Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya was doing great for himself.
I mean, sure, there was a draft coming in through a crumbled portion of the wall.
And he couldn’t deny that the lack of running water and working lights was beginning to be an issue, but those were just the quirks of living in an abandoned house.
Maybe he could find a better abandoned abode but honesty it was better to live somewhere shitty enough not even the other homeless people would want to fight him for it. (Something he learned early on when he tried to claim an alcove beneath a bridge, when, at dusk, he was chased off by a man with a porcupine quirk, he had picked quills out of his skin for days.)
It was assurance his shit wouldn’t be messed with too, if they could find it anyways buried beneath loose floorboards a lovable flaw to the abandoned one story home.
He liked to think he was doing okay for himself, a homeowner at thirteen! Well, owner was a strong word. But besides that, he had already graduated from middle school two years early, online at the free use computer lab in the public library.
He had recently had tons of time to study quirks, especially underground heroes, studying their fighting styles and quirks with great enthusiasm. He had also been self-studying engineering to get the beginnings of some support gear invented for his soon-to-be vigilante gig.
He had a few gadgets completed and tons of prototypes (although he wasn’t an expert). And he found a great beach to pick up scrap! So yeah, things were going okay besides the homeless orphan thing.
Izuku shivered harshly as cold wind licked at his cheeks, wrapped in a ratty blanket he’d picked up from a discount bin, it did little to stave off the cold now that the seasons were shifting.
His hands shook slightly as he tinkered with what he hoped would be a net grenade. He had picked up some scrap from the beach, lost fishing nets in great supply.
Tonight was going to be the night he made his debut as a vigilante.
He had a utility belt full of mostly working gadgets, and he had been looking in on the self defense classes at his local gym useful information was truly all around even if it was a women’s self defense and yoga seminar he was sure it was basically all the training he needed for the time being.
Well, that and the near obsessive amount of hero fights he had watched as a child, and well… also a teenager. Once a fanboy, always a fanboy. He had some practical experience, at least from beating on trash heaps at the beach to break them into smaller parts so he could salvage scrap more easily. It didn’t do much other than let him figure out how to kick and punch with minimal injury to himself (wow, did he not know how to throw a punch that first time he tried it, ouch!), but he liked to think he was decent at it now.
He stopped tinkering with the net grenade as the pin was put into place, shoving it into his utility belt. He had decided to don green sweatpants and a black armored top with a utility belt around his waist, and by decide, he meant this is what he could find at one of the cheaper thrift stores.
He had also made some experimental gloves that were supposed to shield his skin from the heated metal on the outside while still letting him press the exposed hot metal onto his opponents.
Something he would only use if he was well and truly fucked. He knew the pain of burned skin was as awful as much as it would be useful.
At least in getting an opponent away from him or giving out some good damage.
And to finish it off, he had spray-painted an all-mighty beanie green to match the pants, the once yellow tufts of felted hair looking more like rabbit ears than anything else.
He slipped out of his shitty wonderful house and onto the streets of Musutafu the lamplit streets filling him with a thrum of anxiety and excitement.
But how does one really know where crime is happening? he knows pro heroes tend to stick to a patrol route, but this was his first time! Maybe he would get a better lookout up high, he thought to himself, already reaching for the grappling hook wound in his utility belt. Now, did he have experience using one? Absolutely not, but was this the perfect time to test out his potentially faulty homemade one? Yes.
“OH MY FUCKING GOD” he yelped as the metal prongs at the end of the grappling hook shot out winding around the ledge of a roof pulling him forward as the cable shortened into itself.
Well, on the downside, his lookout might be compromised because of him screaming, on the bright side, the grappling hook works.
Despite his post being obvious if there happened to be criminals around (there wasn’t), he surveyed the area, deciding on a path in his mind as he shot out across the roofs of Musutafu.
Running across the roof of the most recent business he’d landed on, he heard the shouts of a woman in distress, steeling himself, he headed towards the screams, fingers hovering over his utility belt anxiously.
Peering over the roof, he saw a broad man looming over a thin, shaking woman, tears in her eyes as she clutched her purse against her chest.
“Lady, give me the purse and I won’t hurt you but keep clutching it to yourself like that and I’m gonna have a little fun making you scream” the man said hand glistening as he activated his quirk, it seemed he secreted a substance harmful to humans acid perhaps Izuku thought to himself.
