Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya was not, by nature, a suspicious person. Perhaps, with the life he had led, he should have been, but the most he had ever managed to be was wary and spatially aware. He benefited in a lot of ways, from being a boy rather than a girl, but he still knew better than to wear two earbuds in on public transport, knew to never take the dark, less frequented paths – barring the times where he needed to hunt down a friend before they died trying to commit murder – knew to occasionally glance up, no matter how engrossed in his notebook, or phone, or book he might be. He knew to observe, although he had never learned to quite fear the worst of everyone around him.
That was how he knew, without a doubt, that someone was following him. He wasn’t sure when it had begun – in the days since he had returned to UA, there had been many eyes on him and while the general buzz had faded, the stares had never quite gone back to pre-internship level. But, while there was still plenty of people who recognized him as the very first intern Hawks had taken on, or who had seen him in the news footage of the collapsing hotel back in Hosu, and even one or two who were still caught up on Izuku’s performance in the Sports Festival, it had faded quite a bit from the initial hubbub.
It had calmed down enough, even, that Todoroki no longer glared at every one who so much as glanced his way for more than a few seconds and Uraraka no longer offered them the smile that showed a bit too much teeth to be friendly. Iida had even stopped offering to take the same train as Izuku, even though it would set his own homecoming back an hour. That was how Izuku had become aware of his new shadow. Once everything had calmed down and the feeling of being watched hadn’t quite gone away, Izuku had become aware of them.
He had thought, at first, that it might have been one of his friends – they meant well, and Izuku knew their overprotectiveness didn’t mean they thought less of his abilities to defend himself, they simply thought he didn’t defend himself enough just because he knew better than to think he could afford to offer the same sort of aggressiveness that alphas like Todoroki and even Iida could wield with ease, and he had never quite been taught how to wield the same sort of covert power that Uraraka and Tsu could with grace. Following him home would have been a step too far, but Izuku knew it couldn’t have been them. After Hosu, Izuku and his friends had made a point of sharing their location to each other, so a quick check on his phone the first day Izuku had felt the presence had shown him that they were all heading where they were supposed to.
Perhaps he should have been a little more worried, after that realization. But while the presence had never gone away, it had never felt hostile and the person had never once approached Izuku. He had gotten no weird notes, or been catcalled, the presence had never come within close contact of him, always maintaining themselves just out of Izuku’s actual sight. And it always faded away right when Izuku got to his apartment building; from what he could tell, they had never once followed him inside, let alone up to his actual apartment.
It was like they were just making sure he got home. It was weird, but Izuku hadn’t felt threatened enough to tell anyone about it. He probably wouldn’t have thought much of it, would have dismissed it as his own paranoia – he was so used to people watching him now that he likely would have been more worried if he didn’t feel at least one pair of eyes on him, had it not been accompanied by several other strange changes.
UA security had always been high, especially since the USJ incident, but it seemed to have been dialed up to an eleven. Teachers greeted the students at the entrance every morning and every afternoon, like they had the day the news broke that All Might was joining the faculty. They made it casual, as though everything was normal, but Izuku could see the way their eyes constantly roamed even as they said hello, on the lookout for some threat unknown to the students. Principal Nezu had issued new ID badges to all the students and a second security door had been added after the first, twice as thick as though to slow down any potential threat.
Izuku was even certain, although he would never press it to find out, that if someone were to try to break down either of the gates again, they would be met by far more nasty resistance than had existed previously. Principal Nezu was nothing if not very creative in his defenses. Izuku had read just about everything unclassified that he could get his hands on when he had first learned about UA and he knew that, in times of great upheaval or a massive attack in the city, it was one of the most fortified places in all of Japan, suitable to be a secured check point at any time. He had never expected to see some of those defenses turned on for what should have been regular school days.
Izuku might have been able to dismiss these new measures as precautions – UA students had been attacked more this year than any other time previously, something that must have galled Principal Nezu, both because of his pride as the principal and because he was a hero, just as responsible for keeping people safe as any other – had there also not been a sudden uptick in construction at the school as well.
