Archive of Our Own

“And this room is where a lot of the kids play when they aren’t able to go outside,” Mr.Jones, one of the co-owners of the Musutafu Orphanage, said. He and his wife ran the place together. They had a small group of staff members that worked shifts to help out, an extra being put on the schedule whenever neither owner could be there at a time. Mr. and Mrs.Jones moved to Musutafu when they first got married, wanting to start their lives together in a new country. They both always wanted to own an orphanage and help out the children who needed a home, so that was what they did as soon as they got there.

Mr.Jones was guiding a couple through the building, showing them how well taken care of all of the children were and letting them meet all of the kids one by one.

Well, all but one.

Izuku didn’t have to press his ear to the closet door in order to hear the people talking in the room. The walls of the orphanage were thin, and voices carried through them easily. Even being trapped in that closet, Izuku could hear the conversations going on between Mr.Jones and the couple.

That was right, a closet. Now, Izuku did not live in the closet that he was currently trapped in, but he did spend a good deal of time in it. Sometimes, it felt like that was his room more than his actual room did. Whenever somebody came to the orphanage to look into adopting one of the children, the staff would lock Izuku in his closet until whoever came in left. They did not allow anybody to meet Izuku, much less adopt him. In their eyes, the fact that he was quirkless meant that he would never be fit for any home, so they didn’t bother introducing him to potential families. They didn’t even want them seeing him in fear of the orphanage getting a bad reputation for housing him.

It sucked, but he was used to it. 

When the couple finally left, deciding to think over their options before coming back with their answer about adopting, Izuku was let out of the closet. He stumbled forward, not used to the light of the room after being in the darkness for so long. At least he wasn’t in any pain after being locked in there anymore. They used to tie him up and make sure he couldn’t make any noises to get people’s attention, but after years of being forced in there, he had learned not to do anything that would lead to harsh punishment afterwards. The staff saw that he would make no attempts to ruin a visit, so they stopped putting in the effort of silencing him.

Mrs.Jones did not look happy when she let him out of the closet. Izuku knew better than to ask why, but he had a feeling that he already knew what it was anyway. She only ever got that look when she looked at him for too long or a visit didn’t go as well as she had hoped. She likely thought that the couple would not come back after their so-called deliberations. If that were the case, it would be bad news for Izuku.

“Go to bed,” Mrs.Jones said.

“But what about dinner?” Izuku asked quietly, remembering the multiple times his stomach had complained to him while in the closet.

Mrs.Jones glared at him. “You won’t be getting any tonight. Go to bed now.”

Izuku sighed, dropping his head and following her orders. He hated days like this where he’d be locked up for long periods of time and not even get any food at the end of it. He hated going to bed hungry.

Passing the other kids as he walked through the halls, Izuku had to ignore the snide remarks that were made towards him. Even the younger kids insulted him whenever they saw him, learning from the older ones to hate him. Sometimes they questioned why they should hate him, but once they learned that he was quirkless (after quirks were also explained to the very young ones), they didn’t question it anymore. 

Izuku felt the weight lift off of his shoulder a little bit when he found his room empty when he got there. He shared it with four of the other kids, and if he could fall asleep before any of them came in, he would be able to avoid any of their taunts until the next day.

Laying down, Izuku let his thoughts wash over him. He dreamed of what it would be like to be adopted into a family, to be loved. He wondered what it would be like to not be hated by everybody around him. 

He thought about what it would be like to have a soulmate. 

Soulmates. When quirks began developing in the world, so did soulmates. Everybody had words written on their arm that indicated what quirk their soulmate had. In a world full of heroes, this led to a lot of people trying to fake their soulmate mark in an attempt to trick a hero into thinking they were theirs. This led to heroes mostly never showing what their marks said, despite that not being necessary anyway. A soulmate could be confirmed when that person first laid eyes on the other’s mark. The writing would turn from a light shading on the skin to a bold print, proving that the one with that quirk had been found. Most people quickly stopped faking soulmarks after that out of fear of being embarrassed that they had forgotten about that little fact.

Even the quirkless had soulmates. There was not a single recorded case out there of somebody not having a mark. As far as the world knew, every person would end up meeting their perfect match. For those without a quirk, their soulmate’s mark simply said “quirkless.” Izuku did not want to know what his soulmate would think when they saw that word on their skin.

Part of Izuku hoped that his soulmate would accept him anyway, but there was another part that crept into his mind at times that wanted them to turn him away. Something about the relationship between soulmates made him uncomfortable, more than just the normal grossness felt by children viewing adult relationships. He didn’t think he could ever be close to somebody like that. He was old enough to realize that he never wanted to kiss anybody or even more. The thought disgusted him. 

