Chapter Text
Izuku had been four years old when he discovered that not all men were created equal.
He had been four years old when he was declared quirkless.
He had been four years old when the concept of Alphas, Betas and Omegas came to his ears.
He had been, four years old, when he began to comprehend the cruelty of the world.
Kacchan, his “childhood friend” had presented as an Alpha.
Kacchan, his childhood friend, had developed a “hero” flashy quirk.
Kacchan, his…
Kacchan, his childhood…
…
Bakugo Katsuki, when of the age of four, had… turned his back on him.
It was simple, the prideful child was destined for greatness.
He had after all let marks on his body to prove it.
Pretty scars, in explosive motives, littered on his body.
Midoriya Izuku hadn’t understood, then.
Why would people supposed to become heroes be like this?
They were not… supposed to be that mean.
They should… have been heroic.
They should have been nice. Paragons of all things that were brave and kind.
Beating up others was nor brave nor kind.
…
That day, when he was four years old, when his… when Bakugo Katsuki presented, when Bakugo Katsuki obtained his power, his quirk; that day, he had his first rebellious thought.
“It should not be like this.”
But it wasn’t the worse.
It wasn’t the worse that he had been declared quirkless.
It wasn’t the worse that he was left friendless for the nine years to come.
It wasn’t the worse.
…
The worse was that he had presented as an Omega.
The worse was that he was the epitome of everything that was and would and will be considered weak.
The worse was that he had no hope of becoming a hero.
That, was the worse.
Stomped dreams.
At the age of five, when he came back home, his sweet mother, a beta still in her pretty youth, had fallen on her knees, as he felt an “itch” and as her mother smelled the sweet obviously sugary scent.
She had cried and hugged him, knowing what would come.
After all, Omegas, representing less than 1% of the population, were to be protected, no, no, removed from their homes.
“Mom? What’s wrong? Why are you- crying?”
She had had tears falling on her cheeks, her arms holding him so close.
“It’s- It’s nothing, sweetie. It’s nothing.”
He had been supposed to be taken in a specialized facility, a place where he would be kept safe, “educated” and finally mated to a powerful Alpha, one that would have been able to surely protect him, keeping things and the Omega safely nested, away from the cruel society.
It had taken more than five minutes for Midoriya Inko to make the decision.
Black market, it had been.
The act of possessing illicit scent suppressant substances was punishable by law, and persons were sentenced between five to ten years of prison for that deed.
The act of “hiding” an undeclared Omega was sentenced to twenty years of prison.
After all, there were known cases of abuse, and the abuse of an Omega was a thing that horrified people. It was considered one of the worse possible crimes.
Yet, that had not stopped Inko.
So he soon developed new habits, the ones of putting all sorts of products each morning and each night.
Mom had told him it was a bit like when being sick, and that those were his Healing potions.
There were three in total.
One spray, added by rubbing the back of his neck during long minutes, one pill, that produced “pheromones” blocking some of his, and finally, some thin gel that he put during five minutes on his wrists and Achilles heels. It would then be washed out, and he would then begin to naturally smell like a Beta.
That masquerade had lasted nine years.
During those nine years, Bakugo Katsuki harassment never ceased.
Izuku had never understood why, in that time.
Each time he raised against the young immature Alpha, he would get beaten down, teachers and adults only saying, that "kids would be kids, and Young alphas a bit aggressive and reactive towards any possibility at showing their will and strength, and that this was normality", like everything that already happened in society.
And Izuku had seen more than once students get beaten to a pulp over the years. Gentle bruises and red marks flowering on their sides.
While people didn't do or move a single inch.
And Izuku watched, as adults and teachers and parents watched back, to him, getting in a few "kiddies' brawls" by an angry blond child.
And Izuku kept being beaten down. Humiliated, a bit more than bruised, tasting dirt in his fragile mouth, his body trembling and frail, as that was the nature of young children that were not blessed by circumstances.
And each time he raised against the young immature Alpha, he would get beaten down.
Yet, Izuku never would stop.