UA was known for constantly changing – new training grounds, updated facilities, better security – but it had been at least five years since a new building had been erected on the school grounds proper, discounting the constant flux of ones that were built with the intention of destruction in exams. Yet, in a central part of the grounds, not far from the main building, twin buildings had begun sprouting up. Izuku had looked, of course, but there had been no press releases or even so much as a statement or even a hint for the reason behind the new construction. Typically, Izuku would have assumed it was a new training facility or something for the upcoming exams, but it was too close to the main building. Nezu would not have risked the main classrooms and the destructiveness of certain exam was well documented.
Especially, Izuku knew with a little bit of remaining guilt, after his class had completely destroyed the Sports’ Festival arena, not once, nor twice, but a whopping three times during the final round. No, nothing meant to be destroyed would find a home in the center of UA’s main campus, which meant something new and permanent was being constructed with no public paper trail. That could mean a number of things, but Izuku would have bet one of his best hero figurines that it had something to do with security.
Something was up at the school, something far beyond what the attack at the USJ warranted. Something that all of the teachers knew but no one was talking about. He had, briefly, considered asking Mr. Aizawa about it but the man was looking more exhausted than ever before and, considering how much grief Izuku had already caused him, it seemed best not to press him any further. Izuku had no desire to be on the wrong side of one of Mr. Aizawa’s heaviest glares again, if he could help it.
The presence, Izuku was almost certain, had something to do with the extra precautions at UA. If it was someone who wanted to attack him, they certainly would have done so after the first couple days. Izuku was a predictable person and while the apartment building he and his mother lived in was far from the worst in the city, it wasn’t exactly built to withstand any sort of concentrated attack. Nor was Izuku at any sort of level that would warrant being watched for any nefarious reasons – he may have been one of the few to survive the Hero Killer without lasting injuries and he may have been one of the few to have ever even seen the mysterious blue flamed villain, but it wouldn’t have taken anyone long to realize Izuku had mainly been lucky and didn’t pose much of a threat. If someone had been tasked with gathering information about him, they certainly would have been bored of it by now.
Even if it were some sort of villain biding their time, they wouldn’t have shown the same sort of respect that his shadow had been granting him either, Izuku was certain.
Which left a few options. Either the commission, as Mr. Aizawa had warned, was keeping an eye on Izuku post-internship – the likelihood of which was only marginally wider than the likelihood that he had caught and kept some nefarious interest, someone from the police force had been tasked with following him after the Stain debacle – slightly more likely, especially considering Izuku had been required to give a witness statement turned borderline report to Detective Tsukauchi on his return to Musutafu, or, the most likely of all, Principal Nezu had tasked someone with making sure Izuku made it home safe.
The idea galled Izuku, a little. He hadn’t asked any of his friends directly if any of them were being followed, reluctant to raise any alarms for something that was most likely nothing, but he had talked to them about the sudden security increases around UA. If any of them had felt they were being followed, they certainly would have said something and if Izuku had noticed someone following them, most of his friends would have as well. Which meant that none of them were and that meant, if it was on UA’s orders, Izuku was the only one subjected to it.
Izuku didn’t like to think about that. Mr. Aizawa had promised to treat him like any other student, but no other student was being followed home. No other student had caused so many problems with UA, either though, and Izuku knew he was becoming a very expensive target on UA’s near pristine record.
If it was UA having a teacher follow their only omega hero student home to make sure they weren’t getting into any further trouble, it wouldn’t be long until they realized what a waste it all was. Izuku was toying the line between potential hero and expensive liability. He didn’t like to think about how easy it would be to tip the scale irreversibly. How easy it would be to suddenly no longer be worth the headache he was undoubtedly causing the school.
But he was being silly, it might not even be UA. It was the likeliest of all the options, but that didn’t mean it was correct. It could be something else.
What it could be, Izuku wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he didn’t think his shadow meant him any physical harm. And asking about it or drawing attention to it would only lead him to more trouble.
