Work Text:
Scopaesthesia is the psychological staring effect that is considered a phenomenon in which humans detect being stared at by extrasensory means. This effect can be crucial in the spacial awareness in heroes as if you do not detect a threat, you can be--
Izuku slammed his head against his desk and groaned. Aizawa was ruthless with his assignments, especially the ones about spatial awareness and stealth. Izuku liked this subject. It was one he could easily relate to. He knew the feeling of being watched like the back of his hand, the cold eerie feeling creeping up his spine and chilling his body. That feeling was almost always paired with his constant anxiety that caused him to stutter and landed him the nickname Deku.
He was supposed to write a paper on how psychological phenomenons, such as the Pygmalion Effect, the Focusing Effect, and the Bystander Effect could affect hero work. It was a simple assignment, one that was straightforward and somewhat easy if you understood your subject. He truly did understand Scopaesthesia, but something was telling him he didn’t have the whole picture. He huffed and closed his computer. Kicking his chair, he spun around, leaning back and enjoying the way the wind brushed against his face. He ignored the faint shutter of a camera. It wasn’t all that important. It’s not that it was real.
Unsurprisingly enough, the constants in his life were the colors of the American flag. Kacchan has red eyes, All Might blue, his pills white. At six AM and PM like clockwork.
For paranoia and hallucinations. Once a day, six AM and PM. DO NOT FORGET.
He flicked open the lid and popped one in his mouth. He looked at his clock, ignoring the faint red glow that came from it. Six PM, on the dot. He grabbed a glass of water and swallowed the tiny white pill. He remembered when he first got his pills. It was the second-worst day of his life.
“C’mon Izuku! We have an appointment to get to!” His mother called, gesturing him to walk quicker.
“But Mommy, there’s a man with a camera!” He responded, feeling slightly sick at the prospect of being filmed. Inko’s face suddenly shifted into something of fake confusion, though he didn’t know that.
“Honey… there’s nothing there.” She said, strutting forward, grabbing his arm and dragging him away from the man.
“Yes, there was! I saw him!” He cried.
“No. There wasn’t. We need the doctor to check you out, Izuku.” He pouted but complied.
“If you’re thinking about being a hero, you should just quit now. You’re quirkless.” The words had sunken in, but the bright light in the background was near blinding.
“What about his hallucinations?” Inko asked. “He’s always saying he sees people and things that aren’t there!” The doctor’s face flashed with panic before he got up and shuffled around in a medicine cabinet. With a hum, he picked up an orange bottle with a white cap and set it in his mother’s hands.
“He’ll take one of these. One at six AM one at six PM. Don’t forget.” There was an underlying threat with the tone.
“Okay. C’mon Izuku, let’s go home.”
He sighed at the memory and ignored the clicking of the camera. He hoped it would go away soon. It was grating on his nerves.
“Oi Deku! Dinner!” Bakugou called from outside his door.
“Coming Kacchan!” He got up from his chair and rushed to catch up.
[x]
He ignored the heavy metal clatter of the camera stands rolling down the stairs, pushing it out of his mind like always. It was always bordering on unbearable, his coping mechanism slapping on a smile and pretending there wasn’t a man in the background with a camera and a deadpan expression.
He sat down at the table and accepted his soba with a smile.
“Hey, Midoriya?” Denki asks from beside him.
“Yeah?”
“How’s your paper going? I got the Bystander Effect and it makes no sense! How am I supposed to know how it affects hero work?” Denki groans.
“Well, mine’s going... Okay. I just can’t figure out how to word mine correctly.”
“Ah. What effect did you get?”
“I got-”
“Quit fuckin’ blabbering with Dunce Face and eat! Fuckin’ Deku!” Bakugou yelled, though he probably just didn’t want his food to get cold.
“Oh! Sorry, Kacchan!” He dug into his food and smiled when the camera movement dulled and almost disappeared.
Almost.
The hum was always there. It never ceased and that fact was of no comfort to him. The hum made him want to itch, the cold rushing through his body did nothing to help.
But this was his normal, and so he’d cope.
[x]
He sat at his computer and started again.
