Chapter Text
When he turned around the dumpster, he found a kid, around his age, wild purple hair, wide, scared eyes, but most importantly, a mask covering his entire mouth. He looked panicked, and was trying to take off whatever that was off of his face. The moment he looked up, fear washed over his face.
What was a kid doing back here?
It took a couple seconds for the kid to register that Midoriya was there, and as soon as he did he backed himself up into the wall further.
Midoriya, unsure of exactly what to do, put his backpack down on the ground and slowly made his way towards the kid. He, in return, curls up into himself more.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” Midoriya says, trying to make the kid more at ease.
“I’m going to come closer, but I won’t touch you.” He states exactly what he’s going to do before he does it.
The kid keeps his eyes on him the entire time. Midoriya couldn’t hear his breathing, but could tell it was fast by the rise and fall of his chest. Wanting to help calm him, the green head holds out his hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. Here, I want to help.” The other kid shakes his head, directly at his hand, making Midoriya draw his hand back. Ok, There are other ways than what he was thinking. Maybe one of the ways that the older kids from the Nest taught him. There was the breathing technique. That one was really popular to help people down from panic attacks. Maybe that would work. Not seeing any problem with trying, he goes for it.
“Hey, try to follow my breathing. In, two, three, four, out two, three four.” Repeating that over and over, trying to soothe him. The kid seemed to be calming down for a minute, until he relapsed and started to panic, pulling on the mask on his face. Ok. Maybe that was too hard for him. Not everything works on everybody. Trying again, this time with a different strategy.
“Ok, ok, that didn’t help either. Here. Look at me.” The kid, still breathing fast, looks at Midoriya, not with his full attention. He was probably starting to dissociate, another thing the older kids talked about.
“Let’s try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Name five things you can see.” The kid looked around, before pointing at his mask. That most likely meant that he couldn’t talk.
“That’s fine. Think of the things around you. Really notice them. Not what you’re seeing in your head, what’s right here, in the present.”
The kid nodded, looking around again. Midoriya assumed that he was done once he looked at him again.
“Ok. Now think of four things you can hear.”
The kid looks around again, slowly regulating his breath. This time it might actually work. Looking at Midoriya again, He moves on to the next step.
“Good, good. Think of three things you can feel.” The kid moved his arms around for a couple seconds before nodding again.
“Ok. Now this is where it gets a little hard. Think of two things you can smell.” The kid quickly nods after a couple seconds.
“Last one. Think of one thing you can taste.” The kid brings his hand up to his mask. Midoriya could tell he’s trying really hard not to fall back into his panicked state, and he finds it impressive how well he doesn’t.
After a couple more minutes of quiet breathing the kid leans his head back against the hard brick wall of whatever building. Midoriya smiled a small, victory smile. The kid was calm. Now onto the next part, understand what’s happening.
“Hi.” Midoriya started. The kid looked startled, as if he forgot that he was there.
“My name’s Midoriya. I can see that you don’t like the mask you have on. If you’re comfortable, is it ok if I look at the back? I might be able to see if it's possible to take off.”
He hesitantly, but surely nodded, turning his head around. Midoriya could see that he, right now, could unfortunately not do anything. It was a lock, and he didn’t have any lock picking tools.
“Oh. I can’t take it off right now, since it’s a lock. But, I can show you to a place where I can help.”
The kid, weary, didn’t respond.
“Oh!” Midoriya startled. “Don’t worry. It’s not my house. It’s this old abandoned appartement place.” He stated, as if that sounded any better. “Wait… That doesn't sound good either. Here. I’ll give you an option. I have a place with a first aid kit, and some scissors. I can cut it off there, if you want to come with me. There will be people there, so you’ll know I won’t do anything to you. But I promise you can leave at any time. Just, come with me and you’ll see. I’m not good at explaining.” He rambled out.
The kid took a moment, but nodded in compliance.
“Great! It’s only like 4 buildings over. Follow me!” He said, probably too excited.
The purple headed child got up, almost tripping from some garbage on the ground.
Midoriya picked up his bag, and led the way, not walking with his head down like normal. He wanted to make it seem like he knew what he was doing, when he absolutely didn’t.
They made it to the Nest fairly quickly. Midoriya could tell that the kid wasn’t fully comfortable, but he knew that trusting him enough to follow him here was a big step.
At the moment, there were only three people there. None of which Midoriya knew all too well, but enough that the kid wouldn't be uncomfortable.
The falsely confident kid led him over to the first aid corner. Quickly opening the bag, Midoriya got out the medical scissors. They were small, so they should be easy to cut the strap on the back.
“Could you turn around please?” The kid abided, tilting his head back.
It was way tighter than Midoriya thought it would be. Although the scissors could go underneath, it did dig pretty hard. He apologised quite a few times, but after a couple snips, it fell off. The kid took the mask off carefully, turning around to face him again.
Instead of seeing someone who was thankful, he saw blood coming from the kids cheeks. It wasn’t much, but enough to require bandages.
“Oh no, here. Sit down. I’ll get some wipes.” Midoriya gestured for the purple haired kid to sit down, to which he followed, and he got out the bangles and alcohol wipes. He wiped the blood away with the wipes, making the kid wince. Midoriya apologised, but didn’t stop. After a couple seconds of this, Midoriya opened the bandages up and placed them across his face. The kid nodded a thanks.
“Ok. That should do it.” There was an awkward silence, before Midoriya broke it.
“My name’s Midoriya Izuku. What’s yours?”
“Shinsou Hitoshi.” Brief, but it got the message across.
“Cool name!” Another pause. “If you don’t mind me asking,” He started, noticing the way Shinsou braced himself, as if the question he was about to ask him was going to be bad. “How does your hair do that? It’s basically defying gravity.” Shinsou looked like he was mildly surprised, but answered nonetheless.
“I don’t really know.” He brought his hand up to rest on the back of his neck. “It just kind of does that. Oh, thank you. For that. Um. Yeah.” Midoriya realised that the didn’t seem that talkative, so instead of talking about pointless chatter, he skipped to more important things.
“So, this is the nest. It’s where people who don’t have anywhere to stay go, regardless of quirk. Feel free to stay. How old are you, actually?”
“13.”
“Cool! Same. You’re one of the oldest ones here, then. If you ever want to talk I’m Here!”
Shinsou nodded, awkwardly shuffling over to somewhere else.
Midoriya hopes he can get to know Shinsou. He seems cool.
Hopefully they can become friends. He was already starting to grow a fondness for this gravity defying purple haired kid, even though it’s only been a couple minutes.