Chapter Text
Before anything, Izuku was always alone.
Alone in a way that was raw and painful and spiting.
Loneliness was more than a word, more than a feeling, a burden, a weight.
Loneliness was his shadows, all tall and gloomy, with fingernails too sharp and hands like claws and teeth all sharp and bloody. It followed him, no matter the time of day, no matter how bright the sun would shine, how pretty the moonlight would glow.
The shadows never left him, instead, they became his friends.
Friends with Loneliness. Friends with the shadows.
Friends that turned his skin like charred paper into something blank and inky and forgotten. Friends that never left, no matter how hard he shook his hands and scratched at his skin; no matter how bad he bled or how much he cried.
Friends the only way Izuku knew friendship at the time.
Painful and suffering, brewing nothing but hurt.
'Friends.'
Before anything, Izuku was always alone.
*
“Will you ever leave me alone?”
“Do you want me to?
*
It first happens when he’s ten.
Izuku was always very small, timid and scrawny, with pudgy cheeks and these eyes that always looked far too big on his face. Very small and very shy, reserved and quiet. Adults that didn’t know him—quirkless, useless, pathetic Deku—found him endearing, found him adorable.
Despite that, he gunned for the stars, for the sun.
He wished to be Icarus, to fly and fly with wings made of wax. He wanted everything, even if it killed him.
It was no different when it came to affection. Izuku always wanted the 'too much', the 'too big', the things that towered over him, over his shadows.
It first happens when he’s ten, and it’s with Chika Sudo. Izuku’s been quietly harbouring a tiny crush on her for a little over three weeks now. She’s big, bigger than anyone in their class, tall and square with hair the colour of silver, small, beady eyes, black scleras and skin freckled with platinum.
“Hello.” Sudo walks up to him one lunch break, where Izuku’s sat under the tree, drawing little caricatures in his notebook. She has this smile, lips bloodless, teeth the colour of tar. She doesn’t have many friends, Izuku knows. They’re scared of her. Izuku thinks she's really pretty though.
Izuku blushes, cheeks glowing red, and looks around to see who she might be talking to.
Yes, he’s ten. And ten is so...so hopeful and young.
But Izuku’s so familiar with his shadows. So familiar with sitting alone, his sobs silent and his bruises throbbing where he’d been hurt—kicked, punched and prodded.
“Me?” He points a finger to himself unsurely.
Sudo nods. “Yes, you. Izuku Midoriya, right?”
Izuku nods, gently closing his book. He wonders if he should stand—she’s so tall—but decides against it and instead sits up straighter, back pressed to the wood of the tree.
“Let’s date.”
'What?!'
Izuku says yes, and she hugs him. It feels scandalous when you're ten, but she hugs him. When he notices the small group of girls with mutations like Sudo, standing behind a pillar and giggling in between their fingers, he knows.
He chooses to stay nothing.
Izuku’s friends with the shadows, a friendship full of pain and suffering.
Who's to say this was supposed to be any different?
*
They date for no more than three weeks before Izuku’s lugged into a dumpster and thrown down a flight of stairs.
(It first happens when he’s ten.)
*
Three weeks of touches that aren’t warm, but don’t hurt. Three weeks of having someone to eat lunch with, to talk to, no matter how stupid or plain the conversation. No matter if they listen or not.
It's three weeks and it isn’t anything sweet or romantic, but Izuku cherishes it all the same.
Izuku hates loneliness, hates the shadows.
So, for three weeks, he walks around with rose-tinted glasses.
Glaring red flags have never looked so pretty.
*
Ten is innocent. Ten is pure, it’s sweet and kind.
Ten is holding hands and sharing Bentos and pushing each other on the swings.
Ten is innocent.
(It first happens when he’s ten.)
*
“I think you disappeared for a second.”
“You think I did?”
*
Yuka Hattori is a resilient twelve-year-old.
She’s also the second.
Izuku is sitting in the classroom, bright and early as ever, head pillowed in his hands, facing the window to his right and watching as the beginnings of fall say their greetings. The orange leaves, the whistling wind, the cloudy skies.
