Chapter Text
Not all men are created equal.
Izuku first learned this lesson when he was four years old, sitting in an unassuming doctor’s office and having his dreams crushed by an unassuming doctor. He kept learning this lesson over and over again, every single day after that.
‘You can’t be a hero.’
It hurt, Izuku will admit it. It hurt when the kids at school started acting like he didn’t exist, and when the teacher’s starting calling him ‘weak’ or ‘fragile’. Izuku wasn’t weaker than the other kids, he was the same as everyone else! But no one understood that. It hurt when Kacchan decided that the worthless Deku was more useful for teasing than friendship. That nickname still stings every time he hears it. All the kids at school had taken to calling him that now.
Sometimes he forgets that it’s not his name.
It hurt that every single person at every turn stomped on his dream. It hurt when the world turned its back on him. Everything hurts.
But he still had his mom!
He still had his Mama, who loved and cared for him, who had kind and gentle eyes. Izuku always loved her eyes. A brilliant viridian, with speckles of lighter and darker shades across the iris, filled with nothing but warmth and love.
Until...her eyes turned dark. When she looked at him, there was just. Nothing. All Izuku could see was a cold fury and a deep hatred for him. For him. Izuku’s own mother started ignoring him too, acting like he didn’t exist. She would ‘forget’ to make enough food for Izuku, so most nights he went without dinner. She would ignore his attempts at any sort of conversation, coming home long after he fell asleep and leaving early, before he woke up. When she was home, Inko would retreat into her room, leaving Izuku alone.
Izuku was all alone.
It was like that for two years.
Everyday he trudged along, not living just existing. He endured the jeers and taunts at school, even when it escalated to pushing and shoving in the halls, down the stairs, graffiti on his desk, and quirk practice on his body. Their words always hurt worse than their actions anyway. He didn’t bother trying to talk to his mother anymore, he was just drifting along, as if he was lost at sea.
In a way, he was.
But Izuku still held onto hope. He held onto his dream of being a hero, because it was the only thing that kept him going, that kept him from drowning even if he seemed farther and farther away from achieving it everyday. He still wrote in his notebooks and analyzed heroes, because it was the only thing that distracted him from the ache in his heart and his mind and his soul.
Izuku’s head was bobbing up and down, just above the surface, struggling to stay afloat, struggling to keep going to breathe.
Izuku kept going, at only six years old, having already faced the harsh truths about the world and just trying to survive because he could no longer really live.
Izuku feared that when he stopped going he would be pulled under, drowning in the ocean of his sorrow and despair. Izuku feared that he would never find a way to breathe again.
All men are not created equal.
And then there was the science class.
It was the first year at Aldera Primary school. A new science teacher, Tana-sensei as he liked to be referred to. A new person who looked at him with eyes burning with hatred and malice and undisguised disgust. As if he were a thing and not a human being.
Izuku was not allowed to speak in science class. Or mumble, or mutter, or breathe too loud, or make any noise. Izuku was not allowed to exist. He is forced to be completely silent, as if he’s not even there in the first place. Izuku thinks this class is the worst of it all.
“Today we will learn about the quirkless,” he had said, staring directly at Izuku, because of course he was. Izuku’s classmates followed his teacher’s lead, casting not so subtle glances at Izuku, who was cowering in the back. Kacchan sent him a vicious glare but Izuku stared resolutely at the board.
He knew he would not like this lesson.
“Midoriya. Please come up here,” sensei says, voice suddenly cold. Izuku didn’t flinch. He was familiar with his teacher’s talking to him this way. It was really nothing new.
Izuku stood, scraping his chair across the floor in the back, not removing his eyes from the desk. He got the worst one, which wasn’t surprising at all, in the far back corner of the classroom. One of the legs was wobbly and unstable, and there was some unidentified substance stuck to the inside of it. They made sure to give him a wide berth, so the other students weren’t infected with his disease . Today, his desk was decorated in crude and vile words, scribbled in markers and pencils alike that Izuku would be blamed for if he didn’t clean it up.
He was always blamed for it.
At least the janitor was kind enough to give him a bucket with soap and water at the end of each day. It was better than the usual treatment. And the cleaning gave him an excuse to stay behind in the school, scrubbing for an extra hour. Anything to avoid the cold, sterile, empty home.
Maybe he should thank his classmates.
