Chapter Text
Izuku does not have friends, but the man who sits on the bench with him every day is nice.
He doesn’t speak much, but that’s okay. Izuku talks a lot, Kacchan says, and Kacchan is always right. The other boys say he talks too much too, so he knows it’s a problem. But the man is nice, and he lets him talk, and he doesn’t make fun of or belittle him.
Izuku sits on the bench one day after school. The man’s already there, and they sit together in silence while Izuku swings his legs back and forth. It’s a nice day, Izuku thinks—it’s sunny, and there are plenty of birds who are singing and chirping, and the wooden slats that were clumsily put together to make the bench are warm on the bottom of his thighs.
There are a couple feet between the two of them, and Izuku curiously looks to the man. He’s ever-so-slightly translucent, and if he stares hard enough, Izuku can see the clouds and the blue sky hiding behind his spiky hair. Izuku had asked him, way back when they first met, why he was outlined in a red glow, and why every time the man blinked a few red sparks floated from his lashes of his left eye.
Cold dark eyes had stared at him, small flashes of surprise flitting across his face. “I’m Second,” he had said instead, crossing his arms. “And you are?”
“Izuku,” he had chirped. “You’ve got a funny name, sir.”
Izuku is six now, and it’s been two years. He knows that it’s rude now to call people’s names weird, even though Kacchan calls his name weird too. But the man was nice, as he always has been, and he cracked a grin and patted his head.
“You think so? Well, you’ve got a pretty cute name yourself, kiddo.”
Second blinks again, and a group of small red sparks drift from his left cornea. Some flutter away and dissipate a few yards from them, but a couple others hug his dark lashes. Izuku would play with them, once upon a time, but Kacchan told him that he was being weird, so he’s stopped now.
“Second?” Izuku asks. He doesn’t wait for the man to respond. “I tried to tell everyone at school about how cool you are, but Kacchan says he doesn’t know anyone who sits on this bench. He says I’m just weird and talk to my imaginary friend. Why’s that?”
Second’s expression sours somewhat, but he’s respectful and doesn’t call Izuku stupid. Izuku doesn’t know why Second dislikes Kacchan, but he doesn’t tell Izuku to stop hanging out with him. His expression smooths out again, and he smiles at Izuku. His smile is small, and it barely reaches his eyes, but Second doesn’t smile often, so Izuku knows it’s sincere. “Well, I am your imaginary friend, Izuku. No one else sees me.” Something like sadness flashes across his eyes. “Just you.”
It’s always been just you.
Izuku tilts his head. “If that’s the case, why do people want to forget their imaginary friends? You’re really cool!”
Second doesn’t move any closer to Izuku, but he does let out a small, breathy laugh. He doesn’t like physical contact, so Izuku doesn’t force him to. He just treasures the moments where Second will give him a pat on the back or will run his hand through his hair.
“I don’t know why, Izuku,” Second says, and though he’s smiling there’s a hint of pain and sadness there. His hands are clasped together in front of him, and he’s looking at them intensely even though his gaze is far, far away. Izuku stares at him, and he knows that Second is lying.
He lets it go. Second is kind and nice and doesn’t call him stupid. An imaginary friend, maybe, and an amazing one at that, but nonetheless, they don’t talk about much.
Second doesn’t ask about the bruises and the scrapes and why his eyes are red. Izuku doesn’t ask why Second’s got knives in his pocket and a gun strapped to his waist. Second doesn’t ask about Izuku’s quirk, or his lack of one. Izuku doesn’t ask why ‘kill’ is always the word that comes to mind when he thinks about Second.
It represents him, a voice in the back of his head says, except Izuku doesn’t know why someone so nice would have such a strange attachment to the word.
But Second doesn’t ask him about his life, so Izuku doesn’t ask anything about his.
It’s a pretty fair trade.
Izuku’s second friend is another man, though he’s much bigger and outspoken than Second. He calls himself Sixth. It’s an odd pattern, that all his imaginary friends are calling themselves numbers, but he brushes it off.
