journey to the past

Izuku is five years old the first time he's saved by heroes. He's an instant fan of the woman in pink with her cheerful smile and the man with his ice powers and fine-boned features, even if they both refuse to tell him their names.
For most of his life, Izuku has been the centre of villain attacks, but he has never been injured. Every time, he's saved by bright, unknown heroes—heroes who smile at Izuku, and ruffle his hair or ply him with hugs, and seem mesmerised by how small he is.
Heroes that the rest of the world doesn't believe exists.

(Time-travelling Class 1-A AU)

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter Text

Izuku is five the first time he’s saved by a hero.

He has been quirkless for six months. Really, he’s been quirkless his whole life—most people, like Kacchan, like all the kids in his class, had a quirk laying dormant under their skin, waiting to unfurl, but not Izuku. He never had anything waiting. That part of his DNA was missing. Broken, Kacchan said. Izuku was broken.

But he hasn’t stopped loving heroes. He lives and breathes heroes, remembers them all, but he’s never seen these heroes before.

Izuku is walking home from school. He doesn’t hear the heavy thud of the villain landing on asphalt, but he does feel a hand tap him on the head. His feet lift off and he floats into the air. He flails his arms like a bird. Without gravity’s influence, he pinwheels through the air, squealing.

The sidewalk ices over. Steam wafts off the sheets of ice.

Izuku flaps his hands and turns in a circle in mid-air. There are a man and a woman standing behind him. The man has two-toned hair and stands tall and regal like some kind of prince. The woman wears a pale pink jumpsuit. She has a nice smile. She waves at him, almost giddy, and Izuku waves back.

The man commands ice with ease. The woman doesn’t look at whatever has the man so focused, so intense. Instead, she keeps smiling at Izuku like he’s made her whole day.

Izuku spins himself around again and—

There’s a giant villain in the middle of the street. Izuku doesn’t recognise him. He knows he’s a villain, because he has a mean snarl and he’s brandishing an even meaner bouquet of knives. The prince-like hero ices him to the ground without moving from his place across the street.

When the villain is completely trapped, the woman runs over. She says, “Release!” and Izuku falls out of the air and into her arms. She squeals against his hair. “Oh, you’re so cute. And so small.”

“You’re going to scare him,” says the man.

“No way.” The woman pulls away from the tight hold just enough to look Izuku in the eyes. “I bet he loves hugs. Right? Do you love hugs?”

Izuku nods, eyes wide. The woman squeals again and pulls him to her chest.

“Put him down,” says the man.

“You’re just jealous. I bet you want to hug him, too.”

“… Maybe.”

Izuku doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s in shock, he thinks. An awed kind of shock. He just saw two heroes take down a villain he hadn’t even realised was there. They’re here—in person, and not on TV or on YouTube like every other hero fight he’s watched on a loop. The heroes are solid and real, and one of them is hugging Izuku tightly.

The woman sets him down on the ground and Izuku grabs her hand to stop her from leaving. “Can I have your autographs? You were so awesome. You jumped in there like, Bam! Take this! Ice! And you grabbed me and floated me up like I weighed nothing. Your quirks are so cool, and I love your costumes, and I’ve never seen you before, but—but I’m a fan now—!”

The two stare at him. Izuku digs into his backpack and grabs his exercise book and a blue marker. He holds both up, and then remembers his manners. “Please?”

The woman presses her hand against her cheek. Her eyes are wet. The man looks at Izuku like he’s trying to stop himself from scooping him up and carrying him away.

Izuku lowers his book. An apology is on the tip of his tongue, but the woman jumps forward and yanks the marker out of his hands in her haste to sign his book. The man signs it with the same intensity he had iced over the villain trying to sneak up on Izuku. He looks faintly constipated.

Izuku clutches the book to his chest. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I want to be a hero too, one day. Even though—”

Izuku cuts himself off. In the weeks after he found out he was quirkless, neighbours came up to him and his mum and offered their condolences, like Izuku had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, rather than pronounced quirkless. He had never been popular at school, but the kids inched away from him, as though he smelt funny. And this woman had hugged him and smiled so widely at him—he doesn’t want to see her face drop when she hears that Izuku is quirkless.

Something strange flickers over their faces. The man looks constipated again. The woman says, choked, “I think you’d make a great hero.”

“Don’t lose hope,” says the man.

Izuku runs all the way home, book pressed to his chest. Mum panics when he tells her about the villain that almost attacked him, and says to walk to school with Kacchan and some of the other kids in the neighbourhood. Izuku promises to, even though Kacchan usually just tells him to get lost when he trails after him.

Mum also helps him boot up the computer and look up the names of the heroes who saved him. Izuku wants to stock up on their merchandise. Mum would let him. She helps facilitate his love for All Might, and these heroes had personally saved his life, after all.

With help from Mum, Izuku types in, Floaty hero. Nothing comes up. He tries, Ice hero; pair heroes; two-toned hair; anti-gravity hero; new heroes.

Nothing. Lots of heroes have elemental or gravity quirks, but none of them are the heroes Izuku met today.

“Are you sure you’re remembering correctly?” Mum asks. “Are you sure they didn’t give their names? What do their autographs say?”

For the first time, Izuku opens up his exercise book. In blue marker, one hero has written:

To my favourite fan,

It was wonderful meeting you. Plus Ultra! You can do it!

Izuku thinks the woman in pink wrote that. The other note must be from the ice hero. It simply says, Stay strong.

It is signed, Your friends.

There are no names.

Izuku knows the two heroes that saved him, even if the world doesn’t. He pulls out his hero journal and draws them beside All Might. Izuku applies the lightest of pressure with a pink pencil to capture the woman’s pastel costume. Floaty Girl, he calls her. She’s his friend, she said so, and it would be rude to keep calling her “the pink lady.” Floaty Girl is a great hero name.

He calls the other hero Ice Prince, because he’s prince-like with his quiet seriousness and handsome face. Izuku pays special attention to the Ice Prince’s long hair when he draws him. He makes sure to include the discoloured splotch on his face that Mum says is probably a birthmark or scar when Izuku describes it.

He doesn’t manage to capture the man’s fine-bonded features no matter how many times he tries. The Ice Prince is much prettier in person. Izuku makes sure to tell Mum that when she looks at his drawings, because for some reason, that seems like an important detail, and she laughs and calls his crush cute.

“I don’t have a crush,” Izuku says, puffing out his cheeks. “They’re my friends.”

“Of course, I understand,” Mum says in a way that makes Izuku think she doesn’t actually understand at all.

The teacher calls the heroes his imaginary friends when she catches him drawing them in class. Her smile is forced when he tells her that they were real, that they had saved him and said he could be a hero. She nods, just once, and tells him to focus on the classwork rather than his imaginary friends. This time, Izuku doesn’t correct her. He’s getting good at recognising when people stare at him as though they’re looking through him, like he’s a pane of glass.

That would have been the end of it—Izuku would have continued drawing the cheerful girl and pretty boy until the memory faded and he thought the two heroes really were figments of his imagination—but then, three months later, he meets another set of heroes that shouldn’t exist.

Izuku sees the villain coming. He’s walking home from the park by himself. None of the other kids wanted to play with him, so he’s going home to watch All Might videos, even though Mum says kids his age shouldn’t spend all day shut up in the dark.

A hulking villain cracks the footpath under him. His arms are roped with muscle, and his face is twisted up into a snarl, and salvia drips from his pointed teeth. Izuku screams and stumbles back.

A wave of acid cuts through the footpath between them, eating at the cement. The villain stumbles to his feet, but acid sprays across his back and he howls in pain.

A hero in silver jumps onto the villain’s shoulders and sends shockwaves of electricity coursing down his back. The villain falls to his knees. Tape wraps around the villain, keeping him immobilised on the ground. Every time he tries to rip through the tape and get back up, another pulse of electricity sends him back down again.

A woman with pink skin crouches in front of Izuku. “Are you okay?”

Izuku pushes himself to his feet. One of the other heroes, a man with lemon-coloured hair, says, “Holy shit.”

The tape hero elbows him in the side. “Language, dude. He’s five.”

“I’m five and three-quarters,” Izuku corrects.

“That’s very grown up.” Izuku’s shoulders rise up to hide his ears. He knows the acid hero is just trying to be nice. But she waves her hands in the air, and puts on a big, happy smile, and says, “I mean it! That villain is scary and you didn’t cry once. This guy cried the first time he faced a villain and he was fifteen—ten years older than you.”

She points at the electricity hero with her thumb. The tape hero snickers. The electricity hero makes a sound like a seagull’s squawk.

“Hey! Most of the class cried that time. It was really scary.”

“The point is,” says the tape hero, “you’re really brave, buddy. Brave kids deserve a reward. Is there anything you want?”

All his journals are at home, along with his markers. It’s a weekend so he doesn’t have his backpack on him and can’t even ask them to sign his school books.

Instead, Izuku takes a big gulp of air, and says, “Do you—do you want to play with me?”

He stands with his fists pressed to his sternum and his knees locked straight, the way he stands when he’s saying something big and important to Kacchan even though his heart is pounding and his head feels tight because he knows Kacchan is more likely to blast him backward than to listen.

The heroes don’t blast him back. They smile. The lemon-haired hero says, “Hell yeah, little man.”

The tape hero fiddles with something on his wrist—like a watch, but smoother and without a clock-face. “Let me send a message to Traverse so he can collect this shi—uh. The bad guy. Take Mi—”

The tape hero cuts himself off again. He looks at Izuku and smiles, but it isn’t the easy, happy smiles they’ve been giving him. It looks like it doesn’t fit right on his face.

“Hey,” he says, “what’s your name, buddy?”

“Oh!” says the acid hero.

“Good save, man,” says the electric hero. “That could’ve ended badly.”

