Chapter Text
Izuku sighed as he turned on the morning news. Like every other morning, he sat at his apartment counter shoveling cereal into his mouth and staring at heroes doing… hero stuff. That’s all the news is nowadays, really. Number One Hero Endeavor. All Might, even though he’d long since been retired. Budding new heroes like Uravity and Froppy and… Dynamight. Heroes have changed a lot since he was a kid. He still remembered his level of idolization towards them, his posters an obvious testament to that time, a phase of which he hadn’t lost til he was nearly 17, and only because a cute girl came over and he got embarrassed. (Or maybe that had just been an excuse to himself—that deep inside, he didn’t want to get rid of it of his own volition, because he knew it meant that he was truly giving up. That that phase of his life was well and truly over—that that was it. Or maybe he wanted an excuse to get rid of it because he wanted it to be over. Because he was tired of being reminded how he had tried and failed.)
It was just a stupid phase, anyways.
An alarm on his phone went off and he jolted, realizing he’d been paused in place as he zoned out, a spoonful of cereal left halfway to his mouth. He chugged the rest of his breakfast and dumped the dishes in the sink for later before pulling on his coat and rushing out the door.
After he’d crashed and burned miserably (i.e., failed the entrance exam), he’d applied to a run of the mill high school. His grades in middle school had been good, of course—only the best of the best got into U.A., and he had always been quite smart—but he was tired of hoping, tired of aiming high. He just wanted to stay close to the ground for a while. He got in and spent his high school years in some weird puberty-teenager-hormone-filled blur. That is to say, he spent a majority of those years miserable and angsty. Miserable over his failure, miserable over Kacchan— Katsuki —(What does he even call him now? What do you call someone that left you in a pile of ash and dust? What do you call someone who crushed you, just to gain a small spark, a small lift into the air?)
He sighed, scratching his neck as he walked onto the train. Those thoughts had plagued his brain for a while afterwards, of course, but in the end, they always led to the same conclusion. Bakugou did what he had to, and Izuku does not blame him. He’d always been better, anyhow. He deserved it. Izuku watched him thrive from afar, saw his successes, saw his losses, saw him crash and burn, then rise up again, then soar. Izuku was a fool for thinking he’d allow him to drag him down, to stay behind when Izuku was struggling, when Bakugou… wasn’t. They were exaggerated thoughts anyways. It’s not like Bakugou had actively thwarted or betrayed him, he just… (broke a promise, left him behind—) wanted to win. Like he always did. How could he blame him for that?
Izuku held no resentment towards him. (Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.) Bakugou will fly, and Izuku will stay where it’s safe, and that’s how it is, and that’s how it will be.
He walked into his office building like he did everyday. He sat down at his desk like he did everyday. He filled out spreadsheets like he did everyday. He grabbed a coffee at 11 A.M. like he did everyday. Monotony and routine fueled him at this point. He remembered once reading an article about how staying in your lane and following the same routines led to a smaller world-view. That it’d get smaller and smaller, til you couldn’t do anything else, even if you wanted to. He’s scared, but he won’t admit it. He’s scared, but it’s comforting, and so he won’t do anything else— can’t do anything else, because what else is there?
Izuku sipped his coffee as he walked to the copy room, his thoughts finally focussing on the task at hand. He seemed to be all out of sorts today. The copy machine always made a funny click before reading the papers, and sometimes he had to kick it a few times, and then it’d make an odd bang—
Hm.
Well. He didn’t quite recall the bang being that loud.
Izuku stumbled back, his coffee splashing over the ground as he instinctively backed away from the whole ass person who had been thrown through the walls of their building . Great. Awesome. And they were on fire and actively setting everything around them on fire as well! That’s wonderful. Just what he needed.
With another heavy sigh, he decided he might as well do something about the whole.. fire thing. If the copy machine burned, god knows it’d take weeks to get replaced, if at all, and it was something he used everyday. The dude seemed to be unconscious, anyway. Or dead. He… really hoped they weren’t dead. The smell was horrible, and they were most certainly grievously injured at the very least.
Nevertheless, Izuku carefully stepped around the (hopefully unconscious!) body, quickly surveying the flames. His eyes darted around as he thought the best way to minimize damage. He looked down at his coffee cup, and quickly made a decision.
He used his quirk to put all the flames in his coffee.
