Work Text:
It was fast, they say. His mother’s death.
A villain attacked near their apartment, Izuku would’ve been there too if not for the UA dorms. She was returning from grocery shopping when the villain ran past her, bags overflowing with stolen items, quirk activated, giving him speed and a monstrous appearance.
Endeavor was the one who chased him.
Inko Midoriya was almost trampled by the villain, almost, for he was too focused on getting away than on causing havoc.
However, being almost trampled by a villain does not null the fact that a stream of super-heated flames arced towards her not a second later, spread over an area far too wide to be considered aiming just for the villain. The flames made their mark, scorching skin and hair and bones. Burning all who stood in its path.
Including Inko Midoriya.
Who was instantly killed, they say, along with the villain and a few other civilians. It was painless, they say, to her son as he mourns the death of his only family. Not from a villain, no, but from a hero. Someone who’s supposed to protect.
It was over quickly, the fires extinguished, the injured carted away in ambulances, Endeavor praised for capturing a villain (dead, they don’t say, but everyone knows), and Izuku is left alone.
His reaction is not so quick.
The cold creeps from his fingertips and spreads up, up, up to the tips of his ears, numbing all sound and feeling. It’s fuzzy like this, he thinks. It’s a symptom of grief, they say, but he can’t quite hear.
Time passes by in a blur. He’s required to see a therapist if he’s to return to school. Being a hero requires focus, he can’t keep dissociating if he wants to be a hero.
“We want to make sure you are fit to return,” they say, faces full of pity but otherwise impassive.
“Do you still want to be a hero?”
…
He returns to school within a week of his mother’s death. With no family left, mother dead and father absentee and unwanting, Izuku becomes a ward of UA.
Thank god for that, he thinks, otherwise he would’ve been put in foster care, and who knows if they would allow him to continue on his path.
Aizawa-sensei’s face is full of pity when he returns. Always pity. He had been the one to pick Izuku up from the hospital where he was staying (he was at school when the police called him, no one told him anything until he arrived, then it was simply a blur until he awoke to a white ceiling and the smell of antiseptic), and the one to tell him about his new wardship.
“If you need anything,” the man says, “You may come to me. I’m acting as your main guardian while you’re here.” Izuku thinks he nodded, but he’s not quite sure.
His classmates all stare when he walks into the common room. They’re sorry, they say, for his loss. It was an accident, they say, unfortunate but unavoidable. Only two know the truth.
Izuku makes contact with Todoroki’s guilty eyes through the throng of people surrounding him (they’re thoughtful, always thoughtful, and stay a few feet away. Don’t crowd him. He lost his mom. Pity, pity, pity.), and gestures with his head to meet him upstairs. He separates from his classmates gently,
“Thank you. I’m okay. I’m just tired,” and makes towards his room, where he knows Todoroki is waiting.
Todoroki doesn’t say he’s sorry, and Izuku is okay with that. He doesn’t want pity, and he knows this isn’t Todoroki’s fault. Not this Todoroki.
Instead they sit, side-by-side and not quite touching, on his bed. They do not talk, and they do not need to. Izuku breathes in the quiet and Todoroki gently takes his hand.
“It’s not okay.” Are the first words spoken between them, bordering silence.
“I know,” Izuku replies, quieter still. They do not look and they barely breathe, hand-in-hand now as they think on the commonality of their trauma. Mothers lost to a monster disguised as a hero. How many more must he take away before there is justice?
Izuku’s fingers are gripped tighter as he lets his head fall onto the shoulder of the only one who understands. They are different - different people, different circumstances - yet they are still the same.
Tears finally draw up behind closed eyelids, slipping through the cracks like blood from an open wound, and yet no noise escapes him.
…
Nothing changes, not really. Izuku still does his work with the same accuracy, he still wins practice matches against classmates, but something is missing. He talks with his classmates the same, but they all agree that something is skewed just slightly to the left. They’re not sure what, but they attest it to the loss of his mother. Anyone would act differently from such loss, after all.
It isn’t until some time passes that they see the distance he has created between them. A barrier that they can’t quite see past.
Only Todoroki, Shouto, now, to him, has the means. And they wonder why him ?
Izuku never ends up going to his teacher with this, he can’t bring himself to trust a hero (it was an accident, they said). All Might, ever positive, doesn’t understand (Endeavor wouldn’t, not on purpose, he’s a hero ).
Izuku only shares these thoughts with Shouto, the only one who understands, late at night when they both wake from nightmares about the same man.
