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When Izuku is three, the world is easy. Kacchan has been a bit meaner since he developed his quirk, sure, but they still talk about how they’re going to grow up and fight together, side by side. They agree that they’re going to be heroes- and Izuku wishes every single night that he develops a quirk even half as strong as Kacchan.
By the time he is five, he realises that the world isn’t kind, and never will be. His diagnosis- Quirkless, useless, unwanted- hangs over his head, and the other kids his age know it. After the doctor’s visit, after Izuku tells Kacchan in between sobs, Katsuki ignores him for a month. Everyday grates on him, makes him feel a little bit more and more on edge. Sometimes, Izuku feels like a ghost, and wonders if this is what it would be like, to be dead- there, but with everyone else acting like you aren’t.
The silence lasts until Izuku sees Kacchan trying to target another kid at the park by their houses. He runs, and yells, and takes Kacchan’s attention away from the kid. That day is the first of many where Kacchan and his friends take out all their anger on him.
The only time someone tries to be his friend, Kacchan loudly tells them that Izuku is a disgusting Deku, and that they’ll probably catch it from him. Nobody talks to Deku after that. His childhood years are spent friendless, but that’s okay- instead, Deku watches, and learns. He starts taking notes, about everything, everybody. It’s not long before he has a notebook filled with the members of his class. The notes aren’t perfect, or even particularly good, but Deku doesn’t stop taking them. Notebook after notebook is written in as much detail as he can, rewritten as he gets better. His favourite to take notes on is, and always will be, Kacchan. There’s even a book dedicated to him. His personality, fighting style, strengths. Weaknesses. Just for the sake of thoroughness.
--
By the time he is nine, Deku has nineteen burn scars in different places. Three on his left arm, six on his right, and five on his back. Four on his legs, from when he forgot himself in the pain and tried to kick out. His mom hasn’t seen him without a long-sleeve shirt on in a year. Kacchan doesn’t try to bully anyone else, these days because Deku would just jump in anyway. That’s what a hero does, right? They take the pain others can’t so that everyone else will be safe. That’s why he lets Kacchan use him for training.
Kacchan will be a good hero, one day.
--
Deku loves heroes, loves them so, so much. They’re so strong, and they always win. So, he watches- he seeks out all the battles he can, learns out to use technology to watch videos and find updates.
The very first hero/villain fight he sees in person is between Bunbani- a rabbit themed hero with a jump quirk- and a villain whose quirk allows him to shoot small fireballs. She’s beautiful as she fights, and Deku watches as she bounces around, dodging fireballs and landing hit after hit. After she wins, he rushes up to her, and begs for an autograph. She smiles, ruffles his hair, and signs the notebook he handed to her- No. 5- before jumping high into the sky to the rooftops above.
It is probably the best day of his life, and Bunbani quickly becomes his second favourite hero- second only to All Might, of course.
--
“Oi, Deku,” Kacchan calls out to him at the end of a school day. They are ten. This is unusual because Kacchan never talks to him- only yells, threatens, or hurts.
He looks over to Kacchan but doesn’t answer. He never answers.
“Meet me behind the school in twenty, got it? Don’t keep me fuckin’ waiting.”
And then, he’s gone.
Deku’s mind kicks into overdrive, analysing the exchange. It’s a power play, he’s sure- Kacchan just wants Deku there to train with him, he’s sure, just like every other day- so it’s probably Kacchan trying to see just how obedient he is, just how willing he is to follow Kacchan’s orders.
He sits at his desk for ten minutes, deliberating. He could tell Kacchan that he doesn’t want to do this anymore. He could tell a teacher. He could simply not turn up.
But that’d mean that Kacchan would get in trouble, or wouldn’t get any stronger, or would go after people who don’t know how to handle the pain he dishes out.
Or he’d just chase Deku down. The pain would be worse, then.
He puts on his backpack, tucks under his chair, and leaves to behind the school with five minutes to spare. After all, Kacchan told him not to keep him waiting.
--
That night marks the first time that Kacchan stays for a bit, afterwards, that they sit together in silence, and though he never speaks, never even looks at him, Kacchan is- vulnerable. Without the personality he flashes about to everyone, the yells and confidence. In these moments, Kacchan is still.
Deku doesn’t know what hurts more- the beatings, or the fact that the only way he can see Kacchan like this is after them.
