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If you asked Dabi, this wasn’t how he thought he’d be spending most of his teens either, but half dead and bleeding out behind a dumpster in one of the busier malls in the area wasn’t a normal thing anyway. The dumpster he had fallen behind was surrounded by scorched pavement, reminders of when he thought it’d be a good idea to cauterize the wound. It wasn’t. It most definitely wasn’t.
He resigned himself for the end, sighing as his vision started to get black spots. Well, he thought, letting out a strained breath. At least Shoto, Natsuo, and Fuyumi won’t have to see me like this. Someone stepped in front of him as his vision started blacking out completely.
“Hey… keep… just… awake!..” He didn't have the energy to move.
“Huh?” He muttered, and heard a large gasp.
“Oh no… lot of… stay…” Dabi’s head hit the pavement with a thud.
Izuku wasn’t really thinking too much when he headed down the nearest alleyways on his way to the mall. It was a common thing, and he had them all memorized in case he needed to hide from Kacchan, or watch a hero fight. However, his mind started racing when he turned into an alleyway and the pavement was coated in red, because someone had been hurt, and he didn’t know if it was a hero or a villain.
He walked forward with caution, holding his backpack in front of him like a shield. He squeaked as something shifted behind a dumpster.
“He-hello?” He peered around the metal, eyes widening as he saw the reason for all the blood.
“Oh my god!” He threw his backpack to the side and knelt down, ignoring the blood soaking into his knees. “Hey!” Are you okay? I mean, you’re not okay- wow that’s a big knife-” The man groaned and Izuku stopped. “Hey! Keep your eyes open. Stay awake! Please!”
“Huh?” The man groaned, twisting a bit on the ground. Izuku stared for a few seconds. “Oh no. Shoot, that’s a lot of blood. What would mom do, what would mom do? Stay awake!” The man, however, apparently, had other plans, and passed out.
Mom, Izuku thought as he stared at the man, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m getting groceries today.
After a bit of asking around and many, many, odd looks because he didn’t think of covering the bloody mess of the man’s body as he drug him across the city in a borrowed wagon, he reached his apartment complex.
“MOM!” He shouted, throwing the door open wide. She appeared in the hallway from the kitchen.
“Izuku? OH MY. You’re covered in blood!” He forgot about that.
“Mom! Help him!” He rushed out the door again, hoping she was following. There was a large gasp, and she raced past him, beginning to issue orders.
“Put the tablecloth over some couch cushions on the floor.”
He was comfortable when he woke up. He was comfortable until he moved. Then, pain shot through his whole torso, and he hissed in surprise. Someone green moved into his vision and pushed him back down.
“Stay where you are or you’ll mess up the stitches.”
Her voice was stern, leaving no room for disagreement, so he did as he was told.
“Wh-” His voice was raspy, and he coughed before trying again. “Who- who are you?”
The woman crouched down beside him, and he could see a boy in the hallway behind her.
“Inko Midoriya. My son, Izuku, brought you here. Who are you?”
“To-Dabi.”
“Well, To-Dabi,” she grinned, “welcome to our home.”
She didn’t kick him out once he was well enough to move, by some miracle. Instead, she guided him to a stool and a sink full of dishes and had him sit down and do chores. Once the woman stopped fussing over him constantly, her son came close to bother him. First, it was questions about what had happened and why he was stabbed, then, it moved to being questions about his quirk, or if he knew how to fight, and if he could ‘please please please’ teach him how to fight too.
He never actually planned on helping the kid fight. Didn’t think it was right, because this kid was Shoto’s age and Shoto shouldn’t be fighting. And then he saw the burns, and dammit, he had to help the kid. They were bandaged better than an amateur could do, but nowhere professional. When Izuku walked back from the bathroom after his shower in a muscle shirt instead of a t-shirt, he saw the scars. The ugly, ugly scars. They expanded from his shoulders onto his back, sneaking under the shirt and out of view.
“What happened to you?” Dabi asked, looking away as if disinterested.
“It’s uh, it's nothing. There was just an accident in class.” Izuku’s eyes were wide. Honestly, Dabi didn’t blame him.
“And it went that badly? The teachers didn’t stop it?” He pressed.
“It’s fine, it’s not serious. Just an accident.”
“Mm huh,” Dabi said, ignoring all the lies this kid was sprouting, “If you say so, kid.”
“I do say so.”
“Okay.”
Dabi left the Midoriya’s home a few days after Inko officially declared him well enough to take care of himself. She had threatened to kill him if he was ever found bleeding out behind a dumpster or even so much as skipping a meal when he was gone. He almost didn’t think she’d let him leave, with the number of things she made him do around the apartment before letting him go. He waved and promised to take better care of himself and walked out the door, expecting that that would be the last he ever saw of the Midoriya family.
Of course, he has always had really shitty luck, and just because he was saved from bleeding out one time was not going to change that.
He wasn't looking where he was going, not in the sense of knowing where he was anyway. Kacchan and his goons were gaining on him, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they caught up if he kept to the main path. It was only because he knew the alleys so well that he managed to gain such a distance, that, and well, you get faster the more you run. He heard a whoop from behind him, quieted by distance but still distinguishable. Kacchan had seen him, and he needed to hide.
His shoes crunched down rock and he passed dumpsters and the occasional homeless person crouching over a spilled bag of what was likely fresh food. He slowed as he neared a somewhat familiar spot in the alley. He dropped, shifting into the space between the wall and the dumpster. Broken glass bit against his knees but he stayed quiet.
Only seconds later, the panting forms of Bakugou Katsuki and his two goons made their appearance in the alley. Izuku could only see up to their knees, but what other kids would be there, panting as if they ran a marathon? Hopefully, they’d leave soon, or the smell of garbage may never come out of his shirt.
“What are you kids doing here?” Dabi? Why was he here? He suddenly became painfully aware of the blood-stained pavement surrounding the dumpster. This was where-
“What’s it to you, crispy?”
Dabi laughed. It was a cold, harsh thing. “That’s fair, I suppose, I don’t exactly have the prettiest of faces. Scars tend to do that.”
Scars? Izuku thought, ignoring whatever insult Kacchan came up with next.
“Want to say that again,” Izuku heard a couple of pops. Dabi was cracking something. “Brat?”
Kacchan’s stance shifted, becoming more defiant. “I ain’t scared of you! You’re just some extra, you probably don't even have a strong quirk.”
Dabi sighed. “Don’t say you didn’t ask for it.” The alley lit up blue.
When the light faded, Izuku crawled out from behind the dumpster.
“Kid?” Green eyes met blue, and Izuku jumped forward.
“Dabi! Thank you!” He was stopped by a bleeding hand and immediately switched his focus. “What happened to you?”
“Some stupid quirk sh- stuff.”
“You have to come back to my place and get fixed up! C’mon.”
“I can’t.”
“Why.”
“Because-” I’m really bad at drug dealing and I don't want to drag your family into that. Because I have just over a few people who want me dead. Because- “I have things to do still.”
“But-”
“Kid, keep bothering me, and you’ll never learn how to fight.”
Green eyes shimmered. “You mean you’ll teach me? Really?”
Shit. “Maybe.” He turned to leave, before muttering back at the kid. “Come here in a week and we’ll figure something out.”
Dabi left that alleyway with one more thing to stress over. Izuku left that alley with more hope than he had felt in a long time.