“I’m Midoriya Izuku. What, uh, what are your names?”

“I’m Alien Queen,” says the acid hero proudly. Izuku blinks. It doesn’t like a very heroic name. The other heroes look pained.

“Uh,” says the tape hero, “I’m … Tape-Man. Yeah. Tape-Man.”

The electric hero is silent for a long moment. They stare at him. Izuku can hear the other kids yelling and laughing from the park a few streets away, and for once, he doesn’t wish he was there with them, even when he hears the soft sounds of explosions and knows that Kacchan is running the Bakugou Hero Agency without him.

“Man, come on,” Tape-Man says eventually, cutting through the silence. “It’s not that hard.”

“It is that hard! I’m bad at coming up with things on the spot.”

“What about when we had to come up with one—” Alien Queen begins.

“I came up with that name years before UA. My brother suggested it.” The electric hero scrubs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in the back. “How do I come up with another one?”

“How about Electro?” Izuku suggests.

They all turn to look at him. The electric hero—Electro—snorts with laughter. “I think that might actually be a better name than—okay. Sure. Electro it is.”

Izuku smiles. He doesn’t ask why a hero has waited this long to come up with a hero name. Electro said he was bad at coming up with names, after all.

They leave Tape-Man to watch over the villain. They head into a quiet side-street where they won’t disturb passing cars, and play right there in the street. Izuku doesn’t have his All Might costume with him, but he’s played heroes and villains enough times that he doesn’t need the outfit to be a hero. Alien Queen and Electro pretend to be villains and Izuku chases after them.

Tape-Man returns sometime later, sans the villain, just as Izuku is scaling Electro like a tree and yelling about restoring justice. Electro is shouting at Alien Queen to help him. Alien Queen is bent over laughing on the other side of the street, refusing to help her partner.

“Tape-Man!” Electro shouts, and then bursts out laughing. He whispers, “Tape-Man” to himself, as though the name is the funniest thing he’s heard, before smoothing out his features. “Tape-Man, you have to help me defeat this hero!”

Tape-Man pulls Izuku to his chest. Izuku squeals and tries to flail about in his grip, but Tape-Man launches a rope of tape onto the tall apartment building beside them and they rocket up into the air.

Izuku clutches at Tape-Man, but he can’t stop beaming. They soar up and over the street until the entire neighbourhood is spread out beneath them. Izuku can see the park Kacchan wouldn’t let him play at. He can see his school crowning over suburban houses. He can see his own street. Maybe Mum is looking out the window and can see him flying through the air. He waves in the direction of his apartment, just in case.

The heroes can’t stay forever. They each scoop Izuku into a hug before they leave and that, on top of the hours spent playing with him, is worth more than any autograph.

That night, Izuku sketches the trio in his journal, over and over again until he’s sure he has Alien Queen’s horns just right, and the zigzag of black in Electro’s hair, and Tape-Man’s bulbous elbows.

He googles the heroes, but, just like Floaty Girl and Ice Prince, he doesn’t find anything. According to the internet, Alien Queen, Tape-Man, and Electro don’t exist.

Mum frowns when Izuku tells her about the heroes at breakfast. He thinks she might not believe him, but they were real. Izuku remembers the feel of Electro’s leather jacket under his palm. He remembers Alien Queen’s burble of acid eating at the pavement. He remembers Tape-Man’s solid grip around his middle as they soared above the neighbourhood.

Even if no one believes him, Izuku knows his heroes are real.

When Izuku is six, a truck veers off the road and onto the footpath. It almost hits him, but a man with engines in his legs pulls him clear of a truck. He sets Izuku down gently, and then dives into the truck to grab the woman behind the wheel. He cuffs the woman’s hands behind her back and secures a muzzle around her mouth. Izuku thinks this is extreme, until the hero pulls his hand away from her face and Izuku sees the holes in his gloves. Acid spit.

“Are you alright?” The hero has a square face and squarer glasses. He’s so tall that Izuku has to crane his head back to see him.

“Is she related to Alien Queen?” Izuku asks. “She has acid spit, and Alien Queen could shoot acid out of her hands, so maybe they’re cousins.”

“Alien Queen?” The man’s mouth thins into a disapproving line. “Ah, no. She’s definitely not related to Alien Queen.”

Most people screw their faces up when Izuku talks about Alien Queen, but this hero doesn’t. He knows who Alien Queen is. It sounds like he’s met her before.

Izuku bounces in place. “You know Alien Queen? Are you friends? Partners? Do you take down villains together?”

The hero pushes his glasses up his nose. His armour is in bits in pieces, as though he got dressed in the dark and forgot to pull on half the components.

“I know her, but I can’t talk about her. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Izuku says. “What’s your name?”

“ … I can’t tell you that either.”

“Oh,” Izuku says again. He stops bouncing. “Did you get dressed in the dark?”

The hero looks down at himself and grimaces. “I got dressed in a hurry. The villain attack caught me by surprise. We’ve been monitoring—nevermind. I’m glad you’re alright.”

The hero agrees to give Izuku an autograph. He signs it, Your friend, just like Floaty Girl and Ice Prince. He gives Izuku a hug, too. It’s a good hug. The armour digs into Izuku’s stomach and cheek, but the hero is tall and warm and he presses Izuku to his chest as though he’s something precious.

Izuku is so excited by the run-in with such a great hero that he doesn’t pause to think about the run-away truck or the driver that seemed to aim for him, specifically.

Izuku sketches the hero when he gets home and jots down details about his quirk. Then, he googles him. It’s beginning to feel like a routine, now.

Unlike the other times, though, Izuku manages to find a hero that looks just like the man he ran into. Ingenium. A real pro. He’s relatively young; he only graduated from UA two years ago. His armour is a sleek white and black, and his face is square, and his hair blue, but he seems slightly off. Something about him is not quite right. And … and he has engines in his forearms. Not his legs. His hero agency is several hours away from here.

Mum frowns at the screen when Izuku shows her. “It says he stopped a robbery in Tokyo this morning. That’s hours away. He’s too far away to have saved you, Izuku. Are you sure you didn’t mishear the name?”

The hero hadn’t told Izuku his name.

Mum is frowning at him again, her brows pinched together in worry. It’s a familiar look. She wears it when he brings up his dream to be a hero.

Izuku mumbles, “Yeah. I must have heard wrong.”

This is something he’ll have to figure out himself.

Izuku has his head down and he is focused on putting one foot in front of the other. His ribs aches and his arm stings from his elbow to his fingers. Kacchan had spent the summer increasing the range and force of his explosions, and it shows. Hero training, he had called it. If Kacchan spends next summer furthering his quirk, he may start to do serious damage to Izuku. Permanent damage.

Izuku stumbles and almost falls. He shoves that thought away. He has to work on getting home. If he thinks about what happened less than an hour ago, he might break down crying again, and the sun is beginning to set. Mum will be worried. He has to get home.

He doesn’t notice the villains until he bumps right into one.

The man is easily twice his height. He’s flanked by two others. Strength augmentation quirks, probably. They bear their teeth and flex their arms at him. The street is empty behind him. There’s no one coming to his aid.

The man to the left eyes Izuku up and down. “You sure this is him? He doesn’t look like much.”

“All the books say he started small. His quirk developed late or something.”

“He’s already all beat up, though. You think he would let people push him around?”

“Please,” Izuku says, drawing his arms up against his chest, “I don’t have any money. I’m just trying to get home.”

They laugh like Izuku has said something funny. Izuku’s instincts are screaming at him to run, but his feet are rooted to the ground.

He thinks, This is going to hurt so much more than Kacchan’s explosions.

They take a step forward, and Izuku stumbles back and collides with someone else. He whirls around. He was alone a few minutes ago, just him and these three villains in the empty street turned orange by the setting sun, but now there are two more men. One with a smile that shows off his sharp teeth and red hair gelled into spikes, and the other with green grenades strapped to his wrists and a motorbike helmet obscuring his face.

“Oh, fuck,” says the big villain.

Grenades launches himself at the group, tackling them to the ground. They skid across the pavement in a sprawl of limbs.

Grenades works them over with brutal efficiency. His quirk is nasty. Explosions. Bigger than Kacchan’s, even.

The other man, the red one, crouches down beside Izuku. His smile is kind, even if his teeth are pointy like a shark’s. “Are you okay?”

“Who are you?” Izuku asks.

Red doesn’t answer. He’s too busy looking Izuku over, expression morphing into something unreadable. “Your arm—your face. What happened?”

Izuku hides his scorched arm behind his back. “I’m fine.”

“I can tell you’re not fine, little man.”

Izuku looks back at Grenades. Explosions aren’t a common quirk, but it’s not unheard of. His quirk is so much more powerful than Kacchan’s. It’s frightening and beautiful all at once.

Why hasn’t he heard of this hero? Izuku assumes he’s a hero, anyway. He’s been cataloguing heroes for years. If he came across a hero with a quirk similar to Kacchan’s, he would have recorded it, and Kacchan would probably go on and on about a hero if they had a quirk like his, loud enough for the entire class to hear, either because it proved his quirk is suited to heroics, or because it would annoy him to have an existing hero out there with a similar quirk. He’d think they were copying him or showing him up, even if Kacchan was born after them.

“You should get that treated,” Red says, trying to peer at Izuku’s injured arm.

“Are you heroes?” Izuku asks.

Red freezes. It’s a simple question, isn’t it? Unless these two are vigilantes. That would explain the helmet Grenades is wearing, the one that hides his identity and makes him look a bobble-head.

“Yes,” Red says, scratching at the back of his head. “I mean, we will be? I mean. Yes. Yeah. We’re heroes.”

“You will be?” Izuku echoes.

“You said too much, you idiot.” Grenades has finished tying up the villains. His voice is deep and gruff, muffled by the helmet. “We’re heroes. End of story.”

