deku insisted.
He remembered the last time that Hobo-sensei had pulled him aside for a talk. It had not been pleasant. He had called him aside before classes started the day after their first training with All Might when he had gone up against Deku and lost. He was already in a bad enough mood and getting berated again didn’t help that.
***
“It is the first week of class and this is the second time we have met concerning your behavior,” Hobo-sensei pointed out the obvious.
Katsuki didn’t bother giving that a response.
“Strike one and two are gone, the only reason you are still here is out of my hands. Another strike and it becomes my decision again; I assure you, you will not like my decision,” he stated flatly with a sharp undertone of anger.
Why was he threatening him? All Might already chewed him out. How many times did they need to beat a dead horse? He maintained eye contact both because he wasn’t a coward and because it was keeping him from rolling his eyes.
“It seems like you aren’t taking this seriously, allow me to spell it out for you. If Midoriya hadn’t dodged out of the way he would have been a charred and unrecognizable corpse and you very well could have been crushed under the rubble you created. This isn’t a slap on the wrist, should Midoriya have the mind to do so, he could press charges against both you and the school and I have no doubt the court would rule in his favor. It’s difficult to charge a minor with something so serious as attempted murder, but with the right jury and the right lawyers, it would stick. You nearly killed another student, do you understand that Bakugo?” Aizawa spoke slowly and calmly, letting each word brand itself onto his brain.
He remembered Deku’s charred skin, the way it looked so warped and wrong. He remembered the smell too, the sweet nitroglycerin mixed with overcooked meat, he remembered the dreams he had for years after the fact where Deku’s skin was so disfigured that it sloughed off him as he gurgled and choked on the blood caught in his throat.
That– that wasn’t real. That didn’t happen. Deku was fine, he dodged, he was fine. Everything was… fine.
“Yes, Sensei,” he choked out between clenched teeth.
“Good, you’re dismissed,” Aizawa replied cooly, glaring at him silently as he stumbled awkwardly out of his seat and through the door.
***
No, he was not looking to have another talk with Hobo-sensei.
“Mind your own damn business, Deku,” he sneered and stomped off.
He didn’t care about whatever the hell Deku was trying to warn him of, he wasn’t going to stick around and let the freak talk down to him. He was so deep in the teacher’s pockets that he was untouchable. Being seen with him in a secluded hallway didn’t exactly sound like a good idea, it would be better if Katsuki just ignored him entirely. If he never talked to Deku at all then no one could accuse him of whatever the hell they were trying to accuse him of.
***
That could have gone better, though, given the track record between the two of them, Izuku reasoned that it could have gone much worse. There were a few moments when Kacchan’s sneer dropped enough for him to hope that his message had gotten through, but he supposed only time would tell. He had done all that he could do at least.
Though the moment had passed, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. If Kacchan actually got expelled, he’s not sure what he would do, the guilt would be– god he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was lost in his thoughts all the way through the commute home and even still as he sat at his desk. Part of him wanted to just let it happen, but he knew he wasn’t going to do that, he couldn’t just do nothing.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a knock at his door.
“Heya, Kiddo, do ya have a minute?” Mic asked after he called them in.
He had to stomp down the urge to groan in exasperation.
“Y-yeah, what’s up?”
“I wanted to check in with you. A lot’s been happening lately; it’s definitely been the most eventful semester I’ve had in a while,” they commented pleasantly.
He was inclined to agree, but the amount of bullshit going on around him seemed pretty par for the course at this point.
“Yeah, it’s been kinda c-crazy, I g-guess,” he agreed regardless.
“You seemed a little lost in your head earlier,” they observed.
He knew they were trying to get him to open up and talk about his feelings or whatever, but he’d honestly rather try to have a civil conversation with Kacchan right now than talk about how he was feeling. He just hummed in response in a way that didn’t really confirm or deny Mic’s statement.
“You doing alright?” they asked directly.
The most honest answer to that question would probably just be incoherently screaming at the top of his lungs, and even though Mic would probably understand that, he decided a lie was easier.
“I’m f-fine.”
Mic looked disappointed at his response, but at this point, his desire to be done with this conversation outweighed his desire for them to not be disappointed in him, which was saying quite a lot because the split-second frown on their face had him feeling like ants were crawling under his skin.
“Y’know it’s alright if you’re not. No one is expecting you to be alright, so excuse me if I don’t believe that,” they pressed.
He looked away from them and down toward the papers he didn’t remember taking out of his bag. Why did they have to push this? He didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that, so he didn’t say anything.
“Talking about it will help, I think you know that already,” Mic insisted softly.
“W-what is there t-to talk about? You a-already know what h-happened,” he found himself spitting back at them a little too harshly.
God, he needed to calm down, they were just trying to help.
“Sho and I have practically been glued together at the hip for 15 years and I still need to talk things through with him before I feel better. Just because we were both there doesn’t mean that we don't need to talk it out. Besides that, I don’t really know what you’ve been through. I’ve got the cliff notes and of course, I’m not owed that story, but I’d be more than happy to listen if you’re willing to talk.”
He bit his tongue and took a moment to breathe before he answered again.
“I d-don’t have anything to s-say. It s-sucked, and it’s o-over,” he replied calmly.
Mic still frowned at that response.
“You don’t have to talk to me or Sho, but you have to talk to someone. If you leave all of that stuff sitting around up there you’re never going to move past it. It’s like painting over a nail in the wall; you can slap as many coats of paint over it as you want to, and maybe you’ll get to the point where you can’t even tell what's under there anymore, but it’s still gonna be there. The fewer layers of paint you have to peel back and touch up, the easier it will be to fix the problem…” he trailed off and let his words linger for a moment before he spoke again, “We want you to see a counselor.”
He couldn’t hide the visceral reaction he had to that suggestion, he grimaced violently and Mic gave him a sad smile in response.
“I know, I know. No one ever wants to hear that, but kiddo, you gotta know what happened to you was messed up. We know you’re not okay, no one would be okay after going through all of that. We just want what’s best for you. Miyoshi-san put together this list for us, I want you to go through it, maybe do some research into a few of the names, and pick one. I highlighted the one Sho and I see, obviously you don’t have to go with her, but we’d both recommend her, she’s good,” they spoke gently as if that would make the words feel less like a smack in the face.
He had his jaw clenched so hard that he felt like he was going to chip a tooth. Why were they even doing this? It’s not like he could even tell a shrink what happened to him, he couldn’t tell anyone the whole of what happened to him for Christ’s sake! This was nothing but a waste of time and effort, surely they could see that, right?
He didn’t say anything as Mic set the list down on his desk
“I’m sorry, kiddo. I know hearing that it’s for your own good doesn’t make it any easier, but it is. You’ll be better for it.”
He knew that mic was looking at him, he was expecting a response or something, but his eyes were steadfastly trained on the sheet of paper in front of him. There was no point in trying to voice his thoughts on the matter and he knew that so he kept his mouth shut.
“I’m gonna get dinner started, It’ll probably be ready ‘round 6,” they said awkwardly.
They were clearly hoping that a less charged subject might elicit a response, but he knew nothing kind was going to be said if he allowed himself to speak. Thankfully Mic seemed to understand that because he didn’t push it. He heard the door click shut and for the second time in as many days, he let his forehead hit the desk with a heavy thump.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 156: ♫ He’ll Bust Your Knee Caps oooo wop de doo wop de doooo ♫
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny Muffin and Woomy for beta reading this one <3
CWs
mentions of past abuse
bullying
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Naomasa rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and squinted at his phone. He felt about 23% human at the moment, and he would be counting the days until he was finally promoted to chief detective so he could stop working split shifts, but he hardly knew what time it was anymore, much less what day it was. As the screen came into focus, he saw that it was a quarter to 6… pm. A perfectly acceptable time to be waking up on his day off.
With a groan, he squinted at his phone again to read the date– June 29th, only a week and 4 days until he was free of this nightmare schedule. Of course, he would then be taking on the full responsibilities as Musutafu’s chief detective, but he had to imagine that it couldn’t be worse than this.
Aizawa: (2:46 pm)
I need a warrant for Aldera Jr High ASAP
God, what the hell was going on now?
Tsukauchi: (5:52 pm)
On what grounds and how ASAP is ASAP?
He pressed send on the message, slung his legs over the side of the bed, and scrubbed the last remnants of sleep out of his eyes. For several months now he’d been waking up with the same feeling you have when you wake up from a nap you didn’t mean to take, and it wasn’t getting any easier to manage; he had no clue how Aizawa did this shit.
Incoming call from Aizawa
Speak of the devil. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before answering.
“Hello?”
“You sound like hell,” Aizawa greeted none too pleasantly.
“Thanks,” he replied just as kindly.
“How quickly can you get a warrant?”
“It depends on what for,” he answered halfway through a yawn.
“Quirk discrimination as well as criminal negligence. I went over there and talked to them yesterday. Apparently, Midoriya’s quirk was largely useless for the majority of his life, and the staff there was under the impression he was quirkless.”
Oh god, he could see it all coming down now, he knew it was only a matter of time before Aizawa found out about OFA. Well, if that didn’t wake him up, he didn’t know what would.
“I can only pin things on three of the staff there, two for negligence in regards to a grievous injury acquired on campus, and one for discrimination because he called Midoriya a word I won’t be repeating and admitted to letting his students bully him. I played along, and I don’t think they suspect they’re under investigation, but in case they do, I don’t want to give them time to sweep evidence under the rug,” Aizawa plowed through his explanation, giving Naomasa yet another thing to be incredibly concerned about.
Okay, emotional whiplash was one way to start the day. Christ, this kid’s life was a shit show.
“Alright, that… yeah, that should be enough grounds for a warrant. Unless there’s someone in immediate peril, I can’t guarantee it ‘ASAP,’ but I’ll see what I can do. Were there security cameras? What is it that you’re after?”
“Yes, there were, minimal but extant. I don’t know who all I’ll be able to implicate, but I won't know until I look, so there’s not much I can do until then; anymore poking around would be suspicious.”
“Testimony should be enough to get licenses revoked if we push hard enough, have you talked to the kid about it?”
“I… Yes, minimally. I doubt that he would be willing to give a testimony.”
That was tricky; if Midoriya didn’t speak up for himself, then they would only be able to catch the most blatant offenders.
“Well, I guess this is a conversation for after you’ve reviewed any footage they’ve got, but if you can’t get more evidence from that, then there’s not a whole lot we can do. I don’t want these people getting away with things just because they were smart enough to not do it in front of a camera. If Midoriya gives a testimony, then our case might have legs, but without that…” he trailed off, letting Aizawa draw his own conclusions.
He heard Aizawa sigh heavily on the other end of the line before he responded.
“Noted, let me know when you get that warrant,” he said, and then promptly hung up.
The conversation left him wanting to crawl back under the covers, but instead, he stood up, rummaged through his bag for his laptop, and started making coffee. He’d need to be in office to properly file the paperwork to get a warrant, but he could get the ball rolling from here.
***
Finally.
A warrant never felt so good. It took a full week, but he got one and he was about to tear that school to the ground. He didn’t bother buzzing in at the front gate, he just used his capture weapon to sling himself over it and marched straight up to the doors. The secretary gave him a confused look through the glass, but since she recognized him she just buzzed him in rather than trying to have a conversation through the crackly intercom. That was a point against her in his book; it’s not like she should be expecting to be under attack, but with the right quirk, he could be anyone, she really shouldn’t trust that he was who he appeared to be.
“Aizawa-san? How–? We weren’t expecting you today–”
“I need to speak with Naoki,” he interrupted whatever pleasant greeting she was going to regurgitate at him.
“Um, I think he might be busy right now, he usually has lunch at this time,” she tried to turn him away.
“I have a warrant,” he said, holding up the piece of paper as proof.
He watched her read through the first few lines on the page before walking around the desk and making his way toward where he remembered Naoki’s office being.
“I can find my own way,” he called over his shoulder as the woman sputtered something he didn’t bother trying to discern.
He opened the door without knocking to find Naoki tucked over a salad at his desk looking none too pleased to be so rudely walked in on.
“Excuse me? What–?”
“Give me all of the CCTV footage you have from the past 3 years and any records you have pertaining to Midoriya Izuku,” he demanded.
A look of indignation resolutely settled itself over the man’s features and he put his fork down to gesticulate aggressively as he spoke.
“I don’t have to give you anything without a–”
Shota slapped the page down onto the desk in front of him, taking great pleasure in how quickly that shut the man up and changed his tune.
“I don’t understand the hostility,” Naoki muttered under his breath.
“I’ll be sure to apologize when you prove it isn’t justified,” he replied flatly, his glare unfaltering.
He could see Naoki starting to sweat around his temples and he watched the man squirm under his scrutiny.
“We… we don’t save our CCTV footage,” he stumbled over his words, clearly lying through his teeth.
“It is required by law that you keep the last 30 days on file, why don’t you show me that and I’ll see what I can do about recovering any lost data while I’m at it?” he replied with a smile he knew damn well most people found rather disturbing.
Thankfully Naoki led the way to the security hub without another word of complaint, and as he had suspected, the man was full of shit. There were several disorganized external hard drives stored in the back of what could generously be called the IT room, it would be far more accurate to call it a closet, or even a cupboard. There was only enough room for a desk, a chair, a monitor and the oldest computer Shota had set eyes on in quite some time. It appeared as though CCTV footage was automatically being saved to an external hard drive and whenever the space ran out, they would simply throw it in a pile and replace it.
“Thank you, I’ll find you when you’re needed. Notify your staff that you are all under investigation and are not allowed to leave the prefecture without notice,” he said in a tone that clearly showed his platitudes were empty.
He sat down at the computer and shut the door in Naoki’s face, not bothering to hear if he had something else to say. Shota wouldn’t say he was great with computers, but he had spent enough of his heroics career searching through security footage to know his way around. The video quality looked like it was 480p and the cameras were motion-activated, so on a 5TB storage capacity, he figured it was safe to shuffle around to the third or fourth drive in the disorganized and unlabeled pile. Hopefully, the pile hadn’t been knocked over at any point in the last 3 years because he didn’t want to rummage through god knows how many years of old footage stored in this stack.
He plugged in the drive and was pleased to see the files were labeled by date, likely a default setting, and he had chosen one that seemed to span the majority of Izuku’s second year here. The incident with Bakugo had happened in May of that year, and there was a camera positioned at the back of the building. The distance at 480p wasn’t likely to show much detail, but if the incident was caught on camera then that would be more than enough proof that the nurse and gym teacher at the very least would be implicated in gross negligence.
The footage was, as he suspected, extremely grainy. It was also in black and white, so it was difficult to parse out which of the figures was Izuku, but after a minute, he figured it out. Body language was nigh on impossible to read from this distance, but he could see how the kid shied away from everyone. It was hard to watch, he could see how Izuku was calculating when it was safe for him to participate and when he needed to run. It made sense how Ivy was so good at risk assessment when they first met; the poor kid had been living and breathing risk assessment his whole life.
Bakugo, on the other hand, wasn’t so difficult to spot, he was always at the center of everything. Every time he started moving in Izuku’s direction, Shota cringed. He knew what was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch. Sparks were firing off from Bakugo’s hands as he sprinted toward Izuku, and that alone should have been enough for the gym teacher to intervene, but he didn’t. He could see Izuku try and brace for impact, but his efforts were completely in vain; the explosion that Bakugo let off at point-blank range was enough to throw Izuku back several meters.
Bakugo’s regret was evident even in the few grainy pixels that showed. He froze in place the moment he saw what he’d done, but he didn’t do anything else. He didn’t intervene when Morita came over, seemingly scolding Izuku, and he didn’t intervene when Izuku was sent off, presumably to walk to the nurse on his own. Morita didn’t say anything to Bakugo, and the class resumed as if nothing had happened at all.
The cameras in the hallways of the school caught much clearer pictures as they weren’t so far away. The pain Izuku was in was evident on his face as he walked to the nurse’s office. Thankfully, there was footage of him entering and exiting the room, so Shishido would have no way to argue her way out of the situation.
On his way to the locker room, Izuku stopped for a moment to assess the damage on his chest, and even though Shota only got the briefest glimpse of it, he felt sick to his stomach. The camera quality still wasn’t great, and it was still in black and white, but he could tell the injury was bad. He had to take a moment and remind himself that Izuku was alright and that this happened years ago. There were so many things that could have gone wrong with an injury like that; if it had gotten infected and he didn’t get actual medical attention, he likely would have died from it.
Shota took notes of the time stamps and locations where evidence could be pulled from and started mindlessly scrubbing through the footage again. This was work, he needed to focus.
There was no lack of instances where Izuku was mistreated in clear view of a staff member, and with every incident, he was sickened and delighted in equal measure. Of course, he wished none of this had happened in the first place, but he was glad to have the evidence necessary to start a case against this horrible excuse for a school. It was looking like a testimony from Izuku wasn’t going to be strictly necessary, but Tsukauchi was right, it would help the case immensely. If this much was caught on camera there’s no telling how much was undocumented and he couldn’t bear the thought of even a single person walking away from this with their hands clean.
As he combed through years of footage in that dingy closet, he became more and more convinced that Bakugo had no place at UA. He worked backward from the first clip he watched and saw Bakugo waiting outside the lunchroom not long after Izuku was reportedly evicted. He hid until Izuku thought he was clear of the cafeteria and then slammed his lunch onto the floor and slugged him in the face after shouting at him about something or other, he wished the CCTV had audio. Izuku didn’t do a damn thing to stop him, and he didn’t get up from the floor until a janitor found him. He couldn’t have been knocked out for that long so Shota had to assume he just didn’t have the spirit left to scoop himself up.
The janitor seemed nice enough, he cleaned up the mess and sent Izuku on his way before the swarm of kids were released from the cafeteria. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was something. It might be worth seeing if that man would be willing to share a testimony for Izuku’s sake if not his own, maybe a plea deal if Shota could find evidence of wrongdoing on his part. He set that thought aside for now, there was still a lot of footage to go through and he’d already filled a page with time stamps and notes.
Shota was nearly through the last year of tapes when something caused the door to the closet to rattle violently. He had been so focused that it was enough to make him jump, which irritated him more than he’d like to admit. He was going to ignore it, but then he heard muffled argument and the voice of a child that sounded very scared. Conscious of the fact that someone could be up against the door still, he opened it slowly, but apparently, they had moved on. There was one student shoved into the corner at the end of the hall, and three students caging them in. None of them seemed to notice him at all.
“Stop trying to deny it we all saw you trying to touch Hirota, you freak!” one of them jeered.
“I didn't– I wasn’t– I don’t even have my gloves off, guys,” the boy in the corner lifted his hands to show that his hands were in fact covered.
“Oh yeah well what about Kawasaki?”
“I was washing my hands! He startled me! It was an accident, how many times do I have to say it was an accident?!” the boy pleaded.
One of the boys who were interrogating him stepped forward with his hand raised, and that was more than enough to get Shota to intervene. He was on the ground in a cocoon of capture weapon before he made it a step closer to the other kid, and suddenly all eyes were on him.
“Which one of you wants to explain to me what is going on here?” he asked sternly, looking at the three boys closest to him.
“Who the heck are you? Let him go,” one of them sneered.
He obliged the request, quickly reeling in his scarf and sending the boy on the floor rolling harmlessly, though it was surely still unpleasant.
“I am a representative from UA. I won’t ask again, what is going on here?” he demanded.
The three boys looked at each other nervously before the ring leader stood up and dusted himself off.
“Okimoto was trying to use his quirk on Hirota, and we weren’t going to let that happen,” he said with a cocksure grin.
“Yeah, we were stopping a villain,” one of the other boys claimed.
“Is that true?” he asked the boy in the corner.
“No, sir! I never use my stupid quirk I–”
“Liar! You used it on–”
“Enough,” Shota interrupted sternly.
Of course, it was more quirk discrimination; this place was rife with it, he didn’t know what he expected. He could see Izuku’s eyes in the fear painted on that kid's face. If the teachers here weren’t going to properly educate these kids then it was up to him, wasn’t it?
“What's his quirk, what are you accusing him of?” he baited the boys.
“He’s a villain, all he can do is hurt people,” one of them chimed in.
“Yeah, if he touches you then your whole body feels like it's on fire or something, he almost killed Kawasaki,” another one claimed.
“That’s probably what he was trying to do,” the last one agreed with a sneer.
“Okimoto, have you ever purposely used your quirk against someone?” he asked calmly.
“No! I never wanted this stupid thing to begin with. I would never do that on purpose!” Okimoto insisted.
“Oh shut up Okimoto, stop pretending in front of this guy. You’re a villain and you know it!”
“He’s a villain? Really? How so?” Shota asked with mock curiosity.
“All his quirk does is hurt people!”
“So he’s a villain because of his quirk?” he asked to clarify.
They all looked at him like he was an idiot and nodded.
“I work with All Might, y’know?” he pivoted the conversation and he could see the way all four boy’s eyes lit up with interest.
“I have seen what he’s capable of firsthand; he could level a city if he wanted to, and there’s not much anyone could do to stop him. Endeavor’s the same, and I have worked with Hawks in the past as well, those three could hurt so many people– they could take over Japan if they really wanted to. Do you think they’re villains?” he asked.
The bullies looked at each other, again seeming uncertain, but the boy in the corner looked like his whole worldview had just been shattered.
“Well, that’s different! Their quirks can be used for good, what good does hurting people do?” one of them argued.
“Exactly, what good does hurting people do?” he fired their words back at them.
They were stunned for a few seconds, but it didn’t take long for them to snap out of it.
“But he’s a villain, you have to rough them up to bring them in!” the ring leader insisted.
“Yes, sometimes you do. It sounds like Okimoto has the potential to be a very effective hero then, doesn’t it?” he challenged.
They didn’t have an argument against that, but they still didn’t look convinced.
“I once worked a case where the culprit was a man whose quirk made everyone in a 10-foot radius of him relax. That sounds like such a heroic quirk, doesn’t it? It could have been, but the man decided to use it to lure people away and sell them to human traffickers. Heroic and villainous quirks are a myth, the distinction between good and bad lies solely in how you choose to use your powers. From where I’m standing, the three of you are the villains here, not Okimoto.”
He took a moment to let the message sink in for the three boys in front of him before he spoke again.
“Now, aren't you supposed to be in class?” he prompted them.
It didn't take long for them to snap out of their introspection and scramble away. He hoped that the message would stick with them, but there was only so much he could do against an entire childhood of being taught the opposite. Okimoto was still stood frozen in the corner and it looked like his eyes had gone a bit glassy, which was something that Shota politely ignored.
“You alright?” he asked.
Okimoto looked up at him and Shota could see his hands shaking. He was so young; he looked like a first-year, the same age Izuku would have been when his mother left him.
“I, um, yes, I’m alright. Thank you, sir,” Okimoto replied with a bow.
“That was basic human decency, kid. It seems startlingly absent around here, but that’s how you should expect to be treated, you don’t need to thank me for it,” he insisted; the bullies weren't the only ones who needed to relearn the way the world was supposed to work.
“Do the teachers here let them treat you like that?” he asked when it was clear that Okimoto didn’t have anything to say.
“They– well, I mean, they brought me to an empty hall for a reason, I guess,” Okimoto hedged around his answer.
“That doesn’t answer my question. If one of your teachers had walked past instead of me, would they have helped you?” he pressed.
“I, um, I don’t know. Probably, right? That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Okimoto answered sheepishly.
“You aren’t in trouble with me kid. I’m investigating this place because I met someone who used to go here who was… severely mistreated. I want to help you if I can. You should feel safe here; I want to make this a place where you feel safe.”
The kid studied his face intently, seemingly looking for a hint that he was lying, but there was nothing to find. After a moment he looked to have resigned himself to the fact that Shota was telling the truth and his expression crumpled.
“No, they– they probably wouldn’t. They don’t care,” the kid admitted weakly.
“Thank you for your honesty, Okimoto. I’m going to make this place better, alright?” he assured.
Okimoto didn’t look very convinced, but Shota supposed he would believe it when he saw it.
“Will you be safe in class?” he asked reluctantly, he didn’t expect to like the answer he got.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. They aren’t so bad when the teachers are around,” Okimoto replied.
“Alright, then go on. If they try to give you trouble, tell them you were with me,” he said with a sharp grin, knowing damn well how much every teacher in this school was scared of him right now.
The kid warily nodded his head, likely because of the vaguely murderous grin on Shota’s face, and made his way down the hall. Once Okimoto was out of sight and out of ear shot he grabbed his phone from his pocket and made a call.
“Hello?” Tsukauchi answered on the 3rd ring, thankfully not sounding like he had just woken up this time.
“I have video evidence of willful negligence on a good deal of the staff here. The school is going to need to be shut down until they can fill in the vacancies. Do you have a team you can assign to this? It’s become a case all on its own; the issues are ongoing, I witnessed them first hand,” Shota got right into it.
“I, um, yes I can find someone to take that over for you– probably Sansa, he’s got a track record with being ruthlessly thorough on quirk discrimination cases,” Tsukauchi replied with a hint of vindictive pride in his tone.
He’d worked with Sansa before and moreover, he trusted Tsukauchi’s judgement. Sansa having a mutation quirk gave him personal cause to be invested in this case as well, so Shota didn’t doubt the case was in good… paws?
“Perfect, tell him to do whatever he can to keep my student’s names out of it. I’ll talk to Nedzu about that as well. I doubt it will go past local news but I don’t want people pestering Midoriya about this. I’ll send over the list of names I have concrete evidence on. I told the principal to tell his staff that they aren’t permitted to leave the prefecture without notice but I don’t have confidence that he’ll listen to me, so if you could send Sansa over here before school lets out that would be preferable.”
“On it. Sending an email to both of you right now, send your list back on that chain. Sansa should be able to make it over there in 15 to 20,” Tsukauchi replied.
“Good,” he answered and ended the call.
He needed to get Naoki to call an assembly to look over the kids whose teachers would be abruptly departing until their parents could come pick them up. He also needed to get a staff roster so that he could assign names to faces to get Sansa moving. No one was going to be mistreated here like that ever again, not if he had anything to say about it.
***
After a volatile but thankfully brief discussion with Naoki, Shota had done everything he needed to do to get the ball rolling just in time for Sansa to show up with a few lower ranking officers. He took immense satisfaction in watching staff get filed into cruisers with cuffs on. He knew they would be held at a low bail and they would likely be out by the end of the day, but it would be a permanent mark on their record and they would never be allowed to work in education again. It wasn’t enough, but it was all the system could manage as it was, so he’d have to take what he got.
He was about to leave with a bag full of hard drives to comb through more thoroughly at home when someone stopped him.
“Excuse me? Are you the one from UA, you’re leading the investigation?” a man in coveralls asked.
Hm, this must be the janitor he’d seen on the footage earlier. He’d wanted to speak with him anyways, so now seemed as good a time as any.
“Yes, I actually had some questions for you, Kimoto-san,” Shota answered.
“Am I under investigation?” he asked defensively.
“All staff is under investigation, but that’s not why I wanted to speak with you. I’ve looked through the CCTV footage, albeit briefly, you appeared to be one of the few people I couldn’t implicate,” he said trying to keep his hopes under wraps that there was one redeemable person on staff here.
“Well that’s cause I don’t stand for their shit. I’ve been here 26 years, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. Anyone that had any decency in ‘em left a long time ago. I tried to bring it up to the school board but I was told under no uncertain terms that if I wanted to keep my job then I should keep those thoughts to myself. There’s not much I can do as a janitor, but I wasn’t just gonna leave, ‘sides I need this job anyway,” Kimoto replied.
Oh, thank god. Having an adult eye wittness on the right side of this issue could save these kids a lot of grief. If he was willing to testify in court it would be invaluable.
“Do you have documentation of this exchange? From when you filed the complains?” Shota pressed.
“I might have an email if I look. Is there anything else that could help?” Kimoto asked.
Shota gestured for the man to follow and had him sit down in one of the now empty offices nearby. He pulled his phone out in clear view, started an audio recording, and set it down on the table between them.
“Tell me everything,” he requested.
Kimoto looked happy to oblige.
***
Izuku was scrawling in the sketchbook Hitoshi had given him for his birthday when he heard a knock at the door. It wasn’t necessarily a violent knock, but it was not as gentle as it usually was when Mic or Eraser came to talk to him.
Well, it must be Eraser, actually. Mic was at the radio station prepping for this Friday’s show.
“Yeah?” he called back.
Eraser opened the door and Izuku could tell by the look on his face that he was not going to be happy about whatever he had to say.
“We need to talk, do you have a minute?” he said, confirming Izuku’s suspicions
“I, um, yeah I g-guess. T-talk about what exactly?”
“I paid Aldera another visit.”
Izuku felt his stomach drop. What did he find? Why was he so angry? Did he know he was lying about his quirk? Did he find out he really was a Null? Was he going to–
“That incident with Bakugo was not a one-time deal, I reviewed the CCTV footage,” Eraser interrupted his frantic spiraling.
Oh… okay. This still wasn’t ideal but at least it wasn’t– never mind what it wasn’t, that didn’t matter.
“I– w-well, n-no it wasn’t. I n-never said it w-was,” he replied lamely.
Eraser looked distraught in a way Izuku had hardly ever seen him. His hair was more unkempt than usual, it was obvious that he had been running his hands through it compulsively. He was wound tighter than a spring, as if he was one wrong move from losing his cool entirely; Izuku had to tread lightly.
“Then why are you so insistent against his expulsion? He abused you for years; that wasn’t bullying, Izuku, that was abuse,” Eraser shot back.
Did he just call him Izuku? He never called him that… why did– why was he so angry? More importantly, how was Izuku supposed to calm him down? He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop for months and now that it was happening he had no clue what to do.
“He’s h-he was j-just a kid, th-they didn’t th-they–”
“All of them, they all abused you, they were all complicit in a crime . What happened to you was a crime ,” Eraser firmly interrupted his pitiful argument.
He was about to say something , he didn’t know what, but he had opened his mouth to give a rebuttal when he was cut off again, this time by a loud “merrrrroww.”
Kimchi was standing between the bed and where Eraser stood at the door with her fur on end and her tail bushier than he’d ever seen it. She looked to be glaring up at him and Eraser looked down at her then back up to Izuku before his shoulders dropped and he muttered something that distinctly sounded like “goddamnit.”
He was rubbing at his temples with his middle finger and thumb with his palm covering his face, but he didn’t say anything else. Kimchi took the moment of silence as a prime time to trot over and sit down directly on top of his sketchbook.
“I’m sorry,” Eraser said when he looked back up to him.
“I should have waited until I wasn’t so angry,” he clarified when Izuku didn’t respond.
Izuku still didn’t know what to say to that. He was just sitting in his bed and staring like an idiot as Eraser walked properly into the room and sat down at his desk chair. Their positions mirrored the last conversation they had had like this in a way that Izuku very much did not appreciate. Eraser seemed to have picked up on that because he dramatically relaxed his posture, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. That was… well it still wasn’t great but it was better.
“I need you to understand that what happened to you was not okay, it was not something that should just be swept under the rug. It was morally reprehensible and literally illegal,” Eraser broke the silence calmly.
The words made it feel like there were bugs crawling under his skin. He wanted to scream that they weren’t wrong, that he was a Null, but keeping OFA a secret was more important. So, he kept his mouth shut and did his best to not think about how many people were going to be charged because of him.
“People like that aren’t just going to stop swinging because their punching bag moved on. You’re not the only one they mistreated and you won’t be the last, not unless we do something about it. I know you don’t want me to be doing this, I know you just want to pretend like it never happened, but this isn’t just about you… I met a kid today who looked like he was about to get his shit kicked in ‘cause he had a ‘villain quirk.’ I told off the other kids this time, but I’m not going to be there next time. We can’t leave his safety in the hands of people who will let that happen again,” Eraser explained.
…oh.
That… He hadn’t thought about that.
Sure some of the other students got bullied at Aldera, but the kids with weak quirks or villain quirks kind of kept to their own. It never occurred to him that he was acting as a shield for them aside from the times he was literally acting as a shield for them. God, he was an idiot. Now this kid was suffering because he never stood up for himself or told anybody, not that anyone would have listened to him of course, but he didn’t even try!
“It’s not strictly necessary to the case at this point, but it would help if I could get a testimony from you. I already got one from one of the janitors there and I was going to try to get into contact with that kid’s parents to see if I can get a proper one from him, but the more evidence we have the better. It doesn’t have to be right now either, just… think about it,” Eraser continued when Izuku didn’t respond.
Realizing that he hadn’t replied at all in quite a while, he nodded his head to show that he was still listening. That was too much to think about right now, he had just spilled his guts to Hitoshi earlier this week and Eraser said it could wait anyways.
“We still need to talk about Bakugo. The way he treated you is unacceptable,” Eraser brought the conversation back around.
God, he couldn’t just nod his way out of this one. He needed to say something, Kacchan’s future was on the line.
“H-how was he supposed to know it w-was ‘unacceptable’ if n-no one ever t-told him. You t-told him and he l-listened,” he argued.
“Kid, there’s a thousand other people out there who were gunning for his seat in this class, a thousand people who know inherently how to treat people with respect; why should he be sitting there when they aren’t?” Eraser asked, doing a poor job of keeping the exasperation out of his tone.
He could tell that there wasn’t an answer to that question that was going to convince Eraser to change his mind. If he said he couldn’t live with himself knowing he was the reason Kacchan couldn’t be a hero, he’d take that as proof that he didn’t deserve his seat; if he said that he was almost 100% sure that Kacchan would either become a vigilante (unlikely and certainly unsuccessful) or a villain (very likely and certainly successful), then Eraser would say he was unfit for heroics in the first place. All he could really do was beg or bargain.
“G-give him one more ch-chance– a t-test. He’s changed, he really has; let him p-prove it,” he pleaded.
Eraser took a deep breath and looked away from him, if that reaction was anything to go by then Izuku would guess that he was not pleased with the premise, but he didn’t immediately refuse, so it was something. He had a foothold, he needed to keep pushing.
“P-pair us up f-for something– s-somethng he can’t d-do on his own and if he w-works with m-me then that’s p-proof. He has so m-much potential, his q-quirk is–” he pressed.
“Quirks aren’t everything, hell they’re not even in the top 10 things that make a good hero. My quirk is ill suited for heroics, so is Hizashi’s. Mine doesn’t help with combat and his is damn near impossible to control but we both worked our asses off to make it; just because Bakugo got the perfect opportunity handed to him on a silver platter doesn’t mean he’s entitled to anything,” Eraser rebutted.
Alright, all that left was begging then, he supposed. He hardly had any pride left to speak of at this point so what did he have to lose?
“P-please,” he stuttered out pathetically.
Eraser just looked at him with an expression that was difficult to parse. The anger had abated but it was still there; it was sadder now though. He was studying Izuku’s face in a way that made him feel like a specimen pinned under a magnifying glass, but that meant he was thinking about it, so Izuku let him continue.
“I will be meeting with Nedzu to discuss Bakugo’s enrollment tomorrow morning, I will bring that up when we talk,” Eraser answered reluctantly after what felt like several eons of contemplation.
Izuku did his best to not let the tension in his shoulders visibly drop at that. It wasn’t a guarantee, it was a hail mary at best. It wasn’t until Eraser finally left that he allowed himself to relax, though his shoulders quickly found their way back up to where they had been and his fists seemed to refuse to leave their vice-like grip on nothing. The anger he kept stored away in jars in the back of his mind were rattling again; he wasn’t sure whether it was anger at Kacchan, Eraser, or the situation in general. However, he knew better than to go looking for that answer because the only place he would find it was on the underside of the lids.
Notes:
Thanks for reading 💃
Chapter 157: On Edge
Notes:
Shout out to the beta readers Penny, Muffin, and MVP for this chapter Woomy <3 (Also, thank Muffin for every comma in the next several chapters)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“Good morning Aizawa-kun,” Nedzu greeted him pleasantly.
“Debatable,” he shot back under his breath, knowing full well Nedzu would hear him regardless.
“I’ve made good progress on combing through any potential record of your charge’s extracurriculars . He’s quite intelligent, you know, he hardly ever let himself get caught by security cameras, even when you were in full view of them,” Nedzu ignored his dour musings.
“ I wasn’t trying to hide,” he pointed out.
“I’m aware, I was just making an observation. That intellect could be a rather deadly weapon if honed correctly,” Nedzu explained, his tone coy.
“No,” he immediately refused the request that Nedzu had yet to make.
“Oh, come now, Aizawa, he already has a class period he has no reason to be in, you said he was fluent in English, did you not? I’m sure the two of us would get along quite well.”
“Yes, like a house on fire, no doubt. Hizashi’s made him a JSL curriculum anyway, so he does have reason to be in that class,” he corrected.
“So you’re making the choice for him, curious. Your email stated your efforts to do otherwise,” Nedzu baited him.
Shota took a moment to take a deep breath before he spoke; the rat knew how to press his buttons so efficiently. Nedzu had a tendency to come on a bit strong when he found a mind he wanted to play with. He didn’t want Izuku to be overwhelmed or even worse, if Izuku didn’t mind how enthusiastic Nedzu could be, he didn’t want to see what would come from those two playing into one another.
“It is in everyone’s best interest that you two interact as little as possible,” he reaffirmed his stance.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nedzu replied with a knowing glint in his eye.
“In all seriousness, given what I have studied of Midoriya’s track record with picking up new skills, I presume he will be fluent in JSL by his second year, at which point he will have a free period. I can think of several staff members whom he could benefit from having an informal internship with, myself included, but that’s a discussion for another time. Your email sounded much more pertinent.”
“Yes, I want Bakugo gone and, frankly, I don’t care what the school board thinks.”
“But you care what Midoriya thinks,” Nedzu countered.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“So what do you propose?”
“I think we can kill two birds with one stone, Midoriya said we should test Bakugo to ‘prove he’s changed.’ Both of them– as well as several other students– are far too advanced to be challenged by those robots, the standard practical final isn’t suitable for them. I say we pair them up against a staff member instead. It ups the difficulty without posing more of a threat to their safety,” he posited.
“That is precisely what I was thinking,” Nedzu agreed with a sharp grin, “So, Midoriya and Bakugo against who? Someone they cannot hope to defeat on their own. I would say that doesn’t do much to narrow things down with the staff UA keeps, but I think we’ve both learned not to underestimate Midoriya.”
He huffed out a laugh at that. He remembered how the kid had knocked him on his ass on the third day. He’d like to say that was only possible because he hadn’t been expecting it, but Izuku’s ability to weasel his way to victory was not to be minimized. If he had to make a list of heroes he was even 95% sure Izuku had absolutely no chance of beating on his own, it wouldn’t be very long– 1v1, no hostages, nor external threats, at least.
“I’m not overly concerned with him, schooling is more of a formality at this point, he’s already got 3 and a half years of experience. As long as there’s no way for Bakugo to pass on his own then the test serves its purpose. Also, we need measures to be put in place so that there is no way for Bakugo to get the chance to hurt him, that is my one stipulation.”
“Understood, and if they pass?” Nedzu pressed.
He felt his eye twitch.
“Then Bakugo stays on his tightrope, he will still be one misstep away from expulsion,” he conceded.
“I would side with you, should you decide to expel him, you know,” Nedzu informed.
God, that was tempting, but he had told Izuku that Bakugo had one more chance, he couldn’t go back on his word. All he could do was hope that Bakugo would fail… which wasn’t a great thought for an educator to have.
“ You could expel him,” he countered.
“I could, but I trust your judgment on this,” Nedzu replied genuinely.
“How touching,” he deadpanned.
“Unless someone else comes to me with a better idea for the finals, we will be proceeding with your proposal. A meeting to finalize matchups will take place next week, as of now I think All Might is the obvious choice for your two miscreants,” Nedzu decided.
He grimaced at that. All Might, even in the state he was in, seemed a bit unfair. All of their quirks were brute force though, so it would come down to strategic planning on the student’s part if they had any prospects of winning at all. There certainly wasn’t another pairing that stood a chance with those two taken off the board. Maybe someone and Shinso, he was a bit of a wild card with that quirk, but that was banking everything on a single chance.
“Do you have a better option?” Nedzu pressed.
“If All Might is going against anyone it would have to be them, but I think he’s more than a bit overkill for first years, no matter how advanced they may be,” he argued.
“I thought we’d learned not to underestimate Midoriya,” Nedzu shot back with another toothy grin.
A glance at the clock told him that he didn’t have time to debate this right now.
“We’ll discuss this at the meeting,” he said rather than giving a proper answer, he knew Nedzu would lock him in a debate for hours if left unchecked.
“Very well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep you from your job, should I?” Nedzu replied pleasantly.
He gave a vague affirmative grunt before spinning on his heel and leaving. He had a feeling nothing he argued would have any bearing on Nedzu’s decision anyway. Well, nothing short of pulling his rights as Izuku’s guardian. He couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that was curious as to what Izuku would come up with in that fight, but he quickly shook that thought from his mind as he started mentally planning out much more reasonable matchups.
***
It was only a matter of time now, Nedzu guessed that it would be less than a week before Aizawa made the connections about OFA, and he was rarely ever wrong about these kinds of things. All the clues were laid out in front of him, he could only hope that the fallout wouldn’t be too messy; he really did think that All Might was a good match-up for those two. Posing Bakugo with the biggest threat they had access to was the only way that he could imagine the boy would ever agree to work as a team and moreover, he couldn’t think of anyone other than himself who could reliably beat a suitably motivated Midoriya Izuku. That child was nothing short of remarkable, and Nedzu liked to think he was one of the most experienced beings on the planet when it came to working with remarkable children.
The things that boy was able to accomplish on his own were extraordinary. Along with himself, he wanted to schedule time for Midoriya to study with Maijima and Shuzenji because, though the circumstances were dire, he had shown himself to be quite adept at engineering and first aid. Those would be incredibly helpful skills to build upon.
Aizawa’s hesitance was palpable and, yes, he’ll admit it, not completely unfounded, but he’d never seen potential like Midoriya’s in his entire tenure at UA. Regardless of OFA, he had the promise of greatness and Nedzu was itching to foster that seed.
Patience.
He could have patience.
Human minds held complexities that he himself struggled to understand at times, but he was no stranger to the effects of trauma, as it were. The world had not been kind to him, nor had it been to Midoriya. But time heals all wounds, Midoriya would have his chance to flourish and he was going to be there to make sure he bloomed as vibrantly as he possibly could.
***
“Did you talk to Midoriya? He seemed better for a few days but now…” Uraraka asked quietly as they waited in line for lunch.
“He’s worse than before, yeah, I noticed that too. I did talk to him, something happened with his family, not my place to say. I thought talking about it helped, I mean it did help– obviously, you noticed it too, but, I don’t know, his life is a bit of a shit show, something else probably came up,” Hitoshi replied.
“God, he can’t catch a break, can he?” she answered with a groan.
“I don’t think he has ever once caught a break his entire life, if I’m being honest,” he agreed.
“Do you think there’s anything we can do?”
“I don’t know what's going on with him now, it could be the same thing but I have a feeling it isn’t. Just… don’t ask about his family, and maybe try to avoid talking about yours, I don’t know what will set him off,” he decided.
“Alright, thanks. I just wish there was more I could do, y’know?” she replied as she grabbed her tray.
“Yeah, trust me, I know,” he agreed and grabbed his tray as well.
They made their way to their usual table where Izuku was sitting by himself. He had a packed lunch today and the others were still in line, so they sat down in their usual spots next to and across from him.
“You guys can stop planning covert wellness checks, I'm fine,” Izuku said in lieu of a greeting.
They both exchanged a glance that couldn’t be more guilty if they had tried.
“We… what? We weren’t–” Uraraka tried to deny.
“You were looking at me with every other sentence,” Izuku cut off the obvious lie.
Oh… kay. So, he was mad. About what? Hitoshi wasn’t sure, but it was enough to settle the usual stutter he spoke with. The only times he could remember Izuku being more mad than nervous were in life-or-death situations, so his concern quickly lept from mild to extreme.
“S-sorry, I’m– that was. I’m just s-sick of everyone asking. D-did you tell her about…” Izuku trailed off and turned to him at the latter half of his statement.
“No! No, I didn’t tell anyone anything,” he answered quickly.
“Right, sorry. I’m– I j-just don’t want to t-talk about it. I’ll be f-fine. It’s just… they… they’re making me see a c-counselor and I'm n-not happy about it,” he admitted.
“Oh, thank god,” Hitoshi breathed a sigh of relief.
Izuku glared at him so hard that he felt like he should have turned to dust.
“No! Wait! That’s not what I meant! I just thought something horrible happened again! This is much more preferable to the awful things I was imagining given your track record–”
Izuku’s eye twitched a little and his glare did not falter.
“I’m gonna shut up and stop digging my hole now,” he said, shoving a bite of food in his mouth.
Thankfully Izuku snorted out a bitter laugh rather than continue trying to commit murder via eye contact. He put his chopsticks down, rested his elbows on the table, and buried his face in his hands before letting out the most frustrated sigh Hitoshi had ever heard.
“It’s not that bad– therapy, I mean. I went after–” he glanced at Uraraka who was silently watching the proceedings, “Well, you know. It definitely wasn’t fun, but it was… it helped,” he tried to encourage.
“I’ve been seeing Hound Dog here ever since the USJ, so has Kirishima. It seems scary at first but Shinso’s right, it helps,” Uraraka added her 2 cents.
Izuku looked up at both of them with exhausted eyes, but he didn’t say anything. His gaze lifted to a point behind Uraraka where he could see Iida and Todoroki approaching the table, and that was the end of that conversation, he supposed. He really hoped that Izuku actually talked to someone, he was tired of seeing him so downtrodden.
***
Izuku knew they were just trying to be helpful, but he honestly didn’t want to hear it. They had no clue what was going on in his life and they never would. Whether or not talking about what had happened to him would help, it just wasn’t an option. He could talk to Mic and Eraser about some things and talk to All Might about others, but he couldn’t tell anyone else anything at all. At least not without lying through his teeth or glossing over the vast majority of it, and at that point it couldn’t really be considered ‘talking about it’ anymore. Sure, maybe talking about it would help, but talking around it? No, there was no point even trying.
When he looked up for the first time in probably far too long, Iida was chatting with Shinso and Uraraka, but Todoroki was studying him intently. Wonderful, he was acting off enough for Todoroki of all people to notice; that was— that wasn’t a very nice thing to think about him. He tucked the overly judgmental and defensive thought away and shot Todoroki a smile. Given the fact that he responded by narrowing his eyes, Izuku had to guess that the facade wasn’t very convincing.
“Are you alright?” Todoroki asked loud enough to garner the attention of the entire table.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“I’m— Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he replied.
Both Shinso and Uraraka were cringing, but Iida was looking at him with concern.
“So, you’re not fine?” Todoroki clarified, paying no mind to anyone else.
He knew that Todoroki just wanted to help, he knew that he had a difficult time reading the room, he knew he wasn’t trying to be pushy, but he couldn’t stand hearing one more goddamned person asking if he was okay.
“Todoroki, I don’t think he wants to talk about it right now,” he heard Uraraka butt in.
He was thankful for that, he didn’t trust himself not to snap again like he had when they sat down not ten minutes prior.
“Are you sure? You seem upset, I–”
He didn’t hear anything else Todoroki may or may not have said after that. He snapped the lid closed on the bento he’d barely touched, grabbed his bag, and left before he could say anything that he didn’t mean to people who just wanted to help.
They just wanted to help.
Why did they want to help?
What about him made them give a shit? No one ever gave a shit before when he was— gah! This wasn’t about that, none of this was about that— everything was about that, everything had always been about that. There was no escape from it, he knew the day All Might offered him this power that it wouldn’t change him, he knew he was going to be miserable no matter what. There was no miracle cure for being fundamentally flawed, and there never would be.
He knew he was spiraling, but he didn’t know how to stop. What else was he supposed to think about when every aspect of his life was a shit show? The past never dies and neither did its problems; of all people, he should know that by now.
Notes:
Thanks for reading <3
Chapter 158: Crashout Roulette
Notes:
Hehehehehe
(Shout outs to Penny, Muffin, and Woomy for beta reading)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
The more Shota thought about it the less it all made sense. Inko Midoriya’s quirk was a weak form of telekinesis and Hisashi Midoriya’s quirk was fire breath. If Izuku were to have a quirk it would be pyrokinesis, surely. So, where the hell did a strength enhancer come from; especially one so powerful? He would have written it off as infidelity on his mother’s part, but the kid was somehow a carbon copy of both of them– at least physically. He had his mother’s eyes and hair color, but the curls, freckles, and facial structure were undoubtedly that of his father. Genetics definitely did some weird things, and he was no biologist, but that didn’t really add up.
The thought had been niggling at him for a while but Izuku’s quirk and his mother’s questionable fidelity hadn’t been his primary focus in this case. Recent revelations had changed that, hence why he had his nose buried in Midoriya’s files again at 2 am; he couldn’t sleep.
Of all the cryptic conversations that he had shared with Ivy, there was one that still didn’t make sense to him; what did they mean when they were talking about a “cure” for a “disability” on that night he had found them sitting on the ledge and lost in their thoughts? He had assumed that they were making the choice to train their quirk and damn the consequences, but broken bones weren’t something you could hide. For months after that they were up to something that Shota still didn’t have answers to.
As Shota flipped through his files for the millionth time he finally noticed it, the quirk registration date was years off. The date on file was only a few months ago in late November, that wasn’t something that should have been recent. He had said his quirk was extant but unusable for most of his life, so it should still have been listed on his files.
A thought occurred to him; one that he immediately dismissed due to how outrageous it was, but then he remembered that day in class when he had first sparred with Izuku and seen Ivy there in every movement. He had ignored his own intuition then and it had come back to bite him. If there was one thing he learned about Izuku, it was that nothing was too improbable to be true when it came to him.
Izuku was listed as quirkless, he had a near-complete mental breakdown about his identity and an apparent offer he had been given, and now he wasn’t quirkless.
Oh, sweet fuck, what did he do?
Immediately he slapped Hizashi awake and turned up the lamp from its lowest setting to its highest.
“Mmmmph whaa? I’m ‘wake, whaddya want?” Zashi mumbled groggily as he squinted at him against the light of the lamp.
‘Put your hearing aids in’ Shota signed.
He must have had a serious look in his eyes because Zashi whipped around and stuffed them in his ears immediately.
“What's going on Sho?” he asked with his voice still rough from sleep, but far more alert.
“Look at this, the quirk registration date,” he pointed.
“What? That was only a few months ago, that can’t be right. It’s prolly just a typo, what’s got you so worked up ‘bout it?” they asked.
“His old school thought he was quirkless, they should have been able to check the record and see that that wasn’t true, but they couldn’t cause the record showed him as quirkless. He was quirkless. Do you remember that one night I found them crying on the roof? They were talking about an offer they’d gotten and some sort of disability.”
He watched the realization dawn on Zashi’s face as he scrambled up until he was sitting next to Shota
“W-what does that even mean? What did he do? How could he have… That’s like mad scientist crazy shit Shota how could—” Zashi cut himself off and the color drained from his face.
Shota had the exact same realization at the exact same time. There’s only one place he’d ever heard of a quirk being transferred from one person to another and he still had nightmares about that thing at least once a week. Shota sprang up, sending papers flying across the floor to grab his phone on the far side of his nightstand.
“Sho, wait, who are you calling?”
“The Rat. There's no way a typo like this flew under his radar, and if we could put the pieces together then so could he,” he replied as he put the phone up to his ear.
“Sho, it’s 2 am,” Zashi tried to argue.
The call went through regardless
“What do you know about Midoriya that you’re not telling me?” Shota barked out the moment it connected.
Zashi signed at him to put it on speaker so he did.
“What do you mean, Aizawa?” Nedzu responded, having the nerve to sound as put together as he always did.
“You know damn well what I mean, his quirk. It wasn’t registered until last November,” he clarified regardless.
The question hung in the air for a tense moment before Nedzu answered.
“Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say, I knew you’d find out eventually, and I believe you should be in the loop, but I would be betraying the trust of several people if I told you. I can bring it up to the relevant parties if you’d like, but it’s not my information to give out as I wish,” he responded diplomatically.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? What do you mean ‘relevant parties’? Who else knows about this?” Hizashi demanded before Shota even got the chance.
“Oh, good evening Yamada, or rather good morning now, I suppose. I can’t tell you that either, you’ll have to wait until they contact you–”
“I’m not waiting for another second if my kid is still in danger, Nedzu,” Shota interrupted.
