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Izuku always knew, deep down, that this was how he was going to die. Not from jumping off of a high rise. Not from the severe burns and cuts he was given at school. No, from his mother abusing and neglecting him. How could he not expect this outcome when he was diagnosed quirkless and she had first looked at him with disgust and contempt. But that was fine for him. He’d just be another statistic. So if he was going to die and become another number, then he at least didn’t want it to be in the apartment that hadn’t been home to him in years. He stumbled out of the front door, not caring if his mother saw him, or if the neighbors saw him. They wouldn’t do anything about it anyway. Auntie Mitsuki might, but she lived in a nicer neighborhood. No one cared for the useless, quirkless, Deku . So as he held the bleeding and most likely infected gash in his side, he limped down the street, the only source of light being the streetlamps overhead and the occasional store window. He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking but eventually he finds a nice alley to lay down in. He sits beside a dumpster, out of sight of the sidewalk and the occasional pedestrian, and just relishes in the peacefulness he feels wash over him.
Sighing in content, Izuku closed his eyes letting sleep consume him. He thought he heard a worried and panicked voice calling out to him, but he brushed it off, assuming it to be the blood loss messing with him. No one in their right mind would worry about him.
Shouta pulled out his phone as quickly as he could, dialing the hospital. The kid had fallen asleep in his arms and Shouta put as much pressure on the wound in his side as he could. He waits for the ambulance as patiently as one could with a bleeding out kid in their arms.
“No come on kid. Come on, don't fall asleep on me. Stay awake damnit.” Shouta wanted to shake the kid, but he held back knowing it would only worsen the kid’s wound.
When the medics arrived and put the boy on the gurney, Shouta insisted he ride with them to the hospital to make sure the kid was alright. On the ride over, Shouta had texted his husband about the situation, then informed his agency as well. The first time on the ride to the hospital, Shouta heard the heart monitor flatline, his heart dropped and bile rise in his throat. The medics resuscitated the boy as quickly as they could with a still lethal wound on the kid’s side. The kid’s heart started beating and Shouta breathed a sigh of relief.
“How much longer!” One of the medics called back to the driver.
“10 minutes!” The driver called back.
“We need to hurry! Make it 5!” The third medic exclaimed as the kid’s heart monitor started flatlining once more.
Shouta’s heart broke. The kid had just been resuscitated and now he was flatlining again. The next 5 minutes were the longest 5 minutes in Shouta’s life. The kid had flatlined a total of 4 times by the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital. The medics rushed the kid out of the ambulance and straight to the emergency room, yelling medical terms he didn’t understand.
Izuku looked around him. He didn’t know where he was or what happened to get him here. There was nothing much to look at, since he was in a black void, but a white door that gave off a warm glow kept appearing at different places and each time he got close to it to investigate it, he was forcefully pulled back from it, like something was keeping him from going into it. It was starting to get frustrating. He had only been able to get a hand in before he was yanked away from it by an unknown force. He sighed and walked in the opposite direction of the door instead. As he explored the empty void, he passed by multiple scenes that seemed to be memories of his. The first scene he passed by was of the first memory he ever had of his father. They were playing in the living room, and the man kept looking at Izuku with a kind of hunger in his eyes. Of course the younger him didn’t notice it, but looking at it from a different perspective made him realize just how toxic the man actually was. The next scene was of the last time he ever saw his father. There was yelling and crying (mostly from Younger Izuku) and the slamming of doors. It was right after Izuku’s 5th birthday when he still had yet to show signs of a quirk. The scene kept replaying unlike the previous one and Izuku became entranced into the memory. Izuku watched as his younger self cried in a dark closet while covering his ears. He watched as his father hit his mother and called her useless like she had to him so many times. He wanted to laugh at the irony, yet he couldn’t. All he felt was an emptiness inside of him that seemed like it could never be filled.
Izuku forced himself to stop looking at the memory and to continue walking down the semi-formed path under his feet. No more memories appeared until the screaming from the last one couldn’t be heard anymore. Though it wasn’t a happy memory either way. He looked at it and realized it as the day his mother stopped being his mom and became his abuser instead. She hit Younger Izuku across the face when they got back from the doctor’s and he was diagnosed quirkless. Younger Izuku cried himself to sleep as his mother screamed from the kitchen and glass shattered against walls as she threw, what he would call, a tantrum. He continued watching until his mother’s movements became repetitive and he grew bored.