“This whole thing has me all flustered, dude,” Red says, standing up. He’s tall, almost the same height as Grenades, but some of that might be from his hair. “I mean, look at him.”

Grenades does. Izuku shrinks back. He can’t see Grenades eyes, or even his face, but he can feel his gaze like a physical weight.

“You’re hurt,” Grenades says. It’s not a question. “Someone did that to you.”

“It’s nothing,” Izuku says. “You don’t need to—you don’t have to worry or anything. I’m fine. It’s not—I’m handling everything.”

“He’s wrong,” Grenades says. “He’s wrong, and one day he’s going to realise that, and he’ll never touch you again. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to.”

“Pa—pardon?” Izuku says in a small voice.

“He’ll be sorry,” Grenades says. “He’ll be so fucking sorry.”

“You said ‘he’,” Izuku says. “Do you know—”

“I guessed.”

Grenades stalks away, back to the unconscious villains. The setting sun glances off his helmet. He looks strange and dreamlike, bathed in orange light. The entire street looks unreal. Maybe Kacchan shoved him too hard and he hit his head on the way down.

“Can you get home by yourself?” Red asks.

“Yes,” Izuku says.

Red ruffles his hair and even though it jostles the bruise on the back of his head, Izuku leans into the touch. Red’s palm is warm and scratchy. Solid. Real.

“Get yourself looked at,” Red says. “And remember that one day—”

“Careful,” Grenades warns in a low rumble.

“You’re telling me to be careful? After what you just said?”

Grenades goes quiet, turning his back on them. Red scrunches up his face like he’s thinking hard.

“It gets better,” Red finally settles on. He scrubs his hands through Izuku’s hair again. Izuku closes his eyes, and Red does it again. Izuku wants to stay there all night.

When he opens his eyes again, Red is watching him with an unreadable expression and Grenades is hovering behind him, his hands clenched into fists. Grenades is staring at him again. Izuku flinches back in surprise. Grenades stumbles away like Izuku is the frightening one.

“Sorry,” Izuku says, even though he’s not sure what he has to be sorry for. The line of Grenades body is tense. It hurts to look at.

“Don’t apologise,” Grenades says.

“Sorry,” Izuku says and then realises his mistake. “Uh.”

“This is kind of painful to watch,” Red says, but he’s smiling.

“Sorry,” Izuku says again. The two heroes stare at him. “Oh! I mean—I mean—”

“We should get going,” Grenades says.

Red nods and heads over to the trussed up villains. His back is broad and textured strangely, faint lines running down his skin like the bark of a tree. Does it have something to do with his quirk? Izuku hadn’t seen his quirk. He wonders why Red is here if Grenades is capable of handling so many villains by himself.

He casts another glance at Grenades. The stiff posture tells him everything; Grenades is anxious about something. Red, with his kind smile and warm hands scrubbing easily through hair, is there to keep his partner steady.

“Thank you,” Izuku tells Grenades, “for saving me.”

“Don’t thank me,” Grenades says.

Izuku wrinkles his nose. No apologies and now no thank yous? Who is this hero?

Grenades hesitates and then he reaches out, like he’s afraid Izuku will bite his hand off, and ruffles his hair like Red did. His glove is uncomfortable in his curls and he isn’t as gentle as Red, but it’s nice.

“Wait,” Izuku says, “what are your names? Can I have your autograph?”

He turns around, looking for someplace that might have paper, someone on the street he could borrow a pen from, but there’s no one around. When Izuku turns back around, both heroes and the unconscious villains are gone, as though they’d never been there at all.

A villain floods the neighbourhood park, half-submerging the bushland. If Izuku was standing upright, the muddy water would only reach his bellybutton, but the villain keeps him down, holds his legs flat against the earth, even as Izuku squirms and claws at her hands. The villain has gills on her neck. She smiles at him when he opens his mouth to scream and only bubbles come out.

The water is murky and littered with tree-parts and neighbourhood debris—rubbish and spare shoes and long, sharp sticks. Izuku can barely make out the villain’s face through the dirty water. The hero that wrestles him free of the villain is just a blur of green.

Izuku breaches the surface and sucks in air. His whole body is shaking. If it weren’t for the hero—her tongue, secured around his waist, keeping him steady—he would have toppled back under the water.

“Are you alright? Ribbit.”

Izuku squints at her through sore eyes. “What … what happened?”

“A villain attack. You’re safe now, though. My partner is taking care of it.”

The hero is frog-themed. Her costume is designed to match her quirk, assumedly. It’s friendly, the kind of happy yellow and green that Izuku would instinctively trust if he saw her out on patrol. She tilts her head to one side and taps her finger against her mouth, watching him with big eyes.

“You’re very cute,” she says.

Izuku squeaks and flails back. This time, he does fall back into the water. She hauls him back onto the tree branch easily, and holds him a bit tighter.

“What? I’m not—what?”

“And the same as ever.” She’s smiling. Is she laughing at him? “I like being truthful, and the truth is that you make a cute kid.”

“Stop!” Izuku buries his wet face in his hands. His cheeks are burning. Mum said something about wet hair making you sick—is Izuku already developing a fever?

“Alright, I’ll stop.” She looks over his shoulder. “She’s almost done. Are you okay, now?”

Izuku nods, yes. He pushes his wet fringe out of his face. “Um … Thank you. For saving me, I mean. Can I ask what your name is?”

“Froppy.”

“Froppy!” Izuku bounces in place. The tree branch bounces with him, making the entire tree shake. “That’s a really cool hero name. Thank you for telling me. Could I get your autograph, too?”

“I don’t think we’ll have time,” Froppy says, “but I’ll give you my autograph one day. Ribbit.”

Izuku doesn’t quite understand what one day means, but she didn’t tell him no, so he’s happy.

“All done!”

Izuku whirls around with such force that he almost falls out of tree, even with Froppy’s support. He can’t breathe. There’s no water in his lungs, no villains near him, but he can’t breathe, because there, wading through the waist-high water, her suit as pink and her smile as bright as he remembers, is—

“Floaty Girl.”

Floaty Girl stops in the middle of the clearing. “I thought—”

“I didn’t want to just stash him somewhere and then leave him.” Froppy gestures at Izuku, but he’s too busy staring at Floaty Girl with stars in his eyes to notice. “He’s too cute. Ribbit.”

“Hey, there,” Floaty Girl says to Izuku in a soft, private tone.

Izuku presses his hands to his cheeks, suddenly shy. In a small voice, he says, “Hi.”

“I was wrong,” says Froppy. “This is too cute. You’re both too cute.”

It’s hard to tell beneath her pink visor, but he thinks Floaty Girl is blushing.

“Oh,” Izuku says. “Are you two girlfriends? Or maybe wives?”

Are they old enough to be married? Married hero pairs aren’t very common, but they exist, like the Water Horse heroes. Izuku has always admired those kinds of heroes.

Froppy drops him. Water splashes over Izuku’s head and douses his curls once more. Izuku splutters and tries to get his feet under him.

Floaty Girl helps him stand. Froppy says, “I’m sorry, Izuku. You surprised me.”

Izuku takes in Floaty Girl’s deep blush, and says, “I embarrassed you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Floaty Girl says. “I’m not embarrassed. I’m not embarrassed at all.”

Izuku coughs up the water he accidentally swallowed. Once he has his breath back, he jerks upright and points at Froppy. “Wait—you called me Izuku!”

“Oh, dear,” Froppy says. Floaty Girl is flailing about in the water. Izuku can’t tell if she’s still embarrassed at being called Froppy’s wife or if she’s panicked at this revelation.

“Alien Queen told me your name,” Froppy says. “I recognised your freckles and green hair. Ribbit.”

“Alien Queen remembers me?” Izuku asks.

“Of course she does,” Floaty Girl says. “I remember you, too, even if you’ve gotten taller since we first met.”

“You did?” Izuku asks.

Floaty Girl’s smile is as a wide and cheerful as he remembers. It’s like All Might’s smile—it puts something warm and ticklish in his stomach, like he’s swallowed a fistful of flower buds that are now blossoming under his skin.

“Of course. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Izuku jumps at Floaty Girl. She laughs and scoops him up under the arms and spins him around. They’re both wet and their hair drips into their eyes, and Froppy is watching from up above, but Izuku thinks he’s never been this happy in his life.

“So are you married to Froppy?” Izuku asks when Floaty Girl puts him down.

Floaty Girl doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns to Froppy and says, “Froppy?”

“What?” Froppy says. “Why shouldn’t he know our names? We’ll leave soon and it won’t matter.”

Floaty Girl frowns. “The others aren’t going to like it.”

“You’re leaving?” Izuku asks.

Izuku’s wet fringe drips into his eyes. Floaty Girl pushes it off his forehead. The touch of her hands reminds him of Red. Tears prick at his eyes. He wishes he could see his friends more often.

“You’ll see us again,” Floaty Girl says. “I know for a fact you will.”

“How?” Izuku asks. “How do you know?”

Floaty Girl kneels down in the dirty water and crushes Izuku to her chest. “I just do. Be strong, Izuku.”

Izuku hugs back. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

Izuku uses his allowance to buy a stack of notebooks and fresh coloured pencils. He dedicates his original notebook, the one with rough sketches from when he met the first nine heroes, as his identification notebook. In here, he writes down dates and names. He draws the heroes who have saved him. With the new coloured pencils, he meticulously colours in their costumes. It takes him several test runs on a spare sheet of printer paper to find the shade that matches his memories.

The second notebook is his theory notebook. There’s so much to unpack. On the first page, he writes down all the questions he has:

Why have there been so many villain attacks recently?
Why does no one else recognise these heroes? Why is there no information about them online?
Why won’t some of them tell me their real names?