So he let it go, let himself be followed and made sure that each day the weight of the shadow’s gaze had lifted before actually walking to his front door. And he tried desperately to forget about it.
It wasn’t easy, but eventually the discomfort of the gaze became routine, and Izuku gradually let himself relax his guard on it and focus on more important things; his exams were coming up rapidly after all. And no one had any idea what the hero exam would entail.
Of course, it was the day of the hero exam that Izuku’s shadow actually became a person and a problem all in one.
It started with the kidnapping attempt.
Because of course, Izuku’s life could no longer be normal.
He had left a little earlier than usual, full of anxious energy and craving the sort of outlet that would have ended up with something broken and his mother scolding him for practicing in the apartment again. Because of this energy, he had decided to take the longer way to the station, the way that curved to dip under a bridge and pass a few more residential streets before heading back to the busy center of town where the train station resided.
Perhaps Izuku should have known better than using the pass – it was less used, especially this early in the morning, and it cut closer to Aldera than Izuku liked to risk, full of his old teachers and underclassmen who had never interacted with Izuku directly but certainly remembered the odd quirkless omega boy – but Izuku was used to it, even though it had been nearly a year since he regularly walked it, and his feet had taken the path before his mind had caught up.
The trees were in the full bloom of early summer, full of quietly chirping birds that hadn’t been scared off by mid-morning traffic yet. No eyes but the usual followed Izuku and he felt comfortable enough to slip his notebook out of his backpack one handed and begin flipping through the pages.
The heroics exam was almost always combat-focused in some way, for first years, from what Izuku was able to gather. He found it unlikely to be from the robots that had dominated the entrance exam, like Ashido and Kaminari had apparently been told, but he couldn’t rule it out. Nor could he rule out the idea that it might be against his classmates or against students from 1-B. A new type of robot was possible as well. The location of the exam had to be considered as well – an obstacle type terrain was unlikely, as that had been the exam just the year prior, but Nezu was fond of maze-like terrains, often replicas of cities. It had been awhile since UA had implemented a more rural type environment, so Izuku couldn’t discount the idea that he might find himself in a mock forest or some sort of mountainous terrain.
Often, there was some sort of teamwork associated with the first year exam, so Izuku had to consider if he would be working alone or in a group of some sort. UA tended to favor smaller groups, duos or trios being the most common in years past, but he couldn’t discount the possibility of larger groups or even the whole class against all of 1-B. Izuku would obviously have preferred if he could pick his own team but UA had never allowed such a thing in all the research for the exam he had done, and even the supposedly random pairings showed a distinct trend towards grouping together teams that had some sort of similar weakness or were polar opposites in their abilities. In one memorable case, Izuku had seen a rant online about a former student, who had not only failed but then been expelled from the program entirely, had been forced to work with the classmate they had despised.
That person had been bitter, so Izuku took their words with a grain of salt, but he couldn’t put it passed UA to purposely pair students together based on personal issues of some sort, especially if the teams were often paired solely to judge how the students worked with unfavorable allies. It wasn’t often in the field that heroes could just choose their allies in the middle of an unexpected battle, and it made sense for the school to want to see how students could handle such a situation before it was actually forced on them.
It would be difficult if Izuku was forced to work with a partner based off some sort of weakness. He got along fine with most of his class, although some of them had gotten weird since they had more or less found out about his secondary sex – Kaminari kept asking if he had eaten and had even invited him to eat with him sometime, Izuku had no idea why his classmate suddenly cared about his dietary habits, other than that it had to be some sort of protective response. Tsu had roundly and firmly shut that down by reminding Izuku – who had been about to agree out of sheer politeness because Kaminari’s worries were harmless enough that he would have gone along with it just to keep the peace and also show the other boy that he was fully capable of choosing nutritious meals for himself – they had study plans before Izuku met with the rest of his group for Mr. Aizawa’s ethics project. Kaminari had looked disappointed but hadn’t asked again.
