Chapter Text
“I hear you perform favors.”
There’s no knock on his window, no ward or piles of sugar near the steel—okay, what’s up with that. His windowsill always has one cup of sugar left outside in case a fairy tries to break in, and the windows are always locked. Carved into the wood and paint is a phrase in the fairy scripture: KNOCK OR KEEP OUT.
Izuku turns around slowly. “I do,” he says. “What do you need?”
The fairy before him looks him up and down. She has amethyst purple hair filled with clear crystal shards, blank white eyes, and a dress that looks like it’s made of a leaf. Her wings, pink and almost exactly like a butterfly’s, trail unusable dust all over his floor.
“I need you to build me a home,” she says. “My avatar got rid of mine, and I refuse to make one myself. That’ll be too suspicious, and she has too many bugs in her backyard to make one there. I have standards.”
Izuku taps his fingers on the table.
“Everyone knows about the boy with the hair as green as spring. They all know about his terrifying fluency in the language of the fae, about his quick mouth and remarkable power to spout gray truths if it were as easy as breathing,” the fairy snaps. “I know you’re him.”
“Really, that name makes me sound so pretentious,” Izuku responds smoothly. Inside, his brain repeats the usual code: don’t give a real name, act casual and confident, say nothing incriminating. “Just call me Deku. And I’d be willing to build you a hovell—for a price.”
The fairy sniffs the air as if oxygen were something she had to settle for. “I can provide you with a pouch of my fairy dust. Due to my magic, if you sprinkle it onto something, it’ll float.”
Izuku tilts his head to the side. “A pouch my size, or a pouch your size?”
She sends him a stink-eye before gesturing to him. Izuku smiles. “Say it,” he says.
The fairy looks at him, annoyed. “A pouch human-sized,” she scrunches her nose.
“Deal,” Izuku says, holding out his pinky finger. She leans forward to press a kiss to it, and the creation of a deal is a smooth, quick little thing.
“My name is Hyacinth,” she huffs out. “Call my name when it is ready. Godspeed, Deku.”
Izuku nods, watching as Hyacinth zips out of his apartment and back to her avatar’s home.
He sighs. Avatars. Briefly, he wonders what it’d be like to be a fairy’s avatar—to have magic flowing through his veins and playing at being a biological advancement. He shifts his tongue towards the archaic language of the fae, and calls out: Pyrrha!
Pyrrha is his mother’s fairy; a plump little thing that’s nervous to a fault. She never leaves his mother for very long, only staying with him and answering his questions when they’re home. She flies right into his bedroom, her green wings fluttering and spasming anxiously.
“Deku!” she pants. “What is it?”
Izuku puts on his gray smile; the one that the fae bound to him all whisper about. They all murmur about him under their breath, the boy with hair as green as spring. The boy with cunning words and a silver tongue, sharp as a steel sword and as effective as one, too.
Pyrrha seemingly gets the hint— “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Inko—she was going to check up on your room, and I know how she feels when she sees the sugar on the windowsill, she always complains about the ants, so I cleaned it myself. There were 3558 sugar grains,” she says.
Izuku blinks. He feels bad now; but concealing his emotions, especially around mini-humanoids with butterfly wings and pointy ears was his specialty. “Oh. Okay. I thought you had left the window open…”
“No, no, that was Inko. She wanted to let fresh air in.”
“Alright,” Izuku says, letting the gray smile drop.
He sees the way Pyrrha eyes the cut on his cheek and the bruises on his wrists. He doesn’t say anything when she whispers some healing spells and presses her small hands into his cuts. He doesn’t say anything when the injuries fade.
Most fairies don’t feel guilt the same way humans do. But they’re fair.
That’s the difference.
“I don’t—Izuku, what do you mean?”
The child looks at the plump, crying fairy floating around his mother’s head. “I’m quirkless,” he says. “There’s no reason to take me to the doctor. I already know it.”
“Really, I’m sorry,” Pyrrha blubbers, fat white tears running down her face. “Cadma—that was your father’s fairy—we should’ve tried harder, but then they... left before the magical transfer was ready—it’s all my fault—”
Six year old Izuku tries something he’s never done before.
He shifts his tongue to sharp language of the fae, and he speaks.
It’s not your fault he left, Pyrrha, he says. Sharply, because he’s still angry at his dad but not for this. Pyrrha doesn’t deserve to blame herself for someone she can’t control.