--
On his eleventh birthday, his mom walks in as he’s changing. It wouldn’t be a big deal, if it weren’t for the collection of scars that are so close, they could be one, though Deku still remembers finding each one. The moment the door opens he freezes, and he feels like a deer in the headlights- unable to move even as the worst thing that could possibly happens does.
They lock eyes for a moment, and Deku watches as she sees, for the first time, the mess of mottled scars that is his arms and back.
“Izuku…” she breathes out, after a moment of silence. She sounds like she’s ready to fall apart, and Deku looks away because he doesn’t want to see the tears in her eyes.
In that moment, he shuts out all the fear, and pain, and worry for later to focus on her. “It’s okay, Mom,” he tries to reassure her, as he pulls the shirt he was changing into over his head. “They don’t hurt anymore.”
It does the opposite, he supposes, because she starts sobbing, and pulls him into a hug- gentle, like she doesn’t know how hard she can squeeze before he breaks. Deku hasn’t seen his mom cry like this since his father left. He hugs her back, not sure of what else he can do.
“Who did this to you?” she asks, and Deku hesitates- he can’t tell her, can he? Wouldn’t he be responsible for ruining Kacchan’s future if he did? He couldn’t. Not when Kacchan would save so many people, right?
She grabs his face, holds it between her hands so that he’s looking at her. “Please, baby,” she pleads, and he knows that she is scared and worried, but he… he can’t.
So, he doesn’t answer. She asks him again, and again, and again, and it’s only after he whispers to her that she leaves.
“Please, Mom. I just want to have a nice day. Can we just forget about it, for today?”
He hears her crying in her room, but she comes out half an hour later with a fresh face, and they go out to the ice cream place a ten-minute walk away like nothing had happened.
--
The next day, for the very first time in years, he approaches Kacchan. He decides lunch is his best bet and stands next to his desk.
“Kacchan, can we talk? Please? It’s urgent,” he asks, trying not to sound annoying. He’s trembling in a way that he hasn’t in years.
Kacchan looks at him, eyes cut. “What the fuck do you want, nerd?” he asks, and his palms are already beginning to smoke.
“It’s just, uhm, I- well-“ he stutters, and Kacchan grunts, before standing up and walking out of their classroom, to the empty hallway.
Deku clambers to follow.
“Fucking speak, dipshit,” Kacchan growls, low and angry. Deku is grateful for even this, the ability to talk.
“It’s just that, uh, my- my mom, she saw- the, the scars, and I- I didn’t tell on you! I promise! But I think she wants to talk to me later, I, uhm…” He trails off, glad that he’s managed to stutter it out at least.
For a moment, Kacchan is silent. Then, the storm begins.
“What the fuck do you mean? You fuckin’ idiot! I bet you’re fucking happy, now, huh? It’s all your fuckin’ fault, dipshit, deal with your own fuckin’ problems,” he yells, and it’s almost funny that nobody even glances into the hallway.
“Please, Kacchan- I don’t want my mom to see, please, no more, please” he begs, and Kacchan approaches, and Deku backs up until his back hits the hallway door.
“Fuck if I care,” he growls, and pins Deku against the wall, hand on his shoulder already popping. “You’ll meet me behind the school later, and then you’ll go home and tell your mom whatever it fucking takes to get her off my dick, got it? I don’t give a fuck what you have to say, so long as it doesn’t come back to me.”
He lets out an explosion then, and it hurts more than the tiny pops Deku had felt. He’s grateful that his uniform is black.
“Okay, Kacchan,” he agrees, quiet. There is ice in him, he feels numb and cold and empty. He just wants to go home and curl up and cry.
--
He doesn’t. He waits behind school, and Kacchan shows up. He changes behind the school, into his generic tank and sweatpants. It doesn’t matter if they catch on fire or burn.
After Kacchan leaves, it takes a while for Deku to ground himself, to get himself to focus on the here and now and not the pain. Deku looks at his arms, and counts all the new marks. Kacchan really doesn’t care, it seems, because there’s even a scar on his side, where there hadn’t ever been one before.
He goes home. His mom is sat at the table, but he whispers a “I’m too tired,” to her, and slips right into his room. She doesn’t follow him.
He looks at the books on his desk. No. 5 is on top. It’s the one he dedicated to Kacchan, the one nearly full. The one Bunbani had signed, all those years ago.