He will come up with more questions later, he’s sure. For now, he brainstorms rough theories and makes notes.

After an hour, he flips back to the first page, and adds:

How can I meet them again?

These heroes don’t have friendly costumes. They don’t have a pretty, almost-delicate face like Ice Prince, or a respectable air like Almost-Ingenium, or a bright smile like Floaty Girl. They’re dressed in dark colours. A living shadow peers at Izuku over the bird hero's shoulder. The taller hero has six arms, some of which sprout eyes and mouthes at the end instead of hands. Neither of them will tell him their names.

Izuku thinks they’re both incredibly cool.

Izuku was almost attacked by villains, but he is already brainstorming possible hero names, unfazed by the near-miss. The taller hero could be Dupli-Man, Muscle-Bound, or Shift Hands. The bird hero could be Reaper, Dark Soul, Black Bird, or Raven.

“Can I have your autograph?” Izuku blurts before the villains have hit the ground. He’s not worried about them. These two are capable of handling them.

Black Bird pauses, even as his shadow preens at the attention. “I don’t know if that is wise.”

“I don’t see the harm,” says Shift Hands.

Izuku shoves his notebook at Shift Hands. He looks down at the blank page, pen held in one of his many hands, and then says, “Ah. Now I see.”

“Have you given an autograph before?” Izuku says.

“Yes,” Shift Hands says slowly. “It’s just …”

“We walk a shaded path,” Black Bird says. “One day the shadows will retreat and you will be beside us, bathed in sunlight, but for now, we must remain a mystery.”

Izuku glances from Black Bird to Shift Hands. “Uh. Pardon?”

“You’re just being cryptic to confuse him,” Shift Hand accuses.

Black Bird sticks his beak into the air. “We were told not to give anything away.”

“An autograph isn’t giving anything away. Not if we do it right.”

Shift Hands seems to think for several moments before finally scribbling something down. He passes the journal to Black Bird, who also signs it. His shadow curves over his shoulder, peeking at the signature, and bursts out into coughing laughter.

Black Bird hands the journal back. Not every hero agrees to give him their autograph, so Izuku gives them his best toothy smile, so wide it hurts his cheeks, and says, “Thank you. And thank you for saving me, heroes!”

“This light,” Black Bird says, “it’s blinding.”

Shift Hands nods solemnly. “It’s the same smile, but it’s also …”

“So much more. I will cherish this sight for years to come.”

“I wish I had a camera,” Shift Hands agrees.

Izuku cocks his head to one side. “Huh?”

Shift Hands ruffles his hair. His broad palms are large enough to span the width of Izuku’s face.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shift Hands says.

Izuku opens up his journal to see what their signatures are. It reads: No. 6 and the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come. Somehow, he doubts that this is their real names. Should he keep the names he came up with or should he refer to them as No. 6 and Ghost in his notes? The latter is more accurate, but he was getting attached to Shift Hands and Black Bird.

He puts his journal back into his bag. He’s not surprised that, when he turns back around, the alley is empty save for bags of rotting garbage and faint blood stains on the brick walls.

Izuku recognises the tall silhouettes shadowed by the setting run before they have turned around. It’s not the two-toned hair or the detailed amour—it’s the quiet dignity with which they hold themselves; the slope of their broad shoulders; the way they stand like they will not be moved.

Izuku should look for villains since his friends only appear when there is danger near, but he can’t take his eyes off them. He runs, backpack thumping nosily with every step, and the two heroes turn.

“Ah,” says Ice Prince. “It seems we lost track of time.”

“We miscalculated,” corrects Almost-Ingenium. “Surveillance usually doesn’t eat up so much time, but we forgot to take into account how unfamiliar with the landscape we are.”

Izuku steadies himself with his hands on his knees. “You’re here.”

“You should be hurrying home,” says Almost-Ingenium.

Izuku has a dozen questions he wants to ask. All the words try and come out at once and he chokes on the syllables, spluttering up at his heroes.

Ice Prince drops a hand on his shoulder. It’s hot, like he’s just climbed out of the bath. The warmth seeps into his skin, even through Izuku’s winter uniform.

“Breathe,” Ice Prince says.

Izuku sucks in several rattling breaths under their careful watch. They don’t hurry him or move along to do something more important elsewhere. They’re patient. They’re here.

“What are you doing here?” Izuku demands when his breathing evens out.

“Patrolling,” says Ice Prince.

“Do you patrol here regularly? What hero agency do you work under? Am I going to see you around here again?”

Ice Prince looks to Almost-Ingenium for guidance. Almost-Ingenium says, “That isn’t information we can give out to civilians.”

“You can’t even tell me where you work?” Izuku narrows his eyes at Ice Prince. “Can you at least tell me your hero name?”

“I’m sorry,” Almost-Ingenium says. “We can’t do that.”

“A few of the others already have,” Ice Prince says.

“I know. We can’t change that. But that doesn’t mean we can just be reckless—”

Izuku is mentally recording everything they say. Pro heroes aren’t secretive, not to fans and the media, unless they’re asked a case-sensitive question, and Izuku only wants to know their names, their agencies, and how to support them. The only way their secrecy might make sense is if they were underground heroes with quirks that made it difficult for them to operate if they were well-known, but neither Ice Prince or Almost-Ingenium look like conventional underground heroes. Neither of their costumes are designed for the dark, and with their marketable styles, they have the potential to be incredibly popular. Agencies would probably encourage them to go public. Plus, their quirks are more suited for daytime activity. Ice Prince’s quirk especially would be difficult to keep secret, given how ice powers are. So why can’t Izuku know something as simple as their names—

When Izuku looks away from his hands, twisting and untwisting in his uniform shirt, he finds the heroes staring at him with unreadable expressions. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that they almost looked … fond.

“Ah!” Izuku waves his hands in the air. “I did it again. I’m always getting in trouble with my teachers for mumbling aloud like that. I don’t even realise—I just get stuck in my head and don’t realise. I’m—I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Ice Prince says in a flat voice, but he’s smiling, faintly. Flat is his default, Izuku thinks. It makes him seem very cool. Untouchable. Like nothing could bother him. Izuku is jealous. His voice is all wobbly and high-pitched and he mumbles and rambles whenever something strikes his interest. He’ll never be a cool-type hero like Ice Prince.

“Your curiosity and analytic nature will be valuable when you’re older,” Almost-Ingenium says. Ice Prince glares at him. “What? That isn’t anything out of the ordinary to say. Those are both worthwhile traits that anyone in any career would find useful.”

“Um,” Izuku says.

“You should be getting home,” Ice Price says. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

“Will I see you again?” Izuku asks.

The heroes exchange unreadable glances. “Yes,” Ice Prince says, “you will. I promise.”

Hero Journal #10

They look the same as I remember. ~~I thought I had been exaggerating how pretty Ice Prince was but he’s still so handsome and I~~ Their hero costumes haven’t changed either, even if Almost-Ingenium was wearing more of his armour this time around.

This is further confirmation that the heroes all know one another. How many are there? How do they know one another? Hero agencies don’t normally employ so many pro heroes at once. Are they friends? Did they go to school together? Are they united in a similar cause?

Why doesn’t anyone else know that they exist?

“What are you doing, Deku?”

Izuku folds his arms over the desk to hide his sketches, but Kacchan shoves his hands aside and wrestles a sheet of paper free. He holds it up and sneers. Izuku has drawn Ice Prince staring at some point in the distance, the wind tugging through his long hair, flecks of ice creeping up one side of his body. The drawing is in pencil. Izuku was planning on colouring it that afternoon and taping it into his journal.

“What the fuck, Deku? An imaginary boyfriend?”

The kids behind him snicker to themselves. Izuku feels very small.

“Give it back!”

Izuku makes a grab for the drawing, but Kacchan holds it up even higher and shoves Izuku back down in his seat with one hand.

Kacchan peers at the other drawings. Alien Queen’s black eyes, and Almost-Ingenium’s armour, and Black Bird’s billowing cape is just visible, poking out beneath Izuku’s arms. Kacchan wrestles free the drawing of Alien Queen.

“Who is this?” he demands.

“She’s a hero,” Izuku says. “She’s my friend.”

“What’s her name, then?” Kacchan asks.

“Alien Queen.”

Kacchan stares at him for a long moment, something twisted up about his expression, before he shoves at Izuku’s desk. Its skids back, the metal feet scraping loudly against the floor, and Izuku is shoved back with it.

“Fuck off,” Kacchan says. “How do you know her, then? There’s no pro hero called Alien Queen.”

“She—she’s a hero. She’s a hero and she’s my frie—friend.”

“Pathetic,” Kacchan says. “Fucking pathetic. No one wants to be around you, so you have to invent imaginary friends.”

“They’re not imaginary,” Izuku says.

“Oh, yeah? You going to introduce me to your friends, Deku?”

Even if he wanted to, Izuku doesn’t think he could. They never stick around for long. They’re not his friends in the way that Kacchan was his friend, playing together on the weekend, and walking to and from school, and sharing everything from lunches to All Might action figures. No one else knows that they exist.

Izuku’s shoulders slump. Kacchan laughs, and it’s a rough sound, a mean sound, and makes their classmates, watching from neighbouring desks, laugh with him.

Kacchan looks down at the drawing of Ice Prince again, considering it, before ripping it in half, and then quarters, and then in eighths. He throws the pieces over Izuku. When Izuku starts crying, Kacchan rolls his eyes and stalks back to his own desk. He shoves the drawing of Alien Queen into his uniform pocket.

That night, Izuku tries to tape the drawing back together, but it doesn’t look right. He gives up and throws the pieces in the bin. He never gets the drawing of Alien Queen back.

He meets Invisible Girl and Ninja Warrior next, which leads to Izuku barricading himself in his room and theorising all weekend about heroes working in pairs vs in teams vs individually.