It’s different, so different, to have spent an entire childhood with that man. Izuku never experienced that pain, he can only guess based on similar experiences (explosions searing flesh, hot, burning) and share empathy. He can only look Shouto in the eyes and seeth based on similar hatred.
And burn they did, together.
…
Hero’s can be wrong. Hero’s are often wrong, Izuku knows. Izuku sees.
Life has changed for no one but him and the families of the other casualties.
He wonders if they see now, too.
Two months after his mom died, was killed , is when he accepted it.
“What if we left?” Shouto - arms and legs tangled together, warm - sees too. Izuku nestles further into warmth (not burning, never burning), and does not answer. But he thinks. What if they left?
“What would we do?” Izuku feels rather than sees the shrug that follows.
“Whatever we want.”
“But what do we want?” It is only at this moment does Shouto pull away slightly to look at Izuku. Those eyes search his face, and whatever they find must be enough, because he turns back away to answer.
“Heroes are,” the words play on his lips, “wrong a lot. Aren’t they?” They’ve never said so much out loud, only with glances and feelings, but Izuku knows and so does Shouto.
“Yes,” he answers simply.
They see. They see too much so they leave. It’s all they can do at this point. There’s not enough left for them at UA. They have friends and teachers who care, sure, but it’s always pity. It’s never understanding. Only they understand each other.
They pack quietly, drop their resignation notes off in the dead of night, and leave . Hand in hand, no destination in mind but the truth. Or maybe something new.
They tell no one where they go, after all, who do they have to tell? Izuku’s family is gone, and Shouto’s relationship with his siblings is strained. And no way would they tell his father , the bastard.
It’s only three days later that they are pronounced missing, seeing as their guardians (not parents) don’t know where they are, and weren’t informed of their leaving. They left their phones with the majority of their belongings, and Izuku left his with a clump of hair addressed to All Might, and an apology.
“I don’t want the quirk to go to waste,” Izuku told Shouto one night, after telling him everything . “It’s meant for a hero , and I don’t know if I can be one anymore.” Shouto understood, and didn’t care about Izuku’s now - and previous - quirklessness.
Shouto understood, and he agreed.
“You don’t need it anyway,” he told Izuku softly, “You’re the strongest person I know.”
Izuku doesn’t cry much any more, feelings blurring together and aiding the numbness of grief that has never quite left him, but Shouto never lost the power to bring him to tears. It's something in the way he speaks, often so quiet, sounding so cold. Izuku thinks he must be the only one to feel the warmth behind his words - not even quite a heat - just the lack of coldness that allows the ice to begin to melt.
…
They don’t do much the first few months after they leave. They’re missing, officially, and must lay low or risk being seen and returned to a place neither of them want to be. So they wait. They wait in back-alleys and abandoned buildings and cheap motels that they pay for with cash. It’s only after two months that the searching dies down and they can go out again, bearing disguises. Shouto dyed his hair, bleached the fiery red with a soft white to match the other side. “For his mother,” he said. (Izuku always loved the disparity of his partner. All hard lines and smooth edges, burning passion and icy fierceness. The difference in his features is fitting, in a way. But Izuku thinks this is even more so.) He wore contacts to make his eyes the same color, and covered his scar with makeup.
“Am I beautiful, now?” Shouto asked, once, after covering the scar. He was looking into the mirror like it held all the answers, like it was more than glass and polish. Izuku ran his fingers over the barely noticeable ridge on his cheek.
“You’ve always been beautiful.” A soft smile, and Shouto turns away from his reflection to help Izuku with his hair. He could hardly bear the thought of dying it, of wearing contacts to cover the green that looked so much like his mother, too much, too noticeable. It had nearly brought him to tears when he saw his face staring back at him - dark hair too much like the father he never knew, brown eyes too dull - not quite his own. But it was necessary, and it was not permanent.
“She’s never left you, Izuku.” Shouto says, lightly tugging on a now-black curl. “This won’t change that.”
They’re able to get jobs with their disguises. Documentation is easy to fake for Izuku, who had more than enough free time in middle school to learn a few things. So they work mundane jobs just outside of the city, staying close enough to feel at home, but enough distance between them and their shattered futures.
They have to change their quirk status, obviously, Shouto’s being too distinct and Izuku’s lack of one being dangerous. They say Shouto has a water quirk. If he puts his hands together, he can shoot water at varying temperatures from between his palms. Izuku now has an intelligence quirk, something easy to fake and harder to prove.
Izuku spends his free time at a public library, researching and learning new skills on their computers until they have enough to buy a laptop. They move from place to place until they can settle in a cheap apartment on the not-so-great side of town. Where there are less heroes and more hurt, and they fit right in.