A gentle cough draws his attention. He turns his head, still in the same ‘la-dee-da’ of morning fatigue, to see a pretty girl with high pigtails and a bright smile. Hattori, he remembers, is one of the most athletic girls in their grade. Known to never back down from a challenge, second to only Kacchan maybe.
“Midoriya, right?” She sticks out her hand. “My name is Hattori.”
Izuku blinks, sitting upright, eyes wide. He stares at the hand and wonders if there are tacks stuck to her fingers that he can’t see; wonders with the sort of casualness that one would predict the weather if it’s just another attempt at making him bleed.
Another cough; an expectant look.
Izuku takes her hand.
“Nice to meet you?” he greets hesitantly. They’ve talked rarely, only when paired up, only for him to do the work as she idles by. He wonders why he talks to her now.
The shadow's whispers fall silent when she grabs his hand.
“You know, you should take me out sometime.”
Izuku’s alone in the classroom that morning. He sees no one else when he says yes; when Hattori grins at him again and pulls him in for a simple side hug.
But he isn't a fool. (Or maybe he is. Maybe that's why he says nothing again.)
He finds himself carrying her books and writing her assignments. Her friends give him this look—mock, pity and bemusement. Phys. Ed. comes around and he gets the brute of her hits and balls sent to his face because Hattori is resilient and strong and never backs out of a challenge.
The shadows that promise him no solace or peace fall silent when she grabs his hand.
Izuku’s used to bloody noses anyhow.
*
They break up after one month when a ball is kicked right at Izuku’s face during her soccer practice and he falls in the mud, nose bruised and head spinning.
“I don’t date losers, damn errand boy.”
*
“Did it work again?”
“Do you think it did?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
*
The next person to matter is Ryuu Matsuoka.
He’s Izuku’s fifth.
The third and fourth were Hattori’s successors.
‘Little Errand Boy Izuku will do anything you ask if you pretend to like him.’
Poor pathetic him.
Quirkless don’t get to love.
But Errand Boy Izuku still says yes.
(He will always say yes.)
The confession first comes in the form of a letter. Izuku’s first letter, at thirteen, slipped into his dented locker. His fingers absentmindedly trail the ‘Deku’ scraped into the metal, eyes trailing over the mean phrases written in permanent marker. He never bothers to wipe them off. The flimsy piece of paper falls to the floor. It’s horribly made, a measly post-it note that’s been crumpled and torn at the edges. Even the sentence ‘Meet me behind the school after last period’ is written messily. Izuku has to take a few seconds to make out some of the kanji symbols.
Izuku listens to the note—he’s Errand Boy Izuku who will always say yes—expecting it to be another confession from some odd girl who needed her essay done for her.
He’s surprised to find Matsuoka instead. He’s a boy who’s a year older than Izuku with well-tamed charcoal-coloured hair, dark skin, big brown eyes and an upturned nose.
He professes to Izuku in six simple words.
“I like you, so date me.”
(Izuku doesn’t believe him. Izuku doesn’t know him.)
Izuku smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Okay.”
*
Matsuoka is different.
He holds Izuku’s hand, knocks his shoulder and picks him up after class. He hugs him and smiles at him, and it’s innocent.
Two weeks into dating and he’s even willing to introduce Izuku to his closest friends. Izuku’s so stupidly happy that he squashes the very large part of him screaming in unease. It’s the first and last time he ignores a gut feeling.
“This is my boyfriend, Midoriya. Midoriya, these are my friends, Omura, Noguchi, Nakamoto.”
*
Nakamoto tastes like something rotten. His fingers are frighteningly cold, chubby but long, palms big, big enough to cup Izuku’s waist effortlessly. Omura’s tongue is wet and gross and he licks the shell of Izuku’s ear so Izuku cringes away but he draws him closer. Noguchi is thin, but Izuku’s much smaller, pressed against his chest, arms on his shoulders, keeping him there.