Ninja Warrior distracts and baits the fighter-type villain before Invisible Girl pounces on him from behind. The villain goes down hard. Invisible Girl cheers and, assumedly, throws her hands into the air. Ninja Warrior smiles, looks to his right, and freezes upon seeing Izuku.

“I knew what we were getting into,” Ninja Warrior says slowly, “but … holy shit.”

Invisible Girl follows his line of sight, spots Izuku, and squeals. Izuku jumps back in fright.

“He’s so CUTE!” She skips forward. From the bouncing of her gloves, he assumes she’s jumping up and down. “Hey, how old are you, sweetheart? You must still be a few years off from UA!”

“UA?” Izuku repeats.

The bouncing stops. “High school in general, I mean. We went to UA, so it’s easy to forget other schools exist. Why, do you want to go to UA?”

There’s something in her tone that makes him think he’s missing something. These two attended UA. Did the others attend UA, too? If only UA’s information was available to the public, then he could go digging and find their real names.

“Everyone wants to go to UA,” Izuku says, “but their admission-rate is so low. I’d be impossible to get in.”

“You never know,” Invisible Girl says and then laughs like she’s said something funny.

They don’t know he’s quirkless. The realisation is like a jolt of ice through his stomach. Izuku doesn’t tell people if he can help it. People in his life will always find out—at school, you’re asked what your quirk is right after your name, and Izuku is kind of infamous for being quirkless.

None of the heroes have asked his quirk yet. Izuku won’t volunteer that information on his own.

Ninja Warrior frowns, his tail thumping at the asphalt like the foot of a rabbit. A nervous tick. Invisible Girl notices Ninja Warrior’s silence and elbows him in the side. “What’s up?”

“Just … ” Ninja Warrior looks at Izuku. There’s something twisted up about his expression—something almost amused, almost fond, but pained, too. Like looking at Izuku hurts him. “Were you always this small?”

There’s a tense pause and then Invisible Girl laughs again. This isn’t the easy, feminine laughter of before; this is a manic sound, this side of too sharp. “You hit your head back there, honey. All kids are small, remember? You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Right,” Ninja Warrior says, shaking his head. “Right. Kids are small, and then they grow up, and they’re not small and they can handle themselves. They turn into scary teenagers or adults that no one can touch.”

“Are you okay?” Izuku asks slowly.

“I’ve been in some strange, stressful situations lately,” Ninja Warrior says. “Don’t worry, kid.”

“I hope everything works out,” Izuku says.

“You’re sweet, but we have to be going,” Invisible Girl says.

She tussles his hair and then tugs Ninja Warrior back down the street. Why do heroes keep ruffling his hair? What is it about him that draws mysterious heroes to him and then compels him to save him and mess with his hair in equal measures?

“See you later, honey,” Invisible Girl shouts over her shoulder, Ninja Warrior stumbling over his feet to keep up with her. They disappear around a corner. Izuku gives chase, but when he rounds the corner, he finds a wide, empty street. Neither hero is in sight.

The heroes that save him every few months should be famous. They’re the kind of heroes that people should sit up and notice. But no one else knows who they are.

Izuku has dozens of theories, some more plausible than others. Currently, his top five working theories are:

These heroes do covert operations. Underground heroes stay out of the public eye for the most part, but maybe these heroes are on another level, dealing with conspiracies and terrorist threats and all kinds of classified things that are not safe for public consumption. This theory is undermined by the fact that A) none of them, aside from Black Bird and maybe Shift Hands, possess the kind of quirk suited for covert hero work, and B) Izuku isn’t worth this amount of effort.
Izuku received an untreated brain injury when he was younger. Kacchan knocked something loose in his head and now Izuku is dreaming of heroes swooping in and saving him. He hates this theory.
This is an elaborate practical joke or social experiment. Either someone is watching and laughing at his expense, or this is a drawn out experiment testing to see what the average child would do when faced with regular villain attacks and hero interactions. Izuku doesn’t know why the joke or experiment might continue on for years. His reactions aren’t especially noticeable. He has grown a little more sure of himself, a little less likely to startle at loud noises or panic when confronted with danger, but he hasn’t changed that much. Surely the experiment would have plateaued by now.
He was influenced by someone’s wild quirk years ago, possibly a child without full control of their power, that has made him hallucinate random heroes and villains; although, Izuku doesn’t know anyone who’s quirk is powerful enough to accidentally affect someone for years, and he doesn’t know anyone that would purposefully waste that much energy on him.
This is the result of a latent quirk—Izuku’s latent quirk. This one hurts too much to even consider. He cannot let himself hope, not again, not after years of crushing disappointment and grief. It would be a double-edge sword, too—to discover after years of torment that he does have a quirk, but it is impossible to prove to those around him and it is useless for heroics.

He scraps each theory almost immediately. His friends feel solid and real when they pull him out of danger; when they scoop him up and carry him to safety; when they crush him to their chest in a desperate hug before dropping him, as though shocked by their own actions, as though remembering they’re hugging a strange quirkless child rather than a loved one. Izuku can’t believe that his heroes are anything other than real.

The van jerks as it barrels over a speed-bump. Izuku is thrown against the hard edge of the door.

The other person in the back of the van, a man in a fox mask, laughs at Izuku’s frantic, winded inhales. Izuku’s hands are tied behind his back, but he manages to get his feet under him and push himself upright. Fox laughs even harder when he sees blood drip down Izuku’s temples and into his lashes. His whole face feels wet with blood, and tears, and spit that leaks down his chin from the coarse rope stuffed in his mouth.

Fox reaches for him. Izuku flinches back, but there’s nowhere to go. A hand claps down on his shoulder, keeping him in place. Fingers drag over the wound on his head. Fox holds them up, examining the red sheen of his fingertips, before sliding his fingers into his own mouth and sucking.

Izuku starts crying. He wants to be strong, but he’s so scared.

Fox grins around his fingers. “You taste so sweet. I always knew you would.”

Izuku curls up against the door. He imagines Floaty Girl tapping the van and making it fly up into the air so all the bad guys slide right out the door, away from him. He thinks about Black Bird descending on the van like a bat. His shadow would smash through the window and pull Izuku to safety. He thinks about Alien Queen melting the door clear off its hinges so Izuku could scramble out and run for safety.

He thinks about All Might. He wants All Might to be here, to let him know it’s alright. He would rip the door off and pull Izuku into his strong arms. He would be smiling, even as he knocked the villains out with a single punch. Then he would pull the ropes off and carry Izuku all the way home to Mum—

Mum. She must be so worried.

“Aw,” Fox coos. He pulls his fingers out of his mouth. They’re spit-shiny. All trace of Izuku’s blood is gone. Swallowed. “What’s wrong, little bunny? Where’s that big, bright smile? Where’s your bounce? Not so ‘can do’ anymore, are you?”

The van slows and then stops, but the engines keeps vibrating beneath them. They must be idling at a red light. Izuku pushes himself up and lunges for the cloth blacking out the windows. If he can signal to a passing car, then they can call the heroes—

Fox catches him by the hood and yanks him back. Izuku chokes. Fox’s arms wrap around his middle. Izuku can feel his hot breath ghosting against the back of his neck. Fox says something, something terrible, but Izuku is deafened by his own heartbeat.

He thinks the shout and thump from the front seat are hallucinations, at first, but then the engine switches off. The front doors open and slam closed.

Fox doesn’t notice, but Izuku does. Are they not at a red light? Have they arrived at their destination?

The back door is ripped open. Fox jumps to his feet.

A man with purple, slicked-back hair glowers up at them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“How did you—” Fox cuts off mid-sentence, clapping a hand against his mouth, but it’s too late. His eyes glaze over. His shoulders slump, all the fight drained out of him.

“Let go of him and exit the van,” says the purple-haired hero.

Fox drops Izuku and stands. His face is blank. He robotically climbs out of the van. The hero sweeps Fox’s feet out from under him and restrains him.

“Go to sleep,” says the hero. Fox closes his eyes against the asphalt and dozes off. The man approaches the van slowly, hands open. “Are you alright?”

Izuku looks at him with wide eyes. He makes a muffled sound behind his gag.

“Shit. Right.”

The man pulls out a pocket-knife and climbs into the van. Izuku forces himself to hold still when the man crouches down in front of him and takes hold of his jaw so he can cut the gag free. He severs the ropes around Izuku’s arm and legs before stepping back out of his personal space.

“That was mind control,” Izuku says.

The hero won’t look at him. “Yes. It was. I won’t use it on you, though.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Izuku says.

The hero blinks at him, almost surprised, though Izuku doesn’t know why. He saved him. Izuku is still reeling from the aftereffect of panic, but he’s already picked out a name for this hero: The Operator.

The Operator gives Izuku a piggy-back ride home. When prompted, he talks about his quirk and the design elements of his costume. He doesn’t comment on how violently Izuku is shaking. He even asks questions about how Izuku is doing at school and manages to sound genuinely interested rather than politely detached, unlike most of the adults Izuku meets.

“Villains try and attack me all the time,” Izuku says into the Operator’s high collar, “but it’s never been this bad. None of the villains have managed to actually grab me before.”

The Operator’s hands tighten and then slacken around Izuku’s knees. “I’m sorry. I should have gotten there sooner. And I should have kept a better watch on those villains.”

“It’s okay. You came. That’s what matters.” A thought occurs to Izuku suddenly. “Hey, Operator? You know the others, right?”

He snorts. “Operator?”

“It’s what I’m naming you, since you aren’t going to tell me your real hero name, right? You don’t seem like the type to reveal that.”

A pause. “No. It’s not a good idea.”

There’s a long pause. Izuku’s vision is blurry. They pass a park and the cluster of trees swim together into one wet, leafy blob. Izuku closes his eyes.

