Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku was having a horrible day.

First he woke up at 10pm, three hours later than he usually did, which was a whole inconvenience by itself, because his time management was really poor (even if he did have a tight schedule he normally didn’t follow through fully), meaning that he probably wouldn’t have time to read or study anything, again.

Then he found out that a family of rats had once again infested the ruined, abandoned and half-demolished apartment he called a home. One of the rats had gotten to his small food stash - one that was supposed to last him at least a few more weeks. Another had made a nest in his pile of clothes. The rest were scurrying around, sniffing and biting at anything they could find - not that that was a lot.

Once he finally caught all seven (yes there were seven whole disgusting rats in his apartment) and thrown them out, he found that they’d completely ruined the previously mentioned stash of food, meaning he couldn’t have any breakfast - which normally consisted of a cracker and two, and before you mention it, yes he had breakfast at 10pm - don't judge him, it's not like he had the energy to do all he did and care for himself properly. He tidied the mess the rats made - not that there was much he could do about bite marks, and started to gear up in his vigilante gear.

Yes you got it - Izuku was a vigilante. A citizen that had dealt with too much trauma and decided to take things into his own hands. While the hero society didn’t agree, he’d found it to be an amazing idea. He managed to help innocent civilians, save lives and finally get some control over his pesky, annoying quirk. Don’t get him wrong, Izuku was grateful for his quirk, it’d managed to get him out of some rather inconvenient situations. It had saved his sorry ass a few more times than he cared to admit, but due to his inability to control it fully, it caused some problems.

Izuku’s quirk was called Glitch.

It allowed him to phase through things and ‘glitch’ certain aspects of himself and sometimes other specific things. However what wasn’t well known among the quirk files (the ones that existed before he was presumed dead that is) was that he didn't ‘phase’ through things. His atoms simply rearranged themselves at will, which was really painful at first to be honest, but as the years progressed it became nothing more than an annoying tingling sensation.

When the quirk was in use it looked pretty much like any device or screen when it glitched just more 3D, hence the name Glitch. Izuku’s quirk was partially sentient, which is why it sometimes turned on by itself, but that was mostly when something bad was about to happen - like that one time the other week he was about to get stabbed by a criminal but his quirk quickly glitched, stopping him from getting hurt.

However it also turned on in states of high emotion (stress, anxiety, embarrassment, the likes), which was why right now as he tried to put his gear on, his hand occasionally went through it, which only made his frustration worse, making his quirk go off more frequently. After a few more tries he stopped and focused on his breathing, getting his emotions under control, and eventually he got his gear on without a problem.

His outfit was pretty cool - if he said so himself.

A forest green hoodie was the top part of his costume, the hood resting on his fluffy, green curls, casting a shadow over his whole face except his eyes, which glowed a dangerous, toxic green.

Under the hoodie he had some elbow braces in case he fell from a building at a dangerous angle or he tried to elbow a bad guy in a sturdy part of their body and a police vest he had stolen from officer Naomasa Tsukauchi, who had been salty about it for weeks after (though he didn’t actually mind as he just wanted the kid to be safe).

A black pair of loose cargo pants hung from his hips secured by a matching black belt that had several pouches with supplies - zip ties, bandages, a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, gauze, and a snack, which he normally left for emergencies but as his food stash had been destroyed, he decided to eat as he was pretty sure he hadn’t eaten in a day or two by now (it was hard to keep track you know). On his pants were a few hidden knives that he kept for emergencies only or life-or-death situations, or when he was captured by Ereaserhead, which technically that was an emergency too, as he couldn’t very well go and get captured and then arrested for illegal quirk use (even if he couldn’t control his quirk properly).

Under the pants he also had knee braces, just for safety when jumping off buildings. Along with all that, he also wore a pair of fingerless, high-grip cycling gloves he bought *cough* stole so he had better grip when scaling buildings.

Luckily once he was fully wearing something it didn’t just fall off when he glitched, which saved him from some embarrassing moments.