He took slow, careful steps up to the front of the room, keeping his head locked on his bright red shoes and feeling the stares, if the hairs standing up on his nape were any indication. Izuku stopped three feet in front of the teacher, not wanting to get too close into his space as evidence from past incidents show that’s not a good idea.
Izuku waits, letting the tense seconds tick on before he feels a nudge with the pointer stick Tana-sensei uses on his left side. It jabs painfully into his ribs, but Izuku is used to it, so he just moves to stand off to the side as directed, still leaving a couple of feet between himself and his teacher.
He doesn’t look up from where he keeps his eyes on the ground, but he hears the man hum slightly in approval. “Now,” he starts, and the foreboding sense of dread only gets stronger, “Quirkless are different to humans in many ways.”
‘Quirkless are different to humans.’
Quirkless are not human. Izuku is subhuman. Izuku is less than.
All men are not created equal.
“Take off your shoe,” the man snaps at Izuku, who holds back a sigh and takes off his left shoe and sock, placing them on the ground next to him. After a few moments, Izuku hears the snap of latex gloves on the teacher’s hands, and then his foot is being yanked aggressively on the counter. He stumbles a little, but catches himself as Tana squeezes just a little too tightly on his ankle.
Izuku’s foot is twisted painfully so that the bottom faces his classmates, and he holds back a cry of anguish as it’s held there. “A quirkless has an extra toe joint in its pinkie toes. That’s how it’s most commonly diagnosed.” His foot is dropped back down onto the ground and Izuku can’t hold in the sigh of relief at the decrease of pain.
Tana’s eyes immediately snap to Izuku, who withers under his glare. “Be quiet .”
“Yes, s-sorry sensei,” Izuku whispers meekly, waiting a couple of seconds before Tana turns back to the class. He let himself slip. He’s not allowed to make noise, or draw attention to himself, because he’s the quirkless freak and he’s lucky that they still let him breathe.
He won’t let himself forget again.
“Put your shoe on and head back to your seat.” sensei commands him, no longer sparing Izuku a glance. The boy in question nods and takes silent steps back to his seat, slipping the shoe and sock on once he’s back at his desk.
“Along with the extra toe joint,” Tana-sensei sighs, getting back to the lesson, “quirkless also have an appendix, a tailbone, and they get wisdom teeth. All vestigial or useless structures in the body,” he grins, “It’s quite fitting.”
Fitting. Useless organs for a useless, quirkless, waste of space. Izuku’s not surprised. He never really is anymore.
“Quirkless are weak and useless. They are less evolved than quirked people as well. They have no purpose in this world and they are good for nothing. They're a drain on society's resources and shouldn't be allowed to reproduce since they will just end up continuing to make more worthless members of society.” He finished his spiel with a vindictive smile.
Every six year old in the room took that information in, absorbed it, committed it to memory. Some shot him disgusted glares, others simply continued to act like he didn’t exist.
Izuku knew something had changed then. He knew now, that since the teacher’s had fortified everyone’s beliefs about him, that the treatment he tolerated would only get worse. He knew now that his peers would forever see him as the quirkless waste of space.
Izuku couldn’t help but agree.
He wasn’t very focused for the rest of the lesson, he wasn’t really present at all. Izuku’s wide green eyes, devoid of the life they once used to carry, stayed firmly glued to the board in front of him, but he didn’t take anything in.
There was a sort of static that filled his ears, turning the words he heard to mush. Izuku was so tired. He was tired of just existing and not living. He was tired of everyone and everything telling him, proving to him that he was just a waste of space, waste of air, a waste.
Izuku is drowning.
So when the bell rang, and class ended, and everyone filed out, Izuku did the one thing he knew.
He ran.
He took off, in the opposite direction of his home at a breakneck pace. Izuku didn’t really know where he was going, he just knew he wanted to be gone. They wanted him gone. Everyone else would be better off without him anyway.
Izuku twisted around curbs and winding streets and into and out of alleys. He outran his childhood tormentors, his teachers, his school bullies. He outran his mother who was simply a cold shell of what she used to be. He outran his will to stay there, to stay there drifting, just existing, forever. Izuku ran because he was tired of drowning, so he could finally breathe.
Izuku ran until he couldn’t anymore, until his run slowed into a jog into a walk, until with burning lungs, a heaving chest, and shaking legs, he collapsed into a dark, dirty alleyway, because he simply couldn’t keep going anymore.
All men are not created equal.
Izuku, more than anyone else, knows that.
When Izuku wakes up next, the sun is just beginning to rise in the sky. He doubts anyone had reported him missing, or even noticed he was gone.