Scopaesthesia is the psychological staring effect that is considered a phenomenon in which humans detect being stared at by extrasensory means. This effect is crucial in honing your spatial awareness which is important in a hero’s career.
Spatial awareness is the act of being aware--
That sounded stupid.
Spatial awareness, which is the act of being aware of your surroundings, is not only extremely helpful in hero work, but necessary. Not being aware of your surroundings makes you vulnerable. It’s a weakness that anyone, especially villains, can take advantage of.
It’s stated on HeroNews Wiki that 50% of heroes don’t make it past their first year on the job. There are other contributing factors to this statistic such as cockiness--
That word didn’t belong in a school paper. Right? No, it didn’t.
There are other contributing factors to this statistic such as large-scale villain attacks that the hero was not equipped well enough or experienced enough to work on or in, mental health issues such as Depression and PTSD, along with arrogance. Still, no spatial awareness is still the leading contributor to the large rate of hero casualties. A large part of spatial awareness is the psychological effect that was mentioned earlier, Scopaesthesia. Claimed by the pre-quirk biologist and author Rupert Sheldrake, it is said that this feeling can be described as a sixth sense or a gut feeling. It is said that some would turn around to find that someone was staring at them and that they’d felt it. Many quirk-era biologists and psychologists disagree with his findings, mostly because they are well over two hundred years old, however just because they are old does not mean they are suddenly invalid. Daichi Fumihiro, a biologist in Tokyo, ran the exact same sequence of tests, finding that Sheldrake was right to claim that Scopaesthesia was in fact real.
Now, Scopaesthesia doesn’t always work in a hero’s favor. Sure, it ties directly into spatial awareness but that doesn’t mean anything if your quirk is directly tied to the effect.
Take Eraserhead--
Was it weird using his teacher? Yeah. Probably. He sighed, and not for the first time today, shut his laptop and flopped onto his bed exhausted.
He looked up at the ceiling with frustration-fueled tears pooling in his eyes. The humming was louder. He’d just have to pretend that the blurry red lights were stars shining amongst millions of others and that the hum was just cool wind brushing against his bare face while he was watching the sunset.
Just pretend.
[x]
He awoke to his blaring alarm and Iida’s sharp tone echoing down the halls. He fumbled around with his alarm clock until he finally hit it just right - the noise was too much with the humming turned buzzing - and it shut up. It was a slight reprieve from the struggles of the morning. He got up and pulled on his uniform, playing around with his finicky tie before giving up, something he didn’t enjoy doing. Caffeine seemed to be the only thing that might get him through this day, or so Aizawa and his dad - wherever he was - said. He’d never actually had it, his mother saying that he was energetic enough as is. Not today though. Today he was too tired to slap on a smile and greet his friends, too tired to think about anything but god I hate writing papers and where is that damned coffee maker.
He stumbled downstairs scouring the countertops looking for a coffee maker. He found it and did what he thought was the right process for making coffee. He couldn’t really be sure, it’s not like he’d watched a tutorial. If he had, he would’ve probably messed it up somehow. He grabbed the pot of coffee and a mug and poured a healthy (read: unhealthy) amount of coffee in, not bothering with sugar or cream. He brought the mug up to his lips and--
“Midoriya-kun! Coffee stunts your growth! Are you sure you want to drink it? Especially since we have hero training today?” Iida asked rather loudly. If he’d read into it more, he would’ve realized that the teen’s voice sounded strained and slightly panicked. However, he did not look into Iida’s words and instead gave him a deadpan look that suggested fatigue.
“Iida, one cup won’t hurt me. Please stop yelling.”
“But-!”
“Quit fucking yelling! It’s annoying as shit!” Bakugou cut in, grabbing a mug of the healthier option, tea.
Iida looked shocked, though the better word was panicked until it smoothed over into his usual seriousness. Izuku ignored this fact and took a sip--
It was more bitter than he’d expected. A lot more bitter, actually. Maybe he’d made it wrong.