He waited for reassurance that Izuku was safe, that he didn’t make a deal with the boogie man, but all he heard was a tired sigh from the other end of the line.
“Nedzu, is he still in danger?” he demanded.
The following silence was more than enough of a response.
“I will contact the relevant parties presently. Get some rest gentlemen,” Nedzu finally replied before the line went dead.
He couldn’t say how long the two of them sat there frozen in silence after that. His mind was racing and he couldn’t even pick out a single thought to assign an emotion to. It was Hizashi who finally broke the silence.
“He was quirkless…” they stated simply.
Oh.
Oh.
That was obvious, if he didn’t have a quirk until 8 months ago then, obviously, that means he was quirkless.
He was actually quirkless.
It all made sense. It made sick, twisted, horrible sense. That’s why he said he’d always been a target, that’s why his mother abandoned someone as smart and sweet as him, that’s why someone as dedicated as him had such middling control over their quirk, that’s why he was so afraid of everyone and everything, and that’s why Bakugo called him a Null the first day of classes, he meant it literally. This kid had never had anyone on his side his whole life all because of the lack of a quirk, the world beat this brilliant kid down and manipulated him into believing it was his own fault all because he didn’t have a quirk.
That kid did everything he did as Ivy without a quirk.
Holy shit.
He didn’t sleep a wink that night and he’s pretty sure that Zashi didn’t either. He was at least awake at half past 6 AM when both their phones lit up with a message from The Rat letting them know that “Someone will be by at 9 o’clock to explain the situation.”
“Why the hell is Nedzu sending some mysterious stranger to our apartment?” they asked, sounding as tired as Shota felt.
“Fuck if I know. I don’t care, I just want answers,” he responded back into the darkness of their room.
Light was just barely starting to peek through the gap in the blackout curtains, but his eyes had long since adjusted to the dark so he could see Hizashi rub a hand over his face and resign himself to their fate.
“Are they gonna warn him?” they asked.
“I know just as much as you do,” he reminded them.
“I don’t want to wake him, he sleeps less than you Sho.”
Yamada: (6:34 am)
Are they gonna warn him or are we just springing this on him over breakfast?
Nedzu: (6:36 am)
I will tell him to contact Midoriya beforehand.
“Right, okay, screw this. I’m gonna go make us coffee,” Shota declared after reading the message.
***
Toshinori’s phone ringing woke him up and he squinted at it in the darkness of his bedroom.
Incoming call from Nedzu
It was half past 6 am on a Saturday, this did not bode well. Doing his best to keep his rising panic down he cleared his throat and answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Yagi. I apologize for the early call, but it seems as though Aizawa has reached a bit of a breakthrough in Midoriya’s case. He has questions, ones that I cannot answer for you,” Nedzu got right into it.
Oh… Oh .
“I believe Detective Tsukauchi talked with you about this inevitability. Well, the day has come. I would appreciate it if you could make the time to meet with Aizawa and Yamada as soon as possible, as I’d rather not be on the receiving end of their wrath any more than I need to be,” he continued pleasantly, his tone juxtaposing his words as if that would soften the blow.
Oh god.
“I will send you their address, since Midoriya is already there it should make things easier for most everyone involved,” Nedzu kept talking.
“W-wait what?” his scrambled mind finally spat out words.
“I’m afraid we have used up all the ‘waiting’ we had, Yagi. I have sent you the address for the Yamada-Aizawa-Midoriya household, you are to report there and answer their questions expediently. I have told them 9 o’clock, I’m sure that’s more than enough time to get ready and make your way over,” Nedzu bulldozed through his questions.
“It would be best to give the boy some forewarning as well, perhaps a call on your way over,” Nedzu suggested in a way that made it clear it was an order rather than a suggestion.
“Yes… yes, alright,” he trailed off and the line went dead.
… shit .
***
Izuku woke up to the sound of someone quietly rummaging around the kitchen. It was 6:30 am on a Saturday, why was someone up at 6:30 am on a Saturday? He rolled over, pressed his pillow against his ears, and let out a quiet groan. He was sick of being tired, he just wanted to sleep. The anger he had boarded up in the basement of his mind was becoming more difficult to ignore as each day passed, and sleeping through it was so much easier.
He did his best to continue not analyzing where the root of all this bullshit was planted, but his mind seemed intent on plastering neon signs up at every instance of frustration in his memory.
Mic was forcing him to see a damn counselor, one which he couldn’t even tell the truth to and Kacchan successfully received his last get-out-of-jail-free card.
Normally, he would just spend the night sprinting over rooftops or throwing knives hard enough to nearly pass through the cheap pine boards on his pallet-turned-target, but he couldn’t do that anymore. Sometimes it felt like he couldn’t do anything anymore.
God, the pillow wasn’t helping. He should just get up, he wasn’t going to get back to sleep at this rate. He tossed the pillow to the side and sat up in bed. It sounded like both Mic and Eraser were up now. They were quiet though, so they were either signing or not talking at all. He could understand why Mic would be up, he knew they had trouble sleeping sometimes, but Eraser slept like the dead when he really wanted to, he was never up this early if he didn't have to be.
Did they have a mission? Were they called in for something? It would be strange if both of them were called in for something so urgently; so if that were the case, it would have to have something to do with The League, since that was the only case they were both involved in. However, as the minutes ticked by without any sort of sign that they were leaving, Izuku dismissed that idea.
Did it have something to do with him then? Mic wasn’t technically on his case as far as he knew, but he knew that Eraser kept him in the loop. Did they find his mother? He hoped not, that would really be the cherry on top of his foul mood.
The silence continued on for hours, neither of them had left to go anywhere nor had they returned to bed. As far as he could tell, they were just sitting at the table not saying a word. He did his best to distract himself from that; he didn’t have much homework, but he finished what he had and started scrawling in his notebook again. He’d filled up two full books since moving in here, he had way too much free time on his hands, and it was all he could do to keep it from driving him crazy. Eraser was still patrolling Uptown and he hadn’t gotten any news from either him or Iwai, who he finally ended up texting. He supposed no news was good news, but he would much rather see that for himself. The thought was one of the many causes of his burning rage, so he neatly tucked it into the back of his mind whenever it surfaced.
It was nearly 9 o’clock when he was beginning to debate whether or not he should just go out there and see what the hell was going on. Of course, that was when his phone started ringing.
Incoming call from AM
What the hell was going on? This could not be good, there was no way this was good.
He answered the call before he could back himself out of it.
“H-hello?” his voice was a bit scratchy from disuse when he spoke.
“Hello, my boy. I, um… I’m going to be paying a visit. I’m on my way right now, actually, I’m almost there,” All Might started awkwardly.
He was nervous, why was he nervous? Wait, why was he coming over? Why did he even know where ‘over’ was? Izuku had never told him he was living here. Something must be wrong.
“A… What? What do– Are you okay?” he asked.
“Ah, yes, I’m quite alright. Admittedly, a bit nervous. Nedzu called me earlier to let me know Aizawa-san had some questions for me, questions about you…” All Might explained.
Oh fuck.
“Why does he have q-questions for y-you?”
“My boy, it was only a matter of time before he found out. He’s investigating your whole life and if he’s also your guardian now then he should–”
“No, he shouldn’t, you said it was too dangerous,” he interrupted.
Somehow, the looming threat of All Might’s secret arch-nemesis had been one of the few things he had not been spending his mental bandwidth on. He’d gotten the information and promptly filed it away; he took the only thing he was capable of doing about it and kept that at the forefront of his mind: Don’t let anyone know the truth.
“My boy, he’s your guardian and your teacher, plus he’s going to stumble his way into the truth eventual–”
“Then we point him in a different direction! Dragging more people into this is the opposite of what you said to do!” he insisted.
He could hear All Might close the door to his truck. Goddamnit was he already here?
“Oh, thank you Ma’am,” he heard him speak to someone who wasn’t Izuku, and the sound of another door shutting, “I’m already here, I will be up in a second, Aizawa and Yamada are expecting me.”
Izuku heard the elevator ding over the phone.
“No, no, wait, let’s think about this for a second. They don’t need to be involved–”
“It’s out of our hands now, this is what has to be done,” All Might insisted and Izuku saw red.
Out of our hands? Out of our hands? There wasn’t a damn thing in his hands anymore! He didn’t get a say in where he could go or when he could leave, he didn’t have anything but these four borrowed walls and this one last god-forsaken secret. All Might had said One For All was his now! What gave him the right to take that back? How dare he risk Mic and Eraser’s safety over a few questions that Izuku could have redirected if he was only given the chance to?
***
Of all the ways Shota expected this meeting to start, Izuku slamming open his bedroom door with his phone pressed to his ear and storming to the front door at 8:52 am was not on the list. He heard the front door slam open as well but he couldn’t see who or what was there from his seat at the dining table. He looked over at Zashi who was already looking at him.
They sat there frozen in confusion until they heard the kid shouting at which point they both scrambled to their feet sending their chairs skidding back across the floor.
“Why don’t I get a say in this?! You said it was my choice who to tell now, you can’t just tell them!” Izuku yelled at someone at their front door.
“My boy, please, they already–”
“Yagi?” the two of them said in perfect unison as they rounded the corner.
They both whipped their heads up toward them and Izuku looked furious. Clearly, he was furious. He was shouting at All Might in their genkan. The last time he’d seen Izuku this angry he was dangling someone off the side of a building.
“How about we come in and not involve the neighbors in this,” Hizashi suggested gently.
Yagi had to nudge Izuku aside to get in because he refused to move.
“No, no, get out, you two go back to the kitchen,” Izuku instructed all three of them.
He was acting like Ivy, he was finally acting like Ivy again and Shota was as far from relieved by that as he could be.
Yagi looked completely bewildered, the kid had clearly never spoken to him like this before. He had managed to wrestle the door shut behind himself and that was good enough for Shota.
“No, kid, we’re not leaving. Yagi, what the hell is going on?” he demanded.
Yagi shot another concerned glance down at the kid still trying to bodily shove him out of the door instead of responding.
“Stop, this doesn’t concern you, just stay out of it,” Izuku spat back in Shota and Hizashi’s direction.
Yagi looked aghast that Izuku was speaking to any of them like this but Shota just rolled his eyes.
“If it concerns you it concerns us, kid,” he shot back unphased.
“No, it doesn’t!” he insisted.
“Young Midoriya, what has gotten into you?” Yagi finally questioned.
“Nothing, get out,” he barked back.
He tried to grab the door handle behind Yagi’s back but Yagi just grabbed Izuku by the biceps, picked him up like a misbehaving puppy, and carried him quite literally kicking and screaming past the genkan so he could take his shoes off.
“Midoriya, this is bigger than either of us knew, please. For your safety–”
“Fuck my safety! What about them?! They didn’t sign up for this!”
“My boy, you didn’t sign up for this,” Yagi responded calmly after wiping a shocked expression off his face.
“Kiddo, we signed up for anything having to do with you. If it concerns your safety then we need to know,” Hizashi added just as calmly as Yagi had.
“No, you guys have no idea what you’re talking about and it needs to stay that way!” he insisted before turning back to Yagi, “And you said that this was my choice now, and I don’t want them to have anything to do with it!”
“Midoriya, it’s too dangerous–”
“THAT’S WHY I DON’T WANT THEM TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!” Izuku cut him off.
Shota was suddenly very thankful that they’d gotten the apartment soundproofed enough to dampen Hizashi’s occasional quirk-enhanced snoring because Izuku was genuinely yelling now, not just raising his voice.
“Midoriya, enough. I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in this,” Shota finally cut in.
If looks could kill he would be a dead man. The kid was glaring at him with everything he had. When he shifted his glare back over to All Might he saw the man cringe and squirm under the scrutiny.
“If they get hurt because of this, I will never forgive you,” he said with steely calm resolution before he turned on his heel, walked out the front door, and slammed it behind him causing the door frame to rattle and crack up the drywall.
Yagi just stood there shell-shocked.
“What the hell is going on Yagi? What did you get him caught up in?” Shota demanded without giving him a moment to process this side of Izuku that he’d never seen.
Hizashi put a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down, but he just shrugged it off.
“What’s he so scared of that he thinks he needs to protect us from it?” he pressed.
Yagi looked halfway to a crisis but he couldn’t give less of a shit right now.
“I don’t– I don’t even know where to start,” he finally spat out.
“The beginning,” Shota responded drily.
“It’s really not that simple, Aizawa,” he said.
He was clearly trying to figure out how to explain what he needed to say, but Shota’s patience had run out several hours ago.
“When did you meet Midoriya?” he asked.
Maybe if he dumbed it down he could get some goddamned information.
“A-about a year ago now,” he replied.
“How?” Shota shot back before Yagi had even finished his statement.
“Why don’t you let him take his shoes off, Sho?” Hizashi butted in.
“He can talk and take his shoes off at the same time; he’s a talented man, I believe in him. Answer the question,” he snipped, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“I was after a villain, he’d escaped through the sewers and attacked young Midoriya,” he started as he kicked off his shoes with one hand braced on the wall for balance, “I caught up to him and took care of it but my time was running out and Midoriya had a question, I tried to get away, but he saw… this,” he said as he gestured toward himself and paused for a moment, worrying his lip before continuing, “I had the villain caught in a bottle and somewhere along the way I must have dropped it…” he trailed off and looked between the two of them.
“Why don’t we sit down, this is, uh, rather a long story,” he said as he awkwardly scratched at the nape of his neck.
Shota turned on his heel and left Hizashi to be the good host and lead Yagi to the living room. He was fuming, this attack wasn’t on Midoriya’s file at all. If All Might did his goddamn job properly they could have looked past the surface level and gotten that kid off the streets ages ago, but he didn’t. Shota had a feeling that there were a lot of things he should have done but didn’t.
Shota sat in his spot on the couch as patiently as he could while Hizashi offered tea which Yagi politely refused. When they’d all settled down Shota looked at him expectantly until he continued where he left off.
“Okay, so, the villain got away and I’m sure you saw this part on the news, but he went after another kid, one of young Midoriya’s classmates, Bakugo. They were setting off explosions everywhere and the responding heroes couldn’t– or didn’t get close enough to do anything and I was out of time but Midoriya ran in there to save him. He did save him, it was remarkable.” he said with a wistful smile.
“Alright, that seems pretty par for the course for him, how did this end up with him getting a quirk?” Hizashi chirped, trying to simultaneously lighten the mood and get some answers.
Shota could see that his patience was failing him as well, his shoulders were tense and his smile was completely fake, that was his Present Mic smile, the one he plastered on for the paparazzi to keep up appearances. That was something he was sure All Might would pick up on. The thought almost made him laugh; Zashi could be a passive-aggressive little shit when he wanted to be.
“Yes, well, I suppose this is where I’ll have to start at the beginning. Alright… at the dawn of the age of quirks, there was a man who had the power to give and take quirks as he pleased. His power was called “All For One” and as time went on the power became synonymous with him. He amassed a following and ruled over the lawless land that the chaos that the emergence of quirks created. He was too powerful for anyone to stop, but his brother never bowed to him, he was sickly and quirkless but he refused to back down. All For One tried to gift him a stockpiling quirk so he could become stronger and be indebted to him by gratitude, but it didn’t work. Neither of them knew at the time but the brother wasn’t actually quirkless, he had a useless power that allowed him only to pass on a quirk, but when that fused with the stockpiling quirk that All For One forced on him it became something much stronger and this power was called “One For All”. This power could be passed down by its user gaining strength with each wielder in the hopes that one day it would be enough to defeat All For One. The quirk passed through seven wielders, most of which died at All For One’s hand before it was strong enough to defeat him, or at least I thought it was…” Yagi trailed off and scrubbed his face with his hands.
Shota could see where this was going and he didn’t like it one bit, this had to be a joke. There’s no way he was being serious, right?
“I am the eighth wielder and I got this injury when I thought I’d taken down All For One,” he said as he gestured to his side, “but with the Nomu and the League, we believe that he’s still out there,” he finished, leaving them to put two and two together on their own.
God, he wasn’t kidding was he? Shota was so mad that he didn’t even know what to say, he looked over to Hizashi and– Oh, oh no. Hizashi was furious.
“Tell me you're joking, Yagi,” Hizashi stated coolly.
“I wish I was,” Yagi said after huffing out a humorless laugh.
“Let me get this straight, regardless of your secret immortal boogie man of an arch nemesis, you offered a quirkless 14-year-old one of the most powerful quirks in the world, you didn’t check in with his family, you didn’t look into the clear signs of trauma, and you told him that telling anyone would put them in extreme danger?” their voice was as steely as Izuku’s was right before he left.
Yagi had the decency to cringe at that.
“I– yes, I suppose I did,” he admitted.
“Get out,” Hizashi said, venom dripping from those two simple words.
Yagi opened his mouth to argue but seemingly thought better of it.
“No, wait. What aren’t you telling us about the day of the attack?” Shota butted in as Yagi went to stand.
He remembered seeing Izuku that day, he was devastated, he was confused, and he had said that ‘leaders in the industry’ told him he could never reach a goal because of his ‘disability’ and Shota was about to send Yagi out of here on a goddamn stretcher if that meant what he thought it did.
The guilty look on Yagi’s face didn’t bode well for him.
“Yagi, what the fuck did you say to him?” he pressed.
“It, uh, it wasn’t my proudest moment I– he asked me if he could–” he cut himself off, buried his face in his hands, and dragged his fingers up through his tangled hair before continuing, “He asked me if he could still be a hero if he didn’t have a quirk and I–” he cut himself off again.
Shota couldn’t put into words how furious he was. His mind went completely blank with it for a moment before sensation returned to him. He shot to his feet and tried to calm himself before speaking but it didn’t do any good.
“YOU TOLD A HOMELESS, QUIRKLESS, SUICIDAL 14 YEAR OLD THAT HE COULDN’T BE A HERO WITHOUT A QUIRK THEN OFFERED HIM YOURS?? HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU EXPECT HIM TO SAY NO TO THAT YOU MANIPULATIVE BASTARD?!”
Zashi had a firm grip on his shoulder to keep him from outright attacking the number one hero in the middle of their living room. They weren’t any calmer than he was, the devastated look on Yagi’s face must have been enough to hold them back but Shota wasn’t nearly as empathetic as they were.
“...Suicidal?” Yagi finally asked and he sounded heartbroken, he looked grief-stricken but Shota didn’t care.
“I FOUND THEM CRYING ON THE LEDGE OF A GODDAMN ROOFTOP THAT NIGHT, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I ALMOST LOST THEM?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOUR WORDS MEAN? YOU’RE THE NUMBER ONE FUCKING HERO ALL MIGHT , IT’S A GODDAMN MIRACLE THAT THAT KID IS STILL ALIVE RIGHT NOW,” he raged at him.
Hizashi was fully pulling him back now, doing their best to hug him to their chest as Yagi sat slack-jawed and crying in one of their love seats.
“Shota, that's enough!” Zashi stated firmly.
“You knew him before…? I-I don’t understand…” Yagi asked, his voice small and trembling.
Shota did his best to pull himself together at that. He was giving away information that wasn’t his to give. No matter how much All Might deserved to suffer with the full knowledge of what he’d done, it wasn’t his place to say, and he’d already gone too far.
Zashi was right.
The sound of the front door opening caught everyone’s attention. They all stood rooted in place as Izuku rounded the corner, his feet still bare and covered in dirt, he looked like he had gotten his anger under control; he looked scared again and the sight that greeted him in their living room probably didn’t help that much. His gaze flicked from Yagi crying to Shota’s still shaking fists to Hizashi bodily restraining him from attacking and he took half a step back before pausing.
“W-what’s…?” he trailed off.
Yagi was the first to break the silence, “Midoriya, my boy, I–”
“No! No, you’re not speaking to him, Yagi. Get out. I think we could all use some time to process… that ,” Hizashi interrupted, “Could you go to your room please, Kiddo?” he asked in a far more gentle tone.
Izuku looked like a deer caught in headlights, he could imagine the kid didn’t have a very good track record with angry adults in his home so he did his best to hide the rage in his eyes and calmly stepped out of Zashi’s grip on him. Hizashi must have caught on too because he let him.
“Midoriya, Kiddo, it’s okay. Everyone’s just upset about the situation, but it’s going to be okay, we’re going to figure all of this out. Why don’t we go wash your feet off, actually? They look a little dirty,” they said as they calmly walked over to him and telegraphed their movements before setting a hand on his shoulder to guide him to the bathroom.
Izuku sent a concerned look back over to Yagi and himself before he let Zashi guide him away.
Shota took a few deep breaths before turning back to Yagi, he was still sitting shell-shocked staring in the direction Izuku had left but he looked up at Shota once he realized his attention had shifted back to him. Tears were still welling in his sunken eyes.
“Aizawa, what do you mean–”
“No, you don’t need to know about any of that and, frankly, it’s none of your business. I shouldn’t have said that, just forget it and leave,” he interrupted.
Yagi reluctantly got up on unsteady legs without argument and made his way to the door. Shota didn’t bother seeing him out, he just collapsed back onto the couch and buried his hands in his hair.
This was… god, this was such a mess.
Notes:
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
THANKS FOR READING!!!
Chapter 159: 🎵What Have I Done? Sweet Jesus, What Have I Done?🎵
Notes:
shout out to Penny Muffin and Woomy for beta reading <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Hizashi hadn’t been this mad in years. They were absolutely seething but Izuku looked like he was terrified, so they had to reel it in. They had to reel it in.
They had never seen Shota that angry, and, god, as mad as they were at him, Yagi looked absolutely devastated; Sho went too far. This was such a mess and the poor kid walked right into the middle of it. Hizashi guided him to the bathroom and shut the door behind them. He had Izuku sit on the ledge of the tub and turned on the faucet. He was focusing so much on not projecting his anger that he didn’t even check in with the kid.
He was sitting on the ledge as far away as he could be from Hizashi and hugging his arms to his chest as he looked down at his feet. The water had warmed enough and they put the stopper in, as the water rose to the other end of the tub it turned a dirty pink color.
Shit. He must have cut his foot. Of course he did, he went running around the city without shoes on.
“Kiddo can you wash your feet off for me and then let me take a look at them, it looks like you might’ve gotten cut,” he said gesturing to the pinkish water, “let's swap spots,” he offered and stood when Izuku didn’t react.
He looked up at them when they stood so they gestured to the spot they’d just vacated and handed him the soap. He quickly scrambled to comply with the silent request. Hizashi was hoping that all that shouting might’ve been a breakthrough, that the kid was finally letting himself feel and let himself be, but no, he was just trying to protect them. Just trying to protect anyone and everything like he always did. He did his best not to be disappointed by that, it was still progress; it might not be for the reasons he’d like for it to be, but it was something. It made him sick to know that the one time the kid put his foot down they couldn’t heed his request, he’s sure under all that fear and worry they had just lost a good amount of trust with him, but it had to be done. Izuku’s safety was more important than his trust. They were going to need to talk about this, but that could wait for another time.
When he finished washing his feet Hizashi drained the tub and had him do it again with clean running water to make sure whatever lacerations he had were thoroughly cleansed. Once he was done with that they sat back down on the ledge and put a towel on their lap.
“Lemme see them tootsies kid. You got cut and I wanna make sure there’s nothing stuck in it,” he explained as he patted his lap.
The kid grabbed one foot in his hand and turned it up forcing his legs into an unnatural pretzel position so he could look at it himself before checking the other one and handing it over.
“Jeeze kiddo, you’re flexible. If I did that I think I’d need to get a hip replaced,” he joked as he went to check the cut.
It was on the heel of his left foot, thankfully it wasn’t that bad and it was clear of debris. He scrunched the towel up around his foot to dry it before sliding out from under it and setting it on the ledge.
“It’s not too bad, I don’t think we’re gonna have to amputate, but I am gonna get you a bandage so you aren’t bleeding all over the place and getting cat fur stuck in your heel forever,” they poked with a laugh as they started rustling through the cabinet under the sink for a bandage.
Once they found it, they patted his heel dry and stuck it on.
“Alright, you’ll be good as new in no time,” he chirped with a smile.
“T-thanks,” Izuku stuttered out as he looked at the ground.
It sounded like he wanted to say more so Hizashi gave him a moment.
“I, um, I-I’m s-sorry,” he mumbled after a while.
Alright, looks like they’re talking about this now then.
“No, kid, you don’t have anything to apologize for, I get it.”
“I b-broke the d-door and I sh-shouted at you,” he argued.
“Well, first of all, the door's not really broken, it’s still completely functional, and second of all, did you ‘break’ it on purpose?” they shot back.
“N-no!” He quickly asserted.
“Well, then it was an accident. Accidents happen all the time and I’m not mad at you for that, Sho won’t be either. As for the shouting, It didn’t seem like Sho cared at all and neither did I. No one was listening to you, you were very clear about what you needed and we still didn’t listen to you. That’s frustrating,” Midoriya was looking at him with a very confused expression, but he continued regardless, “I wish we could have listened to you, your opinions and thoughts matter to us, I appreciate you trying to protect us, but your safety is important, so if there’s something putting you in danger, then we need to know about it. We want to protect you too.”
It broke his heart to see how completely dumbfounded Midoriya was every time they treated him with any modicum of decency, like the thought was so foreign, like he’d never experienced something like this before. He didn’t know when he met the Shinsos, so for at least the first 12 years of his life he probably hadn’t.
He hadn’t heard anything other than Yagi leaving from the other side of the door and he quite desperately wanted to go check on Sho, but right now he needed to make sure Izuku was okay, he came first.
“You alright kiddo?”
He looked up at them when they spoke and let his furrowed brow relax for only a split second before it was back and he was chewing at his lip. He kept moving like he was going to say something but stopped himself last second, so Hizashi sat on the bathroom floor patiently.
“You kn-know that I-I’m— a-about— you d-don’t…” he gave several false starts to a sentence before trailing off and saying, “Never mind.”
His eyes were glassy but Hizashi didn’t think it was the best time to push the topic, his mind was split between a million different things and they would all need to talk about this later anyway.
“Okay, we can talk about it later,” he conceded as he stood up.
He glanced back at Midoriya one more time before he went to open the door, he left it open encouraging the kid to leave the cramped room as well. As he went back into the living room to look for Sho, he heard the kid’s door shut behind him. He wished he wasn’t always hiding away in there, but that was probably for the best right now. The two of them needed space to parse through all the information they’d just received. Sho seemed to have agreed because he found him in their bedroom sitting on the ottoman at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands. He looked up when they entered.
“Is he alright?” he asked immediately.
“Yeah, he’s okay. He got a cut on his foot, he’s a little spooked, and he tried to apologize for everything but he’s okay,” they replied as they sat down heavily beside him.
“This is all so messed up, that poor kid can’t catch a break,” they added with a huff after a moment of silence.
Shota just hummed in agreement and put his head back into his hands, so Hizashi wrapped their arm around his back and laid their head on his shoulder. In response, Shota extracted one of his hands from his hair and gently grabbed their leg just above the knee.
“I called Nedzu and asked who else knows about this, it’s us, Chiyo, Nighteye, some hero called ‘Gran Torino’, Detective Tsukauchi who is apparently best buds with Yagi, and potentially the entirety of The League of Villains,” Shota stated bluntly into the silence.
“Great,” he responded with no enthusiasm.
“Why the hell did any of them think it was a good idea to keep this from us? He’s been here for months now, I’m his goddamn teacher, I should have at least been informed of how recently he got his quirk! I should have known that from day one!” Shota quietly ranted.
“I don’t know baby, I don’t know. We should talk to Chiyo or Tsuka–.”
“No, I’m far too angry for that right now.”
“I know, yeah. Me too… Fuck, this is such a mess,” they lamented again.
“We need to figure out what we’re going to do about Yagi.”
“Sho, I know theoretically I said I’d help you hide a body, but Japan’s number one hero is pushing it,” they mumbled into his shoulder.
Sho huffed out a small laugh at that, which made them smile. God, he’s glad he didn’t have to do all of this alone.
“I meant about what I said; I fucked up and he has questions now. I’d prefer for him to never speak to Izuku again but unfortunately, I don’t think that's feasible. I essentially told him to piss off and mind his business, but I’m not sure that's a viable solution in the long term,” he elaborated.
“We’ll have to talk to both Nedzu and Izuku about that, I don’t know. Did you bring it up when you talked to him earlier?”
“No.”
“We should do that first and if he gives us the go-ahead then we can talk to Izuku about it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Shota agreed before they fell back into silence.
“What’s Yagi playing at? Why Izuku? Why did he do any of this?”
“What do you mean Sho?”
“He manipulated him into taking that quirk, he’s just a kid! Why the hell did he do that?”
“I don’t think he did it maliciously.”
“What do you mean he didn’t do it maliciously? Did he just accidentally stumble into masterfully setting up the perfect scenario to manipulate a child?”
“I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t think he’s smart enough to have thought that far ahead.”
Sho let out something between a scoff and a bark of laughter at that.
“Honestly Sho, look at him. The man hasn’t been in touch with reality for decades, and he clearly adores the kid. I’ve never seen him act hostile toward him, and Izuku has never acted afraid of him. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of them, but Yagi had this quirk in UA, he couldn’t have been any older than Izuku when he got it and I never pegged him as the pinnacle of mental stability. Yeah, I’m still beyond furious, he’s an adult, he should know better, but I think he needs help just as much as Izuku does, it’s cyclical. They’re too similar, too self-sacrificial and obsessed with keeping everyone but themself safe and happy.”
“You’re far too kind, Zashi.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think I’m wrong.”
“No, I don’t think you are either,” he admitted with a groan, “I would like to beat the shit out of him a little bit though.”
“Yeah, me too, but I don’t think that would go over well.”
“I’d Erase his quirk for you, it’d give me a front-row seat.”
“Thanks, babe, knew I could count on you,” they replied with a small laugh.
“Alright, we need to make a plan. We need to talk to Nedzu first about letting Yagi in on the Ivy situation, then we need to talk to the kid about it. We need to talk to him about all of this actually; we need to get his side of the story, hopefully we can do that today. Then we should have another meeting with Nedzu, Yagi, and Izuku to talk about how we’re going to move forward with this because this rules out the foster system for him. He’s either staying at UA or staying with us and– No, don’t look at me like that, I can feel you making a face, we can’t just drop him in some civilian’s home with that big of a target on his back, besides I know you want to keep him here as much as I do– Quit laughing at me!” he demanded as he sat up straight and forced their head off of its perch on the back of his shoulder.
“No, you’re right, I know. We need to figure out what to do about this, or what they’re already doing about this if anything,” they conceded.
“As I was saying before you started laughing at me, we need to meet with the three of them and make a safety plan. He doesn’t go out much, but I don’t want him going out by himself. We should ask him if he’s alright with carrying a tracker because I don’t want to have to sic a chaperone on him 24/7— Why are you laughing? Stop it!” Shota demanded petulantly.
God, he was acting like such a dad, they were caught up in-between laughing and crying. They never thought they’d have this. They always wanted a family, and Sho had been open to adopting one day, but they were always so busy, they didn’t have time for a kid and the universe just wrapped this one up in a bow and violently drop-kicked him into their path. They wished that the circumstances that brought him to them had never happened, but they couldn’t be more grateful for what they had.
“Why are you crying?” Sho asked far more gently as he wiped a tear from their cheek.
“No, I’m fine, it’s just a lot and you’re acting like such a dad,” they huffed out a laugh, “and I want him to stay too,” he admitted.
Sho gave them a sad smile as he held their face in his hand.
“We should probably talk about that too,” Shota said as his smile fell and he returned his hand to his lap.
“What do you mean?” they asked.
“I just… He needs help, more help than we can give him and it’s just– it’s strange to see him like that, like a child even though he is. It’s just for the longest time I saw him as–as I dunno, a friend? A colleague? I don’t know that we’re– that I’m the best option for him,” he explained solemnly as he looked down at the floor.
“Baby, that kid has been to hell and back, actually not even back, he’s still in the thick of it, I don’t think anyone can be the help he needs, can you honestly think of a better option?” they challenged.
“I don’t know, I–”
“Exactly, it’s a shit situation, it’s always been a shit situation, we just have to make the best of it, and I think the three of us are more than capable of making the best of a shit situation, we have plenty of practice,” Shota scoffed at that, “And we love him, he hasn’t really had that before. At the end of the day, it’s up to him but I think we can do it, not on our own, but we can get him the help he needs and we can be there for him, right?”
Shota sat there thinking about it for a while before responding, “Yeah, maybe.”
“I think just having someone who wants him around is more important than our psychological qualifications anyway. He needs to feel loved and we can do that,” they added.
“Yeah,” Shota stated, sounding slightly more sure of his answer.
“Okay, let's have brea– well, brunch at this point, and then we can try and get a hold of Nedzu again. I’m just gonna order in, I can’t be bothered right now,” Hizashi said as they pulled out their phone and started looking at the nearby restaurants as Sho watched over their shoulder.
***
Izuku was freaking out. He just yelled at them and broke their door, he heard it crack as he slammed it, and he just screamed at All Might, right to his face! Oh fuck, oh fuck, and now they’re gonna know everything… They’re gonna know everything…
They’re gonna know that… that he… Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck .
They’re gonna know he’s a Null. He just screamed at them, broke their door and now they know he’s a Null. Goddamnit, he was born to fuck up everything, wasn’t he? What was he thinking? How long had he been out here? Where even was he? He didn’t recognize much of anything down here on the south side. Should he go back, or would that make it worse? He should apologize, right? Where was he supposed to go if they didn’t want him there anymore? Foster care? Hell no! He’d rather be homeless again. He needed to fix this. Where was he? How is he supposed to get back?
It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize he had a phone in his hand, one that could actually connect to cell service and use GPS. God, he’s such an idiot. He took a look at where he was and started heading back while he tried to figure out how to apologize.
He didn’t realize until he was back in the genkan that he didn’t have shoes on to take off. All Might’s shoes were still here but the apartment was deathly silent. He thought about bolting again but they must have heard the door, right? Slowly, he crept around the corner and the sight that greeted him was not what he would have expected. Mic was physically restraining Eraser who looked like he was about to throttle someone, and Mic looked like they wanted to let him. That was terrifying, he’d never seen Eraser this mad, and he’d never seen Mic angry at all. Instinctually, he went to take a step back but then he saw All Might, he was sitting on one of the armchairs and tears were pouring down his cheeks, he looked so sad; no beyond sad, he looked gutted.
“Midoriya, my boy I–” he started to speak, but Mic cut him off.
“No! No, you’re not speaking to him, Yagi. Get out,” they barked.
Oh, he was angry, he was really angry. They turned their attention towards him and he froze. They were saying something, he knew they were saying something but Izuku couldn’t hear them through the pounding sound of his own blood rushing through his veins. He let go of Eraser and started walking over to him but he still couldn’t move. Mic wouldn’t hurt him, right? He wouldn’t… He never… But they never knew he was a Null before. Was that going to change things?
They planted their hand on his shoulder and started guiding him away from the living room. He had no clue where they were going, his chest was too tight to even think about thinking about something else, but then they took him to the bathroom and started running the faucet, the water was warm on his feet and they were talking again but he couldn’t hear them. They handed him a bar of soap and gestured to his feet. Oh yeah, shit, he got his dirty feet all over the house; he cleaned them as quickly as he could but Mic had him do it again.
They patted his foot dry and put a bandage over the cut he didn’t even realize he had. He tried to apologize but they wouldn’t have any of it, it didn’t make any sense. He wanted to ask why he was being so nice, he wanted to ask if they knew what he was, if they cared, but he was too afraid. He didn’t understand why they didn’t hate him, both of them, hell, all three of them. He was such a mess, such a hassle, all he did was cause problems, why weren’t they mad?
He found himself tucked into the corner on his bed clutching his cat plush to his chest and wondering. He didn’t remember how he got here, he didn’t even remember Mic leaving. What the hell happened? Why was All Might crying? Why were they so mad at All Might and not at Izuku?
He sat there stewing in his own confusion until he heard a knock on the door. He let out a shaky “Y-yeah?” and Eraser opened it.
“You like tamagoyaki, kid? We’re ordering some from up the street, but we can get you something else if you want,” he offered calmly as if this morning never happened in the first place.
“N-no that’s f-fine, thank you.”
He tapped on his phone for a minute before responding, “Alright, It’ll be here in 30-40 minutes,” he said before leaving and shutting the door behind him.
Izuku didn’t think he was ever going to understand them. Why were they so nice to him?
Maybe they were masochists.
***
Toshinori’s legs carried him to his car in a daze, he didn’t fully remember getting here to begin with, had he been crying this whole time? He supposed that was a good thing about this form, people tended to leave him alone, he was too gangly and skeletal, and folks didn’t find that very approachable.
The last half hour was playing in his head on a loop and the tears wouldn’t stop pouring down his cheeks. He’d been letting them fall unchecked and his collar had become uncomfortably wet, so he went to release the top button but his fumbling fingers struggled against it uselessly, and he gave up quickly.
He’d never seen Midoriya so angry and Aizawa and Yamada seemed completely unphased. He didn’t know how such a fiery part of his protegee had never presented itself after knowing him for a year at this point. It was becoming more and more apparent that the boy was quite skilled at hiding things from him. He couldn’t get the memory of Aizawa shouting at him out of his head, that Midoriya was… God, he left him on a roof! Obviously, he got down from that one unscathed but… he could have… he could have…
He finally let go of the tattered shreds of his composure and buried his face in his hands as he sobbed like a child.
He could have lost him before he even truly knew him, he loved that boy with his whole heart, like he was his own flesh and blood. He regretted it the moment he said it; why didn’t he just take it back? How could he have left him there? How did he not notice any of this the whole time? He didn’t notice he was homeless, he didn’t notice he didn’t have a family and he didn’t notice he was potentially a hair’s width away from throwing himself off a rooftop that day. He had failed this kid time and time again since the very beginning and the horrifying guilt was eating him alive, it had been eating him alive and this felt like the last straw. There was no coming back from this, not for him, but of course Midoriya had already forgiven him. The boy had forgiven him before he even knew what he truly did to him and that made his broken heart shatter even more.
God, if Nana could see him now.
For all the good he’d done, he always failed the people who mattered most. He wanted to give up and run away before he could mess this up any more than he already had, but Midoriya had enough people who had given up on him. He had to do better but he had no clue where to start, so for now he just let himself cry his eyes out in the parking lot and thanked his lucky stars for tinted windows, and the unlimited supply of second chances this kid had to give.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 160: Cards on the Table
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny, Muffin the comma squire, and Woomy for beta reading this chapter <3 *sends virtual forehead kisses*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“We need to talk, kid,” Eraser said as he casually leaned on the doorframe.
He felt the color drain from his face
“We’re not mad at you, we just need to get your side of the story,” he added quickly, “C’mon,” he said as he nodded his head and gestured for him to follow.
Mic was already sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket with Bastard in his lap and he gave them a smile as he entered behind Eraser. Eraser sat down in the armchair adjacent to Mic so Izuku shuffled to the other side of the couch and sat down stiffly waiting for someone else to broach the topic.
“Are you alright, kiddo?” Mic asked.
“Ye-yeah, I’m fine,” Izuku responded without even thinking about the question.
Neither of them looked convinced by that, but they didn’t push the matter.
“Can you tell us about how you met All Might?” Eraser asked.
This felt wrong to talk about. He had spent the last month or so under the impression that speaking about this was a death sentence to everyone involved, but the damage was already done. He had caused enough issues, the least he could do was answer their questions, so he did his best to force the words out.
“Uh yeah, there was this s-sludge guy that came out of the sewer when I was w-walking uh… home and he t-tried to attack me, well he did attack me, but he tried to, uh, wear me like a meat suit, I guess… I tried to st-stop him but he was just all goop so I couldn’t do much until I ended up scratching his eye– that seemed to be the only solid p-part of him, but then All Might showed up and blasted him away, and put him in a b-bottle. He was going to leave but I was being stupid, and I wanted to ask him something. He tried to j-jump away but I, um, I had gr-grabbed him which was stupid I don’t know why I did that but we landed on a roof and he just, um, d-deflated for lack of a better word…” he trailed off as they both tensed.
“Go on kiddo,” Mic prompted after a second.
He looked back and forth between the two of them until Eraser nodded, prompting him to continue as well.
“Um… okay… I, uh, asked my question and he left after that,” he saw them both tense again but he continued, “but then I saw explosions and I d-didn’t know what was going on, but it sounded like K– er, Bakugo so I um… I uh… jumped down the fire escapes to st-street level to see what was happening, and it was B-Bakugo and the same sludge guy from before. I don’t know how he got out, but n-no one was helping him– they were all just standing around, but he was gonna suffocate so I, um, I threw my b-backpack at his eye and he backed off enough for Bakugo to breathe. I ran over and did my b-best to free his arms and told him to aim for the eyes, so he did and th-that was enough to get him off of B-Bakugo and the heroes started to come closer so I, uh, I ran away and I guess All M-might was still there because he stopped me and uh offered me his q-quirk because he thought I had the heart of a hero or something, I d-don’t know.” he finished the tale inelegantly.
For all the reassurances of them not being mad at him, they looked awfully mad right now.
He scooted away from them a little and tried to mask it as readjusting but he was far too tense to fool them. Kimchi didn’t seem to be fooled either because she had crawled her way into his lap. She reminded him of DJ, she was so sweet and fluffy. He busied his hands petting her long fur.
“Okay, that lines up with what he told us. Can you tell us about your relationship after that?” Eraser asked in a calculated nonchalant tone.
“Well I didn’t say yes right away, which I guess you p-probably already knew that…” he trailed off.
Wait, oh. That’s why they were mad at All Might, because of how he reacted that night. Goddamnit, none of that was his fault, there's no way All Might could have known he was so unstable and he was right anyway, he wouldn’t have gotten this far without a quirk, he would have been dead the first week of classes at the USJ.
“You guys are mad at him because of that– it wasn’t his fault he didn’t know that–”
“No, Izuku, it was his fault. He was the adult and he handled the situation beyond poorly. If he wasn’t the number one hero he could have gotten his license revoked because of how poorly he handled that, but that’s beside the point, please continue,” Eraser snapped.
“No, he–”
“Kid, I’m not arguing with you on this,” Eraser stated in a tone that left no room for debate.
“Sho, calm down. You’re right, but he’s already freaked out,” Mic chided softly.
Eraser took a minute to close his eyes and take a deep breath before speaking again, “Sorry, I’m just frustrated, but not at you. Please continue.”
He glanced at Mic again and waited for them to nod before he spoke again.
“Um he uh gave me his n-number so I could let him know my decision and, uh, obviously I said y-yes, but he wanted to make sure I was st-strong enough to receive it so he set up a training schedule for me; that’s when I started taking more b-breaks from patrol, ‘cause it was a lot. He had me clean up the d-dumping grounds at Dahgobah Beach but I got ahead of his schedule p-pretty quick ‘cause I was already in shape from p-patrolling which he didn’t know. Anyway, I, uh, I g-got his quirk in November and we spent the rest of the time up until the entrance exam t-training with it and uh, you guys know the rest…” he trailed off.
Both of them took a moment to think on what he said and Eraser had started subtly chewing at the inside of his lip. He looked uncomfortable, he was tense, Mic noticed it too but they seemed to know more than Izuku did, if the conversation via eye contact between the two of them was anything to go by. After a tense moment, Eraser turned his attention back to him.
“I need to apologize to you, kid. Things got out of hand with Yagi, my anger got the best of me and I said things that I shouldn’t have.”
Izuku did not like where this was going.
“I told him that I found you the night you met him, where I found you that night and well, he had questions. I didn’t give him any answers and I told him to just drop it, but I don’t know if he will, he might ask you and you can tell him if you want, or one of us can tell him. I talked to Nedzu and he said it was alright to let him in the loop. I’m sorry, it was out of line and it wasn’t my place to tell him anything.”
His hands were now fisted into Kimchi’s fur and she let out a small merrp of protest. He let go immediately and apologized as he smoothed down her ‘ruffled feathers’ but she didn’t seem to care at all because she started purring when he brushed her hair back into place. He tried to focus on her calm purring and not the anger and fear currently tearing through his mind like a bull in a china shop.
All Might knew, he knew he was a broken weak little Deku. So much for having the heart of a hero, he’s gonna realize what a huge mistake he made in picking him. And he’s going to have to explain how he lied to him even more than he already knew, he’s gonna find out that he was just a fractured amalgamation of personalities held together with bone-crushing fear and glitter glue.
Suddenly Mic was knelt down in front of him with a hand on his arm. Startled out of his thoughts, he looked up to see Eraser who was leaning forward and looking awfully guilty. He didn’t like that look on his face. He was mad, but seeing him upset was worse. He wanted to tell him it was okay, to not worry about it but he couldn’t get the words out.
So he signed, ‘It’s okay.’
Eraser shook his head and huffed out a humorless laugh, “No, kid, it’s not okay. I know you don’t want me to feel bad, but I fucked up, plain and simple. This is on me and I’m sorry. It’s up to you where you want to go from here though.”
Izuku took a moment to think about that. He didn’t really want anyone to know anything, if he had his way he would still be living in the brewery, but he wasn’t, and things… things were better now, right? He was terrified every day that someone was going to rip the rug out from under his feet but that was because things were better now. Along with the paralyzing fear and dread he had each time one of his secrets was pried out from between his clenched fingers, there was the barest sense of relief. Relief that he didn’t have to lie about it anymore, relief that they still hadn’t left him, not yet at least. They knew he was a Null now, they must know, right? But they were still here. Maybe they hadn’t made the connections under all the shock. He wanted to ask. It was the last secret he had kept from them– well, not the last, but the last big one.
The fear he had been doing his best to ignore all day was bubbling in his gut. They had to know, right? They weren’t stupid, they could connect the dots, and he wanted that relief so badly. He wanted them to tell him that they still wanted him here even if he was, at his core, still a Null. He needed to hear it, even if they didn’t mean it.
“Baby, what’s the matter?” Mic asked as they gently wiped a tear off his cheek.
He didn’t even realize he had started crying, god, he was so pathetic. He just needed to get this over with, rip the band-aid off.
“You guys know– I’m– that I’m– you d-don’t care?” he fumbled out inelegantly.
That wasn’t even a sentence, that was nothing, he needed to pull himself together.
“Don’t care about what, sweetheart?” Mic asked gently.
He didn’t want to say it. If they didn’t know, he wanted to bask in their ignorance for as long as he could. God, he didn’t want to say it, but he had to know, he had to get this over with.
“That I-I’m a N-Null,” he finally choked out.
The horrified look on Mic’s face made him want to jump off the balcony and Eraser looked similarly disgusted. Oh, fucking hell, he didn’t want to hear this, he couldn’t watch, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he – hands gently placed themselves on either side of his face and forced his attention toward Mic. He was talking– Shit, what was he saying? He looked so serious, he’d never seen him so stern, he needed to listen but his head was full of static.
“–uku? Izuku, can you hear me?”
He finally caught a coherent string of words so he nodded quickly and forced himself to focus on them. Mic’s hands dropped from his face and held Izuku’s hands as he continued.
“Good, that’s good. We’re not mad at you, okay? We don’t care that you weren’t born with a quirk. Sho and I were talking earlier about how impressed we were that you did everything you did as Ivy without a quirk. You are absolutely remarkable Izuku, but I don’t want to hear you call yourself that ever again. It’s not a nice word, no one should be called that,” they said as they looked him dead in the eye.
They sounded sincere, they sounded like they meant it. He was searching their face for any hint that they were lying but he couldn’t find it. They weren’t lying? How could… how? He looked up at Eraser, he still looked upset but he hadn’t said anything. His brow was furrowed and he was chewing on the inside of his lip again. Was he mad? Did he… did he think the same? Did he…
The desperation must have shown on his face enough for Mic to pick up on it cause he prompted his husband, “Right, Sho?”
“I, yes. Yes. We don’t care that you were quirkless. I’m sorry, I’m just angry that any of this happened,” he explained, “But I’m not angry with you, Izuku,” he added quickly.
The words hardly had time to leave Eraser’s mouth before Izuku fell apart. He wrenched his hands out of the gentle hold Mic had on them and buried his face as he sobbed. They didn’t care.
They didn’t care.
They didn’t care?
How could they not care?
He was a Null, unevolved, geneless, less than. How could they not care?
***
They probably hadn’t handled that as well as they could have, but Shota didn’t think that either of them were ready for the kid to so casually call himself a slur in their living room. He said it with such shame and confidence at the same time, like he knew for a fact that that was what he was, like he was more assured that that was all he would ever be than he was about anything else. He knew his self-esteem was deplorable at best, but hearing it stated so bluntly was jarring. Shota hated that word, he always did. It was so disgusting, it was an awful word to describe a human being.
Null
adjective
- without value, effect, consequence, or significance.
- being or amounting to nothing; nil; lacking; nonexistent.
It made him sick to think that Izuku really believed that about himself. It made him sick to think that anyone could believe that about him, about anyone.
Shota did his best to assure him that he wasn’t mad at him, that he didn’t care about his quirk or lack thereof, but he immediately burst into tears. Christ, can he not get through one conversation without fucking it up royally?
Izuku was babbling out denials through his tears, “There’s no way you d-don’t care, everyone cared, everyone! They all hated me! Why are you different?! How could you be different?”
Each fractured-off word Shota had to string into a coherent sentence filled him with murderous rage. He wanted to beat anyone who had ever made Izuku feel like he deserved any of this to a bloody pulp. He could tell Zashi felt the same by the tension in his shoulders, but he was doing his best to calm Izuku down, and assure him that they were telling the truth. The kid pulled himself together but he still wasn’t having it. He had stopped denying Zashi’s claims, but Shota could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe them. He needed him to believe them, but the kid was shutting down. He was still upset, it was clear as day that he was still upset, but he was just holding it in so that they wouldn’t have to deal with his breakdown.
Fucking hell, he already started this, in for a penny in for a pound.
“Kid, you don’t need me to tell you that you have drawn the worst lot in life, your luck is absolute shit on a good day, why’s it so hard to believe that you were unlucky enough to be surrounded by Musutafu’s minority of quirkest assholes?” he asked.
“Shota!” Zashi admonished his brashness but didn’t disagree.
The kid stilled his fidgeting at that before shaking his head, trying to deny it again. He looked unsure about it though.
“Izuku, if what happened to you happened to another quirkless kid, would you tell them that they deserved it?” He pushed.
That question made him still entirely. His slightly erratic breathing stopped altogether and his brow furrowed as he stared at his lap.
Shota really hoped he got through to him and didn’t just push him too far.
***
Izuku didn’t want to believe them because the longer he thought about it the angrier he became. He didn’t deserve it? He didn’t deserve it? Then why did it happen? Why did he have to live through it? Why did everyone he had ever reached out to bat his hand away and beat him down until he stopped trying altogether? If he didn’t deserve it why didn’t anyone help?
Shinso said the same thing.
They could have helped.
They would have helped.
All he had to do was ask; this whole time, he didn’t have to be alone.
His hands were clenched into shaking fists and the room blurred through the tears in his eyes. Mic was still knelt in front of him, he wanted to push him away. He wanted to scream and tear out his hair.
They had to be lying, they had to be lying, they had to, they had to theyhadtotheyhadto–
It couldn’t just be bad luck, it couldn’t have been senseless, it couldn’t… there had to be a reason! He was so angry he felt dizzy with it. His hands were clenched into shaking fists in his lap and Mic was still knelt down in front of him. He wanted them to go away, to leave him alone but he couldn’t speak past his gritted teeth and he couldn’t uncurl his fists even if he wanted to. He did his best to calmly scoot away from them until he had enough room to stand. Once he did he walked away from the living room to the genkan, making sure to pull his shoes on before going to leave. He could see both Mic and Eraser had followed him. Mic was saying something, likely trying to get him to stay but Eraser put a hand on their shoulder to stop them and stepped forward. He held out his hand like he was asking for something; he was speaking, but Izuku couldn’t make out the words. He needed to get out of here.
Eventually, Izuku caught the word “phone” so he dug into his pocket. Were they taking his phone away? Whatever, he didn’t care. He handed it over and went to leave but Eraser grabbed his shoulder with his left hand while he fiddled with the phone in his right. After a second he handed it back, screen facing Izuku. It was opened up to settings and the display showed that location sharing had been set up with Mic and Eraser.
