Chapter Text
Two Dads and a Ghost
Two Dads and a Ghost
Haze has sent 3 attachments
Haze: special delivery
Dadzawa: explain
Dadtective: He brought in three higher-level criminals
Dadzawa: when? its 5am
Haze: its not like I have a life or a sleep schedule
Dadtective: Are you okay?
Haze is offline
Dadzawa: thats a no
Dadzawa and Dadtective are offline
Despite what Aizawa had said, it was only 04:35. Which meant Izuku had just enough time to find another case before Inko got back from her night shift at the ER.
He heard the door around 05:20. Inko was home. He’d had enough time to find evidence of potentially harmful, illegal online storefront and find the ‘entrepreneurs’ behind it. He set up a realistic phishing email, tailored for the criminals. Once opened, it would allow him to track their phone’s location. The program would send him the coordinates every hour.
He planned to take care of them that night, but if circumstances changed, he had the option to leave an anonymous tip. Either way, he had plans for that night.
“Izuku!” Inko called down the hall.
He scrambled to hide his laptop under his dresser drawer’s false bottom before basically falling into the hall and sliding into the kitchen. Socks on hardwood were Izuku’s worst enemy.
“Yes, mother?”
Inko moved around the kitchen, gathering things for her dinner. “Hisashi will be back tonight,” she told him. “That means no dawdling on the way home from school. I know how you like to stay behind with your little friends, but you need to be home on time today.”
“They’re not my friends.”
Inko scoffed. “Yeah, whatever. I don’t care. Just be home before your father, yes?” She sat with her food at the dining table to eat.
“Yes, ma’am.” Izuku’s stomach growled.
“You’re dismissed.”
Izuku bowed out of the room. It wasn’t worth the effort and fight to try to have breakfast today. He would have to justify himself to Inko and he did not have the energy for that.
Besides, he wanted to get out of the house early. If he was fast enough (and lucky), he'd be early enough to avoid the bullies. And Katsuki.
He had no such luck. Katsuki was waiting outside for him. Fortunately, he was there to break Izuku’s fall when he slipped off the fire escape. Exhaustion always chose the worst time to bite him in the ass, but he’d been awake since the ass crack of dawn the previous day. Sue him if he wasn’t exactly functional.
“Oi, what the fuck, nerd?” Katsuki growled, pulling Izuku to his feet.
Izuku grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. Lost my grip.”
Katsuki looked to the sky as if praying for strength. “Just, fucking, be more careful dipshit. You good?”
Izuku scoffed, following Katsuki towards the main road. “You underestimate me. It takes more than a little fall to take me out.” Would it take him out? No. Did he probably sprain his ankle? That was a definite maybe. He adjusted his gait to mask his slight limp.
“Are you coming ‘round for dinner tomorrow? The hag needs to know,” Katsuki asked.
Izuku shook his head. “Sorry, Kacchan. My father's getting back today. Mom is insisting on ‘family time’.”
Katsuki snorted. “Well good luck with that.” Katsuki may have been Izuku’s oldest and only friend, brash and rude as he was, but even he didn’t know of the… contentious relationship Izuku had with his parents. He would hold Katsuki’s well-wishes to his chest like it could change the inevitable.
Once they made it to school, they parted ways. They were in different classes, much to both boys’ chagrin.
Katsuki tended to scare away the bullies. Without him, Izuku was left to the wolves and though he had both the skill and know-how to fight them off, it simply wasn’t worth the consequences. They would be right back at it the next day and Izuku would receive a black mark on his record. He was already going to have a difficult enough time getting into a reputable school. There was no reason to make it harder on himself. Plus, he wasn’t about to start shit with some small-fry middle school bully when he could take on violent criminals. Didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t worth it.
If he really wasn’t feeling up to dealing with the bullies, he tended to just ditch school altogether. His showing up was a courtesy at this point, though to whom he wasn’t sure.
He took his seat in the back of class, waiting for it to start. According to his tormentors: now was a good time to descend upon him. Izuku disagreed, but oh well. When did they ever want his opinion?
“Deku!” Tsukihi, Izuku’s least favourite classmate sneered at him. “Good to see you.” He placed a ‘friendly’ hand on his shoulder. Izuku winced as the heat built beneath his palm. Of course one of his bullies had a fire quirk. Seems legit. The only decent person he'd ever met with a fire-based quirk was Kacchan and even that was debatable.