[x]
The buzzing turned to murmurs. It wasn’t unbearable and it was keeping him awake in Midnight-sensei’s class - why was Art History considered necessary? - so it was a win. The caffeine was also helping, much more than the murmurs in his ear. It made him nervous, more than usual, the extra energy pouring into making him flinch at every well-timed click-- not of a pen, never a pen, making his leg shake with vigor.
He bit his lip to stop the word vomit that was about to escape his mouth.
Click.
Ignore it, his brain hissed. He’d comply for the millionth time.
It’s not as if it were real.
There were people staring at him. He knew this, there always were people staring at him anyways, but this was different.
Because if he’d looked, once again, a little harder--
He would’ve noticed that they were all fucking terrified.
(For what was a mystery, to him and--)
[x]
He had an audience. This was a fact.
As he walked down the hall, he pretended that the cameras weren’t there, that the people didn’t look like they were in on some major secret. He stopped, looking at one of the cameras. He stared for a dangerously long time before realizing that if this camera were real (“Did you take your meds, Izuku? You know there’s nothing there.”) it would be weird to stare at it for so long. So, he feigned ignorance and squinted as if he were truly looking at something. He was facing a window and so he said: “What lovely weather.” He smiled softly and moved on.
If he were actually looking out the window and not into the lens of a camera, he would’ve noticed it was raining.
If he had all the pieces to the puzzle, he would’ve noticed his own reflection in the camera lens.
But that was neither here nor there.
[x]
Once again, for the second taxing night in a row, he sat at his desk writing this goddamn paper. The murmuring was so much louder than it was supposed to be, it was bordering on screaming. He hadn’t felt this in - How long was it, really? Was it when dad gave him a sip of coffee then disappeared? - a long time.
He opened his computer to the document that had been making his life hell. He realized he needed to do some research if he wanted to find a hero with the same issue as Aizawa if he wanted to pass. Slamming his head against a desk probably wouldn’t help, but he did it anyway.
“Fucking bullshit I can’t fucking stand this stupid fucking fucking stupid--” He muttered long strings of colorful curses until he regained some of his neverending determination and read a little more.
Apparently, there was a hero, Hindsight, with a perception-altering quirk based on if the man could see his target. Apparently, hindsight is not 20/20, because once he was spotted by a man on trigger - honestly who in their right mind alters the perception of a man on trigger? - he was brutally torn apart. Morbid, sure, but it fits right in with everything else he’d written.
Take Hindsight, A hero who had debuted in 2375 and died in 2378. And while he didn’t die in his first year, he died in his second.
Hindsight had a perception-altering quirk called Wonderland that was activated once his eyes locked on his target. He was inexperienced, and not to bash the deceased, arrogant. However, above all, he truly believed that it was pointless to learn the fundamentals of spatial awareness. Ironic as it was, he’d never learned it. He relied on luck in which-
Always runs out.
This resulted in the fateful night when he faced Denji Kamura who was hopped up on Trigger. Hindsight altered his perception, making it seem as if he were talking to his father. This was a dangerous choice. Kamura did not react well and he felt the stare of Hindsight, registering him as a threat.
The man was torn to pieces before the clock struck midnight. It had seemed that hindsight was not always 20/20. Morbid as that tale may be, it is real life. A real story about an extremely real thing that could happen to someone if they were to ignore this effect, pretend it doesn’t exist like the quirk-era biologists and scientists. Pretending this effect doesn’t exist is a truly fatal thing.
Something buzzed and for once it wasn’t in his head. He looked down at his phone, squinting because there was no way on Earth this said what he thought it did.
[Kacchan: Don’t take them.]
Take what? He glanced at the clock which had just struck six o’clock and looked back down at his phone. He typed out a message.
[Why, Kacchan? What’s wrong with them?]
[Kacchan: Just fucking don’t, Izuku.]
His eyes widened in shock - and slight horror - at the prospect of Katsuki using his first name. For some reason, instead of questioning it, he grabbed the bottle and placed it gently in his drawer.
Izuku heard a sneeze. His hallucinations were probably getting worse.
“Bless you!” He said with the utmost sincerity.
The man thanked him then turned back to manning the hidden cameras.
