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He must of had a lot of bad karma in a past life.
There was no other reason for his life to be this bad. Even if he had a wonderful mother and friends and All Might, it wasn’t enough. Guilt clawed into his throat like the sludge from the sludge villain he and Kacchan fought. It was suffocating, heavy, and meshed with the black pit of despair in his stomach and foggy thoughts in his head.
While he has support now, Izuku knew that if they all knew the truth, they’d leave him.
He was a quirkless loser who spent 15 years suffering at the hands of the people around him, the world.
UA wasn’t that much better, even if Aizawa had almost died to protect his class. He knew that if Aizawa knew the truth, he’d be the same as all of this previous teachers.
His throat felt like lead as he swallowed dry spit.
Teachers didn’t like him. They didn’t like quirkless Deku, they didn’t appreciate him taking up space that could be filled by someone with a quirk and the staff at UA only treated him slightly better because he had a quirk now. He was still the problem child though, he was still Deku.
Izuku tried so hard to make sure that he didn’t disrupt everyone.
He was used to missing questions on his tests and homework so someone else could be in first place (Kacchan deserves to be number one). He curled his body inward and breathed so quietly, even Jirou couldn’t hear him — only his heartbeat, thumping against his chest. He kept his steps quiet, balanced on his toes from practicing different dancing styles in his room to help him fight. Aizawa sometimes looked at him funny when he came into the classroom, like he was upset with the problem child which made Izuku’s shoulders slump down and curl towards his pounding heart. He had gotten so good at hiding his panic attacks and spells of depression, you couldn’t even notice he was in one. After all the villain attacks Class 1A had been through (he remembers the sludge forcing its way down his throat, pushing into his ears and mouth, moving hard and up his leg near —), his nightmares became worse but he’d slowly put up foam to sound proof his room from frightening screams.
He didn’t want to bother anyone, he didn’t deserve their worry.
After All Might told him he could be a hero (Izuku doesn't acknowledge All Might leaving him on that rooftop beforehand, his fears made a reality), he knew he couldn’t self harm anymore, at least obviously. His body was now a temple for One for All, if anyone saw the silver lines hidden carefully or the starburst scars across his back and shoulders, they’d know he was weak. He’s All Might’s successor! The next symbol of peace! He wasn’t allowed to show his mental health anywhere besides a big, friendly, comforting smile.
Instead, Izuku pushed himself past his threshold. Broke his bones, shatters limbs, ran after villains to protect his friends, sat quietly through a panic attack with Shigaraki’s hard tightening against his throat with four fingers. He would sit in his room and stare at his computer, concerning websites open to trigger his brain into recognizing that he wasn’t special. Everyone gets depressed, he’s not depressed. He’s not worth depression.
He knows how to hide himself, scars and all.
Sucking in a breath, Izuku’s vision refocuses on the school board in front of him. Right hand shakes slightly from exertion (shattered beyond belief, so much pain but worth it for someone else happiness), his notes look more scribbled than not, but no one knows his true penmanship anyway. He slowed the tapping of his feet to match his heartbeat bouncing away in his head.
He blinked heavily, headache forming behind his eyes as a result of too much tension and stress.
Aizawa was pointing to the board where hasty notes sprawled across it. His teachers dull eyes scanned the room until they landed on Izuku’s pinprick ones, not yet adjusted from his attack. His teacher squinted at him, mouth pursed. It could be from his dry-eye, Izuku reasoned with himself. Nothing else.
The rest of the day followed its normal routine. Pay attention in class, take detailed notes even though he remembered everything, slap a smile on his face, act nervous but not too much, stay out of Kacchan’s way, and work 10 times harder than everyone else during Hero Training.
Well, that would be how it should have gone.
Instead, all his teachers studied him like he was some animal. Gently criticizing him for the wrong answer, even though he knew the correct one. In the lunchroom, Kacchan’s explosions popped off behind him even though he had done nothing (he was existing, more than enough to bother Kacchan, no matter how much they’d each grown). And finally, during their training, Aizawa told him to sit it out because of his quirk.
If he were a lesser man, he would have burst into tears.
But, he wasn’t. He was the next symbol of peace, someone who wasn’t depressed, and someone who definitely wasn’t quirkless.
“Okay, if you say so, Aizawa-sensei.” A fake plastic smile reflected back to him from his teachers black eyes.
On the bench next to the camera feeds, Izuku inner world collapsed into a pit of nothingness. His limbs became heavy enough that he didn’t take notes of his classmates progress. Eyes unfocused enough that his brain only processed looking at the videos of his classmates and friends (friends!), not what was actually happening. He felt like a doll that was just sitting there.
Logically, he knew he was triggered and dissociating to deal with it.
Emotionally, he knew it didn’t matter because he wasn’t depressed, he couldn’t be. Deku, the hero, was positive and protected those around him with a smile on his face. Deku, the worthless, quirkless, waste of space — as his old classmates would say — was nothing but a whirlwind of emotions that were too big for him.
Izuku couldn’t even focus on any sensation around him besides the fact that the camera feeds hurt his rising migraine and the dryness of his eyes from not blinking.
It wasn’t until a hand shook his shoulder that he snapped back into the real world with quick dilating eyes and sensations returning to normal.
“Problem child, you with me?”
He blinked, slowly turning his head away from the camera feeds and now apparent sound of his classmates fighting aways-away to his teacher.
Aizawa’s eyebrows pushed against each other with lines creasing. His eyes turned dark and stormy as he looked at Izuku and once again, Izuku was reminded that Aizawa-sensei only cares because he has a quirk now.
He tried not to think of the one teacher who faked concern of the same manner until he was alone in his office. Never again will he go somewhere with closed doors, not unless it’s All Might.
“Uh, y-yeah! Sorry, I guess I just zoned out there for a minute!” Izuku slowly laughed at himself.
“If you say so…you know you can come to me for anything, right?”
Izuku didn’t believe him.
“Yes, Sensei! I know, b-but I’m okay now. I just didn’t sleep very well last night.”
Did Aizawa-sensei buy it? The look in his eye wasn’t clear to Izuku, but he stopped pushing it and folded his arms together to watch his classmates while Izuku attempted to recall what he’d witness while dissociating.
Izuku clenched his left hand that was holding his notebook down, not enough to break skin, but enough to anchor him down.
Later on, his classmates made dinner together and placed a large mixed plate in front of him.
He ate it, but didn’t digest it.
He also didn’t see the worrying looks of his friends and Bakugou who scowled at him when recognizing the fake smile from their childhood.
When he retired to his room after claiming to need to work on homework and sleep, he fell into his bed.
He couldn’t cry for himself anymore, but he could feel his eyes shaking slightly, he could feel his skin scrawling for any type of stimuli to take away the numbness and the sinking feeling of sadness within him.
Izuku knew he had bad karma that made his childhood less than ideal, even if he had a great mother, but he couldn’t let it hold him down anymore.
Heroes like All Might don’t fight against their own will to live, they smile. All he could focus on was his guilt for thinking and feeling depressed.
His head cleared itself of all thoughts and fell into a trancelike state of bleakness. Cloud-like, ears full of static with the artificial lighting in his room pouring down around him.
Only one thought comes to his mind while laying still in his bed; maybe my karma would clear up for my next life if I kill myself. But he closes his eyes in response and thinks instead of his mentors smile and his mother.
He can’t stop, even if his karmas bad. Even if it haunts him constantly and follows him like the plague.
He’s going to be a hero no matter what.