Checking himself over to make sure he hadn’t forgotten something (oh jeez, he forgot his taser again, rolling his eyes he secured it to his belt), he made his way to the window, climbing out it and up the fire escape.

Standing on the rooftop he overlooked his city - the city he had to defend with his life, because of stupid, incapable pro-heroes.

It was going to be a long night but he should be back for a nice supper (consisting of a single bag of chips) by 5am, just enough time to go shopping at a nearby 24/7 convenience store with what little money he had for some food and enough time to brush up on his studies. Then he'd go to bed at 8am getting a few hours of sleep before his job that started at noon and lasted until 4pm. Then he'd crash until 7pm to start getting ready for his nightly patrol again. Which technically meant he could get up to 7 hours of sleep a day!

He sighed and started making his way towards the red-lights district - one of the most dangerous and least patrolled areas in the city, to start his self-assigned night shift.

Chapter Text

Aizawa was tired. Actually no, saying he was tired was the understatement of the century. He was absolutely exhausted, ready to collapse, pass out and call it a day, or a night, whatever time it was, at this point he really couldn’t tell and he really couldn’t care less about finding out. (but based on the fact it was dark as fuck outside it was probably evening).

When he woke up this evening he had put two spoons of salt in his coffee instead of sugar, which made it taste absolutely disgusting, but he still drank all of it, just to spite the universe (and to not waste any precious coffee).

The bare amount of sleep he had gotten after his day at UA doing paperwork (seeing as he had expelled his whole class of hero-wannabes due to their non-existent potential) had been horrible as he could still hear his husband Hizashi’s screams ringing in the air. His loud, extroverted husband, not knowing what boundaries are, had been screaming down his ear all day, which probably made him lose more brain cells than he could afford and made his reflexes go into overdrive which was painful and over-exertive, making him even more tired.

At least his cat Whiskers (a beautiful tabby with voluminous fluffy fur) had welcomed him home right after he arrived (thankfully Hizashi was out with Nemuri, meaning he had peace and quiet for three whole hours).

Once he drank his disgusting coffee, which made him aware enough of his surroundings to not walk into oncoming traffic, as much as he wanted to do that, he left his apartment, making sure to grab his capture tape and made his way to the local police station.

-----

By the time he arrived, Tsukauchi was waiting for him by the front desk talking to the receptionist about one thing or another, his beige coat fluttering in the gentle breeze created by the opening of the station’s doors. Thank the gods, Tsukauchi had two cups of coffee from the local cafe he loved, in his hands, handing one to Aizawa immediately after he saw the dead look in his eyes, only for Aizawa to down the whole thing in three large gulps.

“What do you have for me before I leave to go on patrol?” questioned Aizawa.

“I just want to go over the vigilante case again, even if we’ve already done that over a hundred times, just to see if we can figure out something new, and we had a few more confirmed sightings after their patrol last night.” replied Tsukauchi.

Aizawa simply sighed and nodded his head dejectedly.

Together they started making their way towards Tsuckauchi’s office.

Honestly, Aizawa much preferred being an underground hero; no media, no attention, no fans asking for autographs at inconvenient times. However, there were some things that Aizawa detested about the underground route; your sleep schedule was messed up so far beyond repair you didn’t know what month it was, let alone what time, you were often looked down on due to being seen as ‘weaker’ and ‘a glorified police officer’, not to mention the absolutely sickening things you had to see. Most daytime heroes fought more high profile villains, thieves, people with rampaging quirks, simple things like that, but in the underground things got more dark the deeper you went.

First there were drug dealers and drug rings, they were really bad, especially if the substance was addictive and had a bad impact on your body but that was only the surface. Then there were murderers, though those were mostly easy cases, as most had a motive and a signature which was easily identifiable, but it was still terrible seeing the bodies and having to talk to the victim’s family and friends later. On the next level there were human trafficking rings. These were one of the worst cases Shouta had to deal with, people malnourished, beaten and sold off as slaves. One of the worst case scenarios an underground hero could face, and still it was one of the more common ones - it really showed the true evil and terrors of humanity. There were many more things that underground pros had to face - kidnapping, human experimentation, rape victims, torture, the list just kept growing bigger and bigger but unfortunately that was a normal schedule for a professional - especially one as good as Shouta.