Each time he was beaten up, he got up again, slowly.
It hurt. Obviously.
Yet he persevered.
It became a joke in his class, the Beta that never stopped raising against the dominant Alpha.
For some it was a game, for others a curiosity, and for Bakugo Katsuki it was an affront.
How could the pitiful quirkless Beta stand against him? Refuse the call of his pheromones?
To tell the truth, Izuku wasn’t afraid, he was utterly terrified.
The only thing that kept him going, was that what was happening was not right.
When he felt the dominant hormones swirl around him, taking him in their unshakable grip, he could feel himself squirming, terrorized and begin to beg for mercy, begging for the suffocating scent to go away.
His pupils thinned, his posture became shaky and he could feel his legs wobble.
The first times, he tried to withstand it, and he failed.
But that was something he could not bear.
He couldn’t bear the weakness, he couldn’t bear the injustice.
So each new time, he promised himself that he would stand his ground. Just a few seconds more.
Always a few seconds more.
And when his instinct begged him to submit, he denied it, refused it, but still not stood.
So he tried even harder.
He even began to jog, to train, to squat.
He wished to be stronger after all.
Push ups after push ups, effort after effort, he kept trying.
And when he came back again, facing Katsuki and his pack of followers, he still failed.
But he never stopped trying.
His senses screamed, his sweat pearling down each time he fought back.
Looking back, if he did not have his suppressors at that time, every person around a radius of two kilometres would have come running to his rescue, attracted by the sweet scent of the Omega needing the rescue in question.
But as he happily had those suppressors, no one came. And he continued to fight back.
He was nine when he finally won one fight.
It had been quite the event at school.
No one had believed it. The lonely abnormally weak Beta had defeated the future to become Hero.
The harassment had intensified.
But now Izuku never backed down a challenge.
And even with the bruises, even with the scorching pain and his instinct screaming at him that what he was doing couldn’t continue, he still had a smile with each new small victory.
It was what was right.
It felt good.
That was all there was to it.
Then, one day, his true scent was discovered.
It had been quite the sad following circumstances of events.
It was truly unlucky.
But that did not matter, as it was the past.
The present was that he was in a small shady street, having his full attention in the guy in front of him, who did not reciprocate his line of thoughts.
“Go the fuck away, kid.”
Izuku did not let himself be told twice, and suddenly sped up towards the man.
The robber smirked, ready to welcome him with a series of punches. The bag he was holding was a bag worthy of attention, he could admit.
As the man raised his arm, the little boy ducked under it and savagely smashed his jaw.
The robber took two steps back, his nose freely bleeding.
“What the fuck!”, exclaimed the forgettable one time robber.
Yes, most people did not expect that from him.
His arms looked thin and small, but the only truth was that his muscles were more compressed, not thick but powerful. He welcomed the familiar ached that ensued.
There was also the brass knuckles that helped. Weapons were just so useful against someone that did not have some of those.
And as the man looked perplexedly at his bloodied hands, Izuku took advantage of the situation to punch again on the welcoming face of the man.
But he was too small, so his punch only reached the upper part of the man’s torso.
And as he took several steps back, the low time “villain” was tackled by a small fury.
Izuku heard a resonant crack as he put the more pressure he could give on his tibia’s adversary, in a just wrong position.
A scream followed.
The young boy didn’t wait, and began punching repeatedly the head of the man.
It was bloodied enough.
Good.
The prickle on his skin stopped intensifying, and he began breathing heavily as the aftermath of the fight was obviously declared.
And one more win, he thought. That makes it my one hundred and thirty-second win.
He immediately took the bag, briefly peaked at its inventory and began walking away with a satisfied smirk.
It was a good day.
He signed in the blood of his adversary, drawing shakily a clown face.
That was all he could do for today.
So he began coming back home, bag full of money on his shoulders.
When the moon began to finally settle, he entered back in the place where his meek refuge was.
“Izuk-un? Is it- you?”
He smiled.
He could see small locks of pale hair rising above a bad looking sofa, moving imperceptibly.