“Most of the others didn’t tell me their names either,” he says. “I’ve been making up names for them, too. Do you think they’d mind?”

“Can I hear the names you’ve come up with?”

“Uh. There’s Floaty Girl, Ice Prince, Red, Grenades, Shift Hands, Black Bird, Invisible Girl, and Ninja Warrior.”

“Oh, my god.” The Operator sounds delighted, like Izuku has personally handed him a gift. “Ninja Warrior. Ice Prince.”

“What?”

“You really went with Invisible Girl?”

“She’s a girl and she’s invisible. I couldn’t be bothered being very creative that day.”

“Neither could she, apparently,” mumbles the Operator.

Izuku doesn’t know what to make of that, so he continues, “And now you’re the Operator.”

“Why did you decide on ‘Operator?’”

“Because you control people, kind of like the way olden day telephone operators controlled phone calls. We watched a documentary about old technology in class a few weeks ago. I considered naming you ‘the Puppeteer’ but that sounds menacing and you’re not menacing. You’re a hero. Heroes should sound cool.”

If fear hadn’t left him feeling so burnt out, and his head didn’t throb with every step, Izuku would probably be using this opportunity to pry the hero for information. But Izuku is content with curling up against the warm, well-armoured back and enjoying the attention.

“Hey, Midoriya?” Izuku hums to show he’s listening. He’s too out of it to question how the Operator knows his name, even though Izuku hadn’t introduced himself. “I’m glad I met you.”

Izuku’s eyes slip shut. “I’m glad I met you, too. Hey, can I have your autograph?”

The Operator laughs. “Sure.”

Izuku sleeps through the rest of the walk. He doesn’t even wake when the Operator brings him home and wards off Mum’s frantic worrying. When Izuku wakes the next morning, Mum sweeps him up into a hug, and plants careful kisses along his tender forehead, and cries into his hair. Izuku clutches at her and finally breaks down.

When they finally pull apart, Mum sets about making an extra large breakfast. She lets him have the day off school to recover.

As she bustles around the kitchen, Mum gushes about the kind, handsome hero that rescued him. Izuku chokes on his glass of water.

“I knew they were real!”

Mum turns to look at him, spatula in hand. “Izuku?”

“My heroes. The heroes who keep rescuing me—I knew other people could see them, too.”

“Are you talking about the Ice King?” Mum asks. “Your imaginary friend?”

Izuku shakes his head. “No. Mum, these heroes that keep rescuing me—they aren’t imaginary. The hero yesterday proves it. I bet if we googled him, he wouldn’t have any results.”

Mum turns off the stove. She’s taking him seriously, now. “What did he say his name was, again?”

“He said—” Izuku falters. “Uh. He didn’t say, actually. I named him.”

Mum stares at him. Izuku pushes his plate away and feels, suddenly, very tired.

“Maybe he’s one of those underground heroes?” Mum says gently, like she’s trying not to hurt his feelings. “They usually aren’t very public. And you did have a head wound, honey.”

“Right. Of course.”

After breakfast, after Izuku inches towards to Mum until she notices his embarrassed expression and sweeps him up into another hug and gently pats his hair until he feels better, he tracks down his notebook. It’s on the desk. He doesn’t remember leaving it on the desk.

He flips open to the last used page. There’s an autograph. A new autograph.

Thank you.

— The Operator

What is the Operator thanking Izuku for?

Izuku doesn’t say it out loud, but these dozen or so heroes are his friends. His only friends. School is a lesson in isolation, but Izuku can duck into a bathroom stall and open up his notebook and see drawings of his friends, see their smiling faces reminding him to never give up hope, and be reminded that he’s not alone, even if it’s been months since he last saw them. Sometimes it’s less than a week between meetings. Sometimes it’s half a year.

After these long absences, he’s always relieved to see them again, and only then, when they’re in front of him, does he admit that he was scared that they would disappear out of his life forever.

Izuku never had a royalty phase. Kacchan had one, though. When they were three, Kacchan wore a plastic crown and a matching cotton cape for six months straight. King Hero, he would call himself, which morphed into King Explosion Hero when his quirk manifested. Izuku thinks he was attracted to kingship mostly because he liked the idea of power. Izuku had never understood it, even when he was three years old and Kacchan was declaring that Izuku was the weak princess that they all had to save. It was heroes or nothing for Izuku.

The hero before him swishes his cape dramatically. His polished armour and glittery cape glint in the sunlight. It hurts Izuku’s eyes to look at him.

“A prince has arrived to save you,” says the hero.

“No, thank you,” Izuku says.

He goes around the sparkly hero in a wide arch, staying clear out of arms reach. The hero splutters and jogs after him. Izuku walks even faster.

“Wait! There are villains looking for you. Stay here so I can rescue you.”

Izuku stops. He turns around, eyeing the hero. “Why are villains after me, a quirkless eleven year old?”

Izuku knows full well that villains would be after him. Not that some random street performer will know that.

The hero tilts his head like a bird. “Pardon? Did you say you’re quirkless?”

Izuku scoffs and keeps walking. This probably isn’t a hero. This is probably one of those street performers that dress up like heroes and use their flashy quirks to amuse crowds, only to get moved along by mall security—or, in harsher cases, arrested for public quirk usage.

The wannabe hero is still following him.

“I don’t have any money,” Izuku says.

“Mon bon monsieur, I do not want your money.”

The hero keeps pace with him for several blocks. Izuku grits his teeth and goes over a map of the neighbourhood in his head. He’s run through these streets enough times as a kid. If he broke into a sprint, he could probably find one of his hiding places before the old guy caught up with him. Kacchan hasn’t sniffed out half of his hiding places, and Izuku thinks Kacchan is much stronger then this stranger foreigner in a glittery cape.

“Then who are you?” Izuku asks as he scans the street. The people they pass barely spare them a second glance.

The man looks delighted to have been asked. He draws up his cape and strikes a pose. “I am Prince Charming, the hero who cannot stop twinkling.”

“Right,” Izuku says doubtfully.

“Are you not dazzled?

His hiding spot isn’t for another few streets, but he decides that Prince Charming probably isn’t much of a threat. He could throw his backpack full of heavy books at him if he tried anything funny.

“Look,” Izuku begins, turning around, “I don’t know what you want, but I’m not worth following around like this. I don’t have any money or friends and—”

The smile drops off Prince Charming’s face. He grabs Izuku around the shoulders before Izuku can reach for his backpack and hauls him down the street, right before a fireball scorches the pathway, right where Izuku had been standing.

A villain wreathed in flames steps out of a side alley. His entire outfit is made of studded leather and pointed spikes, and eyeliner is crusted beneath his eyes.

Prince Charming scoffs. “You are as tacky as ever, mon cher.”

Izuku looks Prince Charming up and down. “You’re calling him tacky? That’s kind of hypocritical, isn’t it?”

Prince Charming ignores him. He keeps Izuku behind him while the leather-bound villain attacks with bursts of flames, returning fire with a sparkly beam from his stomach. Izuku ducks behind a sidewall and watches on.

Prince Charming isn’t anything like the Ice Prince, but he’s definitely a real hero. He takes down the flame villain like it’s nothing. He maintains a smile the entire time.

Izuku takes back everything he thought about Prince Charming before. He’s not Izuku’s preferred hero, but he’s a pro. A pro with a theme. A sparkly, royal theme. Izuku can respect that.

When the villain is knocked out by an especially bright beam of light, Prince Charming flips his long hair back and waves Izuku over.

“Can I have your autograph?” Izuku asks, pulling out his hero journal.

Prince Charming’s smile is so wide it seems almost dorky. He bounces on the heels of his silvery boots.

“Mon cher ami, yes! I am honoured. Do not even thank me, it was my pleasure to save you on this lovely Spring afternoon.”

He takes the notebook from Izuku and signs it with a flourish. When he hands it back, Izuku squints at the page.

Merci pour tout, mon ami.

Take care.

✧ Prince Charming ✧

“I don’t speak French,” Izuku says, studying the words, trying to piece them together. “What does it say?”

When he looks back up, Prince Charming and the flame villain are gone.

Izuku isn’t surprised when Google yields no results. There are plenty of results for prince charming, but nothing about the blond hero in a sparkly cape. Google translate is much more helpful.

Merci pour tout, mon ami.

Thank you for everything, my friend.

Izuku chews at his fingertips and stares at the screen. What does it mean?

Izuku loves almost every hero he comes across, both online and in person. Every quirk is so amazing and he burns up on the inside with jealousy. Some quirks, though, are undeniably cooler than others.

“Anything?” Izuku echoes, jumping in place. “You can really make anything?”

The woman smiles at him. She’s very pretty. “Anything within reason. My fat cells are transformed into different matter, and it’s an exhausting process.”

“That,” Izuku says, “is so cool.”

She refuses to give him a name. Izuku doesn’t mind. He knows some of the heroes just aren’t okay with it.

Izuku spends the rest of the week coming up with a name for her. He almost chooses Creation or Production (Production the Producing Pro Hero sounds too much like a tongue twister). In the end, he settles on Genesis. An appropriately cool name for such an amazing hero.

“Your quirk is cool,” Izuku says around his straw, “but I found someone who’s quirk is cooler.”

The Operator snorts. “Just promise me you won’t say electricity or ice-and-fire. Or worse: explosions. I couldn’t stand that.”

Izuku narrows his eyes. “How do you know about those specific quirks?”

The Operator sips at his bubble tea. He’s quiet as he takes a long drink, before saying, too casually, “Just an example. I dislike flashy, offensive-type quirks.”

“But you like All Might and his quirk, right?” Izuku puts his drink down. “You have to.”

The Operator laughs for some reason. “Don’t worry. I think a hero with a quirk similar to All Might would be very strong, so long as they have the heart. And they do. They have that heart.”