Did… did hallucinations thank their hosts?
[x]
His dreams, which were never quite dreams, were plagued with memories-- ones either fabricated by his traitorous mind or ones that were…
He was handed a cup of milk, but with a hint of brown.
“Daddy? What is this?” He asked, looking up at his father with a curious look. His father had a nervous yet determined look on his face. It was as if he were saying goodbye.
“It’s coffee, kiddo. Though it is pretty watered down. It’s good. I put sugar in it so it won’t be so bitter.” Izuku scrunched his nose at that.
“Bitter? Ew! Why would you drink something bitter?” He asked, disgusted at the idea.
“It keeps you awake! But anyways, you gotta drink it. Daddy’s got something really important to tell you.” His father’s face fell solemn as he sat beside him. Izuku made quick work of the coffee and gulped it quickly, smiling.
“Did I do it right?” He asked. His father smiled - such a sad smile - and ruffled his green curls.
“Yeah kiddo, you did great. Now come it close, okay?” Izuku moved in closer, eyes brimming with excitement.
“You’re not crazy, Izuku.” He said, a guilty tear rolling down his cheeks.
“What? But Mommy said-”
“Mommy lied. She lied to you. Everyone is lying to you-”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
“Izuku! Be quiet!” His father whispered harshly.
“The camera people? They exist?” He asked, tears pooling in his eyes but remaining unshed.
“Yeah, yeah they do kiddo. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Inko burst into the room, smelling the coffee and realizing.
Realizing what her husband - not her husband, she’d remember that - had done.
“Hisashi…” She said, more words forming but not making it past the tip of her tongue.
His father flinched harshly at the words and stood up quickly, panic quickly smoothing over into anger.
“He deserves to know.” He said, voice steady and resolve unwavering.
“This is unforgivable-” Inko began.
“He deserves to know what we’ve done, what we’ve created. How fucking sick this is!”
“Daddy?” His father looked back, tears, angry and sorrow-filled, streaming down his face.
Something in him cracked and shattered when his father didn’t respond and instead, looked back at his mother.
“The people decided already. We are the- we act. Izuku lives.”
“IT’S SICK!”
“No. Izuku is. Remember sweetie?” She seemed to hiss, “He has paranoia and hallucinations. He must’ve convinced you-” She started, a futile attempt to save what was broken.
“No. You know that this is--”
A flash of orange, red, and white made its way through the window and hit his father. The man’s heart sputtered and stopped and the man’s eyes widened in shock then settled. Blood rose up his throat and made its way past his lips, hitting the ground just as his body did only seconds later.
A shot fired from an opposing building and Hisashi Midoriya’s blood splattered on what seemed to be every wall. His warm corpse falling onto the ground unceremoniously, small pieces of organic tissue clumped together with the blood sticking to Izuku’s face. The blood pooled beneath the man, staining the floors with an ugly crimson and seeping beneath the floorboards. He was stiff and his face held his last facial expression. It was one of resignation as if he were expecting to have his blood gruesomely painted on the walls and on his only child and wife. Most of the dead man’s blood ended up on Izuku, one chunk of bloodied tissue smack dab in the middle of his forehead. It might as well have been a bullseye.
Only Inko Midoriya understood why her husband was lying dead in the middle of the living room. She stood over his corpse, looking at it as if it were destined to happen.
A corpse spoke no secrets to the living. In fact, the producers would probably all sigh good riddance.
Still, only one Midoriya screamed - no, it was not his wife - on that fateful day that he wasn’t supposed to remember.
He shot up, bile rising up his throat and all he could taste was coffee. He could taste the coffee that his father (“Izuku, Hisashi has been dead since before you were born,”) handed to him and told him to drink before he…
It was real. Everything was real. He was crazy, that’s what everyone had said. He’d gone mad. He was a fucking psycho.
It was real.
His breath picked up, tears pooling and spilling, disgusting mucus dripping from his nose as he sobbed and shook. The fat, hot tears running down his face could not begin to replicate the relief he felt inside. He was not crazy nor hallucinating. He was living in a world of cameras.
