Chapter Text
“You cannot tell me you’re drunk!”
The hectic crowds of Shibuya drift past as Hawks’ vibrant crimson wings carry him down lesser used streets, winding roads and secluded alleyways beside his fire hazard of a friend.
“Okay then I won’t,” Endeavor—yes, the Endeavor. That Endeavor, more precisely. The Capital E-man, named in Hawks’ expert opinion, after the ordeal one makes trying to navigate his burly personality—grunts.
Case and point:
“You’re kidding me,” his wings rustle to match his disheveled appearance, “How much did you drink?”
The responsible thing, knowing Endeavor, would have been to keep a closer eye on him. The responsible thing would have been to wrap the villain attack up faster. The responsible thing would have been to not let the guy wander off while he handled it. But hell, it’s barely two in the afternoon.
“Who…” Endeavor’s words slur, “Who cares? There’s—“ he takes a moment to look confusedly at his fingers, “One, two— three days of Hero-whatever. I can skip one.”
Only Enji could achieve the drunken righteous anger that he does as frequently as he does and as successfully. He even managed to sound proud of such a “strenuous” calculation.
“It’s day two, Endeavor,” Hawks sighs, “I had to cover for you yesterday, remember?”
It wasn’t pretty.
“Sometimes,” Hawks says, cracking his neck in a nonchalance the words wouldn’t have, “it’s like you’re trying to stay number two.”
Enji stills.
Hawks flaps back, hands waving placatingly in faux-bashfulness, “Easy there buddy. C’mon, we both know how crappy your PR is. How bad could it be?” (Very, just not for Endeavor).
The tension in Endeavor’s shoulders ease as he continues his stumbling gait, to which Hawks, offhandedly (as in a joke, Endeavor. A joke.), remarks, “And hey, while we’re at it, you might as well find that sidekick your old principal keeps pestering you about.”
His steps slow. “Side…kick?” Endeavor asks, seeming to ponder it over.
Instantly, Hawks’ eyebrows shoot up, “Wait, you’re actually considering it?”
Eyebrows creased, Enji frowns, “You know what? You’re right.”
Hawks blinks, wings taking him aback for him, “Wha—really? Does this mean you’ll go?”
Endeavor doesn’t reply, eyes darting around, searching, when suddenly, with an outstretched finger, he shouts:
“You, there!”
“—‘Zuku?”
City lights hang like stars, zipping past in convoluted harmony. Galaxies unfold beyond his fingertips.
“Izuku?”
Izuku doesn’t move to acknowledge her.
Izuku’s world lies in fragments all around him, his galaxies shattered and stars snuffed out.
His relatives surround him, dressed in dark suits and dashing kimonos. They talk and point to the men in baseball caps and blue, who heft and heave the fragments of Izuku trapped in boxes and take them away.
“It’s time to go now,” the woman continues despite his lack of response. The lights of his apartment are off, and the midday sun illuminating his back doesn't reach the adult's eyes.
She seems impossibly large to Izuku’s crumpled form, protected by a shifting, colorful wall of her fellow adults.
“It’ll take time to adjust, but you’ll be alright,” says another.
“You’re a big boy now.”
Izuku grits his teeth, tears welling up in spite of himself, as frustration and guilt begin to spill over. They can’t take him. They can’t.
“Where’s Dad?” Izuku sniffles, looking at the only open box left in the room, one of photographs. At the top, occupying most of Izuku’s time, is a family photo—Mom, Dad and him. “Dad’s supposed to come get me, why isn’t Dad here?”
He says it more like a statement, certain that Dad will come, certain that he’ll fix this, certain that he’ll kiss it better and tell him his mom was waiting in the other room, waiting for him, and wouldn’t leave.
Moreover, certain that he couldn’t trust what these people had to say. He has to be strong. Strong for when Dad comes to get him.
Their mouths open in a silent ‘o’ at his words before settling into an unsure smile, “See, Izuku, your mom wanted you to stay with us, ‘kay?”
“It’s only right you’d stay with your mother’s family.”
Izuku’s anger boils over, and his clenched fist slams into the ground, “You’re wrong! I’m not coming with you. I want to go with Dad!” The wall of adults shift nervously.