Shouto returns one evening, frantically running his fingers through the strands of hair that have slipped from his ponytail. Izuku is hunched over his computer, hair pushed back with a headband so it stops falling in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Shoto slumps onto the couch, and Izuku joins him a moment later, hands running in soothing strokes over his knuckles.
“A woman at the convenience store was hurt today.” Izuku hums, but says nothing. It was a robbery, the villain had a gun to her head while a bag was filled with cash. It was simple, the villain wanting in and out with no trouble. He was leaving when a hero burst through the door, shattering the entire wall, and knocking all the civilians off their feet. The villain, startled, had pulled the trigger, hitting the woman in the shoulder. “He dropped the gun immediately,” Shouto frowned, “Like he hadn’t really wanted to do it.” The villain was promptly knocked out, blood gushing from his ears from the sonic attack (as well as the ears of a few bystanders), and the hero left. After bowing , like he was performing in a show.
Izuku does a quick search of police databases, finding the robbers identity. A man who had been fired from his job because his quirk wasn’t very suitable. His kid wanted to go to a good high school, but they couldn’t afford it. He, wrongly, stole money, but he didn’t do it maliciously. And now several people were injured and a child was left without their father. Because a hero decided that anyone who commits a crime must be evil, and that makes it okay to use more force than necessary.
“Shouto,” Izuku looks up from his digging to see his partner's brows furrow at the computer screen. “This, this isn’t right.” Shouto frowns, snaking his arms around Izuku’s waist and setting his chin upon now-black curls.
“No,” he agrees, “It’s not.”
…
Sounder is their first.
Six months since they left UA, and nearly a year since Izuku’s mother was killed, and they decide who they are going to be.
“This is dangerous,” Izuku grips Shouto tightly, “We’ll be labelled as villains.”
“Maybe,” Shouto hums, “Do you want to stop?” Izuku’s heart nearly bursts.
“No.”
They crouch on a low roof, quiet, their whispers dulled out by the wind. Their faces were covered with medical masks, hoodies pulled low over their eyes, a simple and effective disguise. It was easy, really, to nullify Sounder’s quirk. Simple acoustic padding combined with a high frequency sound machine that distorted the pulses sent out by his quirk effectively cancelled it. It wasn’t all that powerful, after all. After a little bit of research, Izuku was able to learn that his quirk worked by releasing highly-concentrated, high-intensity waves in bursts from his palms. He had also found out that the incident at the convenience store was, by far, one of Sounder’s better takedowns. He always used way too much force, almost always on small-time or petty criminals, and there were usually civilian injuries when he was around.
Once Izuku had nullified Sounder’s quirk, Shouto was quirk in cuffing him with a thick layer of ice. At the wrists and the ankles.
“We know your crimes, Sounder,” Shouto spoke with no emotion as Izuku pulled out a gleaming knife. To the cursing and pleading they did not answer.
“You are not a hero.” Izuku stared at the man, nerves overwhelmed by conviction and Shouto by his side.
...
Sounder swore on his life, in that moment - with those horrible eyes almost glowing a toxic green as his palms were cut into - that he had been visited by a vengeful spirit.
...
The headline bore good news the next day. Izuku and Shouto watched as the newscaster announced that Sounder would be retiring from heroism, after an attack by two unknown individuals rendered him fundamentally quirkless. After all, what good is having a quirk if you can’t use it anymore?
While the morning may have been good, the previous night was significantly more painful. Returning from their deed, adrenaline slowly ceasing its rapid pumping through their blood, Izuku’s hands shook madly as the blood dripped down, down along with sudden tears. They made it back to their apartment, thankfully, before this, but once they arrived, Izuku could barely stop himself from throwing up.
Is this the right thing to do? He wondered as Shouto rubbed slow circles into his back.
“Is this the right thing to do?” He asked Shouto as the circles ceased and became arms wrapped around him.
“I don’t know,” Shouto was just as conflicted as Izuku, but it hit him quietly. He wasn’t the one to hold the knife. “He’s still living, and he can’t hurt anyone else as a hero. Is that enough?”
“Is that enough?” Izuku echoed into the embrace.
“Is that enough?” He wondered as they did it again.
“Is that enough?” As he grew numb.
“Is it enough?” Shouto questioned, joining hands as they ran over the rooftops, far away from where they thought they should be. Far away from the crimes they commit. Farther and farther they grew from everything that once mattered.
“It has to be.” Izuku could only say.
The stars are bright tonight.