Archive of Our Own

When Izuku is ten years old, he is small, scared, and alone.
When he emerges from Alera Junior High on that fateful day, he is covered in bruises and yet he still stands tall.
When Izuku begins his walk home, he is still a child, still unused to the pain the world can bring.

And then he passes a shady alleyway, and a raspy voice calls out.

Against his better judgement, Izuku listens.

And all at once, his future changes.

Six years later, Izuku is seated at a dusy barstool as Shigaraki Tomura rants.
“Those heroes, those goddamn heroes ,” Tomura swears and slams his hands on the bar next to Izuku, who barely suppresses his flinch. “They knew we were gonna be there- they must’ve, somehow. The campus was empty ,” Tomura stresses. “The heroes were the only ones there. Why?”

Izuku stays silent. At this point, he knows Tomura well enough to realize that his anger will fizzle out into the same monotonous hatred that infuses his every movement.

At this point, Izuku knows to stay silent, unless he’s willing to face the consequences for it. He has the scars to remind him of that.

Tomura rounds on him all the same, though. “Who was it that snuck into the school? Who retrieved the files? Who had the opportunity to warn the heroes?”

Izuku exhales shakily, knowing the answer, knowing what Tomura will do to him if he ignores him or tries to deflect. “I did.”

“That’s right,” Tomura says, voice as cold as ice. He leans in, his forehead nearly pressed to Izuku’s. “You did. Now tell me, Izuku , why did the heroes know we were coming?”

“I don’t know,” Izuku lies as smoothly as possible, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“ Liar ,” Tomura hisses. He straightens up, then, and for a moment it seems like that might be the end of it.

For a moment, it seems that Tomura may turn away, that Tomura may forgive this mistake (because that's what he must see it as, surely, despite the fact that Izuku’s betrayal was no such thing).

Then Tomura turns back to the bar, a wide grin splitting his face. It’s all sharp teeth and odd glee.

Izuku returns to his room that night with yet another wound, and the understanding that if he wants to survive this, he’ll need to be discreet.

After that, Izuku is far more careful. He’d tipped off the USJ heroes with a hidden sticky note left in the files room; a bright, bubbly letter that was far less serious than the message it carried.

You will be attacked .

The next major event is the Yuuei Sports Festival, though, and Tomura isn’t manic enough to think he could win a battle in a stadium full of heroes, no matter the nomu the doctor provides.

He does, however, instruct Izuku to provide analysis on each of the hero students, from the first years to the third years.

Izuku is careful to leave out as much crucial information as possible while exaggerating the dangers of the useless facts. 

Shouji Mezou is skilled in combat and can generate as many limbs as he wants, he writes.

Shouji Mezou is an excellent spy, he leaves out. 

Izuku misrepresents the third years’ progress, hoping to at least give them an upper hand.

He notes Mirio Togata’s new uniform but ignores Neijires progress with her quirk force.

He takes advantage of Tomura’s words- tell me everything about the hero students- and ignores a promising general education student by the name of Shinsou Hitoshi.

Certainly, anyone with eyes would be able to notice the discrepancies in his analysis, but Tomura’s always been blinder than most, and Kurogiri is at least willing to turn a blind eye (whether for personal gain or some sense of duty, Izuku hasn’t been able to determine).

Izuku hands his false analysis over easily, and Tomura accepts it with a nod and a gleeful, vindictive grin.

Tomura thinks that Izuku has fallen into line again, has once again become the perfect tool to wield, when the exact opposite is true.

That night, Izuku pulls his notebook from the hidden compartment under his mattress and watches the festival on loop, filling his notebook with more and more information. When he’s through, the notebook is nearly full. He slides it back into its compartment, locks it up tight, and returns his mattress to its proper place.

In the morning, when Tomura storms in to wake him with heated words, nothing is amiss.

Later that same day, after hours upon hours of thought, Izuku makes the decision to write an analysis on each member of the League of Villains.

No matter how small their group, any information counts.

Shigaraki Tomura.

Kurogiri.

All For One.

Izuku leaves the bar under the guise of information gathering, when he’s really doing the exact opposite. 

He slips into the Detective’s office, unnoticed, and leaves the unmarked manilla folder in the center of his desk. Closed, crisp, and perfect. An anonymous wealth of information.

Izuku slips back out, leaving everyone none the wiser.

A week later, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

First comes Stain, who does nothing but antagonize Tomura and insult the League. Soon after, two new recruits show up, both with an odd thirst for blood. Both with an odd admiration for Stain.