Tsukihi was everything bad about Katsuki and more with none of the good traits. He was selfish, bigoted, arrogant, and sadistic, not to mention bullheaded and really fucking stupid.
Within seconds his uniform had been burned away, leaving Tsukihi’s hand burning into Izuku’s skin, smoking rising softly around the glowing heat of his palm.
Izuku forced a sweet smile onto his face. “Pleasure to see you, too.” Tsukihi’s eyes darkened and the heat against his shoulder spiked.
Tsukihi. Quirk: Hot hands. He can make his hands hot enough to melt through steel. It would be very helpful in the support industry but with the boy's attitude, he'd be more likely to end up as some low-level thug for a local gang.
The teacher stood as the bell rang. “We’ll talk at lunch,” Tsukihi threatened.
Izuku just nodded as the bully withdrew his hand, leaving blistered skin and a burnt uniform. Tsukihi laughed meanly as they dispersed to their seats. He caught, “fucking worthless,” from one of his tormentors before they were out of earshot.
Izuku sat still through homeroom. There goes yet another uniform. It didn’t really matter. None of the teachers would give him detention, purely because they didn’t want to have to stay after school with the quirkless kid.
Throughout class, he caught the whispers. It was nothing unusual, but it didn’t mean the words didn’t sting.
“Quirkless fucking Deku.”
“Why is he still here?
“Creepy ass freak.”
“Why hasn’t he killed himself yet?”
“I don’t know, but if he doesn’t do it soon, I might just do it for him.”
It was the normal things he heard on a day-to-day basis. Normal things that should by no means be normal. The insults, the hate, the suicide baiting, the occasional death threat. Just a normal day in the life of Midoriya Izuku.
School was almost always the same. Classes were boring with careless teachers and annoying peers. Passing periods with classmates ‘accidentally’ tripping him up. Today it only happened twice but one of those did just so happen to be down the stairs. It was fine, really. The only real pain came from his injured ankle and his bruised ego, but to be honest, Izuku couldn’t bring himself to give a flying fuck.
He sat through his classes, bored out of his fucking mind. He’d been taking online classes to supplement his normal schooling for years now. He’d started them as a way to actually be taught the fucking material when teachers and students alike refused to actually let him learn. It had quickly become something he just did in his free time. He may or may not be several grades ahead now. It's not that he was a genius or anything, he just had a lot of time to kill.
“Deku!” Aw. Lunchtime. Literally the worst time of the day.
And today, Izuku wasn’t quite fast enough at gathering his things. “Whatchya writing there?” Tsukihi said, snatching up his notebook.
Usually, Katsuki would be there to interfere. His presence alone deterred most of the people who wanted to target Izuku. But today, he had been pulled out of school early. Something about therapy.
Izuku tried to pull his quirk analysis notebook out of the glowing hand, but it was jerked away. The smell of burning paper filled the air. “Tsukihi, please. Give it back.” He really just wanted his notebook to survive this encounter.
“Give it back,” he mocked, earning cruel laughter from his posse. He flipped through the book with a scorching touch. “Y’know this is really fucking creepy, right? There’s a reason you don’t have any fucking friends.”
If he didn’t have any friends, then who the fuck was Katsuki? A figment of his imagination?
“Look at his face,” one of Tsukihi’s ‘friends’ laughed. “Is little Deku going to cry?”
Tsukihi was 2 for 2 if the goal was to be wrong. Izuku was not going to cry. He hadn’t cried about his situation since elementary school. Now he had worse, more unhealthy coping mechanisms. Like the apathy, he felt now.
Not to say their words didn’t hurt. They did. But nothing they did or said could compare to the sting of his parents. When the two people who were supposed to care about you the most no longer did, why would anything anyone else does matter?
“Oh my God, can you stop?” Izuku bit out. He’d had a shit day and he was fucking done. His reservations about fighting them were about to go out the fucking window. Which was right where his notebook was currently fluttering out of. What the fuck.
Tsukihi smiled poisonously. “Fetch.” The implication was clear to Izuku. As much as he’d thought about throwing himself out that very window, or even the roof, it wasn’t a long enough fall to kill him.
Izuku flipped the group off as he walked off to take the stairs. He found his notebook rumpled and a bit damp from the recently watered grass it had landed in. Not the worst shape one of them had ended in after an altercation with his bullies.
Even though it was only lunchtime, Izuku left. He just picked up his notebook and continued on, straight out the front gate. It wasn’t like anyone would miss him. No one cares about the quirkless kid.