However occasionally there came along a low profile case that wasn’t spectacular enough for a daylight hero like Shouta’s husband Present Mic, but was complex enough that an underground pro needed to get involved. This time it was a vigilante case.

Most vigilante cases were cut and dry; a civilian accidentally used their quirk in a villain attack, a person who wanted to make the world a better place used their quirk to help someone, and then there were people who took the responsibility of the law unto themselves. Most of these people were caught, apprehended and either thrown into jail for a few weeks or let off the hook, being labelled as ‘quirk misuse’. Then there were people like Glitch: people who were strong enough to use their quirk to fight crime and sly enough to escape capture by the police and pros. These people are people Shouta respected, they were strong enough to take things into their own hands, they saw through the flaws of society and they helped decrease the crime rate, even if they themselves were breaking the law.

Over the past few years Aizawa had encountered some outstanding individuals that were labelled vigilantes: The Crawler and Knuckleduster being two of them, and then there were vigilantes that Shouta didn’t respect, ones that submitted to violence and even murder to sustain their ideals: such as Stendhal.

The Glitch case was a more recent one compared to the previously listed but Shouta wasn’t sure where to categorise them. Glitch helped save a lot of people - from death, suicide, kidnapping or even just helping old ladies cross the street, but occasionally Glitch displayed a dark side, a side that even Shouta himself was too frightened to face. Whilst Glitch had never killed anyone or even wounded them in a way that affected them for life, the way they’d sometimes shown such deadly precision, fierceness and aggressiveness towards offenders of the law that had taken it too far, was a scary sight to behold. The way their green eyes would swirl in a toxic pool of hate and anger as they threw knives at villains or glitched into their bodies to disorient them was horrifying, but Shouta knew where that hate stemmed from (more or less) as he felt it himself. The fact that society was so twisted that such cruel things happened to people was disgusting and it angered him so much, but he knew how to repress that rage and use it to his advantage when fighting, unlike Glitch who was reckless, with little regard for their life.

Tsukauchi sat behind his desk and Aizawa sat at it. Files and pieces of uncompleted paperwork stood in scruffy piles in the desk. Two bookshelves lined opposite sides of the walls filled with police reports, files and more paperwork. The only cheerful source of the room was a window that overlooked the street - cheerful because it didn’t have any paperwork, the street itself was dark and desolate.

“So tell me what we have,” said Ereaserhead, already rubbing his temples, knowing of the incoming headache.

Tsukauchi simply nodded his head and began to read off information both of them had long since memorised. Glitch was a vigilante that appeared around four years ago, with nearly 3,000 confirmed cases ranging from stopping small theft to taking down drug rings, under his belt. Little was known about their appearance: green eyes, dark hair and between 5’1 to 5’5 foot tall was confirmed, but their exact age was unconfirmed along with gender and identity. It was also unknown as to what exactly their quirk was only that it appeared as a glitch and allowed him to go through things. Based on witness reports though, the vigilante was a kid, around 17 to 20 years approximately, which was concerning but most likely just a case that the kid got rejected from hero courses and decided to take matters into their own hands.

“Do we have any new suspicions of hideouts or residence?” questioned Aizawa.

Tsukauchi simply shook his and replied “No, the time they arrives on scene is inconsistent, most likely due to their also inconsistent patrol route, not to mention the inconsistent times they actually go out crime-fighting”

Aizawa stood up and nodded his head goodbye
“In that case I’ll be heading out to start my own patrol, maybe I’ll encounter the kid and manage to take them in”

“Good luck” replied Tsukauchi “Oh and Eraser? Be careful out there, don’t wear yourself out” he added on.

Shouta just opened the window and swung out to a street lamp with his capture tape, simply grunting as a reply.

Chapter Text

Nedzu was an intelligent creature.