Pyrrha stops her crying, eyes widening.
Inko looks confused. “Izuku, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” He asks innocently.
Inko turns her head around madly. “I—I swear, I heard someone whispering. I could hear it, but it just… it shifted out of hearing range. How strange. Maybe the neighbors were talking? But Izuku, are you sure you don’t want to try the doctors’?”
Izuku shakes his head. “No doctor. I know I’m quirkless. It’s okay.”
His mother’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m so, so sorry, Izuku...”
She leans down to hug him. He wishes she wouldn’t apologize. He may not have a quirk—a fairy—but he has his Eyes. That’s enough for him. He doesn’t need a quirk to become a hero. He’s done his research, and he’s pretty good at analysis.
Pyrrha smiles a bit sadly. “Fairies channel magic through humans. These humans are our avatars, and their quirks are our projected magic. Once a century, a human like you is born with Open eyes. It means you can see us magic creatures. Fairies, gnomes, the occasional goblin and spirits. But in this world, it’s not very special, is it? Not if no one knows you even have this ability.”
Izuku squeezes his mom back in a hug. He doesn’t mind he’s quirkless. He can rely on the fairies.
Or, he can get the fairies to rely on him.
I’ll manage, he tells Pyrrha.
Izuku is walking home after Bakugou tries to suicide-bait him when he comes to face to face with someone—something?—that has no fairy. Instead, it’s a creature with a voice that tries to suffocate him.
Not cool.
While he’s choking and trying to scratch the thing out of his body, someone… appears.
He can’t hear a thing, but he feels the air pressure change and suddenly he’s free and everything’s okay. He closes his eyes for a few seconds and when he wakes up—
—All Might.
“Oh!” All Might says, surprised. “My boy, are you alright? What’s your name?”
Izuku does not see a fairy anywhere. He does see a dragon wrapped around All Might’s body though. It eyes him curiously.
“I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he says softly. He doesn’t like to say his name loudly in case a fairy overhears. He can usually feel the binding when it does, and when he feels none, he knows it’s okay.
The words, you can’t be a hero are words he’s heard before. He hears them all the time. But Izuku knows how to redirect words. His tongue is sharp. His teeth, though not fangs like the fae’s are, certainly hide a bite.
At school, his classmates’ fairies all treat him like an equal. Perhaps out of pity, but more likely out of respect. Mortals rarely have Sight, and Izuku runs himself a little favor gig. Fairies ask, he does, and he receives.
Deals, bindings, the works. He has tons of deals out with tons of different fairies. Argument with a gnome living in the same house? He negotiates. Issues with fairy homes? He builds it. Need some dirt on someone else? Izuku knows how to spy. He runs his gig, he gets deals.
In order to get a gig, you need to pay the price. Izuku knows how to haggle like the back of his hand. Pouches of dust, access to power, work for a day—he’s got something on every single fairy in his homeroom.
And on one fairy in particular, he’s got more than he can count.
Jocasta is Bakugou’s fairy. She’s the source of his quirk, some flashy explosion magic. She’s excessive, bright and cheerful and excitable. Except, of course, when she’s around Izuku. She’s never said anything to him about all the bruises and the cuts and the scars, but Izuku’s not stupid. He can’t afford to be in his line of work.
Fairies don’t feel guilt the same way humans do. But they’re fair. Jocasta knows the reason Izuku is pushed around so much is because of her avatar’s quirk. So, in order to try and balance out the harm done to him, she binds them together for every bruise, cut, and swell that Bakugou’s ever put on Izuku’s body.
He really has no idea how much ties he’s got on Jocasta. He has so much of her fairy dust he could probably set the entire country a-blazing. He has so many calls to her name that he could probably do the Yuuei heroics exam with Bakugou’s quirk. She even helps him with his tests, giving him Bakugou’s answers just to piss him off.
Jocasta loves her avatar—all fae love their charges—but Jocasta still feels for Izuku.
And so, because of Jocasta’s loyalty both to her avatar and her human enforcer, Izuku listens whenever she tells him something.
Which is why, when Izuku is dejectedly walking downtown after his idol saves him from a slimy, green… thing… and then tells him, no, you can’t be a hero atop of a tall building, Jocasta appears out of nowhere and he listens.
“Deku,” Jocasta pants out. Her normally neat, plaited hair is all over the place. Her white butterfly wings look like they’re wilting.“Please. Katsuki, he’s—there’s a monster. A monster has taken him.”