Sixth has a box-like jaw, is bald, and has these cool goggles that rest on top of his head. He’s also bare-chested, and he has a line of ammo that crosses from his shoulder to hip, and a leather jacket that should top off the look but just makes him look like a biker criminal gone awry. He’s a little too loud for both Izuku’s and Second’s tastes—Izuku is seven and too much happened in the past year. Izuku knows that Second and Mom are both worried why he’s suddenly so quiet and withdrawn.
“Kacchan’s being mean,” Izuku had whispered several months ago.
Second hasn’t forgiven Kacchan. Izuku’s not sure if he ever will, seeing how he refused to even like him in the first place.
Sixth, for all his loudness, is still gentle with him. In a rush of adrenaline, he picks Izuku up and puts him on his shoulders, and they race down the sidewalk with the breeze in his hair. Izuku didn’t know imaginary friends could carry things, or that Second would ever leave his bench and actually chase after them, but it leaves Izuku with a huge smile and a racing heart.
Sixth is fun, and he laughs even as Second scolds him. Second squats and cups Izuku’s cheeks, and he looks so scared that all the laughter flies out of him. The man with the red outline blinks, but no red sparks go flying. His dark eyes stare at him, watery even as his hands shake.
“You have to be more careful,” he grounds out, and Sixth realizes the gravity of the situation. “He can’t be hurt. He can’t be hurt.” Second tugs him into a hug, the first one he’s given Izuku in three years, and he swallows the small boy in his large frame and arms. Everywhere Izuku’s bare skin touches Second, it tingles and zaps with energy.
Sixth apologizes. Second refuses to let him go.
Izuku likes Sixth, even though he’s a little crazy and too robust for his personality. He makes funny faces and makes him giggle, and sometimes Sixth will tickle him until he’s about to throw up. Second watches from his perch on the bench, eyes sharp and always seeing.
Sixth is outlined in a dark green, kind of like Izuku’s hair color. How Second always reminds him of the word ‘kill,’ Sixth always reminds him of the word ‘capture.’
Sixth laughs when Izuku quietly tells him that, one day. Second is leaning back on the bench, eyes closed, pretending to sleep even though the two know better.
“That’s pretty cool that you notice that, kid,” Sixth says. Izuku stares up at him with wide, doe-like eyes, and the man’s expression softens. “My quirk is called Black Whip. Everything about me is considered capturing, from my own rampant emotions to villains who need to be taken down.”
Izuku hums and swings his feet back and forth. Sixth is standing behind the bench, and Izuku looks away from him for a second as he leans forward. His small hands grip the edge of the seat tightly. “Is it bad that…” He bites his lip. “That Second reminds me of ‘kill,’ then?”
Second’s eyes snap open, and a wave of red sparks float into the air. He glances at Sixth, a silent message passing between them.
He glances back to Izuku, his expression unreadable. “I was a… hero, I guess you could say, once upon a time,” Second says. “Back when it was still dangerous to call yourself one. Back when… things were a little different.” His expression is cloudy, and Izuku soaks up the information like a sponge as he listens quietly. He wonders if the man has a longevity quirk. “Killing was inevitable. It’s not like it is, now.”
Izuku nods. “I understand.” He smiles, attempting to lighten the mood. “So you guys were both heroes? That sounds really cool.” A small flush rises to his cheeks as he shoots them his best grin. “I’ve always wanted to be a hero. It would’ve been awesome to see you guys in action.”
For a second, Izuku jolts as he reminds himself that these people aren’t real. It’s just his imaginary friends. His friends are a lot different than how they’re portrayed in books, but no one talks to him or speaks about their own friends. So Izuku just stays quiet and wonders how far his imagination will go, and when his mother will tell him that he’s too old to have them so they’ll disappear.
“Oh really?” Sixth’s eyes are sparkling. Second remains quiet, his expression as blank as normal. “Well, I’m sure you can become one if you want! I’m sure with your quirk, you could be one of the best ones known to date, amiright?” He gently nudges Second in the side, and he doesn’t notice how Izuku’s face falls until he’s already turned away.