He didn’t care that he was storming out like a child for the second time today, he just wanted to know where he was in case something happened. They just wanted him to be safe. The realization made him want to drop to his knees and sob as much as it fueled the fire of his rage. They just wanted him to be safe, they didn’t care. God, they didn’t care! How could they not care?! Why weren’t they mad? Why weren’t they disgusted? Why weren't they kicking him out? Why didn’t they care ?!
He was geneless, unevolved, he was quirkless.
Tears obscured his vision again as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket and left.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Work is absolute hell at the moment and I'm not sure whether I'm gonna upload next week because of it, so if there's nothing here next Wednesday don't be surprised (I'm sorry)
I will keep the Discord more updated if you wanna check in there.
Chapter 161: Cool Down
Notes:
Shout out to the betas (Penny, Muffin, and Woomy)
There will not be a chapter next week, sorry :(
work has been kicking my ass and I haven't been able to write
GAH I can't even write this message without being interrupted eifjqjaoia;jdf;vjfe
Should be back to normal in May
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Hizashi didn’t know his heart could break this much. This poor kid, god, this poor kid. He thought they wouldn’t still love him this whole time, did he even know that they loved him? He doubted it after everything that happened today. Izuku was sobbing silently into his own hands and Hizashi wanted to pull him against his chest and tell him how much they loved him, but that would be too much right now, he knew it would. They would have time to make sure he knew he was loved, loved however he was, loved no matter what, loved without conditions, but now was not the time.
All of the sudden, Izuku stopped crying and his breaths went from hitching on every other inhale to perfectly regular and calculated. He didn’t stop shaking though, if anything it had gotten worse, and his hands were clenched hard enough for his knuckles to blanche.
“Izuku, are you alright?” he asked hesitantly.
They didn’t normally call him by his given name, but Shota had mentioned that it had garnered a bit more of a reaction when he was like this in the past. Even still, he didn’t respond at all and Hizashi doubted that he even heard them. He just shuffled away from them and stood up heedless of Kimchi still sitting on his lap. Shit, he must really be out of it, he would never do that to Kimchi if he had his wits about him, even though she was only mildly disturbed by the ordeal at worst.
“Izuku?” he asked again cautiously.
Again, he was ignored as Izuku walked away stiffly. They glanced over to Shota to see if he had any idea what to do but his eyes were following the kid intently. He looked concerned and guilty and angry all at once. As Izuku made his way out of the living room both he and Shota stood to follow. Shota just watched as Izuku pulled his shoes on and made for the door.
“Sweetheart, I don’t think you should go out like this, it’s not safe, we don’t know–”
Shota cut him off with a hand on his shoulder, he looked like he had a plan so Hizashi let him take the lead. There was still daylight left for a few hours yet, going out may not have been advisable, but the kid was capable and Shota knew that far better than they did.
“Wait, Izuku,” Sho said calmly.
He walked over to him and Izuku just stood there, brows drawn, jaw clenched, and fists trembling.
“Can I see your phone?” he asked, holding his hand out.
Izuku didn’t respond, he looked down to Shota’s hand, but he clearly hadn’t understood the request because he just kept staring blankly. He had to ask a few more times before Izuku handed the device over.
“Thank you,” Shota replied as he started tapping away at the screen.
Izuku tried to turn and leave, but Shota just placed a hand on his shoulder gently to stop him.
“I’m sharing your location with us, okay? You can turn it off when you get back,” he explained as he handed the phone back to Izuku.
Izuku looked at the screen for far longer than it would usually take for someone to absorb what they were seeing, but eventually, he tucked the phone into his pocket and looked back up at them. His brows weren’t as furrowed as they had been and tears had filled his eyes once more. He looked between the two of them for a moment but didn’t say anything before he turned around and left, closing the door gently behind himself.
The second the door shut he saw Shota’s head drop, he looked to the ground, carded a hand through his hair, and took a few deep breaths before turning around. He opened his mouth like he was going to speak before shaking his head and walking back into the living room wordlessly. Hizashi joined him and they sat in silence for a moment before Shota spoke.
“Well, that couldn’t have gone much worse,” he remarked.
“He’ll come back,” Hizashi tried to reassure, though he couldn’t bring himself to disagree.
‘Couldn’t have gone much worse than it did’ seemed to be just how this kid’s life operated.
“I know he’ll come back but what the hell are we supposed to do when he does?” Shota replied.
“Same as we have been, just be there for him.”
“‘Zash, he called himself– he– We can’t just not address that!”
“That’s not what I meant, Sho. You’re right, we can’t just let that slide, but bringing it up with him is not what he needs right now. That can wait, the past isn’t going anywhere. The school’s already under investigation anyway and between you and Sansa no crime is going to go unpunished, but retribution isn’t what Izuku needs right now. He needs us to be here for him, he needs reassurance, he needs to know that he’s loved both how he is and how he used to be,” Hizashi clarified.
“I know, I just…” Shota trailed off.
“Yeah, I know,” they agreed, not waiting for him to finish.
The tired hopelessness in Shota’s eyes spoke more than any sentence he might have been able to string together anyway.
***
When Izuku finally got his wits about him, he took in his surroundings. He was on the rooftop where he and Eraser had first met. The sun was setting, he must have been here for a while already. He looked down at the drop below his feet, at the pavement so far away, the same patch of pavement he had had countless nightmares about Eraser’s dead body splattering against.
Why the fuck was he here?
He forced his eyes off of the sidewalk below and looked out over the city. It was fairly calm, Eraser was taking good care of this place. There wasn’t much of a breeze today, and the summer heat was getting to him now that he finally tuned back into himself, but the sun was going down, it would get cooler soon so he stayed where he was. He didn’t know where else to go anyway.
He felt hollow. His anger was a gentle simmering in the background of his mind, but that was normal, he could ignore it. He needed to focus on damage control anyway. All Might was going to have questions. Izuku owed him answers, but what the hell was he supposed to say?
“Hey, yeah I almost killed myself several times the day we met and it was kinda partially because of you– but that’s okay, haha, people outright told me to kill myself constantly so don’t worry about it! Oh, and also I was kind of a vigilante for like 3 and a half years and I’ve lied to you pretty much every time we have ever spoken to each other, hope that’s chill!”
Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well. All Might had been honest to a fault with him since they met and Izuku had done nothing but lie to him for over a year now. He felt sick. The fact that his gaze had returned to the patch of concrete beneath him probably wasn’t helping that much, so he turned his head toward the sky. There weren’t many clouds out, but the sunset still tinged the atmosphere with gentle tones of peach and lavender. With all of the earth-shattering things that had happened to him lately, he felt like it shouldn’t, like the sky should be green and yellow in solidarity with all this shit that’s been happening. Life goes on, he supposed; he just had to figure out how his was supposed to go on– something he was getting rather tired of having to do.
He wished things were different, he wished that everything didn’t have to come crashing down in order to be rebuilt, he wished he hadn’t snapped like he had, and he wished he wasn’t so goddamned tired. He was tired of breaking and he was tired of being broken and he was tired of piecing himself back together and he was tired of waiting for the next wrecking ball to hit and he was tired of ending up looking over the ledge of a rooftop like this.
He was tired of being in this alone, but he supposed that wasn’t the case anymore, whether he liked it or not.
Hm, he wasn’t alone anymore, what a novel thought.
***
Hitoshi heard a knock on the door at 8:57 pm, which was not exactly peak visitor hours around here. His mom was in the shower and he contemplated ignoring it, but a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Aizawa told him that if it was a threat, he’d be better off more informed rather than caught off guard, so he quietly made his way down the stairs. He recognized the blurry spot of green hair through the frosted glass illuminated by the porch light, and his shoulders dropped with relief quickly. However, they were just as tense as they had been by the time he made it to the door; there was no way Izuku would be here unannounced at this time with good news.
He checked through the peephole to make sure that he was seeing what he thought he saw and, as was to be expected, Izuku was standing there looking distressed. He wasted no time in swinging the door open at the sight.
“I c-cussed out All Might… and Eraserhead… and P-present Mic,” Izuku said the moment his eyes locked on Hitoshi’s.
He didn’t mean to laugh, Izuku was clearly upset about whatever had happened, but it was just so absurd that he couldn’t help himself. He knew Izuku had a bit of a darker side, he’d heard him swear from time to time, but usually, his vocabulary was far kinder and purer than most teenage boys. Izuku cussing out anyone besides himself was something Hitoshi found difficult to imagine, and All Might of all people? Go big or go home, he supposed.
“D-don’t laugh!” Izuku whinged.
“I’m not– Okay, I am, but how else am I supposed to respond to that?” he shot back.
Izuku groaned and let his shoulders slump in defeat.
“Come inside, you sound like you have a story,” he replied a little more sympathetically.
“I d-don’t! I can’t even t-tell you what happened I don’t know why I’m h-here I–”
“Just come inside,” he interrupted Izuku’s rambling by grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him past the threshold.
Thankfully he didn’t object to it, he just slid his feet out of his shoes and into his designated house slippers. Hitoshi beckoned him up the stairs and to his room, he’d tell his mom that he was here– if she didn’t already know– when she got out of the shower.
“So, is there any elaboration you can give or…” he trailed off.
Hitoshi had to stifle another laugh when he turned around after shutting his door because Izuku appeared to be doing his best to melt onto the foot of his bed face first.
“They all know e-everything now,” Izuku replied, heavily muffled by the comforter beneath his face.
“Oh, that’s…” he was going to say fine, but he stopped himself, “Well, I’m guessing you’re not happy about that.”
“I don’t– they w-weren’t even mad, I d-don’t understand.”
“Decent people tend to cut others a break when they’ve been through hell,” he explained.
“That’s not, I d-don’t mean the– Gaaaah,” he grumbled into the bedding before he sat up for a proper response.
He was still at the foot of the bed, but now he was facing Hitoshi as he leaned his back against the wall. His eyes were darting around not really focusing on anything and his brow had a deep furrow to it, like he was thinking hard about something. Hitoshi pulled his desk chair over and took a seat while Izuku gathered his thoughts. He wished that he could just tell him everything that was going on, getting half of the story was confusing, and his curiosity was getting more and more difficult to ignore with each nugget of information Izuku let slip.
“I don’t know what to do,” Izuku admitted.
“I don’t know what to tell you if I don’t actually know what’s going on,” he did his best to subtly probe for more information.
“I can’t t-tell you,” Izuku replied mournfully, “ I don’t know why they w-want me to s-see a shrink, I can’t tell them anything either!”
“So is it… like… legal trouble?” he hedged.
Izuku sighed heavily.
“It’s a lot. I d-don’t even know how I got m-myself into so m-many messes– Well, I do but… they all know about my q-quirk, about how it was l-less than, um, f-functional,” he paused before he finished his thought, “they d-don’t care, they wouldn’t’ve c-cared just like you s-said and I just– I didn’t have to…”
The ‘be alone’ was left unsaid but it hung heavily in the air.
“And All M-might doesn’t a-actually know everyth-thing, just that there’s m-more that he d-doesn’t know and now I have to t-tell him–”
“Why do you ‘have’ to tell him?” he interrupted the spiral he saw coming on.
“He– I l-lied to him, he deserves to know,” Izuku insisted.
“No one ‘deserves’ to know anything that you don’t want to tell them,” he argued.
The irony of that assertion coming from him of all people was not lost on him.
“I need to tell him, he knows the w-worst of it already. P-probably, I g-guess that’s a matter of perspective,” Izuku mused aloud.
“Maybe you could write him a letter instead,” he offered.
Izuku gave him a strange look at that suggestion.
“Don’t look at me like that, it's a perfectly normal thing to do, and you write constantly anyways! Shit’s difficult enough to talk about, that might make it easier,” he defended his stance.
“I just… I’m tired of all the l-lying coming back to b-bite me. S-serves me right, I guess,” Izuku answered with resignation.
“The only thing that would serve you right is winning the lottery and retiring at seventeen; stop blaming yourself for everything,” he shot back.
“How is g-getting caught in my own w-web of lies not my f-fault?” Izuku asked sounding as tired as he looked, which was to say, extremely.
“Well what the hell else were you supposed to do, Izuku? Expecting you to trust anyone after everything that happened is a tall order. You have a goddamn villain origin story, you know? Honestly, everyone should be grateful you’re not dismantling Japan entirely– unless that’s the long con. You’re not just becoming a hero so you can tear it all down from the inside, are you?” he poked at him in an effort to lift the mood.
He smirked and rolled his eyes.
“I wouldn’t t-tell you if that was my plan, w-would I?”
“As long as you remember we were tight and I have a good gig in your new world order, then my lips are sealed,” he joked and mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key.
Izuku chuckled at him, but his expression went back to somber and exhausted quickly.
“All M-might has done a l-lot for me… he was– he stayed with me in the h-hospital after the USJ. I l-lied to him s-so much. I lied to him like I l-lied to you and I– he saved my life s-several times over and he– I never… I st-still don’t understand why you forgave m-me,” Izuku explained a little bit more.
Hm, well that explained why those two were so buddy-buddy, that was something he had been wondering, but in the grand scheme of shit going on in Izuku’s life, his relationship with All Might wasn’t high on Hitoshi’s list of concerns.
“Well, what else was I supposed to do? Stay angry? That doesn’t sound very fun,” he answered easily.
“He’s n-not angry though, he b-blames himself– or at least, I think he does. M-mic and Eraser b-blame him, but it was my fault, I'm the one who lied. It’s n-not his fault for believing m-me,” Izuku insisted.
Hitoshi did his best to ignore the part of himself that was relieved that Izuku had managed to pull the wool over All Might’s eyes. His instinct was to say that All Might should have known better, but that wasn’t fair. If he said that about All Might, he would have to say that about his mom too. The truth of the matter was Izuku was a damn good liar, far better than he had any right to be. So much so that he was hesitant to say that it was All Might’s fault for not looking into things more than he did. He didn’t know enough to say anything with any amount of certainty, and he knew Izuku wouldn’t want to hear empty platitudes.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he decided to say honestly.
Izuku sighed and looked down at his lap before replying with a weary “I know.”
***
Kohaku knew the second Midoriya made his way to their front door. Given that she could feel him get closer, she assumed Toshi let him in. Generally, she couldn’t track people based off their emotions, but she could recognize people she was closest to with fairly good reliability. The jumbled mess of emotions that was almost impossible to parse out was Midoriya through and through– that and she couldn’t imagine Toshi would so calmly let anyone else into their house.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she walked past Toshi’s door and heard them talking. She didn’t stay to eavesdrop, just enough to make sure she was right before she sounded the alarms. Toshi seemed surprised to see him so she presumed this wasn’t a planned visit.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:14 pm)
I’ve got a stowaway here, are you missing a stray?
Aizawa answered her almost immediately.
Aizawa: (9:14 pm)
I know, he needed some air but he’s sharing his location
Do you need me to come pick him up?
That was a worried dad response if she ever saw one. She wondered how he was doing with all of this. Sure it was hard on Midoriya, but suddenly being a parent/guardian to a severely traumatized teenager couldn’t be easy on Aizawa, especially with all the trouble he seemed to get himself into.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:15 pm)
No, he’s always welcome here
I really do mean that, I might as well give him a spare key :)
Aizawa: (9:20 pm)
Thank you.
He hasn’t had dinner, can I order some takeaway to you?
Aww, that was so thoughtful. Whether or not Aizawa felt like he had a grip on the situation, he seemed to be doing a good job of making sure that kid was well cared for. Lord knows he needed it.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:21 pm)
I can feed him, don’t worry about it
Aizawa: (9:22 pm)
Thanks, is he doing alright? He was in a bad state when he left.
She took a moment to tune back into what was going on in Toshi’s room. They both seemed to have settled down a bit, but Midoriya still wasn’t happy.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:24 pm)
He feels frustrated and sad. Nothing too volatile, at least not for him. I haven't seen him yet, Toshi let him in when I was in the shower and they’re still talking in his room.
Is there anything I should know?
Aizawa: (9:30 pm)
There’s not much I can tell you. A bunch of new information just came to light, things he would have liked to keep buried. It’s for the best, or at least it will be.
Oh good lord, how many secrets did this kid have? She sincerely hoped that this was the end of it and all the cards were out on the table. Toshi said he was seeing a counselor now so it was a good time for it, to get everything sorted out before it started to stagnate and rot. She hoped Aizawa was handling that situation carefully, she knew he was a big softie under everything, but that didn’t mean he had tact. Not for the first time, she wished she knew more so she could help more.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:32 pm)
Toshi said you had him seeing a therapist?
Aizawa: (9:33 pm)
Not yet but it’s in the works. He’s not happy about it.
She huffed out a laugh at that as she made her way down to the kitchen to start heating up some leftovers. Kohaku took a moment while the microwave whirred to think about what she wanted to say. She knew she had no right to any withheld information, but she wanted to help both of them so desperately. She remembered going through this stage of trauma with Toshi, it was a difficult thing to do alone, especially when she was working through it herself. Her friends had been there, but that wasn’t the same as a spouse. Eraser had someone , she knew that, but she didn’t know who they were or how much they were helping him with this.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:35 pm)
Yes I’d imagine he wouldn’t be
I know the situation isn’t the same, but it’s similar enough to what Toshi went through. I had him see a therapist for a few years (mostly against his will) so if you wanted to talk to someone who even vaguely understands what’s going on, I’ve got your back.
There, hopefully that was enough of an olive branch for him to hang on to. The microwave beeped and she stirred around the curry she’d made earlier before sticking it back in for another cycle. She threw a cup of rice into the rice cooker and tried not to stare at the three dots on her phone that kept popping up and going away. The food was ready by the time Aizawa replied.
Aizawa: (9:55 pm)
We might have to take you up on that offer
Oh! We? That was promising! Just the thought of being able to help was enough to ease the tension in her shoulders. Also, in the privacy of her mind, she would admit she was more than a little curious about Aizawa’s other half. She assumed the situation was kept under wraps for their safety since being a hero could be dangerous work, so she hadn’t asked, but she was tempted.
Shinso Kohaku: (9:56 pm)
I’m out of work before you are, pick a time and I’ll make it happen. I’ve gotta get some food in your fugitive now, so we can iron out the details later.
She typed out a reply before calling the boys down. She hoped she wasn’t being too pushy; she had a feeling all of them had a few things they would like to get off their chests.
***
Izuku knew he should have gone back home, he knew that Mic and Eraser were probably worried, even if they knew where he was, but he didn’t have the stomach to face them right now. As he stared up at Hitoshi's ceiling in the dark he tried his best to think more objectively about the situation.
Logically, he knew that they all cared about him. He knew that All Might cared even though he was a– even though he was quirkless, but All Might had an insider perspective on that; even if his life hadn’t panned out exactly like Izuku’s had, he knew what it was like to be– like that . He was bound to have some empathy, but Mic, Eraser, and the Shinsos were never quirkless, it didn’t make sense that they would still care about him. No one who knew what he was had ever cared about him before All Might, so why were they different?
Because they’re not quirkest assholes , the Eraser in his brain supplied.
He instinctively went to shove the thought away, to not give in to that treacherous hope, but there really was no other explanation.
They cared about him, the actual him. They genuinely cared about him, quirkless and all.
His mind tried to deny it still, saying it was just pity or them falling prey to sunk-cost fallacies, but for the first time in his life, those voices weren’t loud enough to drown out the all-consuming, deafening hope.
The anger that had taken hold of him earlier did its best to rear its ugly head, it tried to fixate on all the time he spent alone for no reason other than his own cowardice, but he shushed it and made a decision. That wasn’t going to happen again. He wasn’t going to miss out on– on… whatever this was again. He had it now, and it was the most precious thing he had ever touched.
It was terrifying, but in the darkness of his best friend's room, as Izuku laid awake next to his even breaths, he made the choice to trust. Everything was out on the table, there was nowhere left to hide. Losing this was going to tear him apart regardless of whether he fought it or not, so he might as well let it happen.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 162: A Conscious Decision to Trust
Notes:
We're back baby. Shout out to Penny Muffin and Woomy for beta reading this one.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Izuku ended up staying the night over at the Shinso’s house. Shota mused that it was probably for the best, the two of them had spent the whole night trying to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do. He wasn’t used to seeing Hizashi so uncertain about things like this, so he was glad that Shinso-san had offered out a hand. There wasn’t much they could tell her, but Hizashi had said there were probably some universal truths she could offer regardless of specifics. Even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to try, they both had full confidence in her when it came to Izuku; she’d proven time and time again that she wanted the best for him just as much as they did.
Neither of them slept particularly well, but it was a far cry from how piss-poor last night had gone. They were both sitting at the table silently drinking coffee when Izuku walked through the front door. The parallel that drew with yesterday’s fiasco didn’t go unnoticed.
“Hey kiddo,” Hizashi called out.
Izuku’s footsteps were silent, so Shota didn’t know what was happening until he peeked out from around the corner, and paused between the living room and dining room.
“Hi,” Izuku replied quietly from where he stood at the far end of the table.
All three of them sent questioning glances at one another and, to Shota’s surprise, Izuku walked over and took his spot across from Hizashi. He didn’t say anything, but he was chewing at his lip like he was about to.
“I’m s-sorry about… well… everything,” Izuku spoke up after a moment.
Hizashi’s mouth was already open and a denial was no doubt on the tip of his tongue, but Izuku interrupted him.
“No, I d-don’t want– I sh-shouted at you, I broke the wall, I l-lied to you, e-even after e-everything that you’ve done for m-me, and I p-put you both in danger. It d-doesn’t matter if it’s not f-fair to me, it’s not fair to you either, and I’m sorry,” Izuku stated with determination.
He couldn’t help the swell of pride he felt, both because Izuku had the confidence to cut Hizashi off, and because that was such a well thought out and mature apology. He saw Hizashi’s empathy in Izuku, and he was working on that emotional maturity, he had the foundations at the very least. For someone who wasn’t their kid, he saw the best of both of them in him.
“Alright, let’s take that from the bottom to the top. You’re right, it’s not fair to anyone, but it is what it is. Apology accepted and forgiven. As for putting us in danger, you already saved Sho’s life– I never got to properly thank you for that, I wouldn’t… Well, I much prefer the potential danger we’re in now to the alternative where you never stepped foot into our lives. So, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
Hizashi’s hand had begun to subtly shake around the grip on his coffee mug as he spoke, so Shota reached his hand out and covered theirs with his own. They shot him a grateful smile before continuing.
“As for what we’ve done for you, it’s what you deserve. Regardless of anything you’ve done or any lies you’ve told, every kid deserves a safe, comfortable home, and we were– we are more than happy to provide that for you. Sho’s been dying to hole you away somewhere safe since the moment he met you anyways,” they poked.
He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that. Hizashi had a flair for the dramatics, but well… he wasn’t wrong.
“See, he’s not even denying it! Besides… I always wanted a family– and that’s what you are to us, kiddo, you’re family. Whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth,” they explained earnestly.
Izuku’s eyes were glassy and he had his lip pinched tightly between his teeth. He turned his gaze down to the table in a vain attempt to hide the hand that met his face to wipe away the tears. He stayed like that for a while, long enough that Hizashi looked like he was about to say something, but Shota stopped them, the kid needed a minute to process that.
Hizashi came from a very loving family, one that expressed that love freely and often. He didn’t understand what it was like to go from an emotionless void to suddenly being a part of something, suddenly being surrounded by people who cared about you. Shota’s parents never cared for him, he knew that; they were always far too involved in each other and their careers to give a shit about him. They had given him everything he needed, and nothing more. They didn’t dote, they didn’t coddle him; they gave him food, shelter, enough spending money for him to figure out how to raise himself, and that was it. Going from that to UA where every loud-mouthed bleeding heart on campus seemed to want to be his best friend was jarring, and it had taken him a while to adjust. Izuku wasn’t so dissimilar to him in that way.
When he finally looked up his eyes were red, but they had a determined edge to them.
“I– Hi-hitoshi calls me Izuku n-now. I– um, you c-called me that y-yesterday– you can– if you w-want to, I d-don’t m-mind if you d-do, ” Izuku stuttered out, offering the shakiest metaphorical hand for them to hold onto.
Oh, thank god. Shota knew that he had slipped up more than a few times calling him Izuku; he didn’t like calling him Midoriya, though that seemed to bother him more than it bothered Izuku. He glanced over to Hizashi who had a smile splitting their face, the kind that was far too genuine to not be infectious. Needless to say, he found himself smiling too. It wasn’t a huge leap, but it was a step in the right direction.
***
Nedzu had grown used to the feeling of others being cross with him. In his youth, it was the scientists who blamed him for their experiments not yielding the results they had desired. Later, after he had gained his own autonomy, he had found himself in the habit of upsetting humans constantly; they were strange and foreign to him; though, with enough study and careful dancing around conversations, he had grown to understand the ways their brains functioned differently to his, which made working with them much less grating for everyone involved. Nowadays, if someone wasn’t sending him snide emails or a disapproving glance at the very least, he would consider that a failure in his work ethic; after all, very little changes if everyone is comfortable. Thankfully, the opportunity for such an occurrence rarely arose with the school board in near constant contact with him.
Today he had two people rather cross with him, and work hours hadn’t even begun! Unfortunately, he preferred to upset those higher up on the chain of command, not lower. Having your employees upset with you tended to be a poor reflection of oneself.
Naturally, he was looking forward to his next meeting being done quickly.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Nedzu greeted them.
Neither Aizawa nor Yamada responded, they just stared back at him with very dissatisfied looks in their eyes.
“I believe apologies are in order. I will not lie to you, I would do what I did again; I do not have remorse for my actions as I didn’t have any better option, at least not one that I could see. Everyone involved is put into a difficult situation by nature of even knowing, as I’m sure you understand, but I do deeply regret damaging our trust regardless of my perceived necessity. It is not something I did lightly,” he explained honestly, as false remorse would do very little to repair trust.
The barest twitch of an expression passed over Aizawa’s face and it looked far too close to disgust for his taste. Yamada, however, looked resigned. The latter was far more logical when it came to emotions; despite Aizawa’s naturally more reasonable disposition, when he was moved to such irrationalities as feelings , he was far less quick to forgive. Nedzu had expected this.
“I presume that you have questions,” he opened the conversation.
“Do you trust him– Yagi, do you trust him?”
He was surprised to hear Aizawa speak up first.
“I trust him implicitly with many things, and less so with others, you’ll have to be more specific.”
“With Izuku,” Aizawa bit out sharply.
“I trust his intentions, I trust that he would do anything for that boy. He would protect him with his dying breath, I am certain of that,” he answered.
“But?” Aizawa prompted.
“I trust him to handle the boy’s fragile mental state about as much as I would trust myself,” he admitted.
They both scoffed out a bitter laugh at his response.
“Which isn’t to say not at all!” he argued, “But, certainly not the best choice among the ones we have available to us.”
The two of them looked at each other in a way that communicated something he wasn’t privy to before they looked back and Yamada spoke up.
“If you have any other secrets, now’s the time for ‘em,” they said, threat evident in their tone.
“No, no more secrets, none that pertain to you or your charge, at least,” he answered honestly.
“If that’s another lie, I promise you that I will have quite a few nasty things to say very publicly about your management of UA; whether they’re true or not, I know how to stir up a nasty scandal by this point,” they said with a smile sharp enough to rival his own.
Perhaps Yamada was less rational about this than he had hoped.
“That wouldn’t be very wise for your career,” he pointed out.
“Mutually assured destruction,” they answered easily.
He did not doubt the sincerity of that threat for a moment.
“Noted. I assure you, all cards are on the table,” he reiterated.
They shared another glance and had a silent debate as to whether or not they were going to believe him. Thankfully, it appeared that the argument ended in his favor.
“How are we going to keep him safe? What's your plan?” Aizawa asked
“I hardly think there’s a safer place for him than here at UA and with you two, barring keeping him hidden away completely. Though, I think his growth has been hindered by circumstance enough at this point.”
“So this was all your plan the whole time? You knew from the beginning?” Aizawa pressed, mounting fury evident.
“No, no, I wasn’t lying when I told you Midoriya is dangerously intelligent. He had been coming here to train with Yagi under Shuzenji’s watch for a month before he even got accepted into UA. He flew under my radar for far longer than I’m comfortable with. I assure you his current lodgings are a happy accident. If I had known how he was living, I would not have let it continue,” he corrected Aizawa’s accusation.
The explanation seemed to have settled him slightly, but a nasty scowl remained plastered to his face.
“Now, I suppose this isn’t the most tactful time for this conversation, but it is the only time we have available. We are meeting to discuss the matchups for the practical final during lunch today–”
“No,” Aizawa interrupted him before he could even finish his sentence.
“I will heed your decision, but I would like for you to hear me out first,” he requested.
Yamada shot a confused look over to his partner.
“He wants to pit Izuku and Bakugo against All Might for the final,” Aizawa explained.
Yamada cringed, but he didn’t say anything, so he took that as permission to proceed.
“You no doubt care little for my first point so I’ll get it out of the way, I don’t believe Bakugo would work with Midoriya unless suitably motivated, and I doubt he will view anyone else as big enough of a threat to prompt cooperation. I sincerely believe pitting him against All Might is the only way he has a chance of passing your test. Furthermore, I think this falling out is the perfect recipe for Midoriya’s success. Yagi, though I haven't spoken much to him, is rather distressed about the situation, and I find it unlikely that he will be able to face Midoriya head-on due to his emotional hang-ups. I’m sure Midoriya will notice his hesitance, and I think it would be good for him. He has All might up on a pedestal; seeing him uncertain and faltering should help that. Moreover, with your concerns about Midoriya’s safety during the test, I don’t believe we have anyone more suited and motivated to make sure that no one raises a hand against him with malice. He is the number one hero for a multitude of reasons, and I am confident he will employ all of those to make sure Bakugo doesn’t get the chance to lay a finger on his teammate,” he explained.
He let the contemplative silence stew for a moment before he spoke again.
“Logic aside, I know your anger is running high at the moment, and putting Yagi in this situation will be uncomfortable for him, I’m sure,” he added with a sly grin.
The contemplative glance that the two of them shared was enough for him to know his argument had landed. A mixture of logic and petty revenge was too tempting for most humans to pass up. Which isn’t to say that he was above that himself, no, he was unfortunately much worse; he only required one of those ingredients to win him over, and more often than not it was the latter, not the former.
The pair, again, was having a silent conversation, and it seemed as though Yamada was arguing in his favor. A surprising turn of events, but not one he would begrudge.
“He’s not going to accept he was wronged if he doesn’t see All Might as flawed,” Yamada spoke up when words became necessary.
Aizawa’s responding look of angry resignation sealed the deal.
Brilliant!
***
Toshinori had spent the better part of the weekend sulking, there wasn’t really a better word for it. He had cried more in the last 48 hours than he had the rest of his life combined, perhaps barring when he was an infant. Guilt hung heavy on his shoulders, and every second felt like it would be the last he could stand before it crushed him.
Of course, life went on regardless. Monday rolled around, and he had to face the music. He forced himself through all of the routines he had neglected over the weekend because he had to be functional for the students. He stretched, took his meds, and pretended like it didn’t hurt to move even the slightest amount. He put on his oversized suit and drove to UA like he did every weekday. Unlike every other weekday, Aizawa glared at him with enough vitriol that he felt like he should be feeling physical effects from it. Yamada ignored him for the most part, but he caught their eye once or twice, and it wasn’t pleasant either time.
The day ticked by slowly, but he managed to get a glimpse of Midoriya; he didn’t look any different than he normally did. The sight put him at ease for a moment before his internal dialogue helpfully reminded him that he had seen the boy when he was willing to throw himself off a roof, so just because he appeared to be doing well, didn’t mean he was.
He quite desperately wanted to spend his lunch break in a disused room and return to the catatonic state he had been in for the past few days, but Nedzu had called for a meeting. It was probably for the best, he didn’t fully trust himself to be able to escape from whatever mood he would have allowed himself to sink into.
Regardless of his mood, this meeting had been scheduled for a week; they were going to be discussing the first year’s finals. Being so new at this, he didn’t feel like he had much input to give, but he needed to sit in and listen to what the people who actually knew what they were doing said.
He sat and dutifully paid attention to the conversation, and didn't disagree with anyone’s assessments. The thought did cross his mind that this is something Midoriya would be very good at– analyzing the pool of participants and their quirks and assigning matchups. It wasn’t until he heard his own name that he realized he might not have been paying as much attention as he thought he was; obviously he was going up against a pair of students, he wouldn’t be in this meeting if he wasn’t.
“All Might against Bakugo and Midoriya,” he heard Nedzu announce and he felt his face blanche.
Everyone was looking at him now and he couldn’t help the way his gaze flicked toward Aizawa and Yamada. Did they approve this? They weren’t arguing about it, and he couldn’t imagine they would be so quiet if this were the first they were hearing about this matchup.
“I–um– Yes, I suppose if I'm going against anyone it would make sense for it to be those two,” he forced out an answer with a practiced fake laugh.
He saw a few of his colleagues laugh along with him and was glad to know that he wasn’t so out of it as to flag their notice.
He’ll admit that the rest of the meeting went by in a blur. Why would they allow him to go against Midoriya? Yamada had forbade him from even speaking to the boy– which he couldn’t blame them for. He couldn’t help but feel like this was just as much a test for him as it was for the students, and he was wracking his brain to try and figure out what it was they wanted from him.
***
It hadn’t escaped Izuku’s notice how intently Todoroki had been watching him all morning. The last time they spoke, Izuku stormed off and left Hitoshi and Uraraka to do damage control. He knew they were all concerned about him, he wished they weren’t, but for better or worse, they seemed to genuinely care about him. He had made the decision last Saturday to trust his new… family, and no one could ever accuse him of doing things by half-measures, so he was going to talk to them today, at least a little bit.
He waited nervously as everyone settled into their spots at the lunch table. He could tell that the tension he had created last Friday still hung heavy between them and ignoring it wasn’t going to make it go away– at least not as quickly as addressing it would.
“I’m s-sorry for last F-friday. I shouldn’t have st-stormed out like that. I just– I have a l-lot going on l-lately,” he prefaced, hoping to test the waters for whether or not they were ready for the heavily censored version of the shit show that was his past.
“Like what?” Todoroki asked when no one else spoke up.
“Todoroki, I told you, he doesn’t have to–”
“No, I think it would b-be better if I did,” he interrupted Hitoshi trying to tell Todoroki off.
He looked around at the four of them, waiting for someone to say they didn’t want to hear about it, but they didn’t. They were all waiting patiently to hear what he had to say.
No time like the present.
He took a deep and shaky breath and spit the words out before he could back down.
“My, um m-my mom has been out of the picture for a while and my d-dad died. I’m– I’m living w-with a foster family n-now,” he explained.
It was a half-truth, but that was all he could afford to extend to them. They all looked surprised at his admission, Hitoshi included. He was glad to see a bit of the tension in Todoroki’s shoulders ease at the news, but even still, Uraraka was the first to recover her wits enough to respond.
“I’m so sorry for your lo–”
“Don’t–” he cut her off and regretted it immediately, “Sorry, j-just don’t– he’s n-not worth condolences, neither of them are.”
“…Oh,” she responded with morose understanding.
Todoroki already knew that his home life had been less than favorable, hence why he had been watching him so intently, but it took Iida a moment to realize the meaning behind what he had just said.
“Was that why you were gone? Before the internships, you were…” Iida trailed off.
“Um, yeah. That was when I was– when I moved in w-with the, um– that’s when I moved,” he answered awkwardly.
He could see the guilt building behind Iida’s eyes, he looked like he was about to apologize again which would prompt too many questions from the two people at the table who were not in attendance for their little legal fiasco, so Izuku shot him a look that said ‘Can it’. Iida pressed his mouth into a firm line, glanced at Hitoshi and Uraraka, and nodded. He did his best to shoot Iida another look that said ‘It’s fine’ but that was a more complicated sentiment to communicate than ‘Shut the fuck up’ was.
“But Shinso said he talked to your dad about your birthday cake,” Todoroki pointed out, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“That w-was probably my foster… dad?” he replied with a grimace.
Eraser sure as hell was not his dad, he was… Well, Izuku didn’t know what he was, but trying to pin the label ‘father’ next to his name kind of made him want to puke, if he was being honest. Saying the same thing about Mic was less nauseating, but not by much. They weren’t his parents, that was… gross. Guardians? Technically, yes– but parents? No.
“Do you like them then? Your foster family?” Uraraka picked the conversation back up.
“Yeah, they’re…” he trailed off and did his best to suppress the stupid grin on his face as he let his gaze drop to the bento Mic had packed for him, “They’re nice.”
“That’s good, so things are on the up and up then, right?” she asked hopefully.
“Yeah, I g-guess they are,” he replied, slightly in awe of how much he meant it.
Sure, he had the threat of a supervillain breathing down his neck, but there was always something to worry about. For the first time in a long time, it felt like the pros outweighed the cons in his life.
“Do you have any siblings now?” Iida asked a little awkwardly.
“Oh, no, n-not unless you count cats,” he answered.
“Ooo cats? Plural? Do you have pictures?” Uraraka chimed in.
“No, I d-don’t. I’ll try to get some t-tonight.”
“How many are there?” Hitoshi asked.
“Yeah, and what are their names?” Uraraka added excitedly.
He snorted out a laugh at that and glanced at Hitoshi before answering.
“Kimchi and um… Bastard,” he replied with a smirk.
As he had expected, Hitoshi was laughing a lot more than anyone else, as he was the only one who knew who the cats belonged to. Finding out that your strict, no-nonsense teacher owned a cat named Bastard was, admittedly, kind of funny.
“Wh-what did the cat do to be named Bastard?” Hitoshi asked through laughter.
“Attempted m-murder, mainly,” he answered through his own giggles.
“He likes to lay on people’s faces while they s-sleep,” he explained when everyone at the table pulled a confused face.
At this point, he should have known himself well enough to know that he shouldn’t have let himself laugh like that, not when he was discussing something so, erm, emotionally charged because the laughter quickly turned to tears when he realized that this was probably the first time he had ever voluntarily talked about his home life in twelve years. It was, at the very least, the first time he had talked about it in a positive light.
No one at the table was laughing now and he felt a rush of shame for being the reason for that.
“S-sorry, I’m– it’s okay. I’m j-just… h-happy? I think…” he tried to explain, but he wasn’t really sure himself.
Everyone was looking at him with discomfort and confusion, but Uraraka’s expression crumpled into a sad smile before she stood up from her seat, walked around the table, and bodily shoved Hitoshi from his spot next to Izuku so that she could sit down and hug him.
Hitoshi was on the floor complaining, Izuku was laughing again, and it was… nice, he decided.
This was nice.
***
What the fuck was going on with Deku? Katsuki wondered as he watched Pink Cheeks shove Troll Doll to the floor so that she could hug Deku who was laughing and crying at the same time in the middle of the cafeteria like a fucking psycho.
“Oh, woah, what’s going on over there with Mido?” Pikachu asked after following his gaze.
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” he bit back.
“He’s been through the wringer lately; he was in the middle of the USJ and then he was in Hosu too, right? Poor guy,” Raccoon eyes answered.
“And he’s having a heart-to-heart with his friends about it? So manly,” Shitty Hair added with an approving head nod.
“Do you guys think he ran into the Hero Killer with Endeavor? I talked to Roki and he said all three of them ended up in the hospital. Iida has that gash on his shoulder and Roki has two on his arm and one on his leg– I saw them in the locker room,” Tape Face wondered aloud.
“Pervert,” Pikachu taunted in response.
Jesus Christ, they were all insufferable.
“It’s not perverted! I just have working eyes and I’m not brain-dead!” Tape Face defended himself.
“Wait, really? What about Mido?” Raccoon Eyes locked in on the gossip.
Fucking typical.
“Mido always changes in a stall,” Pikachu answered.
“Why do you know that? You looking to peep something, pervert?” Tape Face shot back in a mocking tone.
“Will you guys shut the hell up?” he barked at them.
“You’re the one that started it,” Pikachu argued
“By looking in a direction?” he asked incredulously.
“By peeping on their manly heart-to-heart ,” he mocked Shitty Hair, “Maybe Bakugo’s the per–”
Pikachu’s almost insult was cut off by a murderous glare and a smoking palm nearly igniting the chopsticks in his hand.
“Anyway, nice weather we’ve been having, am I right?” Pikachu wisely changed the subject.
He let their inane chatter fade to background noise again and tried to sort out what was going on with Deku for the thousandth time since the semester started. He ran through the short list of things he knew for certain:
- Deku had a quirk now (always had a quirk?)
- The Hag gave up on trying to contact Auntie years ago (Did Auntie stop talking to them because of what he did to Deku?)
- Hobo-sensei wasn’t expelling him (for now)
And that was pretty much it. He’d be tempted to say fuck it and demand that Deku give him some goddamn answers if it weren't for the caveat to his final bullet point. Hobo-sensei had been glaring at him with that fucking creepy-ass stare for weeks now, and it was crystal fucking clear that the only reason he was still here was not because of his teacher’s good grace. He could only guess what that reason was, and poking around trying to figure out its origin was liable to make the whole thing fall apart.
He needed to be in this stupid fucking school more than he needed answers. So, begrudgingly, he let Deku be. The waterworks in the middle of lunch ruined the mysterious tough guy routine he was trying to play anyway.
Regardless of whether he ignored Deku or not, he had a feeling that things were getting close to a boiling point. He was not looking forward to the outcome of that.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! I hope to be back to normal uploads going forward but I will keep you guys posted if that changes. I had a rough few weeks, man 😞
Chapter 163: The Fool Jingled Miserably Across the Floor
Notes:
Shout out to the usual suspects for beta reading this one (Penny, Muffin, and Woomy)
I'm going to be out of the state and up to shenanigans next Wednesday, so I can't guarantee the upload will be at the same time of day that it normally is, but I still plan to upload.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Life moved on, and finals approached faster than Izuku’s classmates seemed comfortable with. All Might still hadn’t tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t sure if that was his choice, or Mic and Eraser’s choice. He’d been distracting himself by helping Iida and Uraraka with English and Hitoshi with Math, but Todoroki didn’t seem too concerned about exams. He and Todoroki were 4th and 5th in the class ranking, seemingly without much effort, after all. He felt a little bad for the group going over to Yaoyorozu’s house to study; sure, he was probably more on top of assignments than they seemed to be, but it’s not like he was studying like his life depended on it. At least it was a good morale boost for them to be working together.
“How can I be so prepared and so stressed at the same time?” Uraraka groaned as she looked over her notes at the lunch table like she had been for the past week.
He wished he could help her more. It seemed like things just clicked for some people and didn’t for others; there wasn’t much more he could do about that.
“Well, we have no idea what the practical will be!” Iida chimed in helpfully.
Uraraka sighed and looked ready to take a nap face-first into her bowl of ramen.
“You’ll do fine Uraraka, you’ve b-been doing great in all of the–” his encouragement was cut off by something hitting him hard in the back of the head.
His knee-jerk reaction was to strike back, he could feel the presence of someone still standing behind him, but no one looked scared so the instinct turned into an odd full-body twitch. He turned his attention toward whoever had done that calmly and saw one of the students from class 1B looking down their nose at him. The pain in his head, the chatter of the cafeteria, and the look of haughty disdain in the boy’s eyes reminded him of days that he would much rather forget.
“Oh, sorry, your head’s so big that it’s hard to miss. I heard you guys stumbled across The Hero Killer. Just like in the sports festival, class 1A isn’t happy unless they’re the center of attention. You do realize, you’re not in the spotlight because people think you’re good heroes, right? It’s becau–”
“Shut the hell up, Monoma.”
Izuku didn’t even realize he froze until Hitoshi spoke up. What the hell was his problem? He was supposed to be getting better, and now he’s freezing up the second someone bullies him? He could see Uraraka tense up across from him and it was pretty obvious that Hitoshi wasn’t happy. He wasn’t the only one affected by this, him freezing up was letting them down, he needed to pull himself together.
“Pft, if you can’t handle the truth maybe you should stop getting yourselves into so much trouble. Here’s some food for thought–”
“People nearly died, Monoma. I nearly died. It was traumatic, we aren’t reveling in the fucking clout. Leave us alone and maybe try thinking before you speak,” he interrupted the rant with more fight in his words than he had intended.
Regardless of his botched attempt at responding normally, it had the desired effect; Monoma was staring at him like a gaping fish, but unfortunately, so was everyone else.
“Well, I came over here to tell him off, but I think you did a better job than I could have,” another student from 1B interrupted the stunned silence.
Monoma thankfully took that as his cue to leave. He shuffled away awkwardly as if they wouldn’t notice with another person there to distract them.
“Ah– um, hello, Kendo,” Iida shifted the group's focus.
“I’m sorry for him, I think he has a hole where his heart should be…” she trailed off apologetically before continuing, “So, I was listening, I know you’re all worried about what’s gonna be on the big final practical, I heard it’s gonna be robots like in the entrance exam. I have a friend a grade above us, and that’s what she said– I know it’s cheating, but, oh well. I figured I might as well level the playing field.”
He heard Hitoshi’s head hit the table before he saw it. Hm… that probably wasn’t so reassuring for him, was it? His quirk was uniquely useless against those things.
“C’mon Hitoshi, you’ll be fine. We’ve already fought them once, right?” he tried to encourage him and simultaneously ignored the looks he was still getting from Iida and Uraraka.
Uraraka seemed to have picked up on his discomfort and carried on trying to convince Hitoshi that he wasn’t doomed, but he just let it fade to background noise. That was the second time he had snapped at someone recently, and he didn’t like it. He was used to being angry, but he wasn’t used to this .
Word about the final had spread to the rest of the class by the end of the day, and everyone, aside from Hitoshi, seemed to be in good spirits about it. However, there was something about it that wasn’t sitting right with him; sure, it was a good benchmark to see how far they had come since the beginning of the year, an easy one-to-one comparison, but they had been running drills with each other and their instructors all term. Fighting against something that couldn’t strategize against you in real-time didn’t seem like much of a challenge in comparison. However, it was their first final of many, so there had to be wiggle room to up the difficulty later on, right?
It was that hypothesis sticking with him that ruined the surprise reveal later that week. The moment Izuku walked into view of the teachers waiting for them, he knew what they had in store. Ten teachers and twenty of them? The math wasn’t difficult to work out. If they were fighting robots again, as the upperclassmen had said, then they wouldn’t have this many staff members physically present. Remotely proctoring? Maybe, but not here in full hero garb.
His mind started running in a thousand different directions, different matchups, different opponents, who would make the most sense, and who he definitely wouldn’t have to worry about. Unfortunately for him, he had a feeling he was going to be paired with Kacchan. He tried to remind himself that this was what he had asked for, but that didn’t make the prospect seem any more pleasant.
He took a deep breath and reminded himself who he was. He was Jade now, and Jade could do this, no sweat. He reframed his perspective and let an old and easy confidence fall over him; he had taken down a gang and busted a drug den, he could spar with a teacher.
Even after assuring himself, it felt like an eternity before the last stragglers finally showed up and Eraser began to address them.
“Now then, let’s begin the last test. Remember, it’s possible to fail this final, if you want to join your peers on the summer trip, then don’t make any stupid mistakes,” he warned.
“Uh, why are all the teachers here?” he heard Jiro mutter to no one in particular.
“I expect many of you have gathered information and believe you have some idea of what you’ll be facing today,” Eraser hedged the class's expectations.
“We’re fighting those big ol’ metal robots!” Kaminari exclaimed.
“Fireworks, s'mores, here we come, camp!” Ashido chimed in as well.
Oh, they were not going to be happy about this, were they?
“Actually, this year’s test will be completely different for various reasons!” Nedzu corrected cheerfully.
The mood shift among the crowd of his peers was palpable.
“The test now has a new focus! There will be hero work, of course, but also teamwork and combat between actual people. So what does that mean for you? You students will be working together in pairs, and your opponents will be one of our esteemed UA teachers! Isn’t that fabulous?” Nedzu asked the class.
No one reacted as though they thought that was fabulous; no, they all looked like they were walking to the gallows.
“To complete the exam, you will have thirty minutes. In order to win, your objective is to put these handcuffs on your teacher. Or you can win if one of you manages to escape the combat stage,” Nedzu continued to explain.
“This is going to be impossible,” he heard Kaminari grumble.
“That’s why the support course made these,” Eraser answered the complaint that Izuku was surprised that he could even hear.
“BEHOLD! ULTRA COMPRESSED WEIGHTS! These babies will add half our body weight to our physiques!” Mic announced far louder than necessary.
“It’s not much, but they’ll slow us down a bit– better hope it’s enough,” Midnight added tauntingly.
“Now, without further ado, the matchups! First up will be Kirishima and Sato vs Cementoss!” Nedzu took back the announcements.
Ah, a test of endurance, they would have to be careful to not over-exert themselves.
“Second, Koda and Jiro vs Present Mic.”
It made sense to pit Jiro against Mic, but Koda’s involvement would rely heavily on their surroundings. If they were sent to the forest grounds, then the students' victory would be a done deal, but if they were stuck in a city setting, then he could see the odds tip toward Mic’s favor.
“Third, Yaoyorozu and Uraraka vs Thirteen.”
He could see a nervous smile on both of the girl’s faces. That was a good match-up; anything Yaoyorozu could make would just as easily be destroyed by Thirteen’s quirk, but anything Uraraka removed the gravity on, theoretically wouldn’t be affected by Blackhole at all. That is, assuming that Thirteen’s quirk functioned like a real blackhole which used gravity to pull things toward it. He was looking forward to watching that fight.
“Fourth, Hagakure and Shoji vs Snipe.”
Hmm, Hagakure would be a difficult opponent for Snipe, but how did Shoji factor into that equation? Perhaps if they got the chance to get into close range then Shoji’s hand-to-hand combat would have an opportunity to shine. Maybe Hagakure could distract and give Shoji a chance to get in close.
“Fifth, Tokoyami and Asui vs Ectoplasm.”
Oh, that made sense for Tokoyami, he supposed. None of the heroes present were capable of creating light, so sheer numbers would be the only real counter for him. It kind of felt like they just threw Asui into that matchup, though. Her biggest weakness would be fire or ice (she stood no chance against Todoroki) but none of the teachers fit that bill either. Maybe this was the misfits group.
“Sixth, Sero and Ojiro vs Midnight.”
Sero’s range would be integral to their success. Midnight’s best play would be to camp out at the exit, so Sero would have to use his tape to ensnare her and allow Ojiro to escape. Given that he knew for a fact that Midnight was one of Eraser’s friends, he had no doubt she knew how to fight against his capture weapon, which was admittedly quite similar to Sero’s tape; this was not going to be an easy match.
“Seventh, Kaminari and Ashido vs me!” Nedzu chirped cheerfully.
Oh no, that just wasn’t fair. At least they were toward the end, it gave them time to strategize… Would he get in trouble for helping them? Probably.
Rest in peace.
“Eighth, Iida and Aoyama vs Powerloader”
Hm, yes Aoyama would have to clear the way for both of them to cross. A pilot and a shooter, just like one of those video games Hitoshi had made him play until Izuku’s clear lack of skill made it more frustrating than fun. That, or maybe they could use Aoyama’s laser to add even more speed to Iida’s engines!
“Ninth, Shinso and Todoroki vs Eraserhead.”
He saw Hitoshi’s eyes widen and his spine go stiff. He followed his gaze toward Eraser, who had the lower half of his face tucked into his capture weapon the way he did when he was hiding a smirk. Sadistic bastard; poor Hitoshi looked like he was going to shit himself.
“And finally, Bakugo and Midoriya vs All Might,” Nedzu concluded the announcements.
What?
He had expected to be paired with Bakugo; he practically begged for it, but against All Might? That was… surprising, to say the least. Logistically, it made sense, but he hadn’t missed the way Mic and Eraser had been glaring at All Might lately, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether or not they had lifted their ban on All Might even being allowed to speak to him. He did his best to subtly glance at Eraser, but he was already looking back at Izuku. He had an eyebrow raised as if to ask if that was alright, so Izuku shot back a slight shrug and a face that said, ‘Yes, but I am very confused’.
A glance at the rest of the class showed 18 people looking like they were planning what to say at their joint funeral, which almost made him laugh out loud. Was fighting All Might easy? No, not at all, it was All Might for god’s sake, but this wouldn’t be their first spar, and he doubted it would be their last. He knew how to fight All Might, and he knew that All Might would never really hurt him, especially now that– Oh, never mind, this made perfect sense, now that he thought about it.