Sero, too, kept inviting Izuku to things, although mostly sparring matches, which Izuku generally agreed to if only because it was something normal. They had been generally perfectly average, too – Sero had not suddenly started going easy on Izuku just because he was an omega – all the way up until the last one. Izuku didn’t know why Sero was having so much difficulty with escaping the new hold Izuku had learned, but he’d had no problem pinning the boy over and over again on the mat to give him a chance to learn. But then Todoroki, who had learned about the practices after the third time Sero had invited him, had demanded an invitation. The other boy had made things a little awkward with how hard he was staring Sero down as they had set to practice the move, but Izuku knew he hadn’t meant to. Todoroki was just a little rough around the edges when it came to social interaction. That hadn’t stopped Sero from inviting him out, either though.
Mina kept inviting him to her sleepovers – Izuku had turned down them all, blushing a little, because it had seemed inappropriate and a little insulting, considering he was still a boy despite his secondary sex, and his mother would have never approved him going once she’d learned Yaoyorozu also attended. She was hardly the most traditional sort, but she had drawn strict lines about Izuku spending the night with any alphas she had never met, even with other friends in attendance, and the idea of his mother discussing intentions with polite, elegant Yaoyorozu was mortifying nightmare-fuel.
Todoroki and Iida had only been spared by virtue of saving his life, and Izuku had still been forced to undergo a second, truncated version of his mother’s ‘Talk’ which had mainly consisted of his mother politely interrogating Izuku about him and twin blushes for the rest of the day the one time Shinsou had walked home with him to borrow some of Izuku’s notes.
Even with the weirdness, Izuku could have worked with them and most of the rest of the class, which meant, of course, he would not be paired with any of them.
On the other hand, Kacchan was an obvious choice to pair with Izuku because Kacchan hated him, but he wasn’t the only one. Jirou hardly spoke to Izuku – whether that was because of his quirklessness or his sex or just coincidence because she was a quiet person and they didn’t run in the same circles, he didn’t know but a final exam would be a terrible time to find out.
The absolute worst options, though, even including Kacchan, would be Sato or Ojiro.
They had never said anything terrible, of course, but Izuku saw the way they avoided him in order to not do so, saw the way their eyes followed him in training, the way they hastened to choose partners in sparring practices and would go out of their way to not pick Izuku, even if he was nearest them. Saw the way Ojiro had hesitated to enter the locker room the first day Izuku had been back – he probably would have point-blank refused, had Izuku not seen his reaction and feigned having forgotten something in order to turn back.
Izuku had just gotten used to using the locker room with the other boys, had begun appreciating how normal it had felt even though he still blushed a little if he caught sight of a bit too much of one of his classmates.
Kirishima was a little too comfortable with his nudity, in Izuku’s opinion.
Izuku knew if he pushed the issue, it would only be trouble for Ojiro, so he had begun waiting again or changing in one of the bathrooms stalls inside the locker room. The other boys noticed, of course, but apart from some staring – and an awkward talk with Todoroki in which Izuku had to reassure him that no one had done anything, Izuku had tried but just didn’t quite feel comfortable being unclothed around so many people. Which was perfectly true anyway, Ojiro’s discomfort made Izuku too aware of his own body to ever feel comfortable changing with the other boys in the class again.
Changing with the girls was out of the question. So Izuku changed alone. He showered alone too, but he had never stopped that, and UA was considerate enough that, while communal showers were the norm, there were also a small series of separated stalls intended for students whose quirks made it difficult to shower in the communal area. He and Shoji, who often used the separate ones because it gave him more room for his extra arms, were the only ones who used them and if the taller boy begrudged Izuku for the use, he had never let it show – had never been anything less than scrupulously polite, in fact.
Izuku shook the thoughts from his head; he didn’t need to think about the shower situation in UA at the moment. There were more pressing issues, namely that if his existence in an area as simple as the locker rooms made Ojiro uncomfortable, there was no question of being able to work with him during an exam. Izuku could swallow his own pride, and appease the beta, but he doubted Ojiro could do the same. Or Sato, who had never been as obvious as Ojiro but whose gaze always seemed to follow Izuku in classes.