Izuku whimpers, but says nothing. He takes it and says nothing.
The silence is their consent. The silence is Izuku’s damnation.
Violated and forsaken, he takes it in silence.
The shadows are silent.
Matsuoka watches with a smile.
*
The next person is Kazuhito Omura. The next person is Tsuneo Noguchi. The next person is Masahiko Nakamoto.
Izuku’s sixth, seventh and eighth.
*
“Sleazy,” Matsuoka tells him not a week later. “You were too easy. I’m not into sluts." He gestures to his friends with an expectant look. Like Izuku could ever forget those fucking faces. (They plague every nightmare and daydream he’s had since the incident.) “None of us are.”
*
“Do you lie to me?”
“I do.”
“Did you leave?”
“I did.”
*
It’s not a month later that Izuku meets the ninth, the tenth, the thirteenth, the fifteenth…
*
There’s a new rumour surrounding the quirkless student in Aldera High.
They say he’s easy.
*
There’s a new rumour surrounding the quirkless student in Aldera High.
They say he’s a slut.
*
There’s a new rumour surrounding the quirkless student in Aldera High.
They say he’s a whore.
*
There’s a new rumour surrounding the quirkless student in Aldera High.
They say he’s a slag.
*
The rumours are true.
*
“Liar.”
*
Izuku is complimented a lot these days. They say he has really pretty eyes, that they’re like emeralds and jades. That when he cries those iridescent tears they’re turquoise. (People love the colour turquoise, it seems. For they love his tears, love the look in his eyes as he’s held under them and cries.) They say he has a really cute smile that looks even prettier on kiss-bruised lips that have bitten to hell.
They say he has a really nice body, thin and lithe with such tiny wrists, so easy to trap and hold. They say he has such a delicate torso, that his freckles make a perfect map to follow with their hands and tongue and eyes. They say he has a thin neck and a chest as pretty as a women's décolletage with sharp collarbones. That their marks sit so perfectly on his bruises-like-fruit skin.
They say Izuku’s the perfect toy to play with.
Yes, they compliment him a lot these days.
*
“What a fucking tramp.”
“I heard he’ll get with practically anyone who asks.”
“Only thing he’s got going for him is his body. He should give himself up to the streets, already.”
“Fuck, I mean, what else did we expect from Quirkless?”
*
Izuku’s just shy of fourteen when he meets him.
The nineteenth.
Tadashi Hora—different.
Tadashi Hora—dangerous.
*
They made him feel human, treated him like was worth something—be it his work or face, his pretty eyes or blemished skin; be it the way he writhed under them like a dog or the way he whined when on top of them like it hurt.
They kept him, and Izuku knew exactly why.
His first language was never brail. He isn’t blind.
But he will pretend to be. He will play stupid ‘til the last mark fades and someone else swoops him up all over again.
Because, if only a little bit, that made him feel human. (Worth something.)
And the shadows fell silent.
*
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Do you give up?”
“No.”
*
Tadashi Hora loved him.
That’s what made him different. Tadashi Hora loved Izuku Midoriya. For every scar, every freckle, every smile, he loved him. Loved in a way that made the shadows hiss. Loved in a way that taught Izuku the difference between silence and white noise; the difference between the shadows leaving and the shadows lingering. Loved in a way that Izuku knew made him human. (More than a fleeting feeling of ecstasy forgotten in a Tsunami of disgust.)
No fake friends and flowers; no running around; no bleeding him dry.
Tadashi wholeheartedly, truly, loved him.
That’s what made him dangerous.
“Why are you still with me?” Izuku asks him when three months pass and the rug has yet to be pulled from under his feet.
They’re at Tadashi’s house; his parents are away for the weekend. Izuku’s pillowed against his chest, arm wrapped around his bare waist, trailing the little marks left on his skin. Tadashi smokes a cigarette with his free hand. The smell brings a sense of comfort that Izuku’s grown familiar with since they started dating.
Tadashi loved him in so many ways.
“Are you complaining?” Tadashi counters, amused if anything.