This was less of a practical final and more of an elaborate group therapy session. Great.
Regardless of whatever mind games were being played here, getting Katsuki Bakugo to work with him in any capacity was still, by far , the biggest challenge set before him at the moment. Hopefully, going against All Might would make that a bit easier; All Might was the only person he’d ever seen Kacchan express even a modicum of respect for, so he should be able to use that to his advantage. If Kacchan actually saw their opponent as a threat, he’d be more likely to employ help. Not very much more likely, but it was something.
“Well, it was nice knowing you, Izuku. It’s a shame we won’t be able to speak at each other's funerals,” Hitoshi lamented after the teachers dismissed the group to strategize.
Izuku scoffed out a laugh at his antics.
“Why are you laughing? You’re going up against ALL MIGHT. Did your last brain cell short out? Why aren’t you scared?” Hitoshi taunted
“Shinso, be more encouraging!” Iida chastised, but very notably didn’t disagree.
“I think the bigger challenge is going to be getting Bakugo to cooperate,” Todoroki pointed out as his eyes tracked Kacchan’s figure stalking away without so much as an attempt to check in with his teammate.
That was surprisingly perceptive for Todoroki, maybe there was hope for him yet.
“Why the heck would they pair you with him? That’s so not fair, he’d work with anyone else in the world over you,” Uraraka complained on his behalf.
She had never dropped her grudge against Kacchan since that first practice drill where he almost took the entire building down.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the point,” he agreed.
“Why does that have to be your problem?! They’re punishing you for his horrible attitude! This could affect your grade– What if he tries to hurt you again? We need to talk to one of the teachers. This is stupid,” she ranted, already starting to storm her way toward the nearest teacher.
“Wait, it’s f-fine Uraraka–”
“No, it’s not! Going up against All Might is challenging enough, adding Bakugo’s vendetta against you isn’t fair, he’s a bully!” she cut him off and kept walking.
He thanked his lucky stars that Mic and Eraser were the closest teachers; unfortunately, they were also standing with Midnight. God, he really did not want to drag more people into this.
“Is there a problem?” Eraser asked when a clearly furious Uraraka planted herself in front of him.
“Yes, Midoriya shouldn’t have to be paired with Bakugo. It isn’t fair, Bakugo won’t work with him,” she wasted no time in getting to the point.
Eraser spared a glance over toward him, and he shot back a vaguely apologetic shrug.
“It’s part of the challenge, we curated these match-ups carefully,” Eraser answered in a level tone.
“It’s only a challenge for Midoriya! You guys are making Bakugo’s issues Midoriya’s problem. Don’t you remember what happened on the second day of class? Even the first day! He’s a bully and you’re making–”
“Uraraka, please,” he begged her to stop.
“No, this isn’t right!” she insisted.
“Kiddo, you don’t need to worry about Midoriya. He knows what he’s getting into, he’s got his own back,” Mic tried to assure.
“He shouldn’t have to have his own back, this is a team exercise! No one else has to work against both their opponent and their teammate,” she pointed out.
He could see both Mic and Eraser trying to figure out how to placate her, but there was no way they were going to do that without painting themselves as the enemy in her eyes. He didn’t know Midnight well enough to read her, but her silence told him that she was leaning toward Uraraka’s side. He couldn’t just stand by and let them make asses of themselves just so that he didn’t have to talk about his problems.
“I asked them to,” he admitted quietly into the charged silence.
Hitoshi was the only one who had followed them over, so thankfully, it wasn’t too big of a crowd, but they were all looking at him now. Well, everyone except Midnight, who was raking her sharp gaze over Mic and Eraser.
“What?” Uraraka asked the question of the hour.
“I can’t– I– Just d-don’t be mad at them. They didn’t– it’s not their f-fault–”
“Midoriya, enough,” Eraser cut him off, “This was discussed to an extent beforehand. So, no, we did not do this without Midoriya’s say-so, but neither did Midoriya withhold information about the finals from all of you. We can continue this later if need be, but I suggest you two start strategizing with your partners and stop worrying about Midoriya.”
Uraraka made a sour face in response, but she didn’t say anything.
“What that meant was ‘thank you for your concern, you’re a good friend, but he’s gonna be fine,’” Mic translated Eraser’s bluntness.
She looked at him as if to give him a chance to take it all back and continue blaming the teachers, but he didn’t. He just offered her an awkward but genuine smile. She told off the teachers for him—that was so kind and brave. She was going to be an incredible hero.
They both hesitated to leave and spared him another glance before heeding Eraser’s advice to rejoin their partners. It seemed as though Yaoyorozu had held back Todoroki and Iida from following because the trio was looking over to them expectantly, but thankfully out of earshot.
“I’m s-sorry, I didn’t want her to think that you– I sh-shouldn’t have s-said anything, I’m s–”
“It’s fine, kid. I understand,” Eraser dismissed.
“Yeah, we appreciate the consideration, kiddo, but we can handle ourselves, ya dig?”
“Y-yeah, sorry, I, um… dig,” he replied awkwardly.
Eraser huffed out a laugh at his response, but Midnight was full belly cackling while Mic beamed at him. They were pumping their fist in the air like they had just won the lottery, and Izuku was very confused.
“Oh, you even got Eraser with that one,” Midnight taunted the lingering grin on the man’s face.
“W-what?”
“Mic’s always trying to get someone to respond to ‘ya dig’ with ‘yes, I dig’ but I honestly don’t think it’s ever happened organically before,” Midnight explained.
“No, it has!” Mic insisted.
“Fans don’t count, they’ll ‘yes and’ anything you say,” Midnight countered.
The dejected look on Mic’s face spoke volumes.
“It’s gonna catch on, I’m telling ya!”
“Yes, doll, you’ve been telling us that for 15 years,” Midnight replied with a patronizing pat on the back.
Eraser shot him another ‘Are you sure this is fine?’ look, and he sent a nod back. This was what he’d asked for, it was too late to back out now anyway.
“The first match is going to start soon, I assume you’d want to watch,” Eraser prompted him, nodding his head toward the station set up for viewing.
“Oh, y-yeah, thanks, I’ll– yeah,” he sputtered out awkwardly and made a strategic retreat.
He had meant to take notes on the fights, but he was only half paying attention, and he figured he could write down his thoughts later anyways– maybe Eraser was right about that photographic memory thing. Regardless of that, his current focus was split between the screens in front of him and how he was going to get Kacchan to work with him. He was going to be walking a tightrope between goading him on enough to spur him into action, but not so much that he ended up trying to knock his lights out, he had a feeling that wouldn’t count as working together.
Everyone else’s exams passed largely as he had expected them to. He was disappointed to see Kirishima and Sato fail, unsurprised to see Kaminari and Ashido fail, and impressed by Sero and Ojio’s unexpectedly fluid teamwork. Fashioning temporary gas masks out of Sero’s tape was Ojiro’s idea, and between that and Sero’s ranged attacks, Ojiro was able to slip the handcuffs on Midnight’s wrists. Though he nearly passed out for his efforts, that was a pretty risky move.
He was delighted to prove his hypothesis on the interaction of Uraraka’s and Thirteen’s quirks. Anything Uraraka touched wasn’t affected by blackhole! He was completely caught off guard by Thirteen’s hand-to-hand combat ability though, and it seemed Yaoyorozu was as well. That combined with Yaoyorozu’s lack of familiarity in dealing with Zero Gravity made the fight honestly a little funny to watch. They managed to subdue Thirteen with a series of tethers that the girls wove around Thirteen like a spider web.
Speaking of humorous fights, he felt a little bad for laughing at Mic. He’d seen how distressed they got when there was a spider in the apartment; they had sent Bastard after it quickly, claiming that “being pretty and killing satan’s progeny” were the cat’s only redeeming qualities.
Iida and Aoyama’s fight with Powerloader was pretty funny too, they ended up using Aoyama’s laser to boost Iida’s speed, something which they weren’t at all prepared for. They sent themselves rocketing across the test stage so quickly that they had taken Powerloader along with them through the gate. Needless to say, all three of them got a visit from Recovery Girl shortly thereafter.
He may be biased, but he thought that Shinso and Todoroki vs Eraser was the most underrated fight among the few peers who stayed to watch matches with him. Eraser was a difficult opponent, and he wasn’t flashy; it didn’t make for an engaging show, he supposed, but they didn’t see all the details he saw.
Eraser could cancel out any long-ranged attack Todoroki could send his way, and he had stronger mid-range and close combat capabilities than either of his opponents as well. Regardless of Erasure, Hitoshi’s quirk wouldn’t be very helpful against Eraser in the first place; he wasn’t very talkative in general and now, knowing Hitoshi’s activation requirements, Brainwashing was practically as useless as it would be against the robots.
In the end, their fight came down to pure hand-to-hand combat capability. They used the fact that Eraser couldn’t take his eyes off Todoroki to their advantage; Hitoshi stayed in his blind spot at all times, making it so that there was very little he could do to block. Eventually, Hitoshi was able to trip him up with his capture weapon and secure the cuffs around his wrists.
He wished he could stay and watch these matches all day, but– far sooner than he would have liked– the time came, and he had to face the music. Kacchan got onto the bus waiting for them, and there was nothing Izuku could do but follow. As the shuttle took them toward the testing grounds, Izuku figured it was now or never. Be confident, you’re not Deku, you’re Jade now, and Jade knows what he’s doing.
“So, you got a plan?” he asked, hoping a casual tone wouldn’t provoke him.
“Tch, just stay out of my way,” Kacchan brushed him off.
Well, that was almost pleasant. It wasn’t productive, but it wasn’t volatile, so that was… something.
“I plan to, but I think we’re going to need more than that to go off of,” he shot back.
Oh, damnit, that was too Ivy. He shouldn’t be so snide, he wasn’t looking to rile him up.
Thankfully, Kacchan just scowled at him rather than blowing a gasket.
That was strangely tame. What was going on with him?
Every instinct he had learned when it came to dealing with Kacchan was screaming at him to just shut up, but they needed to work together; it was their only chance at passing this test, and it was Kacchan’s only chance to stay in UA full stop.
“We need to work together, Kacchan. We’re up against All Might, we can’t just–”
“Shut it, Deku,” Katsuki cut him off.
Alright, now they were getting somewhere. Kacchan was like a shaken can of soda, and Izuku needed to pull the tab whether he liked it or not.
“You can’t beat him on your own. We need to go in with a plan or we’re going to fail,” he countered, surprised he was allowed to finish his sentence at all.
Katsuki was staring at him with a mixture of fury and confusion. He sat there glaring for a moment before he spoke, almost as if he was waiting until he was calm enough to not shout.
What the actual fuck was going on with him?
“I’m not stupid, Deku. I know this is a test and I’m not gonna fall into whatever shitty trap Hobo-sensei made up. Just stay the hell out of my way,” he finally bit back.
Ah, never mind, that made sense. He knew Katsuki wasn’t stupid, but he had missed the mark entirely, and now seemed to be dead set on doing the exact opposite of what he needed to be doing. This was going to be even more difficult to talk him out of; Kacchan seemed determined to not risk interacting with Izuku at all. At least that explained why he wasn’t messing with him anymore, it’s difficult to get in trouble for bullying someone if you never speak to them in the first place.
“It’s the final… Of course it’s a test,” he played dumb.
Kacchan mumbled an impressive array of curse words under his breath at his response. He tried to ignore the part of him that found this fun– pissing off Kacchan without repercussions– because that wasn’t going to lead anywhere good.
“Damn Hobo is looking for a reason to expel me and I’m not giving it to him, so piss off and shut the hell up,” he ended the conversation and walked over to the front door of the bus to wait until they got to their destination.
Kaminari was right, this was going to be impossible.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 164: It’s the Final (Countdown) BA DUH DUH DUH
Notes:
Shout out to Penny Muffin and Woomy for beta reading, and make sure to click the link at the bottom of the chapter bc Woomy wrote it from Bakugo's POV!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
The bus dropped them off at a cityscape, which Izuku was grateful for, he would not have fared well in a stage with nowhere to hide and no lateral movement. The city was what he knew, what he was comfortable with, it was good to have one thing not working against him in this test. Kacchan was already stomping toward the gate when he stepped off the bus.
“Wait, we need a plan! They set these tests up so that there’s no way for us to win without teamwork,” he tried arguing again.
“I don’t need your goddamn help,” Kacchan responded as expected.
“It’s All Might, Kacchan. Do you really think you can beat All Might on your own?” he pressed.
“I can do whatever the hell I want if you stay out of my way,” he insisted, not stopping his stride or even looking back to address him.
He didn’t think this was going to end well, but Kacchan was at the threshold of the stage. If he took another step, the test would start, and any small window of time they had to strategize freely would be over, so Izuku grabbed his shoulder to still him. Just like he had earlier on the bus, Kacchan froze and took a moment to breathe before wrenching his shoulder out of Izuku’s grip and turning around. He still looked furious, but he wasn’t shouting, and he hadn’t spun around and decked Izuku in the face like he had half expected him to.
Some part of him was angry to know that Kacchan was capable of controlling himself like this, he just never thought of Izuku being worth the effort. That made it sound like he had changed his mind– No, Kacchan still didn’t see him as being worth the effort, he was only doing this to save his own hide after all. At least that was one thing that hadn’t changed; quirk or not, Katsuki hated him all the same.
“Stop toying with me, I’m not falling for your fucking games,” Kacchan finally replied through gritted teeth.
“The only game is the practical and you are going to lose it if you don’t work with me!” he retorted.
“I don’t care about your stupid flashy quirk, Deku, you’re just as pathetic as you’ve always been. I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but I sure as hell don’t need help from you ,” Kacchan spat back.
The insults were old and familiar, but they grated just the same. Why was he helping him? Why bother?
Kacchan spun on his heel, stalked through the gate, and Izuku just let him. If he wanted to be delusional, then there was no amount of talking that would fix that. Hopefully, All Might left him coherent enough to see sense after the first strike and he’d be able to talk then.
He followed behind and stood across the alley with his arms crossed and leaning on the wall while Kacchan stopped to listen for their opponent. All Might wasn’t one for stealth, so Izuku wasn’t surprised to hear his voice booming down the empty streets. Kacchan looked back at him when he heard it and scowled at his relaxed posture. God, there really wasn’t anything he could do that wouldn’t piss him off, was there? He was doing what he asked, he was staying out of the way, and yet he was still getting glared at like he’d just spat in the other boy’s face.
Kacchan’s anger gave him pause, but Izuku was already getting fed up with it, so he gestured snidely, silently saying ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ Of course that only pissed him off more, but Izuku didn’t care. He waited in his spot as Kacchan charged out, guns blazing, using explosions to propel himself down the main street toward All Might.
He didn’t even make it to his opponent before he was blasted back down the street with a shower of rubble. He was laying at the mouth of the alley on the broken asphalt, dazed and covered in road rash. What a fucking idiot . Izuku wasted no time in dashing out, grabbing him by the collar, and pulling him back into the alley before the dust settled.
“Don’t fuckin’ touch me,” Kacchan snapped at him.
“You didn’t even get close to him, we need to work together,” he ignored the complaint.
“What is your problem? If you want me expelled so damn bad, why don’t you just grow a pair and stop hiding behind this stupid fucking test?”
“I’m not trying to get you expelled and I’m not hiding behind a test, I’m trying to pass my final. Now if you could–”
“You’re a goddamn liar. I don’t care about whatever shit you’re pulling out of your ass. Don’t get up on your fucking high horse and pretend like you’re looking out for me,” Kacchan’s control on his anger finally snapped.
Oh my fucking god. He was looking out for him, that was exactly what he was doing! And for what? To get yelled at more? He took a deep breath before he tried to speak.
“I’m not lying,” he replied as calmly as he could manage.
“Bullshit, you’ve wanted me gone since day one,” Kacchan insisted.
His composure was slipping rapidly.
“I’m not lying to you, Kacchan,” he repeated himself, his level tone wavering.
“If you’re not lying then tell me what the hell you’re doing. You’ve been lying since we were kids, and for what? If you’re not trying to get me expelled then you owe me a goddamn explanation,” Kacchan insisted with a self-righteous sneer.
“I don’t owe you anything,” he replied coldly with the last bit of goodwill he had left.
“The hell you mean? You’ve been parading around here like a completely different person acting like you fit in after playing freak for 12 years. So what’s the truth? I don’t even know who you are so why the fuck should I listen to a word you–”
Kacchan’s argument was cut off by a swift punch to the jaw that seemed to have surprised both of them in equal measure.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Katsuki had the gall to act offended as he rubbed at his tender cheek.
“ My problem? What’s my problem?!” he shot back incredulously.
“Yeah, are you deaf or stupid?”
Izuku saw red, he didn’t have an ounce of restraint left in him, he threw a tactless kick to Katsuki’s middle which he blocked with his gauntlets, but the force was still enough to knock the wind out of him and send him sprawling backward regardless. He might have used a touch of OFA in that one, but Katsuki had used those goddamned explosions on him more times than he could count; he had it coming.
“MY PROBLEM IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS! MY LIFE WAS HELL, I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO TO SURVIVE, AND IT DIDN’T HAVE A SINGLE GODDAMN THING TO DO WITH YOU, YOU SOLIPSISTIC ASSHOLE!” he shouted as Katsuki gasped for air.
His clenched fists were shaking, and he didn’t have it in him to care that he had just snapped again. He could hear All Might getting closer as he taunted them. At this point, he didn’t give a shit what happened to Kacchan, he’d done more than enough to help him, what he did at this point was his own damn choice, not Izuku’s.
He walked over, grabbed a few grenades off Katsuki’s belt, stuffed them in his pockets, and barked out instructions, not waiting to see if they would be followed or not.
“I’m going to distract All Might. Get out of here quietly, or don’t, I don’t fucking care.”
He scaled up the alley wall and stayed low as he looked out over the cityscape. All Might was walking leisurely down the path of destruction he had created and calling out to Bakugo. He looked just as tense as he always did these days. Ever since last week he had been clenching his jaw and stiffening his neck any time Izuku was in his vicinity. He wasn’t sure if he was just still mad at Katsuki and that was bleeding over, but he felt a spark of resentment for All Might seemingly not even trying to speak with him after what went down last week.
He shook the thought from his mind quickly, he was not going to snap at All Might again.*
He took one of Katsuki’s grenades out and threw it as hard as he could in the opposite direction of the exit. He hoped that his partner would put the pieces together and understand the plan, but it was out of his hands at this point.
He knew All Might’s hearing was sharp, there was no way he hadn't heard Izuku shouting in the eerily silent city earlier, but sound bounced off the buildings funny and he was hoping that All Might took the bait he left. He wanted him to think they were still fighting with each other over where that grenade had sounded off so that Kacchan could get to the exit while Izuku acted as a barrier between the two in case something went wrong.
He watched All Might turn his head in the direction of the blast, stay a moment to make sure he didn’t hear anything where he had thought they were, and leave. Izuku had to fight himself not to let out a sigh of relief. He was surprised that Kacchan was cooperating enough to even be quiet right now. Most would think that meant he was following Izuku’s directions, but he wasn’t holding out much hope for that.
He snaked around the rooftops following All Might from a safe distance until All Might stumbled upon the remains of the grenade that had exploded earlier.
“Haha! Very clever, but you’ll have to do better than that,” he taunted after he inspected the debris.
This was the moment he had been waiting for, All Might knew the plan now, and he wasn’t going to let them get away so easily. He could only hope that Katsuki was nearly at the exit. He still had the element of surprise right now, he had to strike while he had the high ground. With a running leap, he threw himself from his perch and directly toward All Might.
He was surprised to see All Might reaching his arms out to catch him rather than blocking the OFA-powered kick Izuku had aimed at his chest. What was All Might thinking? Had he not been watching him all semester? This was hardly the first time he’d done this– hell, he did this in the entrance exam for god’s sake! Sure he had been a bit… low in the past, but that didn’t negate any of the competency he had been displaying all semester, right?
This was exactly what he didn’t want; for All Might to call his bluff and see how pathetic he was under all the facades he’d put up.
The kick was enough to send him back a few feet, but nothing substantial. Izuku rolled backward after launching himself off of All Might and landed in a fighting stance about 15 feet away from his mentor. All Might’s expression was unreadable under the fake smile he had plastered on his face, but Izuku could read his hesitation clear as day. If All Might wanted to strike back, Izuku would already be on the ground, but he wasn’t.
All Might was going easy on him; for some reason, that made him almost as angry as Kacchan had.
He charged forward again with a telegraphed right hook in an attempt to hide the kick he had aimed at All Might’s flank. Both were blocked, but Izuku was still standing, so he charged again. All Might kept blocking him, but he wasn’t striking back. Izuku could tell that the hits hurt, but All Might was acting like he was nothing more than an annoyingly persistent fly.
“Where’s your little friend, hm? You’re trying to pull a fast one on me?” All Might finally spoke through gritted teeth as he took a flying leap to the sky.
Izuku grabbed onto his leg the same way he had the day they met, and when All Might looked down at him, his grin faltered. He shielded Izuku on the rough landing, and that was the last straw for him. From his place inside All Might’s guard, Izuku sent his fist into his left side hard.
The hit sent All Might to the ground, but he didn’t stay down long. He was back on his feet quickly and it seemed that Izuku had finally gotten his attention.
“YOU’RE GOING EASY ON ME! WHAT WAS THE POINT OF TRAINING ME IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GIVE IT YOUR ALL?” he shouted as he charged again.
He jumped up and over All Might completely and used the wall behind him as a springboard to launch himself back to deliver a kick to the crook of his knees. The hit sent him down to one knee, but he caught the punch Izuku followed it up with. He stood up with Izuku’s wrist still in his fist and looked down at him dangling there with an unreadable expression. Was it pity? Disappointment? Anger? Izuku didn’t know. What he did know was that he heard explosions rapidly approaching.
GOD FUCKING DAMN IT KATSUKI
He used the moment’s distraction to swing his legs up, knee All Might in the side of the head, and twist his wrist out of his grip. Katsuki, in turn, used the distraction he’d caused to unload one of his gauntlets at All Might, sending him through the wall of the building that Izuku had just used as a springboard.
“What’s the plan, nerd?” Katsuki asked with clear reluctance in his tone the moment the booming sound of the explosion dissipated.
“I told you the plan,” he spat back, keeping his eyes on the wreckage, honestly a little worried about All Might’s wellbeing.
When the debris started to shift, he let out a relieved sigh and turned back to his teammate.
“That was a shit plan, I’m not running like a coward, make a better one,” Katsuki barked back.
Izuku felt his eye twitch and saw Kacchan mark that reaction; to Izuku’s surprise, he shifted slightly with trepidation. What the hell was going on with him? Katsuki Bakugo was an enigma he could never hope to understand.
“Why don’t you think of one if mine was so shit?” he challenged.
All Might chose that opportunity to dramatically spring free of the rubble, sending bits of it flying at the two of them. Thankfully, they both had gauntlets on to shield their more vulnerable areas. When the barrage stopped, Izuku took to the rooftops in a flash of green sparks; they wouldn’t get anywhere if they both stood there like sitting ducks, the least they could do was flank their opponent.
Katsuki was already charging at All Might, and All Might wasted no time in sending him back across the street with a brutal punch, one that he had not had the guts to direct toward Izuku.
He would have waited as long as he could to give Katsuki the chance to recover before he struck the enemy, but he suspected that All Might would give him all day at this point, so he didn’t bother. If All Might wasn’t going to give as good as he got then there was no point in waiting for backup that he didn’t need. With an OFA powered push he boosted himself off the brick wall behind him and sent himself flying foot first aiming for All Might’s right arm, the one he had always favored striking with. He may not be able to do anything more than make it a bit sore, but, if this were a real fight, lowering his enemy’s power by any margin would be in his best interest.
He was glad to find his aim was true, and he collided with the bony part of All Might’s elbow; hitting him in the meat of his arm would not have had the same, albeit still minimal, effect on his mobility. He was there and gone again by the time Katsuki got back into the fight.
He expected that Katsuki would not take notice of where he was when he attacked, but he was surprised to find that he did. He never used his quirk when Izuku was close enough to be hit by it. He’d like to think it was a courtesy, but he had a feeling that it was just strategy, it wouldn’t be advantageous to wound an ally.
There were a few times All Might managed to hit Katsuki out of the fight, but he was always back in a flash. He could see a rhythm building, All Might would hesitate just a split second longer when he hit Katsuki hard enough to knock him out of the fight, making sure he didn’t use enough power to hurt him too badly. Izuku took note, and the next time All Might hesitated, he charged, planting his foot squarely on All Might’s spine.
The well-timed hit was enough to throw him off and allow Katsuki to get a good hit in as well, after Izuku got out of the way, of course. He was actually starting to trust Katsuki to wait until he was clear, what a strange development.
After that, the two of them settled into a surprisingly easy rhythm, he would get out of the way of Katsuki’s blasts and hit All Might while he was recovering from the explosions. Of course, that was only because All Might allowed them to keep doing so, they kept trading blows back and forth that amounted to nothing but wasting time and wearing them down. When he finally found himself within speaking range of Katsuki for a brief moment, he whispered instructions as quietly as he could manage with Katsuki still being able to hear him.
“Let him take me out and act concerned when I come back.”
He didn’t wait for a nod of acknowledgment because he couldn’t risk All Might knowing that he was scheming. This plan relied heavily on All Might thinking they were still at odds with one another.
Up until this point he had been strategically hitting and running as he tended to do against opponents who were much bigger and stronger than he was. This tactic never actually worked on All Might because he was not only bigger and stronger, but faster as well. It was only working today because All Might was holding back; if that was how he was going to play this test, then Izuku would use it to his advantage. He ran back in for his next hit, but this time he didn’t retreat, he kept wailing on All Might, allowing Katsuki to get a few good hits in as he was too preoccupied with dealing with someone he refused to fight.
This wasn’t going to end in victory for them, he knew it wouldn’t, the timer would wear down before All Might did. His hits were sloppy, more than half of them were blocked and a good bit of them deflected entirely, this wasn’t his smartest fighting, but it was his most relentless and certainly the hardest he had ever dared to try and hit someone, Kirishima included.
He was making himself impossible to ignore.
“WHAT’S THIS ACCOMPLISHING OTHER THAN PROVING THAT I’M NOT WORTH YOUR TIME?!” he shouted with as much emotion as he could muster, which, at this point, was quite a lot.
He retreated again, both to give All Might a second to actually hear him, and to get enough of a running start to make the next hit hurt . He charged forward with enough of OFA coursing through him to make his bones ache a bit. The resulting punch rocked the buildings and sent All Might into a backward roll, though he still landed upright and facing Izuku.
He took a moment to stare All Might in the eye before he charged again, hoping that the exchange would be enough of a connection to communicate that he had better fight back this time. He looked a little stunned and Izuku intended to hit him where it hurt for letting down his guard again, but to his painful relief, he was met blow for blow by a fist nearly too fast to brace for.
The hit threw him back through the debris that Katsuki had created earlier, though he wasn’t thrown nearly as violently as All Might had been; All Might was still pulling his punches.
He was glad to find that he had hit his head on some of the jagged bricks which was, admittedly, a strange thought to have, but he had been prepared to inflict a wound himself if he had come out unscathed. He poked and prodded at the cut on his temple, encouraging blood flow to the wound and let it drip across his face. Katsuki couldn’t hold All Might back for long enough for him to get to the exit, and at this point, neither could Izuku. Running wasn’t an option anymore, and they couldn’t take All Might down without underhanded tricks, so that’s what he was going to do.
He was thankful that head wounds bleed a lot.
He didn’t think he had a concussion, but he knew what those felt like well enough to fake it as he stood up and stumbled from the wreckage. He lumbered down the torn up street in a meandering path as if he was trying to walk straight and failing miserably.
All Might spotted him first and Izuku could see how he wavered at the sight. He expected his teammate to take the opportunity to land a hit against their opponent, but he didn’t.
“Izuku?” he heard Katsuki call out, and he didn’t need to fake the confusion that garnered.
Katsuki hadn’t called him Izuku since they were four years old. It felt wrong to hear the syllables fall from his mouth with any amount of tenderness, feigned as it may be. He kept stumbling forward and let himself trip over the broken concrete, barely catching himself and retching at the sudden ‘unexpected’ movement.
“You finally decide to fight for real?” he taunted All Might, slurring his words so heavily that they were nearly inscrutable.
If this actually were a concussion, it would be the worst he’d ever had– as bad as the one Eraser had gotten at the USJ. All Might’s facade slipped ever so slightly as he heard how impaired his speech was and Izuku had to stomp down a vindictive grin at that. All Might was falling for this hook line and sinker, it was almost too easy. Did he really think Izuku was this pathetic? He’d gotten hit harder by Gran Torino for god’s sake.
“Young Midoriya, I think you might want to sit down,” All Might spoke up, breaking character completely.
“I’ll sit down when you start taking this seriously,” he slurred back, still stumbling his way forward.
All Might was cautiously making his way toward him as well, clearly trying to tread the line between helping and not provoking him enough to try fighting again. He was walking with his hands up to show that this wasn’t a fight anymore and looking at Izuku with unmasked concern.
“Please, my boy, you can’t even walk, let me–”
“You think I’m so pathetic now, don’t you? Think I can’t do this anymore, that I’m just a lost cause– a waste of time!” he let some of his true feelings out into the poorly enunciated jumble of words he spat at All Might.
All Might fully stopped in his tracks at the accusation. His shoulders fell and his face looked nearly as devastated as it had when he was sitting on the armchair in their living room last weekend. Izuku had his full attention now.
Perfect.
Katsuki had been following All Might’s slow steps toward Izuku and was waiting for the opportunity to strike, handcuffs at the ready. It was now or never. He took another shaky step forward and let his knee buckle underneath him. As he had expected, All Might darted forward to catch him before he hit the ground. With Izuku’s limp form held up by his hands and this little test the last thing on his mind, it was all too easy for Kacchan to sinch the cuffs around All Might’s occupied wrists.
The over the top celebratory announcement of their victory pulled All Might’s attention up for a second, and when he looked back down, Izuku had cut the act. He was looking up at him with clear, focused eyes and a sad, slightly apologetic smile on his face.
The look All Might gave him was confusing. Was it disappointment? Shock? Disgust? Regret? It was probably all of those things. All Might was never supposed to know this part of him, the cunning manipulative thing he was underneath the altruistic facades. He couldn’t help but feel like this was the final nail in his coffin. If All Might had been upset with his outburst last weekend, the stunt he just pulled certainly wasn’t going to smooth that over.
Now that it was over, and he couldn’t relentlessly train his focus on passing this final, everything else came flooding back. He’d snapped again, twice – three times if you counted each time he yelled at All Might separately. God, he knew he should have left the lids on those jars closed tight; now his anger was loose and spilled over at the slightest jostling. The careful control he had curated for years was scattered like sheep without a shepherd.
Fuck, and he’d probably done it in front of the whole class too. Two first years vs the number one hero? It was like a train wreck, there’s no way his classmates didn’t stay to watch it.
“Dearie?” Recovery Girl’s voice cut through the fog of his thoughts.
“There you are,” she said kindly as he focused on her.
He didn’t even remember leaving the testing stage, but he was standing in the medical tent now, so he assumed he must have walked here himself.
“That was all just show, right? Are you feeling dizzy? Double vision?” she asked.
Katsuki was sitting on a cot to his left with bandages on his arms and studying him. He didn’t look happy, not that he ever really looked happy, did he? No, he looked frustrated and confused and… worried? No, that couldn’t be right.
“Midoriya-kun?” Recovery Girl called his attention again.
“S-sorry, yeah, no, none of that. I’m f-fine, just a scratch and some b-bruises,” he replied quickly.
He could see Katsuki roll his eyes and turn away in his periphery and he had the urge to deck that look off his face again. That probably wasn’t a good thought to have. He didn’t feel bad about snapping at Katsuki, he deserved it; he was more concerned about losing control. That and All Might, he was still mad at All Might, but he didn’t deserve that… right?
He didn’t…
God, he was so confused.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 165: Reconciliation: A Process With Many Steps
Notes:
I drove 666 miles yesterday 🤘👹🤘 🚚💨 I'm almost home.
Shout out to Penny, Muffin, and Woomy for beta reading this chapter 💞
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
At no point during this final did Toshinori know what Midoriya was going to do next. The first thing he heard from the boy was his voice echoing down the street as he cursed out his teammate. The anger was palpable through the distance, he was yelling with even more vitriol than he had been the last time they had spoken.
This wasn’t the boy he knew – a thought among many others that had kept him up for the past week.
He didn’t know if he was allowed to talk to the boy and, on top of that, he didn’t know how to anymore. Their relationship had always been conversationally stunted, a fact that made sense in retrospect, but now more than ever. He had been racking his brain trying to figure out what Aizawa and Yamada wanted from him in this test, and he had yet to find an answer that made sense. He doubted they wanted him to give it his all and crush the boy under his heel, he certainly didn’t have the stomach for that, even if that were the goal. Going easy on him didn’t make sense either; what would that prove to anyone?
Perhaps they just wanted him to spend the week stressing himself to death over it. If that was the goal, then they executed their plan flawlessly. He’d decided a balance was the best way to approach things; he wouldn’t be a pushover, but he wouldn’t be brutal either. Of course, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Midoriya leaping down from a rooftop was a scene straight from the past week’s nightmares.
Bakugo had been easy to brush aside, he was a tough young man, but Midoriya had already been through so much pain, and every fiber of his being wanted– no, needed to protect him from even so much as a papercut befalling him. He tried to fight back against the barrage Midoriya was pelting him with, but every time he so much as thought about raising his hand against him, something deep in his chest ached. Well, his entire body ached, Midoriya was not going easy on him. It stroked his ego and stung his pride in equal measure to know that the boy packed this much of a punch. He couldn’t just stand by and take the hits or they were going to start wearing on him.
He needed to take down Bakugo, their plan was clear to him now, the boy was likely over half way to the exit, and Toshinori would just be handing them victory on a silver platter if he didn’t do something about that. Midoriya was fast, but not quite as fast as him (not yet at least) so he took a flying leap to the sky in search of the runaway.
He wasn’t prepared for the hand around his ankle, and he wasn’t prepared to look down and be sent a year back in time to the day he first broke this poor kid’s heart. He was so young, he still looked as young as the day they met. How could he have said that to such wide, hopeful eyes?
He could tell that Midoriya was getting agitated with his lack of action, but he still shielded him from the fall against his chest, a strategic failure of which the boy took full advantage. He punched Toshinori directly in the center of the awful blooming scar on his side, hard enough to launch himself out of the tight embrace Toshinori had used to protect him. The blow knocked him on his ass and had him choking on blood.
In that moment, he felt like he had already failed whatever test he was being given.
Midoriya shouted at him about taking things seriously when Bakugo returned of his own volition. It seemed the two were still at odds, that wasn’t a very strategic play. They had victory in the bag and now… well, now they still might have it. Midoriya’s power was enough to smart, and Bakugo’s on top of that was enough to start really wearing him down, if this test weren’t on such a tight time constriction, then their stamina may come out on top.
Of course, that’s what he had thought until Midoriya decided that he was going to heed his own advice and take this fight seriously. He stopped his strategic staggered blows, which left him enough time to dodge hits that weren’t coming, and started attacking relentlessly. That ferocity was not something he could withstand for long, and the pain was starting to outshine the pride.
He was doing his best to garner the will to strike back when Midoriya gave him the gutting words of encouragement that he needed.
“WHAT’S THIS ACCOMPLISHING OTHER THAN PROVING THAT I’M NOT WORTH YOUR TIME?!”
He was right, that was the precise reason he had decided not to go easy on him. He was going to hurt him more with his inaction than he would with his fists. Even though it felt like trying to stick his hand into a pot of boiling water of his own volition, he bit the bullet and fought back. On Midoriya’s next strike, he gave as good as he got, sending the boy tumbling backward into the wreckage young Bakugo had created earlier.
He preoccupied himself with the barrage Bakugo sent his way and didn’t look back to check if his boy was okay until he had already pulled himself from the debris. Toshinori’s heart dropped when he saw him, his face was covered in blood trailing all the way down to his neck, and he was walking as if he were on a ship in the middle of a storm. The sight brought back images of him standing on a mangled leg covered in the blood of that foul creature, seconds away from death.
Even Bakugo stopped fighting at the sight of him.
Dear god, what had he done?
His mind was unable to process anything other than searing guilt and panic until a handcuff was clasped around his wrist and an announcement of the student’s victory was played over the loudspeakers. He looked back down at Midoriya to see his previously unfocused eyes looking back at him with clarity and an unreadable expression.
He tricked him.
He was just acting.
Toshinori hoped that the laughter he let out was more congratulatory than hysterical. He did his best to play it off, but he was shaken. This was not the boy he knew, he was beginning to question if he ever really knew him at all. At the very least, there were large swaths of himself that he had never dared to share. How much more was lying just below the surface? What did he do to make the boy think that he didn’t want to know and love every part of him? And, perhaps more importantly than anything else, how was he supposed to fix this?
He had more than a few bumps and bruises, but nothing to trouble Recovery Girl over; young Bakugo certainly needed tending to more than he did. So he ambled his way to the staff locker room to change. That was most of his time for the day anyways, he had no use for his suit now.
He had expected the room to be empty, with him being the last of them to face off against the students, but there was a shower running. He didn’t think much of it until the water shut off and Present Mic stepped out, their skin looking pink and raw.
“Ah, thought I heard you. I still feel like I got bugs crawling all over me, but I think we need to talk,” they voluntarily spoke to him for the first time since last Saturday.
They no doubt saw his hesitation, glancing around at the fairly public room and pointedly ignoring both of their states of undress.
“Not right this second,” they corrected, “Get dressed, we can go to meeting room B.”
He was sure his discomfort was palpable, but he did as he was told. He finished changing first and left for the meeting room to let Yamada have his privacy, certainly not because he also felt like he had bugs crawling all over his skin at the thought of the conversation to come.
He tried to convince himself that this was for the best, that talking was getting one step closer to things going back to normal, but the optimism wasn’t doing much to help the gnawing anxiety.
***
Hizashi had spent enough time skirting around the issue, he needed to talk to Yagi, preferably before Sho or Izuku got to him. He’d put it off because he’d reluctantly agreed with Nedzu that Izuku needed to see All Might struggling with this too. He needed to see that All Might was flawed; he made the wrong choices, and said the wrong things, just like any other person on the planet. They hadn’t expected to have this conversation so soon, but when opportunity presents itself, they’d learned it was best to take it.
They all needed to talk again, the four of them (preferably under less duress), but he wanted to talk to him one on one because Sho tended to be a little too harsh, and Izuku a little too forgiving. That train wreck in waiting would probably go more smoothly if he and Yagi could get on the same page first. Or at least they hoped it would.
Part of them wanted to take their time getting dressed just to leave Yagi squirming, but they pushed that inclination away and followed after him shortly. When they made it to the agreed upon rendezvous Yagi was sitting against the arm of the small couch with his legs crossed and his foot tapping nervously against nothing.
“How’d the final go?” They asked casually.
They were under no disillusions that Yagi would actually calm down before they got into the meat of the issue, but it was worth a try at least.
“Ah, yes, you’ve been in that shower for a while, haven’t you?” Yagi tried to return the lighthearted tone, but it fell flat under the weight of his clear apprehension
“Yes, and I’d be in there for another four hours if I could, though I doubt it would make a difference. EUGH, god, I hate bugs,” they didn’t need to fake the shudder that racked their body at the thought of why they had been in that shower in the first place.
They took a seat across from Yagi and waited for him to respond to their question properly.
“I… mine wasn’t so harrowing, thankfully. I’m proud to say I lost,” he replied after a tense moment.
“What happened?” they asked more directly.
“Oh, Young Midoriya showed off another new talent, apparently he’s quite the actor! I tossed him out of the fight, and he came back with… blood dripping down his face, walking like a drunken sailor. He– um– he got me good! Young Bakugo slapped the handcuffs on me before I could even blink,” he explained, doing his best to maintain his normal cheery disposition and failing miserably.
They smiled at that, even though it was clear they had gotten an abridged version. They were looking forward to watching the playback. That kid was brilliant, and they so rarely got the chance to see him in action.
“Did you two talk at all?” they probed.
Yagi cringed. This wasn’t going to be good, was it?
“He spoke to me, but I’m afraid I didn’t– well, I couldn’t quite find the words. He was rather upset, I was going too easy on him. I just couldn’t– I can’t bear hurting him any more than I already have. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I suppose,” Yagi answered with a bitter laugh and surprising honesty.
They hummed in acknowledgement, but they didn’t really know what to say to that either. He was glad that Nedzu’s plan worked to some degree, but even if it was for a good cause, they felt bad about allowing the blatant manipulation. The man looked miserable, slumped on the couch, and looking at the floor. His shoulders were slack, and it was hard to believe they were the same shoulders that held up the world as they knew it. They couldn’t help the sting of pity they felt. However, they were still angry at him– extremely so– and they doubted they would stop being angry anytime soon. The less favorable side of them reveled in Yagi’s clear distress, but that wasn’t who they wanted to be. Unfortunately, the distress was necessary and was only going to get worse. However, distress without direction didn’t help anyone, they needed to make sure they steered this down the right path.
“Yagi, are you happy? You’re near retirement at this point, are you happy with how you’ve lived your life?” they asked.
Yagi looked up at him in confusion at the sharp pivot the conversation had taken. Hizashi held his gaze, and Yagi shrunk under their scrutiny as he thought about their question.
“I– yes. It’s been an honor to do what I’ve done,” he stated after a while.
“That's not what I asked, and I think you know that. I’m not asking you if you lived a good life or if you did good work, I’m not asking you about your achievements. I’m asking you if you are happy. No one can deny you’ve changed the world for the better, and I’m sure sitting at the top and keeping people safe has been an honor, but were you happy there? With your secrets sitting on that pillar holding the world up all by yourself for decades? Did it make you happy? Not was it the right thing, not would you do it again, Did. It. Make. You. Happy?” he stressed each word the last time he asked.
This was cruel, he knew it was, but it was much kinder than what his less favorable side wanted to do. He hadn’t forgotten Izuku’s sudden interest in limelight heroics on top of everything else that was going on; they had a feeling they had found the culprit of that shift.
Yagi looked at him like the thought had never crossed his mind, like he didn’t even know what being happy for his own sake meant, and Hizashi was sure that he didn’t. As much as he wanted to hate All Might for what he did to Izuku, he knew he only did it because he didn’t know any better. Hizashi had no doubt that Yagi genuinely had the world’s best interests at heart, but that doesn’t mean that he did the right thing. He may love Izuku, but that does not mean he did right by him.
Yagi stuttered through a mess of consonants trying to answer them for a while. He was trying to justify it all, trying to convince himself that he was happy, to hold on to the denial he’d been clinging to for decades, but it was flimsy and it was crumbling. Hizashi watched as it finally broke. Yagi had looked absolutely miserable the past few days walking around like a kicked puppy. It was subtle to most, and he never let it show in front of the students, but Hizashi was too good at reading people for it to slip under his radar.
It wasn’t so subtle now.
He looked nearly as wrecked as he had last Saturday in their apartment as he finally choked out a “No.”
They let the admission weigh heavily in the air for an uncomfortably long moment before they spoke again.
“Then why the hell would you try to force that life onto Izuku?”
They were rubbing salt in the wound at this point, but Yagi needed to understand what he’d done.
“You are beyond reckless, Yagi. You throw yourself into trouble with no regard for how your suffering hurts others; you’re so selfless that it’s selfish, and Izuku is the same way. You are setting him up to be a martyr. I understand that you mean well, I have no doubts about that, I know you adore Izuku, but you are a terrible influence on him,” he asserted.
Yagi was biting down on his trembling lip as tears started to well in his sunken eyes, but he didn’t argue.
“I know you feel awful, I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but you did. You need to set a better example if you want to be a part of his life.You need to take care of yourself. You need to get help.”
He was silently sobbing at this point. He cried just like Shota and Izuku, like his suffering needed to be quiet, like he wasn’t allowed to bother anyone with it. Hizashi hated it. He had no clue what the world had done to Yagi to make him this way, but he couldn’t help but pity him like this. He had given every single bit of himself for the safety of the people until he hardly even had his flesh and bones left. He was a good man, he didn’t deserve this, but the world was a cruel place.
He reminded them so much of Izuku.
Half of him wanted to leave him here to cry alone, but the better half of him walked over and gently laid a hand on his shaking shoulder.
“Yagi, you need help. I don’t know what all you’ve been through, but I know a fake smile when I see one. You deserve help, you deserve better. Izuku deserves better. If not for yourself, then for him, get better for him,” he said in a much gentler tone than he’d been using up until this point.
Yagi was leaning forward with his face in his hands as he cried, and it made him look so small. For such a big man, he didn’t take up much room, and, god, if that wasn’t a metaphor in and of itself. Hizashi handed him the box of tissues from the side table and leaned on the arm of his chair as they rubbed soothing circles on his back. People don’t get better alone. As much as Hizashi wanted to turn his back on him, he owed it to Izuku to stay, he owed it to Yagi to stay. It was confusing how much Yagi deserved their anger and didn’t deserve it at the same time, so they decided not to dwell on it. He was crying, and Hizashi could help. It didn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
Notes:
Sorry I haven't been in the discord, I have been so busy. I've abandoned my children, I'll be back to normal soon tho! Getting home today, but I'll still have a lot of work to do 🥲
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 166: Step One: Apologize and Mean It
Notes:
Shout outs to Muffin, Penny, and Woomy for beta reading this... I think they all beta read this(?)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Having more of an advanced notice that All Might was going to be coming over to talk didn’t help his nerves in the slightest. It had been exactly a week since they had last met like this, and Izuku had processed approximately none of that so far. He’d been too caught up in ignoring it, then helping his friends study, then ignoring it some more, then taking finals, and well, his allotted ‘ignoring it’ time had ended.
All Might still hadn’t made any attempt to talk to him, and that was probably for the best. He’d shouted at him 3 times now, and that wasn’t a track record he was proud of. He hoped the preparation time was enough to steel himself, he didn’t like being angry.
It was 8:26 am, and All Might was going to be here at 9:00, just like he was last week. He could already hear Mic and Eraser shuffling around in the dining room, they were probably eating breakfast. Mic had popped in and asked if he wanted any earlier, but he’d declined because his stomach was doing backflips and he didn’t think rocking the boat was a good idea.
34 minutes, he just had to wait 34 minutes, and then another unknown length of time, and then it would be over and everything would be back to normal.
He let out a heavy sigh, he wasn’t delusional enough to be an optimist.
Minute after painful minute ticked past and, after an eon, the time came. He heard the buzzer sound off from the genkan, and he stood like a man walking to the gallows. He could hear Mic at the door offering tea and a pair of guest slippers that were certainly much too small for All Might, both offers were politely declined. Eraser was putting the dishes from breakfast into the dishwasher. Their eyes met when Izuku’s movement must have caught his attention, and he gave him the same look he used to give them as Ivy before they charged headfirst into a squabble. It was a look that said, ‘we’ve got this.’ It was something he hadn’t expected and something he didn’t even realize he had missed. He nodded back at him and took his usual seat at the table.
Eraser wasn’t slow to join him, but All Might and Mic took their time murmuring in the genkan. He couldn’t tell what they were talking about because they stopped before they made their way over. Izuku was surprised to see that All Might chose to sit next to Mic rather than next to him. He’d been under the impression that the two of them were on much worse terms after last week than Izuku was, but apparently the stunt he pulled during the finals tipped the balance. He did his best to think nothing of it in the awkward silence that followed once the chairs stopped shuffling.
“I would like to start, if– um, if that’s alright,” All Might broke the silence before anyone else got the chance.
Eraser, who had already been glaring at him, lifted his eyebrow in accession, though it looked more like a challenge than anything. No one missed the thump of Mic kicking him under the table, and Izuku allowed himself to snort out a laugh at that. Things were already tense enough, and there was something about bullying Eraser that was always funny. All Might and Mic both smiled at his amusement, and Eraser narrowed his eyes at him in a way that was meant to be threatening, but just made him laugh again.
“God, you’re both children. Yagi, please continue,” Mic interrupted with a poorly hidden smile and gave All Might the floor.
“I– thank you, I want– need – I need to apologize, though I already know you don’t want to hear it. I never should have said what I said to you, my boy. It was cruel. I might have been– I was projecting my own shortcomings onto you, even though we had hardly met. It was shameful, I had no right to judge you. You didn’t need me to get into UA, you are a hero at heart; nothing can get in the way of that. You didn’t need a quirk to prove that to me either. I should have said that before, and I’m sorry that I didn’t,” he started, his voice already thick with emotion.
He had a feeling All Might only paused to take a breath, but Izuku held his hand up to stop him before he started up again. That was a lot– more than enough already.
He was an adult, they were equals. Pretending that was true would make this conversation much easier to bear. Being a sniveling, stuttering, self-depricating mess through this wasn’t going to help anyone.
Deep breath in. You’re an adult. Deep breath out.
“I would have been dead at the USJ without you. Not just… not just because of One For All. Training with you and Gran Torino was the only thing that kept that… thing from tearing me apart immediately,” he countered as calmly as he could manage.
He saw the way all three of them grimaced at that response, but it was true.
“That doesn’t mean something I said thoughtlessly a year prior was warranted. I made a name for myself as a symbol, as someone who encouraged the people. I was– am the face of heroics, and I told you that you couldn’t do it. I took your dream and crushed it with no context other than outdated prejudice. It wasn’t right.”
Izuku bit his lip and tried to find another denial, but he could tell that All Might had thought about this conversation far more than he had. There wasn’t likely to be a single logical argument that he wouldn’t shoot down outright.
“You weren’t wrong. J-just because it wasn’t r-right doesn’t mean it was wrong,” he insisted quietly with his gaze following the patterns of the woodgrain on the table, “I think we both know that,” he added with a little more conviction, forcing himself to meet All Might’s eyes.
The fact that All Might didn’t argue said it all. The silence was deafening, so he let his focus drop back down to the table. He could hear Eraser taking measured breaths and trying to tamp down his anger, but he ignored it.
“What do you mean by that, kiddo?” Mic spoke up after a moment.
He looked over to All Might before Mic. His brows were drawn, and his expression was sad. All Might knew what he was talking about; there was no room in this world for a quirkless hero. Mic was focused on him and ignoring All Might’s discomfort, though, so he cleared his throat in an attempt to dispel the lump that had made itself a home there before he spoke.
“The world d-doesn’t want a q-quirkless hero. Even if I did make it, I would be f-fighting the people as much as I would be fighting v-villains. It’s… It’s just n-not worth it,” he explained lamely.
“The industry would never accept you,” Eraser spoke up, quoting the words they had said to him as Ivy last year on that rooftop.
“Yeah,” he agreed solemnly.
“Damnit, kid,” Eraser cursed under his breath as he rubbed a hand across the stubble on his face.
Izuku knew he was cursing the situation and not him, but he still didn’t know how to respond to that. There wasn’t much to say, after all; he was quirkless and the world didn’t like that, he doubted that even All Might had the power to sway public opinion. He had hoped for it as a child, like all kids do– hoped that All Might would save him, but he knew better now, if he tried, all he’d succeed in doing is dragging his name through the mud. It wasn’t worth fighting, it never had been, and it never will be; he’d come to terms with that.
“I… I think that’s an issue we need more time to discuss. Yagi, did you have more to say?” Mic took the reins of the conversation again and passed them off.
All Might let out a bitter laugh before he continued.
“Yes, I’m afraid there’s quite a long list of things I need to apologize for.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Izuku cut him off before he started up again.
God, what was his problem??? He shoved his face into his hands so he couldn’t open his stupid mouth and shove his stupid foot any further down his own stupid throat.
“I know you don’t want to, but I think you need to, kiddo,” Mic answered.
He let out a muffled apology through his hands, which went ignored by everyone. The silence went on until he grew enough of a spine to show his face again. Mic was smiling at him, Eraser was watching him with a practiced blank expression, and All Might seemed to be forcing himself to look at Izuku as much as Izuku was forcing himself to look at him.
No one wanted to do this. Why couldn’t they just not?
He knew that suggestion would just lead to another lecture, so he didn’t bother voicing it.