He was known as one of the world’s smartest and scariest self-aware organisms, not to mention a massive figurehead and strategist behind every major pro-hero case ever. He could take over the world and cause infinite chaos and despair if he so wished at any given moment, if only he had access to a computer, though to be fair he could probably do it without one too. As the principle of UA, it was a given he was supposed to be smart.

Which is exactly why the newest opponent he had been facing off against on his online chess game should have been easy to beat (much like every other person / computer he had faced off before), however he had been playing the game for almost an hour (about 50 minutes longer than it took him on average to win). Now Nedzu wasn’t a sore loser, nor did he hate experiencing a challenge, but he was extremely curious about the person playing against him. What person existed on the planet that was intelligent enough to match his own wits?

Whoever it was, he really did want to meet them, maybe even take them on as a private student, if they were young enough (though by the player’s childish moves, gleeful diversions and silly username (crackheadslimeball420) he had already concluded they were).

After finishing the game 15 minutes later (which ended in a draw) he spent a while contemplating whether or not he should message the player, and he decided that it would indeed be worth it to do so.

‘Hello dear opponent, would you by any chance have any idea who you’ve been playing against for the past hour?’ he sent.

‘Why principal Nedzu, should I not? :)’ was sent back, almost immediately after he hit sent his own message.

Grinning to himself Nedzu started cackling quietly with glee, this person was clearly much more intelligent than he had thought. Now the question was how did they know who he was, had they hacked his computer? Had they just figured out by themselves after playing against him so long? Maybe it was something to do with their quirk? Many more questions and theories flooded his brain but for now he just sent a reply saying

‘Of course you should, I would expect no less from an opponent of mine that lasted this long, say, would you like to play against me again in the near future?’

‘It would be an honour principal, how about this Thursday at 6? :)’

‘Why that would be perfect, thank you for indulging me :) ’

Oh how he couldn’t wait until their next game, in the meantime he had some paperwork and hacking to get done, perhaps by their next game he will have been able to figure out the player’s identity.

----

Izuku was absolutely ecstatic.

Today he’d decided to not go to sleep for an unnecessary hour after he got back from his job at the café as he was feeling pretty energetic for his patrol this evening, which meant he had enough time to play some online chess matches, one of his favourite activities to do, as there was nothing more satisfying than crushing an opponent, human or computer, in under 10 moves and having them complain about how he wasn’t playing fairly (which he absolutely was, thank you very much, he wasn’t a cheat, he just had some huge smarts).

Now you may be wondering ‘Doesn’t Izuku live in an abandoned apartment complex with barely enough money to eat, let alone buy a computer to play chess on?’. The answer to that tedious question is that when he had free time (normally after he got back from patrol in the morning and went shopping), he spent his time wandering Dagobah Municipal Beach, looking for salvageable scraps or anything he could take to improve.

So far he’d found plenty of plates, bowls and cutlery, the best of which he’d salvaged, cleaned up and took home to use in case he ever had money to cook a nicer meal (which happened once in a blue moon). He’d also found some clothes, which after a few months of saving up, he’d had enough money to go to the dry cleaners and have them washed thoroughly, getting the scent of salt and mouldy trash out of them. Along with those he’d found plenty of broken electronics: toasters, microwaves, phones, computers, most of which were so broken they were beyond repair. However, among the salvageable items, he found one computer that was only severely waterlogged. Taking anything that could be reused, he’d looked for months, but eventually he found enough wires, intact RAM, a whole CPU and many other electrical parts to replace everything in the laptop, and after a few days of assembling and reassembling it he’d successfully rebooted the device, getting it to work again.

That was also how his hacking obsession had started. Izuku only ever used his hacking abilities to keep a tab on street cameras and gain information for cases he’d taken upon himself to solve (ok so maybe he had to hack the police station to gain access to the mentioned cases, but it was all for the greater good of society) so it’s not like he was really breaking the law anyway.

Most the cases he took on involved things like corrupt politicians that the police didn’t have enough information on to arrest, but with his marvellous hacking abilities, he easily gained enough dirt on them, downloading the info onto a USB stick that he dropped of at Tsuckauchi’s desk with a post-it note that said ‘Yours sincerely - Glitch ;)’ when he had the time.

