Chapter Text
Akatani Mikumo doesn’t have a place in this world.
A world of superpowers, and he’s just normal. His mother worries about him too much, and his former friend bullies him.
It’s time for him to leave.
He’s known that for a long time, however, today was the day he realized just how little life he had left in him.
It was his 14th birthday. His mom greeted him when he woke up, and handed him his presents, but then she had to leave to start work. Being a single mom was rough on her, and she had to constantly work to get money to save up for a good highschool for him.
That was when he realized it. Sitting there alone on his birthday, with only a cheaply wrapped All Might hoodie, he realized that he was just a burden. His mom wouldn’t have to worry so much and work so hard if he wasn’t here anymore.
So he got up, went to his computer and googled “How to run away from home”
————————
One year later, Akatani Mikumo is pronounced legally dead.
He no longer exists.
But somewhere in a corner of downtown Shiozaki, Midoriya Izuku celebrates his 15th birthday. He’s thinner. And more tired. He’s mentally scarred. There isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t regret running away.
And yet, he knew he would have it no other way.
His life is tough. He has his own tiny shack with cracks in the roof and leaky pipes. He has a fake identity as well. He has a job, and it’s one that he hates, but it’s necessary. He’s a house keeper.
Yes, he knows. How funny, a Quirkless runaway as a housekeeper.
Well, this isn’t a normal housekeeping job. He’s fairly certain that the people who employ him are the Yakuza. But they haven’t outright told him so, for the sake of plausible deniability. He’s had to clean up bloodstains and the first time he saw a mangled corpse he almost threw up. But he got it together, put it in a trash bag and disposed of it.
He does other odd jobs—all legal. Cooking, cleaning, and babysitting the junior Yakuza.
He tries to study whenever he can, but it’s certainly not easy.
At night, though, that’s the only part of being a runaway that he enjoys.
Come night, he goes vigilante.
He doesn’t have a name. Let’s face it, nobody has ever even heard of him. He’s not like Pop-step or Knuckleduster, or even the Crawler.
(The Crawler is now his new favorite ‘Hero’. He gave up on All Might the day he realized that All Might never patrols in the dangerous red light districts. That’s the reason vigilantes exist at all, to cover the places no limelight hero is willing to go.)
He still respects All Might as a symbol of peace to most of the general population. But he knows that the marginalized members of society don’t see him as their symbol.
And that’s what Izuku wants, really. He wants everyone to see him as their symbol. Even the marginalized. The red light districts and the poor downtown. He wants to give them hope when he arrives, quietly saying, “You’re safe now.”
He’s terribly weak though. He’s small. And still quirkless. So often, he can’t intervene in villain attacks. He runs through the crowds, trying to find someone with a suitable enough quirk to help out, tries to talk strangers into standing up and fighting.
Most of them choose to look the other way, but every once in a while, he’ll yell instructions to a brave kid, telling them how to use their quirks to take down the villain.
He’s fought with other vigilantes, trying to get them to train him. They all just walk away, not wanting to waste time on a kid like him.
He’s had to run up to them and stand in front of them with his fists up, saying that he wasn’t leaving until they fought him.
It was a very ineffective way of training, but it was all he had. Whenever he saw a delinquent on the streets, he had to quickly gauge whether or not it was worth the training experience the fight would give him, or if the delinquent was sadistic enough to go too far and seriously injure him.
In the end, he just walks into the fight with a knife strapped to his leg in case things go too far and he needs to escape.
He’s fought so many people with so many different quirks. He’s analyzed the way they move and how he can combat them with his weak, quirkless body.
He does his pushups and goes on runs, and yet, since he can barely afford to feed himself, his body doesn’t get much stronger.
But he’s satisfied. He feels proud every time he saves a child from a kidnapper or a woman from a rapist.
Even if all he had to do was sneak up and throw a hit to the back of the neck to drop them and then frantically grab the victim and make a run for it, it was something at least.
So he was satisfied with this life, even though it’s worse than before in many ways.
This all changes when he looks at the entrance exam forms for UA.
His fake identity means he will be able to join the school just fine. UA is a public school, and has no tuition fee. He could do it.
But can he? He’s been training his body and sharpening his fighting skills, but without a quirk? He’s useless.
UA has changed their policy on quirks recently, not that it would have mattered for Izuku anyways. His fake identity lists his quirk as Strategy. He described it as the ability to analyze and see effectiveness of various outcomes played out in his mind.