The woman cowered back further as Izuku prepared to intervene. If he was right about the acid, he would have to knock the guy out so he wouldn’t melt the net away.
Determination fueling him, Izuku pulled out a compressed staff hidden in his belt, unfolding it to its full length and dropping from the roof with an opening strike to the mugger's skull.
The man stumbled slightly as the woman shrieked in surprise.
Izuku staggered after the initial hit, scrambling up again and dodging an acid-filled hit aimed for his head. He only took a second to collect himself as he swung the staff at the man’s face again, making contact with his nose as the man shouted out in pain, acid (he was so sure it was acid now due to it eating at the concrete the criminal had stumbled onto palm first) now dripping in globs from the man’s palms as he reared up to strike Izuku.
Izuku, having some self-preservation and some women’s self-defense class fighting skills, used his small size to his advantage and dodged under the man’s arm, waiting till he was halfway past him to then use the man’s momentum and shove him over into the brick wall.
Now that is an unconscious individual if he’d ever seen one, note to self, staff strike to the skull = no unconscious criminals, head smashed into brick wall = unconscious criminal. You really do learn more every day.
Sighing shakily, Izuku backed away, throwing the net grenade at the man watching in glee as it wrapped around him, binding his arms to his side. Two tested inventions and two successes!
Izuku turned on his heels, bouncing slightly as he made his way over to the woman huddled in the corner.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Izuku questioned
“Are you a child ?!” The woman asked incredulously which, in Izuku’s opinion, was rude.
“…”
“I mean, thank you, kid, you really helped me out, but stay safe, okay?” The woman said, peering around Izuku at the knocked-out mugger wearily.
“Don’t worry about me, miss, you go on and get home safe, but maybe if you could? Can you call the cops about all this? I’ve got places to be, people to save.” Izuku said grappling hook in his hand, he was not sticking around so that the cops could catch him. No way!
Not looking back, he rushed away from the scene, satisfied that he had done something that mattered.
That he saved someone.
********
“So you want me to catch a child vigilante who is dressed like a bunny and wields a grappling hook?”
“Yes”
“Oh okay just wondering if you were fucking serious, why is this my problem? Sounds a lot like the type of thing you should be dealing with.” Eraserhead sighed out, reaching across the detectives desk and stealing the man’s coffee taking a smug sip as he received a glare.
“He’s around the area you patrol, Eraser. Just do me this one favor, please. I can’t really deal with a child vigilante on top of this homicide case.”
“ You mean the case you’ve been working on for two years? Give it a rest, Tsukauchi, who knows if you’ll find the culprit, unlikely at this point anyway.”
“I… There’s been more Shouta, more cases like this tied to the same killer, and I just think if we could find out more about the one involving Inko, we could find who’s responsible.
They were the sloppiest on that kill, they’re getting better, harder to track. We could even assume Inko Midoriya was their first kill, and there’s a crucial detail to her case, a witness. If we can find her son, we can find the killer.”
“I see, so I handle the grappling hook-wielding child, and you handle the traumatized witness child?
Alright, detective, I can see you’re in a tough spot, but stay sane, Nao, two years on a case would mess with the best of us.”
With one last glance at Tsukauchi, Aizawa left the precinct with a file on the new vigilante in hand.
He really was concerned about Naomasa; he had come to truly care for the detective, and when Aizawa cared for someone, he would do anything for them. Anything.
Behind the gruff persona he put on was a dark, clashing protectiveness beating in his chest, especially for the people who were his.
That feeling that had claimed many others before the detective. Hizashi, Oboro, Nemuri, hell even the rat. It was the dark part of himself he wouldn’t dare show to others besides his dear husband, of course. Hizashi truly was perfect, harboring a similar darkness that made him swoon.
But despite his friendship with Tsukauchi, did it have to be a child vigilante case? Vigilantes were notoriously frustrating to deal with, especially when a little snot-nosed quirked-up brat went out playing hero. Children were frail, naive little things that needed to be kept safe and away from the dark underbelly of the world.
Aizawa’s protectiveness reared up, thinking about it, children were often a soft spot of his.
He still would get that overwhelming feeling of fear when the first years played at being heroes, even under his supervision. That’s why he expelled so many; it felt like a small mercy to them, making sure they were safe, protected.
Especially after Oboro, he swore he would try his best to keep little heroes safe, little brats so much like his Oboro.
But still this was going to be such a fucking headache.