Anyway back to the reason he was absolutely ecstatic: it was currently 7:15pm and he’d just been playing chess against principal Nedzu of all people for over an hour, principal Nedzu as is the smartest and most intelligent creature on the whole planet or even in the whole universe principal Nedzu. Now in case you couldn’t tell, Izuku greatly admired Nedzu, he thought that he was an amazing creature and he loved how much Nedzu had prospered in life, despite his past and the continuous discrimination he had to face due to being an animal with a quirk.

Izuku knew he was a smart cookie, his mother had often told him so while she was still alive, his test results for the first 8 normal years of his life said so and the fact he’d managed to evade the police for the past 6 years (as both a ‘deceased’ civilian and a vigilante) said to too, but the fact that he’d been able to play a chess match against Nedzu for over an hour and not lose astounded him. He was absolutely on cloud nine with joy, but looking at the time, he decided it was time to start his patrol early today, due to the fact he greatly overslept the other day and started it late.

Based on their conversation, he knew he’d have more time to enjoy himself during their next game on Thursday, and with enough luck, this could become a regular thing between him and the principal.

Chapter Text

Hectic, tiresome and busy: the perfect combination of words to describe Glitch’s patrol so far.

As always he started at 10pm; the time where it was dark enough that people wouldn’t question a dark figure running on rooftops, thinking it was an underground hero, but it was bright enough that Izuku could quickly and efficiently get to the start of his vague patrol route (during summer at least, in winter it was basically dark the entire time Izuku was awake, apart from when he worked his job). The reason his route was vague was so that any heroes or villains couldn’t track him and try to capture him, but also so that he could take different routes to save as many people as he can.

First he caught a mugger running away with an old lady’s purse - one of the most cliché types of crimes he ever had to stop. Once tying up the guy and returning the purse to the wonderful old lady (who gave him a napkin full of chocolate chip cookies as thanks - god did he love old ladies, the way they were so kind and considerate really reminded him of his mother.), he stopped a random pedestrian walking past to ask them to call the police. Climbing onto a nearby rooftop, he kept watch over the guy squirming in the alley until the police arrived.

As he watched them take the guy away he noticed Tsukauchi was one of the arresting officers and feeling a small streak of sadism and sass run through him he yelled

“Oi Tsukauchi, lovely night isn’t it?”

He heard the targeted detective groan from all the way on the rooftop, a grin spreading onto Izuku’s face at the offending noise.

“Thanks for the arrest kid, you should run along home now, before I’m forced to arrest you”

“You and I both know that won’t happen my dear detective” replied Izuku mischievously. He activated his quirk for a few seconds, long enough for the detective to know that he was feeling chatty tonight and he wasn’t about to let the other’s status as a police officer stop him from talking to his heart's content. Naomasa let out another groan at the previously mentioned implications.

“Say how’s your younger sister Makato? Is she still up to no good affiliating herself with vigilantes? Maybe I should come over to your place sometime to meet her, perhaps she could help with my already astounding abilities.” Izuku cackled gleefully, a gleeful smirk lighting up his face.

“Whatever you do, I’m once again literally begging you to never go meet her, the chaos you two would cause together is unimaginable and my head would explode from the amount of migraines you guys would give me, luckily she’s away on business in America, so you can't and will hopefully never meet” Tsukauchi replied, he shoulders slumping and a shiver running down his spine at the very idea of the two chaos gremlins meeting.

“Whatever you say my favourite lie detector,” Izuku proclaimed before giving a two fingered salute, glitching in the process and running off into the distance along the rooftops.

He'd run along the rooftops feeling the air whooshing past him giving him that feeling of freedom and joy he constantly craved.

He helped a little kid get a ball that she'd thrown over a tall fence, relishing in the shy smile she sent him and the quiet whispering of "Thank you, Mr. Glitch"

He helped a clearly tired mother of five with putting her groceries in the car and making sure none of her children ran off to cause trouble, in the end she ended up thanking him way too many times and he could tell that even this small favour had most definitely helped her out in her long, troublesome day.

