Chapter Text
Izuku didn’t get the newest chapter of the manga he was reading. Like sure, Kuroi Tsubasa was being pushed around, it was an underdog manga, but did it really justify the kids that hurt him get expelled, you know? Like, that’s just what happens in life, the kids were just doing one little thing!
I mean, no one has stopped Kacchan because it’s normal! Why would they?
Izuku slipped his phone back into his beat up bag, shouldering it with a smooth motion, his experienced hands avoiding touching his burns as best as he could. They still hurt a bit, but the bandages helped.
Izuku scanned the school yard, looking for...there! Bright red! That’s Tubasa! And right next to him is… right! Long arms and wiggly fingers! That’s...that's... Izuku doesn’t remember his name. Well, to be fair, Izuku only has one class with him, but still! He should pay attention to roll call.
Izuku didn’t see any ash-blond hair, so that meant that Kacchan was in the library. Izuku, having located the three people he most needed to look out for, walked to class. He subconsciously tried to keep his eye on every single person there, because really, anyone could do anything to him. He didn’t like the uncertainty.
Izuku wasn’t noticed in the hallway, people didn’t really try to find him unless they were in a hurtful mood. And that’s ok! I mean, everyone processes their emotions differently, so it’s fine!
Besides, bruises don’t leave lasting marks.
Izuku slammed into the ground, people peering over their books in mild interest. Tripping was a regular occurrence, so it was treated with less attention than the newer taunts and tricks. The classics-things like stealing his homework, slamming his books into the ground, body checking him, normal stuff like that-were easy and didn’t require a lot of effort so the creators of elaborate schemes were highly regarded in his class. There once was a time when people almost exclusively used their quirks on him, but they almost got in trouble because of public quirk use. Now, only Kacchan does it, because he knows how to hide the evidence of his actions. Currently, his classmates were fond of coming up with ways they thought Izuku would commit suicide. It had been happening for a while now, so it was just routine at this point, but there were so many different ways to die that people hadn’t exhausted the topic yet.
And if he’s pondered how it would feel like to electrocute himself or freeze to death, well, those were just intrusive thoughts, right? Intrusive thoughts can take over your thought process for well over 30 minutes, right?
Right?
Izuku got onto the train, curving his spine a bit to look smaller. There were just so many people. He stumbled when the train started, bumping into one of the poles you grabbed onto if you were standing up, and hit one of his bruises. It was a yellowish color and had almost finished healing. He just had to wait for a few days.
Izuku walked into the house on light feet, taking off his school shoes and putting on his house slippers. He’s always had soft footsteps, and little to no people noticed him at first. His mother was sitting on the couch in front of the tv, a tissue box at her side, sniffling as two women on the screen looked mournfully at each other and walked off the screen in different directions. A commercial came on, startling them both and destroying the mood.
“ Lush, silky hair. Beautiful, strong roots. Mt. Lady’s hair is to die for!”
“Hey mom! I’m home!” Izuku spoke over the commercial. His voice caused his mom to startle once more, jumping a bit before reaching for a tissue.
“Oh baby, hello! How are you, how was your day at school, is Katsuki still treating you ok?” She smiled at Izuku warmly.
“I’m good, thank you mom! I didn’t get any new bruises, and I got to finish my lunch because Aina didn’t steal it today. Oh, Mom, did you know that Aina can make plants grow now? She used to only be able to control fully grown plants like trees and such, but now she can grow new ones! She can still control the movement of only fully-grown plants, but with her new-found ability, she only needs a seed and a few minutes and she has a bunch of plants that she can do whatever she wants with! And there’s no limit to how many she can control, which is absolutely amazing . It has so many applications for something like hero work, where she could become an amazing rescue hero or a suburban hero and she could easily make it to the top 50’s and she could also have a lot of friends that like her!”
Inko was amused by her son's rambling. She didn’t really understand her son’s obsession with heroes, and she certainly didn’t want her precious little boy in a field with so many dangers, but quirk analysis seemed tame enough to ease her worries.
“Isn’t Aina the one who taught you to climb trees?” Inko asked once her son finally took a breath.
“Yeah, she made so many trees grab me and pull me into their branches that I had to learn! I guess I’ll have to thank her for teaching me.” Izuku said, broken out of his spiral. Putting his bag down, he went to his room.
In Izuku’s room, he had a copier and a desktop computer. Both were expensive purchases, but necessary ones, as the kids kept destroying his only copy of the homework. Now, he just did the work twice. Which was fine. Not like he had much else to do. He tried to make sure that anything that was assigned digitally got turned in digitally because there was less of a chance of losing the document in the process.
