Chapter Text
“You know..” Kacchan started, glaring. “You can’t become a hero if you’re quirkless. Just give up. That’s just common sense.” He motioned towards himself, anger shifting into a grin so smug it might’ve been called egotistical if he weren’t a teenager- ego was more normal than not in their age group. “I have a quirk. I have a quirk so good that I’m gonna be the number one hero once I’m out of this shithole.”
Izuku hiccupped, limbs curling into a more compact ball than he was already in, leaning against a wall outside their middle school with his arms protecting his head. The smoke in the air nearly choked him- it made his eyes water even more than they were originally. “Y-you-” His voice was wobbly and tear stained. His stuttering annoyed even himself, when the wave of terror he felt dipped. “Can’t- You c-can’t be a hero if-if you do this to people. Heroes are g-good people! And- And you’re not! You’re-” A sob made his sentence stutter and stop. “I don’t- I don’t know why I ca-can’t bring myself to hate you, I- you’re awful, you’re- you’re awful! You’re terrible, and you’re hateful, and you’re never going to be the hero you want to be!”
An explosion popped in the space above his head, making Izuku flinch and cover his face more firmly. “I’m-I’m n-not the one that can’t be a hero- you are! You aren’t ever going to be a hero because heroes aren’t like you are-” A searing hot hand gripped one of his wrists and yanked, but Izuku didn’t let his arm fly away from his face like it wanted to. Instead, he toppled forward, falling onto his knees. An explosion detonating around his wrist made his head jerk back, though, and as soon as Izuku opened his eyes he was face to face with a hateful glare angrier than any he’d seen before.
There was the coppery taste of blood in his mouth- he’d clamped his teeth down on his tongue to keep silent. It seemed like all his senses were overwhelmed by the result of violence- his ears rang from the close range explosion, all he could taste was blood, all he could smell was the burning scent of an explosion too-close to his face. His wrist hurt with the ever-familiar feeling of a burn, the flash of light was still imprinted on his eyes, even if his eyes were shut when it occurred.
Kacchan had never targeted his face, but even if this one time was a fluke, the vicious expression he was making caused a chill to run down Izuku’s spine.
Izuku shoved at the hand currently around one of his wrists, clawing at it until his arm was let go and he was free to push himself up, to run.
“That won’t fucking work, De-ku.” Another explosion rang out from behind him, even louder this time. No, no, no- no, god, no.
“I’m sorry!” Izuku shrieked, feeling a hand close around the back of his neck and burn, exploding into his skin as he was flung into a wall.
“You’re not getting away that easy. Not after what you just said.” Izuku heard his breath wheezing out of him, raspy from smoke and loud and fast from how he began to hyperventilate. He had hit the wall face-first and then crumpled to the ground. There was static filling his ears, blood filling his nose, mouth, lungs? Lungs- why couldn’t he breathe, why couldn’t he- Static. Everywhere, in his ears, in his eyes, white, bright light, it was so, so bright, almost what it looked like when he closed his eyes right before an explosion was set off right in front of his-
“Midori.”
Face. Right in front of his face, his eyes, did he have a broken nose? He must have, he-
“Midori. Problem child. You in there?”
Why.. Why was Eraserhead here? Here, watching Izuku get beaten into the concrete by-
Wait.
“Eraserhead?” Izuku mumbled, eyes flickering open. No explosions in sight, no hateful crimson eyes and burning hands. His heart was still racing.
The man leaning over him sighed in relief and moved his goggles down to his neck. “I should be arresting you right now,” He said lightly. (Not actually lightly, but he was smiling somewhat. Eraserhead’s tone of voice rarely changed.)
“For what?” He itched to get up, to run and run and run until he couldn’t see anything that even resembled the roof he was currently sprawled across. Why was he here, and, more importantly, what had set him off so bad that he had a panic attack that awful? “And what happened?” It felt like his mouth was stuffed full with cotton, like his brain was too, and all his limbs as well. It felt like he was a well-used stuffed animal that had all its fluff pushed to one side and was thrown into a washing machine. Maybe torn open and thrown into a puddle, cottony guts spilling everywhere.
“Vigilantism, what else would it be with you? A villain set off a grenade and you ran a couple blocks away and collapsed up here.” Before Izuku could open his mouth, he was shot a look, and the hero continued, “Before you ask, yes the villain was apprehended. No, there's not anything more pressing for me to go do. It won’t be sacrilege if I sit here while you recover.”