He reads through it, and he thinks, and he analyses. It’s the only thing he’s good at, after all.
Kacchan was so strong. He would never stop hurting Deku. His mom would catch on some day. He’d just make her sad. He already is. He just wants Kacchan to stop. They’re only kids, they’ve only ever been kids, and Deku doesn’t want to live like this.
He wishes he were strong. He wishes that Kacchan would find someone else, would stop. He wishes he wasn’t just some unwanted Quirkless kid taking up space. But he could never change that, and he could never take down someone like Kacchan.
… Could he?
He knows everything about Kacchan. Everything. It is all in detail here, everything from his favourite colour to which hand he throws his first punches with, to the limits and weaknesses of his Quirk.
Deku knows everything… and knowledge is power.
He turns the page, and starts writing.
He’d never use it. Never. But, well, at least he’d have the plan there, right?
--
Just before they leave for summer break, Deku is called into the principal’s office. Deku has never been in his principal’s office before. He even only vaguely remembers the man’s name is Mr. Uchimura. His mom is there, crying.
“What did you do?” he asks his mom, quietly. She doesn’t answer.
“Izuku,” Mr. Uchimura begins, “Your mother has told us that you’re the subject of bullying. She said that you’ve got some scars on your arms and back?”
He stares at his mother. She hadn’t even tried to talk to him about them. He hasn’t felt this betrayed since he was a kid.
Deku refuses to answer, not while his mom’s still there. It’s childish, but he doesn’t care.
“Ah, Ms Midoriya, perhaps if we were alone…?” the principal suggests.
“Do not make suggestions about my own child,” Inko snaps, but she grabs her bag to stand in the hall regardless.
“Izuku, please know that we take bullying very seriously here. Your mother seems to think that Katsuki Bakugou is bullying you. Now, I know you two are good friends, and I know how boys roughhouse. It can get very messy with Quirks involved, I understand. And Katsuki has such a bright future ahead of him, you understand…”
Ah, so this was it, then- the school would not be on Deku’s side. The school would not punish Kacchan, not in any way that mattered. They would push Deku down, silence him the best the could.
Funnily enough, Deku hadn’t considered the idea of the school knowing, and just not caring.
“Yes,” he agrees, and his mouth feels dry and his tongue heavy, but the forces the words out. “Yes, that’s all it is.”
“Ah, I see,” the principal nods, “Well, don’t worry. Your mother isn’t the only parent to come to conclusions like that. I understand that you’ll likely want to talk to her, now, won’t you? Hmm, well you’ve only got twenty minutes left, before club activities… Why don’t you talk to her before you go to your club, hmm?”
Deku doesn’t go to clubs. He wouldn’t have enough time, what with his daily meetings. Still, he nods. “Thank you, sir.”
Outside, his mother is waiting. “Izuku, honey,” she begins, but he cuts her off.
“I did it to myself.”
He doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t know if he’d be able to hold the lie, if he did. He’d been thinking of things to tell her… and this was the easiest.
“I did it as a kid. I just wanted to know what having a Quirk would feel like. I won’t do it again.” His voice is monotone, and he doesn’t bother to add any of the fake emotions he normally does.
He walks off, round the corner, taking advantage of how stunned she seems to be to duck away before she can follow him.
He spends the twenty minutes behind the school.
--
School ends for the summer. Deku isn’t allowed out because his mother is ‘scared’ of his ‘self-destructive tendencies’ and ‘doesn’t want him to get hurt.’
He feels guilty. He lied to her, and now she thinks that he’s so close to the edge that if he leaves the house he’ll die. She even gets a camera put on their door.
It’s a shame that she doesn’t lock his window. He can only leave when she’s out and has to make sure he’s back before she is, but it’s worth it.
He doesn’t see Kacchan. He knows the beating that’s waiting for him, knows that it’s worse in summer, when Kacchan sweats so much he could probably detonate a whole hospital in one.
The summer is hot for Deku, too. He still doesn’t wear short sleeves, so he just bears the heat.
The Plan, as he refers to it, is coming along nicely.
Deku visits a different shop every time he goes out, pays in cash, and thanks the stars for his plain features. It’s not like he’s planning on doing anything.
--
The first day back, Deku walks home with a limp. He avoids his mother until the pain subsides enough that he can walk normally again.
That night, he repacks his school bag, with everything he might need. Just in case.