“‘Would be an amazing hero?’ All Might is an amazing hero. Present tense.”

The Operator smacks his lips together. They’re faintly blue from his blueberry tea. “Did I mention Japanese isn’t my first language? Tenses are difficult.”

“Liar.”

“So who is this person with the cool quirk?”

Izuku watches the Operator for another long minute. This conversation is full of lies. He’s not upset—a lot of his conversations with these mystery heroes consist of lies and half-truths—but he is hoping that one day they’ll slip and reveal something crucial. Or else they’ll cave in the face of Izuku’s determined stare.

But the Operator doesn’t flinch. If anything, his smile gets wider and wider the longer Izuku stares at him. He seems to enjoy Izuku’s frustration.

“I met a hero with a creation quirk,” Izuku finally says, after a solid minute of staring into the Operator’s unblinking eyes. How did he learn to keep his eyes open for so long?

The Operator laughs. “I’m comfortable losing to her.”

“Her,” Izuku says. “You said her. So you do know the other heroes. Do you know all each other, is that it? Do you work together? You have to. Or else you’re all in communication with one another.”

“You little brat,” says the Operator fondly. “You know I’m not going to spill anything. Tell me about this amazing quirk.”

“The quirk that you know?” Izuku says. “The quirk attached to the person you’re acquainted with?”

The Operator has that unblinking stare fixed on him again, and Izuku sighs. “Fine. I called her Genesis. Her quirk is fantastic.”

The Operator visits, sometimes. He’s frustrating. Izuku has been running into strange heroes for almost seven years, but he hasn’t received many answers. He wants answers.

He has to try something new. He’s tried it to the Izuku-way for years. He needs to try it the Bakugou Katsuki way, just once, just to see if he can spook information out of the strange heroes that save him.

A hero in a banana-yellow suit punches a villain through a brick wall and then bodily carries Izuku to safety. Izuku doesn’t let himself get overwhelmed by the All Might-like display of strength. He has a mission.

The hero, hastily dubbed Yellow Might, puts him down and ruffles his hair. When he turns to go without a word goodbye, Izuku pounces. He wedges a foot under the man’s leg and uses it to lever himself up enough to wrap his arms around Yellow Might’s neck and cling like a koala. Yellow Might squawks and tries to pull him off, but Izuku clutches at him even tighter.

“Who are you?” Izuku shouts into his ear. “I need answers. Why do villains keep coming after me? Why do strange heroes keep saving me? Why is it me and not someone else?”

Yellow Might gets a fistful of Izuku’s sweater and hauls him off his back. He sets Izuku gently down on the asphalt, his hand still resting on Izuku’s shoulder, and there’s something about his eyes in that moment, something soft and familiar, that makes Izuku think, This is it. I’m finally going to get the answers I’ve been searching for for years.

But then Yellow Might yanks his hand back like Izuku is a feral animal who is going to bite it off and sprints as fast as he can in the opposite direction, scooping up the unconscious villain as he goes.

“You coward!” Izuku yells after him.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Yellow Might calls over his shoulder.

Izuku has had enough of being treated like a kid. He runs after Yellow Might, but by the time he has caught up, both Yellow Might and the villain have gone. He isn’t surprised. He’s barely disappointed.

Izuku snaps a photo of the man-shaped hole in the brick wall with his crappy camera phone and then runs home to sketch Yellow Might while his memory is still fresh.

Prince Charming accidentally destroys a public bench and knifes through a cluster of trees with his glittery lasers. Burnt cherry blossoms flutter in the air. The ground is scorched were the bench once was.

Prince Charming’s smile never wavers, but Izuku can see that he’s sweating. He adjusts his sunglasses and says, in English, “Shit.”

Izuku laughs. “You sound like All Might! He swears in English, too.”

“He is rubbing off on me, I suppose.”

Izuku leaps forward and seizes a handful of purple cape. Prince Charming flinches back instinctively, but Izuku’s grip keeps him from getting far. This is the first time any of these heroes have mentioned All Might. He cannot let him go without a fight.

“You’ve met All Might?!”

“Uh.” Prince Charming is sweating even more, now. “I just—I see him on TV, no? Everyone sees him on TV at this moment in time. I am … influenced by his media presence. Yes, that’s it. I have never met him in person, though.”

Izuku lets go of the cape. He can’t hide his disappointment. A part of him had been hoping that All Might was apart of this whole thing for years. It didn’t make any sense, but any chance to interact personally with All Might was a chance Izuku would seize with both hands.

But that makes sense. People are influenced by All Might all the time without having met him. Like Izuku. Like Kacchan, who started swearing regularly in both English and Japanese a long time ago, partially because of the frequency in which All Might swore, and partially because he likes the way people’s faces twist up when they hear him.

“Do not look so sad, petit lapin.”

Izuku scuffs the grass with his sneakers. “Want to go for milkshakes?”

“Excusez-moi?”

“I want milkshakes.”

“I … okay.”

Izuku leads them to a small cafe. They garner a few stares, but people are so used to minor heroes, street performers, and cosplayers that they don’t question Prince Charming’s presence on the streets. Maybe his costume is so flashy that it detracts attention; people assume the gaudy cape, armour, and sunglasses cannot be anything but a performer, rather than an actual hero.

Prince Charming buys them milkshakes and they sit by the window. Prince Charming struggles more than the other heroes had when just spending time with Izuku with no villain in sight. He keeps opening his mouth to say something and then cutting himself off with a wheeze.

Izuku fidgets with his straw. “Hey, Prince?”

Prince Charming looks up from where he is making shapes in his whipped cream. “Yes?”

“Are we friends?”

Prince Charming looks offended. “Yes, of course! You thought we weren’t?”

Izuku shrugs. “I thought we were, but you’re not around much—you or the other heroes. It’s—”

Lonely, Izuku almost says. Isolating. It plays tricks on the mind. When the heroes are gone, and it’s just Izuku again, he begins to second-guess everything.

Prince Charming reaches across the table and places his hand on Izuku’s. His smile is a little strained, like he’s not sure what to do with his face, but Izuku can hear how hard he’s trying through his words. “We’re friends. I promise, we’re friends. Sometimes, remembering this makes me feel better on bad days.”

“Remembering me?” Izuku asks in a small voice.

“Yes. Remembering that I have the honour of being your friend, and the friend of the others.”

Prince Charming is the gaudiest hero. He catches the light like a disco ball, blinding onlookers, and he strikes poses, and reapplies lip gloss after each fight, but the way he looks now, squashed into a vinyl booth across from Izuku, reaching out for Izuku’s hands, fumbling for the words to tell Izuku that he’s honoured to have friends—it makes him seem humble, almost.

Izuku smiles shyly back at him. “Me, too. When I’m sad, I pull out drawings of you all, and it makes me feel better.”

“You drew us?” Prince Charming asks. “You have drawn me?”

Izuku snatches his hand back. “No.”

“You must show me these drawings!”

“No!”

“You’re still drawing those fucking imaginary friends?”

Izuku tries to hide his journal behind his back, but Kacchan is stronger and faster and wrestles it away from him easily. At least he’ll be quick, Izuku thinks. They’re a few streets away from school, and the morning bell will ring in another fifteen minutes or so. Kacchan wouldn’t risk being tardy, not even for the chance to mess with Izuku.

Kacchan flicks through the journal with an upturned lip. Izuku can’t see how this will end with anything other than a destroyed journal, and he has to bite down on his lip to stop from crying, because he’s put so much work into this journal. It’s almost full. There are so many good notes about his friends in there.

Izuku opens his mouth to try and reason with him, even though he knows it’s probably useless. “Kacchan, give it—give it back. Please.”

“Why? You going to fucking cry if I don’t? I can’t believe you’re still wasting your time on this childish bullshit—”

Kacchan cuts himself off. The journal is open to a random page—a sketch of Red from the last time Izuku had run into him. He sees Red every so often—not as often as Floaty Girl, Almost-Ingenium, or Ice Prince, who are the most frequent heroes, or even the Operator, who’s made several reappearances since he first showed up, but it’s not uncommon to see his sharp, friendly smile.

Kacchan grabs his shirt and hauls him close. Izuku has to go up on his tip toes to stay grounded.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Wh—what?”

Kacchan shakes the journal. “This hero—who are they? How do you know them?”

“He’s my friend, like all the others,” Izuku says.

“The others?” Kacchan says.

“The other heroes. The ones that saved me.”

“Your imaginary friends,” Kacchan corrects.

“They’re not imaginary. They’re real. They saved me.”

Kacchan glowers at him. There’s something about his expression, about the way he’s searching Izuku’s face for some hint of a lie, that makes something in Izuku’s chest unclench. Right now, Kacchan seems different. Less cruel.

Kacchan thumbs through the journal, sneering. “How many of these freaks are in here?”

Izuku doesn’t need to think about it. He keeps a tally and he adds to it after every new encounter. “Seventeen.”

“Seventeen,” Kacchan says. “Are you bullshitting me right now?”

“No?”

Kacchan flicks back through the journal, his lip upturned. Izuku almost wants to ask him to be more gentle with his journal, but he thinks that might just encourage Kacchan to blow it up.

Kacchan purses his lips like he’s sucked on a lemon. He shoves the journal back at Izuku. “Whatever. Fucking lame, shitty Deku. We’re in middle school and you still have imaginary friends? Fucking hell.”

He stalks off, hands shoved in his pockets. There are still five minutes until the morning bell will ring. Izuku clutches at his journal and stares after Kacchan, amazed that his journal is still in one piece.

There is a boy pinned under a villain’s hand. The villain is a hulking metal exoskeleton. The boy is crying. Leaves stick in the boy's dark curls, and dirt is smudged over his freckles and down his ripped school uniform.