It’s something he can easily fake, since he tends to do it in his head anyways.
But still. He was literally working all day. There was no way he could go to school and still afford rent.
(He could always find an evening shift, and once he’s a hero he can make lots of money—)
No. Izuku wants to be a hero really badly, but is it realistic for him?
He should be satisfied just by being a vigilante, it’s good enough for him.
That night, he sees the Crawler in person. They team up to take down a drug enhanced villain. Izuku enters the fight only at key moments, and comes up with an effective strategy to beat the villain.
At the end of the mission, some civilian actually asks for Izuku’s name.
He freezes, unsure of what to say. He’s not wearing any fancy costume, just a basic bandana around the lower half of his face, and a discounted Hawks hoodie. He wanted to imitate the Crawler and his All Might hoodie, but didn’t want to seem like a copycat. The Hawks hoodie had been the only one that was his size at the thrift store, but he liked the hero, so it all worked out.
The hoodie had red wings on the back and imitated Hawk’s hero costume on the front.
The civilian, clearly noticing this says, “Can I call you the Falcon. Because you were so fast, running in there and making it out in a dash!”
“Sure,” Izuku chirps, before making a run for it as he sees the police arrive.
The Falcon. It was fitting. He always showed up to fights quickly and left just as fast, knowing he couldn’t be out there two long, he wasn’t strong enough to last a long fight. Like a Falcon swooping down to it’s prey but leaving in a flash.
“Crawler-senpai.” Izuku chews his lip, as they sit on the rooftop, trying to catch their breaths after the fight, “Why didn’t you become a hero?”
“Well, I tried to get into a hero school, but I was late to the exam because I had to save someone from drowning on the way there.”
Izuku stares at him wide eyed, “That it is the most heroic thing I’ve ever heard of.”
The Crawler laughs, “It’s kind of ironic, I guess. But it’s in the past. Why do you ask, thinking of applying yourself?”
Izuku sighs, “I really want to. Maybe if I hadn’t run away, I would have, but my quirk is useless in combat as you’ve seen. If there’s one thing being on the streets has taught me, is that I need to be more realistic about my capabilities or it’ll get me killed.”
“Can’t hurt to try the entrance exam, can it?” The Crawler stands up. “Look around you, look at this world. Everyone here in this part of town is afraid to live. After everything we’ve seen, doing what we love seems so scary. But you have a chance, Izuku. You’ve come this far. Are you going to let a little fear get to you, Falcon?” The man rubs his neck nervously.
Izuku stares out, and really looks at the town. Broken down and chipped. The very air around it feels miserable.
Is this where he’s meant to be? Is this all that is left for him.
A Falcon is meant to soar.
And Izuku doesn’t have wings, so he’ll just have to get a parachute instead.
That’s right.
Izuku stands up.
“Thank you, Crawler-Senpai, you gave me an idea.”
He bows to the older vigilante and runs back to his house. He knows that the Hero entrance exam is robots. It has been for years.
So all he has to do is disable them.
He opens a new notebook, and starts writing.
———————-
He arrives at the gates of UA with a strange sense that he doesn’t belong here. He hasn’t been to school in over a year. Will there be bullies again?
He has the vague memory of Kacchan, who will probably be here as well. Will the boy recognize him?
Izuku has to spend what little bit of money he has leftover after groceries and rent on his red colored contact lenses and his black hair dye. His hair has grown till nearly his shoulders, so it looks less curly and more wavy.
He doesn’t look like the boy from the Wanted poster at all. And yet, he’s afraid that Kacchan will recognize him and give him away.
He’ll just have to avoid him.
He can’t go back home to his quirkless identity, can’t go back to being a burden on his mother.
He can’t have his freedom taken away.
Izuku is nervous throughout the entire test. He knows he’s doing not so good on this part. He kept up with his studies to the best of his abilities and crammed before the exam, but he hasn’t been in school for a year, and he knows it shows.
He makes it to the physical portion of the exam slightly worried. He needs to do well on this part.
He feels his old muttering habit resurface but forces it to stop before a word can leave his lips. Muttering can get him killed on his vigilante job, so he’s learnt to be quiet.
Then Present Mic announces the test has started, without any countdown, and Izuku’s takes off immediately. He’s used to kicking into motion at any time, so he’s used to this kind of take off.