--
Two weeks before winter break, he watches the news. Bunbani has been arrested.
Domestic abuse, they say. She’d hit her partner, had hurt them for years and years. Abuse.
Deku remembers the day he met her. Deku remembers thinking, as she dodged the fire sent her way, just how strong she was. That she was fighting someone so strong, with such a powerful quirk, without even breaking a sweat.
He’d idolised her.
…He’d wanted to be her.
But she hurt people. Even as a hero, she hurt people. She bullied. She abused.
Abused.
“I thought it was worth it. I thought it’d be worth it, because she was a hero, you know? She saved everybody else. I just thought I could take it…” her partner speaks out on the television. “But she’s not a hero, she’s not. A hero wouldn’t hurt me like this.”
Izuku turns off the TV, silently goes to his room, and sobs until he falls asleep.
Katsuki Bakugou will never be a hero.
--
He still meets Kacchan after school every day. He still takes the beatings. He knows people have seen them together- everybody knows, even if nobody acts. He knows plans like these are hard to pull off.
So, he texts his mom.
“I’m going to be home early today! Kacchan said he’s busy. Do you need anything from the store?”
Her reply comes quickly. “Okay, honey. I have a meeting at work, could you pick up some flour? I’m going to be back late.”
“Sure. I’ll cook for us tonight, okay? I’ve got time to :)”
It won’t be enough, by itself, to get suspicion off of him. Of course not. But, hopefully, it’ll be over quick enough that he can run to the store, pick up the flour, and be home in a reasonable time. From there, he will burn No. 5- the signature of Bunbani dying with it. He will dispose of any equipment he can while he cooks dinner, and then will eat with his mother.
It will work.
He visits the school roof early, and fiddles with the door until he manages to keep it open and unmoving. Then, he pours water on the stairs. The school is old and thy don’t have a very high budget, and it shows- the stairs are too steep, trying to minimise the number of steps and space needed. They’re hard to walk down even normally.
It is icy outside. It had snowed the night before, and Deku even fell over walking to school.
As Deku makes his way down the stairs, careful, he considers. Nobody would ever believe that Kacchan would kill himself. Accidents are much likelier.
He writes a note, in handwriting he perfected to look like anything but his own. He based it from the handwriting of girls in his class. The note reads:
‘Bakugou, I have something to tell you. Please meet me on the roof after school today!”
He uses his gloves, and slips it into Kacchan’s bag at lunch, the moment he steps out of the room.
When Kacchan walks back in, Deku calls him over from his desk. It’s close to Kacchan’s- only one seat behind and to the right- so he doesn’t even have to stand up. Kacchan walks over to him, surprisingly calm, for who he is.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks, and his tone isn’t as angry as Deku expected.
He steels himself with a shaky breath, and asks, quietly as he can while making sure Kacchan can still hear him. “Meet me on the roof, today, instead of behind school.”
Kacchan grunts, and Deku’s expecting a fight for it, but he just says “Whatever. Just don’t be late,” and leaves, back to his seat.
Deku lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in, and slowly focuses on working the tension out from his muscles.
It’s just an ordinary day. Nothing at all unusual. He cannot afford to catch anyone’s attention right now.
--
He walks casually to the roof and waits. Nobody is up here- it’s way too cold. The water on the stairs solidified to ice, and Deku would’ve fell over just trying to get up if he hadn’t have known to be careful.
He sends another text to his mom- “On my way to the store now- which type of flour did you need?”
She’s at work, right now, and he knows she won’t be able to reply. Not in the meeting he knows she is in. Even more reason that he could be later heading to a shop. Reasons that didn’t involve corpses on stairwells.
He is nervous, as he waits. Will it work? Will he succeed? What if he doesn’t? What does he say, then?
But a fall from those stairs could be fatal, and he’s researched to the best of his abilities on how to kill someone without leaving a mark. He should be able to succeed.
It will work.
And then he hears Kacchan coming up the stairs.
No time to have cold feet.
Deku looks out over the city. Bakugou can never be a hero. Heroes don’t abuse.
Deku has been abused by Bakugou.
This is fact, he knows.
“You gonna jump?” he hears a voice behind him ask.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t jump. He just closes his eyes and forces his body to relax.
“At least you’ve finally caught on that you’re useless,” Kacchan taunts, and Deku opens his eyes again, turns around to face his childhood best friend.