Once again, the door showed up in his eyesight, and he couldn't resist walking towards it. It gave off a warm glow and it looked so welcoming, Izuku just wanted to touch it.
Shouta watched from the window as the nurses resuscitated the kid for the fifth time in the past 2 days. The doctors had informed him that they had done everything they could for the kid and now it was just up to the boy to wake up. Shouta wished the kid would wake up already. None of the nurses or doctors actually expected the kid to wake up. It was like the kid didn’t want to be woken up and was trying to leave. The hero had called up the detective to see if he could find any information on the boy in the hospital bed, and he promised to contact the ravenette if and when he found anything. What Shouta found really suspicious was that no family members had called into the station for a missing child. So all Shouta could do was wait for the detective to get back to him with the information for the boy.
45 minutes after the boy’s most recent flatline, Tsukauchi called back with news that Shouta felt his heart ache at hearing.
“I got what you asked for.” Shouta hummed in response. Tsukauchi took that as his go ahead.
“Right so his name is Izuku Midoriya, age 14, quirklessー” Shouta sucked in a breath. He knew how awful people with quirks deemed as ‘villainous’ had it, and to imagine what it would be like to have no quirk, Shouta’s heart ached at what the boy must’ve gone through. “ーGoes to Aldera Middle School. Parents are Inko and Hisashi Midoriya. Hisashi Midoriya has been in America for the past 9 years, and Inko Midoriya works at Hosu General Hospital.” Tsukauchi took a breath, letting Shouta absorb all the energy.
“Right, the next part is...awful to look at and I will be having some discussions with the officers involved, but just a heads up.” Tsukauchi waited for Shouta to hum or grunt in response and when the hero did, the detective continued. “I have 2 reports made by one Izuku Midoriya stating that his mother had been abusing him, but have been written off because of his quirklessness. I also have a couple reports from an anonymous person stating that there is Quirk discrimination going on in Aldera Middle School to the point where the target - stated to be Izuku Midoriya - has multiple lacerations and burns covering their body when the leave school grounds. Each report has been written off on the basis that the victim is quirkless.” Shouta wanted to burn the school to the ground. And he would stop at nothing to do just that.
“Did any of the reports about the school have any names about the tormentors?” Because that’s what they were to Shouta. Not kids. Tormentors, who abused and tortured the boy who was laying in a hospital bed, flatlining every hour or so.
“Yeah. There was one main one, his name is Bakugou Katsuki.” Shouta saw red.
“Thanks.” He grunted before hanging up.
Izuku had gotten close to getting more of the white door to open so he could see inside, and then he was promptly pulled away. At this point, he was just sitting down in the void, and waiting for something interesting to happen. Like those memories he had been shown earlier. The memories had gone up to the beginning of middle school and then abruptly stopped there, like someone or something didn’t feel the need to show him the rest. It’s not like he was complaining. When looking at his memories, he realized how none of them were happy ones. They were all filled with his abuse and neglect. Laying down from his seated position, Izuku looked up at the endless void above him. There was nothing else to do and he wasn’t sure what day it was. It felt like he’d only been here a few hours, so he assumes that’s how long it’s been. He has no sense of time and the void is neither hot nor cold so it’s not like he’s suffering.
Standing up, Izuku starts to take a step forward when he begins falling. It should scare him, yet it doesn’t, and instead he only looks back up to where he fell from as he continues his descent. Izuku notices the door and tries to angle his body so he can fall towards it, when like all previous times, once the warmth from the door hits even a small part of his skin, he’s pulled back away from it. He groans, tired of being pulled away, and wonders if he could fight the pulling. He decides that when he finally has some semblance of footing, he’s going to try to fight it. It shouldn’t be too hard. Right?
Wrong. Oh how very wrong he was. Sure he got closer to the door and was able to bathe a quarter of his body in it’s warmth now, but he was still always pulled away. He groans, not even wanting to try anymore, but also wanting to know what was on the other side.