The other kids scramble after him, and eventually take over him, but Izuku doesn’t let that daunt him. He knows he’s weaker. Knows he’s different. He clearly looks unusual, with his cheap grey sweatpants and a black shirt that is ragged and a size too big that keeps slipping off his shoulder. His shoes are falling apart, the rubber rubbed raw.
But he can make up for this. He has to. He has months of vigilantism under his belt, and he doubts any other kids here can claim that.
He sees his first robot and launches into action, pulling out his knife. He knows the weakpoint of most robots are their joints. He doesn’t know what model this one is, but he’s going to have to stab each joint until he find it. He climbs onto the back of the robot, and quickly stabs though the neck of it, where he can see some wires on the inside. It tries to throw him off, but he wraps his legs around its neck, not letting it go.
Eventually, he finds the wire that disables the entire robot. It’s bright blue, meaning that whoever designed the robot wanted to make it visible.
This was a method they were encouraging him to use, essentially.
Filled with newfound determination, Izuku kept launching himself at robots, quickly severing the blue wire.
He kept doing it, ignoring all the flashy quirks being used around him. They were good, but he’s seen better. He has to focus on him.
Then he sees the massive zero pointer come out. Rather than running like everyone else, Izuku is immediately scanning the area for anyone who needs help, his vigilante instincts kicking in.
He sees her. The girl trapped under the rubble.
Logically, there’s no way he can get her out of there in time and run back away from it without being crushed.
So he has to think fast.
He sees engine boy speeding past. He grabs him by the shoulder.
“She is going to die. She needs help. Can you listen to me?” He speaks solemnly, impressing the seriousness of the situation onto him. He’s learnt that this is the best way to get civilians involved who want to look the other way.
The boy hesitates for a moment before nodding.
“I’ll do my best but I have barely any fuel left. I have enough to maybe go all the way towards her but not enough to make it back.”
That explains it. He didn’t run just out of selfishness.
“Okay, run with me, no quirk.”
He starts sprinting towards the girl, and engine boy follows.
While sprinting, he explains, “We’ll need both of us to lift the concrete. Afterwards, you need to grab her and get out of there.”
“What about you?” The boy pants out.
“Don’t worry about me.”
They get to the girl, and the boy helps him lift the concrete as planned and get the girl out of there. Then the boy picks the girl up and leaves, but not before casting a worried glance at Izuku.
Izuku is about to get crushed. He has one shot to get this right.
When the foot is coming down in front of him, he leaps, grabs onto the side like he would to to the side of a roof while freerunning.
He struggles to pull himself up, his arms straining. He feels something tear in his left arm. He holds back a scream. He kicks his legs, realizing the foot is almost all the way to the ground. Then miraculously, he manages to pulls himself up, mostly using his right arm.
Now he’s on top of the foot. Not under. No danger of being crushed now.
He did it.
Afterwards, he gets medical attention as well as a scolding for doing something so dangerous.
He gets free vitamin gummies, though.
The nurse takes one look at him and gives him a few more to take home.
He can’t complain, he knows he looks malnourished, especially compared to all these in shape kids. Not his fault he can barely afford ramen, let alone fresh vegetables. Speaking of which, he has to go back to work right away, he has to clean the shower today.
He sighs but heads back,
————-
He’s busy for the next few days, and barely has time to think about UA.
When he opens the letter, he doesn’t get to really enjoy it. He just tears it open because he’s late for work.
All Might’s projection comes in.
It’s definitely a shock, to say the least.
He got 42 Villain points and 30 hero points.
Putting him at a tie for 1st place. With none other than Bakugou Katsuki.
Apparently the girl he saved asked for some of his points to go to him. And so did the engine boy, who felt bad for needing Izuku to spur him into action. They all got additional rescue points.
He doesn’t know how to feel about that. This is all so idealistic and dramatic, with the whole villain and hero points.
And there’s the whole part about tying with Bakugou Katsuki. Kacchan.
Him, quirkless Deku. Tying with someone with a powerful quirk.
He never thought it would ever come to this.
He doesn’t really consider them friends, but some of his coworkers take him out for a drink. One of them is a girl a year older than him named Toga, and the other is this 19 year old man named Dabi. They’re both rather suspicious, but then again, so was he.
“If you’re going to be hero, you better be a good one.” Dabi says, over their beer. They were all underage, but when they were all runaways, what did it matter, really.