“But-”
“And if you want me to leave, I will.” The night air was bitingly cold. Izuku was covered nearly head to toe, including a solid full-face mask covered in a one-sided mirror, but he still felt the chill down to his bones. “Don’t interpret that as me wanting to leave.”
“You s-sure?” A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he bit back a gag. “You can leave. I should- I should be leaving too, pretty soon.” Izuku’s breathing slowed. He felt the urge to lift up the mask, to get some fresh air, but he knew he couldn’t. It was high-quality, it didn’t fog up, it had air filters and was sealed so he couldn’t breathe in smoke or other airborne pollutants, (That was an expensive thing to add, but it was worth it so he wouldn’t have an episode while saving someone from a burning building. Not that he did that often, but it was a precaution.) but the air inside was always unpleasantly warm and smelled like his own breath if he didn’t brush his teeth directly before a patrol.
“Kid, you’re pretty far from where I usually see you.” He shifted and pulled out his phone, turning it on, then off, and stuffing it back into one of his many pockets. “And it’s nearly four am.”
“Four!” Izuku bolted upright. Dizziness hit like a truck, however, and he went right back down. “Fuck.”
Eraserhead raised an eyebrow. “Are you old enough to swear?”
“Fuck off,” was the hissed response. His mom would kill him if he wasn't home by the time she woke up.
If she cared today, that is.
Izuku could never quite predict her mood swings. (It was probably the alcohol, but Izuku was bad at noticing when she drank unless it was extremely obvious.) One day she was a helicopter parent, the next she'd cuss at him and couldn't care less if he showed up two hours later than usual, beaten half to death. Honestly, he preferred it when she was hovering around him all day- at least then he knew that if he didn’t tiptoe around her as much, there wouldn’t be as bad consequences.
But it was better to not take chances. "I really need to go."
Eraserhead sighed, and helped him up. "Are you sure you can make it back to Musutafu?"
"That.. might not be where I live."
"You normally lurk around that city." Eraserhead seemed unimpressed, and although a hero even vaguely knowing around where he lived otherwise would've caused Izuku quite a bit of nervousness, he honestly trusted Eraserhead.
But Izuku knew quite well that sometimes trust wasn't deserved.
“..Where is this, exactly? I don’t, uh, bring my phone on patrols.”
He walked over to the side of the roof, peering over the ledge and looking around. Very unfamiliar area. Eraserhead hummed, looking somewhere off into the distance. “At least two kilometers away from central Musutafu.”
“Two-?” Izuku got over the initial shock quickly, realizing that he could, and had, gone further in half an hour. “And- and it’s that way, right?” He said, pointing to where Eraserhead had been looking.
The expression of profound unimpressed-ness that Eraserhead constantly wore seemed to deepen. “If you’re about to do what I think you’re going to do-”
Izuku grinned awkwardly, although he sincerely doubted that the hero could see it. He then took a few steps back, launched himself off the building, and twisted, shouting on the way down, “No worries! I’ll see you, uh, the day after tomorrow! Next scheduled patrol, thursday!” He landed roughly on the fire escape on the next building and jumped off it, landing on the concrete ground between buildings and taking off at a sprint towards, presumably, Musutafu.
“Midori! Get back here!” Was shouted from behind and up, and Izuku increased his pace.
He’d be back by five, probably. Inko would want to be up at around seven, and if her alarm didn’t go off, or didn’t wake her up, she’d expect him to be the one to wake her up. Which wasn’t quite ideal, making for a total of two hours of sleep if he just crashed as soon as he entered his room. So probably one hour of sleep.
He’d done more than he would probably be doing tomorrow- or later today- on less sleep, but that didn’t mean that it would be pleasant.
Nighttime was cold in spring, although not as cold as it had been just a few weeks earlier. A few weeks ago his breath had come out in foggy puffs and his lungs had chilled to the point of pain when he went on patrol and dared to lift his mask. The warmth of his breath in the mask was incredibly uncomfortable in the night air then, but the difference in temperature was lesser now- and he was rather nervous, too.
Goosebumps popped up on his arms when he thought about the explosion and the following probably-flashback. Probably because while Izuku, logically, knew that he nearly definitely had some form of post-traumatic stress disorder or a rather awful anxiety disorder, he couldn’t quite admit it to himself with any measure of regularity.
It was an awful form of doubt that came in the form of metaphorically beating himself up whenever he wasn’t having a bad day and only conceding when he had a particularly awful episode.
Today could be considered one of those episodes, but Izuku was too tired to allocate any brainpower to the internal argument that would usually occur when he got this bad.