He went past the local park to wait out the remainder of the school day. He wandered through the adjacent forested greenspace until he reached his hiding spot. There was a very tall retaining wall that he liked to lean against. The area was covered by trees and close enough to a cafe for him to get the free wifi.
The only issue was there was already someone there. He couldn’t really see them without getting closer than he would prefer to get. All he could see was a pair of feet covered by ratty sneakers.
“Hello?” Izuku said, a bit hesitant. If there was someone there, there was a good chance they were either waiting for him, homeless, or hiding. It was a relatively inaccessible area.
The person said nothing until Izuku tapped them with his foot. “Oh, are you speaking to me?” a voice, young, male, called out hesitantly, genuine in their question.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry,” the boy needlessly apologised. Though it was a shit idea, Izuku crouched and moved closer to sit next to the person. The person was about his age with pale skin and wild purple hair. Scrawny with a certain look in his eye.
“It’s fine,” Izuku told him. He probably wasn’t a threat. At least not right now. Writing him off, Izuku pulled out his laptop. He had been working on a predictive algorithm for the crime in Musutafu. When he was finished with it, it would be able to predict the crimes depending on the time of day, place in the city, and a million other factors.
They sat in silence while Izuku worked. Error after error. At the end of an hour, he was about ready to chuck his laptop into the ether. By all means, his code should be working. It just… wasn’t. At least not fucking correctly. It ran and shit, just spit out the wrong answer. Stupid. Fucking. Logic. Errors. His birth was a logic error and he just wanted the stupid code to work.
“Are you okay?” the boy next to him asked nervously, pulling Izuku’s attention.
“Yeah,” Izuku sighed. “It just won’t fucking work.” He shook his laptop a bit as if that would help.
Izuku nodded before pulling his backpack into his lap. He pulled out a rubber duck that was holding up its middle finger. “Hold Rubbert, please.”
Purple complied, though he looked so lost. Why had this random kid just told him to hold his rubber duck that was… flipping him off?
Then Izuku was talking. More like rambling. He went through the code line by line explaining what each one did. He didn’t care if Purple had no clue what he was saying. It didn’t matter. It was the process of going through it verbally that was the key.
“--and then the y var is initialised at one and--” Izuku cut himself off. That was it. He was a fucking idiot. “Motherfucker!” he exclaimed, snatching Rubbert back. The sudden movement had Purple jerking away, but Izuku paid him no mind as he returned to furiously typing.
Reaching the outcome he wanted at long last (not that he was finished, just at a good stopping point), he set his laptop aside and turned his attention to Purple.
The boy raised an eyebrow at him over the book he’d been occupying himself with. “Are you going to explain what all that was about?
“My program wasn’t working. Now it kinda does. At least more than before.” He shrugged. “This is Rubbert,” he said, holding up the rubber duck that was flipping them off.
Purple snorted. “I love him.”
Izuku tucked the duck away. “As do I. He is my only true friend.”
“Felt,” Purple agreed. “So what are you doing here during school hours?”
“Getting laid. Obviously,” he joked, rolling his eyes.
Purple quirked an eyebrow. “You offering?”
Izuku snorted. “In your dreams.” He glanced at his phone, checking the time. 15:00. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshit. He needed to leave now. “I am so sorry to cut what could be the beginning of something magical short,” Izuku said, cutting off whatever Purple had been saying. “But I really need to go. I’ll see you around.”
Izuku had to sprint home. The park was further from his house than school was and at this rate, he was going to be late. He threw his backpack up the fire escape before running around to the apartment complex entrance, up the stairs, through the hall, and to his front door.
His heart pounded from exertion and adrenaline. He was 15 minutes late. He silently opened the front door and pulled off his shoes.
“Oh, you’re finally back,” Hisashi said, from the couch when he was watching Izuku. “No regard for my time of course. Or the fact that I haven’t seen you in three months.”
“Hello, father,” Izuku said. “Welcome home.” Against his leg, his hands shook. The sharp look in Hisashi’s eyes and the set of his shoulders had him on edge.
“Have you manifested a quirk yet?” The usual question. The same one every time Hisashi returned from one of his extended trips.
His heart beat at a sprint. “No, sir.” The same answer from Izuku’s lips.
Hisashi’s jaw tightened. Izuku took half a step back. “Have you done nothing since I left?
“No, sir.” He had done plenty, thank you very much. Just nothing like Hisashi would have required.