It would be nothing less than a disaster, working with either of them. Kacchan, at least, might refuse to work with him at first, but his pride would never allow him to fail the exam. Izuku couldn’t be sure of the same for Sato or Ojiro. And there was no way the teachers hadn’t noticed the tension, but the other two hadn’t done anything to warrant an expulsion like Mineta, let alone show any obvious prejudice against him and even if it became apparent during the exam, it wouldn’t save Izuku’s grade.
Izuku tried to think of scenarios in which he could successfully work with Ojiro and Sato as he walked – Kacchan would have to just be on the fly, the other boy and his attitude towards Izuku was simply too unpredictable for any concrete planning. He was engrossed in one idea – perhaps squashing himself into a purely defensive role could assuage their concerns, that would be doable if it was a purely combative exam, although it might lead to Izuku’s failure if he didn’t do enough – when a loud clattering brought his attention fully to the surface.
He was beneath the underpath now, in the darkest part of the walk, and he had been fairly certain he was all alone – hadn’t even felt the eyes of his shadow. Except he wasn’t alone, the sewer grate in the middle of the underpass had been pushed up, somehow, and there was a form coming forth at an alarming rate.
Izuku was almost certain it was a person but unlike anyone he had ever seen – a dark mass of greenish-brown sludge squeezing themselves out the city sewer was not something he was accustomed to and he took several steps back as the person fully burst out.
That had been a mistake – Izuku should have run.
The figure was massive, towering over Izuku in some semblance of an oozing human form, and the leer in their face was nothing short of predatory as they caught sight of Izuku.
“Perfect!” The person roared and Izuku barely dodged in time as one of their arms shot out to grab him. “Hold still! This will be over before you know it, kid!”
Absolutely not. Izuku knew better than to let the person grab him. He didn’t know if this was some kidnapping attempt or just a random stroke of ill-fated luck, but he wasn’t about to let some obvious villain get their way.
His hero uniform was still at school but Izuku had taken to carrying his staff in his backpack. Technically, any weapon given to him by UA was supposed to stay with his costume unless approval was given until he had his provisional license, but Mr. Aizawa had never said anything about the missing slot during costume check-ins and Izuku had taken that as tacit approval.
He dodged the figure’s arm again as he threw his notebook onto the ground to reach for his bag. The sludge villain was fast, dangerously so, and Izuku’s backpack followed his notebook after he had managed to catch a hold of his staff in order to get the weight off of him.
“Hold still, brat!” The villain’s temper was flaring as another grab came up short. Izuku’s staff clicked in his hand but he held off from hitting him.
The figure had no discernable body for Izuku to hit. He couldn’t just risk wildly swinging – the thick sludge could easily absorb his staff, leaving him with no way to defend himself.
The villain changed tactics after Izuku ducked underneath them and the next swing, rather than trying to grab him, struck across his torso. Izuku had fallen back enough that the blow just grazed him but for a sheer terrifying moment, Izuku felt himself get pulled forward, the blazer of his uniform ripping from the force.
The sludge was sticky.
This couldn’t get any worse.
The next swing, Izuku risked his staff to intercept. He couldn’t afford to get sucked in. He had no idea what the sludge villain intended with him – they seemed to have foregone normal speech in favor for a string of grunts and foul language – but he wasn’t about to find out, either. The sludge pulled hard once it made contact with the staff, and Izuku gritted his teeth and forced himself to pull back even as his shoulders burned from near-dislocation. A sloppy press against the button and a sharp, quick burst of electricity had the sludge villain shouting and pulling back, shaking their sludgy arm as though to force the pain back.
The sludge was slightly conductive then, unable to fully disperse the shocks the way other materials might. That was a good sign; Izuku would have preferred the sludge to be more conductive – if the sludge had been more watery, Izuku’s electricity could have been far more devastating, rather than little more than mild-tasering effect – but he would take what he could get.