“Is that truly what you desire?”
Shouta shoves his head in his face as he sits in the interrogation room. When he had left the hospital, the kid was having a seizure, and now here the hero was about to question the kid’s mom with Tsukauchi. The detective brought Inko Midoriya into the room. The woman looked eerily similar to the boy he had to leave in the hospital alone, bar the long hair.
“Why am I here?” She asked flatly.
“We just have a few questions for you regarding your son.” Tsukauchi informed.
Her face twisted into one of disgust, before it was composed and carefully blank. If Shouta was anyone else, he would have missed it.
“I don’t have a son.”
“Midoriya-san, I would like to inform you of my quirk. It’s called Lie Detector, and I can tell if you lie to me or not, so please, sit down and let us ask you a few questions.” Tsukauchi gestured to the empty chair across from Shouta, facing the one way mirror.
Shouta heard the soft yet harsh ‘tsk’ from the woman across from him.
“Alright. I will be recording this questioning.” Tsukauchi pulled out a voice recorder and hit play. “I am Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, I am questioning Inko Midoriya about her son, Izuku Midoriya, who is currently in the hospital. With me is Underground Pro Hero Eraserhead.”
Tsukauchi turned towards the woman. Then sent a glance towards Shouta. In return, Shouta leaned back in his chair in the most lackadaisical way he could muster. Which wasn’t too hard.
“We’ll start with simple questions. First can you please state your full name.”
“Inko Midoriya.”
“Thank you. And do you confirm that your son is Izuku Midoriya?”
“I don’t have a son.”
“Ma’am, must I remind you of my quirk?”
The woman’s face twisted before going back to the calm expression she had earlier.
“Yes he is my son.” Shouta rolled his eyes.
“And do you know of the bullying your son has been put through at school?”
“No. That brat hides everything from me.” Tsukauchi looked like he wanted to sigh in exasperation.
“Midoriya, please stop lying.” Shouta watched on, not seeing the need to inject himself into the interrogation just yet.
The woman scoffed, “Yeah I knew. That brat came home every day with a new burn or bruise. Always looked painful as hell but why should I care for that ungrateful shit?”
“Because that ‘ungrateful shit’ is your son.” Shouta growled, straightening in his seat.
“That shit is no son of mine. He’s useless to me. Only good he’s for is a punching bag and practicing my quirk.”
Shouta’s phone rang before he could do anything he might regret. Looking at the caller ID, the hero stood and addressed the detective.
“It’s the hospital. I have to go, Mic will get here in a couple minutes to replace me.”
“Alright. Go make sure the kid’s safe.” Both men ignored the ‘tsk’ from the green haired woman.
Stepping out into the hall, Shouta answered the call.
“Eraserhead.”
“It’s about the boy you brought in.”
Izuku started scratching at his wrist, bored. He was stuck in this void, not knowing where he was. He distantly wondered if he was dead. Maybe that’s what the door he kept seeing was. But if he was dead, why couldn’t he open the door and go through it? Did someone find him and take him to a hospital? Is that why he can’t fully walk through the door?
Sighing, Izuku continued on his aimless walk through the void, all the while still scratching at his wrist. Even if he tried completing his death he had a feeling the nurses wouldn’t let him. He wonders how long he’s been in this void and how many times the nurses have had to bring him back. He leaves that thought alone, not really caring. If the nurses knew of his...disposition, they wouldn’t be trying to keep him alive. They’d let him flatline already, so that must mean they don’t know, or someone important is making sure they don’t. He assumes it’s the former because he knows that no one would care to make sure he’s kept alive. He slows down in his walking and looks down at his hands. There’s blood on them and he wonders if this affects his physical body too. Probably not.
His mind wanders to the memories it was shown when he first woke up here. Of course none of them were happy memories, so why did he think that maybe one of them would be. Maybe he just wanted to know that he was happy at least once in his pitiful life. Again for the umpteenth time, he notices the door, except this time there’s another, more ominous door next to it. The door has chains keeping it locked and it looks very unwelcoming, whereas the white door, the oh so warm and welcoming door whose warm light washes over his skin whenever he walks close to it, looks like the much better option. Even if it means he does die. The door welcomes him like a loving mother would to their newborn child. The door growls at him like a predator stalking its prey.
