Chapter Text
Izuku wanted to be a hero, that was his goal in life. Even after years of bullying and abuse from his peers, he still held hope. Everyday he would go to school, just trying to make it through the day, then go home and shelter himself in his room.
Typically when he was in his room–which was more often than not–he would focus on his hobbies. Most of those being things he hopes will help him become a hero. His room is littered with various blue prints, analysis notebooks, and various history books.
When he was eight Izuku decided that he would try his hardest to become the first quirkless hero. Of course, when he told anyone about this they would just ridicule him. He learned to keep his plans to himself.
His earliest hobby was analysis. He had gone through so many notebooks, he isn’t sure how many he had. Naturally, once he really got into it he labeled his notebooks. Now being on notebook number 23.
In many of his notebooks sections are rewritten should he have gained new information. Many heroes are done multiple times, save for newer heroes. When a new hero debuts Izuku always tries to make an analysis on them within the next few days.
Almost a year later he was introduced to the idea of support heroics. He was searching for any possible way to become a hero online, and support heroics was stumbled upon. That was when he decided to take a stab at making a support item. He followed various youtube videos and ended up with a slightly sparking pile of scraps.
It took Izuku a little while to get the hang of it, but at fourteen he’s able to actually follow blueprints, even having made a few of his own.
He very quickly realized he would be set back compared to others, so he tried to advance his skills. That is why he decided to work on his combat skills.
He started off simply copying people in youtube videos, but later found that suggestions in places like reddit did him better. From the start, he never asked his parents for lessons, they would just complain that it’s expensive, or that he wouldn’t have a chance of being a hero, or that it wouldn’t do him any good. Most of those from his dad, but the point still stood that he would have no hope of any formal training.
He made the best with what he could. He made sure to find every way he could to become a hero. He had a few options. His most preferred option was UA. It was arguably easier than getting an apprenticeship with a pro. Unfortunately, UA was literally his only option, it was the only hero school open to quirkless people.
While online, Izuku saw a lot about vigilantes. In all honesty, he might debate it once he fails UA’s entrance exam. It was an interesting concept he wasn’t entirely against. The idea of going out and stopping villains and criminals without pay seemed valiant.
Even if no one (including his parents) thought that he would never even have a chance at being a hero, he made it his life goal to prove them wrong.
So after a long day at school, in which Kachaan yelled at him and others made fun of him, he just wanted some peace and quiet at home. Of course, he couldn’t have that because his parents were arguing when he stepped into the apartment.
He made his way to his room, avoiding the living room so as to not irritate his parents, and dropped his backpack off next to his desk. He grabbed his most recent analysis notebook off of his bookshelf and sat down in his desk chair.
That morning a new hero had debuted, he couldn’t fully recall the name, so he looked it up; That was how Izuku ended up writing an analysis for four hours. He didn’t even realize he was sitting there for so long, not until he reached for his pencil sharpener and got a look at the time. It was 7:51pm. He had entirely missed dinner time. He never ate with his parents, but they typically got less annoyed at him if he was out around dinner time.
He pulled off his headphones, just then realizing he had a headache, and realized his parents had either started another fight, or were still at it. He assumed they started a different fight, this one was significantly for aggressive.
Usually when they fought it would end in an hour, so Izuku would just wait until then to get some food in him. So, he sat on his bed and scrolled on a hero forum until they calmed down. The thing is, they didn’t.
Eventually it got to the point where he was pretty sure he heard his dad hitting his mom. It didn’t happen often, around once every two months at a minimum. Most of their fights were just verbal, and Izuku could stand ignoring those. He hated the thought of someone else getting hurt; However, he wouldn’t dare step into that livingroom, he would just make things worse.
After a while he did hear their bickering stop, and a weird smell filled his room. Soon after, a thin cloud of smoke came into his room. That was when he realized his dad didn’t just stop at hitting, he had used his quirk.
He quickly got up, noticing the light of what he assumed was fire glinting through the crack in his door. He stumbled over to his window, unlocking it and struggling to open it. His window was barely used, making it difficult to push upward.
Once it finally gave way, he climbed through it. He stood on the fire escape for a moment, not entirely sure of what to do. Then felt dumb when he realized he should get down. So that is what he did, he sped his way down the fire escape, only calm when he was on the concrete of the alley beside his apartment building.
When he looked up he couldn’t yet see any fire in his window. He looked around, it looked like no one had noticed yet, as no one was around.
It would be best if he got as far away from the apartment as possible, being quirkless the blame would most likely be pinned on him, rather than his quirked parents. So he trudged off in the opposite direction of his home.
He spent a while just walking, slowly his surroundings got less and less familiar. That was when he decided it was far enough away. The sun was setting, the majority of it over the horizon already, so it was quite dark out.
He looked around debating his options, he could sleep in some random alley, or the bench he saw off to his side. Both places he would probably be found, and maybe reported to police. It would be quite suspicious for a minor to be sleeping outside at night.
He started towards the bench, not to sleep on it though, he walked straight past it and towards the park it sat in front. He could just pretend he sat there after school and fell asleep. It wasn’t the most solid plan, but the tree line went sort of far back, so if he rested against one farther away from the buildings it was probable he wouldn’t be found.
He moved along the path, the sun setting fully, leaving him to the darkness, and once he found a tree that leaned slightly, he sat against it and closed his eyes.