“I wanted to keep you safe. I thought that the fewer people who knew the truth about One For All, the fewer potential leaks there would be, but in reality, all it did was isolate you even more than you already were. I didn’t realize how isolated I’d been– well, that’s not entirely true, but I didn’t realize how much it had affected me until I got to know you. I was setting you up for a life like that and… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. We’re stronger together, you taught me that. I’m sorry that I tried to take that away from you,” All Might apologized again.
Izuku didn’t try to argue this time, he knew it wasn’t worth it.
“And I’m sorry that I ignored all of the signs of what you were going through. I should have known better. I–”
“Don’t– I– please, just don’t. You didn’t know because I didn’t let you. All of you– I wasn’t waiting around for someone to save me. It was… I was…” he trailed off with a frustrated sigh, not really knowing how to say what he wanted to say.
And he had cut All Might off again . Fucking hell.
“You worked hard so that no one would know about your situation, and when we apologize for it, it dismisses that work. It feels demeaning. Is that what you’re trying to say?” Mic asked
“I… yeah,” he agreed, a little dumbfounded by how squarely they hit the nail on the head.
“That makes sense. That’s valid,” Mic replied.
The room fell into a contemplative silence after that.
“And you didn’t do nothing, All Might. I… I haven’t been hungry since you started buying me f-food,” Izuku admitted quietly, hoping to ease his obvious guilt.
The comment didn’t seem to make anyone feel better. Everyone’s expression soured at the reminder of how things used to be, he should have just kept his mouth shut. However, he did note that Eraser stopped glaring at All Might for a moment as he turned his head down in shame. It wasn’t the emotion Izuku would have liked to replace his anger with, but it was something, he supposed.
The room once again fell into a silence that he didn’t know how to fill; he was too tense to even think about anything other than how oppressive the absence of noise could be.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Nedzu called you ‘dangerously intelligent’ for being able to ‘slip under his radar’ for so long,” Eraser brought the conversation back with an attempt at levity.
Izuku could feel his face heating up as a look of wide-eyed shock fell over his expression. Eraser was getting back at him for laughing at him earlier. Part of him missed this kind of banter that they used to have, but the louder part of him was far too embarrassed by the praise to relish in it. This wasn’t any better than the silence.
“He did not,” Izuku insisted, words once again muffled by his hands covering his face.
“He did. He’s trying to get his grubby little paws on you for an internship– tried to take you out of English, but I put my foot down,” Eraser continued.
All Might let out a poor facsimile of his trademark laugh, but Izuku could tell it was still genuine, just weighed down by other emotions. The smile on his face was telling.
“He said the same thing to me,” All Might explained when he realized his bark of laughter had caught everyone’s attention.
Izuku wanted to curl up in a ball and fade out of existence. There was no way Nedzu said that about him, he was– there was just no way.
“Well, kiddo, there’s no shortage of people who think you’re remarkable, but I think for the sake of your blood pressure, we should move on,” Mic saved him.
“Yes, I, um, I think I’ve said enough for today,” All Might replied, and Izuku had to stifle the sigh of relief pressing at his ribs.
“My turn then,” Eraser spoke up instead.
The stifled sigh of relief turned into a stifled groan.
“I have to apologize to… both of you, I suppose. I already spoke with Izuku, but it bears repeating. I said things that I shouldn’t have last week. It was needlessly hurtful, and it was not my place to say any of it. I’m… sorry, Yagi,” Eraser spoke like he had a gun to his head.
He looked a bit like a little kid whose mom was forcing them to apologize; Izuku would have laughed at the absurdity if it weren’t for the subject matter.
“I really don’t think that’s necessary, Aizawa, I–” All Might tried to deny, but Eraser cut him off.
“No, it was childish and rash. It was a breach of Izuku’s privacy, and it served no other purpose than to hurt you. I shouldn’t have said it,” Eraser countered with more conviction this time.
All Might opened his mouth to say something, but seemingly thought better of it and simply nodded.
“That being said, we’ve gotten clearance to give you an explanation,” Eraser said and turned his attention back to Izuku.
He knew that this was coming; he had told them he was going to tell All Might everything, but now that the time had come, he was paralyzed. Mic seemed to catch on to his hesitation.
“You can change your mind, we don’t need to talk about it,” they offered him an out.
“N-no, I should– I n-need to… I don’t want to l-lie anym-more.”
“Alright, that’s okay, I understand. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll back you up if you need it,” they assured.
Eraser gave him a stiff smile, whereas Mic’s was more sad; they were both reassuring in their own ways.
“I, um, I w-was a, um… I was a v-vigilante for th-three years,” he forced himself to stutter out.
All Might’s face morphed from shock to concern until a smile slowly crept over his expression, one as blindingly brilliant as it was on TV, if not even more so. He threw his head back with a booming laugh that probably gave the soundproofed walls a run for their money. He laughed and laughed until he had to hold a handkerchief up to his mouth because the rough treatment became too much for his remaining battered lung, and he kept on laughing.
Izuku rushed to the kitchen to get him a glass of water faster than anyone could even blink. All Might patted him on the shoulder as he handed it over. He seemed completely unbothered by the blood covering his teeth and handkerchief. He wished this weren’t something All Might had been desensitized to, he deserved better.
Mic had an awkward smile on his face, like he wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to laugh or not, and Eraser just looked confused.
“Oh, my boy, of course you were, thank you,” All Might responded once he finally got his laughter under control enough to take a drink of the water.
“So you’re not… um, m-mad or…” he trailed off as he settled back into his seat across the table.
“That would be more than a little hypocritical of me! I didn’t always have a license, but the world was a different place when I was a boy. I didn’t make a practice of standing idle and watching. I didn’t… well, I didn’t have much of anyone looking out for me either, not until I met Nana, my predecessor. I had my wild years, but you didn’t hear that from me,” All Might explained with a wink.
“...w-what? You said your p-parents, I thought…” he stuttered out incomplete sentences.
All Might’s smile turned sad, and he looked over to Mic for some sort of reassurance before he continued speaking.
What was that about? He wondered passively.
“My family died when I was quite young– got caught up in an attack. It was so long ago I hardly remember– I was 10 or 11, I think? Well, that doesn’t really matter. I grew up in a rather disorganized group home. Sometimes there was a bed for me, and sometimes there wasn’t. That’s why I should have– I did see the signs, I just ignored them. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I’d hoped things had gotten better, I didn’t want to face the facts that they hadn’t,” All Might divulged.
Mic’s out of place laugh pulled Izuku out of his stunned silence.
“Sorry, I just– you two are remarkably similar; it’s almost uncanny,” they explained.
He knew he instantly had a blush on his cheeks, but he was surprised to look over at All Might and see the same ruddy pink color on his face too. Maybe Mic had a point, but he could only hope to live up to All Might’s legacy.
Eraser cleared his throat and brought the group's attention back.
“I worked alongside him for two of those three years. Detective Tsukauchi brought me in on his case and had me keep an eye on him. That’s why I… that’s how I found out in the first place. I had my suspicions after the semester started, but thought they were too absurd to be true,” Eraser finished his explanation.
“ You’re the vigilante Naomasa was talking about?!” All Might turned back to him, and the blush that he had hoped would start to recede came back with a vengeance.
“Unless he’s hiding more vigilantes up his sleeve, then yes, I would assume so,” Eraser answered for him while Izuku did his best impression of an ostrich sticking their head in the sand.
“Haha! He told me he owes you his promotion!” All Might laughed again.
The temptation to melt through the floor was undeniable, luckily, he was saved by his physical inability to do so.
“Jeeze, are you two trying to permanently turn him into a strawberry? Give the kid a break. Yagi, do you want to tell him what you told me?” Mic reined them back in.
“Ah, yes,” All Might started as if he had forgotten what Mic was talking about for a moment, “This has all been an eye-opening experience; a wake-up call, perhaps 30 years too late, I’m afraid. I had a chat with Yamada, and I think it’s well past time for me to talk about all of this– the past and the…– I’m near retirement, it seems a good time for introspection. I’m going to have my team vet a few psychiatrists–”
“Psychologists,” Mic corrected.
“See, I don’t even know the difference! Anyway, they’re going to find some trustworthy people, and Yamada said that might be something that could help you as well. I’ll pass on the list once I get it. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about, we both do, don’t we?” All Might finished his statement with an awkward laugh and lifted a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck the way he always did when he was nervous.
Izuku didn’t know what to say, hell he didn’t know what to think! But Eraser had that look on his face that he had whenever they had done something clever when he was mad at them– reluctant pride. It was a face he hadn’t seen in a while, but now it was pointed at All Might. That was a good sign for their relationship, at least. Unfortunately for him, he was left with nowhere else to run. They were going to make him talk to someone– actually talk to someone. He’d been putting off looking at the list Mic had given him for several weeks, but now that the semester was pretty much over, he had a feeling they wouldn’t be so lenient, especially with whatever list All Might was compiling.
All Might was going to therapy? That was… That… What?
“You alright kiddo?” Mic asked gently.
“I– yeah, I’m… yeah,” he answered as unconvincingly as possible.
Thankfully, Eraser knew him well enough to shift the group's focus away while he collected his thoughts.
“Yagi, were you quirkless?” Eraser asked rather abruptly.
“I was, yes, and I will be again soon. The last embers of the torch I held are fading more each day. I couldn’t have any more faith in who holds that torch now, though,” All Might replied with a sad smile.
Eraser’s focus shifted between each of them, and so did Izuku’s, but it seemed that no one knew where he was going with this.
“There is a massive hole in my education,” Eraser started to explain apropos of nothing, “Not once did we discuss the laws and ethics surrounding quirkless individuals. Perhaps that has changed now, but I doubt it. I’d like to assume it wasn’t out of malice, as social trends and power dynamics have been shifting faster than academia can really keep up with for the last 30 years, but that’s not an excuse. Nothing is going to change if no one does anything about it. I’ve done extensive research over the past few weeks, as much as I could, at least, as there are very few studies into quirkless people in Japan or Asia as a whole, but I digress. We are in the position to bring that change, and I would like to start with my class, if you’re amenable, Izuku.”
“I, uh… what?” he replied dumbly.
“I want to present my research to your peers. I don’t want them to become the kind of adults who neglected you. You aren’t the only quirkless kid, and given that I was as clueless as I was to this issue, I can only assume I’m not the only one. I didn’t want to blindside you with that lecture, and with both of you having an insider’s perspective, I figured it would be helpful to run it past you first,” Eraser explained.
When Izuku gained enough wherewithal to stop staring blankly, he looked over at the other two; Mic was looking at Eraser with such blatant adoration that it was honestly a little nauseating, and All Might was looking at him, just as stunned and impatient for Izuku’s reaction as Izuku was for his. When it was clear that he wasn’t going to stop mentally buffering any time soon, All Might spoke up.
“You’re not wrong about the past 30 years, I don’t know how much of a fresh perspective I can give, but, yes, of course, I’ll do what I can.”
Again, the group’s focus shifted back to him, and he was too dumbfounded to disagree. The proceeding half an hour was spent listening to Eraser’s findings after combing through several years' worth of police reports on hate crimes, obituaries, and the minimal studies he could find on quirkless people in Japan. There was more information than Izuku knew what to do with, and he didn’t know how he could have ever thought that Eraser would have turned his back on him before. He knew Eraser was a good man, but this was… he didn’t have the words.
“Damn, are you gonna try and get that published, babe?” Mic was the first to speak.
“I was thinking about it. I’d have to come up with a pseudonym, but that’s an issue for another time,” he dismissed them and turned his attention toward Izuku.
“I… I had no idea about any of… wow,” All Might spoke up, his voice once again thick with emotion.
The statistics Eraser had presented were grim, he’s sure he would be feeling the same grief All Might was once he got the chance to feel anything but overwhelmed. That amount of research must have taken weeks of non-stop work in every single second of free time that he had. Izuku had noticed him sitting at the dining table on his computer fairly often in the past few weeks, but he had assumed he’d been doing preparations for the finals, not this .
He was biting down on his lips to keep himself from staring slack-jawed, and a sudden twinge of pain clued him into the fact that his lips were trembling. He could taste blood from where his jaw had spasmed and his canine had split his skin, but he didn’t move a muscle– he couldn’t. The second he moved, he knew that he was going to fall to pieces. The effort to avoid it was in vain, but he didn't know what else to do.
Tears started trailing down his cheeks unbidden, and he ignored that as well.
“My boy,” All Might cooed sympathetically as he stood from his seat.
No one said anything as he walked over to Izuku’s side of the table. The dam that Izuku knew would break shattered the moment All Might knelt down and pulled him into his arms. He cried against his chest like a child, and All Might just pet his hair and let him. So much for acting like an adult , he thought bitterly.
He didn’t know how to handle all of this, both that he wasn’t the only one like this and that people actually cared enough– Eraser actually cared enough to do anything about it. There was no way he could ever string together words to communicate what was going through his mind right now, and he was already making a fool of himself, so he figured he had nothing to lose. He pried himself out of All Might’s embrace, shuffled around the table, and wrapped his arms around Eraser hard enough that he heard the man’s breath leave his lungs in a huff. He didn’t pull away, though, he just hugged back as good as he got, hard enough that Izuku could hear his bad elbow pop.
They were both breathless, and he was laughing and crying at the same time. It was ridiculous, he felt ridiculous, so he did his best to pull himself together quickly. He pulled himself away from Eraser as swiftly as he had latched himself to him and returned to his seat.
All Might was sitting sideways in the seat next to his, and Mic once again had a sad smile on their face.
“I think I’ll just let you two go over my notes on your own time. I’d like to present this on Monday with the final results if possible. The sooner the better,” Eraser graciously ignored his meltdown.
Izuku just nodded and listened absently as All Might talked about publishers or something. Mic caught his eye from across the table and gave him a double thumbs-up before pointing one thumb at Eraser and the other at All Might as they had a civilized conversation. Izuku smiled a little wobbly as he looked between the three of them. It was nice to see his worlds collide in a less destructive context.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! Get ready for a lecture next week <3
Chapter 167: Step Two: Change
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny, Muffin, and Woomy for beta reading <3
CWs:
sci-fi racism?
minor accidental self harm
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
The whole class was chattering with nerves about the results for the finals, which they were about to receive, but Izuku sat in his seat much more nervous than any of them for a completely different reason.
“Why are you so tense, Greenie? You kicked All Might’s ass, like literally a few times I think,” Hitoshi piped up from behind him.
He spun his seat around even though he didn’t really want to talk about this right now. He couldn’t just ignore Hitoshi, though, that would be mean.
“I– y-yeah, that was… Yeah, I’m not worried about– well, I know I passed. Sorry, it’s unr-related,” he did his best to brush off the concern.
“I’m assuming you don’t want to talk about it?” Hitoshi asked.
“N-not really the time for it,” he answered.
Hitoshi looked like he had something else he wanted to say, to push the issue, but thankfully, he was saved by the bell.
“Once the bell rings, you should be in your seats,” Eraser opened the classroom door as aggressively as one could open a sliding door, and chastised them immediately.
Everyone rushed to their seats before Eraser even made it three steps into the classroom.
“Good morning. Unfortunately, there are a few of you who did not pass your final exams. So, when it comes to the training camp in the woods,” he took a dramatic pause and Izuku could see where this was headed, “everyone is going,” he concluded with one of those creepy smiles.
Yeah, he had expected that. It didn’t make sense to leave out the people who needed training the most. The whole class was in a frenzy, but he kept mum; he knew what the next topic of discussion was going to be, and he could admit, he was nervous. He’d spent a large chunk of Sunday going over Eraser’s notes on the lecture and crying his eyes out without an audience. He had known logically that there were other quirkless kids out there, but seeing the numbers was far more tangible than a vague assumption. The numbers were impossible to ignore; he was not the only one.
He didn’t have any feedback to give on the data, it was objective, but Eraser had asked him if he’d be willing to sit for an interview before he got it published. They would both use fake names, of course, but the concept had been nagging at him ever since. He didn’t want to be a sob story, but if Eraser was actually capable of fostering even the slightest amount of change, shouldn’t he be doing everything in his power to help? Didn’t he owe that to his fellow– well, not fellow quirkless kids anymore.
Even though he wasn’t really listening to what Eraser said, he could tell that it was time. Eraser caught his eye and nodded subtly in warning.
God, this was going to be a long class.
***
“Alright, everyone, we’re shifting topics, listen up,” Shota started after sharing a glance with Izuku.
No time like the present.
“It has recently come to my attention how deeply quirk discrimination has affected some of you, while others may not have experienced it at all. This lecture won’t be for a grade, but I assure you, it is in your best interest to pay attention, so listen up. I put this together in a bit of a rush, so I don’t have any means to test that you listened, but we will be having a discussion afterwards that will be graded by participation for extra credit. Those of you not comfortable with discussing can turn in notes for credit instead. If at any point anyone feels the need to excuse themselves, do not hesitate to do so. We will be covering some heavy topics that may be upsetting, even if you yourself have never experienced them. You will at some point in your career need to face this, but I will not force you to do so with an audience of your peers,” Shota announced to the class, watching them carefully to gauge reactions.
They were good kids– for the most part at least– there’s a reason he hadn’t expelled any of them yet. Barring the obvious, he didn’t think that any of them would steadfastly hold to quirkest beliefs, but society instills prejudice quietly. No one sneered like this was a waste of time; the sea of faces looked to be taking this seriously. Good.
“There are many ways that people can discriminate based on quirk status. Can anyone think of any examples?” he prompted.
A few hesitant hands shot up. He was doing his best not to watch Izuku too closely, but he was keeping tabs on the whole class, and he looked uncomfortable already.
“Iida,” he called since, as usual, his was the first hand up.
“Mutant type quirks are often the ones I hear talked about when discussing discrimination,” he stated far less enthusiastically than he usually answered.
He had a partial mutant-type quirk, Shota wondered if he’d ever been discriminated for it. He’d never heard complaints about anything other than finding pants that fit him properly. His family status probably protected him from anything too rough, maybe he should ask Tensei about it. He filed that away for later.
“Yes, that’s correct, any others?” he prompted again, “Ashido?”
“I’ve seen people look down on others who have ‘weak’ or ‘useless’ quirks,” she said, putting air quotes around the modifiers.
“That’s a much more nebulous category, but yes, that’s correct, any others? Shinso?”
Shota was surprised to see his hand up; he hardly ever verbally participated in class, but he knew all too well that this issue hit very close to home for him.
“‘Villainous’ quirks,” he stated plainly, also putting air quotes around the modifier, “Or people who don’t have quirks at all,” he added with a little less confidence, shooting a glance at the back of Izuku’s head.
Hm, how much did Izuku tell him?
He saw Izuku subtly look around at his peers to gauge their reactions, but no one other than Bakugo really reacted. He just scowled and looked down at his desk while he fiddled with a pencil.
“Yes, both very good examples,” he clicked to the next slide showing all of those examples listed, “People with mutant quirks make up about a quarter of Japan’s population but are the victim in over 50% of reported hate crimes, data on ‘weak, useless, or villainous’ quirks is difficult to quantify because they aren’t real categories and whether or not they apply to any person or quirk is a matter of opinion, but less than 10% of hate crimes these days are not quirk related, so you can imagine they make up a large portion of the remaining 40%.
I’m sure you’ve heard the statistic that 20% of the population is quirkless, but that is outdated, these days its closer to 15% globally and given quirks first emerged in Asia that percentage is closer to 2% here in Japan with the majority of that subsect being over the age of 65. They’re a rapidly dwindling minority with only around 1 in 1.5 million Japanese citizens reaching the age to be ‘diagnosed’ quirkless. However, this group makes up just under 10% of reported hate crimes despite accounting for less than 1% of our population. People tend to brush aside this statistic since it’s such a small minority, but there’s still millions of quirkless people living in this country who are practically guaranteed to be the victim of a hate crime at some point in their life,” he took a second for the class to absorb the information and glanced over to Izuku.
He was wearing a mask of indifference as he watched his classmates, but Shota could tell he was uncomfortable. He told himself that Izuku said he would leave if it was too much, trusting his word, he pushed ahead.
“I want you all to think critically about how discrimination can manifest itself. While hate crimes are certainly a useful statistic, they are often times just the worst case scenario; there are countless mundane ways that discrimination presents itself, from accessibility to social stigma, and it’s important that you know not only the laws but the often less talked about signs of injustice. Things like profiling or job discrimination can be just as impactful to an individual or community as being attacked in the street. We’ve touched on accessibility and discrimination laws in this class, and we have a unit based on it next semester, so discussion on that can wait. Today, I want to explain microaggressions and other less concrete and technically legal ways prejudice presents itself.
Let's start with mutant-type quirks since that was one of our more tangible examples. Bigots love to tout the statistic that 43% of registered villains have mutant quirks, but countless psychological studies of both children and adults have shown that having a mutant quirk does not predispose an individual to be more aggressive. The 43% statistic is a self-fulfilling prophecy; a child who has grown up with the world calling them a villain is far more likely to create a villain than anything in their DNA. If you get called something enough times, you will start to believe it. This statistic is only fed by profiling and harsher rulings in court, and that is the responsibility of our judiciary system, police, and heroes.
Whether it was subliminally or overtly, we have been forced to associate mutant and villain, resulting in over policing and over prosecuting people with mutant quirks. Each and every one of us holds this prejudice whether we are aware of it or not, whether we agree with it or not, it is there and it is part of your duty as heroes to recognize that prejudice so that you don’t let it color your actions…”
As his presentation dragged on, Shota felt like he had been talking for hours. No one had gotten up to excuse themselves, and he still held everyone’s attention, so it couldn’t have been that long. That might be changing soon, though, because he was about to get into some pretty gnarly statistics.
“Circling back to the different types of people that can be discriminated against, I want to discuss quirkless discrimination. By a show of hands, how many of you know or knew someone who’s quirkless?”
A few hands went up
“And how many of you know or knew someone quirkless under the age of 65?”
All of the hands lowered except for Uraraka.
“Uraraka, do you mind talking about this person?” he asked.
He had no doubts that whoever this person was had not been treated kindly, and the hesitant look in her eyes only confirmed that, but she continued regardless.
“No, it’s, uh, it’s okay. She–I went to middle school with her, but she was a year older than me, she– she was nice,” she said as her gaze dropped to her desk.
He noted how she spoke about her in the past tense, knowing what he knew now, he could connect the dots as to why that was. He took a deep breath and shared a knowing look with her before continuing.
“I would like to remind all of you that you are free to excuse yourselves at any time, we are about to get into some upsetting statistics. Can anyone tell me what they think the leading cause of death is for quirkless individuals?”
“Old age,” Izuku responded with a soft smile, not bothering to raise his hand.
Shota let that slide.
“Correct, it is old age. Can anyone tell me what the second leading cause of death is? Kirishima?”
“Is it, uh, hate crimes? You mentioned that um…” he trailed off, not completing the thought.
“Yes, I did mention they were statistically very likely to happen to quirkless individuals, and that is the third leading cause,” he waited for someone else to raise their hand. When no one volunteered, he continued, “The second leading cause is suicide.”
He saw Uraraka’s brow furrow, and Izuku was steadfastly looking anywhere that wasn’t him. The rest of the class looked suitably horrified. He noted that Bakugo, in particular, looked a little nauseous; Shota did his best to not be visibly pleased by that.
“Like I said before, if you are called something enough times, you will start to believe it, and our society places far too much value in quirks. They have become inseparable from a person’s identity. Many people see the quirkless population as less than human, something incomplete or archaic, unevolved. If someone is told that they are worth less for long enough, they will believe that they are worthless and act accordingly.
Every single category of quirk discrimination comes down to the fact that we are treating quirks as if they are people, and that is where we get the cognitive dissonance. People existed long before quirks did. Quirks are supplementary, they are a trait or a tool. You are a person first, your quirk is secondary. I want you all to know that. Regardless of what you may or may not have been called, you are a human being with inherent worth before you are anything else, you are not more than or less than anyone else, no one is,” he stressed as he looked over the class.
A few people looked uncomfortable at the reminder, but he noted that Todoroki looked very confused. He had no doubt that the boy had never been told that he, as a person, was more important than his quirk; people suffered on both sides of the spectrum.
“Alright, that’s all I had prepared for you, but I’d like to further our discussion. Does anyone have any questions, comments, or even anecdotes that they’d like to share?”
No one volunteered immediately, he didn’t expect them to. That was a lot to digest, and they needed time, so he waited patiently. Eventually, Uraraka raised her hand.
“Yes, Uraraka?”
“I just wanted to say– the girl I mentioned– her name was Aoki, Aoki Akemi. She was very kind. So many people were so mean to her, but she never– she was always–” her eyes went a bit glassy as she tried to compose herself.
“She killed herself; she was only thirteen. One in 1.5 million doesn’t seem like a lot… I know I never thought about it before she… and well, it was too late at that point. I was never– I never did anything to her, but I didn’t really help either, and I regret that. I’m not saying that it was my fault or that I could have even made a big enough of a difference in her life, but I could have, and now I’ll never know. It’s important to let people know that they matter, so thank you, Sensei,” she said with a small bow of her head.
Tenya passed her a handkerchief as tears started to brim in her eyes.
“Yes, Uraraka, it’s important to let your stance on things like this be known. I’m sorry you had to learn that the hard way.”
He was so fixated on her that he failed to notice Izuku was subtly trembling in his seat and wiping tears from his eyes. That was good, probably. Uraraka had no ulterior motive to share that, she didn’t know Izuku’s past. Hopefully, this would be enough to make him believe that at least she would still be his friend if he hadn’t taken OFA. Among many other reasons for this lecture, that was one of his main goals.
Kirishima’s hand shot up as he looked around the room.
“Yes, Kirishima,” Shota called on him.
“I uh, I just wanted to say that I agree with Uraraka. That– I– That’s not right, what happened to her. None of the discrimination is right, and I don’t think I’ve ever said anything to make anyone think that anyone is any less because of their quirk, but saying it is important. What Aizawa-sensei said is right, you’re a person before you’re your quirk,” he stated with determination.
Shota saw several people nod their heads at that, and Izuku was looking around like he was about to tear his skin off. Maybe this was a bit much. Yaoyorozu raised her hand before he could lead the discussion elsewhere.
“Yes, Yaoyorozu?”
“Didn’t UA go on the record a number of years ago, saying that quirkless individuals could join the hero course? It’s upsetting to know that that may not be the case elsewhere, but it’s good that we’re leading the charge. There are a lot of horrible things happening, but there’re good things too; we’re making strides in the right direction by even having this conversation. I just– I don’t want anyone to feel like this is a hopeless battle. Knowing harsh realities is important, but it’s not helpful if you let yourself get dragged down by it,” she concluded.
That girl was a godsend, lift the mood, that’s just what they needed.
“Exactly, Yaoyorozu. It’s not a hopeless battle, and the more we talk about it, the more we can work towards fixing it.”
“Have–” Ashido started excitedly before she cut herself off and raised her hand.
Stifling a grin– he had a reputation to maintain– he called on her.
“Have any quirkless people been admitted to the hero course since then? A quirkless hero would be amazing publicity for the movement! They could–”
She cut herself off again as Izuku’s chair loudly scraped against the floor as he got to his feet and high-tailed it out of the classroom. Shit. He kept his face down the whole time, but Shota could guess what set him off. As much as he wanted to go after him, he was his teacher right now, not his guardian.
“You were saying, Ashido?” he prompted her to continue.
She was hesitant and clearly concerned, but she continued regardless, “They could be a real advocate for the cause.”
“Yes, they could, but no. No quirkless people have made it into the hero course. Not yet, at least,” silence fell over the room for a moment before he added, “Shinso or Uraraka, would you please go check on Midoriya?”
Both of them had looked like they wanted to run after him the second he stood up, and they shared a glance at each other having an argument via eye contact for who got to go.
“You can both go,” Shota added, he didn’t want to keep the class’s attention on the subject any longer than he needed to.
Thankfully, they both shot out of their seats and out of the classroom practically before he could finish his sentence. They were good kids, he was glad Izuku had finally found people who deserved him.
***
As Aizawa’s lecture continued, it became more and more clear to Hitoshi what Izuku was so tense about. There’s no way Aizawa put this together without warning him beforehand. He could see Izuku’s shoulders rising more and more until the tension got to be too much and turned into tremors. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Izuku’s chair hit the front of his desk as he bolted out of the classroom.
He contemplated running after him immediately; Aizawa said they could leave, but something about that felt like making even more of a scene than just one person legging it. Thankfully, Aizawa sent him after Izuku anyway. Well, him and Uraraka. It seemed a bit overkill, but he was too anxious to get to his friend to argue about it.
“Do you have any idea where he could have gone?” she asked the moment the door shut behind them.
“Not really, should we split up?” he suggested.
“No need, children!” a voice chirped from an overhead speaker above them.
He and Uraraka shared a look, and the voice giggled .
“Two rights, then a left, in a nook past the third door on the right,” the voice instructed.
“Is that the principal?” Uraraka whispered to him.
“Yes, it is! I promise I’ll stop prying, I just thought you could use some direction,” the voice– er, um… Nedzu answered her.
“Oh… kay, um… thanks?” he responded toward the ceiling.
Alright, no talking about secret shit anywhere in UA ever, noted.
“I was keeping an eye out for this exact reason, don’t be so paranoid, children,” Nedzu answered his thought with a mischievous chuckle.
Okay! Not even the thoughts were safe! Cool! He’d seen Kaminari and Ashido’s final; that laugh was not as disarming as Nedzu might hope it would be.
“Come on, Shinso, let’s just go,” Uraraka pointed him back to the task at hand.
Izuku was sitting exactly where Nedzu had said he would be, and honestly, as creepy as it was, Hitoshi was glad he had directed them. There was no way that he would have checked here, and even if he had, he would have likely walked right past without even seeing Izuku with how much he had balled himself up in a blind corner. He had his legs to his chest and his arms around his shins with his hands holding anchor in his hair. It looked painful, he wasn’t giving his chest enough room to expand properly through his staccato gasps of air.
“Midoriya?” Uraraka called out to him and he damn near jumped out of his skin.
He scrambled nowhere as he was already as backed into the corner as he could be and looked at them with wild, unseeing eyes for a moment before he settled enough to register who they were. His eyes were glassy, and there were tears streaking down his face.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, Aizawa-sensei sent us after you… Are… Are you okay?”
Izuku looked over to him and then back to Uraraka before giving her the least convincing nod he had ever seen.
“Well, you don’t seem okay,” Uraraka pointed out the obvious.
“Your hand is bleeding,” Hitoshi observed, gesturing to Izuku’s balled-up fist.
He heard him curse under his breath before forcing his hands to relax and holding them upright in an attempt to not drip blood onto the floor.
“Well, it was a good thing I was crying earlier, Tsu passed me her little tissue pack!” Uraraka said cheerfully as she presented two to Izuku.
“Iida gave me his handkerchief faster, so I promise I didn’t use them– I mean obviously I didn’t use them, they’re still in the pack. I’m rambling, sorry,” she trailed off.
Izuku smiled at her fumbling, and Hitoshi wondered why he had insisted on coming as well; she clearly had this under control.
“I’m s-sorry I–”
“You don’t need to apologize for having emotions, idiot,” he cut Izuku off with some sage advice.
Izuku actually laughed at that, so maybe he wasn’t completely useless here. He took a seat on the ground next to Izuku so that he didn’t feel like Hitoshi was towering over him while he sat in the corner; that was probably something he should have done earlier. Whatever, better late than never. Uraraka followed his lead.
“Did you… did you know a quirkless kid too?” Uraraka asked him after a moment of silence.
“I, um, y-yeah, I g-guess,” Izuku responded.
Uraraka looked at him with a raised brow, no doubt questioning what Izuku meant by ‘I guess’, but he didn’t make any move to clarify; it wasn’t his place. No one said anything for another uncomfortable bout of silence, and Hitoshi was surprised by Izuku being the one to speak first.
“Do you r-really think that? About Aoki? That she was– that she didn’t d-deserve that?” he asked, barely loud enough to be heard and resolutely not looking either of them in the eye.
“What?! Of course I did! No one deserves that!” Uraraka answered quickly and with no small amount of offense.
Izuku started crying harder at that answer. Before, his tears were falling unchecked, but now they were enough to shake his chest, though they were still silent.
“Sorry, that was an overreaction. I didn’t mean to– Yes, I did mean it. She was a good person,” she tried again, more calmly this time.
“I d-don’t understand how I n-never met anyo-one who– I’m s-sorry,” Izuku forced out shaky words between desperate gulps of air.
Uraraka was only getting more confused. He wished that he could explain it to her to get a little help with this, but that wasn’t an option right now, so he just ignored her.
“Mob mentality. There were probably a few people who didn’t care, but they were too scared to say anything. Plus I don’t think UA would let in a bunch of quirkest dickheads, there’s got to be some sort of vetting process, right?” he posited.
Izuku didn’t respond to his hypotheses, he just buried his face in his forearms since his hands were occupied by bloody tissues.
“I mean, I’ve thought about it too, I’ve been surprised by how different things are here. I thought it was going to be the same and everyone was going to…” he trailed off, he didn’t want to get into the meat of his issues right now, it wasn’t the time for it. “But they’ve been fine, our classmates at least. I haven't interacted much with anyone else. Obviously, Monama was a dick, but it wasn’t targeted; I think he’s just like that.”
Uraraka snorted out a laugh at that and agreed, “Yeah, that kid’s a jerk.”
“I don’t think anyone in our class would have been like the people who bullied Aoki– well, except Bakugo, I don’t know about him, he’s kind of a jerk too,” Uraraka added.
That comment prompted the first audible sob to fall from Izuku’s mouth, though he was pretty sure that was only because it was a half-laugh, half-sob.
“Oh… was the kid from your school too? Did Bakugo actually…?” Uraraka trailed off, a little horrified.
“The k-kid was me,” Izuku answered, peeking out from behind his arms to gauge her reaction.
Her brows were drawn, and she glanced over to him for an explanation, but again, that wasn’t something he could give to her.
“I didn’t get m-my quirk until I was fifteen,” Izuku explained.
“That was last year,” Uraraka pointed out the obvious again.
Izuku just nodded.
Uraraka’s expression went from confused to horrified to furious all in less than a second before she shot to her feet.
“He did, didn’t he?! He called you– on the first day of class! Oh, I’m going to kill him,” she declared and started making her way back down the hall.
Izuku went to grab her arm, but realized his hand was still covered in blood, so Hitoshi did it for him.
“Uraraka, stop. Aizawa already knows about it, right? Is that why you were paired for the final? You were trying to keep him from getting expelled, weren’t you?” He stopped her and turned his focus back to Izuku.
His silence was telling.
“Goddamnit, Izuku, what the hell were you thinking?” he asked before he could think better of it.
“He’s not– he d-didn’t– I couldn’t j-just,” Izuku scrambled over his words and gave up before he managed to say anything of substance.
“That’s not–” he sighed heavily, “We don’t have to talk about that right now,” he said in hopes that Uraraka would let the subject drop, Izuku was already upset as it was.
She reluctantly saw reason and sat back down.
“If he so much as looks at someone funny, I’m punting him into space,” she warned.
Izuku laughed through his tears again.
It took a while for him to calm down, but eventually his breaths started to even out, and they just sat there with him until he was ready. Once he started dabbing at the crescent-shaped cuts on his palms, Hitoshi suggested that they pay Recovery Girl a visit.
He and Uraraka spent the walk talking about their plans for the summer, or rather, their lack of plans for the summer, while Izuku listened. Any time he glanced up at either of them, he looked like he was holding back tears again, but he was smiling now, so Hitoshi assumed they must be good tears. He knew how often he himself stepped back and took a look at the group of friends he had stumbled into and thought, ‘how the hell did I end up here?’ with gracious awe, so he could recognize the look when he saw it.
They weren’t going to let Izuku fall through the cracks again, not over their dead bodies.
Notes:
Children and other impressionable minds, re-read that lecture and think about racism, sexism, classism, or any other type of ism you please. Examine your biases and do with that what you will <3 Be kind to each other and check yourselves. I love you... unless you're racist ✨💞👹🤘
-CinThanks for reading!!!
Chapter 168: Step Three: –Oh Fuck, What’s he Got Himself into This Time?
Notes:
Shout outs to Penny, Muffin, and Woomy for beta reading this chapter <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“Shinso-san,” she heard a low voice greet.
She spun around and smiled. She’d been looking forward to this meeting in a morose sort of way. It was a grim topic they were about to discuss, but she was finally going to be able to help properly and… meet this tall blonde stranger… hm. She wasn’t sure what she had expected from Aizawa’s partner, but apparently it wasn’t this. The man was dressed in pastels with a few delicate braids in his long, silky hair, and a pair of bright red glasses perched on his nose.
They certainly made a handsome couple.
“Aizawa-san, hello!” she greeted cheerfully, “And you are…” she gave the man the chance to introduce himself.
“Yamada Hizashi,” they replied with a polite nod.
“It’s good to meet you. Did you two order drinks? You should if you didn’t, you can’t go wrong, I haven't had anything bad here.”
“Yes, we’re familiar with the place,” Aizawa responded to her before turning to his partner, “Do you want me to order?”
“Yeah, I’ll try to get all the small talk done for you then, shall I? Get me that lavender chai thing I got that one time,” Yamada shot back with a smirk.
Aizawa rolled his eyes, but didn’t try to deny anything, walking away to the queue without another word. She laughed good naturedly at the display.
“Okay, should we speed-run the getting-to-know-you spiel before he gets back? I’m Shinso Kohaku, I’m a cancer, I like long walks on the beach, and I work at the library down the street.”
“Oh! I’m a cancer too, should we just leave him and head to the beach?” he glanced back at the line as he took his seat, “Yeesh– the lines moving fast, I’m also a teacher at UA, and I forgot if you said a fourth thing,” he rushed out as if they were actually speed-running small talk for Aizawa’s sake.
“You are? What do you teach? Is that how you two met? And the fourth thing was my name, which we’ve already covered, so you’re good,” she replied.
“English, and no, we go way back. We were in the same class at UA as teens, and we’ve been stuck to each other in some capacity ever since,” they replied.
Her brain took a moment to buffer before everything fell into place.
“English? Oh my god! I didn’t even recognize you!”
Yamada mimed zipping his lips shut before she said anything else. She glanced around to see if anyone was looking, but thankfully, they weren’t. Now would not be the most ideal time to be mobbed by fans. Present Mic was in the top fifty, weren’t they?
“Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off. I don’t get recognized often, but I’d rather not draw attention if I can help it.”
“No, that’s fine, don’t worry about it, I understand. I feel like I’m in a movie now, meeting with two pros in a coffee shop. I already felt a little silly not telling Hitoshi about this, but now it feels like some serious subterfuge,” she joked.
“Hah, yeah, I just thought it would be better not to tell them, no one likes to know that people are talking about them behind their backs. Izuku stresses too much as it is; he doesn’t need to worry about what we’re up to when he’s trying to have fun with his friends.”
“Yes, I agree, but it still feels weird. It’s like we’re the teens sneaking out, y’know.”
“No, I don’t. I was a model teen, I never snuck out,” they shot back with clear sarcasm.
“Hmm, I’m sure, I’m sure,” she agreed.
“So, do you like teaching? How did you two fall into this gig?”
“Oh yeah, I love it. I was always helping my classmates study in school, it just comes naturally to me, I guess. Plus, I was kind of born to publicly speak in some capacity, and teaching fit both of those talents perfectly. As for Sho… Well, Sho’s a different story. He’s teaching because he wants to see change in the heroics industry. He hit a wall while patrolling– not literally, but he’s probably done that a few times too– and then he pivoted careers a bit to join me,” he explained.
“How about you, how’d you end up at the library?”
“I was a lonely kid, I always had my nose in a book, and I haven’t ever been able to change that, so here I am– Well, I haven’t been able to change the book part at least. Thankfully, I’m not so lonely these days,” she answered honestly.
“That’s good, I’m glad we all got to follow our passions; most people don’t get that kind of opportunity. Lucky us,” he answered with a smile.
“Yeah, we are pretty lucky, aren’t we? I’m glad the kids are getting that opportunity as well; they deserve it. Even if it has stressed me out more than anything else in the world,” she admitted.
“Yeah– Oh, god, yes. I’ve always worried about my students, I mean, I know what goes into heroics, but now with Izuku it’s just– Hell, I can't even send him to the mall with his friends for the day without going into a tailspin. That kid attracts danger like no one I have ever seen. They’ve been there, what, a half hour? And I’m just waiting for my phone to go off with a call from the hospital or something.”
“Why are we getting calls from the hospital?” Aizawa asked, returning with their drinks.
“Oh, just talking about how we haven’t seen Izuku for more than five minutes, so he’s probably negotiating with a bank robber by now,” Yamada explained.
Aizawa scoffed as he took his seat next to Yamada.
“Hm, I don’t doubt it. Damn problem child,” Aizawa cursed lovingly.
“Oh, come on you two, I’m sure he’s fine,” Kohaku butted in.
They both let out a weary sigh, and she had to hold back a laugh at that. They looked like new parents with a baby who wouldn’t stop waking them up in the middle of the night, not new parents of an astoundingly independent 16-year-old.
***
“Alright, everyone, meet back here at 3 o’clock!” Iida dismissed the class, and everyone broke off. “Okay, let’s plot a route for our troop. What does everyone need?” he asked, turning back to the three of them.
“I need bug spray, for sure. I hate bug bites so much. I think I can make do with the rest,” Uraraka answered.
“Why did you come to the mall if all you need is bug spray?” Hitoshi prodded.
“Well, I was going to say I wanted to hang out with my friends, but then you showed up, and now I’m not so sure,” she shot back with a pleasant tone.
“Uraraka, don’t be so rude!” Iida chastized.
“She was just joking, Iida,” he clarified as the other two glared at each other as if they were actually fighting.
Either they weren’t going to be friends, or Iida was going to understand sarcasm by graduation. Izuku was hoping for the latter, but the lack of progress in the first term was shaking his confidence.
“Hm, I see. Moving on then. Shinso, what do you need?”
“I wanted to get a better backpack. I haven't needed one since grade school, and it’s in a sad state. That and general athletic wear. What about you, Izuku?”
“I could u-use some shoes,” he admitted.
Mic had granted him mercy on their shopping spree in the shoe department. Why the hell were shoes so expensive?
“They recommended shoes that have already been broken in!” Iida reprimanded.
“These are the only shoes I have,” he said, gesturing to his ratty sneakers.
He technically had his boots, but those were part of his Ivy gear, and it didn’t feel right to wear them anymore. He’d tried a few times, but he always found himself looking down at them and spiraling.
“Well, they are definitely broken in,” Hitoshi observed and got a rough smack on the arm from Uraraka for his troubles.
Iida furrowed his brow and looked between the two of them to assess if the hit was amicable or not before he pressed on.
“We should head to the sporting goods store first! It should have everything we need. If not, we can reassess and make a new game plan,” Iida decided.
Izuku bought the cheapest pair of shoes he could find at the store while everyone else ambled around for a while and decided on which store to go to next. Iida needed to go to a specialty store for pants, and Hitoshi wanted to look around a different clothing store on the way. Uraraka had gotten her bug spray and was just going with the flow until they passed a boba stand and insisted they needed to stop.
Though it was better with friends, Izuku never did like the mall, so he assumed that was the reason for the persistent headache and unrelenting sense of dread. It had been spiking and abating as they walked with no apparent pattern, and it was making it hard to think. The pain was strange and very specific, the only other time he had felt something like it was in Hosu right before everything went to shit, and then again right before that Nomu introduced a claw to the inside of his lung– a series of observations that was not helping ease his tension.
It was a normal day– broad daylight in the middle of a busy mall. If something catastrophic was going to happen, there would be visible clues; he was just being paranoid. He’s pretty sure All Might would have told him if OFA came with supernatural premonition anyway.
His reassurances were ineffective; he felt like he couldn’t breathe, and the large groups of people around him weren’t helping. He needed some air, he needed to get out of here– just for a second. He would get some air, and then he would calm down, and then he would come back and have a normal, nice day with his friends.
“You alright, Greenie?” Hitoshi asked as if on cue.
“Yeah, s-sorry I’m fine, just not good with crowds, I think. I was just gonna r-run to the restroom for a minute to get some air, actually,” he replied.
“Do you want me to come with?”
“No, I just– I…” he trailed off, not really sure where he was going with that.
“Need space?” Hitoshi finished his sentence.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“That’s fine, it is super busy today, isn’t it? I guess that's what happens when you go on a Saturday, right when most schools let out for summer. I’ll let the others know, and we’ll keep our phones handy. Just text us when you wanna come back, and we’ll let you know where we ended up,” Hitoshi replied.
He was so thoughtful.
“S-sounds good, thanks,” he said and slipped away through the crowd.
The further he got from his friends, the worse the headache and feeling of imminent doom became. He couldn’t stop himself from whipping his head around like it was on a swivel; he didn’t know what was happening, and everything felt like a threat. When a hand fell onto his shoulder, half of him was screaming to grab it and flip whoever the hand belonged to over him, and the other half was too paralyzed to do anything. The small, broken bit of optimism he had left hoped it was Hitoshi, but he’d lived long enough to know better than to listen to that.
“Oh, you’re that kid from UA, right? You’re the one who won the first-year sports festival, aren’t you?” the voice greeted.
He knew that voice even through the faux casual tone; he couldn’t forget it if he tried. That was Shigaraki.
For fuck’s sake! Was he following them the whole time? Waiting to get one of them alone? God, he was such a dumbass, he just delivered himself on a silver platter! Wait, does that mean the headache was warning him? It happened twice in Hosu and a third time here; twice is a coincidence, but three’s a trend. A very interesting development, however, he currently had bigger fish to fry. A hand that could turn him to dust was currently one extended finger away from doing just that. He could feel four points of pressure on his shoulder; he needed to get out of here.
He went to spin around and sweep his opponent’s legs out from under him, but the moment he twisted out of the grip on his shoulder, Shigaraki’s other hand closed around his neck. He didn’t get the chance to do more than an awkward side step before he was forced back to stillness.
“Oh, come now, little hero, don’t be so tetchy. I just want to talk,” he taunted.
“What are you playing at, Shigaraki?” he bit back.
“Don’t make a scene, I’m just an old friend who ran into you at the mall,” Shigaraki cooed playfully, “I told you, I just want to chat, quit acting so tense, you’ll draw attention.”
Alright! Cool! Wonderful! This was just great!
Okay, Izuku, life or death situation, this is your bread and butter, get your head in the game.
As subtly as he could manage, he reached for his pocket and pressed the button on the side of his phone five times, just like Mic and Eraser had shown him how to not three days prior. He had backup on the way, everything was going to be fine.
“Why should I listen to you?” he shot back.
“I have my hand around your throat, Izuku . Did you forget? The moment I touch–”
The use of his given name made him want to punch Shigaraki in his smug, crusty face.
“No, I didn’t forget, but I can destroy a ship with one punch. Did you forget? At best, you’ve got a stalemate. You’re not making it out of here,” he shot back.
He just needed to stall. Or scare Shigaraki off, that would be good too. Anything to get the hand off his throat would be great, actually.
“Oh, you’re feisty. Are you threatening me? That’s not very heroic,” Shigaraki replied, clearly not taking him seriously, “I’ve already got a gun to your head, little hero, you’re not winning this fight.”
“Even if you do, I’ll have a second before I’m gone, that’s more than enough time to turn you into nothing but a crater on the ground and a distant memory,” he countered.
Shigaraki barked out a frankly disgusting laugh at that. It was raspy like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together, and he did it right into Izuku’s ear.
“Now that certainly isn’t very heroic. Are you going to kill me?” Shigaraki taunted.
“I’d rather not, but you’re not giving me much of a choice. Either we both walk away, or neither of us do. It’s your call,” he replied coolly, not letting the man’s threat intimidate him.
“Don’t they teach you self-preservation at that stupid school?” He cursed and tightened his grip, “You’re not how I thought you’d be, little hero. How intriguing. Maybe you can give me some insight, you were one of the students who took down The Hero Killer, weren’t you?”
Izuku tensed slightly. Shigaraki wasn’t supposed to know that.
“Hah, I wasn’t sure, but you just confirmed it. The timeline didn’t add up, Endeavor was busy with my Nomus when the call went out that The Hero Killer was apprehended. Just more lies to feed the public, right? Look at them all, walking around without a care in the world. Any one of them could use their quirks and turn this courtyard into a massacre, and yet they’re smiling. It pisses me off,” he ranted nonsensically for a moment before turning his face right into Izuku’s ear, “Tell me, why was the media so intent on the stupid Hero Killer, hm? My Nomus destroyed half the city, but he’s all they talked about.”
Why the fuck was he asking him of all people? Did he really just want to talk? He knew the guy was crazy, but this was a complete strategical failure; he was putting himself out on the board for no reason. Anonymity and secrecy were the League’s biggest defense right now, risking that for a chat with a high schooler was foolish. Did he know about OFA? No, that didn’t seem likely. If he knew, he wouldn’t be risking Izuku getting away, he would have warped both of them back to whatever hole in the wall he crawled out of. All logic pointed to Shigaraki being a fucking idiot, which means that All For One either wasn’t involved, or didn’t have nearly as tight of a leash on his pet as they thought he did.
Alright, he wanted to talk? They could talk, that was fine. Backup couldn’t be far now; how long had it been?
“The Hero Killer has been on the loose for years; his capture was bound to get more media coverage,” he answered with the first thought that came to mind.
“Hah! I broke through the impenetrable guard of UA! Twice! And I constructed a city-wide attack the likes of which Japan hasn’t seen in decades! That doesn’t make any sense,” Shigarki cursed and tightened his grip again, so much so that it started to become a concerted effort to breathe.
“The Hero Killer had motive, he had goals. In his own twisted way, he was trying to make the world a better place. You don’t have that, no one knows what the League is after. There’s nothing admirable about destruction for destruction’s sake.”
Shigaraki, honest to god, growled in response, like a feral dog. The grip around his neck tightened again, and his breaths became desperate wheezes. The man was clearly compromised, but if he was stupid enough to pull this stunt with a rational mind, what would he be stupid enough to reveal now? Backup had to be close, and if Shigaraki managed to slip away like he did last time, they wouldn’t have another chance like this.
“So, Shigaraki,” he paused to wheeze in another breath, “What is All For One after?”
“Who knows!” Shigaraki laughed, but the atmosphere shifted quickly.
Shigaraki took in a sharp inhale, the way one would when they came to a sudden realization.
“Ah, I see it now, all the dots connected. Why The Hero Killer makes me so angry, why you irritate me so much, everything makes sense. It’s him,” he let out another deranged laugh, “the problem is All Might! Yeah, yeah, that’s it, that’s the most rational explanation! I didn’t see it even though it was right in front of me the whole time! What was I worrying about so much? It’s simple! He’s why these morons are able to smile thoughtlessly! They feel so safe because that garbage pro is smiling thoughtlessly too, as if there’s no one in the whole world he can’t save.”
The hand around his neck tightened again; he couldn’t breathe at all now. Given that he could barely breathe as it was, he figured he had about 45 to 60 seconds before he started to black out, spots had already started dancing in his vision. He couldn’t wait any longer for backup; he had to do something now, or he was going to die. Shigaraki was still ranting hysterically, and his grip was so tight that it was starting to tremble against Izuku’s throat. He really hoped that he was distracted enough to not see this coming.
As fast as he physically could, Izuku grabbed Shigaraki’s wrist and flung him forward over his shoulder and onto the ground in front of them. He gasped for air desperately and was surprised– and grateful– to find that he still could. He brought his hand up to his throat, and it came away bloodied, but he didn’t have time to assess the injury. People had backed away from the two of them, but Shigaraki was still alive and conscious, albeit gasping on the ground with one limp arm.
He wanted to shout for everyone to get back, but he couldn’t; his throat was too battered, and he was still struggling to get air down through the swollen mess.
“You… little… brat,” Shigaraki cursed at him through heaving breaths.
Shigaraki stood up to charge at him again, and Izuku took a fighting stance. However, before the psycho made it halfway across the divide, a portal opened up beneath him. Instinct told him to grab him before he could get away, but something wrapped around his chest and pulled him back before he got the chance. The force sent him sprawling to the ground on his back, looking up at the sky.
“IZUKU, NO! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?” a familiar voice shouted at him.
A shadow passed over him, and before his eyes could adjust to the lack of light, he already recognized the shape.
Phenomenal timing, Eraser.