He picks up his school backpack and sits cross-legged near the alleyway opening, unzipping it and taking inventory. Izuku finds two of his notebooks, his gym uniform, a pencil and a granola bar in his backpack. It’s depressing, and he wishes he actually took something from the house before he left, but it’ll have to do for now.
It’s not like he knows how to get back anyway.
Izuku’s stomach rumbles, so he eats the granola bar. He’s still hungry afterward, but he has no food or money, and he doesn’t want to steal. Besides, he’s more than used to it at this point. Sometimes he’s had to live off of one meal a week. It’s fine. He’ll be fine.
Izuku goes back into the corner of the alley behind a dumpster, and changes out of his gakuran into his gym uniform, if only so he’s a little bit more comfortable. The long sleeves of the school uniform rubbed painfully against the fresh burns from Kacchan’s quirk and he’d rather not aggravate those more. Izuku stretches and then winces when the bruise on his abdomen smarts. He was pushed down the stairs earlier that day.
Not wanting to strain himself any longer, Izuku uses his backpack as a pillow and lays down behind the dumpster. He curls in on himself into a fetal position when the breeze starts to come through, making him uncomfortably cold.
And laying there, for the first time in a long time, Izuku allows himself to cry.
Shouta kept a steady pace as he dashed along the rooftops, silent, quick as a bullet. He was content and utterly at peace, which was a feeling only present when he was bouncing along the rooftops in the dead of night, or being cuddled by his husband and his cats in their shared apartment, their home.
Shouta enjoyed peaceful patrols like this one. Few and far between crimes to stop where he just gets to dash along the rooftops and let the wind billow through his hair and brush against his face, enjoying the utter silence. It’s exhilarating, like a drug, and Shouta can’t get enough of it.
It’s almost three am, and Shouta’s just about to call it a night when he hears it. A small scuffle and a whimpered cry in an alleyway.
He stops on the rooftop, taking silent and quick steps to peer over the edge. He sees two people down there, a man and a woman, the woman being the obvious victim. The man is holding a knife to her abdomen, and shows no obvious signs of a quirk, which is good for Shouta, as mutant types don’t work for him. It probably won’t escalate to that anyways. Most people don’t use their quirks for crimes, due to the fact that it will up the scale from criminal to villain.
He wears a baggy grey sweater and dark jeans, with nothing to cover his features or identity. Oh, so a first time criminal then. Shouta shrugs. Inexperience just makes his job easier.
The woman cowers under him in fear as he starts to touch her in...unsavory places. Shouta’s lips curl in disgust. He hates sexual harassment with his entire being. He’d seen first hand what Nemuri deals with when they go out together in their civvies (which is really the same thing for Shouta but, no harm, no foul) and it really gave him perspective.
Shouta scales the fire escape with the help of his capture scarf in complete silence, landing in the shadows of the alleyway. Neither the man, nor the woman notice him at all, and Shouta counts it as a win for himself. He whips out the white ribbons of his scarf, snatching up the knife from his grip in one swoop, taking the guy by surprise.
It clatters to the ground harmlessly as Shouta whips the scarf at him again, activating erasure and holding the villain tight in his bondage. He yanks him away from the woman and onto the brick wall, knocking him out. Maybe the treatment is a little harsh, but Shouta hates rapists.
He ties the man up with a couple of zip ties and reports the crime to the local police, waiting for an officer to come around to arrest him. Only once that’s done does he turn towards the woman.
“Are you ok, miss?” Shouta asks gently, not wanting to startle her. She’s probably shooken up after almost becoming a rape victim. She seems to snap out of her daze as he speaks to her, eyes widening for a minute before her lips turn up into a small smile.
“I- I’m ok, thank you,” she smoothes out her shirt from where that shitbag rumpled it, “Are you a hero?”
“Yes,” he says, and then shows his hero license for proof because Shouta knows he doesn’t exactly look like a hero. She nods and the tension bleeds from her shoulders as they both stand around awkwardly in the alleyway. “You don’t have to stay,” Shouta says, breaking the admittedly awkward silence, “You can if you want to give your statement, but if not you’re free to go.”
The woman seems to like this idea as she nods and gives her thanks one more time before leaving. Shouta doses off a bit as he waits for the police to show up, only snapping to attention when he hears the telltale signs of police sirens.
He practically throws the guy at the two officers, who just nod to him, take his statement, and head on their way.