His father looked him over again. Izuku tried not to twitch under the harsh stare. He was acutely aware of the singed hole in his uniform. He knew his father saw it. “Gift from your friends?”
“Yes sir.”
“You understand we don’t have the money to replace that. Not for you. You need to be more careful,” Hisashi told him.
“Yes, sir. I understand. I will.” Like he could control his classmates.
Hisashi scoffed, disgust in his eyes. “Fine. Are you ready for training?”
Training was a misleading word in this situation. Torture or testing would be more accurate. Every day Izuku cursed Dr Michelle Gram for her research she published on Trauma Induced Spontaneous Quirk Development.
“Go to the Room and wait for me,” Hisashi ordered.
Izuku’s heart stuttered. “Yes, sir.” He hurried back to the unused ‘guest room’. It wasn’t really a guest room, but simply a mostly empty room with easily cleanable flooring. To the unknowing eye, someone would probably guess sex dungeon. They would be very very wrong.
Hisashi followed behind him, blocking the exit. Izuku closed his eyes, wishing he was anywhere else. He was frozen in place; prey who knew they were caught, waiting for the predator to pounce.
“You will manifest a quirk this time. Swear it,” Hisashi ordered, shuffling around the room.
Izuku’s eyes were still closed, his body still frozen in panic. The words fell out of his mouth like someone else was speaking for him. “I will manifest a quirk this time, sir.”
He wouldn’t. It wasn’t his choice. If it was, he’d have manifested a quirk at the age of four like all the other children. Hisashi didn’t care.
Izuku forced his eyes open to see Hisashi turning around and rolling up his shirt sleeves to his elbows.
Izuku couldn’t say what happened next.
He was alone. Alone in the bathroom. This was fine.
Dried blood flaked off him as he removed the rest of his clothes. He felt the sting and the warmth as his injuries reopened. He didn’t care. He felt his body take a scalding shower, watched as the water ran rusty pink around the drain.
He couldn’t use a towel without staining it so he didn’t. He barely felt the cold that invaded his bones as soon as the shower was off. Rusty water dripped from swollen fingers. Then the water stopped dripping, his practised hands mechanically bandaged split and burnt skin. He redressed and floated through the hall to his room.
He was in no state to go out as Haze. Instead, he retrieved his backpack from the fire escape and logged in to his computer. The tracking he’d set up that morning blinked at him. Though it had only been a day, it felt more like weeks. He sent the cases to Tsukauchi.
Two Dads and a Ghost
Haze: special delivery part 2: electric boogaloo
Haze sent three attachments
Haze: the gps should have their current location
Dadtective: Feeling slightly more law-abiding?
Haze: feeling a lot more like passing tf out
Haze: the universe says no
Dadzawa: go to sleep
Haze: don’t be a hypocrite
Haze: I’ll sleep when I’m dead
Haze: so hopefully soon
Dadzawa: you werent out tonight?
Haze: nope. Couldn’t
Dadtective: What does that mean?
Read 04:47
Izuku flicked off his phone. Should he get a twenty-minute power nap or get up and get something to eat? He settled on getting something to eat. He couldn’t quite pick out the hunger pains amidst the other pains he was feeling, but he was sure they were there. He needed sustenance.
He threw himself down the fire escape (maybe a bit more literally than he intended) in the clothes he’d apparently put on after he’d patched himself up. He didn’t remember what he’d put on. Turns out it was neon pink Present Mic sweatpants and a plain black hoodie with nothing but gauze under it. His green curls were tied up in a poof with a matching neon pink scrunchie.
It was an entire look™, especially with a healing black eye and eye bags deeper than the Mariana Trench, plus the beaten-up pair of black off-brand high-top vans he had. He put colour corrector and concealer on as he walked to the cafe he stole wifi from.
He got some weird looks as he walked, but he couldn’t care less. He knew he looked like an extra tired 12-year-old with the fashion sense of a rock. He didn’t care. He’d had a shit night and now he wanted a muffin. Was that too much to ask?
He got his poppy seed muffin and a large cold brew. He most definitely didn’t pour it into his water bottle with an entire energy drink. It was fine. He was legally drunk, not having actually slept in over 48 hours. Unless you counted passing out. Plus he was in moderate to severe pain. He was doing great.
He took his drink and muffin with him to sit behind the shop in his hidden alcove. He found Purple asleep in the same clothes as yesterday.