“Woah woah hey, did I say something wrong?” Sixth asks, hands raised, his voice much softer than it had been before. Despite all of Second’s grumbling, Sixth does have volume control—the only problem is that Sixth is only quiet around Izuku, and Izuku can only stay a few hours after school ends before he has to go home.
Izuku shakes his head, and he blinks away tears. His hands grip his pants so hard that his knuckles turn white. Diagnoses run through his head, and he remembers the sharp pain in his heart when his mother stared at him blankly while their doctor gave the bad news of his quirklessness. He remembers the bluntness and how dismissive the doctor was, how unsympathetic to his plight.
“I don’t have a quirk,” he chokes out, and he thinks about Kacchan’s leer and his explosions on his arms and the pain they cause. He thinks about his second grade teacher, who looked at him right in the eye as he held out a horrifically burned arm while sobbing, who told him to stop complaining and bothering the cool kids and sticking himself where he didn’t belong.
He doesn’t belong anywhere.
Second and Sixth share another glance. “Are you sure?” Second asks, his brows furrowed.
Izuku nods glumly. “My mom has a telekinesis quirk, and my dad has a… a fire breath quirk, I think.”
They don’t talk about his dad at home.
Second and Sixth glance at one another again, confusion clear in the former’s eyes and in the latter’s face. They’re not really good at hiding it, Izuku thinks.
“What?” he asks. It comes out snappier than he means it to be, but his arms and thighs are burning even though those injuries are old and have long since faded.
“Nothing,” Sixth says first after a too-long pause, but still much too quickly. “Nothing at all.” There’s a moment of stillness, a bout of awkwardness that they haven’t had for a while, and Sixth places a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. It’s calming, cool to the touch, even as it sends tingles down his arm. “Don’t worry about not having a quirk, kid. Hey, no need for long faces, yeah? You don’t need a quirk to be awesome, and I think that if you put your mind to it, you could be the best hero in the world!”
Sixth exclaims it loudly, and his voice should echo down the street, except for some reason it doesn’t. It stays here, in their little bubble of theirs, on this little bench.
Izuku nods, but he doesn’t take it to heart. It’s just his imagination talking. Just his imaginary friends trying to make a lonely kid feel better.
No matter where Izuku looks, there’s always a glowing pattern on people’s skin. Sometimes, he likes to sit down and watch all the people pass and see how many designs he can find. The lines that make markings on everyone’s skin, big or small, are all paper-thin. He’s met people who’ve experienced so many different things and have so many patterns all over their body, glowing so brightly that they show through their clothing.
There are other people, like his neighbor next door. She’s an old woman who’s lived in the same apartment for seventy years, and she only has patterns around her eyes and on her fingers—Izuku thinks it’s because she likes to knit, and she made everyone she’s friends with (i.e., Izuku) scarves every holiday imaginable. The designs are tiny, and they aren’t much, but they’re golden and intricate, and sometimes Izuku will ask for her hands and will stare at all the different lines that cover the back of her hands and her fingers.
She’s asked him, on multiple occasions, what he’s looking at. He always responds, “I’m looking at all these beautiful pictures you have on your hands.” The sweet old woman smiles her shaky smile, and yeah—she really is beautiful, in her own way.
He doesn’t directly mention the designs, though. They started appearing and showing up when Midoriya was four, and he tried to tell Kacchan once. But the boy called him idiotic then, and that was even before his quirk diagnosis. He doesn’t bring it up now, not to anyone. Not to Second, Sixth, or his mom. He’s too afraid of what they’ll do to him. He’s too afraid that he’ll be weirder. Kacchan and his friends already make fun of him for his imaginary friends, and sometimes he wonders why they seem so real. Why they won’t just… go away.
It would suck, to lose them, and that’s why he won’t cut them off. They’re all he has. He doesn’t want to get rid of his only friends.
So why did Kacchan and the others have no problem shedding their old imaginary friends? You’re too old for this, Izuku. You’re not supposed to have them anymore.
Mom doesn’t know why he’s so late from school everyday. She doesn’t know about his friends. He’s pretty sure she thinks that he’s playing with Kacchan or by himself.