“Your father isn’t coming, Izuku.”
“Yes, he is.”
He would never abandon him like this; Dad would fix this.
“No, he’s not. Your mother divorced him; she didn’t want anything to do with him.”
The words echo in mockery from each of the eyeless relatives, ricocheting off the walls and firing back behind his eyelids.
Izuku, without realizing he grabs it, grips the photograph to his chest, shaking his head vigorously, “No, no, no. You’re lying.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, his brain chants. They don’t understand. They don’t understand anything. He isn’t going with any of them.
He has a father; he doesn’t need these people.
“He’s not coming, Izuku.”
Shibuya bustles past him. The constant discordance of Central Street is a welcome distraction to quell his swimming thoughts.
Sadness. Rage. Panic. Fear. Rage.
Father would come back, father had to—
Mother had to come back.
Overwhelming hands, blacked out faces, startled shouts, and he was gone.
Izuku brings his hands down from where they were covering his eyes moments prior, silent tears dripping onto the asphalt below.
The crowd dips and slides, parting like a river as he stands.
“You two!” Izuku almost jumps at the noise. It’s two police officers talking to what looks to be two high school girls. “How old are you? You look far too young to be out this late alone. Where are your parents?”
Izuku clenches his fists and deftly walks away, not too keen on being caught and returned to a place he refuses to accept as home.
His slow measured steps slowly turn into a full blown sprint, as if running fast enough would erase all the hunger, all the pain, all the loneliness he feels festering.
His mother was- is his everything.
And though he had very few memories of his father—the split up occurring when he was very young—he had still thought...
He doesn’t know why his father didn’t come for him.
He had lost everything in one fell swoop, and Izuku couldn’t help but despise the world that had doomed him in return.
Izuku takes a corner into a secluded alley off the way of Central, slumping against the brick shielding him from the outside world with a sigh.
Reaching into his pocket, Izuku retrieves a wrapped Yakisoba Pan he stashed from the back of a convenience store.
Dumpsters of supermarkets and things of the like had plenty of pre-wrapped food that, for some reason or another, were unfit to be stored on the shelves.
Izuku learned this fact early on in his trek through not-currently-having-a-permanent-residence. He also learned he doesn’t like the word “homeless.”
He has a home, she’s just—
Izuku sinks his teeth into the Pan to cut off that train of thought, reveling in the taste of the noodles and bread to his deprived senses.
Of course, Izuku prefers Melon Pan, but Izuku is also ravenous. A dirty banana peel would seem decadent.
Izuku eats with a desperation unexpected of someone his age. He has no guarantee when he’d eat next. For all he knows, he wouldn’t.
There’s only so much you can nab from dumpsters without arousing suspicion, from other not-currently-having-a-permanent-residence peoples or store clerks. Central street and Station Square themselves are risky on principle alone, the police and concerned mothers being at the top of his watchlist.
Izuku’s only taken a few bites when a noise makes him pause.
He looks up, scanning the alley for the source—a soft rustling—when a dash of black fur catches his eye.
“Oh!” Izuku says, childish glee filling his voice, “Hello there!”
Apprehension immediately drains from Izuku, and he leans forward to appraise the kitten.
A small tuxedo cat struts forward, gazing at him with brilliant green eyes in the same way Izuku does to him. Izuku must pass whatever test the cat was proctoring because the cat abandons its uneasy movements and comes to sit across from Izuku.
In response, Izuku readjusts to sit on his knees and bows deeply, “My name is Izuku Midoriya, nice to meet you.”
He looks up to see the cat’s head tilted curiously to the side. Izuku mimics him.
“Your fur…” Izuku grabs a strand of his one hair for comparison. He smiles, “You don’t look like you belong here. Are you a runaway too?”
The cat meows and stalks over to Izuku, nudging his hand. Izuku giggles and pets the kitten graciously.
“We’re pretty similar—you and I—aren’t we?” Izuku pulls a piece of the Yakisoba Pan as an offering.
“I’ve heard tuxedo cats can do magic, care to—”
Izuku looks, shocked to see the kitten had already taken a piece of the bread without him being aware. “I—guess I was right. You could’ve just asked, you know.”