Welp… that wasn’t great. Izuku quickly came to three conclusions. Either this boy was homeless, kicked out, or didn’t want to go home. Whichever one it was, it wouldn’t be the case by Sunday.
“Rise and shine, Purple!” Izuku said, collapsing next to the boy.
Purple groaned and sat up. “Who the fuck are you?”
Izuku gave him a smirk. It was the most he could manage in his depressed, zombie-like state. “I was here yesterday.”
“Rubbert dude,” Purple said as if it explained everything. In a way it kind of did. “So why are you here this way-too-early Friday morning?”
“None of your business,” Izuku said, stuffing a chunk of muffin in his mouth. “I’m Izuku,” he introduced himself.
“Hitoshi,” Purple grunted out.
“You’re not a morning person,” Izuku observed.
Hitoshi, who was almost back asleep, grunted in response. Izuku offered him some of his drink. Hitoshi accepted, taking a swig before almost choking. “What the fuck is that?” he asked, definitely awake now.
“Probably the reason you shouldn’t accept mystery drinks from strangers,” Izuku commented, plucking his water bottle back from Hitoshi’s loose grip. “That is one large cold brew mixed with an energy drink. Maybe a little extra spice.” Hitoshi stared at Izuku as if he’d just told him he was actually the king of France.
“How are you alive?” he said at long last.
“I’m not,” Izuku said, taking a swig of his drink and pulling out his laptop.
Hitoshi sighed. “Those are bold words coming from a ten-year-old.”
Izuku shot him a glare. “I’m fourteen.”
Hitoshi would have done a spit-take had he been drinking anything. “I’m sorry. You’re how old?”
“Fourteen.”
“I’ve seen dogs taller than you are.” Hitoshi pulled out a phone from his black backpack.
“Thanks,” Izuku shot back, getting to work on the cybersecurity course he’d decided to take. It was the fourth course in the pathway and complex as fuck. It took an hour for his brain to decide to call it quits and leak out his ear.
Hitoshi, who’d been scrolling on his phone and minding his own while Izuku looked up when Izuku asked, “So why’d you sleep here?”
“Felt like it,” Hitoshi said, putting his phone away and pulling out a laptop of his own.
“Real explanatory. If you’re not gonna answer that, then why are you back here? Like not at school?”
“Homeschooled,” Hitoshi said. Now that Izuku looked at the boy’s screen he could see the logo of a pretty well-known online middle school. “What about you?”
“I’ve got better things to do than go to school.” Izuku turned his attention to the half-eaten muffin that he’d almost forgotten about.
Hitoshi turned to him. “I’m sorry. I’m still stuck on the fact that you’re not ten. How tall are you?”
Izuku sighed. “First of all: fuck you. Second: I guarantee you I’m fourteen. And I’m four foot eleven. I know I’m small.” Looking at Hitoshi he could tell the boy was at least five inches taller than him. Not unusual. He had been severely malnourished from a young age. He wasn’t going to get tall.
“Damn,” was all Hitoshi offered. They sat in silence working on their respective work for a while.
Izuku was again the one to break the silence. “Hitoshi, I’ve come to three possible conclusions as to why you slept here.” Hitoshi looked slightly worried. Why was Izuku thinking about this so much? “Number one: you’re homeless. Two: you got kicked out. Three: you didn’t want to go home. So which is it?”
Maybe his approach lacked tact, but tact was for losers and therapists. Seeing as he was neither, he had no use for it. He’d rather come off as blunt than not get the answers he wanted.
“The second one?” Hitoshi said, still thrown off guard by the complete non sequitur. “Why do you wanna know?”
“Call it curiosity,” Izuku said. He most definitely wasn’t pulling up all CCTV footage from the surrounding area. He had a new case and he’d be damned if he didn’t work it through to completion.
He found Hitoshi in the cafe’s CCTV footage from the previous day. He followed the virtual Hitoshi back to his home, going through different footage from stores, homes, and train stations. Through hard work and the stupidity of the average person, Izuku had access to enough cameras in Musutafu to have eyes basically everywhere.
Hitoshi’s apartment complex had no security cameras on the inside, but what footage Izuku could get was good enough.
Next, he got the leasing records, but couldn’t go any further. He needed Hitoshi’s family name. Hitoshi didn’t seem like he was about to give it to him. That left him with only one choice.
Two Dads and a Ghost
Haze : Tsukauchi. I need you to find me someone
Dadtective : I’m not your personal dating app.