She’s got a lot of designs on her chest, his mom. They’re dark blue. They’re sad, and a lot of the happy ones she had on her cheeks have faded. The lines that wrap around her wrist are dull. They don’t glow. There’s another design, too, where a ring used to sit. A wedding ring, one that his father gave her. The design is still there, but the ring is gone, and the lines are black and cut deep. They aren’t pretty, not like the designs of their neighbor next door.
Mom’s sad. She’s always sad, Izuku thinks, and he tried a long time ago, every day, to make her happy. Now he just tries to make her not sad.
Kacchan has designs, too. They’re bright orange, and they burn brightly. They’re on the palms of his hands, and they’re thick and clunky. Unlike the intricate designs on Second’s cheek, which falls down to his neck, his lines are simple. They don’t form anything, really. They’re just straight lines that line his palms. Izuku always knows when Kacchan’s irritated and wants a fight. The lines get brighter and sometimes they spark.
He also has designs though, on his back that creep up his neck. They’re much more abstract, and they shine through his clothing on days when he’s very, very quiet. Izuku thinks it’s insecurities, but he doesn’t dare mention it.
He doesn’t know why no one talks about the designs, or the lines and the colors and all its beauty. He’s seen models with hideous designs, ones that are vulgar or shape words that make Izuku want to throw up. Abuser was crawled along the back of one lean female who was wearing thick lipstick. And there’s so many people out here with these beautiful designs that he wishes they could show off.
Instead, they’re shunned, told they’re hideous, and Izuku doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know why no one talks about it. Maybe it’s just something that everyone ignores? Maybe it’s just something that’s not supposed to be mentioned or talked about?
No one ever tells him anything.
He wonders, faintly, if that’s another reason why no one likes him. No matter how hard he’s looked, no matter how hard he’s willed it to, Izuku remains a blank canvas.
Maybe that’s why. He has nothing on him, no lines, no beautiful artwork on him. He’s just a malfunction in the system. Maybe that’s why they tease him to the point that he ends up crying. Really, who wouldn’t?
No quirk, no designs—just a freak with a mind who makes up his friends to make himself feel better.
He slaps his cheeks and takes in a deep breath. No need to be self deprecating. He’s just fine. Some day, he’ll get his designs. Some day, he’ll become a hero. Some day.
Some day.
His mom doesn’t wake up the morning they take him.
The day before, he had taken a different route home to avoid Second and Sixth. Kacchan hurt him… really bad. He didn’t mean to, and Izuku saw the fear in the boy’s eyes once he saw what he’d done, but…
It hurt. It hurt a lot.
He had stared at the sky for about half an hour before he could push himself up. His legs and arms had been shaking, and his body hurt all over. Brushing the dirt off of him, he limped home, not wanted to worry Second and Sixth.
It was the first time he’d done that in four years. Even when he’s sick, even when there are villain attacks, even when the weather is awful, Izuku always says hello to Second and Sixth. Every morning. Every afternoon. Even when he wants to throw up. It’s just part of his routine, and something deep within him stirs and gets upset when he doesn’t visit them.
But yesterday, he ignored that. He ignored the burning in the pit of his stomach and went straight home.
And now, it was four in the morning, and Izuku was eight, designless, friendless, and a gun was shoved in his face. A hand grabs the back of his sleepwear and yanks him out of bed. The side of his forehead is accidentally slammed into the corner of his nightstand as he’s pulled from beneath the covers, and the masked person curses as he slams into the floor.
Mom doesn’t wake up. She never does.
Izuku’s full on sobbing as something warm and red drips down the side of his face. The intruder stomps his face, hard enough that he immediately falls limp. It hurts so bad, worse than Kacchan’s hits yesterday, and he stifles all noise so he won’t get hit again.
The intruder grabs him around the middle and settles him on their shoulder. He’s small and thin and he feels too tiny against their muscled form. Silent tears fall down his face.
He’s scared. It’s bone-deep terror. His shoulders shake, and his breath catches in his throat. The rooms and hallways and flashing lights blur, and he can’t see straight long enough to tell where he is.