Shouta is just about to leave when he hears something else. He pauses in his steps and strains his ears to listen closer in the silence of the night. It sounds like rustling, behind the dumpster in the back. The pro hero’s lips tick upwards just a bit, at the telltale signs of a cat. He knows he has a bad habit of taking in the strays he finds, but he just can’t help himself.
Shouta tiptoes towards the back of the alleyway so as not to scare the cat away, taking careful steps towards the back side of the dumpster. And when he gets there, he’s met with quite the peculiar sight.
Instead of a cat, there is a small child, who can’t be more than five or six.
When Shouta steps too hard, alerting the kid of his presence he startles and scrambles back into the shadows of the alleyway.
Shouta’s heart breaks. Why is his first reaction to run away and hide? Why is there a kid that small alone in an alleyway?
“It’s ok, I’m not gonna hurt you, kid,” he tries in a gentle and sincere tone as he crouches down to be eye level. After a few moments of silence the kid comes forward slowly so that he’s a foot or two away from Shouta. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, opening the flashlight so he could get a better look at the kid. He has wide, dull green doe eyes with fluffy hair and freckles matching in color. His cheeks are abnormally thin for a kid this young, who should still have a little bit of baby fat.
The kid is honestly adorable, but the image is tainted with pale skin and large bags under his eyes. Both his arms are red with crinkling, burned skin. He looks almost...dead. He takes the flashlight off the kid and flashes it on himself so that the kid can get a better look at him. He doesn’t exactly have a disarming appearance, but he figures that the kid might want to know who he’s talking to. “I’m-”
“You’re Eraserhead!” he squeals at a volume that’s way too loud for three am. His eyes widen comically and they go from dull to bright in the span of seconds, a beaming smile overtaking his expression. “You’re a hero and you’re so cool, just as cool as All Might, like one of my favorite heroes! How does your capture weapon work? Does your quirk hurt your eyes? Does it help you keep your eyes open longer as a side effect? Do you-”
“Kid, how do you know who I am?” Shouta interrupts the kid, because he’s met almost no civilians who can recognize him on sight. He pauses in his rambling and blushes, shrinking in on himself, which is another cause for concern really. “I-I-I’m sorry fo-for rambl-ling. I r-recognized you be-because I’ve seen-n you around-d t-the neighbor- the neighborhood, and I d-did some re-research,” he stutters through his explanation meekly, keeping his eyes trained on the ground below him, “I-I’m sorry, I’ll leave you al-alone now I-”
Shouta holds up a hand to stop him, “No it’s fine, Kid. I was just surprised.”
“Oh,” he whispers, still looking at the ground. Now that Shouta’s looking closer, he can see that the kid is trembling from the chilly night air, and there’s a bright yellow backpack tossed haphazardly to the side. “What’s your name?”
The small child looks up at him for a second before his eyes dart back down to the gravel underneath them and whispers out, “Izuku.”
Shouta nods, “Ok, Izuku, are you lost? Do you need help getting home?” Shouta asks, determined to help the kid asleep in an alley. He can only assume that Izuku probably got lost and had no idea how to find his way back to his parents, so he just slept wherever he could find. However this doesn’t seem to be the case when the green haired boy flinches and scoots backward just an inch.
He brings his knees up and wraps his arms around them, angling his body away from Shouta. His shoulders start to shake and Shouta hears fast shallow breaths from the kid, who seems to be on the verge of a panic attack. Shouta reaches out to touch but then thinks better of it, pulling his hand away.
“Hey, Izuku, I need you to breathe for me, ok?” Shouta tries to coax him out of it, but it clearly doesn’t work as he sees fat tears start to stream down his face. Izuku’s eyes look distant, vacant and it’s terrifying to see that on someone so young. He starts to exaggerate his breathing, only hoping that Izuku will see it and follow him.
His tiny hands come up to his arms, still trembling as he digs his nails into the skin of his forearms, an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism. Shouta swears under his breath and reaches out, gently removing his nails from his arms, leaving small, crescent shaped welts behind. “Izuku, you're hurting yourself,” he says, quickly letting go of his frail little hands.
Izuku’s eyes snap to him, and he finally seems to register that Shouta is there, and the hero holds back a sigh of relief. “Can I touch you?” Shouta asks hesitantly, and after a second of consideration, Izuku nods. He slowly and carefully grabs Izuku’s hand and places it against his chest, taking deep breaths for Izuku to follow. “Match my breathing, ok?” he instructs.