Still, Tomura accepts the new recruits even as he grumbles.

But Stain’s scathing words and parting challenge, “You couldn’t measure up to me if you tried,” have Tomura on edge.

When word of an attack in Hosu reaches his ears, his only thought is of retaliation, is of showing Stain up.

Tomura gathers the nomu and Izuku and sets them loose in Hosu city, cause chaos as his only order.

And then, just before he shoves Izuku through Kurogiri’s waiting portal, Tomura yanks him back.

He leans in close, and his breath reeks of mold and rot when he hisses, “I’m sure there’s some hero brat in Hosu tonight. Bring them to me, or face the consequences.”

Izuku winces and nods, and Tomura releases him with a shove. Izuku tumbles into Kurogiri’s portal and emerges into chaos.

The city is on fire, and the nomu’s are swarming everywhere. There’s a two-to-one ratio in favor of the heroes, but Izuku knows what the nomu can do.

Izuku has seen it up close.

So Izuku does the only thing he can do- save people. He pulls as many people as he can from wrecked and burning buildings, pulls them from the path of a Nomu, pulls them from any sort of danger he can reach.

 The screams meld into each other until they’re indistinguishable, and Izuku is both thankful and wary.

Izuku avoids the pros in favor of leaving the civilians in the center of town square. He flips his hood up to hide as much of his face as possible, though he isn’t sure it works very well.

In all honesty, it probably won’t matter for much longer.

Izuku isn’t sure what’ll come of this night, but he knows that it can’t be good.

At some point, a scream breaks through the fog, and Izuku realizes with some measure of abject horror that someone is searching for a lost Yuuei student.

“Has anyone seen Iida Tenya?”

Izuku curses and diverts, running into a swath of side alleys in search of a lost student.

Somehow, they both make it out alive.

Izuku isn’t quite clear on the sequence of events, himself, but what he does know is this:

Iida Tenya went off on a fool's quest for justice, and found Stain.

Pro Hero Native was there through it all, and soon Iida was paralyzed alongside him.

Then Izuku showed up.

He managed to hold Stain off for several minutes, until Iida Tenya stood up again. Together, they took him down and restrained him.

Then a nomu carted Izuku off, and all he felt was pain and regret- not at saving Iida, he could never regret that, but regret at the miserable end he would surely meet.

But then Stain of all people leaped up to save him, and Izuku was tugged back to Earth.

They fell to the ground and the heroes swooped in, gathering Izuku and Stain and Iida alike.

The next thing Izuku knows, he’s waking up in an unfamiliar room with the sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic drifting over him. 

His hands are cuffed to the bed.

A man Izuku vaguely recognizes as Eraserhead is sitting in the corner, though he stands when he notices Izuku’s new state.

“Ah, Ghost, you’re awake,” he observes cooly. “My name is Eraserhead, though I suspect you may already know that.”

Izuku nods tensely; a single, sharp head jerk.

Eraserhead sighs and crosses his arms. “As it stands now, you’re set to stand trial in three days. You’ll likely be convicted of countless crimes; breaking and entering, assault, and conspiring against hero society, to name a few.”

“Why are you- why’re you telling me this?” Izuku asks. His voice cracks halfway through, rough from disuse.

“Because you need to know the stakes,” Eraserhead says bluntly. He pauses, and for a moment, it seems that everything is silent.

That this is Izuku’s last stand, because even if he escapes this without a conviction, he will end up in Tomura’s greedy hands again, one way or another.

Then Eraserhead adds, “A few of us aren’t convinced, though. You couldn’t have been more than a child when you joined the League, if my accounts are correct.”

Izuku stays silent. If this is a trick, if Eraser is lying to get information out of him, then it’s better to keep silent than sing too loud and be silenced. (But oh , how he hopes that this isn’t a trick.)

“If you’re as young as you seem, we should be able to make a clear defense. You wouldn’t get off scot-free,” Eraserhead warns. “But it’d be better than nothing. You would avoid jail time. What do you say, kid?”

Izuku hesitates. “I… I don’t know.”

“I know you want to help us,” Eraser says, a desperate undertone to his voice that Izuku doesn’t understand. “Someone told us what would happen at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. Someone sent us an analysis on the League of Villains. Someone saved civilians in Hosu City. Was it you, Ghost?”

Izuku exhales, then grabs the future with his hands outstretched.

“My name is Midoriya Izuku, and I’ve been spying on the League of Villains since I was ten.”