“Thinkin’ your response time could use work,” he choked out through scratchy breaths and violent coughs.
He could barely hear Eraser curse under his breath in response as he did his best to wrestle his lungs back into working order.
“Injuries besides the obvious?” the shape asked him more audibly.
He just shook his head, apparently the blood on his neck wasn’t bad enough to be concerned about. That was nice, at least.
“IZUku oh my god, I’m covering you in bubble wrap and never letting you leave the house,” another familiar– and momentarily quirk enhanced– voice came running up behind the first.
“He‘ll just dust the wrap, an’ you’ll lead ‘im right to Kimchi. Don’ bother,” he brushed off Mic’s concern as he stood up and turned around.
Mic was looking at him like he was an alien, and Eraser just rolled his eyes.
“Welcome to the past two years of my life. Let me see your neck, kid,” Eraser dismissed them too.
“Was that who it looked like?” Mic asked, realizing their concern was largely useless at the moment.
Izuku nodded.
“Alright, I’m gonna get this place evacuated,” they said and walked off as Eraser got a closer look at his neck.
Eraser reached up to dab at the wound with an alcohol pad, and he instinctively flinched away. His adrenaline was fading, and his brave face was falling with it.
“S-sorry, go ‘head. I bet his hand was f-filthy,” he tried to joke, but he tripped over his own words.
Eraser ignored the poor attempt at humor and started dabbing the pad against the mess on his neck. He didn’t get very far into the procedure before they heard Mic yelling.
“Those of you in the immediate vicinity, cover your ears, it’s about to get loud!” Mic shouted without his quirk from his place in the middle of the courtyard, awkwardly perched on top of some sort of abstract sculpture.
He and Eraser both shot their hands up to their ears. They knew quite well that when Mic told you to cover them, you’d better listen fast.
“EVACUATE THE AREA, THIS IS AN ACTIVE CRIME SCENE. WE ADVISE ALL SHOPPERS TO GO HOME AS THE THREAT HAS NOT BEEN APPREHENDED,” Mic called out with his quirk after giving everyone nearby a chance to brace themselves.
Eraser sighed when he lowered his hands and got out a new alcohol pad, as the one he had been holding had just been dragged through his hair.
“Goddamnit, why is it always you?” yet another irritated and familiar voice called out from the crowd behind him.
He didn’t turn around because Eraser was still tending to his neck, but he knew that was Hitoshi.
“Ah, good! Aizawa-sensei! You’re already here!” he heard Iida’s unmistakable call from the same spot behind him.
“Midoriya, are you okay?” Uraraka, the last of the troop, asked at a much more reasonable volume once they’d reached a much more reasonable distance.
He shot the three of them a blind thumbs up as he didn’t know what Eraser was doing with whatever remained of his neck. It didn’t hurt all that much, but he wasn’t sure if that was just the nerves talking yet.
“What… the hell… was that?” an out of breath woman’s voice added her two cents from somewhere behind Eraser.
“Mom?” Hitoshi asked.
Shinso-san?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!!
Chapter 169: Don’t Mess With Mama Bear
Notes:
I don't think anyone beta read this one, but I honestly don't remember. My beta bitches have been slacking smh /lh
I know Penny read it, but he read directly off my computer, so idk if he edited anything. If it's shit blame them 😂
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“Okay, Aizawa’s back, no more small talk. Let’s get into it,” Kohaku joked.
“I can do small talk, I’m not completely inept,” Aizawa scoffed.
“I know, I know, we’re just teasing. I have been anxious about this meeting, though, I want to help that kid as much as I can… after everything,” she admitted.
“You may have helped him more than anyone, Shinso-san. No one knew the ‘real’ him for– what, twelve years? I’m pretty sure you guys were the first to even try to know him. That’s a saving grace that I don’t think he would have survived without. At least from what I know of his situation, do you disagree?” Yamada spoke up and then deferred to their partner.
“No, I don’t. I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think he’s ever let anyone in like he let you two in. Obviously, he had some sort of facade with you, but it wasn’t quite as drastic as he had with others,” Aizawa agreed.
That was a bittersweet reassurance. She furrowed her brow and looked down at her now lukewarm coffee. It hurt to think about how isolated Midoriya had been, but she was glad that they were there for him in whatever capacity they had been. That was the eternal constant with Midoriya, she wished she could have done more.
“Have you gotten him into counseling yet?” she changed the subject.
“No, not yet. There’s been so many delays, but I’m putting my foot down. He’s been putting off making a decision. We just narrowed down the list quite a bit recently, but I’m going to make him choose before the week's through, or I’m going to choose for him,” Yamada answered, shame evident in his tone.
“That sounds fair. He’s not going to like it, but I would do the same thing. It’s for his own good. Things slip away from us, I’m sure you’ve all been busy with finals. Now that that’s through, there’s nothing in the way– Well, not nothing, but significantly less, I’m sure,” she assuaged.
She wasn’t here to shame them; this was an insane situation to be thrust into, and they were doing their best.
“Has he been lashing out?” she asked, changing the subject slightly.
“Far less than would be reasonable, considering,” Aizawa answered.
“Oh, that’s good, actually. I was worried that he wouldn’t. It doesn’t feel good for anyone, I’m sure, but he’s got to get those emotions out somehow, and I doubt he’s going to be sitting down for a chat before things bubble over.”
“Yeah, he had a big blow-up the day he ended up at your house, and I was actually proud of him in a weird way. He’s been grinning and bearing everything, and he finally put his foot down. I just wish we could have listened. I think it worked out for the best, though, he’s opened up a little bit more since then,” Yamada explained.
“Yeah, Toshi told me that he talked to his friends at lunch the next day. He explained the bare bones of the situation– that his parents were out of the picture, and he was with a foster family now.”
“He did?” Aizawa asked, a little incredulous.
“Yeah! Isn’t that great? He must have had some sort of breakthrough. I’m proud of him.”
“That’s amazing! Oh, I’m so glad; they’re good kids,” Yamada replied with an ear-to-ear smile.
Even Aizawa had a subtle upturn to his lips; he might as well be beaming.
“Just make sure you two never punish him when he lashes out like that– unless it’s really out of hand, of course. Never react right away, take a minute to think about it first, and then calmly reprimand if you feel you need to. Matching anger is never going to help. Your reaction to whatever happened that night probably had a big part to play in whatever breakthrough he made,” she praised their actions and reinstated what they seemed to already know.
The two of them shared a glance at that, one she didn’t have enough context to read properly. She could tell they were unconvinced, though. They both had twin pangs of guilt, but if she was reading them correctly, Aizawa’s was much more potent than Yamada’s.
“I’m missing something,” she observed.
“There’s not a ton we can tell you, the day was just a disaster from start to finish,” Yamada explained with a frown.
It seemed that Yamada emoted enough to make up for Aizawa’s deficit. She didn’t even need her quirk to know what they were feeling. It was kind of funny– opposites attract, she supposed.
“We had a meeting with someone who had information that we had not previously known about Izuku. He didn’t want to tell us, but we had to know for his safety. He was upset about that and stormed out. Then I lost my temper with the person we were meeting with and said things I shouldn’t have. It was a breach of Izuku’s privacy. I’m glad he wasn’t there for that… I really lost it,” Aizawa admitted.
“Toshi was saying that he was worried that he was in some sort of legal trouble,” she mentioned in a hushed tone.
“That’s not something we can discuss,” Aizawa shut down that line of questioning swiftly.
Unfortunately, the denial was a confirmation in and of itself. What had he gotten himself into?
“Yeah… That’s… Okay. Well, anyways, you were saying?” she pressed onward.
“I lost my temper, but everyone is on the same page now. I don’t think there are any more secrets, though with Izuku, I don’t think I can be surprised anymore. I apologized, he apologized, everyone apologized, and we’re moving forward,” Aizawa finished his statement.
“Well, that sounds good. I really do think that helped him. Even doing things wrong, as long as it’s done honestly, can help. In a weird way, flying off the handle can prove how much you care. I’m not saying you should do it again, but it sounds like it worked out for the best this time,” she observed.
“She’s not wrong, Sho. You gotta quit beating yourself up about it,” Yamada tried to soothe.
“Yeah, yeah,” Aizawa dismissed, but didn’t disagree.
“How’s home life been, besides the catastrophes?” she asked.
“He doesn’t come out of his room much. I think he’s scared to take up space, but he’s better than he used to be. He didn’t even shower at home the first few weeks; he always did it at school, but I had a talk with him. I got him a haircut and told him to use the shampoo and conditioner I got him, and now he luxuriates for no more than fifteen minutes– I swear he goes in there with a timer or something. He comes out for that, meals, and chores, but besides that, he’s a hermit,” Yamada answered.
“Do you invite him out?”
“Occasionally, but I’m scared he’s just going to agree because that’s what he thinks we want. He made pancakes with Sho once,” they replied.
“Aw, that’s nice. I think you should invite him out more and tell him what you just told me. Say, ‘Hey, do you wanna do X, Y, or Z with us? And don’t just say yes because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. Do you actually want to?’ Honesty is usually the best policy, especially for overthinkers. He seems to respond best to me when I give him something to do. Maybe you could start doing chores together if you don’t already.”
“Hm, that’s a good idea. I’ve been trying to get a read on his music taste too, we could jam out and clean,” Yamada agreed.
Aizawa nodded in approval.
The lull in their conversation was cut off by both of their phones going off simultaneously. Their relaxed postures went ramrod straight, and a permeating anxiety radiated off of both of them. She didn’t even get the chance to ask what was going on before they both stood up from their seats so quickly that the chairs skidded backward a few feet.
“Izuku, emergency, stay here,” Yamada barked out an explanation over his shoulder.
Aizawa was already legging it out of the cafe, and Yamada wasn’t far to follow.
What? Hitoshi was with him! What the hell did they mean stay here? She took off after them as quickly as she could, but a sedentary life of book handling did not do much for her cardio. Upper body strength? Sure, some of those things were heavy, but running? Nope, she hadn’t done that in years, not since she was running after Toshi as a little kid.
She lost track of them quickly, but she knew where they were headed. The mall was a few blocks away, and she didn’t stop for anything, not even the car that nearly hit her. It was at a crosswalk anyways, they should have been paying attention, so she didn’t feel bad.
She got to the mall quicker than she would have thought herself capable, but she didn’t know where to go from there. Thankfully, a loud announcement to evacuate the ‘active crime scene’ was enough of a hint to follow. She went against the throng of people and stumbled upon a near-empty courtyard where she could see Aizawa tending to a wound on Midoriya’s neck and Yamada ushering crowds away. She could see Hitoshi and his friends off to the side, thankfully looking no worse for wear.
She came to a stop and rested her hands on her knees in a vain attempt to catch her breath before she spoke.
“What… the hell… was that?” she asked no one in particular through heaving breaths.
***
Izuku pulled away from Eraser to see what was going on, and sure enough, Shinso-san was standing a few yards back with her hands on her knees and panting like she just ran a mile.
“Shinso-san! I told you to stay–” Mic tried to speak, but Shinso-san cut him off with a glare and a wave of the hand that said ‘shut your mouth.’
Why were they together? God, they were talking about him, weren’t they? Can’t a guy fail at having a normal day with his friends and get held hostage by a domestic terrorist in peace? Why were they having secret meetings?
“Toshi– okay?” she asked curtly as she walked toward the group.
“Yeah, mom, I’m fine,” Hitoshi answered awkwardly.
She gestured to the rest of the group, silently asking the same question of everyone else.
“We are all okay, Shinnso-san!” Iida replied.
She gave a thumbs up to Iida and then pointed at Izuku and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m… uh, I think I’m f-fine?” he rasped out unconvincingly.
His messed-up vocal cords were not helping sell that response.
“You’re fine, it looks like it's just some scratches and bruising,” Eraser answered for him.
She then turned to Eraser with a glare that demanded an explanation.
Eraser looked from her to Mic, then to the rest of the group before he spoke.
“Mic, take the kids, tell the officers what’s going on, and get a head count on the rest of the students,” he instructed.
Mic looked at Izuku for a moment, clearly hesitant to leave, but it was the most logical course of action, so he relented.
“Everyone but Shinso and Midoriya, follow me. Iida, text the class group chat and tell them to meet at the north entrance,” Mic ushered them all away.
“Give me a moment, I need to make a phone call. Keep this on your neck,” Eraser dismissed himself as well, though he didn’t go far, just out of earshot.
Izuku held the gauze to his throat as instructed. He was probably calling Tsukauchi.
“Izuku, what the hell happened? You were gone for like 15 minutes max,” Hitoshi asked.
“Don’t make him talk, Toshi,” Shinso-san reprimanded.
“It’s f-fine, I can t-talk, jus’ hurts a ‘lil. I don’ know how much I should tell anyone yet– gotta wait for ‘raser. He’s prolly callin’ the ‘tective,” he answered anyway.
“Okay, that’s enough talking for you then… You sound awful. Yes or no questions only… if anything at all,” Shinso-san put her foot down through still labored breathing.
“Did you get jumped?” Hitoshi asked immediately.
He just shrugged in response. He kind of got jumped, though not in the traditional sense.
“Toshi, stop, he’s coming back now… just wait a minute.”
“‘tective Tsuka?” he asked once Eraser rejoined them.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Tsukauchi? The one working the USJ case?” Hitoshi asked.
Eraser’s eyes passed over all three of them hesitantly before he spoke.
“Yes.”
“What the hell is going on, Aizawa?” Shinso-san demanded again.
Was she actually angry? He’s never seen her angry before.
“I can’t tell you anything, it’s confidential, and I don’t know what they are going to want released to the public yet. Izuku has an alarm he can set off on his phone. He was attacked, he set it off, and we responded. That’s all I can say,” Eraser replied in a calculated tone.
Police officers were starting to tape off a perimeter, and one was headed straight for the four of them.
“They’re probably going to escort you out. You can join Mic at the north entrance, or you can go home since Shinso has already been accounted for,” he added after spotting the officer approaching.
Shinso-san took a moment to close her eyes and take a slow, deep breath amid the still uneven panting she was doing since running here. Oh, yeah, she was angry. He spared a glance over to Hitoshi, who looked almost as unnerved by the display as he was. Which, of course, only unnerved him more.
“You will keep me updated,” she spoke to Eraser like a threat before walking over to meet the officer herself.
Hitoshi looked at both of them with a worried expression before wordlessly leaving to join her.
“The paramedics just showed up,” Eraser warned him rather than addressing what had just happened.
The proceeding bureaucracy was almost enough to bore him to death. Thankfully, one of the medics had a healing quirk, and they were able to fix him up enough to speak without too much difficulty. There was still a gnarly bruise forming around his throat, and the four ragged nail scratches remained.
It took nearly three full hours before he was seated in the precinct with Mic, Eraser, All Might, and Tsukauchi. He gave a thorough report, leaving out any sort of premonitions or any mention that he had brought up All For One, because that was not something that should be on the record. As far as the record knew, he had no clue who All For One was.
“Alright, thank you, Midoriya, that was very thorough. You did good work, is there anything else?” Tsukauchi asked.
He gave the detective a look before he spoke.
“No,” he said, a clear lie that he knew Tsukauchi would understand.
Recognition crossed over his face, and he nodded before responding.
“Alright, that concludes the statement,” he said before pressing the stop button on his recorder.
“I don’t think I was targeted because of One For All, he would have just taken me if he knew. Also, I don’t know how helpful it is at this point, but whatever. He got progressively angrier, so I thought if he was stupid enough to do any of this in a calm state of mind, I might be able to get some information out of him. I asked him what All For One wanted, and he said ‘Who knows’ So, that’s confirmation that All For One is behind this if nothing else. That and he doesn’t have as tight of a hold on Shigaraki as we might have thought,” he explained, wasting no time.
“That was reckless,” Eraser immediately reprimanded.
“It was strategic. He was already furious and off his rocker; nothing I said was going to change that,” he shot back on instinct.
It felt weird to be… whoever this was in front of everyone without a mask on.
All Might was rubbing at his temples, and Tsukauchi was eyeing him warily. How long had those two known each other? Was Tsukauchi part of the first operation against All For One?
“It can be both strategic and reckless, however, that’s a conversation for a different time. Anything else, Izuku?” Mic steered them back on course.
“Yeah… I… I don’t know how, um…” he trailed off awkwardly, not really sure how to broach the topic, he decided directly would be easiest, “Before I left the group I had this headache, a really sharp zapping kind and I f-felt like, um, I dunno like I was having a mini split second panic attack. It kept happening on and off, and it happened in Hosu too, right before everything started, and then again right before the nomu grabbed me. I don’t know if… I mean, three times is more than a coincidence, right?” he asked, looking awkwardly up at All Might on the other side of the table.
He had his brow furrowed, and he didn’t answer for a moment.
“Like a premonition?” Mic asked.
He nodded.
“Are you asking if that’s One For All?” All Might spoke up.
“Y-yeah, I m-mean, I don’t know what else…” he trailed off awkwardly.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that, but everyone wields the power differently, so I can’t discount the theory,” All Might replied.
“Did it happen at the USJ?” Aizawa asked.
“Well, no… I guess not,” he conceded.
“So, it could be something, could be nothing. Instinct isn’t something to ignore though, whether it be natural or not. Does it ever happen during training?” Mic asked.
“No, it’s only ever happened with actual threats,” he answered.
“Hmm, well, then it’s not something we can test. I personally hope we never uncover this mystery,” Mic replied with a tight smile.
“Track record isn’t looking great for that,” Eraser interjected.
“Sho,” Mic chastised.
Eraser just gestured broadly, and Izuku couldn’t find it in him to disagree.
“Which brings up my next point: how are we going to prevent this going forward? Obviously, the alert system isn’t enough,” Eraser moved right along.
“I had it under control,” he argued.
“They’re getting bolder, it was broad daylight in a busy mall. What happens next time when they bring backup, and you can’t handle it?” Eraser shot back
“So you admit that I had it under control,” he pointed out.
To his surprise, All Might let out a laugh that seemed to have caught him off guard as much as it had Izuku. Eraser glared at him, and he promptly quieted himself.
“Sorry, it’s just you two– Never mind me, continue,” All Might said with a fond smile on his face.
“All Might, can we add you to the alert system we have set up? You can get there faster than either of us can,” Mic asked.
“Yes, of course. Please do,” All Might responded readily.
Izuku kind of tuned out the conversation at that point. He knew he should listen, but it was uncomfortable to hear them talk about him like he needed protecting. He couldn’t even say they were wrong, which was the part that bugged him the most. They were right, he may have had today under control, but there were too many what-if scenarios in which he would not come out on top. Now that he had One For All, he was too valuable to stay unguarded. He knew it was for the best, but it made him feel like a child.
Their conversation seemed to be going in circles anyway. We could do this, but then that would be too constrictive , or bla bla bla. He wasn’t going anywhere anyway. As much trouble as he seemed to find himself in, he didn’t revel in making a scene. He didn’t want to cause problems for them, so he’d just stay home. It’s not like he went out much as it was.
“Izuku, thoughts?” Eraser’s voice pulled his attention back.
“I’m more worried about Shinso-san at this point,” he deflected.
Mic and Eraser shared a tense look, and he knew he wasn’t the only one worried.
“Shinso-san?” Tsukauchi asked.
“Yeah, we were out for coffee with her when the alert went off. We went running, and I told her to stay put, but obviously she didn’t; her son was with Izuku, and she knew that,” Mic explained.
“She didn’t see anything and she doesn’t know anything, neither do any of the students, as far as I know, but she has questions and she’s not happy,” Eraser finished the statement.
“You don’t mess with a mama bear’s cubs,” Tsukauchi cringed.
“Yeah, I know that– we were a little preoccupied,” Eraser bit back.
“I assume there’s nothing more we can tell her. What are we planning to release to the public, if anything?” Mic asked.
“I don’t think we’re going to give a statement unless asked. In which case, we’ll just say it was a mugging. We don’t want to risk sensationalizing 1A any more than they already are,” All Might answered.
“Well, good luck with that, buddy,” Tsukauchi prodded, giving Eraser a patronizing pat on the back.
Eraser just ignored him and ran a hand through his hair. He looked tired, more so than usual, which was saying a lot.
“Alright, are we done here? The day’s been long enough. I think you’re gonna be an indoor cat until we figure out a better safety plan, kiddo. Sorry.”
“‘s fine. Wasn’t going to go anywhere anyway,” he dismissed, glad to be out of this conversation sooner rather than later.
The adults shared a concerned look at his response, but he was too tired to try and analyze the meaning behind it. He just wanted to go home.
Unfortunately, they didn’t get back until eight pm, and he had been out since two. That would have been fine if four and a half of those six hours hadn’t been spent in bureaucratic hell. He had been told under no uncertain terms that he was not permitted to breathe a word of this to anyone, and that was more than fine by him. The people who needed to know about it knew, and the people who just wanted him to ‘talk it out’ had a convenient NDA in the way.
Knock knock
“Kid, do you have a second? We need to talk,” Eraser called from the other side of the door.
Well… most people did at least. He suppressed the urge to scream into his pillow and/or throw himself out the window. His voice was still a little sore, and he didn’t feel like speaking loudly enough to be heard through the door, so he just got up and opened it; there was no avoiding this.
“Yeah, what did you need?” he asked, though he already knew.
“C’mon, Zashi’s out picking up dinner, he’s about to come back with it. Take a seat,” Eraser instructed as he bypassed the dining table for the kitchen.
Izuku did what he was told because what else was he supposed to do?
“Are you alright?” Eraser asked bluntly.
Izuku mouthed the words to himself mockingly at the same time that Eraser spoke them. Yeah, he saw this coming. Thankfully, his back was turned to the man so he was none the wiser to the disrespect. He did his best to expel the snark from his tone before he spoke.
“Yeah, I’m–”
“Don’t bullshit me,” Eraser interrupted, “You’ve been playing Ivy. Have you stopped to process anything yet?”
Welp… that was… not wrong. Yeah… He kind of hit the nail on the head there.
“Do you want me to not be alright then? I can work on that, I suppose. Do you want waterworks or catatonia, because I can do both,” he offered snidely over his shoulder, still not bothering to face him like a normal person would.
He heard Eraser sigh heavily from the kitchen before he came back holding three glasses of water. He set the single one in his right hand down before using the newly freed hand to extract the two precariously balanced glasses in his left. Izuku just watched as his careful hands didn’t spill a drop.
“I want you to feel safe enough to let your guard down,” Eraser corrected his sarcasm with sickening honesty.
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.
“Look, Zashi doesn’t want to be the bad guy, so I will. Narrow that list down tonight, we’re scheduling you an appointment tomorrow once offices open with whoever you choose or, failing that, whoever we choose. This has gone on long enough,” Eraser announced into the silence.
Izuku didn’t have it in him to suppress the glare he sent Eraser’s way, but the man seemed unaffected. He knew they were just doing this to help, but it made him feel like a freakish test subject and a helpless child all at once: trapped and at the complete mercy of forces beyond his control. His jaw was clenched, his breaths were forced, and the silence was becoming as thick and muggy as the summer heat.
The aggressive quiet was interrupted by the front door opening and Mic cheerily announcing that he was back with dinner. Izuku was fuming and decided he’d already fucked up thier day enough, so he got up, walked to his room, and calmly shut the door. They could force his food through the door, or he wouldn’t eat, he honestly didn’t care which.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! 💃❤️
Chapter 170: I Can Fix Him
Notes:
The betas got their shit together, they're back baby. The amount of punctuation in this chapter is through the damn roof thanks to Penny, Muffin, and Woomy <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Shota watched Hizashi’s eyes follow Izuku out of the room before settling back on him. They weren’t going to be happy about this, were they?
“What was that?” they asked cautiously, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Izuku’s room.
“I told him he has to pick a therapist before offices open tomorrow,” he answered honestly.
They set the take-out bags down on the table so that they could use both hands to exasperatedly scrub at their face.
“It couldn’t have waited until after dinner?” they asked after taking a deep breath.
“It could wait for a number of things, but it has been waiting too long. There was an opportunity to bring it up, and I took it.”
They sighed, but they didn’t disagree. They just sat down heavily in their seat and started sorting Izuku’s food out. Shota didn’t say anything as they took the food and abandoned glass of water to the kid's room, instead he busied himself with pulling up a page of reviews for each of the therapists on the list Yagi had vetted for them. There likely wasn’t a bad option; whatever process All Might’s team went through to whittle down thousands of practitioners into a handful of names most certainly took out any bad apples, but he was still going to check himself.
He plugged away at his research throughout dinner, and Hizashi didn’t say anything. He was waiting to get chewed out for handling the situation with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, but it never came.
“Thank you,” they said instead.
He must have made a questioning face at them because they explained without prompting.
“Done is better than perfect. We’re teachers, how many times have we said that?” they asked.
“Too many times to count.”
“Exactly. It’s never going to be perfect, and I was letting myself get bogged down by that for too long. I think too much and do too little sometimes. It was stressing me out, and now it’s done. He didn’t seem too upset anyway.”
He just hummed in acknowledgement before turning his computer toward them so that they could read the reviews he’d pulled up.
“Ah, I was wondering what you were working on. I already looked into them myself. Did you have one you were leaning toward?”
“Difficult to say since they’re the cream of the crop, but I was thinking… uh,” he paused to look back at the screen and make sure he had the right name, “Tsuda Suzume.”
Zashi smiled at that, and he knew they had come to the same conclusion.
“I was thinking the same– ‘a good sense of humor,’” Zashi quoted the review that had won him over.
“Well, I hope that review was reliable if we’re both basing our decision on it,” he remarked.
“I think the selection Yagi went through was enough to get someone good, the rest is just preference. I’ve got a good feeling about her,” they reassured.
***
Izuku wished that Eraser wasn’t so true to his word sometimes. The next morning at the breakfast table, they asked if he had made a decision on what therapist he wanted to see. He hadn’t even looked, half because he didn’t care and half because looking made it feel too real. He was sure he would hate it either way, so it didn’t make a difference to him; they could stick him with whatever poor unfortunate soul they felt like sticking him with.
Unfortunately for him, the poor unfortunate soul they chose had an open spot due to a cancellation the very next day. He’s not sure what he could have possibly done to have mentally prepared himself for this meeting, but 24 hours was less time than he would have preferred. It felt like one moment he was storming away from the dinner table, and the next he was being ushered into an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room of some fancy-looking office.
Mic and Eraser had gone in first like they were his bodyguards to talk to the lady who was even shorter than he was; the two of them towered over her as she gave him a pleasant greeting and promised to be back for him soon. The moment the door shut behind them, he had the overwhelming urge to book it out of the building, but he didn’t. He stayed put like he was told, and did his best to ignore the way it felt like his skin was crawling.
What were they talking about? Him, obviously, but why? Were they telling her everything like Eraser had with Nedzu and Tsukauchi the day he got caught? Were they warning her about him? Were they giving her the weirdest shovel talk ever? He wanted to know as much as he didn’t. He tried to focus on the fact that the longer they talked to her, the more of his appointment time he wouldn’t have to participate in, and not the questions burning a hole through his head.
All too soon, the door opened again, and the three of them walked out. The expressions they wore didn’t tell him anything. Eraser was as stoic as ever, Mic was giving them a reassuring smile, and Tsuda-san had something akin to a blank, lifeless customer service grin on her face, something that was meant to disarm, but ultimately held no substance.
Eraser rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment in passing, but they didn’t exchange any words. Tsuda-san led him back to her office, and he sat down on the overly plush couch she gestured for him to take.
“Hello, Midoriya. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Tsuda Suzume, you can call me Tsuda, or if you’re not comfortable with that, we can come up with something else,” she offered.
“‘s fine,” he replied quickly, he honestly didn’t care.
“Good, and your intake form says I should call you Midoriya, is that right?”
He nodded.
“Alright, so, Midoriya, what brings you in to see me today?” Tsuda-san asked pleasantly.
His first inclination was to say ‘a car’ or ‘a court order,’ but he had enough practice in biting his tongue that he thankfully didn’t. His second inclination was to say he was forced here, but that was rude, so he bit that down as well.
He didn’t know this woman, he didn’t trust her. Sure, he had read all the clauses about doctor-patient confidentiality, he knew that if she wanted to keep her job, she wouldn’t breathe a word about anything he said to anyone, but he still didn’t trust her. Old habits die hard, he supposed. He knew she wouldn’t be reporting back to Mic and Eraser, but this still felt like a test he could fail.
There were so many reasons he should tell her the truth, and the only reason he had to lie now was that he wanted to; it felt safer. However, Izuku Midoriya was not generally known for selecting the safest path in life, so there was no reason to start now, was there? Everything was going to come out eventually anyway.
“My dad hated me, he fled the prefecture after almost killing me when I was seven, my mom covered up for him until she found out he died of an OD, and left me when I was nearly twelve. I was homeless for four years until my teacher found out, and now I live with him,” he blurted out.
Tsuda-san’s eyebrows rose, and she blinked once or twice before they lowered.
“Well, that was… impressively succinct,” she replied.
“No point beating around the bush, is there?” he shot back more testily than he had intended.
“No, I suppose not,” she paused for a moment and considered him before she spoke again, “I take it you don’t want to be here?”
He looked down at his shoes with a flash of shame. He shouldn’t be rude to her just because he didn’t want to be here.
“What gave it away?” he asked half jokingly.
She smiled and shrugged.
“You’re not the first,” she gave a non-answer.
Again, he didn’t have a response, so he didn’t bother trying.
Tsuda-san regarded him for another long, uncomfortable moment before she spoke.
“What do you want to get out of this?”
A bewildered “What?” fell from his mouth unbidden. They had just gone over the fact that he didn’t want to be here. What did he want to get out of this? He wanted to get out of this.
“You weren’t physically dragged here and strapped to that couch, there’s some amount of free will at play here, whether that be a secret wish to pour your heart out or simply the desire to keep your dignity intact, I’m not sure. To some degree, you are here because you want to be, so why is that?” she asked.
His initial instinct was to insist that, no, he did not want to be here; he would rather have another mall date with Shigaraki than be here, but she was right. He hadn’t really done anything to fight against this. He sent a few glares and gave a cold shoulder or two, but he never outright denied coming.
“I didn’t want to be any more difficult. I’ve caused enough problems,” he answered honestly.
“I don’t think that’s it, try again,” Tsuda-san replied without missing a beat.
He couldn’t help the expression that took over his features, it was somewhere between offense and confusion. Though, Tsuda-san only reacted to the confusion.
“You didn’t have to answer that question honestly, you didn’t have to answer it at all. You could have lied, or brushed me off, or ignored me completely, but you didn’t. So, I’ll ask again: what do you want to get out of this?”
He narrowed his eyes at her and took his time considering her aim the same way she had done to him twice already. Was therapy supposed to feel like an interrogation mixed with a game of chess? What was the answer she was looking for? And why did it feel like she was trying to trick it out of him?
“Stop worrying about my motivations, Midoriya. I want you to heal and be happy, that’s my secret, that’s what I want to get out of this. You’ve given me an honest answer already, I want you to look under that honest answer, just a little bit deeper. You don’t want to ‘cause more problems,’ sure, that’s valid, but that's a surface-level desire. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume you don’t want to ‘cause any more problems’ because you care about those you’re ‘causing problems’ for,” she explained kindly.
“I… Yeah, I guess,” he replied, still feeling like he was walking into a trap.
“Good, that’s good. Empathy is an honorable trait,” she replied.
He expected her to say more, but she didn’t. The room was taken over by what he assumed was supposed to be a contemplative silence, but he was too consumed by how oppressive it was to even begin contemplating anything.
“I spoke to Yamada and Aizawa, as you know, and they care about you a great deal. They want to see you heal and grow as well. Sacrificing your comfort to come here means more than you think it means; it tells me something about you, something promising. Do you know what that is?”
He tried to think about what she was saying, he turned his focus down to his lap to try and tune out the feeling of her eyes on him so that he could clear his mind enough to just think , but the longer he sat there, the more anxious he became about not having an answer. He couldn’t tell how long it had been– he’d forgotten to check the clock– but he’d been here for a little over 10 minutes by this point. How much of that had he spent staring at his lap like an idiot?
“I– n-no, I don’t,” he admitted, just to make the awful silence stop.
“That’s alright. Can I tell you what I see?” she asked without a hint of condescension.
He nodded dumbly.
“You haven’t lied to me since you got here, at least not so far as I can tell. You stepped well out of your comfort zone coming here, and you did that for them, but they’re not here now. So, I have to question who the honesty was for, if not yourself. There’s a part of you that wants to get better too, and that is incredible; indomitable hope is a hell of a foundation to build on,” she explained.
He almost laughed. Indomitable hope? He felt more like a cockroach that refused to die half the time. Indomitable hope was a much kinder way of saying the same thing, he supposed.
“So you’re here because you don’t want to trouble them, but what do you want to get out of this for yourself?” she asked again.
He knew now what she wanted him to say. She wanted him to say that he wanted to get better, but something wouldn’t let him.
“You don’t have to say it if you can’t yet, the lack of denial is enough. We’ll get there. You don’t seem like the type to give up easily, and neither am I,” she assured him.
The room once again fell into an awkward silence that he didn’t know how to fill, but thankfully, Tsuda-san didn’t leave him hanging as long as she had before.
“So, I know you’re new to this, do you have any questions for me? I’m not going to volunteer much– if any– personal information; this time is meant to be about you, not me, but do you have any questions about what to expect or what I do? Stuff like that. Of course, you can ask me whatever you’d like, but I may not answer the more personal ones,” Tsuda-san prompted him.
He was still a little stupified from the mental journey that she had just dragged him through, but he shook it off as quickly as he could.
“Can I– do you– er, um… What’s your quirk?” he asked.
What’s your quirk? She just said nothing personal, Izuku! What’s your problem? What is this, the first day of grade school?
“I don’t have one,” Tsuda-san answered calmly.
Izuku’s racing internal monologue came to a screeching halt. He could imagine that he didn’t look all that dissimilar to a gaping fish at the moment, staring at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Or, he would imagine that was what he looked like if there was anything going through his mind other than old TV static.
“Is that an issue?” she asked after a tense moment.
“No! N-no! S-sorry, I’m– I d-didn’t mean to– I shouldn’t have e-even asked, I w-wasn’t– I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered out as quickly as he could once he realized what his reaction probably felt like from her point of view.
“It’s alright, Midoriya. I told you I wouldn’t answer anything I didn’t want to. Some people have a problem with that, so I do prefer to get it out of the way if it’s ever going to come up at all.”
“No– That– Yeah, th-that makes sense… um… h-how much did they… what d-did you guys t-talk about b-before I…” he trailed off awkwardly, letting her put together the pieces of the question that he didn’t quite ask.
“They asked me about my experience and qualifications as well as what I specialize in. I think they just wanted to get a feel for me before they let you in. I get the feeling that they care about you an awful lot,” she answered.
“They didn’t t-tell you about, um… me?”
“Not much, I prefer to hear what my clients choose to tell me, and they seemed to share the sentiment,” she answered easily.
“N-not much isn’t n-nothing,” he pointed out.
Tsuda-san let out an amused puff of air from her nose.
“You’re right, not much isn’t nothing. They told me a very minimal amount of information. You’d think I’d be better with names in this profession– the scruffy-looking one’s Aizawa, right?”
He nodded and suppressed a smile. Mic didn’t even look all that scruffy straight out of bed, their hair was too silky. But Eraser? He’s not sure he’d ever seen Eraser not scruffy-looking.
“Good, my mind’s not too far gone yet. Aizawa told me that he’s a hero, he found you living on the streets a little over two months ago, and you’ve been with them since. Yamada mentioned they were worried about potential… personality shifts, but that’s it,” she elaborated.
He looked down to his feet at the latter half of that statement. They weren’t… wrong, but, God , he didn’t want to get into that.
“What prompted that question? It seemed like a non-sequitur from my point of view,” she prompted after he didn’t say anything.
“I was… I– My q-quirk came in p-pretty late,” he confessed a half truth.
A look of mournful understanding passed over her features for just a moment.
“I see, I’m sorry to hear that. That must have been difficult. May I ask how late?” she asked.
He let out a slightly hysterical laugh before he could stop himself. Difficult was a bit of an understatement. He contemplated answering her question with a lie. He still didn’t trust her with the full truth, and getting a quirk at 15 was completely unheard of, but he had the documentation to corroborate his story should he fall under question.
“A f-few m-months ago,” he admitted.
“ Oh … Wow… Well, there’s a silver lining to be had, I think you and I are going to be a good match,” she said with a sad, understanding smile.
He allowed a wobbly, uncertain smile to spread across his face as well. He felt kinship and like he was a traitor at the same time. She was part of something he never got the chance to see firsthand. What would she think of him if she knew the truth? And why did it feel like he was mourning something he had never even wanted in the first place?
“What are you thinking about?” Tsuda-san asked him, interrupting his spiral.
“You looked happy for a second, but not anymore. What happened?” she clarified when he looked blankly at her.
“I… I don’t w-wanna t-talk about th-that,” he forced out a response before that awful silence could return.
“Okay, we can talk about something else. Do you mind telling me about yourself? It doesn’t have to be your ‘tragic backstory’, you can say anything, I just want to get to know you,” she relented quickly and with no judgement.
“I… Um… I g-go to UA. I’m in the h-hero course,” he tried to say with pride, but he knew that anyone who watched the news would make the connection as to what that meant pretty quickly.
“Oh, wow! Oh… wait,” Tsuda-san came to the conclusion he figured that she would rather quickly.
He had to stifle a laugh at the series of expressions that passed over her face. They were subtle and suppressed, but he was too attuned to monitoring others to miss it completely.
“Yeah, I’m in th-that class,” he confirmed.
“Alright, noted. We can come back to that later. Aside from… that, how has UA been?”
“It’s b-been… It’s been amazing, m-more than I could have d-dreamed of,” he answered honestly again.
“That’s great, I’m so happy for you. Tell me about it,” she prompted.
She sounded so genuine, and he couldn’t find a hint that she was lying. She nodded along and listened attentively as he stuttered through telling her all the non-traumatic tidbits he could think of about his friends and his teachers. She admitted she hadn’t caught the sports festival and asked if he would mind if she went back and watched him compete. He tentatively agreed; that last match with Katsuki wasn’t something he was overly proud of, but the rest was.
She was nice and she didn’t push him to say anything more for the rest of the allotted time. They set up a time to meet again next week, and he found that he wasn’t dreading it nearly as much as he thought he would.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
A/N:
If you are looking for a therapist, don't expect to find the right fit for you straight away; it took me 6 years and like 4 or 5 therapists (yes, I lost count) before I got one who I worked well with. It will take less time if you don't feel like u have to stick with someone tho...
Pro tip!: If you don't jive with your therapist, get a new one. You're not gonna hurt their feelings, it's part of the process.
Chapter 171: Teenagers and the Problems They Incur
Notes:
B-b-b-bonus chapter baby! this is a short one, I felt like it was too short to make y'all wait a full week for it, so here you go 🫴 📖
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Hitoshi: (11:23 am)
Hey did u wanna come over tonight?
Ur running out of excuses im gonna start thinking ur avoiding me
Izuku didn’t take into account how difficult it was going to be to get his friends off his back after what had happened at the mall. He’d told them all that it was a random mugging, but Hitoshi knew better. He didn’t think that he had shared that suspicion with the others, though, so it could be worse.
Izuku: (11:35 am)
I’m sorry, I just don’t want to go out. The mall was enough excitement for the summer.
We’ve got camp in a week anyway.
Incoming call from Hitoshi…
Goddamnit.
“Hey Hitoshi,” he answered the call reluctantly.
“Don’t sound too excited to hear from me.”
“Sorry, I just–”
“I’m kidding, Greenie. I’m just sick of texting back and forth, and I wanted to know– it just sounded like– Well, it’s hard to tell over text–”
“Spit it out. God, you sound like me,” he interrupted with faux aggression.
“Then you’re a bad influence and an asshole,” Hitoshi shot back without skipping a beat, “I was calling to ask if you were alright… The, uh, text made it seem like you were scared to leave the house, which I have been led to believe is not great for your mental health or whatever,” he got to the point slightly less awkwardly than he had been.
“I’m not scared to leave the house… I just have a poor t-track record of leaving the house and returning uns-scathed,” he argued weakly.
“Uh… huh… Sure, totally different,” Hitoshi agreed sarcastically.
There was an awkward pause before Hitoshi picked the conversation back up again.
“How about this, the girls in the class reserved time at the school pool, and at this point, I think the whole class is going to end up coming. Ashido told Kirishima, and then Tsu told Tokoyami, and then Uraraka told me, so I’m pretty sure that covers the whole class… right? The four genders: girls, the loud kids, the quiet kids, and miscellaneous, yeah, that’s everyone. So, it’s at school with a bunch of pro heroes, plus you’d probably be the only one who didn’t go, does that override the ‘not fear’ of leaving the house?”
Izuku snorted at the shitty joke but his grin fell quickly. He didn’t have a swimsuit, and he was not about to wear the school-issued ones, even the ones the girls had didn’t cover nearly enough to hide his scars. He’d never told Hitoshi about his scars outright, nor had he seen them, but he knew about them. Thankfully, Izuku’s silence was enough to jog his memory.
“Oh… yeah. I forgot about the… You could get a wetsuit, those ones girls and other fancy people wear to the beach so they don’t get a tan. Y’know, the long-sleeve ones?” Hitoshi offered a solution.
“And where am I supposed to get one of those? The mall?” he sneered.
“You could order it online, idiot. How are you planning on becoming a hermit if you don’t even know what online shopping is?”
“I’m not becoming a hermit!” he insisted.
“It’s been over a week, Greenie. Have you left the house at all?”
“I did once,” he defended himself.
“For what? Groceries?”
“No, I… um… I had an ap-ppointment.”
“Oh, really? The counselor?” Hitoshi asked.
He gave an affirmative hum.
“Congrats… I guess. I bet that was fun; definitely the thing to get your mind off of responsibilities and let loose,” he joked.
“Yeah, for sure,” Izuku confirmed sarcastically.
“Alright, I just sent you a link to a swimsuit, it comes in 18 different colors, and if you don’t get it, I’m going to send it to Aizawa,” Hitoshi threatened after a long moment of silence.
“Don’t you dare,” he half threatened and half pleaded.
“I won’t if you give in to my demands. You, out of the house, in this bougie-girl swimsuit, Wednesday, 2 pm, UA outdoor pool. Don’t be late,” Hitoshi theatrically demanded and hung up the phone before he could argue.
The only thing that stopped him from cussing out his blank phone screen was the fact that he was pretty sure that someone was sitting in the living room, and if it was Eraser, then he was well within hearing range.
Thankfully, he’d yet to remind Tsukauchi that he no longer needed to pay his phone bill for him. When the first transaction had come through, he’d not had the mental bandwidth to even remember to check his PayPal. The second transaction was far too late for the situation to not be incredibly awkward to bring up, so he had dubbed it a “later him problem,” and the third one? Well, part of him was curious to see how long it would take before the detective noticed. He hadn’t been planning to spend any of it, but he was quite keen on not risking another forced heart-to-heart with Eraser, or anyone for that matter; last Wednesday had been more than enough. He had a feeling that Hitoshi reaching out to get him forcibly removed from the house would result in another dinner table discussion.
All Might did say that Tsuka had said that he owed Ivy his promotion anyway. The man could part with ¥5,500. Hell, at this rate, the fund was going to make it to ¥55,000 before Tsukauchi even noticed, at which point Izuku would give it back… or at least most of it.
God, Shinso was such a pain in the ass.
***
At the next opportunity they had, Hizashi insisted that they go over to the Shinso’s house and issue a proper apology to Shinso-san. With the kids spending the day at the school pool, the opportunity had arisen. They were hoping that the time would have eased tensions and Shinso-san wouldn’t be quite as mad as she had been before, but as they sat at her dining table, it was clear that they were SOL on that front.
Two heavy ceramic mugs were set before him and Shota with just enough force to be considered improper. They were absently impressed that none of the tea in the cups had spilled over. The woman in front of them was obviously still quite cross over the stunt they had pulled.
“Thank you, Shinso-san,” they responded calmly and bowed their head.
“Thank you,” Shota followed their lead.
“Now, are you two going to explain what the hell happened?” Shinso-san ignored them.
“We can’t tell you any more than we already have, it’s confidential,” Shota answered calmly.
They could swear they saw Shinso-san’s eye twitch in response. Hizashi cringed at that. Sho wasn’t wrong to say what he said, but he could have done it with a touch more tact. They were here for damage control, not to restate what they’d already said the day of.
“Then why are you here?” she shot back.
“We’re here to apologize. I can only imagine how berserk I would have gone should the roles been reversed. We handled that poorly,” they admitted, letting their remorse color their tone even though that wasn’t necessary with Shinso-san’s quirk.
“You can say that again,” she jabbed back.
“We handled that poorly,” Shota deadpanned.
Shinso-san’s lips pressed into a straight line, and she brought her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Hizashi could just kill him right now.
“I’m still mad at you so I am electing not to laugh at that shit joke,” she replied as she rubbed a hand over her face.
Hizashi was surprised at her reaction until he remembered that Shinso was her son, and he had to get that sense of humor from someone. Shota huffed out an amused breath, either at the tension in his shoulders or Shinso-san’s reaction, they weren’t quite sure which.
“In all seriousness, I am sorry. The way we reacted was tactless and rash. We were worried, but obviously, we should have thought about how worried you’d be as well,” Shota apologized earnestly.
That garnered the first tentative smile on Shinso-san’s face. She nodded, but she didn’t respond further. After a moment of contemplation, she spoke up.
“I know how you two felt, that’s why I was so worried. You’re still scared, I can feel it. Why?” she asked sternly.
They looked over to Shota, but he appeared to be as much at a loss as they were.
“Don’t tell me it’s confidential, this is my son I have a right to know,” Shinso-san interrupted their silent conversation with conviction; she clearly wasn’t going to back down.
“We don’t know what happened, we don’t know if it was targeted or chance,” Shota admitted.
“Was it someone from before you found him? Is someone targeting Midoriya?” she asked.
“No, it’s not. No one from his past is presently an issue, and I don’t foresee that changing,” Shota replied.
She looked immeasurably relieved by that for a second before tensing up again.
“So it was the same people from before, the ones from the USJ,” she whittled down the only logical option left.
“I can’t confirm that,” Shota answered her without a real answer.
They trusted Shinso-san, they really did, but the amount of information Shota was giving her without actually saying anything worried him. He trusted Shota implicitly though, so they kept mum. If this is how he thought they should handle the situation, then they should let him.
“We aren’t letting him out alone right now, and off the record, I advise you to do the same. Shinso didn’t piss them off as much as Izuku did, but we don’t know what they’re after,” Shota divulged even further.
“So they’re targeting Midoriya because he, what, ruined their plans to kill a bunch of kids?” Shinso-san pressed.
“We don’t know. Izuku may have just been the first one they saw alone, they may have just randomly bumped into each other, they may have engineered this meeting from the start, we don’t know ,” Shota repeated, sounding incredibly lost and defeated.
That tone was something they could sympathize with. They had no clue how to keep this kid safe. The circumstances were too out of their control, and Shinso-san was right; they were scared.
The last remnants of Shinso-san’s anger seemed to melt away at Shota’s display of vulnerability. She reached across the table and grabbed Shota’s hand, which was loosely holding the now tepid tea she had served them.
“Okay.”
That was all she said, but it was enough. A tentative show of forgiveness. They were all in the same clueless, terrified boat together.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 172: Radical Acceptance
Notes:
Shout out to the betas Penny Muffin and Woomy
⚠️ content warnings in the end note bc spoilers ⚠️
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
“You excited, kiddo? Have you ever been camping before? Well, I guess it’s more glamping than camping, but that’s my preference anyway,” Mic chatted at him from the hall as he put the last of his toiletries into his bag.
“I’ve b-been, um… urban camping, I guess,” he answered, biting down on a smirk.
“Pffft,” Mic half laughed and half scoffed with a horrified look on his face, “Oh my god, Izuku.”
“What the hell did you say to them?” Eraser asked from the living room, though his words had no bite.
Mic turned so that he wasn’t blocking the conversation with Izuku to his right and Eraser to the left.
“I asked him if he’d been camping before, and he said he’d been ‘urban camping,’” they explained.
Eraser stopped and looked at him before taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a sigh. His hand had gone up to scrub at his stubble, but when he let it down, Izuku could see an old familiar forced straightness to his lips. He almost started laughing before Eraser said anything at all.
“You’re always on about being more optimistic, I’d say he’s gone Plus Ultra with that advice,” Eraser deadpanned back at them.
“I’m not going to miss either of you,” Mic announced as Izuku broke down into a fit of laughter.
Things had been better like this lately, ever since the Mall Incident™. He’d let himself fall into an old persona like a pair of well-worn boots, and Eraser had fallen right back into it with him. Well, at least until he told him to chill out and forced him to go to therapy… that was… he tried not to think about that part. They weren’t the same as they used to be, not by a long shot, but there was a tentative spark of something.
“Good, we’ll just take the train to save you the drive then,” Eraser shot back with a smirk.
Mic’s face scrunched up into a theatrical frown, and for someone who was so afraid of spiders, they ran over and latched themself to Eraser’s front in an incredibly spider-like fashion. Though maybe it only looked so spider-like because the man was 80% limbs. Eraser hardly even moved an inch as it happened, leading Izuku to believe this wasn’t an especially uncommon occurrence. He laughed again as Eraser made his way to the kitchen and started the coffee maker as if a full-grown man wasn’t hanging off of him like a koala.
“Keep laughing and you’ll be next,” Eraser threatened.
Izuku zipped his lips quickly, he didn’t think he could take a Present Mic tackle hug as well as Eraser had. No, the man was a full head taller than him, that would almost certainly end up with someone busting their skull on the floor.
Eraser managed to peel Mic off of him at some point before breakfast, and they insisted on driving them to UA. Izuku bid him goodbye before he got out of the car, but Mic wasn’t having it.
“You’re not getting out of a hug that easily,” they said in a playfully threatening tone as they got out of the car as well.
He looked at Eraser with a slightly concerned expression.
“I’ve learned there’s no point fighting it,” he shrugged as he started pulling their luggage out of the trunk.
Izuku snorted out a laugh and rolled his eyes. He’d seen Eraser draped over Mic on the couch more times than he’d seen Mic tackle hug Eraser, so he’s sure the burden wasn’t as unbearable for Eraser as he was making it seem.
Before he could even refocus his eyes after rolling them at Eraser, Mic already had his surprisingly strong arms around his middle. He was picked up and spun around like he weighed no more than a particularly delicate down pillow, and he blamed the undignified squawk he let out on Mic entirely. He could hear Eraser laughing quietly, and he awkwardly returned the hug once his feet met solid ground again.
“I lied, I’m gonna miss you both so much,” Mic sobbed theatrically.
“We’ll be back in a week, Zashi. Would you let him go? You’re gonna suffocate him,” Eraser replied dryly.
“Fine, fine,” Mic relented.
Izuku tried to subtly shuffle away and failed epically.
“Sorry kiddo, that was a little overzealous. I just love you to bits and I’m gonna miss you,” Mic explained, and Izuku’s brain short-circuited.
He froze for longer than he’d care to admit. Did they just say…?
“You’re gonna give him an aneurysm,” Eraser chastised.
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean– Well, no, I did mean it, but that was probably a lot. Sorry, I’ll just–” they cut themself off by miming zipping their lips shut, and making an impressively accurate zipper noise which got muffled halfway through.
He glanced over at Eraser again as if he was going to give a hint as to what the hell Izuku was supposed to do, but he was already looking at him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything , but nothing came out.
“Let's just pretend I didn’t say anything, it’s alright. Group hug and then I’ll get out of your hair?” Mic offered awkwardly.
Eraser gave Mic a fond, long-suffering smile and obliged. Izuku just let it happen and held on to Mic a little longer once Eraser stepped back. Izuku didn’t say anything, but he patted them on the back before walking over to the trunk to pick up his luggage.
Mic gave them both a big smile and waved them off as they walked through the door and out of the parking garage. The door swung shut behind him, and they walked down the hall in uncomfortable silence for a moment before Eraser spoke up
“He meant what he said, we both do. We’re a family now, a weird one, but one nonetheless. It comes with the package. I know it’s strange, but you’ll get used to it. That or Zashi will die trying. I need to grab some stuff from Nedzu, why don’t you go meet up with your classmates at the bus? I’ll join you shortly,” Eraser dismissed him curtly, blessedly leaving him alone with his unruly emotions.