Mom won’t wake up for a while, and it’ll take her forever to go to the police. No one at school cares. His imaginary friends are imaginary friends, they can’t do anything to help.
Izuku has never felt so alone.
There are multiple people then, and one binds and gags him. He tries to struggle, he really does, but he’s weak and he’s tired and he still can’t see straight.
Deep in his gut, a searing hot pain starts to grow stronger, and it takes all his might not to throw up right then and there. The binds dig deep into his skin, the rope burning his wrists and ankles. As a sharp ache in his head made his vision go white, he let out a loud sound halfway between a whimper and a deep sob.
Another blow hits low on the back of his skull, and it makes him see stars. A sharp sting stays even after the hand is long gone, and his eyes water as he shakes like a leaf. They shove him into the back of a van, and his head hits the floor. The rag they tied in his mouth and around his face is tight, and it burns and tastes of moldy material. It makes him gag, even as the sounds of doors slamming shut and the screeching of tires causes his ears to ring.
The world around him shifts and morphs, refusing to stay in one place. There’s several voices pouring over one another, but their conversation takes place too quickly and he can’t make sense of what they’re really saying. It all becomes white noise, fuzzy and in the background—a place he couldn’t reach, even if he tried.
He tries his best to breathe through his nose, to remain calm, but the air is thick and his lungs shudder. An iron tang decides to cling to the back of his throat, and Izuku wonders if he bit his tongue when they threw him in the van or if it’s from something else.
Swallowing thickly, he tells himself not to close his eyes. He tells himself to stay awake, even though the panic is blinding and makes his stomach churn. He tells himself not to let the tears fall, but they do, and they hit the floor of the van.
A bump. Screaming. Izuku lifts his head slightly, trying to move his twitching and aching body to look at the people in the front of the van. He makes out harsh light, and a flash of lavender. The driver grips the steering wheel and twists it harshly. Izuku rolls with the momentum of the car, and his head slams into the side of the car door.
For a second, the world fades in a swirl of red and black, and a loud, sickening, crunching sound reverberates through the vehicle.
“— keep the damn subject alive you moron!—”
“I’m trying!—”
Izuku doesn’t hear the rest. His eyes flicker shut.
His stomach burns.
He awakens to a hand, gentle and caressing, cupping his cheek. His mouth feels sore and his face swollen. Something sticky is dried to the side of his face, and his fingers and ankles and wrists ache. His head’s pounding. His lips are cracked and feel too big in some areas, while in others they feel split.
There’s another man. He’s outlined in a soft lavender, and his eyes are sharp and intimidating. His hair is pulled up into a ponytail, and his thin, muscled form is outlined in a thin outfit.
“Izuku,” he says, and his voice is warm like honey. “Second and Sixth are worried about you.”
Izuku feels tears well up in his eyes. They spill over and fall silently down his freckled cheeks. The man wipes them away.
“I am Third,” he said, clear and firm but not unkind. Floating around him is the word ‘rescue,’ and it radiates relief.
Izuku falls limp in the man’s arms. He sobs. Third rubs circles into his back, and he is solid and firm. He doesn’t shy away from it or shake like Second. He is not overly affectionate and rough like Sixth. Third is stable, even as Izuku sobs all over him.
After a few minutes, when Izuku starts gasping for breath between hiccups, Third places his arms underneath his legs and back and picks him up. He holds him close to his chest, even as Izuku shivers and moans, and he murmurs gentle things.
As Third goes to turn away from the van, which has been turned on its side at the edge of the city, Izuku gets a glance of what’s inside. He sees the intruders, his kidnappers, and Second is staring over them. The designs on his cheek and neck are glowing, and dark red sparks rapidly escape his lid. He looks furious, in a way that Izuku has never seen before.
Third turns away, and Izuku can’t see anything but the lavender outline and the beach covered by illegal dumping. But that split second was all he needed.
He suddenly knows why, now. Why such a nice man, Second, his first friend, always had the word ‘kill’ hovering over his shoulder.