“I’m not out for glory.” Izuku says.
“I know, Falcon. You’re a true hero, at least for now. But don’t let UA corrupt you.”
Izuku stiffens, “Falcon? Who’s that?”
“We all know who you are, Izu-chan.” Toga giggles, “You’re pretty well known among the villains, it’s just all the heroes who don’t know who you are.”
That struck him the wrong way. Villains? What were these two involved in?
“Don’t worry, Izu-Chan. You’re on the villain no hit list. We would recruit you before we tried to kill you.”
“Toga, you know you can’t tell him that stuff.” Dabi sounded exasperated.
Izuku jumped up from his seat. He knew villains were all around him. After all, that was just the part of town he lived in. And not all villains were bad either. But still. He needed to leave. He set down his drink and started backing up, before sprinting his way out of there.
He would have to face them eventually, they did work together. But for now, he hides in his tiny apartment, regretting every action that brought him to the point that his only acquaintances were villains.
And they were the nicest people he’d met so far in his life. They were runaways like him too, all running away for reasons they refused to share. It brought them together in a strange way. Even the Crawler, who was basically like his mentor at this point, didn’t understand the whole runaway part. After all, the Crawler didn’t know the truth about his identity or about his quirk.
But villains? Maybe they were doing it for the good? Some villains were twisted that way. Perhaps they’re just extreme vigilantes? Killing people they deem corrupt?
He lay awake all night. One of the most enjoyable moments of his life turned to one of the worst.
Almost worse than the night he had to dispose of that corpse.
————————
Izuku continues to work, and continues to pretend like he doesn’t know the fact that his coworkers are villains.
Before he knows it, he has to buy a school uniform. Those things were expensive, so Izuku just bought some from a thrift shop. The pants weren’t quite the uniform color, but close enough. He was able to find a few plain white shirts his size, and the blazer was alright. It looked a bit frayed at the sleeves, but it was the best they had.
The first day of school is nerve wracking, for obvious reasons. He has to hide his real identity, and he can only hope that Kacchan isn’t in his class.
Of course, he’s just that lucky. He walks through the door of 1-A and almost walks right back out.
There he is, the devil himself. Seated with his legs propped up high on the desk, arguing to Iida.
He can’t recognize him. Izuku reminds himself.
Izuku’s bangs are long enough to cover his right eye, obscuring a good part of his face. He even put on a bit of cheap concealer over his freckles, since they were pretty noticeable.
His red eyes will definitely throw him off, even if Kacchan notices the similarity in his facial structure.
Then again, his face has changed. He has a scar down the side of his chin, and his face is less round, and more sharp and angled. His body is thinner, yet with more visible muscle. He looks nothing like the out of shape Mikumo of the past.
He sits at his desk, focusing on making his presence invisible. He steps past Iida and Kacchan, neither of them noticing him with his nearly silent steps and small presence.
He sits down, and that’s when he notices something off. The yellow thing on the ground. It was moving, a little. A subtly movement. Very subtle. Just the slightest rise and fall of a chest. No one other than his trained vigilante eye could make it out. He’s gotten used to observing people’s presence in the dark, with low visibility.
And that is definitely a person.
“If you’re here to make friends, then leave,” The man unzips himself.
Izuku is the only one not startled.
After commenting on how long they took to settle down, he throws uniforms at them and tells them to meet him outside.
Izuku changes, glad that the uniforms were provided and not ones he’d have to buy. He is confronted by Iida in the locker room.
“I am very grateful to you, for reminding me of the high stakes and what it means to be a hero. I almost left Uraraka-San to die, so thank you.” Iida bows his head.
“No problem, she probably wouldn’t have died, the teachers would have stopped before then. I just told you that in the heat of the moment.” Izuku lies. He wasn’t completely sure if the teachers would have stopped the robot.
Part of him wonders if they would have let her die. Would they cover up her death? Has anyone died in the past and they just don’t know about it?
Iida continues to talk to him as they walk towards the training grounds. The boy seems torn up over his mistake and determined not to make it again. Izuku understands, and doesn’t hold it against him.
Then, once they all gather there, Aizawa sensei tells them they’re doing a quirk assessment. The man glances over both Izuku and Kacchan.
“I would have you demonstrate as well, Midoriya, but your quirk is non-physical and you were homeschooled, so it wouldn’t work. Bakugou, what was your best baseball throw?”