They dissipated easily. Though the room was still charred and smoky, it was significantly better than if Izuku had done nothing. He sighed in relief once the copy room was no longer on fire, ignoring the possibly dead person on the ground, then immediately jolted back to reality as another bang sounded. In an instant, it seemed to finally set in—he was quite literally in the middle of a battle, and either he should get the hell out of the way, or…
Or, he considered, looking down at his coffee, now filled with ash, he could help. Izuku could help.
It really wasn’t a very hard decision. Almost as soon as he made this realization, he chucked the coffee cup—well, no, that would be rude to the cleaning staff—he gently set the coffee cup on a nearby table and rushed to the janitorial closet, grabbing the nearest bucket. As he rushed out of the building, he dumped any liquid he could find along the way into it. Water bottles, sodas, coffees—he’s sure his co-workers wouldn’t mind. Probably. It was in the name of justice.
He stumbled out of the stairway, managing to only slightly spill the weird soda-coffee concoction in his rush, and began to cough as smoke filled his vision. It was worse than he’d thought, it seemed, though as he ran out of the doors and saw who was outside, it made sense.
Endeavor had always been known for the destruction he left behind. Today was no exception. Pristine buildings—now wreckages, debris covering the ground, crumpled vehicles, and, most pertinent of all, the fire . It was spreading fast. It’s surprising how quickly fire grows and consumes everything in its path. Endeavor likely knew this will. He also likely didn’t care.
Izuku had to care. Because he knew he could do it.
And he did. He ran around best he could with his underused legs, harnessing the fire and watching it sizzle out in the bucket. Every flame and ember filled him with a sense of completion—of… happiness. Gratefulness that he had finally been given a chance to do something, to be useful. He wondered why he’d never done it before, but as he squeezed one last flame into the bucket and dropped it to his feet, he finally looked around and remembered.
Those fighting in the air—Endeavor, Burnin, Shoto—were still the real heroes. Izuku… was not. He picked the bucket back up, preparing to get back to work, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him in his path. He turned around wildly, thinking he was about to get yelled at for interfering with the fight, but instead, he was met with a kind face and a gentle, encouraging smile. He didn’t quite recognize them, but their clothing and protective gear made it clear what they were doing—they were the clean-up crew.
They were extremely soft-spoken—Izuku had to strain to hear them. “I saw what you did,” they began. “It was incredibly brave. You used your quirk well.”
Immediately, Izuku began spluttering and waving his free hand. “No, no—it’s… what anyone would do. I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing,” he nervously laughed. With zero hesitation, the other responded, “No.”
“I… I’m sorry?”
They flushed, as if they hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Apologies—I just meant… No, it’s not what anyone would do. I don’t know many people who would rush out and risk their life like that, and if anyone should know a lot of people like that, it’s me,” they joked lightly. “But… seriously. That was really impressive.”
Izuku had only grown more red as the other continued speaking, and his mouth opened and closed. He was lost for words. They took pity on him and continued. “My name’s Suzuki. There’s not a lot of people on the clean up crew, and it gets… a little out of hand,” they said. Understatement of the century, Izuku thought, but said nothing, letting Suzuki continue. “We’re always looking for more people like you. Not many people like working with Endeavor, but the clean up crew really doesn’t interact with him much.” They pulled a business card out of their pockets, and—this really seemed as though they’d been desperate enough to pull just about anyone off the street, what with the whole prepared speech and business card, but Suzuki seemed earnest enough.
Still, Izuku frowned. “Ah… thank you, but—I really do like my job right now, and it all seems… dangerous,” he said weakly.
“You don’t have to take a permanent job! Even just on the weekends, or a few times a month—there’s good hazard pay, and per job, we get… maybe about—”
Suzuki said a number with far more zeros than Izuku would expect.
He paused.
Endeavor… was not a good person. Everyone knew this well. Working with him felt as though he was abandoning his morals. However, he had to acknowledge that Endeavor would most definitely continue working like this, with or without a clean up crew.
He distantly thought back on just how thrilled he had been as he extinguished the fires, the casualties caused by Endeavor—the lives Izuku could save —and, perhaps the most exciting of all, the possibility of being able to afford eggs. It wasn’t as though he’d been giving up his normal life entirely, of course. A few times a month couldn’t hurt.
He took the business card.