Then something inside his gut twisted, something akin to dread rose to the surface and held back his tears and set an uncomfortable lump in his throat because…
If the cameras were real… he was being watched.
But why?
His shaking was no longer one of relief and his eyes were blown wide and not to let the tears roll down his cheeks. The dread, the deepest kind that had been following him around for years spread throughout his body, making him shake harder and heave dryly. He was being watched. Was this how Kamura felt before he murdered Hindsight? Was this…
Scopaesthesia?
It was a question that was almost laughable, of course, it was. This is what he knew, he always knew he was being watched. He’d written it off as being crazy, as being batshit insane. As a hallucination and a foreign dream.
But it was real and he was a hypocrite. Because he’d ignored it and that had been his first mistake.
A real story about an extremely real thing that could happen to someone if they were to ignore this effect, pretend it doesn’t exist like the quirk-era biologists and scientists. Pretending this effect doesn’t exist is a truly fatal thing.
His strangled sobs finally escaped as a guttural scream.
[x]
“Midoriya? Midoriya?!” Iida asked, banging on his door. The doorknob jiggled. Izuku sniffled and choked on a glob of spit but wiped his eyes and opened it.
Iida looked worried.
“Are you okay? I heard you scream.” Iida said, looking inside. Izuku shut the door and stepped outside, eying the camera behind and beside Iida.
“Oh, just a bad dream! It’s nothing! I’m fine!”
“Really? Because if you’re having nightmares then-”
“It’s fine Iida, really.” He couldn’t stop eying the camera because goddamn if he didn’t see a reflection...
“Okay then, Midoriya. If you say so, then I’ll be off.” Iida turned around and started walking away but Izuku just had one question. He reached for Iida’s shoulder and spun him around.
“Oh! Yes, Midoriya-kun?” Iida asked.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong… right?”
“Of course. Now I must be off to bed. Goodnight.”
As Iida’s shoulder slipped from his grip, Izuku couldn’t help but think he was lying.
[x]
As the night went on, Izuku couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking over his dream - it was a memory - and getting more and more confused. But most of all, he was disgusted.
“The people decided already. We are the- we act. Izuku lives.”
What did that mean? The act? Why did Katsuki tell him not to take his meds?
Why were there cameras?
And why was his Father dead for pointing them out?
Still, with these swarming thoughts, he couldn’t help but pull up his paper and write. It was purely self-indulgent at this point, an outlet to calm his thoughts.
You can manipulate this effect to work in your favor, of course. You can convince the person experiencing this effect that they are crazy, that they are delusional and deserve to be in an inpatient psychiatric facility, that they didn’t sense you. You could shoot them in the head and that would solve the problem indefinitely. You could take away their freedom and their sense of security to the point when they get a survey asking if they feel safe or not, they’ll answer with a hard NO.
Or, you could leave the poor four-year-old ALONE. If this were to happen, said four-year-old won’t walk around in life thinking that they are delusional, thinking that they didn’t see their father be shot in the head, blood splattering--
ERROR!
“Dammit!” He punched his computer and slammed it shut. It always did this. Whenever he typed in something relating to his father or the cameras or even his name, his computer stopped working. It never crossed his mind that maybe, just fucking maybe, this had something to do with the cameras. He ran his hands through his hair and pulled. Not hard enough to rip it out of his scalp, just hard enough to cause pain. He wanted to scream. He wanted to punch and destroy. His world was crashing and he-
Click!
Wanted it all to stop. He glanced at his clock. It read 3:07 AM. He then glanced at his drawer that held his pills. He slowly opened the drawer and picked up the bottle. He was well accustomed to reading the big print on the label in fits of boredom, but he’d never read the fine print.
Maybe he should’ve. Maybe it would’ve helped him sooner.
DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. DO NOT CONSUME CAFFEINE.
CAFFEINE WILL CANCEL OUT THE EFFECTS OF THIS PRODUCT.
DO NOT CONSUME CAFFEINE.
He slowly removed the lid and ignored the thought of swallowing them all. He wasn’t crazy nor suicidal.
Get rid of them , a small but logical part of his brain hissed.