He makes Bakugou throw the ball with his quirk, and it seems pretty impressive. He’s clearly gotten better over this year.
And is it just him, or does Bakugou look different too. It’s subtle, in the way he carries himself.
While before, he probably would have screamed Die while throwing, this time he just throws silently. He respectfully nods to the teacher before exiting the ring.
“This sounds like fun!” A girl says, after Aizawa-sensei explains.
Izuku winces. Probably not the best thing to say to a hero. As a half-decent vigilante himself, he knows that the job is not fun at all. Rewarding at times, but not enjoyable.
And he was right. Aizawa-sensei threatens to expel the last place person.
Izuku starts to feel himself panic, but stops abruptly. Aizawa-sensei knows he doesn’t have a physical quirk. And knows he’s first place. Does he potentially want him kicked out? No, if that were the case, he would have told them he’d expel the last placer right from the beginning, not after the unserious reaction of the class irritated him.
Maybe it’s just a threat. One that he won’t follow through.
It’ll be fine.
Izuku is calm enough to get to the starting line of the race with Kacchan without visibly panicking. There’s no reason for him to be afraid of him. Izuku was never bullied by this boy. That was Mikumo. And strangely enough, Kacchan looks more mature. Less explosive, almost. A little nicer.
Maybe his “death” really did affect his former childhood friend.
“Get ready to lose. I’m taking that first place away from you.” Kacchan says to him, but he’s smiling. It’s almost...challenging.
“You wish.” Izuku finds himself retorting, a matching smile on his face.
Then they go.
Izuku makes it to the finish line a second after Kacchan. Izuku has a pretty fast time for someone without a quirk, to be honest. He’s always been good at running fast, it was his speciality as the Falcon, after all.
Then they go through several other tests—the long jump was pretty easy for him, jumping over rooftops and freerunning helped with that. The sustained side jumps weren’t too bad, though he got tired pretty fast. His grip strength is pathetic, and he knows it.
He does really well on the endurance run, and the sit ups, though, and he’s hoping it’ll boost his score.
Then at last, it’s the baseball throw. Izuku throws, getting a measly 39 feet.
It’s embarrassing, for sure, but he tries not to feel too bad. He did his best. And Hagakure doesn’t do much better.
In the end, he doesn’t get last place. He comes 19th, and Hagakure is in last place.
It made sense. They both had no physical quirks that would help them, and while they were both well trained—the scores they got were much better than the average highschooler—Izuku has a male body and Hagakure has a female one. Her body is naturally going to be a little slower and a touch weaker.
It’s unfair to grade them on the same scale, but it’s pretty realistic. Most female heroes can level the playing with their quirks. But Hagakure will have to work extra hard in order to compete with the males, if she’s going into the limelight.
“Relax, it was just a logical ruse.” Aizawa-sensei says.
He thought so. He can’t see Hagakure, so he can’t read her expression, but he doubts she’s feeling very good at the moment.
After class is over, Izuku approaches her.
“Hey Hagakure. I don’t have a physical quirk either, but you did really good, you know?” He smiles at her.
Her voice sounds a little choked. “I know I didn’t do great, it’s alright.”
“You’ll get stronger.” He says, “Besides, neither of us really got to show our quirks off, you know. I’ll bet we’ll have an assignment soon where we can shine too.”
“What is your quirk, by the way?” Hagakure asks, “I’ve seen everyone else’s so far, but not yours.”
“Ever heard of Sir Nighteye?” He asks. She nods. “My quirk is a mental one like his. It’s called strategy, and I can analyze problems and see possible strategies to solve it and find the most effective one.”
“So you can see all possible ways something can go?” She sounds awed. “That’s really cool.”
Izuku laughs awkwardly, “Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty limited, it’s only about my own possible strategies and it only activates for certain things.”
They keep talking until Hagakure reaches her house. Izuku heads back to his own, and has to start working.
He hates evening shifts, they’re a lot busier, but he needs the money. It’s the only place that will pay him such a high amount without asking questions.
Staying up late at night, he started thinking about Kacchan. The way he smiled at him. It was so different from what he remembered. Can someone really change that much in a year?
He falls asleep, wondering if Kacchan would smile like that if he knew it was him. Would he cry? Would he hug him?
Or would he yell and shove him to the ground.
He had a feeling he didn’t want to know.