He stopped in the bathroom for a few minutes to pull himself together before following Eraser’s instructions and making his way to the front of the building where the bus was set to pick them up.
As was to be expected, Iida and Yaoyorozu were already there, even though they weren’t scheduled to meet for another half hour. The rest of the class joined them slowly, and thankfully, no one was late. Yaoyorozu called roll, and when everyone was thoroughly accounted for, they filed onto the bus. Though he rarely rode the bus for school since he walked, he was in the habit of sitting toward the front if he could. He was less likely to be harassed when the bus driver was so close. He didn’t need to do that anymore, but old habits die hard.
With Eraser being the driver, he didn’t mind the front anyways.
Hitoshi sat down next to him, looking more exhausted than usual, and Izuku wasn’t surprised when he promptly fell asleep against the window. Iida was in the aisle seat next to him, with Uraraka passed out on his shoulder, which looked a great deal more comfortable; Hitoshi was probably going to have a bruise on the side of his head with how much the bus shook around as they drove along. Todoroki was behind them sitting next to Tokoyami, and they both appeared to be sleeping while sitting perfectly upright. Honestly, Izuku wouldn’t put it past either of them.
Needless to say, the front of the bus was pretty quiet, so he passed the time looking out the windows and watching the city streets fade into suburbia, and then to rugged mountains. It was beautiful, something he’d only ever really seen in pictures. Two hours whizzed by in the blink of an eye before Eraser announced that they were making a pit stop.
Everyone lazily blinked the sleep out of their eyes, and as the bus pulled over, Izuku noted that there was no rest stop in sight. There was, however, another car waiting for them. He did not have a good feeling about this. There was nothing but a sheer drop off and seemingly unending forests to either side of them, so whatever they were in for hinged on whoever was in that car.
“Why are we stopping here? There isn’t even anywhere to covertly piss,” Hitoshi remarked privately as he shuffled off the bus behind Izuku.
Izuku shot him a grimace and looked pointedly at the car that was here to meet them and then out over the wide expanse of forest.
“Oh, I’m not going to like this, am I? Are they gonna make us walk the rest of the way? Is it too late to get back on the bus?” Hitoshi groaned.
“I don’t think even the bus can save us,” he replied when he saw Pixie Bob from the Wild Wild Pussycats get out of the car.
Eraser was looking over at the two of them with a smirk on his face, no doubt having overheard their conversation. Izuku mouthed the word ‘sadist’ at him and watched as he tucked the bottom half of his face into his capture weapon to hide the smirk that had no doubt graced his lips.
It seemed like only two of the four Pussycats were here to greet them. Pixie Bob and Mandalay were introducing themselves, and he knew it was rude to talk while they were addressing the group, but he really would prefer to be in one piece by the end of this, so he pulled Uraraka close enough to whisper.
“Hey, Uraraka, can you make as many of us float as you can… like ASAP? I have a feeling we’re about to take a tumble,” Izuku asked casually, but looked pointedly at the cliff, then Pixie Bob, then Eraser, making his way back toward the bus without prompting them to follow.
She followed his gaze and her eyes widened before she ran around the group, slapping as many people as she could.
“Oh, the kitties are wise to our schemes, how forward-thinking! Well, if you’re ready to get started so soon, who am I to stop you?” Pixie Bob cheered as she planted her palms to the earth.
As the ground started to shift beneath his feet, which were no longer touching the ground, he noticed a little kid waiting off to the side by the car. He wondered what that was about for a moment, but other matters quickly became more pressing.
“EVERYONE HOLD ON TO EACH OTHER!” Uraraka shouted as the ground gave way.
Thankfully, Uraraka had gotten around to almost everyone but herself and used her weight to drag the group down much more gently than they would have otherwise. The only other person who didn’t seem to be in zero gravity was Katsuki, and Izuku almost laughed out loud when he realized that. It was incredibly petty, but it turned out for the best as Kacchan’s group had been off on their own and didn’t get the chance to link with the rest of the group that Uraraka had dragged down with her.
Katsuki’s weight pulled them down halfway before he slapped Kirishima’s hand off of him and used his explosions to cushion his fall. Thankfully, Sero was able to pull them safely to the ground without Katsuki’s help.
“Good thinking Uraraka, that wouldn’t have been a pleasant drop,” Yayurozu said as she smoothed out the nonexistent creases in her skirt.
“Oh, don’t thank me, thank Midoriya. I would have fallen too if he hadn’t warned me,” Uraraka deflected.
“Oh, n-no, no it’s– I wasn’t–” he tried to dismiss, but was cut off.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Kaminari shouted.
He was standing closest to the trees and pointing up at… well, he’s pretty sure he had heard Mandalay call this The Beast’s Forest ; it seemed like an apt descriptor, that was definitely a beast. Koda tried to use his quirk to divert the creature’s aggression, but Anivoice only worked on animals, and this was no animal.
“IT’S PIXIE BOB’S QUIRK, IT’S JUST A GOLEM, DESTROY IT!” Izuku instructed the group closer to the trees.
Kacchan, for once in his life, wasted no time in following directions. He blasted the thing’s head clear off, and it crumpled to the ground in a pile of loose dirt, but like a hydra, two more came to take its place. Izuku made his way toward the closest one, and as he looked up at the beast in front of him, he felt a smile split across his face. Pixie Bob's control over her quirk was nothing short of awesome, and since these beasts weren’t sentient in any way, the only reason he had to hold back was to spare his bones and the trees around them.
This was going to be fun.
He spent the day crushing the golems, suggesting combo moves for his classmates, and watching them come up with their own. He was having so much fun that he almost forgot how exhausting it was… almost. They didn’t get back to camp until well past a reasonable lunchtime, like the Pussycats had projected, though he could have predicted that; even just walking that far would have taken them more than three hours, and the golems had slowed them down another two. It was closer to dinner than lunch now, and though he was used to pushing through persistent hunger pangs, most of his classmates were not.
When they finally breached the trees, he noticed the same kid from earlier standing off to the side again. Izuku would have wondered if he knew this kid and had forgotten horrifically wronging him in the past with the way he was scowling, but he was scowling at everyone equally, not just Izuku. The Pussycats congratulated them on getting here so quickly, but Izuku ignored them in favor of watching Kirishima attempt to talk to the kid and get punched in the jewels for his efforts.
Yikes… he was kind of impressed that Kirishima didn’t instinctively activate his quirk to protect himself. His quick thinking saved that brat’s knuckles, no doubt. That or he had just completely not expected it. Izuku chose to believe the former, though; Kirishima was kind and usually had pretty fast reflexes, so it was plausible.
“I know you’re all hungry, but you got here faster than we thought you would, so dinner isn’t ready yet, but it will be out soon. We won’t be cooking for you again, so go rest while you can!” Mandalay warned and dismissed them before presumably returning to the kitchen.
Half of his classmates dropped where they stood, laying on the ground rather than walking the extra 50 yards to the outdoor dining area. He didn’t blame them, he was exhausted too, now that he had stopped moving long enough to realize it. He looked over to Todoroki and shrugged before joining Hitoshi on the ground, laying on his back with his hands behind his head to cushion it.
The view of the stars must be brilliant out here once the sun goes down; that was something he’d never seen before. He hadn’t been out of the city since he was three to go to his grandfather’s funeral. Not that he really remembered it all that well.
They all stayed there in relative silence until the breeze blew in the right direction and the smells wafting from the kitchen made their way over. Izuku chuckled as a few people groaned about how good it smelled and how hungry they were. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for their hosts to announce that dinner was served, and at that point, no one had a problem with the 50-yard walk to the table. He was surprised how quickly they mobilized, given how visibly exhausted they were.
Izuku took a seat at the end of a table with Hitoshi next to him and Todoroki across. Everyone had grabbed seats so quickly that Iida and Uraraka ended up cut off from the group sitting a little further down with Sero, Ashido, Kaminari, and Kirishima between them.
“Mido– mmf– thank you so much,” Ashido said between mouthfuls of food, “That woulda taken three times longer without you.”
He had his chopsticks halfway raised to his mouth, and his food fell from between them right back down to his plate in surprise.
“Y-you’re being dramatic, I b-barely–”
“You’re too humble, Mido. We all would have eaten dirt if you didn’t warn us right at the beginning. You too, Uraraka,” Sero interrupted him.
“Yeah, and I wouldn’t have thought to do half the things you said. You made us way more efficient, man,” Kirishima added.
“Take the compliment and eat, dude,” Kaminari drove their point home through a mouthful of rice, nearly choking on it.
“Do not speak with food in your mouth! It is dangerous and impolite!” Iida chastised him.
Izuku stuffed his mouth as well just so he wouldn’t be expected to respond to anyone.
“Ugh, I am so ready for that hot spring, but this food is so good,” Uraraka groaned through a mouthful of karaage.
Iida looked about ready to blow a gasket, but he had food in his mouth so, as per his own instructions, he couldn’t tell her off.
Hitoshi laughed at his predicament, but Izuku was doing his best to keep his shoulders from dropping like one of those full-body frowns Mic always did. He’d forgotten about the hot spring. He couldn’t lie and say that that hike hadn’t taken the wind out of his sails; the thought of a nice warm bath to ease all his aching muscles sounded divine, but he couldn’t. The day at the pool had been bad enough. Kaminari had asked if he was trying to keep his skin fair to match his “pretty hair.” He knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but pointing out the clear difference between him and his peers did not feel good. Getting into a hot spring with a full coverage suit at night would be so much worse; it just wasn’t an option, and the alternative was somehow even worse than that.
No, he’d be getting a quick shower in at most, depending on whether the showers had curtains. God, he hated this.
“You okay, Greenie?” Hitoshi muttered subtly to his left.
He just sighed and shrugged.
“You know, you could just go with us, right? I’ll tell anyone who says anything to shut the hell up,” he offered.
Izuku smiled at that, but shook his head.
“Says anything about what?” Todoroki butted in.
“A B conversation, Roki, C your way out of it,” Hitoshi answered.
Todoroki took a second to understand the joke, but he huffed out a laugh once he did.
“Apologies,” he replied, still smiling.
“It’s f-fine,” Izuku dismissed the apology.
Todoroki nodded and went back to his food, but Izuku couldn’t help but watch the way his smile scrunched up the scar tissue on his left cheek differently than it did the smooth skin on his right.
“Does anyone, um, d-does anyone ever ask you about th-that. Your scar I m-mean?” he asked quietly before he could think better of it.
“Not often. Children do more frequently than others,” he answered easily.
Izuku had to hold back a cringe, he could imagine Todoroki trauma dumping on some poor, curious eight-year-old. As tactless as that approach was, he couldn’t help but envy Todoroki’s ability to not give a shit about what people thought about him.
“Why?” Todoroki pressed.
Hitoshi exchanged a brief glance with him, one that asked, ‘Do you want me to tell him to mind his own business?’ Izuku shook his head and answered the question himself.
“I have some sc-scars. I try to keep them covered up, b-but…” he explained just barely loud enough for Todoroki to hear before he trailed off.
“Oh, the hot spring. I understand. I will also tell anyone who says anything to shut the hell up,” Todoroki answered as easy as breathing.
His brashness was unexpected; both he and Hitoshi ended up laughing.
“Why’s that funny?” Todoroki asked.
“It’s not, it’s r-really sweet, I just didn’t expect it. I’ll, um… I’ll th-think about it,” Izuku replied and was surprised to find that he actually meant it.
Evening turned into night as they finished helping their hosts clean and put away the dishes, all the while being reminded that they’d better pay attention because they wouldn’t be helping them like this again. Izuku got the feeling this was about to be one of the longest weeks of his life if today was what they considered a break. Sure, the first month of All Might’s plan was worse, but this was still pretty brutal.
Once all the dishes were done and they were shown around the place, it was finally time for him to make a goddamned decision. Everyone filed into the changing rooms, and he started to follow, but just before the door, he stopped. Todoroki and Hitoshi stopped with him and didn’t say a word, they just stood and waited for him to choose.
After a minute, he looked up and caught Hitoshi’s eye. Hitoshi shot him a sad smile and nodded his head in the direction of the door that he couldn’t seem to make himself go through, silently encouraging him forward.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself before pressing on.
He could have wept with joy at the sight of the private shower stalls, he really didn’t want to take a half assed shower after everything they did today; he was covered in dirt and stale sweat.
“I’m g-gonna take a long shower, I can m-meet you guys out there,” he tried to dismiss them.
“We’ll wait, I’m filthy anyway, I could use a long shower as well,” Todoroki stood firm.
“Oh, um… okay,” he answered dumbly.
Hitoshi just shrugged and made his way to one of the showers.
Izuku luxuriated in the shower for longer than he had in years, but when he heard the last of the shower heads turn off, he figured he couldn’t keep his friends waiting forever. He knew they were too stubborn to leave him here. He dried off and resisted the temptation to just throw his clothes back on and run away.
With a towel wrapped around his waist and a shaky hand, he pushed the curtain aside and stepped out into the changing room, feeling more exposed than he ever had in his entire life. Hitoshi and Todoroki were there waiting for him, and he did his best to ignore the way their eyes lingered on his chest for a split second before he looked down self-consciously.
“Those are burns,” Todoroki noted, pulling Izuku’s attention back up.
His features were set firmly in something that Izuku couldn’t quite read under his own panic.
“The person who did it is dead already,” Hitoshi replied for him.
Hitoshi was much easier to read; his tone and facial expression were clear; he was furious. Whatever expression Todoroki had on his face settled slightly at Hitoshi’s words, but it didn’t disappear completely.
“I’m s-sorry, I sh-shouldn’t–” he tried to back out, but Hitoshi wasn’t having it.
“No, Izuku, it’s fine. Our reactions aren’t your responsibility, and neither is anyone else's. You deserve to relax more than any of us. We’ll tell everyone to piss off, and you ignore them, okay?”
Hitoshi rested what was meant to be an encouraging hand on his shoulder, but Izuku flinched away from it. He wasn’t used to physical contact without a barrier. Katsuki hadn’t even touched him directly to leave the burn he’d left there, Izuku had to pick out the crumbling bits of melted polyester that had separated them.
“Sorry,” Hitoshi apologized and pulled his hand away quickly.
“N-no, it’s f-fine… I’m– I’m f-fine,” Izuku dismissed his concern poorly, “Let’s just, um, g-go.”
He stepped around them and made his way towards the door to the hot spring with a single-minded focus. He needed to get out there and into the water as quickly as possible, and hopefully, hopefully , no one saw him at all.
Of course, nothing ever goes as he hopes it will. By the time he settled down in the water, everyone’s eyes were on him. He heard Todoroki and Hitoshi get in behind him, and he tried to focus on that, but everyone was still staring at him. God, it felt like they had been looking for hours, but he knew it could only have been a matter of seconds.
“What the hell happened to you Mido-bro?” Sato broke the tense silence.
Shoji punched him none too gently in the arm before Izuku’s guard dogs got the chance to attack, and Kirishima took the initiative to awkwardly continue the conversation his group had been having before Izuku had violently grabbed everyone’s attention. Through his panic, Izuku noticed that Shoji still had his mask on despite the steam undoubtedly being well on its way to waterboarding him. He didn’t ask why.
His mind was drifting somewhere nearby, but he didn’t quite have a grasp on it at the moment. Thankfully, Todoroki and Hitoshi didn’t try to talk to him. He noticed Katsuki get out of the pool and walk away without a word, and he could have sworn his expression looked an awful lot like grief, but he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him.
Things slowly settled down, but he still waited until everyone left before he dared let his shoulders back above the water. He was probably pretty close to heat stroke at this point, but his muscles felt so much better. He was exhausted, and he hoped to god that was enough to keep him from waking up screaming. Exposing how much of a freak he was once was already well past his quota for the day.
***
Katsuki hadn’t expected Deku to come out with the rest of the class in the hot springs. The freak was always hiding away. He could lift a damn car though, so Katsuki didn’t know what he was so insecure about. Well, that was only half true, that’s what he let himself think, that’s what he would say if anyone asked him, but part of him knew better. The part of him that he buried down as deep as he could knew what Deku was hiding. He knew what he had done, and he knew that it had certainly left its mark.
He knew Deku was hiding the scar, but he didn’t know why. He could completely ruin Katsuki’s reputation, he could ruin his career, he could ruin his life, but he kept choosing not to, and he couldn’t fathom why. So, he did his best not to think about it at all.
He couldn’t ignore it when it was right in front of him, though. Half the class went silent when Deku walked out of the shower room, and the other half had caught on and shut up by the time he had settled himself shoulder deep in the pool. He heard people talking around him after a tense bout of silence, but it was just static in his ears. Bile rose in his stomach at the sight of the stiff, twisting scar tissue covering the majority of Deku’s right side.
He didn’t… There was no way he could have done that, right? No, no, there was a subtle distinction between the scar on his side and the blooming starburst pattern that ran from his lower ribs up his pec and down to his navel. That part was what Katsuki had done to him, his hands had put that scar on Deku’s body.
There was a brief moment of peace where he had no clue where the rest of the burns had come from, but then he remembered Deku’s dad and his quirk. He knew Hisashi Midoriya was a deadbeat; he knew Deku had been scared of him damn near since they were in diapers, but he had never thought for a second that it could have been this bad.
Katsuki didn’t let his thoughts linger on that realization; he got out of the spring, grabbed his towel, and left before he made a fool of himself in front of everyone. He booked it to a random stall in the bathroom and willed himself to keep his dinner down.
My life was hell, I did what I had to do to survive.
Deku’s words rang through his mind.
What the hell did Hisashi do to him? Where was Auntie when that happened? How did Katsuki not know about this? When did it even happen? Was this why Deku came into school so damn vacant all the time? How many times had he hit Deku to snap him out of it? How many times had he gone home just to be hit again?
The second leading cause of death in quirkless individuals is suicide. If someone is told they are worth less for long enough, they will believe they are worthless and act accordingly.
God, he told him to kill himself. Did Hisashi say the same thing to him? Did he ever… was that… he felt sick. Guilt hung heavy on his shoulders, and a spasm of his lungs clued him in to the horrifying realization that there were tears trailing down his cheeks. He scrubbed them away quickly, even though no one was there to witness them.
His mind was racing with a million different questions he never wanted to even think to ask. He felt like the scum of the earth even though Deku was always the one looking down on him with his holier-than-thou bullshit. The worst part is that Deku was right to look down on him.
Fuck, Deku was right the whole time, so what did that make him?
***
Kota didn’t understand these stupid wannabe heroes. Why the hell would anyone want to show off so badly that they were willing to die over it? As he stood watch on the wall looking over the boy’s side of the hot spring like Auntie Sōsaki had told him to, he wondered how the whole world could be so freaking dumb. He had lost himself in his thoughts until all the boys went quiet. The sudden silence reminded him that he was meant to be keeping a lookout; even still, he couldn’t help but track the group’s eyes to the green-haired boy who had just walked out.
The boy was almost completely covered in scars, he could tell that much even from the distance he was sitting at. The other kid with the scar over his eye walked out behind him, and Kota wondered how those two especially could be so dumb. They obviously knew how messed up the world was, yet they were still here.
That group was the last to come out and the last to go back in. Kota watched them the entire time, and his curiosity had only grown stronger. He was almost tempted to ask them what the heck they were thinking, but he knew better than to bother with that; everyone always gave the same answers about the greater good or whatever, and he was tired of hearing it. Once everyone had left, he climbed down from his perch and vowed to not waste any more time thinking about those dumb, stupid idiots and their dumb, stupid choices.
Notes:
CWs
scars
vague mentions of past child abuse
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 173: A Tiny Angry Mirror
Notes:
Shout outs to the betas Penny Muffin & Woomy
Do you guys know how many spaces there would be at the end of a paragraph without Muffin? It would have been completely unreadable. Everyone thank her. /s /lh (How does she even know they're there???)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Izuku was equal parts delighted and infuriated to be startled awake each time someone so much as shuffled in their sleep around him. On the one hand, it meant he was just as sharp as he used to be, even while sleeping, and it meant that he never fell into a deep enough sleep to risk waking up from a nightmare screaming in front of most of the class. However, on the other hand, it did mean that he had one of the worst nights of sleep since he was pulled off the streets. He figured two pros to one con was better in the long run, he was used to not getting enough sleep anyway.
He didn’t even think about that being an issue, though, which was an oversight. The only living beings he’d slept in the same room with in the past 12 years were Hitoshi and DJ. DJ woke him up constantly, but Hitoshi slept like the dead; once he actually fell asleep, he didn’t move a muscle. Izuku was a bit naive to think his other classmates would be the same. He swore he saw Kaminari moving around like an inchworm at one point. He was tempted to take a picture, but he didn’t know him well enough to feel comfortable doing that, so he just laughed quietly and rolled over.
By the time Eraser opened the door to the boy’s quarters with a megaphone, Izuku had already given up trying to go back to sleep. He was sitting on his phone cycling through the shitty games that had come pre downloaded since there was barely any reception out here.
He shot Eraser a disappointed face and covered his ears.
“WAKE UP! IF YOU WANT BREAKFAST YOU’D BETTER START COOKING,” he announced.
He tucked his amused expression into his capture scarf as the majority of the boys shot bolt upright and panicked for a few seconds before finding their bearings. Izuku noted that Todoroki woke up as if a gentle breeze had wafted through the window, and he tried not to think about what that implied. He still hadn’t made a decision about what he wanted Izuku to do with the evidence he had gathered, and he was contemplating bringing it up again. Maybe he would if they found time this week.
Class B showed up around the time they had all filed out of the hot springs, and Izuku felt bad for them. Even though they got to bed later than most of class A, He, Rin, and Tsunotori from class B ended up being in the best shape to make scrambled eggs for everyone. Iida and Yayorozu had tried to help, but between the three of them, they had it covered. Plus, for the first time he could remember, the two prim and proper presidents of class A looked tired and unkempt. Maybe the rich kids weren’t used to roughing it, he mused to himself.
It was nice to get to know some of the less volatile members of class B. They were nice, and they made pretty good scrambled eggs. Tsunatori was from America, but he didn’t really learn much more about either of them since everyone was so tired.
“You look awful,” Eraser greeted him as everyone walked out to the clearing to start whatever training they had planned for them.
“Good morning to you too,” he jabbed back sarcastically.
Hitoshi was barely awake next to him, but he still snorted out a laugh.
“Did you not sleep?” Eraser asked, ignoring his response entirely.
“Kept waking up, too many p-people and Kaminari was doing the w-worm in his sleep,” he explained.
“Yeah, what the hell was up with him? I woke up with his ass in my face,” Hitoshi groggily corroborated his story.
“Language,” Eraser chastised.
“I bet he farted on you,” Izuku shot back quietly.
Exhausted and disgusted was quite the entertaining combination of expressions on Hitoshi’s face, and Izuku couldn’t help but laugh at him while Eraser shook his head in amused disapproval.
“Let me know if it becomes a problem, you need proper rest for the week we have planned for you,” Eraser circled back more seriously.
“I don’t think you scheduled enough time for ‘proper rest’ in the week you have planned for us,” Hitoshi sassed.
Izuku saw the flick of Eraser’s capture weapon coming from a mile away. He was thankful he wasn’t the one receiving a whip crack to the forehead this time. It was kind of funny to watch it happen to someone else though, he understood why Eraser did it now. Hitoshi groaned and made an upset face as he rubbed at his forehead, but he wisely didn’t complain.
The proceeding ten hours were as brutal as promised. He was paired with Pixie Bob to train working with higher levels of OFA. He had been delighted in the forest yesterday to know he didn’t need to hold back against the golems she created, but the novelty lost its charm quickly today after a much more fitful sleep.
Iida and Yayorozu made a frankly terrible lunch for everyone, and Izuku was grateful to see Katsuki take over for dinner. He might be an asshole, but Auntie Mitsuki was a hell of a cook and she’d been teaching Kacchan when they were still friends at four years old, so Izuku assumed he knew what he was doing in the kitchen by now.
As he had suspected, the stew Katsuki had directed was delicious, if only a bit too spicy for most people’s tastes. Thankfully Kaminari had stopped him as he watched Katsuki pour spices into the vat and they ended up splitting the batch in two, one which was “properly spiced, you damn cowards,” and the other “incomplete gruel.” Izuku didn’t mind the spice, though. Eating Bakugo Mitsuki’s food from the moment he was able to consume solids did wonders for his spice tolerance.
There was a good amount of leftovers from the spicy batch too, so he was looking forward to being one of the few people clearing that up in the coming days. Tokoyami devoured it no problem on account of the fact that he couldn’t taste capsaicin, but besides him, Kastsuki, Uraraka, Kuroiro, Kodai, Sero, and himself seemed to be the only people who enjoyed it. 7/20 wasn’t a great score, but it worked out in his favor, so he didn’t complain.
The kid who had been lurking around since they got here glared at them as they ate. He hoped that he’d gotten some of whatever the adults had made for themselves, but he wasn’t sure. Now, as everyone was helping put dishes away, Izuku watched as the kid stomped away into the forest.
After how he had reacted to Kirishima trying to talk to him, Izuku assumed he wouldn’t get a warm welcome, but the kid needed to eat. He passed his towel off to Hitoshi, who tiredly complained about him slacking off on dish duties before he grabbed a bowl of the “incomplete gruel” and followed the path the kid had left.
He looked up at the stars when he got the chance to see them through the canopy, and they were as beautiful as he had hoped they’d be. He could see the entire Milky Way spattered across the sky. He’d been so distracted by it that he didn’t notice he’d reached the end of the trail.
“What the heck are you doing here? How did you find my secret hideout?!” the kid all but shouted at him.
“Sorry, I didn’t know this was a secret, I just followed your footprints. I won’t tell anyone, though. I figured you might want dinner, I didn’t see you eat,” he explained calmly.
“I don’t want your stupid gruel,” the kid sneered.
Izuku had to hold back a laugh, he must have heard what Katsuki called it.
“Well, I’ll just put the stupid gruel here then. I’m sure some squirrels or something will like it if you don’t,” he replied, setting the bowl next to the kid.
He turned to leave, but was surprised when the kid stopped him.
“What are you even doing here?” he asked.
“Bringing you food?” he answered, though it was more of a question.
“No, idiot. What are you doing here ,” the kid asked again, gesturing more broadly as he emphasized the last word.
“Oh, at the camp? My school set up–” he started to explain, but the kid cut him off.
“AHG, NO! God, you’re all so dumb, never mind,” the kid shouted and then muttered under his breath.
Jeeze, this kid was a piece of work. He grew up with Katsuki though, so he was kind of used to it.
“Do you mean why are any of us here? Like what's the point of the camp at all?” he asked.
“Yes! Why are you all trying to be heroes? It’s stupid,” the kid relented.
“It’s definitely not the most sound career choice. I guess you have to be a little stupid to want to do this, don’t you?” he agreed with an amused huff.
“More like a lot stupid,” the kid sneered.
Izuku took a minute to study the kid and wonder why he was lashing out like this. It was clearly a sore subject for him, and he was opening up about it in whatever weird way he felt capable of, so he’d better tread carefully here.
“Yeah, maybe it is a lot stupid. It’s a pretty dangerous job. Why do you think it’s so stupid?” he pressed, trying to get some information out of him.
“You just said! It’s dangerous, villains go out and use their stupid quirks to show off, and you all do the same until someone ends up dead!” he bit back with more emotion in his voice than he had previously.
Was he one of the Pussycat’s kids? Was he worried about them not coming home? The thought twisted his chest painfully. A kid shouldn’t have to worry about that so young.
“You’re right, it is dumb. I think the world would be a lot better if people didn’t do that,” he agreed.
“Well, then why the heck are you here?!” the kid asked again.
“Because the villains aren’t going to stop on their own, and if we don’t stop them, then they’ll hurt even more people,” he explained.
“You’re just part of the problem,” the kid shot back.
He could understand the kid’s perspective. He was probably under acute stress damn near all the time because of the constant threat the heroes he cared about were under. Them going out and doing their jobs was part of the problem in his eyes, not the solution. He wasn’t wrong either, but that was a philosophical discussion he didn’t think a child was ready to jump into.
“Yeah, maybe. But a necessary evil,” he agreed because he didn’t know what else to say.
“Go away,” the kid instructed him quietly.
He was clearly still upset, but it seemed that he didn’t have much fight left in him.
“Alright,” he assented, taking a moment to try and think of something else to say before giving up and tracing his steps back to camp.
Ragdoll and Mandalay were waiting for him when he breached the trees.
“Were you talking to Kota?” Mandalay asked.
“Um, if that’s the k-kid’s name, then yes,” he answered awkwardly.
He realized he had never introduced himself to the kid, nor vice versa. That was probably rude.
“Yeah, Kota’s my cousin’s kid. Did you manage to actually have a conversation? You were there for a while,” Mandalay asked with hesitation in her voice.
“Uh, kind of?” he answered, honestly not sure if what had transpired could be considered a proper conversation or not.
The two ladies shared a look the same way that Mic and Eraser did, like they were having a conversation without speaking. With Mandalay’s quirk, that was entirely possible.
“I think he’s worried about you g-guys getting hurt. He was mad about us being here and t-trying to be heroes cause we were g-going to get ourselves killed,” he explained to them when the silence got a little too uncomfortable for his taste.
Mandalay’s worried expression dropped into a look of grief. He was about to apologize for whatever he had screwed up, but Ragdoll beat him to the punch.
“Her cousins were the Water Hose Duo,” she explained.
“Oh…” was all he could say.
All the pieces fell into place, and Kota’s actions made horrible, devastating sense. The Water Hose Duo had died in the line of duty a little over a year ago. Some S-rank villain they had no business trying to defeat on their own was rampaging through the city, and they managed to stop him, but paid for it with their lives. It was a tragedy, and if he was remembering correctly, the villain who had done it was still at large. Muscular– a terrible but accurate name– had a regenerative muscle augmentation quirk that seemed to have no upper limit. People theorized that he could go toe to toe with All Might and, from the footage Izuku had seen, he didn’t doubt it.
What a horrible thing to happen to a kid, and to be placed into the care of four people who would give their lives to defeat the same villain who was still out there somewhere? He couldn’t imagine how scared that kid was; turning that fear into anger was easier than just sitting with his own powerlessness.
“Just let us know if you manage to get through to him at all. We’ve been trying our best but…” Mandalay trailed off mournfully.
Given how averse Kota seemed to talking about his problems, Izuku figured he hadn’t explained all of what Izuku had just realized to the Pussycats. Hell, he was a kid; he probably didn’t even know why he was feeling what he was feeling.
Izuku barely remembered most of the night at the precinct when he had to tell the detective what had happened to him, but what he did remember was Eraser being right there with him and answering the questions when he couldn’t find the words. If he could be that person for Kota, then he needed to try. He really didn’t want to come off as arrogant, explaining Kota’s problems after one 10-minute conversation versus the Pussycat’s over a full year of living with him, so he started with a question.
“Do… do you understand why he’s a-angry?” he asked sheepishly.
“As much as we can, why? Did he say something to you?” Mandalay asked a touch desperately.
She so clearly wanted to help him.
“N-not really, but, um, it just kind of m-makes sense in context,” he hedged.
“What do you mean?” Mandalay pressed.
“W-well, the villain who… he’s still at large, right? And you’re all heroes. He’s scared that he’s going to lose you t-too, but there’s nothing he can do about it, so…” he trailed off.
Mandalay looked heartbroken, and Ragdoll looked down at the ground and frowned, but neither of them said anything. The crickets chirped, and he looked up at the stars to distance himself from the contemplative silence.
“Thank you for taking the time to understand him. You’re a good kid, Midoriya,” Mandalay spoke up after a moment.
“And for bringing him dinner too,” Ragdoll added.
“Oh, y-yeah, of c-course. I… um, yeah,” he failed epically at accepting their gratitude with grace.
“Why don’t you wash up and get to bed? You guys have another long day ahead of you,” Ragdoll gave a dismissal, which he took readily.
As he walked closer to the cabin, he noticed his friends were all sitting around a dwindling campfire waiting for him as well; the sight warmed his heart. Before they noticed him, he took a picture and smiled at it like an idiot. He remembered being Kota’s age, so lost and afraid of everything. He never dreamed he would find himself somewhere like this with friends like that. He hoped Kota would grow up to have something like Izuku had now.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 174: NOT A CHAPTER - I'm taking a break :(
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hey everyone, I got some bad news: I’m going to take a break from this fic.
I AM NOT ABANDONING IT, I already have the next like 6 chapters completely written, so I am not just gonna stop; there’s already more, I promise. However, I’m not having fun uploading right now. I am experiencing Life Events™️, and not much of anything is fun right now. I don’t want to ruin my enjoyment of this fic by making it a chore. I uploaded the last two chapters like normal, and I realized I wasn’t looking forward to the comments or talking to you guys in the Discord. That just isn’t fair to anyone.
No, I will not upload the next few chapters because it leaves off at a major cliff hanger, and that would piss me off so much as a reader and also I want to engage with y’alls feedback. I wrote most of the next arc in like a week and a half because I was so excited about it, and if I upload it now while I’m so… unanimated? Idk, it just wouldn’t be fun. I need it to be fun, so it has to wait until I’m up for it.
I might upload sporadically, but I also might not for cliff-hanger reasons. I’m not sure yet. I really want to be back by the 2-year anniversary on July 31st, but I make no guarantees. I’ll upload something for the 2-year milestone, but it might not be a chapter. I know some of the peeps in the Discord are planning something, so maybe I’ll take the time to update CMA art properly.
I’m sorry, I know y’all really look forward to this, but I need to look forward to it too, or all the life will be sucked out of it :(
I don't think I'll have many general updates in the interim, but if I do, I will post them in the Discord.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
-Cin
Notes:
Please keep your comments kind, yelling at me (even amicably) will not bring this fic back faster.
Chapter 175: If That Kid Lives, I’m Going to Kill Him.
Notes:
I'm back, baby. Shout out to the betas Beezus, Penny, Muffin, and Woomy
CW:
blood, gore, and violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
The second full day of camp elapsed much the same as the first. He was working OFA harder than he’d ever worked it before, and he could tell he was making progress. Taking down Pixie Bob’s golems was becoming easier each time he did it, which she realized, of course, so now he had to “obliterate” them rather than just defeating them. If the golem wasn’t in small enough pieces of dirt by the time he took it down, then she would deem the exercise a failure and send him through it again until he did it “right.” He was going to be turning these creatures to dust by the time the week was through, which he supposed was the point, but that didn’t make it any less exhausting.
The brutal training on top of the piss poor sleep he was getting compounded his exhaustion and, by the third day, he was contemplating taking Eraser up on his offer to find a solution to his fitful rest. He was starting to look just as bad as his unfortunate classmates, who were forced to take remedial lessons after training on account of them failing the practical. Kaminari, Kirishima, Ashido, Sato, and Monama from class B all trickled into their respective sleeping quarters two hours after everyone had already fallen asleep, which of course woke Izuku up every single time.
When the Pussycats announced that they had arranged a “test of courage” group activity for after dinner, he had half a mind to sneak out and just go to bed while everyone left him alone. He probably would have if that didn’t mean that someone would be forced to go through the forest without a partner, because unlike class B, class A still had an even number of students not in remedial courses.
Class B was set up in the forest first to jump out and scare the pairs of class A students who were walking through. He was disappointed that pairs were decided by drawing lots, but he figured it would do him good to socialize with people outside his immediate circle. At least he didn’t get stuck with Katsuki like Todoroki did.
Izuku’s name was pulled dead last, which stung a little, even though it was completely random; he felt like he was back in middle school getting picked last in gym class again. He’d been paired with Sero, which he didn’t mind, but he felt a little rude trying his best not to fall asleep as they talked while waiting for their turn to walk through the forest.
“So did you really learn English fluently from watching movies?” Sero asked.
The question rose him from the half-asleep, dazed state he was in.
“Oh, n-no not entirely. I had classes in g-grade school l-like most everyone e-else, but I also studied on m-my own time. R-reading online and s-stuff like that,” he explained awkwardly.
Sero didn’t need to know that he had only applied himself so hard because he was naive enough to think that his father was actually working in America, and he thought it would make his mom happy if he could help her when they visited. The little kid logic was faulty in retrospect, but hey, it worked out in his best interests in the end.
“But you’re mostly self-taught? That’s impressive. I only know Spanish because my grandma’s from Mexico and she refused to talk to any of us in Japanese when we were growing up. She got my mom in on it too half the time. It was so annoying, but I’m thankful for it now, it makes English so much easier. Of course, now she only speaks to me in English, so… I guess I’m just back at square one with her,” he shared with a laugh.
“She’s tril-lingual? That’s so cool,” he responded, not having the energy to give more thoughtful feedback.
“She’s crazy. She got herself through college in Japan working as an au pair. She barely even knew Japanese when she started, nearly flunked out of her first year because of it, but she says necessity is the best way to learn. I don’t know about the best, but I guess it’s probably the fastest. We’ll both be trilingual too by the time Mic’s through with us, so that’s something to look forward to,” Sero mused.
“Y-yeah, JSL is a lot e-easier to learn than English was. Or at l-least I think–” he cut himself off as an all too familiar zapping pain shot through his skull.
In a split second, he was wide awake and scanning the area for any sign of a threat.
“Mandalay, call everyone back, something’s wrong,” he shot to his feet and warned before he could think better of it.
“What do you mean?” she asked, sounding dubious but genuinely concerned nonetheless.
“I… I don’t… there’s–” another zap cut him off again, “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something wrong, just do it,” he said with all the conviction he felt but couldn’t comprehend.
Mandalay considered him for a moment before complying.
“Everyone, report back to camp immediately. The exercise is over,” Izuku could hear Mandalay’s voice beamed directly into his mind through her quirk; the sensation was odd, but he was too preoccupied to dwell on it.
“You’d better have a good reason for this, kid,” Pixie Bob warned him, but her words held no real heat.
He was about to point out the smoke on the horizon, rising up from the tree line, but at that exact moment, he saw Pixie Bob start to get pulled into the forest by an invisible force. He ran forward to grab her, and when they met, he felt a force pushing him away. They clung to each other, and that was enough to stay in one place until Sero’s tape wrapped around the both of them and pulled them back to the group.
Izuku wasted no time in gesturing to the smoke curling up on the horizon and blotting out the stars, warning the rest of the group. With that task completed, Izuku returned his focus to the area of the forest the invisible force had originated from. No one who was supposed to be at this camp had a quirk that could do that.
“Smoke has been spotted, forest fire suspected, everyone report back to camp,” Mandalay clarified her warning.
Before she had even finished her sentence, two figures emerged from the trees. One with a large build and a clunky metal staff, and the other smaller figure had a lizard mutation quirk. Presumably, the larger one’s quirk was responsible for whatever invisible force that was.
“You kitties are sharp, but you’re no match for us. Why don’t we have a girls’ night? Spinner, you go hang out with the boys,” the first figure taunted them.
As fast as it had happened the first time, Pixie Bob, and now Mandalay as well, started flying toward the villain while everyone else was pushed back. Thankfully, Pixie Bob wasn’t caught unaware again; she erected a wall of dirt between them before they even made it halfway across the clearing. The collision probably wasn’t pleasant, but it was likely better than whatever the villain had in store for them.
The other figure, Spinner apparently, was pushed toward them, and as he unsheathed a massively impractical sword, Izuku had a horrifying thought.
“WHERE’S KOTA?” he shouted over to Mandalay as Tiger met Spinner in the center of the clearing.
A matching horrified look made its way onto her face.
“I don’t know, Ragdoll is the only one who knows where he wanders off to,” Mandalay answered him through her quirk.
“KIDS, GET INSIDE NOW,” Tiger shouted at the small group of them left witnessing the scene unfold.
“I know where he is,” Izuku replied to Mandalay, ignoring Tiger’s order.
The rest of his classmates weren’t rushing to comply anyway. Iida, Koda, Ojiro, Sero, and Hitoshi all stood their ground.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he heard Hitoshi shout out to the villain still holding them at a distance and Pixie Bob and Mandalay against the mound of earth between them.
The dumbass responded, but didn’t get the chance to get a single word out before Hitoshi took control and forced them to drop their quirk. With one of the two threats neutralized and the remaining one thoroughly engaged with Tiger, his classmates looked ready to stand down and head back to base. Izuku, however, was not.
“Sero, restrain them carefully, Hitoshi hold on,” he instructed his classmates before turning to the unoccupied Pussycats, “I need to go get Kota,” he explained, turning on his heel to run immediately.
“WAIT, NOT WITHOUT US,” Pixie Bob shouted from behind him, but he didn’t slow down.
“It’s a cliff edge two kilometers to the northeast. You’ll slow me down,” he shouted over his shoulder and took a running leap to the sky.
He’d seen All Might do this countless times, he just needed to cushion his fall with a shockwave. He’d been wanting to try this since the entrance exam; no time like the present, right?
As he soared above the forest, he saw a patch of gas that looked distinctly different from the black smoke rising from the blue fire to the west. That was probably something to worry about, but right now he had to focus on landing without turning into a pancake or a pine tree shishkebab.
He used his pinky finger to aim an OFA powered flick toward the patch of land he was about to flatten himself against, fully expecting to shatter the poor abused phalanges to bits again, but to his shock and gratitude, he rolled with his momentum in the small clearing and back up onto his feet with all his bones intact. He hadn’t made it all the way to where he needed to be, but he was close enough, he could see the cliff side, and he couldn’t risk flattening Kota trying to cushion his fall again anyway. He sprinted the rest of the way in a flash of green sparks.
The entire journey took him about 15 seconds with no injuries; he was subconsciously proud of that, but the hulking figure getting ready to crush Kota under his fist took up a larger portion of his conscious thoughts.
His limbs moved before he had even fully processed the scene unfolding in front of him, and he came to a screeching halt on the other side of the cliff with Kota in his arms. He felt the solid rock under his feet shake with the force of the blow that villain had aimed at Kota, and red-hot fury pumped through his veins like magma.
The violence was completely senseless, he tried to kill a child for no reason at all!
When Izuku looked up and actually took in the figure standing before him, his heart sank, and for the first time in a long time, he froze. By the grace of some sort of fucked up backward, serendipitous bullshit, Muscular himself was standing there and watching them with a feral grin on his face. Jesus Christ, this must be something straight out of Kota’s worst nightmares. If luck be on his side, it will also be something straight out of Izuku’s worst nightmares too, assuming that he lived through this fight.
“Oh, you, I’m looking for you. You’re on the list,” Muscular greeted him casually as if they were out for coffee.
“Kota, I need you to run, okay?” he instructed the terrified child quietly as he set him down on shaky feet.
“N-no– y-you– I–”
God, that kid was brave. Brave and incredibly stupid. Not that there was much of a difference between the two traits when it came down to it.
“Kota, I’ve got this. Go, now,” he commanded.
“Aw, how thoughtful of you to try and spare him. Neither of you are getting away, but I only need one of you alive,” Muscular taunted.
“So, you need me alive? Foolish to show your cards like that. You’ll touch a hair on his head over my dead body,” he shot back with a confidence that he did not have.
“See, Kota, he needs me, I’ll be fine,” he said much more quietly to the child clinging to his leg.
He didn’t have time to stall, he needed to defeat Muscular before the Pussycats had the chance to catch up to him. He couldn’t let Kota see them like that; he doubted that was something he would be able to recover from even if they made it out alive.
So, how was he going to do that? Muscular had enhanced strength and speed like All Might, but he also had a regenerative shock absorbent armor with the– frankly disgusting– musculature wrapping around his limbs. So fighting him was like fighting the Nomu from the USJ… terrific. How did he beat the Nomu? Well, he didn’t… but it had an obvious weakness to exploit, and with the scar on his face warped around a bionic eye on his left side, Muscular seemed to have a pretty obvious weakness as well.
Izuku inwardly cringed at the thought, but he had no other choice here; he had to aim for the eyes.
He guiltily flicked his leg backwards, dislodging Kota and sending him sliding back against the rock face behind him. He heard a quiet ‘oomph’ as Kota collided with the wall, but he kept his focus forward.
Muscular’s laugh boomed across the distance between them, and he sneered before he spoke.
“They didn’t say I had to bring you back in one piece. Can you point me in the direction of that explosion kid? I’ll round him up when I’m done with you, ” he said, almost giddy before he charged forward.
He was after Kacchan too? Wait, shit, Kota was still directly behind him, he couldn’t dodge. He let OFA flow through him and did his best to match his opponent blow for blow. He met Muscular’s fist with a kick, and both of them went tumbling backward a few paces.
“KOTA, RUN!” he shouted with more force than he would have liked to use with a traumatized child, but he wasn’t moving.
He didn’t have time to check and see if his instructions were followed this time around. If he stayed on the defensive, then their battle would just keep inching closer and closer to the kid, so he charged forward. He knew Muscular was toying with him, and he had to use that to his advantage. He toed the line, moving slower than he was fully capable of, but still fast enough to not get himself maimed. He needed to lower his opponent's guard if he was going to get the chance he needed.
He was playing a dangerous game, and it was only a matter of time before he made a gamble that didn’t pay off. He dodged one punch too slow, and the force of it made him miss All Might’s oh so gentle Detroit Smashes. The fist collided with his shoulder, and he collided with the rock face 30 feet behind him, practically before he could even register the initial blow. By the grace of a god he didn’t believe in, he managed to shield his skull from cracking against the rugged stone.
He was dazed, and something was surely broken– most likely his collarbone; it hurt like hell to move his arm.
Risking another hit like that was out of the cards; he hoped that he’d curbed Muscular’s expectations enough to get in close now, because he was only going to have one shot at this. With as much of OFA as he trusted his body not to collapse under, he charged at Muscular, leaping up to his head perched upon grotesquely engorged shoulders. He reached out and dug his fingers into the man’s eye sockets.
Izuku was sure he wouldn’t forget the awful popping sensation under his fingers until the day he died.
He pressed his foot against Muscular’s chest to launch himself back out of his opponent’s guard, but even blind and in agony, he managed to grab Izuku’s ankle and fling him violently back into the cliff face. He wasn’t fast enough to brace this time; his already injured shoulder hit first, and his jaw second. If his collarbone wasn’t already broken, it definitely was now. He cried out in pain and felt his jaw grind back into place when he forced his mouth shut. A pathetic whimper escaped through his clenched teeth, but he doubted anyone could hear it over Muscular’s pained and panicked screams.
“YOU FUCKING RUNT,” Muscular yelled once he had gotten enough of a handle on his pain to speak.
He had the other man’s blood under his nails; he felt nauseous, but this fight wasn’t over. Muscular looked like he was gearing up for a hit that might take the entire cliffside down with it, and Izuku had another sick idea.
Before morality could get the better of him, he dashed a few paces to his opponent’s left and, with a running start, delivered a kick hard enough to send the ill-prepared blind man flying back and into the cave on the far end of the cliffside. His enraged cries echoed hauntingly out of the mouth of his tomb, and as Izuku had expected, Muscular didn’t stop swinging blindly. He felt the earth shake as the man’s fist connected with something, and he just watched as the rock cracked and collapsed, trapping Muscular in the mountain’s maw.
He stood there, horrified at what he had done, until the dust settled.
He almost wept for joy when he heard Muscular’s continued muffled attempts to escape.
He didn’t kill him; he wasn’t a murderer.
He was shaking and frozen again, though. He stood there watching the debris rustle until a distant voice pulled him out of his horrified trance.
“MIDORIYA,” he heard a woman’s voice in the forest.
“MIDORIYA, RETURN TO CAMP,” he heard another woman’s voice echo through his skull.
Mandalay and Pixie Bob… that was Mandalay and Pixie Bob.
He looked over to where he had last seen Kota and was equal parts horrified and relieved to see he was no longer there.
Pixie Bob came gliding up onto the cliff side on a wave of fluid earth, and let out a relieved breath when she saw him standing there, relatively in one piece.
“Mandalay has Kota, where’s–” she cut herself off and shifted her focus to the shaking mound of rubble in front of him.
Though the clarification was no longer necessary, Izuku pointed a bloodied finger at the wreckage.
Pixie Bob’s eyes widened, and she placed her hands on the ground, turning the loose rubble back into solid stone, thoroughly sealing Muscular in a coffin of Izuku’s making.
“You’re injured, we need to get back to camp,” Pixie Bob spoke to him calmly.
That was her I’m-talking-to-a-scared-civilian voice, not the brash and violent tone he had grown used to over the past few days; he must look a wreck.
“Where’s Mandalay? I need to speak to Mandalay,” he said, rather than following instructions.
“She’s on her way back to camp with Kota, come on,” Pixie Bob replied in that same gentle tone.
He turned to follow her instructions, and his leg nearly buckled at the first step. The sudden movement sent a jolt of pain through his shoulder, and that was enough to pull his mind back into his aching body. He took off sprinting toward camp with Pixie Bob barely keeping pace behind him. He was running so quickly that he nearly didn’t have time to stop the head-on collision course he found himself in with Eraser running toward him. He corrected course and slowed down enough for Eraser and Pixie Bob to keep up.
“Eraser, you need to give the students permission to fight back, they’re after Kacchan, Mandalay needs to pass the information…” he trailed off when he realized something.
Eraser wasn’t going to let him go back out and help his classmates. To Eraser, he wasn’t Ivy right now, he was Izuku, just another kid in his class who he had to protect. Regardless of Eraser’s wishes, he could not sit idly by while his friends were in danger.
“Injury report,” Eraser demanded, ignoring what Izuku had said for the time being.
Izuku cringed and hoped that he’d live to hear the lecture this stunt was about to earn him.
“Find Mandalay and tell her what I said,” he instructed before leaping into the sky again.
Whether or not Eraser could see Izuku now, he couldn’t erase his quirk, not without forcing him to fall to his death. If he had tried to run away, Eraser would have caught him; this was his only option if he wanted to save his friends.
He saw Dark Shadow peeking above the trees to the west. The quirk seemed to be raging completely out of control, so with a flick of air to the east, he started heading in that direction. He could see Eraser navigating above the trees with his scarf on a series of stone pillars, no doubt courtesy of Pixie Bob, but he wasn’t nearly as fast as Izuku.
Eraser would catch up to him eventually, but right now, Izuku needed to save his friends.
Notes:
Thank you guys for reading, and thank you for sticking around through my Life Event™️
The hits truly do not stop coming, though, so I'm not sure if I will be back to weekly uploads after this, or every other week. If you want to stay up to date, join the discord.
Chapter 176: Reckless Idiot Night pt… I Lost Count.
Notes:
Shout out to the betas, Beezus, Penny, Muffin, And Woomy <3
CW:
blood, gore, and violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Izuku landed in the closest clearing he could find, though calling it a clearing was generous; it was more a small gap in the trees than a proper clearing. He sent a few trees to the ground with the shockwave he used to cushion his fall– he’d get better at that someday… hopefully. Right now, he had ended up introducing himself to a tree trunk more forcefully than he would have liked.
He instinctively went to use his arms to push himself off the ground, but the pain in his shoulder reminded him that he probably shouldn’t be moving them too much. He bit down on a pained groan, and as he got to his feet, he heard gunshots ringing out in the distance. He moved to run toward them, but thought better of it; that was the direction of the gas cloud, and if he ran into that, he might end up being of no help to anyone. As much as it went against every fiber of his being, he continued pressing on in the other direction. He just had to have faith in his peers for now.
It wasn’t too long before he ran into Shoji, who shushed him quickly, no doubt having heard him approach.
“Tokoyami has lost control of Dark Shadow. The quirk doesn’t recognize us like this, it’s lashing out at everything,” Shoji whispered an explanation.
“Fight or flight,” he confirmed his understanding with a nod, “We need to find Todoroki and Bakugo. They should be able to produce enough light to tame Dark Shadow. We also need to wrap your hand… or your lack of hand… that’s gonna grow back… right?” he trailed off awkwardly.
Shoji actually snorted out a laugh at his floundering.
“Yes, it was a duplicate. I will be fine,” he assured.
“Good, but you’re still bleeding, and blood is supposed to stay on the inside,” he replied as he grabbed his knife to cut a strip of fabric off the bottom of his already tattered shirt.
A long-sleeved crop top wasn’t his preferred attire, but it would have to do.