Haze : You know thats not what I meant
Haze : His given name is Hitoshi. He’s 14 enrolled in Foresters online middle school. He’s abt 166 cm. Has purple hair fair skin purple eyes and scars along his jaw.
Haze : I need a family name.
Dadtective : Why don’t you get it yourself?
Haze : thats illegal. Family name???
Dadtective : Shinsou. Why did you need it?
Haze : Thanks. Gimme a minute
Izuku found the Shinsous in the leasing records. Apartment 7b. Conveniently with a window sharing the alleyway with a convenience store. Convenient. He got into the camera footage which had a view right into the Shinsou’s living room.
What he found made him incredibly angry. When at home it seemed Hitoshi was forced into a muzzle. He was treated like an animal. It was disgusting to watch. No wonder he didn’t want to be there.
Two Dads and a Ghost
Haze has sent 1 attachment
Haze : case of severe child abuse
Dadtective : Thanks. I’ll send Eraser to deal with it.
Haze : Hitoshi is currently out. Now would probably be the best time.
Dadzawa : omw
“I’m bored,” Izuku announced, tucking his phone away and turning to Hitoshi.
“And you want me to do something about it?” Hitoshi asked over the top of his laptop. “Y’know I have schoolwork, right?”
Izuku shrugged. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”
Hitoshi sighed. “Fine. Why are you here?” he asked, closing his laptop.
“I didn’t feel like going to school,” he said. It was pretty much a non-answer, but it didn’t really matter. “Not much use when I don’t learn anything there.”
“I guess that makes sense. Are you going to high school then?”
Izuku shrugged. He wanted to go to UA, but he wasn’t sure how feasible it really was. As of last year, they accepted quirkless applicants, but that was on paper. There hadn’t been any quirkless students accepted this year. There was no proof besides talk.
“Where are you applying?” he asked Hitoshi.
Hitoshi rubbed the back of his neck. “I was thinking about UA, Shiketsu, Seijin, Isamu, maybe Ketsubutsu,” he admitted.
“Hero course?”
Hitoshi nodded.
Instead of asking about his new friend’s quirk like he wanted, he asked, “So who’s your favourite hero?”
Izuku was by no means a hero fanboy anymore, but he had found that question made a good litmus test for those he kept around him. Endeavour was an immediate red flag, All Might could go either way, Hawks was a yellow flag, and so on.
“Do you know Eraserhead?” Hitoshi ventured. “He’s an underground hero with a subtle quirk.”
Green flag. Izuku nodded vigorously. It was decided. Hitoshi was definitely going to be his friend and there was nothing the boy could do about it.
“I fucking love Eraserhead!” Izuku exclaimed. Hitoshi looked taken aback, but pleased. “He fights quirkless most of the time. It's so impressive. And his capture weapon? His capture weapon! I still can’t figure out how it works and I’ve even seen the prototype’s schematic.” Izuku dissolved into a bout of mumbling that left Hitoshi concerned for his sanity.
“So is he your favourite hero?” Hitoshi cut in when Izuku stopped for a breath.
Izuku’s heart dropped. He’d done it again. He looked away, twisting his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry. I did it again. The mumbling, I mean… I know it’s really annoying and--”
“No, it's fine,” Hitoshi cut him off. Glancing up at the other boy, he saw how baffled and concerned Hitoshi looked at Izuku’s reaction.
Izuku mentally fumbled around for a response. That really wasn’t the normal reaction to his rambling. “Um… Okay? My favourite hero, though, is probably either Eraserhead or Midnight. Not for any perverted reasons,” he immediately clarified. “I just think her quirk is really cool. How she can de-escalate a situation simply by being in the vicinity. She doesn’t even have to resort to any form of violence. It's a really good skill for a hero to have.”
“So what's your quirk?” Hitoshi asked. He obviously had less tact than Izuku. That was saying something.
Izuku froze. Fuck. Fucking shit. His heart rate kicked up. What was he supposed to say? Sorry, I don't have one. Please don't hate me. Not going to happen. He could run, but that would be suspicious. Hitoshi was looking at him strangely. He needed to answer.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhh… I lost it?” he finally said hesitantly with the fear of a doctor telling the family their family member had died. Fuck it. Who needs friends anyway?
Hitoshi snorted, accepting the deflection easily. “Okay, then.”
If Hitoshi asked him about his, then it was fair game. “What’s your quirk then?”