“Eri, don’t worry, it’s me.”
“-Wh-What’s the password!”
Ooh, again with the password.
“Hmmm, I’d say it is… I have cookies!”
“-W-W-With w-hat?”
Izuku let the silence settle, as if he was thinking thoroughly about the answer he was about to give.
“Hmmm… I don’t know… raisins?
-No—oooo!”, she exclaimed, “YOU villai-ain!”
The little girl ran right to him and tried to tackle him, ending up hugging the other boy in the end.
Izuku hugged back, then opened his bag, making a box of chocolate chips cookies fall from it.
The little girl immediately took them, and ran back to the place behind the sofa, hidden between pillows and blankets.
From how far he was, he could hear a few “mIne, miNE, the preciouuussss” as he began to get rid of the ridiculous mask he had been wearing, as well as his black hoodie and his surgical gloves.
Sitting on the sofa, he opened a can with vegetables inside, sprinkled his suppressing pills on it as a chief would do, and slowly began eating it.
He turned on the cheap portable TV he had recently bought, and distractedly watched the different channels.
He could hear a few more noises coming from behind where he was leaning on.
He prepared himself for whatever Eri-chan was going to ask him.
“Izukun?”, said the voice.
“Yes?”
“-Is what you do bad?”
Izuku let himself wonder for a few seconds.
“I don’t think it is.”
It was Eri’s turn to wonder in silence.
“But isn’t stealing bad?”
Oh. She had finally realized. Izuku prepared himself as a father about to have “the talk” with his child would do.
“Is stealing what has been stolen truly bad?”
She felt more than saw Eri’s head popping out right behind him from the blankets.
“But it’s still stealing, isn’t it?”
Ouch.
“Well, truly, I think it depends. I only do “steal” because we need it, but I also “purge” society from weak villains by doing so. I catch them when heroes can’t.”
Eri’s hand began playing with his pink dyed hair.
“But what happens when there’s no villains left? What happens if there’s no one to steal from?”
Izuku closed his eyes, a bit meditating from that fact.
“I don’t think that will ever happen, Eri-chan.”
The girl stared intently at him.
“But does that mean there will never be a happy ending?”
Izuku gave a fake hopeful smile.
“There can’t be a happy ending for everyone. I can just make it better. Slowly, but surely.”
Eri pouted.
“But for when the time comes when there will be no one anymore to steal stolen goods from, we need to prepare, and so keep some money safe.”
The little girl’s eyes became all round.
“So no more cookies for today, Eri.”
She seemed to express a cheeky “nooo” with the shape her lips took, and then fell back in her pillows, destroying one wall of her pillow made house.
Izuku snorted at her sound of protest, and he then turned his attention back to what the TV was saying, as it finally interested him.
“...vigilante, well known for his brutal strength used in fights, is still on the run. He left his signature on the scene, and heroes are still unsuccessfully leading a searching party that will soon stop. The man that was found is still in an unconscious state, and investigators have small hopes that the criminal will have any accurate information about the suspect if he wakes up. The criminal in question was a villain suspected of being the perpetrator of a robbery, stealing successfully one million yen. The bag however, was never found, and it is expected that the vigilante took it as the suspect usually does. The villain is presumably known for being part of a criminal group known as “Big Toads”, and a correlation has been found between the number of attacks the vigilante does on this group and...”
Izuku snorted, knowing that the “investigators” must have been desperate if they shared that piece of information. Which was false.
He tended to attack everyone, indiscriminately.
Adding to that that normally, in any circumstances, vigilantes were not spoken of on medias. It was too taboo like, or something like that.
It felt a bit off to tell the Truth.
He quickly ended his meal, and resigned himself to sleep with Eri crushing his legs, cutting any kind of circulation in them.
Well, if he had survived being quirkless and an omega, he could certainly endure the lack of a few pair of legs, couldn’t he?
And he fell asleep to the sweet snores of Eri, the small girl snuggling him as the moon rose higher in the sky.