When Izuku started to recognize buildings he ducked into an alley and slid off his mask. The mirror dully reflected his face back when he turned it around, reduced to colorless value in the dim lighting. He unzipped his jacket and put it in an internal pocket he’d sewn himself for precisely this purpose.
His apartment was a few stories up and didn’t have anything as convenient as a fire escape with which to enter it from the outside, but Izuku was rather skilled in scaling buildings at this point. The wall was painted brick, better than just sheer concrete to get a grip on with his shoes, and with a running start (and with the advantage of having windowsills, not just a flat wall all the way up,) he scrambled up the wall to his opened window.
He landed on the rug he’d set near the window with a soft thump. His alarm clock proudly proclaimed it to be 4:57, LED-bright yellow piercing through the shroud of darkness that reduced the rest of the room to greys, blacks, and blues.
If the room had been lit enough to see color, it wouldn’t be the glaring reds, yellows, and blues that it had been a handful of months ago. Izuku had relegated the All Might merchandise that had been plastered everywhere to a few boxes which he kept in his closet a few days after he’d actually met the hero- he hadn’t liked the constant reminder of the man who’d tried to crush his dreams.
It was only after that, actually, that he’d finally had the confidence to take the mirrored mask and modified workout gear he’d made and test it out on the streets.
Izuku pulled his jacket over his head and tossed it to the ground, support gear clattering against itself inside. He stumbled over to the bed and fell onto it face-first, the inevitable adrenaline crash finally subsuming him in its waves.
Gentle early morning sunlight streamed through the opened window, soft clamoring from the urban street below a distant but constant noise. The alarm clock shrieked, buzzing incessantly- single-handedly attempting to create pandemonium such that Izuku, as badly sleep deprived as he was, would awaken.
It succeeded. “Demon clock.” He hissed, one eye squinting open. He stumbled out of bed, only now noticing that he hadn’t taken his boots off. Gross. Izuku stumbled over his jacket and gear, toppling forward and swiping the alarm clock off the desk as he hit the ground. It unplugged, cord jerking out of the socket.
Blessed silence.
Izuku dropped the clock on the ground. He turned to grab his phone from where it was charging and glanced at the time. A few minutes until 6:40.
He yawned and popped his neck. His arms ached from a few hits he'd blocked the night before. The stitches he'd given himself about a week ago on his torso, right on a rib, probably needed to be taken out soon. (Izuku had never thought he'd consider being stabbed in the rib lucky, but it had hit the bone, and not his lung. Lucky!)
By 6:55 he'd changed into his school uniform, and at 7:00 he knocked on Inko's door. Right on time.
"Fuck off, Izuku." She hissed from inside. Izuku could barely hear her even with his ear pressed against the door. Did she have a hangover? "I don't need you pestering me this early."
So she did have a hangover. Izuku removed his fingertips from the doorknob, and walked towards the kitchen. He ignored the distant creep of anxiety. The clock read 7:02, now- 28 minutes exactly until he'd have to leave for the 15 minute walk to school, which had his first class start at around 8:00.
7:03, now. He put a bagel in the toaster and breathed in, out, in-
One, two, three, four, five..
The lights seemed to intensify, colors glaring into his eyes, the tick of the clock so loud it was grating. The orangey glow of the toaster seemed like it was the fires of hell, maybe- an explosion set off too close, searing a mark into his face. The clock continued to tick, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at it.
One, two-
"Izuku!" He flinched like a gun had been shot at him. (He’d flinched less at actual gunshots closer to him than his mother’s door was, actually!) He spun around and speedwalked into the hallway, slowing to a stop right next to Inko's door. He opened the door. The noise its hinges made grated unpleasantly on his ears.
"Why didn't you wake me up when I asked you to-- You know I need to be up at seven or I'll be late!" Inko was hurriedly stomping around the room, and all the lights were on. Izuku could feel a headache developing.
"Well you-you asked me to, uh, w-wake-"
"Izuku, honey, that's no excuse!" Her tone was caring on the second word and righteously angry on the rest.
"Right, right, ss-sorry."
Inko stilled, and turned to look at him. "What are you still doing here? Get ready for school, you should be leaving in a few minutes!" The highlights in her hair were easier to look at than her eyes, but Izuku met them anyway. She didn’t like it when he didn’t make eye contact.
Izuku backed out of the door, and walked back to the kitchen. The clock read 7:21. He removed the horribly burnt bagel from the toaster, put it in the trash, and decided to leave a few minutes early.