“I’m not going to jump,” he whispers, and he can hear his heartbeat in his throat. Kacchan looks- not surprised, Deku doubts he thought he was going to jump at any point, really- but calmer, that Deku’s ever really seen him. Usually so angry, so aggressive, performative- but that, is that really Kachan? Or is this Bakugou? The calm before and after the storm, the quietness, and the lack of pretending?
His head hurts.
Will this be his life forever? Will Kacchan ever stop? Will he ever stop gaining scars?
Bakugou hurts him, so much.
“I can’t be bothered,” Kacchan shrugs, “It’s too fucking cold.”
“Okay,” Izuku whispers back, and Kacchan turns, leaves.
If heroes don’t hurt anyone, why does Bakugou hurt him?
Izuku follows him to the stairs. Watches as Kacchan looks at the ice, takes his first step. Deku does not push him. He walks down the stairs in what feels like slow motion, and then he is gone.
Deku stands there, processes, and closes the roof door before walking down the stairs himself.
He grabs plain flour from the store, and then goes home to cook.
--
He thinks about it all night long. Was it right to have let him leave? What if he hurt him again? What if he hurt someone else?
Heroes don’t hurt people.
But just because Kacchan wasn’t a hero, that didn’t mean that Izuku couldn’t be. Maybe he couldn’t be a hero like All Might, but… but he wasn’t a Bunbani. Heroes aren’t just people who fight villains- they’re people who care, people who help, and most importantly of all…
… Heroes don’t hurt people.
--
Life goes on as it does, but slowly, ever so slowly, he stops meeting Bakugou after school. Kacchan stops turning up, so Deku stops going.
He still yells. He still threatens, and blows up his stuff, and generally harasses him- but it’s not what they had before. It’s better. Kacchan is growing up, he thinks, and doesn’t complain.
They turn fourteen eventually, and suddenly Kacchan will be leaving and so will Deku, off to different schools and probably to never see each other again. He will never have to be hurt again. He will never have to see Katsuki Bakugou in any place but the news.
He looks at Kacchan from the same seat that he has every day for the last decade- one behind and to the right- and thinks about all the ways he could ruin him. Every way he could kill him. And then, he settles.
Heroes don’t hurt people.
Deku will be a hero.
--
Only, when the principal once again calls Izuku into his office, to enquire about the schools they will be applying to, he does something dumb.
“Ah, you’re Katsuki’s friend, aren’t you? Ah, we’re very confident that Katsuki will be our very first graduate to attend UA! I always did say he had a bright future ahead of him,” Mr Uchimura states with a smile.
Izuku is… slowly, but surely, dragging himself out of the hole Kacchan put him in. He is trying to be himself, not to just be some silent shell. He has done everything in his power to fit in, to accept everything the world wanted to do to him, to take all the hurt without a single complaint. But he deserves more than that.
“I’m applying to UA.”
He had been planning on applying for another school. One where he was known by nobody. But he deserves more than that.
“I’m applying to UA, and I’m going to be a hero,” he says, trying to sound strong.
“Izuku, now, we know that’s not the best choice…” The principal at least attempts to look sheepish, but Izuku can tell that he doesn’t mean it.
“I am going to be a hero, Mr. Uchimura,” he says, and ignores the principal’s attempts to change his mind.
“You are going to fail, Izuku.”
Izuku looks at him. “Then let me. Watch me. If I fail, so be it- but I’m going to do everything I can.”
It’s the boldest thing he has said- but Deku deserves this, to be who he wants, to stop limiting himself.
Uchimura nods. “So be it.”
Deku can tell he doesn’t believe him. That’s okay. He believes in himself.
--
Three days later, Deku gets attacked. He meets the most important man in his life. He is told that he should give up on the dreams he worked so, so hard for.
And then Kacchan is attacked.
He’s there, suffocating, and Deku knows the pain he feels- it was too much for him, even as desensitised as he was. He knew Kacchan was in greater agony than he had ever been in before.
He could stay still. The heroes weren’t moving. Kacchan wouldn’t last long. He’d die before anyone could save him.
But then, Katsuki’s eyes met his.
Izuku’s body moved before his mind caught up.
--
And then, All Might is there, and everything is okay, and Kacchan is safe to go home like normal.
--
And then he hears the only words he had ever wanted to hear.
You can be a hero.