“I’ve still got more uninjured limbs than you. I can take care of it,” Shoji said and took the scrap of cloth as Izuku went to tie it around the severed limb.
He wasn’t wrong about that, Shoji must have caught him wincing. Every time he moved his right arm, his shoulder hurt, and every time he moved his left, it was damn near agony. Shoji still had five functional arms with his quirk, so Izuku relented and allowed him to take over. He probably didn’t need to be as worried about it as he was, seeing as though Shoji could have done the same with his own shirt before Izuku even got here, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Blood loss was no joke.
Shoji wrapped his stump and nodded in agreement before they set off. Izuku directed him to use his quirk to create dupli-arms with mouths so he could throw his voice around and lead Dark Shadow around more safely as they looked for Todoroki and Bakugo. He ran in pace with Shoji, and each footstep sent a jolt of pain through his collarbone, but he ignored it.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long before they saw ice sparkling under the moonlight up ahead. Unfortunately, that meant that their peers were engaged with an enemy, and given that he could still see ice formations cropping up as they ran, it meant that it was a formidable enough enemy to cause Todoroki problems. That wasn’t good. After facing down Muscular, Izuku could only hope that his friend wasn’t in such dire straits.
“Let Dark Shadow take out whoever they’re fighting,” he instructed Shoji, though it’s not like he could do much to stop the quirk anyway.
He nodded in understanding, regardless.
“RUN FOR COVER,” Izuku yelled instructions to Todoroki and Katsuki as they ran into view.
They both listened expediently. A massive, angry, sentient shadow of destruction seemed to have been enough motivation to prompt Katsuki to obey.
“DARK SHADOW IS OUT OF CONTROL, WE NEED LIGHT,” Shoji shouted as Dark Shadow threw the freakish villain in a full-body straitjacket, who they had been fighting, into a tree like a ragdoll.
The two of them, though slightly dazed and confused, got with the program quickly. Todoroki set off his fire, and Katsuki set off his explosions; the combination made quick work of the out-of-control quirk, which shriveled up into an apologetic blob in Tokoyami’s arms.
“They’re after you, we need to move back to base camp,” Izuku ignored Tokoyami and Shoji’s conversation, turning to address Katsuki instead.
“No shit, Sherlock. We were a little tied up,” Katsuki shot back.
“Yeah, well, now you’re not. Let's go,” he gave as good as he got and turned around before Katsuki could get another word in.
“Midoriya, you’re hurt,” Todoroki observed.
“I’ll be fine, we need to get back to camp,” he brushed off his friend’s concern easily.
The group flanked Katsuki, much to his chagrin, and Izuku took the lead as they cut through the forest to get back to base camp. They didn’t get five minutes into the walk before another zap in his head split his attention; he felt the urge to look in two different directions. When there was nothing immediately in front of him, he shifted his attention back, just in time to see a figure approach Katsuki and Tokoyami from behind. With the lightest touch on their shoulders, they disappeared.
He didn’t hesitate to throw his knife into the figure’s shoulder. The man yelped in pain and dropped a blue marble from one hand, but with the staff in his other, he tapped it back up in the air and caught it again.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why didn’t he aim for the arm with a weapon?
With unnatural strength and grace, the man lept up and over their group in the direction Shoji was heading. Todoroki attempted to catch him in a glacier, but he was too fast.
“Uraraka and Tsu are engaged in combat up ahead,” Shoji explained as he took off running.
The masked man was also headed in that direction, so Izuku had no reason not to follow. The moment they stumbled upon Tsu and Uraraka, the villain they had been engaged with took off running. That was smart of her, and also not Izuku’s problem right now. Uraraka was injured; she had a slash on her arm, but she was largely fine, and Tsu looked no worse for wear, if not more than a bit frightened. He shifted his focus away from his peers to their surroundings and noticed a discarded knife on the ground. Naturally, he took it; old habits die hard.
When he turned his focus back up, he saw the first villain had perched himself on a tree branch to look down over them. He did not seem to be of the same strategical mind as his colleague; a foolish choice on his part, this fight was now five against one. However, the man had hostages, so they couldn’t just run into this with no plan.
“GIVE THEM BACK,” he shouted just to stall for time.
“Give them back? What an odd thing to say. They’re their own people, they don't belong to anyone. Don’t be so arrogant,” the man chastised.
What a theatric dickhead.
Todoroki sent another wave of ice up the tree he was perched in, but as he had the first time, the man took to the sky again and settled in a different tree. It must be support gear; his quirk was either the marble thing or the flying thing, it couldn’t be both. More likely than not, the flying thing was the augmented ability; breaking quantum physics wasn’t so easily replicated by science. If he could take away that staff, which he assumed was the support gear at play, then the man would be cornered.
“Why the aggression? We merely wish to show them that there are options beyond the fanatical world of heroism they’re drowning in. It’s important to choose a path that aligns with your core values, after all,” he cooed from his new perch.
They were trying to convert them to the dark side? That was… well… Izuku could see it. However, they missed one crucial detail: Bakugo Katsuki never did anything if you tried to force him. Kidnapping him was about the only way they could have done this wrong. A roadblock here, a push in the right direction there, and yeah, he could see Katsuki becoming a villain, but this scheme would never work in a million years.
Wait, does that mean they were trying to convert him too? Muscular had said they’d both been on the no-kill list. That was… Okay, no, maybe they had a point there as well. Hitoshi himself had said he would have been completely justified to take up villainy on multiple occasions, and, from Shigaraki’s point of view, his actions have been far from heroic. He’s attempted or threatened murder every time they’ve spoken so far.
Whatever their motivations were, they were fundamentally idiotic if you knew the first thing about either of them. Shigaraki must still be running off without his leash.
Their opponent retreated, though he paused a moment to look at Izuku before he did. Perhaps he wasn’t as much of an idiot as he’d thought, but he didn’t hide his tell. Izuku knew he was on that list too, and he had no doubt that this villain had been watching them. He knew their quirks, so he knew that Izuku was the only one here who could match his mobility. He was trying to lure him away from the group. Unfortunately for Izuku, it was working. He was making off with two of his classmates; he couldn’t just sit by and let that happen, even if it was a trap.
“URARAKA MAKE THEM FLOAT AND TSU THROW THEM AFTER ME,” he shouted instructions over his shoulder before taking off into the sky again after the villain.
He knew what he was getting himself into, but the promise of backup never hurt anybody.
Where his opponent was jumping gracefully from branch to branch, Izuku was more barreling out of control like a runaway missile. The man was throwing marbles out behind himself, which exploded into chunks of ice–Todoroki’s ice. Izuku hadn’t even seen him take those. He shuddered to think that he would have missed the man taking his classmates entirely if it hadn’t been for that zap warning him.
Dodging around the ice slowed him down, but not enough; he was approaching his target quickly, and it took every bit of focus he had to avoid the man’s hands as they collided in mid-air. The collision knocked the man’s staff to the ground. Izuku kicked away from him and let him fall messily through the trees, hitting enough branches on the way down to prevent the fall from being lethal.
Somewhere along the way the man’s mask fell off, and he ended up with a nasty scratch along his cheek. Izuku’s knife was still lodged in his shoulder, and he cried out as he fell chest-first onto the forest floor. Before he could get his bearings, Izuku kicked him onto his back, wrenched the knife out, and plunged it through his forearm. Once one arm was pinned, he used the knife that the man’s much smarter colleague dropped as she fled to stab through the other forearm. Holding both knives in place, Izuku pinned him down with his body weight, and leaned in close before he spoke.
“Give. Them. Back,” he commanded again.
“Nnhg, the boss man wasn’t kidding about you. You’re downright villainous,” the man grunted in pain and forced words out through clenched teeth.
“I’m not asking again,” he warned coldly.
“Midoriya, right? The boss likes you, you know.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
“He says you have promise. You could make a name for yourself with us. I doubt your school taught you this. Where were the heroes when you needed them?” the man tried to sweet-talk him, but his words sounded more like he was a frightened animal backed into a corner.
“Your quirk requires your hands, right? Or is it just your fingers? Why don’t I start with your pinky, and see if you're more cooperative after that,” Izuku mused aloud, ignoring the man’s spiel entirely.
He went to move his hand, grabbing the knife as if he were going to follow through with that threat.
“NO STOP, STOP. In my pocket, r-right pocket,” the man cried as Izuku shifted the knife in his arm.
He could hear his friends touch down behind him, and he felt the man’s spine stiffen. Everything he had done since Izuku laid eyes on him had been an act; he was not about to believe that he’d broken down so quickly. He was not stupid enough to let the man move his arms again.
“Empty his pockets,” he ordered blindly.
Shoji silently did as he was told, and he could feel Todoroki’s eyes boring holes through the side of his head. This was a side of himself he wasn’t proud of: violent and tactical, devoid of anything but a mission and the desperate need to fulfill it. He never wanted his friends to see this, hell, he didn’t want to be this, but it was a matter of life and death, and just like with Muscular, he had to do what he had to do.
“I got them, two marbles,” Shoji spoke up after a moment and some shuffling.
“Deactivate your quirk,” Izuku ordered.
“I need to use my hands for that,” the man tried to lie.
“Bullshit, I saw you deactivate it mid-air. Do it now,” he brushed him off easily.
“I c-can’t–” he tried to back up his flimsy excuse again, but Izuku wasn’t having it.
He cut his excuses off with a violent twist of both knives, and the man howled in pain. Yet another strategic failure on his part, as in doing so, he had shown his hand.
“He’s lying, there’s marbles in his mouth,” Izuku informed whoever was listening.
The man clamped his jaw shut at his words, and Izuku knew that the game was up. The sick freak had put his classmates under his tongue to hide them. A smart move, but not smart enough.
“Open your mouth or I will break your jaw,” he threatened.
The man jerked below him, as if trying to buck Izuku off of him, but a sudden chill behind him told him that Todoroki had frozen his legs to the ground. He whined in pain as he tried to move his hands around enough to use his quirk, but every movement flexed his muscles against the knives in his arms.
“Someone’s coming,” Shoji warned, lifting an augmented ear to the East.
“Todoroki, freeze the knives down,” Izuku ordered, shifting his grip further up the handles so that his hands didn’t get frozen down with them.
Todoroki did as he was told, but the expression on his face was unreadable. He was unreadable at the best of times, though, and this certainly wasn’t the best of times. Neither of his peers had said anything, so he assumed they understood that he was doing what needed to be done. He could only hope they weren’t judging him for it.
Izuku shifted his right hand to grab the man’s jaw with a wince, his shoulder was a searing, white hot pain barely concealed in the back of his mind. He gripped hard enough that he could feel bones creaking together before he spoke again.
“Open your jaw or I'll break it,” he restated his promise.
Everyone’s attention was pulled by the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. Todoroki and Shoji both advanced toward the intruder, getting between whoever it was and where Izuku had the villain pinned. So, he didn’t see the figure emerge before he heard their reactions.
Shoji visibly relaxed, and Izuku almost let himself relax as well until Todoroki spoke up.
“Shinso, where’s your partner?”
Hitoshi? What the hell was he doing here? He was already at base camp, why did he leave?
“At base, I came to help, is that Izuku?” he asked, slightly out of breath.
He shook the agitation from his mind and tightened his grip even further. It was still only a threat, but the more he thought about it, the more sure he was that he was going to have to follow through. The villain was past the point of theatrics, Hitoshi would be unlikely to get a response out of him even if he tried. This had gone on long enough, and force was the fastest option.
There must have been some sort of sign of Izuku’s resignation in his expression because the man opened his mouth of his own volition and spat a marble at his face. Izuku instinctively winced and shut his eyes. The man tried to use the moment of distraction to flee, but the escape attempt was futile; he was pinned too thoroughly, and all his thrashing managed to do was pull another pained scream from his throat.
His friends were talking, but he couldn’t hear a word. Another zap through his head ripped his attention away, and it was only by a hair’s width that he was able to dodge the jetstream of blue fire that shot through where he had just been.
“SHOJI, MARBLE IN THE GRASS BY HIS HEAD,” he shouted over to his classmate, who was now the closest one to the pinned villain.
He grabbed it with a dupli-arm, but had to retreat before he was burned by another blast of fire. Izuku had half a mind to feel bad for the villain they had pinned there. He hadn’t been set alight, but the flames were surely close enough to burn.
There were spots in his vision from the bright plumes of fire in the dark night, but when he looked up to the source of the flame, he recognized the man instantly. It was the same burned man from Uptown, the one who had ‘saved’ him from being followed home. What the hell was he doing here?
“Compress, it seems like you have your work cut out for you here,” the burned man greeted his colleague casually, strolling up to him and melting the ice away.
“Who are you?” Hitoshi asked with a shaky voice.
The burned man looked at him, but didn’t say anything. Did he know their quirks?
“Thank you, Dabi. That boy is a savage, Shigaraki was right,” the villain–Compress, thanked Dabi as he got to his feet with his arms limp at his sides.
Dabi turned to look at him for a moment, but he couldn’t quite meet Izuku’s eyes.
“That’ll happen when you grow up on the wrong side of town,” Dabi replied.
“Who are you talking about? Why are you here?” Hitoshi tried again.
Both villains ignored him.
Izuku could feel phantom heat radiating against his skin, and it rooted his feet to the ground. He needed to fight, he needed to get that other marble back, but the fire still dancing in his vision froze him still.
Todoroki was the first to move, another wall of ice shot toward the pair, but it was just as easily kept at bay with those damned flames.
“Did you succeed in your mission?” Dabi asked.
A portal opened up behind them, and he was screaming at himself to just fucking move, but his limbs wouldn’t listen.
“One of two, though the second was a bit of artistic liberty on my part. The little brats got one of them back,” Compress replied.
“Verify you have the right one,” Dabi shot back with an annoyed drawl.
Shoji, Todoroki, and Hitoshi were all running toward the villains now, and the thought of that portal closing behind them finally got his useless feet to move. They had been far closer than he was. When Dabi had sent the first plume of fire out at him, he had jumped back violently at the sight like a cat running scared up a tree, and now he was too far; he wasn’t going to make it.
Compress released his quirk to reveal Katsuki firmly in Dabi’s grip. For the first time since the day that slime villain almost killed him, Izuku saw genuine fear in those crimson eyes.
Tokoyami was dazed from his brief capture, Izuku was too far, and no one else was fast enough to get there in time. Kacchan was sinking backward into the inky black portal, and it was Izuku’s own damned cowardice that put him there. If he hadn’t frozen, if he hadn’t jumped so far, he would be able to reach him.
God, he just had to reach him.
Green sparks danced around him as he tried in vain to bridge the distance between them. Between that, the pain in his shoulder, and his all-consuming desperation, he almost didn’t notice the staticky tendrils emerging from his palm. They shot forth and wrapped themselves around Kacchan, and it hurt. It felt like a new ligament had just been pulled out of his wrist and turned sentient. Amid his pain and confusion, he wondered if this was what Dark Shadow felt like to Tokoyami when it went out of control.
He didn’t have time for the pain or the speculation; he ignored both and pulled with all he had. Unfortunately, after the week he’d had and the things he had done tonight, all he had wasn’t enough. Kacchan disappeared into the portal, and to his horror, Izuku wasn’t far behind.
The dark night turned into a dimly lit bar, and Izuku turned back to see the last of the brilliant stars on the other side of the portal blink out as it shut.
Notes:
:)
Chapter 177: Shellshock
Notes:
Shout out to the beta team, Beezus, Penny, Muffin, and Woomy
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Hitoshi nearly screamed in terror when he saw Izuku run off into the forest. The villains didn’t scare him, not here, not with four pros in his line of sight, but Izuku out on his own? That terrified him. Izuku would tear himself to pieces just for the chance that he could save someone else; he’d seen it firsthand at the USJ. He had no regard for his own safety when the people he loved were in danger.
His tension didn’t ease very much when Pixie Bob and Mandalay ran after him; he could see the sparks of Izuku’s quirk crackling off into the distance, even if he survived that jump, it was going to take the two of them a while to catch up. He forced himself to focus on maintaining control over the villain he had brainwashed as Sero slowly and carefully wrapped them up like a mummy. With how thoroughly swaddled they were by the time Sero was done, even if he did drop his control–so long as everyone stayed far enough away–the villain would have no way of fighting back.
Tiger was still trying to take down the lizard man, and the rest of his peers were keeping watch, not heeding the order to return to the cabin until they were sure Tiger had the situation handled.
Hitoshi looked around at the group and remembered the way he had just watched as Midoriya was brutalized by the Nomu at the USJ. All he did was watch. He couldn’t do that again, he refused to do that again. Izuku had been too afraid to even leave the house after what happened at the mall, and after this, he couldn’t imagine how scared he was. So, with all the stealth he had learned from Eraserhead this year, Hitoshi quietly crept into the cover of the trees. He was not going to leave Izuku out there alone again.
Once he was out of earshot, he took off running. Of course, not five minutes into his sprint, he saw Izuku fly overhead again in the opposite direction.
“You son of a bitch, quite literally,” he cursed under his breath and pivoted directions.
It looked like he landed a little closer than the other location had been, so Hitoshi was grateful for that at least. He still had to backtrack, but not as much as he thought he was going to when he initially saw the course Izuku was heading in. On second thought, that probably meant he hit the ground pretty hard. Maybe he shouldn’t be grateful. As far as he knew, Izuku had never used his quirk like this before; he’d clearly survived the first attempt, but a second attempt might have been pushing his luck.
The new clearing of broken trees he stumbled on after following Izuku’s trail seemed to indicate that he was correct in thinking that his friend didn’t have as much control over this ability as he might have liked. There were at least five trees snapped off at the base of the trunk, and a trail of disturbed dirt ending abruptly at the bottom of a much sturdier tree hinted at a rough landing. However, given that Izuku was no longer here, Hitoshi assumed it wasn’t too bad.
At this point, the trail had gone cold. He didn’t know the first thing about tracking people through the forest, but he did know the first thing about tracking Izuku, so he followed the noises of destruction. If there was trouble up ahead, then Izuku must be up ahead too.
He followed the noises until well after they went quiet and, though he was loath to admit it, he was damn near in hysterics by the time he heard a pained shout. Every second that Izuku was out of his sight was another second he had to do something stupid. He followed the shouting, and he could have wept for joy when he saw a glimpse of Izuku straddling a man frozen to the ground with two knives in his forearms.
That was… disturbing, but he supposed Izuku had a track record of doing disturbing things with knives when people were in danger.
“Shinso? Where’s your partner?” Todoroki greeted him.
He and Shoji were standing protectively between him and the figure whom he assumed was Izuku. It was dark, and his line of sight was mostly cut off, but really, who else could it be?
“At base, I came to help. Is that Izuku?” he answered with a question because he needed to be sure.
“Yes, the villain has Tokoyami and Bakugo. He can capture things in marbles by touching them,” Shoji answered him.
Well, that explained the necessity behind the knives in the man’s forearms. Izuku looked up at him for a split second, and the intensity in his eyes gave Hitoshi pause. He was suddenly very glad that he had yet to get on Izuku’s bad side; he was genuinely terrifying when he had the motivation to be. He felt foolish for having run out here to protect Izuku now, he clearly had the situation under control.
Famous last words, he supposed.
The moment he let his shoulders relax even the slightest amount, everything went to shit. A portal opened, and before the figure on the other side even stepped through, a jet engine burst of blue fire shot directly at Izuku.
“NO,” a visceral scream tore itself from his throat, though the roaring fire likely covered up anything he said.
Blessedly, he heard Izuku call out instructions from the other side of the villains for Shoji to retrieve a marble. When Shoji did as he was told and almost got his arm cooked off for his troubles, they all decided to keep their distance.
The villains talked as the newcomer released the pinned man from his ice restraints, but it was all just static in his ears. He was freezing up again, he couldn’t freeze up again.
“Who are you?” he forced out the words with a shaky voice, hoping desperately for a response.
He just needed a single word, just enough to sink his quirk in, and they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone, but the villains ignored him. Did they know his quirk? That shouldn’t be possible; everyone he used it on at the USJ was captured, and he didn’t participate in the sports festival for this very reason.
The first villain called Izuku a savage, and the second responded, saying, “That’ll happen when you grow up on the wrong side of town.”
Did he know Izuku? Was this one of the people who “helped” him when he was homeless? Gah, none of that mattered right now. What mattered right now was that one of their classmates was still in the villain’s clutches, and Izuku wasn’t going to stop fighting until he got them back.
“Who are you talking about? Why are you here?” he tried to get a response again, but it was of no use.
Todoroki sent a glacier of ice at the villains, and they didn’t even bother to dodge. The second man’s fire kept the massive attack at bay seemingly without any effort at all; they continued talking casually as if nothing had happened.
With a snap of the first villain’s fingers, the marbles burst open to reveal Bakugo in the fire user’s clutches; he looked scared enough for Hitoshi to pity him. Tokoyami was sprawled in the grass behind them, but he didn’t have time to worry about him right now. He had started sprinting toward the villains without even realizing it, but he noted quickly that he wasn’t going to make it in time. None of them were going to make it in time.
Izuku was too far away, and they weren’t fast enough. Even though he hated Bakugo’s guts, his stomach sank when he realized what was about to happen to him. He heard Izuku screaming, and Hitoshi was guiltily glad that he had been too far away to reach the villains; at least he was safe.
He didn’t stop sprinting, but he looked over to his friend as he cried out, and the sight he was greeted with hit him like a punch to the gut. Static-like vines of energy were coming out of Izuku’s palm, and in the span of a second, they wrapped around Bakugo’s chest and arms. However, when Izuku pulled back on them, Bakugo didn’t budge, instead Izuku went flying toward him. Before he could even think to panic, the portal closed, and they were both gone.
The three of them all stopped in their tracks, and the night around them became an oppressive silence.
“Wh…what happened… where’s… did they…?” Tokoyami’s voice trailed off in broken questions behind them.
He’d seen what happened just like the rest of them, he was just still confused enough to be in denial.
No one answered him, they were all staring transfixed at the place where their classmates had just disappeared. There were lines gouged out of the earth from where those things that came out of Izuku’s hand dragged across the grass. Izuku’s scream echoed through his mind on repeat. Was it from pain or fear? Was it both? He’d had blood on his face and hands. Was he injured? Izuku was god only knows where, tired, afraid, and injured and Hitoshi had done fuck all to prevent that from happening.
He noticed the panic attack coming on about as much as he noticed anything else happening around him, which was to say it was distant at best. The grass rose up to meet his knees, or rather, his knees probably fell to the grass, yeah, that made more sense, didn’t it? The dull pain shot up his legs, but it was just as distant as everything else, just as distant as Izuku was.
At some point, he realized someone was trying to talk to him, someone was holding his face and wiping tears from his cheeks. When did he start crying? The figure was blurry, and worried, and they were crying too. Hitoshi went to brush the tears off their face in return, and somewhere along the way, he realized who it was. It was Uraraka, and she was bleeding; her arm had a gash on it. He knew how to help with that, Eraserhead had taught him how to help with that.
He rolled her sleeve up and went about picking off the bits of fibers stuck to the partially dried blood. It didn’t take him long to realize he didn’t have any bandages or any means of cleaning the wound, so he’d just irritated it for no reason. His hands were shaking and Uraraka was just looking at him, patiently letting him fuck up.
“I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered out as he met her eyes.
The moment he spoke those words, the world came crashing back down on him.
Izuku was gone. He’d failed, and Izuku was gone.
He wept like a child and repeated those two words over and over again, as if he said it enough times, the world might forgive him and bring Izuku back.
It didn’t, of course. Hitoshi knew it wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop him from whipping his attention up to the tree line when someone came running through, hoping against all logic that it was his friend.
It wasn’t, of course. Hitoshi knew it wouldn’t be. It was Eraserhead. He looked desperate, he was heaving in panting breaths, and the sight broke him all over again. They had to tell him that Izuku was gone. That was his kid, and they had to tell him he was gone.
Everyone around him was in varying states of shellshock, but apparently he looked enough of a mess for Eraser to gun straight for him.
“He’s gone,” Hitoshi forced the words out when Eraser made it within earshot.
“What?” he asked in horror, his step faltered, but he kept moving.
“Midoriya and Bakugo… the warp villain from the USJ was here… they took them,” Todoroki clarified Hitoshi’s babbling, gesturing uselessly to the place the portal had been.
Hitoshi watched every agonizing nanosecond of Aizawa’s expression falling and being boarded right back up in a single breath.
“Injuries?” he asked the group, his voice was hoarse from running, but Hitoshi could hear an uncharacteristic emptiness to it as well.
Shoji silently gestured to the hand Hitoshi hadn’t even noticed was missing. It was covered in a bloodied strip of fabric that had likely come from the bottom of Izuku’s shirt. Uraraka shrugged her shoulder, pointing out the gash there, but everyone else stayed quiet.
They were all standing, but Izuku was gone.
“Get back to camp, we need to regroup,” Eraser instructed impersonally.
He walked up to Hitoshi and offered his hand to pull him to his feet. It felt like the world was tilting around him as he stood and stumbled into Aizawa. He grabbed Hitoshi’s shoulders to steady him, and he melted against his chest. He felt the man’s arms settle across his shoulders as he cried into his capture weapon and kept repeating “I’m sorry” over and over again.
“Shinso, it’s not your fault. We need to move, come on,” Aizawa spoke after a moment.
He felt his voice more than he heard it, and he did his best to pull himself together. He was in front of his classmates, who had all gone through their own hells, he’s sure, and Aizawa had just lost Izuku too. This wasn’t about him, he needed to calm down.
Aizawa let him go, giving him an unreadable look before he stepped away and started leading the group back. Uraraka linked her uninjured arm around his, and Todoroki fell in line on his other side as they all walked in numb silence. The mile or so he ran to get here passed by in seconds on the way back, it felt as though he blinked and suddenly they were back at camp. Iida ran up to him and was saying something, flailing his arms wildly the way he did when he was overly emotional in any way, be it excitement or, in this case, probably worry. Aizawa put a hand on his shoulder and shushed him, directing him to wait with the rest of the students gathered there.
There were several students laying on the ground, Hitoshi thought they were dead for a moment, but their chests were still rising and falling, so he figured they were fine. It was mostly class B students, but Jiro and Yaoyorozu were lying there motionless as well.
He saw the adults gathered in the corner of the room, likely discussing casualties. A quick head count told him that there were only two students unaccounted for, though he noted that Ragdoll was gone too. With no one left to search for, Hitoshi presumed that she wasn’t still out looking.
Two students and a pro, gone without a trace. He felt like he was going to be sick.
“Everyone, gather your things. Emergency responders will be here soon, and everyone is going to be looked over at the hospital. If you need urgent medical attention, please notify one of us,” Aizawa addressed the group when their corner huddle broke up.
“Where’s Bakugo and Midoriya?” Kirishima asked without even waiting to see if they were taking questions.
“…They were taken,” Aizawa answered and paused for a moment, “Please go gather your things,” he directed again.
The students were silent for a moment; he could imagine their minds shattering the way his had earlier. Almost at the same time, the majority of class A started rapid-fire questioning what he meant, and Hitoshi could see his jaw clench. He was probably barely holding himself together right now, so he wasn’t surprised when he snapped.
“Enough!” Aizawa cut them off, his quirk flaring up seemingly by accident.
He shut his eyes forcefully and rubbed at them with his thumb and forefinger.
“I don’t have answers for you. Follow my instructions. Anyone with friends who were knocked out by the gas, please pack their things for them,” he dismissed them.
Vlad King was already talking to Shoji, looking at his amputated hand, and Aizawa walked over to Uraraka and picked up where Hitoshi had left off on first aid.
“Shinso, please get Midoriya’s things together,” he ordered.
“Iida can do it, I need to tell you something,” he passed the task off.
Iida looked lost; direction would help him.
Aizawa nodded and then looked at him, silently prompting him to speak.
“In private,” he amended.
Aizawa glanced back at the cut he was tending to.
“It can wait until you’re done,” he answered the unasked question.
He held Uraraka’s hand until Aizawa placed the bandage over the cut and sent her off to the girls' sleeping quarters with Tsu to pack their things. After they walked away, Aizawa led him past several students loitering around, looking for answers, and into a separate room. He presumed this was where the teachers had been sleeping, if Aizawa’s sleeping bag was any indication.
“Are you okay?” Hitoshi asked once the door shut behind them.
Aizawa looked at him like he was an idiot, which, admittedly, was fair; that was a stupid question.
“Is that all you wanted to ask?” Aizawa responded without an answer.
“Your hands are shaking,” Hitoshi responded without an answer as well.
Aizawa looked down at his hands, verifying that they were in fact trembling before balling them into fists.
“Do they know? Does anyone else know he’s your kid?” Hitoshi pressed.
“He’s not– I… no, they don’t,” he clumsily admitted.
It occurred to him that he’d never heard Aizawa stumble over his words before. It was unsettling, but he ignored it. He had his meltdown; he needed to hold it together.
“I figured… I thought you could just use a minute,” he explained.
Aizawa’s jaw clenched again, and he took a deep, shaky breath in through his nose as he pointedly looked anywhere around the room that wasn’t Hitoshi. He brought his still shaking hands up to his face and pressed his palms against his eyelids as he tangled his fingers in his hairline. He stood like that for a few shaky breaths before Hitoshi took a gamble. He stepped forward with audible footsteps and wrapped his arms around Aizawa’s middle again.
Aizawa was generally pretty standoffish, but he was also generally steadier than anyone Hitoshi had ever met, and right now, the man standing in front of him was certainly not steady. His whole body was tense to the point of shaking, and Hitoshi just hoped he wasn’t making it worse. Aizawa rested his arms across his shoulders again and hugged him back hard, which settled his worries slightly. They stood there like that for far longer than he thought the man would allow, which eased his worries even further. After fucking up so royally, he just wanted to be of help to anyone.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Aizawa said, his voice small.
If he was getting a hang of Aizawa-isms, he’s pretty sure that meant ‘thank you.’
When Aizawa pulled away from the embrace, his eyes were red. He couldn’t tell if that was from his quirk or if he was crying with eyes too dry to produce tears, but it didn’t matter, so he didn’t waste time dwelling on it.
“We’ll get him back, both of them,” he replied.
Aizawa’s face set with determination before he spoke.
“Yes, we will.”
“I, um, I did actually need to tell you something, though… What exactly is Izuku’s quirk?” he asked.
Notes:
thanks for reading <3
Chapter 178: Chekhov’s Blanket
Notes:
Shout outs to the beta team, Beezus, Penny, Muffin, and Woomy
There is a possibility that I might shift to uploading every other week... I have been working on the same chapter for like two and a half weeks now, and I would say I'm getting nowhere fast, but that's not true, I'm getting nowhere very, very slowly :(
On the bright side, these next few chapters are my favorites since the OFA reveal fiasco :D It's some good shit if I do say so myself.CWs
blood
stitches
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Join the Discord
Getting pulled along by an out-of-control quirk attached to your already injured arm was a less than pleasant experience, in Izuku’s humble opinion. What was even less pleasant was getting kidnapped with your former(ish) tormentor and ending up in a bar-turned-villain lair as the aforementioned out of control quirk continued to flail about wildly, breaking tables, shelves, and skin indiscriminately.
He tried to reel it in, but with his panicked heart rate rocketing out of control and the visceral pain he felt with every jerky movement of his shoulders, he could barely hear his own thoughts.
“GET THE CUFFS ON HIM,” he heard a familiar scratchy, petulant voice order.
He’s pretty sure everyone in the room was screaming, himself included. He was lying on his chest and could hardly make sense of what he was seeing because everything was a whirlwind of staticky tendrils and pain. The scent of alcohol and blood permeated the air, and when a pair of clunky quirk-canceling cuffs fell to the floor in front of him, he couldn’t think of anything but stop, god, please make it stop. Without even considering the consequences, he cinched one side around his wrist.
Glorious stillness rewarded his idiocy.
He was on the floor, and someone was crying; it wasn’t until someone grabbed his free wrist and wrenched him to his feet that he realized the sound was coming from him. The cries cut off with a pitiful whimper, and he was roughly pushed back into a chair. The other side of the cuffs tightened painfully around his other wrist before he could get his bearings. He was on his, like, 32nd wind at this point, so there wasn’t much more adrenaline left to pump through his body. His injuries were catching up with him. He could taste blood and feel its warm, tacky path tracing down his chin–Fuck, his nose hurt, he probably landed flat on his face.
Broken collarbone, busted nose, busted jaw, over 72 hours without a proper REM cycle, and he was stuck on the wrong side of enemy lines with no promise of rescue and an additional hostage. Great work, Izuku… shit.
“We need to get him to a doctor! You’re fine, walk it off,” he heard a man seemingly fighting with himself.
Was he talking about Kacchan? He looked over to the source of the noise and realized he wasn’t, he was fretting over that marble dickhead–Compress, was it? Yeah… he might have done a number on him.
“That’s a lot of blood, Izuku,” a girl suddenly appeared in front of him, licking her lips.
He kicked her in the chest, and she went sprawling back onto the floor.
“TIE HIM UP YOU INCOMPETENT–”
“I’m working on it,” the burned man cut Shigaraki off with no small amount of exasperation.
“I already got TN-Teen, slowpoke. Take your time dear, you did a wonderful job,” the same man who had been arguing with himself over Compress’ wounds butted in.
Alright, so spandex guy was insane. Noted.
He went to get to his feet before he could be restrained any further, but the burned man–Dabi, his name was Dabi–lit a flame in the palm of his hand and quirked an eyebrow at him. This wasn’t a fight he was going to win, not with these damn cuffs on–Godfuckingdamnit, why did he do that?
He did his best to control his breathing and take in his surroundings as Dabi tied his feet to the legs of the chair he’d been thrown in. It was a wooden chair, he could break it just by standing up and sitting down forcefully enough; he’d be left with some cumbersome anklets if he tried, but getting tied to the chair wasn’t what was going to sign his death sentence. Just breathe, Izuku, just breathe.
He took a moment to study his surroundings, seven enemies: Shigaraki, Dabi, Kurogiri, Compress, a man with a lizard mutation quirk, and two unknowns. Well, that was shit odds. At least he had Kacch– Oh fuck.
Kacchan was strapped to his own chair across from Izuku, and there were two cuts on his arms bleeding freely from his biceps to his wrists. He was bound to the chair with his hands trapped in a metal box in lieu of quirk-canceling cuffs. He was also pale and breathing heavily. Fuck, that wasn’t good, how much blood had he lost? When did that even–Oh… oh god… he did that, didn’t he? That was where that thing from his palm had wrapped around Katsuki.
He saw Compress step through a portal with crazy spandex guy, which took the situation from a 7v2 to a 5v2, but neither of them was in any shape to fight.
“He needs medical attention,” Izuku spoke up with a confidence he had no business possessing.
The whole room turned to look at him.
“I don’t think you’re in the place to be making demands, brat,” Shigaraki sneered at him.
“Did you learn nothing from our last meeting? Without a hostage, I’m a glass cannon with a short fuse. You lose him, you lose both of us, and whoever I manage to take down with me. You’re already down at least two allies; losing whatever assets you managed to gain is not in your best interests,” he threatened with cold certainty.
Dabi huffed out a laugh, Shigaraki looked downright murderous, and Kacchan was looking at him like he’d grown a second and third head.
“You’re even prettier when you’re angry. That really hurt, but I’ll forgive you,” the girl from before cooed at him, this time from a safe distance.
Alright, so she was crazy too. Wonderful.
“Cauterize the cuts,” Shigaraki ordered Dabi.
“NO! No, you don’t need to do that,” Izuku panicked on Katsuki’s behalf, “I can take care of it– you don’t even have to untie me. Just– just give me some vodka and a needle and thread.”
“Why the hell would I listen to you?” Shigaraki mocked.
“Cooperation, right? You want us to cooperate? You’re not going to do that with burns. Just let me take care of it– How does your quirk work?” he turned his attention to Kurogiri, “Locations? Aisle 3, bottom shelf, left side, in the pharmacy on the west end of block twenty six in Musutafu. There’s sterile needles and gauze, just take them and give them to me,” he all but begged.
The shadowy figure just looked to Shigaraki for direction, hardly acknowledging the situation in front of him as he methodically went about righting the bottles of alcohol that hadn’t been broken.
Shigaraki sneered at him and looked over to Bakugo, who was taking measured breaths, and, for once in his life, not opening his big mouth and making Izuku’s life more difficult.
Shigaraki’s eye twitched in anger, but he relented.
“Do it,” he snapped at Kurogiri.
Izuku tried his very best not to flinch when Dabi stepped behind him to push his chair toward Kacchan with an awful screeching noise, though he’s not sure he succeeded.
“Jesus, you’re built like a brick,” Dabi mumbled under his breath after grunting with the effort it took to move him.
Some hysterical part of him nearly laughed at that, but panic held the forefront of his mind, so he managed to keep it down.
“I need alcohol to ster–”
He was cut off by Kacchan’s muffled shout as Shigaraki poured vodka over the cut on his left bicep. He used far too much of it, enough that it flowed down and wet Izuku’s knee with a mixture of blood and alcohol.
“My hands, please,” Izuku clarified, with forced politeness.
He held out his hands and let the man pour far too little alcohol out to properly clean them, but it was better than nothing. He focused on making sure his fingers were clean and let his palms stay filthy; he just wouldn’t let them touch anything.
He watched Dabi’s hand reach into a portal and pull out the supplies he had requested. Izuku vowed to make a sizable donation to that pharmacy whenever he had the money, he had stolen so many things from them.
“Don’t try anything,” Shigaraki threatened him from behind as he settled his hand around the back of Izuku’s neck, just like he’d done at the mall.
He did his best to not let the display visibly frighten him, but Shigaraki’s fingers were resting against his pulse point, and there wasn’t much he could do to hide that. Pressing on, he grabbed the supplies from Dabi and let himself get lost in the familiar motions. Dabi poured a more reasonable amount of alcohol on some gauze, and Izuku warned Katsuki that it was going to hurt before he gently wiped away any potential lingering debris.
Kacchan remained quiet with his teeth clenched tight as Izuku carefully added stitches to the split flesh. Shigaraki and Dabi were still looming over them, and now probably wasn’t the time for a heart-to-heart, but the words tumbled out of his mouth all the same.
“I’m sorry, Kacchan,” he apologized.
“Tch,” he scoffed and shook his head.
Izuku let the topic drop. It wasn’t until after he had bandaged the first cut and got scooted around to the second that Kacchan replied properly.
“I think I was due for some payback,” he said.
Was… was that an apology?
He pushed down his confusion, something that felt like bubbling anger, and ignored that response. Now was certainly not the time to get into all of that.
His hands were more clumsy than he would have liked; they were trembling with nerves and chained together, so the stitches weren’t perfect, but they were serviceable. It was better than melting the skin back together, and it was certainly better than bleeding out–not that he was really at risk for that, but it wouldn’t have been an insignificant amount of blood loss if they had just left it to coagulate on its own time.
Dabi dragged his chair back to where it had been when he finished, far outside of conspiring range from Kacchan. Izuku kept his focus on any conversation he could overhear, but he didn’t get anything helpful out of it. The crazy girl was upset about having lost someone called ‘big sis Magne,’ and Shigaraki was fuming about having lost his ‘tank,’ which, Izuku assumed, must have been Muscular.
Kurogiri was uselessly fiddling with a smashed old box TV on the bartop, and as Izuku looked around, he realized just how many scorch marks were scattered across the place. Katsuki had gone down swinging, at least.
“You’re pretty good with a needle, Izuku. Do you bleed a lot?” the crazy girl asked out of nowhere.
“No, I took up cross-stitch in my free time,” he sneered sarcastically on instinct.
He was scared and lashing out; he needed to keep his cool. He didn’t know what cards he would have to play later, so he’d do better to keep them hidden for now.
“Oh! Me too! We have so much in common!” she cheered, “I’m Himiko Toga, I meant to introduce myself earlier, but you kicked me,” she said with a pout.
“Sorry, you scared me,” he apologized, though he didn’t mean it in the slightest.
“Awwww, that’s okay, I already forgave you, silly.”
“Toga, stop talking to him,” Shigaraki cut her off.
Her face scrunched up in a disgruntled pout that could have been considered cute in almost any other circumstance, but she obeyed and stomped off to one of the few intact tables in the corner of the bar.
“You intrigue me, little hero,” Shigaraki addressed him.
“So I’ve heard,” he responded in a level tone.
“You have no respect, do you? Why do you insist on following these heroes around? They clearly haven’t regarded you as highly as you do them,” Shigaraki pressed.
He knew what Shigaraki was referring to; he was talking about how he fought, and how he currently had several old scars exposed on his midriff, and how he knew how to perform stitches at 16 years old. He knew he was trying to goad him on and admit to having been overlooked by society. He wanted to tug on his tragic past; it was just like every villain’s sob story, a poor excuse to lash out at others. However, he wasn’t about to hand Shigaraki anything, so he just furrowed his brow in confusion.
“You fight like a dog off the streets, you didn’t learn that in school. Heroes are too altruistic to take what they want by any means they have, but you aren’t. Tell me, why is that?”
“Is this therapy, or a hostage situation?” he snipped back despite himself.
Shigaraki seemed to be acclimating to his snark, because he ignored it.
“They’re never going to accept you like this, you know they won’t. A hero like you would get their license taken away in a heartbeat; civilians would fear you. You’re not like them, Izuku, you know that, so why do you bother trying?”
They all kept using his given name, and it made him want to punch it out of their smug mouths. No one called him that, no one but his family.
“Is that why you nabbed us? To join your stupid Girl Scout troop?” Kacchan spoke up.
With how much of an asshole he was, Izuku almost forgot that he was smart. He was losing his cool, so Katsuki stepped in for him.
“I wasn’t talking to you yet, brat,” Shigaraki snapped.
“Yeah, well, you are now,” he shot back.
Shigaraki clenched his fist and forced it to relax before he spoke.
“You confuse me, too, Bakugo,” Shigaraki relented.
Why the hell was he “Bakugo” but Izuku was “Izuku?” His eye twitched in irritation, but he’s pretty sure the only one who noticed was Dabi. The man had been staring at him ever since he insisted on stitching Kacchan up. It was unnerving; he had intense eyes that were difficult to meet.
“Why do you insist on following those heroes around? I thought you liked winning; they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of that lately,” Shigaraki pointed out with a smirk.
Kacchan growled at him like a rabid dog. They weren’t painting a good image of themselves, were they?
“Kurogiri, why don’t you get our guests a drink?” Shigaraki pivoted, clearly recognizing that tensions were too high for him to get anywhere with that line of questioning right now.
“I’m not drinking shit from you,” Kacchan spat.
Shigaraki’s barely controlled tension snapped.
“Take shifts watching over them, they’ll cave eventually,” he ordered through gritted teeth, walked out the door behind Kacchan, and slammed it shut.
“I’m gonna go find my cross stitch!” Toga cheered and followed him out, skipping the whole way and leaving the door open behind her.
“I need to restock,” Kurogiri announced, looking forlornly at the ruined bar before fading into himself and out of the room.
“You alright babysitting? I want to make sure he doesn’t dust all of our stuff again,” the lizard man asked Dabi, the last one in the room.
Kacchan growled at the patronizing word choice.
“Yeah, I’ve got it handled, you can slack off all you want,” Dabi replied with an affable ribbing.
The lizard man rolled his eyes and left without another word, shutting the door like a reasonable person behind himself. The silence left in the room was stifling, especially with Dabi’s eyes still raking over him like daggers.
“Why are you here?” Dabi asked him after a tense moment.
“You kidnapped me,” Izuku responded snidely.
“Shiggy calls everyone a brat, but I think he’s right about you,” Dabi responded, rolling his eyes, “I meant at UA, smartass. Uptown to UA isn’t exactly a fast track,” he pointed out.
He could see Katsuki’s brow furrow in confusion. God, he was going to have so many questions if they made it out of here. He averted his eyes away from both of them just to give himself a second, but his attention caught on a rumpled piece of fabric sitting in one of the booths; that was the blanket they had given Dabi as Ivy. He still had it after all this time?
“Oi, I’m talking to you,” Dabi called his attention back.
His exhausted brain listened on instinct, and their eyes met properly for the first time since he got here. Those eyes were familiar. Why did he know those eyes?
“Didn’t your parents teach you manners?” Dabi poked at him with no real heat.
Izuku laughed despite himself.
“Parents didn’t teach me shit,” he replied.
Dabi laughed too.
“You and me both, kid,” he agreed like they were old friends, which Izuku supposed they were, in a way.
Dabi intrigued him more and more each time they spoke. How was someone with a fire quirk covered in burns? And why were those eyes so goddamned familiar?
“He inherited my father’s fire, but my mother’s resistance to cold, not my father’s heat resistance. His flames burned too hot, hot enough for him to incinerate himself.”
“Tragedy struck the heart of the nation last night in the mountains of Yokohama prefecture. Toya Todoroki, the firstborn son of Japan’s number two hero, Endeavor, died in a quirk accident at just thirteen years old. Official reports say he was practicing with his quirk on the family’s land when it got out of control and started a forest fire.
No body could be recovered from the flames…”
“...Toya?” the name tumbled out of his unfiltered mouth.
Dabi’s relaxed posture and amicable expression faded in an instant. He stood up from where he’d been leaning on the bar and held his hands up at his sides as if he were about to use his quirk.
“What the fuck did you just call me?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.
“N-nothing, I’m s-sorry, I’m s-s-sorry,” he stuttered out pitifully and covered his face with his restrained arms.
“Oi, piss off dude, boss isn’t gonna be happy if he comes back to one of his hostages turned into bacon,” Kacchan spoke up from the other side of the room.
“I’m s-sorry, I w-won’t s-say a w-word, I’m s-sorry,” he babbled, peeking at the man from behind his hands like a frightened child.
“Do you two know each other?” Kacchan interrupted.
“Shut it, twerp,” Dabi sneered at Katsuki before turning back to him, “How do you know that name?” he demanded.
“I d-didn’t– I know your b-brother, I d-didn’t know– it was j-just a guess– I d-didn’t m-mean to–”
“Quit stuttering and calm the fuck down,” Dabi cursed violently, but his tone was juxtaposed by him lowering his hands and taking half a step back.
Izuku forced himself to take steady breaths and lower his arms, but he didn’t take his eyes off of Dabi for a second, not even to blink. Dabi was looking at him with the same disgusted glare that Endeavor gave him, like he was a piece of shit stuck to his boot, but he wisely kept that comparison to himself.
“You didn’t even answer my damn question. What the fuck are you doing with those spandex-wrapped attention whores? Uptown’s a shit hole cause they abandoned it,” Dabi repeated his question much less amicably.
“N-not all of them,” he argued.
Dabi scoffed.
“What are you d-doing here then, hm?” he pushed back.
“Are you really asking me that?” Dabi drawled.
“They’re trying to take down All Might, not… they’re just going to give him what he’s always wanted,” he argued without giving anything away to their audience.
“They’re a platform; a tool for my own means,” Dabi justified.
“They’re hurting people, you’re hurting people,” he pointed out
“That’s kind of the point, dipshit,” Dabi spat back.
“You don’t want to hurt people, you want to hurt him.”
“You don’t know shit about what I want.”
“You saved me. When I was being followed home, you saved me. Someone who wants to hurt people wouldn't do that,” he argued.
“I was young and delusional,” Dabi tried to excuse.
“That was like two years ago.”
“People change,” he replied with cold sarcasm.
“There’s another way. You’re right, that piece of shit deserves whatever you’re trying to do, but we can do it without hurting anyone else. I was trying to get your brother out of there. I have proof, we could ruin him,” Izuku all but begged the man to listen.
Dabi regarded him for a moment, looking him up and down, and he probably looked pitiful right now. He looked every bit of a kid in over their head.
“Sure, kid,” Dabi dismissed him.
He sounded sad, like he wanted to believe him but couldn’t. Dabi had his back twice now; he’d been looking out for him in Uptown, and he’d refused a better blanket in case someone else needed it. He might be an asshole, but there was good in him, Izuku knew there was good in him. He was just damaged and hurting and lashing out however he could in a hopeless situation. He just needed Dabi to trust him.
God, this was such a bad idea.
“You’ve still got the blanket,” he noted, nodding to the ragged piece of fabric, “I thought I told you not to get into anything too heinous. I’d say this qualifies as heinous,” he said with a pointed look.
Dabi glanced over at the blanket, then back to him twice over before his expression settled on bewilderment.
“No fucking way,” Dabi muttered half under his breath.
“Tit for tat. You need to trust me, Dabi. We can take him down. I already have everything we need,” he pleaded, “Or do you really want to be taking orders from that walking temper tantrum?”
“What the fuck are you two on about?” Katsuki butted in, his patience seeming to have worn.
“Shut up, pipsqueak, the adults are talking,” Dabi shot over his shoulder with a wicked smirk on his face as Katsuki predictably started cussing him out.
Dabi stepped closer to him and spoke in a hushed tone.
“What do you have?”
“Video proof of his… actions, and audio testimonies from all of your siblings.”
“How the hell did you manage that?”
He chewed at his lip awkwardly for a moment before replying.
“…Bugs,” he admitted shamefully.
“You fucking bugged my little brother?”
“No, I bugged the house,” he corrected.
Dabi just looked at him dumbly for a moment.
“What the fuck?”
“We’re friends, I already talked to him about it, he just hasn’t made a decision as to what he wants to do with it yet. If I tell him that you–”
“No,” Dabi cut him off.
He looked sad and angry all at once, but more than anything, he looked determined. Some part of him still cared about his family, sans Endeavor, of course, it was pretty obvious to see that.
“You’re the nail in the coffin, Dabi, we can’t just not– What were you planning to do?” Izuku cut himself off with a question because how the hell had Dabi planned to take down Endeavor without revealing that Toya was still alive?
Dabi quickly averted his gaze, and Izuku saw a flash of something that looked like shame before he turned away entirely and let a frustrated groan out into his hands. He hadn’t planned on being around long enough to see the consequences of what he was scheming, had he?
“Look, okay, we don’t need to figure this out now,” he called Dabi’s attention back in a tone he knew was too low for Katsuki to hear, “Ten days after I get out of here–”
Dabi scoffed out a laugh.
“We’re getting out of here, this is going to work, just listen to me. Ten days after I get out of here, meet me in the warehouse on block twelve at midnight. I just need you to be seen walking around this building, okay? Eraser’s going to have eyes on the ground everywhere– Where are we?”
Dabi hesitated and glanced over to the busted television before he answered.
“Kamino.”
“Okay, that’s… not ideal. Never mind, it’ll be enough. You don’t even need to blow your cover with them–Wait, hold on, I’m a fucking idiot, check my pocket, is my phone in there?”
Dabi stepped forward and patted down his hips before pulling out the blessed piece of technology.
“You guys suck ass at kidnapping people, I have a tracker on–”
Dabi turned the phone around to show a huge crack in the screen, nearly splitting the entire thing in half.
“Shit, does it turn on?”
He pressed the button on the side, and nothing happened.
“Damnit, fine. They might still be able to track it, but I doubt it. Back to plan A. My friends saw you, they’re going to get that report back to Eraser–he and Nedzu are going to have half the country looking for you. Make sure you’re seen, and they’ll find us. Avoid heroes if you can, but if you get captured, I’ll vouch for you,” he assured.
“Are you going to clue me in on what the fuck is going on at any point, Deku?” Katsuki interrupted their hushed conversation again.
God, he was going to be a problem, wasn’t he? Izuku had been surprised by how few questions Katsuki had asked over the semester, of course, that was with the constant threat of expulsion should he push Izuku too far, but this was going to tip the scales toward giving in to his curiosity. Furthermore, it would be a PR nightmare if UA expelled one of the students who had been kidnapped on their watch; Izuku might not even have that bargaining chip anymore.
Fuck, this was really going to be a problem.
“I need you to not question anything I do or say, and we will get out of here. Just follow my instructions, and we’ll be fine… please,” he begged because that’s all he had left right now, he was running on fumes, and he couldn’t make another piece fit into the puzzle he was forcing together.
Kacchan was just going to have to trust him.
Katsuki looked him up and down with a scowl before turning to Dabi and repeating the process. When his eyes flicked back to Izuku, he held his gaze for a moment before nodding.
It felt like the weight of the world fell off his shoulders with the relief. They were going to trust him, both of them. That was all he needed. They could do this together.
Notes:
Weeeheeeeee!!! Oh, the threads are weaving now, baby!
Thanks for reading!!!