Izuku playfully punches his chest.
“I mean people don’t usually stay. I’m quirkless and I’m easy. Slutty.”
Tadashi’s fingers stop combing through his hair.
“That doesn’t matter,” he says, moving his hand to Izuku’s face and forcing their eyes to meet, green and marigold, the prettiest shades of yellow.
“No?”
Tadashi shakes his head.
“It doesn’t gross you out? I’m a defect. I’ve been with many people before you. I’ve been played with; used.”
A deku. A whore. A throwaway. Someone who’s been touched and groped and kissed and hurt by too many hands and too many faces. All his worth simplified to his pretty face and prettier body.
Tadashi frowns; stumps the cigarette into the little ashtray at his bedside table. He hooks the arm around Izuku’s waist and pulls him up so they’re nose to nose.
“Don’t call yourself that,” he says. “Quirkless doesn’t mean shit to me. I mean, have you seen Takeo from 2-B? His quirk is literally the ability to change the colour of nails. Not even other people’s nails, his own. His own toenails. He can’t even become a beautician with something like that!”
Izuku chuckles a little.
Tadashi pokes the dimple at the side of his cheek.
“Cute,” he whispers, smiling at Izuku’s blush.
“As for the other thing,” he continues, “your past hookups or relationships or whatever, I could give less of a fuck about. Right now, you’re with me, and I’m with you. That’s what matters.”
(Tadashi loved him.
And he loved Tadashi.)
“Yeah.” Izuku leans forward and kisses his lips softly. “That’s what matters.”
*
“You actually went away this time.”
“I did.”
“Do you lie?”
“I do not.”
*
Tadashi made the shadows rage in anger, their existence flickering and fading.
Tadashi Hora was troubled, too.
Tadashi Hora was imperfect in all the best and worst ways.
(He left.)
He loved Izuku so kindly.
He left him vulnerable.
He left him aching to remember what it meant to be human.
(He left.)
The nineteenth.
Tadashi Hora—different.
Tadashi Hora—dangerous.
*
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not.”
*
Izuku chases what he had and finds it in seconds that pass by too quickly with too many people.
The numbers are insignificant after nineteen.
Just more and more and more.
The shadows are silent, again.
(Not raging. Not faded.
It is white noise. It is not silence.)
Sometimes he wishes he never met Tadashi.
(Sometimes he is a liar.)
He chases what he had in all the wrong places.
Again and again and again.
*
“Midoriya’s a prostitute in the making.”
“In the making? He already fucking is one. Look at him.”
“Not like a Deku like him has got anything going for him in this life anyway. Might as well make him useful for something. The perfect cum dumpster and errand boy.”
“He got especially desperate after Hora man. It’s fucking disgusting.”
*
Izuku cries himself to sleep at night.
He’d been broken up with again—evident by the welts on his leg and bruise on his cheek. In his bag is a trashed and soaked letter.
It hasn’t even been three days. Izuku expected nothing less.
She felt him, held him down and smirked as Izuku did nothing but take it all. His silence is their consent. Three days and she had her fun, what more could she want? She broke up with him in a slew of slurs and degradation. The boy who liked her banged him up all prettily and left a threatening note in his locker.
This isn’t new. Izuku expected nothing less.
It’s hurting more tonight than it ever has.
He wonders why.
*
“The shadows never did fall silent, did they?”
Izuku's reflection grins at him.
“Did you really think we would?”
*
There’s another, and another and another.
*
“It’s an addiction.”
“What’s so wrong with wanting to feel worthy?”
“Everything.”
*
Izuku meets All Might.
*
“More.”
“More?”
*
Izuku meets Shoto.
*
“Goodbye, for now.”
“Goodbye.”
*
The shadows are his only friends.
They snicker and laugh at him.
Treat him like he’s nothing, the only way Izuku’s known friendship—pain.
The only way Izuku's known love; known like; lust; want and hurt.
Monsters. Lovers. Friends.
They’re all encompassed in one.
His loneliness.
*
Before anything, Izuku was always alone.