The villain had backed up a little, seemingly unwilling to get zapped once more. They were at a standstill but Izuku knew it wouldn’t last. He needed to figure out a way to actually incapacitate the villain – the shocks from his staff would keep the villain away but they wouldn’t do any real damage when their body was so fluid. And Izuku couldn’t get close without risking the goo of their body trapping him.
There had to be some solid part of the villain’s body.
Izuku dodged another swipe from the villain as he thought.
Every part of the villain’s body seemed to be made of goo, rather than just covered, but the villain had spoke – was even now still yelling and roaring words Izuku didn’t bother focusing on – which meant there had to be more to their body.
Speaking meant a mouth of some sort – Izuku looked up and tried not to flinch at the look in the villain’s eyes. They had ben lazily arrogant when they had first caught sight of Izuku but they were downright furious now as they loomed over him, twin specks of glowing yellow in the sea of greenish-brown that made up the rest of them.
The eyes.
Izuku launched himself back, gaining distance from the villain while whacking them hard with the electrified staff.
The villain’s eyes were the only solid part of their body that Izuku could see.
His backpack was out of reach and Izuku didn’t dare let go of his staff, but if he could just find something – a stone, some dry dirt, trash even – to nail them in the eye, then Izuku could buy himself time to think further on how to incapacitate the villain.
Before Izuku could find anything, something flew past him.
Izuku couldn’t help his own shout when that something buried itself in the villain’s eye, sending them roaring back as red spurted.
“Wh-wha –“ Izuku whipped partially around, careful not to turn completely away from the villain who was yelling and cursing, goo hands reaching up to staunch the blood flow around the buried blade.
There was a girl standing near the entryway. For a split moment, he thought she might be an Aldera student, dressed as she was in a school uniform. But the colors didn’t match the school’s and the uniform was too dirty to ever gain approval.
“Oops!” The girl grinned, one hand coming up to cover her mouth in some mockery of surprise. She looked almost plain, despite her dishevel, except her skin was almost deathly pale and her toothy grin bared slightly elongated incisors that her hand didn’t quite cover.
Almost like a vampire, Izuku couldn’t help but think, slightly hysterical. He was supposed to be on a normal, calming walk while he went over all the possibilities of his exams, not running into villain attacks and being rescued by dangerous, violent strangers. Again.
“Who-who are you?” The girl at least hadn’t attacked him and the sludge villain was still reeling from the injury to their eye, so he had a moment.
“You weren’t supposed to see me!” The girl responded cheerily. She had dropped her hand and, somehow, produced another knife. “Dabi’s going to be so mad! Oh well! Go ahead and duck now, Izuku!” Who was Dabi? How did this girl know his name – why was she addressing him so informally?
Was she the one who had been following him? Why?
Izuku didn’t have time to ask anything else. The girl was unleashing her other blade, her aim startingly precise, and the sludge villain was shrieking as they covered their remaining eye. The blade sank into the goo harmlessly but it seemed the villain had seen enough. With a warning curse, they dove away from Izuku and the mystery girl before she could pull out another blade.
Izuku ran forward – he couldn’t just let the villain escape so they could hurt someone else – but the sludge was disappearing back into the sewer grate faster than Izuku could reach them and it would be foolish to follow them without knowing what awaited him.
He turned back to the girl. Part of him was grateful, another part terrified as he prepared to confront her.
It didn’t matter; so thoroughly that Izuku would have thought he had imagined her if it wasn’t for the splatter and drips of red marring the remnants of green ooze strewn all around him, the girl was gone.
He ran forward, looking around desperately. She couldn’t have just disappeared.
But there was nobody.
Just like that, Izuku was once more alone under the bridge. The morning was quiet, as though nothing had happened.
Izuku took several deep, calming breaths. Then, dreading everything, he pulled his phone from his pocket, and, as though on autopilot, began dialing the non-emergency police number.
Distantly, he wondered how quickly this would get back to Mr. Aizawa and UA and how much trouble he would be in.
He was never going to be allowed to go anywhere alone again.