At around midnight he heard a scream and rushed over the rooftops to the destination he assumed it came from, only to see a gang of three tall, buff men covered in gang tattoos, cornering a woman in an extremely out-of-the-way shady alley, one held a gun and the other two were armed with knives. Jumping from the rooftop with some flair and landing in a crouch, he faced the three offenders.

“Hello boys, I wouldn’t recommend doing what I think you’re about to do, since it would be a shame to scar those already ugly mugs of yours.”

The three burly men turned to face him, ugly scowls marring their faces.

“What you gonna do, twerp?” replied the middle thug.

“As an upholder of the law, I’ll have to arrest you” scoffed Izuku, leaping at the guy in possession of the gun first, swiftly tazing him with his definitely-not-stolen-from-the-police tazer.

Once the guy fell down, the vigilante kicked him in the stomach, just to make sure he was definitely out, before dodging an attack from the two knife wielders. Glitch took out two throwing knives from his thigh sheath and engaged in a dance of dodges and thrusts with his two opponents.

Occasionally he had to glitch to avoid being stabbed and with each continuous glitch his body began to ache more and more, until black spots began dance in his vision and the world was beginning to spin. Who would’ve thought that having your atoms ripped apart from each other continuously would hurt so much.

Luckily, as he began to tire out so did his opponents, giving him an opening to finally subdue them. Izuku turned around to the woman he had tried to save, blood dripping from his mouth in a stream of crimson.

Just as he was about to ask her if she was okay, he felt a flash of white-hot pain shoot through his side, only to look down and see a knife embedded in his side, right in the weak point of his police vest, though hopefully from its position it wasn’t lodged in any vital organs.

“You actually fell for that trap, huh Glitch?” sneered the woman standing in front of him, hands on her hips. Shimmering locks of gold cascaded down her shoulders and her eyes glowed a menacing shade of amber.

“You put up quite a fight I’ll admit that, but it’s over now, based on how much you overused your quirk and the knife quite literally stuck in your side, I’d say you’ll be bleeding out in this alley for the next hour, before you die agonisingly full of regrets.” She crouched in front of his now collapsed body and tugged off his hood, revealing his pale face.

“You should be careful of the enemies you make in the underground” She moved to pick up the unconscious bodies of her comrades, easily carrying all three of them, implying she had some sort of strength quirk. “Maybe we’ll meet someday again, but I highly doubt that!” the mysterious woman giggled out before walking off.

The last thing Izuku saw were her heeled combat boots strutting off into the distance, and his arm reaching out weakly and hopelessly towards her and then he succumbed to the darkness, letting it overtake him. But maybe, just maybe, he saw a shadowy figure jump off the rooftop and start running towards him - most likely the grim reaper here to collect his soul and send it to hell after escaping death for too long.

At least no one would miss him once he passed away.

Chapter Text

Eraserhead's patrol so far had been pretty easy.

First he'd stopped a thief trying to rob a convenience store by talking him down, as the thief had been threatening to use their quirk, and while Eraser could cancel it out, he didn't know what type of quirk this person had, which could be dangerous. He’d let the perp off with a warning, after they’d told him that they were only trying to steal food for their hungry family.

While Eraser wasn’t sure whether or not to believe them, he chose to let them go, as he himself knew what it was like to be out on the streets, looking for scraps of food to salvage. He’d even bought two loaves of bread, fruit and some water for the thief, so they wouldn’t go and try to rob another convenience store, at which point he’d be forced to arrest them.

Then Aizawa went and met up with one of his informants, because there had been rumours of a new kind of trigger out on the streets - trigger being a quirk enhancing drug that he’d had to stop the production of a few years ago, with the help of the Naruhata vigilantes Pop Step and Crawler. The whole operation was really dangerous, and it would be really bad if someone was manufacturing it again, but luckily from what his informant told him, they were just harmless rumours.

After that, it had been pretty chill. No one screaming for help, no back-alley drug smuggling, no one even running a red light.