He walks up to the door just to get a better feel for it, and when his hand touches the handle, his hand burns with the heat of a raging fire. It’s enough to keep him from ever going near the door, not one to try to test what might be through it if it means he gets burned. There’s a small voice in the back of his head telling him to try to go through the door, but the bigger one that’s been pushing him towards the door this whole time overwhelms it and the smaller voice goes quiet.
He can tell the door offers pain and suffering should he go through it. It offers being blamed for things he did not do. Offers gaslighting and contempt from those he thought would be around to protect him from pain.
The door offers comfort and serenity. It offers safety and home. And Kami how he’s missed having a sense of home. How he misses feeling loved and safe, even though he only has the vaguest of memories that are before he was old enough to remember. How he misses those warm hugs and soft forehead kisses his mother gave him before he was diagnosed.
He does not miss being tortured and abused. He does not miss being leered at and suicide baited. And he definitely does not miss having handprints seared into his back and chest from the explosions of a certain boy’s quirk. So when he noticeably avoids the door that offers nothing but bad memories, that’s no one’s knowledge but his own.
Shouta watches as the kid’s heartbeat speeds up then slows down, almost as if he was in a dangerous situation that caused his adrenaline to spike. He watches as the kid’s face scrunches up like he was just offered a choice that brought nothing but awful encounters. He begs to any deity watching, that the kid wakes up. He begs each time the kid flatlines, that the kid doesn’t give up. And he swears to every deity that Inko Midoriya and Aldera Middle School will be brought down. The kid will make it. He just has too or else Shouta wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
The kid’s expression smoothed out and Shouta thought he almost looked peaceful. Until he started flatlining. The moment the heart monitor flatlined, nurses rushed in and Shouta was pushed out of the room. He watched, hoping the kid’s heart would start up again like all the last times. Apparently his begging and wishing wasn’t enough for the universe because Shouta watches as the nurses declare the kid deceased and the man cries tears he didn’t think he had as the nurses unhook the kid from all the medical paraphernalia and cover his body with a white sheet. He calls Hizashi, the man who kept him stable for the past 4 days and cries. Hizashi promises to be at the hospital as soon as he can and relays the information to Tsukauchi.
Shouta sits in the chair outside what used to be the kid’s room with his head in his hands, tears silently falling down his cheeks as he blames himself for the kid’s death. Maybe if he was faster to get the kid to the hospital, or if he had found the kid earlier, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. He blames himself, a small part of him knowing it wasn’t his fault and that there was nothing he could do.
The moment Izuku finally steps through the white door, he releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He was right in his assumptions that the door was warm and comforting. He sees a beach bathed in sunlight farther down the path and walks towards it. When his feet touch the warm sand he smiles, the brightest smile he’s had grace his features in a very long time.
He lays down on the sand, and lets sleep consume him as he listens to the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore and seagulls squawking. There’s no pain here, just peace and safety. For the first time since he was diagnosed quirkless, he falls asleep without any worries for his safety.
Shouta, Tsukauchi, and most recently, Nedzu tear Aldera Middle School to the ground. They arrest teachers and talk to the parents of the main tormentors of the kid who died in the hospital. Shouta doesn’t hold back when he tells the parents of Bakugou Katsuki all their kid did to Izuku Midoriya. And he doesn’t hold back in telling them what their dear friend Inko Midoriya did to her own son. They cry into each other’s arms at the news and they promise to get their son the help he needs. Shouta smiles to himself as he learns of Inko Midoriya’s arrest and when she gets sent to jail.
Shouta may not have been able to save Izuku Midoriya, but he will do his damn best to save and protect all those kids like him. All those kids who are being abused and tortured because of what they were or weren’t born with, and he finds a son along the way. A son who has eyebags to rival his own and gravity defying purple hair.
(He never forgets to visit the kid’s grave every year, even when decades have passed, and always makes sure to tell him all that’s happened. He might not have known the kid personally, but Shouta would proudly say the kid is his son.)