There is no one else on the street. No one here to save him.

Izuku picks up a fallen tree branch and mimics Kacchan’s war cry. It cracks and sounds deranged rather than frightening, but it makes the villain turn away from the boy and settle those glowing eyes on Izuku.

Izuku thinks it’s worked, but then the boy kicks out and tries to squirm out of the villain’s grip. The villain curls a hand around the boy’s throat, and the boy chokes and splutters as he fails to draw in air. Izuku is running before he’s consciously made the decision to get between them. He pulls back, swings, and smacks the branch agains the metal back. The impact ricochets up his arm and into his teeth.

“Oh,” says the villain, voice ringing hollowly. “I got it wrong. There you are, little hero.”

The boy sobs around the fat metal fingers. Izuku’s knees are trembling, but he keeps himself upright through sheer force of will, holding onto his branch even though he knows it would do nothing against the villain’s metal plating.

The villain eyes the branch. “What were you planning on doing, hm? You’re only a child right now. Maybe you’re almost in high school, but they say you developed late. Heroes are nothing until UA beats them into shape.”

“I didn’t have a plan,” Izuku manages to say through chattering teeth. “I just—I—you were hurting him. I won’t let you hurt him.”

“You won’t let me? I had though you might be different at this age, but you’re exactly the same.” The villain laughs and shakes the kid in his grip. Both Izuku and the kid cry out.

“Let him go,” Izuku says. “Pl—please. Let him go.”

“I got it so wrong. And to think, I almost killed what’s probably going to be some unimportant salaryman and then left.”

Izuku hefts his branch onto his shoulder, but before he can swing again, he’s tackled to the ground. A woman in a leather jacket and dangly ears glares at the villain over Izuku’s head. “Did you just run out at a villain, kid? Is that what I saw? Jesus Christ. You’re the worst. Apparently, you’ve always been the worst.”

“Um,” Izuku says, before he shakes his head to clear it. “That boy—you have to help him. Please!”

When Izuku turns his head, he sees another person. When had he gotten there? He’s covered in small animals—birds and cats and little mammals with sharp teeth. A lion crouches behind him. Its teeth are bared. Izuku squeaks like a mouse and clutches at the woman’s leather jacket.

The animal-type hero waves at him with a smile. Weakly, Izuku waves back.

“I’ll get the kid,” says the earphone hero. “You go stand behind my friend. He doesn’t bite. Neither do his animals. The lion is as soft as he is.”

She confiscates Izuku’s tree branch and hurls it off to one side.

“Hey,” Izuku says.

She points a finger at him. “Don’t even think about interfering, got it? You’re, like, what? Nine?”

“Thirteen,” Izuku says.

“Thirteen,” she says. “Christ. Okay, scram. Let my friend take care of you. And do not, for the love of fuck, try and fight this villain when you’re thirteen.”

Izuku blinks up at her. “I wouldn’t.”

She snorts like Izuku has said something funny. “Yeah, sure. Go.”

The heroes take care of the villain easily, though Izuku is a little disappointed that he didn’t get to see the lion in action. He got to pat it, though. It was like a large kitten, butting up against Izuku’s chest, wrapping itself around Izuku, long tail flicking his neck. (It isn’t until the heroes are gone, that Izuku wonders if the lion was there solely to provide rescue support. It seemed awfully fond of Izuku for reasons he can’t quite understand.)

“Thank you,” Izuku says before they leave.

“Are you thanking me for saving you or for saving the other kid?” asks Earphone.

“Uh,” Izuku says. “Both, I think. Why?”

She snorts. “Just sounds like something you’d do.”

Animal-Man says something in sign language that makes Earphone laugh again. Izuku tips his head to one side, and she translates, “No self-preservation?”

Izuku blinks up at them. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nevermind,” she says. “We’ll see you around. Stay out of trouble.”

“Wait.” They turn back around. Izuku offers out his journal. “Can I have your autographs?”

“It’s, uh.” Izuku fiddles with the buttons of his uniform. “It’s my birthday today.”

“That’s exciting, Izuku,” Floaty Girl says. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” Izuku says.

Floaty Girl and Ice Prince exchange unreadable glances. Izuku is used that. His friends often have silent conversations over his head.

“You’re getting grown up.” Floaty Girl sounds wistful, almost. “You’ll be fifteen soon.”

Ice Prince elbows her. “Fifteen does typically come after fourteen.”

“I mean,” she says, rubbing at her side, “that you’ll be in high school soon. That’s a big step. Are you nervous?”

Izuku chews on his lip. He looks at his shoes rather than at his friends, and nods, just the once.

There’s a beat. Then, Floaty Girl snatches up his hands and pulls him along the street. “We don’t have a present, but we need to celebrate your birthday somehow! Come on, we’ll buy you lunch. It is around lunchtime, isn’t it? What do you feel like?”

Ice Prince waits with the tied-up villains while Floaty Girl leads them deeper into the city. People stare as she passes, but Izuku is used to turning heads when he’s with his friends. It used to drive him crazy when he was younger—people can’t help but stare at his friends, so why don’t more people know about them as heroes? Anyone can tell at a glance that they’re amazing. Their faces should be plastered on every flat surface.

They get lunch at a nearby take-away restaurant. Floaty Girl’s burger is the size of her head. When Ice Prince meets back up with them, he only orders a vanilla milkshake.

They eat in the park near Izuku’s house, cross-legged on a grassy clearing. Izuku chews on his burger and palms at the dirt with his free hand. It’s dry. He remembers being held under floodwaters here. He remembers the burn of his lungs; the muddy sludge that had stuck to his clothes; the stick that carved a bloody line on his calf when he waded through the water by Froppy and Floaty Girl’s side.

Izuku lowers his burger.

“You haven’t gotten older,” he says.

Floaty Girl stiffens. Ice Prince puts down his milkshake.

“I don’t …” she begins, and then stops.

“I know you’re not going to tell me anything,” Izuku says. “You never do.”

Floaty Girl puts a hand on Izuku’s curls. He peeks up at her. She seems so apologetic, so hurt by Izuku’s disappointment, and he realises that maybe they don’t want to keep secrets from him. They’re not being mean. They’re not the type.

“We’re sorry,” Ice Prince says.

“So sorry,” Floaty Girl agrees. “It’s not because—we would tell you, if we could.”

“We can’t,” Ice Prince says.

“No,” Floaty Girl says with that terrible hurt expression, so different from her bubbly smile, “we can’t.”

Izuku drops his burger. Floaty Girl reaches for it, trying to stop it from being ruined by the dirt, but Izuku seizes her wrist. He has both of their attention, now. He’s surprised by his own boldness. The words are climbing up his throat, and he needs to say this—they need to know this.

“Thank you,” Izuku says. “Thank you for always saving me. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being my friends.”

“Oh,” Floaty Girl says. “Oh, Izuku …”

“You don’t need to thank us,” Ice Prince says.

Izuku shakes his head so hard his curls bounce around his cheeks. “No, I want to! You deserve to be thanked. So, uh. Thank you. Again.”

Floaty Girl lunges forward and drags him into a hug. It’s not the first time they’ve hugged. It’s not even the second.

Izuku is taller now. Not as tall as her, no where near as tall as Ice Prince or the others, like Yellow Might, but he’s taller than he had been when they first met almost ten years ago. Izuku is different, but Floaty Girl feels the same. She’s warm, and her jumpsuit is padded with armour, and she smells of ozone and vanilla perfume. She’s a good hugger. He wonders who taught her to hug like that—fiercely, like every hug is her last.

“Are there any more of you?” Izuku asks.

“How many have you met?” Floaty Girl asks.

“Nineteen.”

“No,” she says. “There’s no more. That’s everyone.”

Ice Prince hugs him when they leave. He’s the same, too. He’s two-temperatures, and smells faintly of smoke, and his hands are strong and long-fingered, like a piano player. He’s very pretty. Izuku has trouble looking at him, sometimes. His face feels hot when he does.

They wave goodbye to Izuku. He stands on the corner of the park and watches them go until they turn a corner and disappear. If he were to chase after them, to turn that same corner, he knows he would see an empty street. Neither of them would be in sight, as if they had never been there at all.

When he gets home, he writes sparse notes in his journal. They didn’t reveal much today, but every detail counts.

Nineteen heroes in total, Floaty Girl had said. Nineteen. What an odd number. Twenty he could understand—twenty would make sense. Twenty is class. But nineteen feels incomplete.

Izuku closes his eyes tight and pretends that he’s the missing piece. He shuts out visions of his middle school, with looming classmates and walls that start to close in when Izuku’s chest feels tight. He doesn’t think about Kacchan. He doesn’t even think about All Might.

He thinks about his nineteen friends. Today was the first time he spent a birthday with his friends since he was little and Mum had drafted invitations to all the kids in his pre-school class. That sunlight clearing in the local park should belong to a dream, but it was real; Izuku still remembers the tangy taste of the burger’s sauce, and the feel of grass under his hand, and the warmth of his friends dragging him into a hug.

He thinks about being the last puzzle piece to complete the mystery. He thinks about being the missing member of a group of twenty, rather than nineteen. He thinks about his friends knocking on the door and announcing that they’ll stay. That they’re not going to disappear again. That they think Izuku is worth sticking around for.

When he opens his eyes again, the vision fizzles out into nothing. His cheeks are wet. He scrubs at his face and glowers at the journal, open to a drawing of Genesis and Earphone from the last time they teamed up to save him from a villain, but he can’t bring himself to close it.

He’s been dreaming of his friends since he was five years old. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he misses them so fiercely, that this ache in his chest has never gone away. It never will go away, he thinks. Not until his friends stay with him. Not that they ever will, though.

Izuku is used to having impossible dreams; he can live with one more.

Archive of Our Own^beta

Actions

Work Header