“Brainwashing,” he spat bitterly.
“Holy shit,” Izuku said, thoughts already pouring out of his mouth, unfiltered. “That would be so useful for hero work. More underground hero work, but still. You could diffuse situations so easily. Think of hostage situations. No one would get hurt. Even in other lines of work, it would be so helpful. That’s an amazing quirk. How long does it last? Do you have to ask a question or just be talking to the person? Is there a distance limitation? Or is it time? How many people can you hold at once? What are the repercussions?” Izuku bit his tongue when he realised he’d done it again. He paused, cringing back a bit and waiting for it to come. The strike or yell or burn he’d get whenever he did that at home or school.
It never came.
“Do you really think I could be a hero?” Hitoshi asked, stunned.
“Of course,” Izuku answered, baffled. “Why couldn’t you?”
Hitoshi looked thoughtful. “You don’t think my quirk is villainous?” Both boys were floundering in unfamiliar territory.
Izuku scoffed. “Anyone who thinks a quirk is villainous is brainless. Think of quirks like weapons. In and of itself a weapon is neutral. Its nature is dependent on how the person uses it.” He didn’t mention the whole thing where something made for violence is most likely to be used for that purpose or how society shaped the outcome of someone’s life or that statistically, weapons are more likely to be used for violence just like ‘villainous’ quirks were more likely to be used for violence. Or how ‘useless’ quirks were less likely to advance in life. Or how quirkless were less likely to live a life.
That really wasn’t the vibe of the conversation.
Hitoshi nodded, then hesitantly asked, “When you say you lost your quirk, do you mean you’re quirkless?”
Izuku nodded slightly. Hitoshi didn’t look at him any differently, but Izuku could feel the conversation hanging by a thread.
“So are you going to high school?” Hitoshi asked.
Izuku bit his lip. He didn’t think Hitoshi meant it in the way it came off. He knew about the stereotypes that went with being quirkless. He had made it his personal goal to not fall into them. He nodded.
“Where are you applying?”
He could tell Hitoshi was trying to revive the conversation so Izuku threw him a bone. “UA. If they don’t accept me, I’ll have to do American online schooling.” UA was the only accessible high school that accepted quirkless students to any of the programs Izuku had any interest in. America, though not the best for the quirkless, at least had antidiscrimination laws and a higher percentage of quirkless per capita than Japan.
“So what field of study do you want to go into?”
“Heroism,” Izuku admitted.
Hitoshi offered him a small smile. “For what it's worth, I think you’ve got a pretty good shot.”
Izuku nodded. “Thanks. If that doesn’t work out though, UA has a pretty good support course. I do enjoy cybersecurity and software engineering.”
“Nerd,” Hitoshi snorted.
“Hey!” Izuku mockingly exclaimed, batting at Hitoshi’s arm. “I take offence.”
With the new levity in the air, things felt more natural and relaxed between them.
“So where’d you get Rubbert?” Hitoshi asked.
“The floor,” Izuku shrugged. “Lucky find I guess.”
Hitsoshi huffed dramatically. “Who just leaves that on the floor?”
Izuku laughed. “I don’t know. Their loss, though. It's my prized possession.”
Hitoshi rolled his eyes. “You know what my prized possession is?”
“Hm?”
Hitoshi pulled a pencil case out of his beat-up backpack. The pencil case was Pusheen, but the scarf and goggles tipped Izuku off to what it really was. An Eraserhead-themed Pusheen pencil case. Izuku’s face lit up.
“I love it!” He pulled out his phone, snapped a picture and sent it off to the man himself. “Where did you even find it?”
Hitoshi smiled. “I had to custom order it. No regrets, honestly.”
“Understandable.” Izuku glanced down at his phone to check if Eraserhead had responded yet. He hadn’t but Izuku did notice the time. “ Shit, ” he breathed. “I gotta go. Sorry. But uh…” Izuku fumbled around in his bag and pulled out a marker. He scribbled his number down on Hitoshi’s wrist. “Text me.” He ran off without a backwards glance.
Two Dads and a Ghost
Haze: sent image [Eraserhead Pusheen pencil case]
Dadzawa: where did you even find that
Dadzawa: shouldnt you be in school
Haze: fuck you I do what I want
Haze: also: my friend showed it to me. He commissioned it
Dadzawa: school, child
Dadawa: just bc youre a vigilante doesnt mean you can be truant
Haze:
ew no