For the time being Eraser had just been manoeuvring over the rooftops, looking for any action.

That was when suddenly his whole day, hell his whole week was flipped upside down, when he spotted Glitch bleeding out in alley way on the opposite side of the street.

He immediately knew it was Glitch from a combination of three different factors:
1: No well behaved, well meaning teenager would be out at this time of night, especially in the red lights district.
2: Not many people were often found bleeding at the back of alleys
3: The green blood stained clothes were a dead giveaway

Running up to the figure, he knelt down.

The young boy was on his back, face pale, eyelids drooping, most likely on the edge of unconsciousness or already unconscious. The way his dark hair cast a shadow over his face caused him to look in an even worse state.

Eraser took out his phone from his back pocket and quickly phoned Recovery Girl, telling her to get to his apartment as quickly as possible, she didn’t even question him, knowing he hated phone calls, and would never ask anyone to come over, unless it was an absolute emergency.

Aizawa picked up the boy, looping one arm under his knees and the other under his back, balancing the boy, he somehow managed to use his capture tape swing to his apartment, without jostling the injured child in his arms.

Once he’d finally made it home, he set the kid down on his couch and wow - he really was a kid, even younger then they suspected -14 or 15 years old at most.

What could have happened to this child to become a vigilante so young? Not to mention Glitch as a vigilante had already been active for four years, meaning this kid started locking up criminals when he was 9? 10?

The very thought sent chills up his spine.

After what felt like forever, which was probably only a few minutes, there was a knock on his door, making him rush towards it at inhuman speeds.
As soon as he opened it, Recovery Girl rushed into the apartment, and made her way to the couch where she saw the vigilante lying.

She made quick work of cutting his hoodie off and opening his vest to have access to the wound. Scars littered the young boy's body like constellations, a worrying and terrifying sight. The wound itself didn't look good either. Red, aggravated skin split open, dried blood flaking off and most concerningly, a maze of poisonous green veins crawled their way around the wound.

Once she saw the wound, Recovery Girl gasped from shock but made quick work of injecting something near the wound. She used a damp cloth to gently clean off the blood, doing her best to not to open the wound again. Getting some stitches ready, she threaded them through a sterile surgery needle and started making stitches on the wound one by one.

After 20 minutes all the stitches were complete and she did her best to put gauze and bandages on the wound without having to physically pick up the boy.

She sighed “Now we wait, he’s lost too much energy for me to use my quirk, if I did there is a possibility he could die or fall into a coma, so for now we have to hope his natural healing abilities will do the job. I’ll be heading back home now to get a few more hours of sleep, you should do the same Aizawa dear, he’ll be out for at least another 5 hours”

Aizawa nodded in gratitude “Thank you Chiyo, sorry for waking you up so late, or early I guess. Tell me if you ever need a favour, I’d be happy to do anything in return”

“Don’t worry dear, just take care of the youngster for me” she said, before heading out the door and starting to make her way home.

Once Aizawa shut the door after her he let out a deep sigh - of relief, of tiredness, or of worry he didn’t know. Either way he covered the kid up with a fluffy blanket he found buried in his closet and then made a makeshift bed consisting of a pillow and his yellow sleeping bag a few feet from the couch, just in case the kid woke up and panicked, which was extremely likely to happen.

Hopefully the kid would be okay and who knows maybe he’d stay with him and Mic for a while, but it was best not to get his hopes up. After all everyone knew he was terrible with kids, even if he’d already decided he was adopting this kid sub-consciously, no matter how irrational of a decision it was.

The first step? Getting the kid to trust him.

Chapter Text

A world of pain was what greeted Izuku when he woke up - a stabbing sensation on his torso (haha stabbing, get it? Cause he was stabbed), a wild throbbing in his head and underneath all that the vague sensation of sore, aching muscles. The next thing he noticed was (surprisingly) the nice smell of wherever he was  - no mould, no burnt grease, no dust, just the gentle scent of lemongrass and lavender. This place must be super fancy if they have such a nice smell, he just hoped it wasn’t a hotel because he really can’t afford one right now.