Izuku stills. “A monster? You mean a villain?”
Jocasta shakes her head, terrified. “N-No. It’s a monster. One of the ones that took the First World.”
Izuku’s eyes bug out of his head. “Took the First World—I… Jocasta, what can I do?”
“Magic,” she hisses. “Use magic! It’s a slime monster, which means—”
“Slime? You mean—”
A loud crash interrupts them. There, in the middle of the road, is a tall green blob surrounded by flames. A green blob that looks familiar. A green blob that has pale blond hair stuck inside of it and oh, oh no, it’s Bakugou.
For just a moment, red meets green and Izuku doesn’t know what’s happening before he’s running and Jocasta’s flying behind him crying out curses and he throws his backpack at the creature. Then he’s scratching, kicking, crying, and when Bakugou finally breathes and asks him what the fuck he’s doing, Izuku can only say:
“It looked like you needed help, Kacchan.”
Then the air stills. It explodes. It rains. The creature is captured.
And then Izuku goes home.
Or at least, he tries to.
All Might doesn’t have a fairy.
But he does have a dragon coiled around his body, eyes wise and knowing, scales iridescent and lovely. Near the head the dragon is green like jade, which fades to yellow like sunshine, and then red like roses. When Izuku moves the scales all glitter with rainbows and shift in blues and purples and it looks like so much, too much. When All Might deflates into his lanky skeleton form, the dragon doesn’t move. Izuku can feel Jocasta floating behind him.
All Might just looks at him for a little while. The dragon looks at Izuku inquisitively.
The dragon raises an immortal eyebrow at Jocasta. The dragon’s voice is melodious and lovely, like the sound of sunlight or taste of colors. “Was the boy lying about being quirkless?”
Jocasta huffs. “No. He’s not mine, my avatar is the boy from the… scene downtown,” she says stiffly. “Katsuki.”
“Then why are you with him?” The dragon asks. Jocasta narrows her eyes.
“Because he—”
Izuku opens his mouth, shifting his tongue to something older. Because I can see you. And I can see her.
The dragon pauses, its green-yellow-red body twisting tighter around All Might’s body. “Ah. Your eyes are Open. Interesting…” the dragon’s body uncurls itself from All Might’s body, tail barely brushing his wrist.
“Did you say something?” All Might asks, frowning.
Izuku shakes his head. All Might nods. “I just misheard then, I apologize. Anyway, my boy, I’m here because I realized I made a mistake. You being quirkless… I saw what you did. Had you not done it, the other young man may not be here. It’s because of you that I was able to wrack up enough courage to do anything.”
All Might says some more things, but Izuku can’t hear it.
He’s too busy crying.
“Midoriya Izuku,” All Might says, as if proclaiming something to the holiest of heavens and hottest of hells. “You can become a hero. I choose you to inherit my power.”
“Midoriya Izuku,” the dragon hums, its eyes glowing an iridescent gold. “You are on a path to become my new avatar.”
His knees buckle. The sidewalk is painted with tears.
Jocasta flies around Izuku quickly, her orange dust piling on the floor around him. Then, the dragon uncurls itself fully, flying into the sky and blowing a gust of hot air into the sky. Any clouds in it are blown away, and the sunset-painted heaven is warm.
Izuku can feel other magical creatures collecting around to see the dragon fly about in the sky.
“Oh my,” he hears a gnome whisper. “It’s her. She has returned to us!”
She? She who?
The dragon swoops down and makes itself at home on Izuku’s arm.
“I am known as Psyche,” the dragon says. “I am pleased to have you as my next avatar. Godspeed, Midoriya Izuku.”
Godspeed, he returns. But please, call me Deku.
The wind cools, and All Might squeezes his shoulder. “I am pleased to have you be the next inheritor of One for All.”
Even when Izuku’s world stops, the Earth keeps turning. Even when Izuku’s world goes at twice the speed, the Earth keeps going at the same pace. That’s the thing about fairies and other magical creatures.
They don’t care about the individual.
But that’s what makes humans so unique, Izuku thinks as Psyche curls into his arm and hums as she rests. Humans love the individual. It’s because of individualism that Izuku stands a chance.
The fae are fair. They are guiltless.
“I’ll do it,” Izuku wheezes into the air above the sidewalk. Jocasta cheers loudly, Psyche purrs, and All Might smiles.