The kitten gives Izuku an unamused meow, and Izuku laughs, “Right, right.” He hands it the bit he pulled off, and the kitten purrs gratefully.
“Now what to call you,” Izuku hums, placing his thumb and forefinger in thought on his chin. “I guess...well, no. Maybe?”
A moment passes before Izuku sighs in defeat, “I have no idea.”
The cat gives him an unimpressed look that reminds him of—
“Inko.”
The cat merely tilts his head in acknowledgment, so Izuku continues, “C-can I call you Inko?”
The cat is a girl, it appears, and the cat seems content with it. Izuku can’t help the surge of warmth that comes from being able to pass on, to solidify his mother’s name in something that isn’t a tombstone.
“Inko it is.”
“You there! Stop!” Crap, crap, crap, crap. He knows his mother would scold him for his choice of words, had she heard it, but he could not deny their appropriateness.
He was too careless, he realizes belatedly. Crossing Central Street calms him, and it’s still the early morning! He wouldn’t have been suspect if not for his own doing.
Weeks had passed on the streets, and he hasn’t showered, hasn’t even had a good change of clothes since he’d run away.
He feels sick most of the time now, always hungry, weak, cold, etc. Despite this, he knows he isn’t going back. He has no place to go back to.
Izuku ducks and weaves through the crowd of people, most tourists and locals barely batting an eye. His age and stature make him virtually invisible to the average passerby. One reason why he’s glad for his plain appearance.
He expertly dodges a hand reaching dangerously close to his arm, skidding down alleyways and over piles of miscellaneous trash.
He hears slowly retreating footsteps as the police officers lose their breaths, thinly veiled curses under them.
Izuku slows to a stop a few minutes later, once he’s absolutely sure he’s lost them. A wave of triumph rushes over him, but is quickly swept away as exhaustion hits him.
His shaky legs give out, and with heavy breaths, he tries to steady himself. He’s close to throwing up, painfully close, clashing with the even stronger urge he has to sleep.
He barely even registered he’s tucked between bicycle racks under an overpass when he’s out like a light.
“You, there!”
Hawks looks around in confusion until a head of dark green hair snaps up from a long line of bike racks. A few topple over haphazardly, and Hawks sees a kid no older than ten scramble up in a shoddy attempt at escape.
“Uh…”
The boy looks at them with wide eyes for a quiet moment then breaks for it.
“Wait, kid—“
Endeavor is faster. He grabs the kid by the scruff of his dirty white shirt, hauling him up with a terrifying smile.
(Hawks doubts Enji, on principle, could smile not scarily.)
“This’ll do.”
The boy pouts, fussing more for the sake of it than anything.
“You’re kidding.”
The boy is scrawny, mostly plain and—Enji notes—in desperate need of a shower.
He’ll take him.
“You’re kidding.” Hawks is unenthused.
Endeavor shakes the kid a bit, making sure he’s not dead, grievously injured or anything like that, “What do you mean? He looks fine to me.”
All he gets in return is more fussing and a valiant attempt at a bite, Endeavor all but yelping as he dodges.
Hawks follows the movements idly, “I meant to look at the Expo, where there are actual qualified heroes. Not to mention there’s no way this kid has a license. You haven’t even asked him yet.”
Endeavor clicks his tongue dismissively, “Semantics, semantics.”
He heaves the kid up from his armpits, making eye contact with a disheveled and unimpressed face full of freckles and green.
“What’dya say, kid? Wanna be my sidekick?” He tries for a joyful smile, one with teeth and sparkles—like how Hawks insists he should learn—and, based on his aforementioned bird friend’s look of disgust, fails miserably.
The kid scrutinizes him, eyes trailing up and down until at last returning to his face. Very matter-of-factly, he states, “You smell.”
Endeavor splutters, almost losing his balance as the kid slips from his grasp.
He swears he hears a snicker as the slippery son of a gun whizzes past, sticking his tongue out mockingly just to add insult to injury.
“Wait—you punk! Come back here!”
“No can do! Catch me if you can, old man!”