Now if only he could figure out what was going on with his head, to be focusing on the scent of the place he was quite possibly kidnapped to, instead of trying to get up and get out unseen . If they’d drugged him it was likely wearing off, known by both his increasing awareness of his surroundings as well as increasing pain throughout his body.

With a ragged, painful exhale, he sat up as quietly as he could, and upon noticing the empty room, attempted to make his way over to the window for his super awesome ninja escape - only to be stopped by a familiar binding cloth wrapping around his body, avoiding his injuries.

“Problem Child, If you reopen any of your wounds, or rip any of your stitches, I’m going to wring your neck and ensure you never see the light of day again”

“Eep!” Izuku squeaked out “Where did you come from, Eraser?” 

Eraser gave him an unimpressed look and pointed his head to the bright yellow sleeping bag under the coffee table - right next to the couch Izuku had been sleeping on. How Izuku had missed him during his previous assessment of the room was beyond him  - perhaps it was the drugs still affecting his system. Oh right, the drugs, he should probably ask about those. 

“Sooo… did you perchance drug me and kidnap me to your hideout, Eraser or what, ‘cause that’s kinda illegal ya know”

Eraser just let out a grunt and rubbed his eyes tiredly “First of all, Problem Child, the only drugs in your system right now are the antidote to whatever you were poisoned with, plus some light morphine to help with the pain. You can thank Recovery Girl for that. Secondly, this is not a hideout, it’s my apartment - you know, the place where I live and am supposed to spend time relaxing outside of work. Lastly, could you tell me what kind of kidnapper treats their victim’s injuries, leaves them unbound on a comfy surface and offers them a warm home cooked meal?”

Izuku just nervously sweat dropped “A really nice one?”

“Sit down at the damn table Problem Child and eat the dinner Hizashi kindly prepared for us” With that he let go of the wraps around Izuku and headed to the open layout kitchen to start plating up two portions of warm, mild curry.

Izuku, still unsure what to think of this situation, tentatively followed him to the kitchen and sat down at the table - in the seat closest to the window in case he still had to make a speedy escape. 

Eraser just glared at him knowingly but didn’t raise the subject, though the subject he did raise was just as bad, if not worse. As he sat down opposite the boy he asked “Care to explain why I found you bleeding out in an alley at 1 am, and had to rush you home asap so you didn’t panic at being sent to the hospital?”

Izuku just smiled brightly and through a mouthful of food replied “You know how it is Eraser, you try to fight some bad guys, try to save a lady in trouble and suddenly Huntrix is pulling a sharp poisoned knife out of you. Quite shocking and disorienting, I know, I know, but even the best of us get caught off guard sometimes! Anyway, thanks for the meal, I’ll be leaving now!” And with that he sprang up out his seat and dashed over to the window.

Once again his attempt was foiled though, this time by a hairy fur ball that darted out under his feet.

“Good girl Whiskers, I knew you had it in you” Eraser left his seat and went to pet her only to be stopped by the angry cursing coming from the teen on the floor

“Well done you just reopened stitches and all of Chiyo’s hard work went to waste, sit down on the couch while I get the first aid kit, you won’t get away with another escape attempt”

Izuku just let out an annoyed scoff and planted himself on the couch, clutching his aching, now slightly bleeding side and muttered under his breath about no good pro heroes and annoying furballs.

When Eraser came back and got to work, he finally asked the much anticipated question. “Ignoring everything else that has happened, could you explain why exactly Huntrix, one of the biggest drug lords in the underground, who we’ve slowly been compiling evidence against for just over a year, has made an organised attack against you?”

“I may or may not have started compiling my own evidence against her, and I may or may nor have been caught escaping one of her more prominent hideouts last week with a whole folder of important documents on her and her clients”

“And which of her established hideouts did you try to unsuccessfully infiltrate?”

“The Isabelline House” Izuku muttered, eyes going downcast.

Eraser’s up to now joking attitude fell and his face paled. “The Isabelline House?”

“Yes Eraser, I’m so so sorry”