Chapter Text
"Uraraka-san?" He blurts, startling the young woman as she put her basket on the corner.
She looked at him in polite bafflement. "I'm sorry, have we met?"
It was her name. "...O-oh no, sorry, I saw you on TV the other day," he laughed awkwardly, but it cleared the confusion on her face. "It was so cool the way you teamed up with Froppy to tackle that robber! You took them down in like no time at all, it was great!" He remembers watching it, but he's not sure why he knows her civilian name. Maybe he saw it in an article?
She gave him a sunny smile. "Thanks! Are you into heroes, Midoriya-san?" She asked, while he rung up her items.
"Oh, I…" He thought of All Might's face, thin and sunken and tired. You can't be a hero.
"Just a little," he murmured, giving her the total price.
She's gone a minute later, waving enthusiastically on her way out, and the bell chimed as the door fell shut behind her. Izuku sighed and slumped on the wooden counter. It had been five years since then, but time never seemed to make it hurt any less. He hadn't found the motivation to do anything else yet, so he was currently attending college general ed classes while he figured out what to do with the rest of his life. Maybe he would join the police force. Maybe he would become a professional hero photographer.
Maybe he wouldn't do anything. Maybe he would just run their little shop for the rest of his life.
He closed the shop up at eight and headed upstairs where his mom was cooking. They made small talk over dinner, and he cleans up after as a thank you for the food. He settled down for bed at ten and set him alarm because he had morning classes, and stared up at his dark ceiling. The walls and shelves were bare, all hero paraphernalia long since tucked away in a dusty box where he can't see them, burning a hole in the back of his mind. Maybe I'll throw them out this week.
He knew he wouldn't, even as he shut his eyes and sleep pulled him under.
Most of his dreams were the same. Tonight he stands next to All Might, emaciated but smiling, wearing clothes that actually fit him. A little girl runs up to him and throws herself at him, and he catches her like he's done it a thousand times before. Her peculiar silver hair and shining red eyes stand out to him, but more then that, he can't help but feel like she's familiar to him somehow. And just as he goes to speak, the name on the tip of his tongue--
He wakes up.
He doesn't always dream the same thing, but he's had this particular dream so many times that he's stopped wondering who the little girl was, or why All Might smiled at him like he was proud of him. After all, he was nobody. Just pathetic, quirkless Deku.
He doesn't wonder why his inner voice sounded like Kacchan, sometimes.
He turned off his alarm and rolled out of bed, dragging himself upright. Kacchan, who he hadn't heard from or seen or spoken to since they graduated middle school. Kacchan, who he saw the other day taking out someone with a Giant quirk, rising in the Hero ranks like a bullet train. The hero Ground Zero, who probably didn't even remember the quirkless boy he grew up with.
Izuku splashed cold water on his face to try and clear the dark thoughts that always clung to him in the silence. Just don't think about it. Don't think about it, and everything is fine. He gives the mirror the same smile he gives his mom every morning. It's as fake as their laminate floors, and it makes the circles under his eyes look more pronounced, but as long as it made his mom feel better than it didn't matter.
He was almost finished cooking breakfast when he heard his mom's slippers shuffle into the kitchen. She's yawning when Izuku turned to smile at her, and she gave a little wave in lieu of answering. He managed to finish divvying up the food by the time she'd finished making coffee, plates touching the table just as she sat down. He made himself a cup and joined her, and breakfast was a silent affair.
"Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone, okay mom?" He called as he put his shoes on.
Inko, used to this by now, just shook her head. "No promises," she called back, chuckling. "Have a good day at school."
School was…
School was boring. He had no friends, none of his professors gave him any 'special' treatment--or any of his classmates, for that matter, thankfully--and the curricular wasn't particularly challenging. His grades would probably be better than slightly above average if he cared more, but he just… didn't.
Four months have given him more than enough time to acclimate to the routine. Go to school, go to work, go to sleep; rinse, repeat. As he looks out the window, his heart tells him there's more for him out there, just waiting for him. He drowns it out as best he can.
On his way home, he gets caught in a hostage situation. He's walking down the sidewalk, minding his own business, when someone crashes into him hard from behind. It's only as he's being grabbed that he hears all the shouting and ruckus behind him, but it's too late because there was a hand fisted in his collar and a cool touch of metal on his temple. A hero skids to a stop in front of him, with spiky red hair and matching eyes and a fierce expression. He's familiar, and after a moment, Izuku places him as--
Kirishima-kun--
Red Riot, a newer hero who graduated from U.A. last year. He bares his pointy teeth at the person manhandling Izuku. "Hey now, there's no need to bring someone else into this. Its unmanly, involving an innocent bystander."
"Is that how you should be talking to me,? Huh?" The guy says arrogantly. "Do you want me t'blow this guy's head off?" He's young, Izuku notices; probably not even thirty yet.
They go back and forth over his head for a minute before Izuku cuts in.
"Would you?" He asked blankly, and both men fell silent.
HAH?" The guy says obnoxiously. Izuku glanced up at him, staring right into his eyes over the barrel of the gun.
"Have you ever done it before?" He asked. "Could you pull the trigger?"
It was strange, staring at someone you've never met from just a few inches away. He didn't know what expression he was wearing, but the man's face rapidly paled. "W-what the hell is wrong with you?" Before he knew it, he was being shoved.
Red Riot caught him as the guy took off, but he didn't get very far as another hero appears from the mouth of an alley, and sweeps the guy right off his feet in a roundhouse kick.
"Alright, Ingenium!" The redhead cheered.
"I can take it from here, Red Riot," he said, planting a foot on the crook's chest. "Please ensure the wellbeing of the civilian!"
"Right!" The hero immediately looks down at Izuku, who he'd stopped from kissing the pavement. "Are you alright dude?" Izuku nods, clearing his throat as he stepped out of Red Riot's hold, face warming.
"Yo, that was hella manly, the way you just stared him down like that!" He says enthusiastically, grinning. His sharp looking teeth don't stop it from practically blinding Izuku with its brightness.
"U-uh, thanks, I mean, uh--"
"No problem dude! You sure you're fine?" Izuku nods again. "Well, why don't you walk with me anyway? I'm sure the police will want to get to your statement, and they can probably check you over just in case."
They end up closing the shop early that night. He'd had to call his mom and explain why he wouldn't be able to make it in time to take over, and the sun was just starting to set by the time he made it home.
It takes longer than usual to fall asleep that night. He keeps thinking of the man's face, of the heroes that took him in.
Kirishima-kun.
Why did that name come to mind when he spoke with Red Riot? Everyone knew the Iida family, and how the younger brother Iida Tenya had carried on the hero name Ingenium when his brother was no longer able to, but that didn't explain the other hero. He tried to recall if he'd read it in an article or heard it in an interview, but nothing came to mind.
He's in a classroom full of people. All the students are in their seats, and he doesn't recognize most of them but he feels like he knows them, somehow. He sees Uravity and Red Riot, not as heroes, but dressed as students, for some reason.
The person in front of him turns around and suddenly he's looking into Kacchan's red, red eyes. His mouth opens.
"Hey, kid." Izuku startles and looks up. He's suddenly inside a rundown house, sitting at the kitchen table. There's a short old man sitting across from him, dressed in a yellow hero costume and eating a taiyaki. Izuku can't remember his name.
"Who are you?"
He wakes up.