They continue like this for a few minutes until Izuku’s breathing is even and he hesitantly withdraws his hand. He’s still crying, but a lot less than before. Shouta just then notices that the kid isn’t making any noise. He can’t even hear Izuku breathe. No child should ever be that silent.
“I can’t go back,” he whispers, so quiet Shouta has to strain his voice to hear it. “Why? Do you not know how?” Izuku shakes his head no and presses his lips together in a thin line. After a few tense moments of silence he speaks, and Shouta notices a couple of tears dripping onto the asphalt. “I c-can’t go back,” he repeats, “They-y don’t wa-want me. No one-e wants someone w-w- worthless like m-me.”
That sentence shatters something in Shouta. Why does a child believe that he’s worthless? That no one wants him? He feels a deep anger well up inside him on behalf of this child. “You’re not worthless, Izuku.” he tries to reassure him, even though he knows it won’t really work.
Izuku shakes his head so fast Shouta thinks he might have whiplash, “I am. A-All the teachers a-and all t-the kid-ds and even-” his voice breaks, “e-even Mama sometimes s-says it, so it must be t-true.”
His mother says that to him? Well the kid is not going back there if Shouta has anything to say about it. Shouta wills himself to not let the anger show on his face, because he knows that the kid will think it’s directed towards him. “They’re wrong Izuku,” he says again, even though he knows that the kid doesn’t believe him, because one pro hero trying to disprove something that’s been ingrained into him for years is going to take time.
Shouta stands up, and for the first time in what feels like forever, Izuku looks up at him. Shouta holds out his hand, and Izuku stands up as well, eyeing his hand like Shouta’s holding a knife in it. “C’mon kid,” he says, not moving from his position at all, “I’m gonna take you to my place.”
Izuku still looks hesitant, but now curious as well, “Why?” he says it with genuine confusion lacing his tone, as if he can’t imagine someone would try to help him. Maybe he can’t.
“Because you’re- what six?” Izuku nods so Shouta continues, “And I can’t leave a six year old to sleep in an alleyway.”
Izuku stares at him for a long time, and the pro hero just waits patiently because it won’t do any good to force him. The last thing he needs is for Izuku to close off, or another panic attack. “Ok,” he mumbles, and he grabs his backpack from behind him and gingerly takes Shouta’s hand.
Shouta takes a step forward in the direction of the mouth of the alleyway, and Izuku tries to copy his movements, only to wobble and collapse to his knees, “Looks like I’m hungrier than I thought,” he mumbles to himself, and Shouta’s sure he didn’t mean to say that outloud.
He holds back an angry and defeated sigh, “Kid, when’s the last time you ate?”
Izuku wilts and looks down at the floor, “I had a granola bar earlier.”
And because that’s not very helpful information, “Before that.”
Izuku looks like he’s thinking about it and that hurts. “Uh...maybe Sunday night?” Shouta stares at him for a few moments. Sunday night...was four days ago. “Oh, kid…”
“It’s fine!” he squeaks, a little too loud. “I-I’m just a l-little ti-tired. I’ll be f-fine.” Shouta wonders if they’ll revoke his hero license when he murders whoever taught this kid that not eating for four days is fine.
Most likely his mother. And anyone else who’s ever hurt him.
Shouta reaches down and places his hands around Izuku’s torso, but quickly pulls them away when the kid hisses and flinches away. “Izuku...are you okay?” he asks hesitantly.
“I…” Izuku trails off and sighs. He sounds so tired. “...s-someone pushed m-me down the s-stairs,” he mumbles meekly, resolutely avoiding eye contact with the hero. Knowing what he knows about the kid from this ten minute conversation, he probably thinks that Shouta will be mad at him.
“Ok,” Shouta says, because what else can he say? He scoops Izuku up into his arms while being mindful of the injury, and allows the kid to lay his head in the soft ribbons of his capture weapon. “You can sleep, Izuku.” he whispers quietly, and the greenette is probably too tired to protest as he wraps his arms around Shouta’s neck and rests his head on his shoulder.
(Izuku is so light, too light, way too light to have just been starving for only four days. Shouta doesn’t want to think about the implications of that.)
”Thanks, E-Eraserhead,” the kid says quietly as Shouta starts his walk to the mouth of the alley. “Call me Aizawa,” Shouta says and Izuku just nods into his capture scarf.
By the time Shouta steps into the dim light of the sidewalk, Izuku is already fast asleep.