He’d finally listen to this part of him.
[x]
He awoke on his chair, neck strained and aching. He groaned but got up and threw on his uniform. It was sloppy, but it’d work.
He yawned, grabbed his bag, and headed downstairs. He heard voices and he was going to ignore them until he heard something…
“What the hell are we going to do? He drank coffee. We can’t let him know!” Jirou said in a hushed whisper.
“There is nothing we can do. Just play along as we always do.” Iida said, dejected.
“Fine.”
He walked out, a fake smile pasted on his face. “Hey, guys,”
They flinched slightly at his sudden appearance but returned the greeting. This time he noticed. He didn’t go for the coffee today, he just grabbed the bread and threw it in the toaster.
He ran his hands across the backsplash, waiting for his toast to pop up. It was a strange texture, almost like it was fake. He heard his toast pop up and he whirled around to grab it. He grabbed it and took a bite. He took a minute to think about Iida and Jirou’s conversation and then stopped. He glanced up from his toast to see Jirou frantically texting.
She knew he was there.
She was playing along and he would too.
“I’m heading out for a run!” He yelled, dropping his half-eaten toast in the trash and grabbing his bag.
He swore he heard a “We know.” from Jirou.
[x]
He wasn’t going on a run. Well… scratch that. He was going on a run, just not on his normal route. He was going to Ground Beta because even if he were to get in trouble, he wanted to let off some steam. Some steam being years worth of lies.
When he finally reached the grounds he ignored the bots telling him class was in ten minutes, he ignored the cameras following him like hawks, he ignored everything around him and let it out.
He powered up Full Cowl, letting the energy spread throughout his body.
“You’re crazy, Deku! There’s nothing there!” Tsubasa yelled.
Was everything fake?
“Sweetie, take your meds.”
Was everything a lie?
“There is nothing we can do. Just play along as we always do.”
“WERE YOU ALL JUST MOCKING ME?!”
One for All exploded in red, anger coursing through his veins.
[x]
“We’re so sorry, Nine. We tried to tell you but the meds… they messed with your memories.” One said, phantom hands ruffling Izuku’s hair.
“Everything was fake. Everything but this quirk. You’re the only one holding everything together out here. I’m sorry for what they did.” Three said, staring at the ground in shame.
“They had no right. They all should be ashamed.” Nana said, her face not even attempting to hide her fury.
“Why is everything red? I- I don’t understand?!” Izuku pleaded, his quirk destroying everything around him.
“It’s okay. Just let it out. We’ll take care of it.” One reassured.
“Take care of what?!”
When he stopped seeing nothing but red and started seeing the destruction he was causing, he started to see cameramen fleeing and black whips flying out of him. They were sending buildings tumbling to the ground. Instead of Full Cowling being green, it was blood red. Instead of feeling guilt for the damage and destruction he was causing, there was this deep feeling of righteous anger. He couldn’t control the whips, it was as if they had a mind of their own. They were excruciatingly painful and it felt as if they’d burst out of his skin.
His breathing was erratic and even though he was angry, he was bordering on panicking.
A singular whip burst from his stomach, sending him tumbling towards the ground. He was crouched, trying not to vomit in pain. A whip extended from his back and he bit back a scream.
His warm corpse falling onto the ground unceremoniously, small pieces of organic tissue clumped together with the blood sticking to Izuku’s face.
He took a deep breath and swallowed despite his mouth being dry. His eyes were wide open in fear. The pain was getting worse and he couldn’t control his quirk at all.
Click!
Stop it. It was annoying.
Click!
Quit it. He just needed to get his quirk under control, there wasn't any reason to take pictures.
Click!
“DEKU!”
Click!
No more, please.
Click!
Shut up.
Click! Are we rolling? This is gonna be great for ratings--
“SHUT UP!”
His vision went dark and when it finally came into view...
“Deku…” Bakugou started.
He was smiling. Teeth bared and hands dripping and bloody, Izuku smiled.
He smiled because for once…
The clicking stopped.
“You- You killed him.”
A shot rang out, red, white, and orange, and struck Izuku in the head.