(Though he did always print out an extra copy, just in case. )
Izuku felt a large crack come from his knuckles, and sighed. Tsubasa took his fidget cube a week ago, and he’s been almost abusing his hands ever since. Nail biting, finger cracking and pulling, air writing, everything. His fingers just had to be moving if he wasn’t focusing on something he liked, or trying to learn something interesting.
Izuku copied and worked on all of his homework, revising and figuring out the best way to finish the problems. He felt a headache he didn’t even know was there fade away as he worked.
The next day, Izuku woke up to the vibrating of his alarm clock. He got up, got changed, tried to tame his hair and ultimately just let it be. Double-checking to make sure he had all three copies of last night’s math homework, he zipped up his backpack and headed to the kitchen for breakfast.
He sat down while his mom made breakfast, and picked at a band-aid that covered a scratch he got from when someone threw a pencil at him. Inko set his plate down in front of him and he said “Itadakimasu!” before digging in.
A few minutes later, he put on his shoes, grabbed his backpack, and checked for his work again. Once he got to the train station, he boarded it and opened his phone, swaying as the train left, and half-heartedly opening and closing various apps.
He got off of the train and closed his phone, keeping one eye and ear open for anyone or anything. He nervously walked out of the station, jogging towards the school building quickly.
The kids there were nice today! Izuku only had one new bruise, and it was a small one! He also didn’t hear any whispers, people just ignored him! It was like he was just a ghost who was normally nonexistent.
Sure, Kacchan told him to take a swan dive off the roof, and sure his brain instantly supplied him with pictures of his body on the concrete, neck snapped and limbs twisted in awkward angles, but it was honestly better than most days. Besides, this was normal!
All Might didn’t have much time left. He had to get that villain quickly into custody or in a police officer's hand, or things would go badly. He was in the sewers, searching desperately. He couldn’t use much of his power, lest he brought down an entire block.
He saw a bit of green goo quickly turn a corner, and sped up. He could catch that despicable villain! He saw a manhole cover and jumped up, throwing the metal across the tunnel.
He looked around, but didn’t see anything amiss. It was like the green slime had simply disappeared! All Might started to gear up to jump and have a birds-eye view, but then he heard a fwump from behind him, along with slightly audible gasps.
There was a child.
A child.
Suffocating with the slime monster surrounding their head. The child had fallen, too weak to stand up, their hands falling to the ground as the kid (the kid ) used up the last of their energy.
“Detroit SMASH” the loud voice echoes in the tunnel, and the kid just lays there for too long, not making a sound. All Might puts their arm gently on the ground checking if the arm was dislocated from the punch. It, thankfully, was not. The kid finally took a breath, and started coughing almost immediately after. They were big, heaving coughs, worrying All Might for a few seconds. He wondered, panicked,if he would have to do CPR. He would break one of the boys ribs, at the very least. Maybe even multiple. The kid stopped coughing thankfully. Relief filled All Might.
He checked the civilians pulse, it was faint, but there. The kid looked weakly up at him, not really seeing anything as their chest heaved. It was obvious when the kids' eyes cleared, as they scrambled backwards, reaching out weakly to try and grab their backpack.
“All Might?” The kid's voice was wheezy and soft, probably because of the strangling. Wait shit, the villain! All Might saw the green chunks moving towards each other, slowly but surely. All Might scooped up the villain and put him into an empty bottle he found and quickly pocketed the bottles, turning back to the kid.
“Yeah kid?”
The kid's eyes widened and their breath became to speed up again.
“No wait, kid, stop breathing! Wait no wait-ahem” All Might cleared his throat, trying to fix the situation. “Breathe slowly! Yeah, just like that.” he cleared his throat again and looked away from the kid guiltily. All Might was reminded that he had almost walked away from this kid. That he almost didn’t notice them. He almost left them to die. All Might was mortified, but he there wasn’t much more he as he felt his quirk’s timer running low.
“Hey, kid, I have to go, I’ll call 119 for you, they should arrive shortly. Got to go!” All Might prepared to jump to the nearest roof, but a small sounding “All Might” made him stop.
“Yeah kid, what do you want?” All Might noticed a notebook in their hand, and not paying any mind to the words the kid was mouthing, who seemed like they couldn’t get enough air to produce a sentence yet, All Might picked up the strangely destroyed notebook and signed it in big letters. The kid started to shake their head, but All Might was already taking off.