Chapter Text
Izuku shoved the door open as hard as he could, stumbling down the steps and sprinting down the street. He heard yelling from behind him. He didn’t look back.
The only sound in his ears was the pouring of rain and the pounding of his own feet against the cold, hard concrete. He ran and ran, ran until his feet were numb, ran until he didn’t know where he was, ran until his head and lower back were tingling... wait.
He paused his long run to observe the cause of the tingles. Peering over into a puddle, he softly touched the fluffy cat ears atop his head, unbloodied, unlike the rest of him. The long, thick furred tail was new, too. Soon, he watched as the world shrank, and his limbs were replaced with surprisingly large paws.
Izuku was now hyper aware of how cold and wet he was. He felt woozy from the blood leaking out of his wounds. The maine coon kitten stumbled around the streets, finally settling for crawling through a small space in the concrete. The hole was deeper than he expected, so he kept crawling, ignoring the concrete pressing into his sides and the dust clumping in his fur.
Wriggling out of the hole and into the light, his tiny legs finally gave out and he collapsed onto tidy hardwood floor.
—————
Out of all the things Tomura Shigaraki expected to see today, a kitten coming out of the floorboards was not one of those things. He approached it, eyeing the thing warily. Kurogiri was watching him move it around, surprisingly gently.
“Still breathing,” he mumbled, setting it onto the countertop. “Kurogiri,” he growled softly. “Patch it up. I wanna know who managed to find our base. No normal cat has dark green fur.” Shigaraki glared at the thing, watching as the mist man wrapped bandages around his lower back and legs. It was a little tough with all of the soft fur, but he managed.
Tomura tapped his fingers on the counter impatiently. All they could do now was wait.
—————
When Izuku came to, the first thing that he noticed was that he was warm. Very warm, in fact. Uncomfortably so. In fact, his limbs felt like they were made of lead.
The second thing that he noticed is that he wasn’t alone. There were two other people in the room; one with pale, shaggy hair playing on a small handheld console, and a person cleaning wine glasses behind a bar, seemingly made out of mist.
He lifted his head meekly, catching the attention of the two others in the room. The man with the pale hair shut the device he was holding, setting it down to stare at him. Izuku shifted uncomfortably. That was the look mom gave him when he did something wrong.
The teen walked towards him, crouching down to his level and staring him in the eye. “So,” he muttered in a raspy voice. “Who are you, and how did you find our base?” His crimson eyes bore into Izuku’s own forest green. He swallowed in fear.
Seeing no other choice, Izuku focused on looking human again. He felt himself shift once more, looking again like the scared five year old boy that had run away from home just yesterday.
“M-M-Midoriya I-Izuku, sir.” He stammered in a quiet voice. “I-I was j-just cold... a-a-and tired... crawled.. i-into a h-hole...” Tomura eyed him curiously. He was very small; no older than six years old for sure.
“And what are you doing out on your own, Midoriya Izuku?” He asked, although not unkindly. He had a sneaking suspicion that this boy had been out for exactly the reason he was thinking.
“R-Running..” Izuku sounded out of breath. Shigaraki left for a moment but returned with a cold washcloth, pressing it to his head. The small boy leaned into the touch, purring softly. He missed having someone there to take care of him. He hadn’t had that in a long time.
Tomura simply hummed in reply and pet his ears softly. He was wearing a glove over his right hand, that left his middle and index finger free. It was meant for people who drew on tablets, but it prevented him from turning everything to dust just fine.
“..Were you abused, kid?” There it was; the question that had been plaguing the teen’s mind for a few minutes.
Izuku tensed up, cracking his large eyes open to stare at him. “..p-promise you’ll b-believe me..?” Tomura nodded softly, moving from a crouch so he was actually sitting on the floor. “..yeah..”
Shigaraki simply nodded and resumed carding his fingers through the kid’s fluffy hair. His thoughts were running at a million miles an hour, but right now, he could focus on the boy in front of him. In a way, Tomura saw a lot of himself in the poor kid. When Izuku fell asleep, he got up and sat at the bar.
“Master,” he spoke softly. “There seems to be a.. visitor.” AFO hummed thoughtfully.
“Hmm... and who might this “visitor” be?”
Shigaraki looked back at the cat boy sleeping on the couch. His attention turned back to the screen. “A boy. Looks to be about five or six. Cat quirk. Wormed his way in through a hole in the floorboards. Abused.” He spoke the last word with a kind of hateful venom he only used when speaking about heroes. His tone caused his master to hum in thought once more.
“And what do you plan to do with this boy, Tomura Shigaraki?”
A pause.
“I wanna keep him.”
All For One laughed. “Very well. If you believe that you are up to this task, then so be it. I am curious to see how this will turn out.”
The pale haired teen nodded, then bowed. “Thank you, master.” The sound cut out and Tomura turned back to the kid. He sat on the couch, reaching over and gently pulling the sleeping boy onto the space next to him. Leaning back and gently guiding his head to his lap.
Shigaraki sighed and pet him, comforted by his constant, rumbling purr. He pondered how things would work out. For now, he could focus on caring for this sweet boy. He would give him as good of a life as he could provide.