Mr. and Mrs.Jones were soulmates, and they were absolutely revolting with each other around the kids. They did not hide what they did in front of them. While the other kids didn’t bat an eye at it, Izuku was repulsed. It was one thing to give each other a peck on the lips in front of a crowd of children, it was another to go as far as they did.

Slowly but surely, Izuku’s mind began to slow down. The hoard of thoughts that were always present all day drizzled away, fizzling out until, finally, he was asleep. 

*-*

School was not any better for Izuku. He never had any luck making friends, but at least in his old elementary school before he was put in the orphanage, he had Kacchan. He might have been rude, acted like he hated him, and always tried to get him to go away, but Izuku knew he liked him more than he let on. Quite frankly, Izuku missed Kacchan. He didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him before he was taken away.

Besides Kacchan’s iffy friendship, Izuku had nobody at his old school. He had nobody at this school too, but having that rocky relationship with Kacchan still made him miss it there. Bakugou would never have admitted it, but he had allowed Izuku to cry on his shoulder multiple times before.

At his current school, he did not have that kind of support. He didn’t even have a teacher that he could go to for help since they all hated him. All he wanted was one person to want to be friends with him. He wanted to see Kacchan again, but the last time he had seen him was before his mother died.

Izuku wouldn’t call his mother a great one, but she let him eat dinner every night, gave him his privacy, and never berated him for being quirkless. However, there were many times where she would tend to neglect him in other senses, but Izuku didn’t mind as long as she kept being there for him. He even handled the obsession his mother had had on romance and soulmates.

There were a ton of romance movies out there. Too many, in Izuku’s opinion. They were his mother’s favorite genre, so they were constantly playing at his house when he was young. Maybe it was because she liked the happy endings that always happened in them. She likely thought about her own life during them, dreaming of the time before her husband died. Before she was left to care for their son all by herself.

Don’t get her wrong, she loved Izuku dearly. He would never deny that his own mother had adored him. However, it had been hard to watch her on her depressed days. They had been his least favorite times. She’d sit there in a daze, barely seeing anything around her, sometimes not even responding when Izuku called out to her.

She couldn’t help it. It just happened to be how she personally coped with losing her soulmate. Some people pushed through life in honor of their soulmate, others went to get the help they knew they needed, and Inko Midoriya zoned out even on her kid. 

Inko used romance movies to cope with her own loss, and so Izuku had been forced to watch so many stories about soulmates falling in love that he wanted to never watch one again. He couldn’t imagine doing anything that he had seen in those movies, and they had mostly been the family friendly ones that his mother allowed him to watch. Learning about sex as he got older and realizing that Inko likely watched higher rated movies as well made him shy away from it all even more. 

He didn’t know what was wrong with him. All he could think of was that his mother had ruined the idea of soulmates to him and that he was now broken for thinking that he never wanted to be in a relationship with anybody. He didn’t know how to fix himself, and he felt like the only way he could have done so would be if his mother helped him through it. However, she was dead, and the day he found out about it would never leave his mind.

A few weeks into Izuku’s first day of a new elementary school year, he was pulled into the principal’s office to be given the awful news.

“Your mother is dead.”

“What?” Izuku squeaked quietly, unable to comprehend what was being said.

“I’m sorry, Midoriya,” the principal said, “I just got the call from the cops moments ago. They’re on the way now to talk to you.”

It was a villain attack in town. His mother was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it was as simple as that. Still, that did not make Izuku feel any better. If anything, he felt worse.

Izuku was taken out of school early that day. The police and the principal said that it was so he could have some time to think, but he knew that was a lie. They only wanted to get his home situation dealt with immediately so that they could forget about him soon.

That was when Izuku was placed into the orphanage he lived in now. It looked nice from the outside, and the inside was well kept besides the few messes that were bound to be made when children were running around. The social worker that took him there said that the staff were nice people and that he would be happy there.

Of course, now he knew the truth. That social worker would have been correct if he had had a quirk. Most of the kids there were either too young to have developed a quirk yet or had to be told by the staff not to excessively use theirs indoors. When Izuku was dropped off, so were his medical history documents (among other paperwork): the documents that showed that he would always remain quirkless.

He was the only one there that was quirkless, and it was obvious that nobody liked that. The four kids that shared his room put things in his bed to scare him constantly. Mr.Jones always beat him while Mrs.Jones sent him to bed without dinner. They acted like he didn’t exist when he tried to talk to them about something.

He didn’t even have his soulmate mark yet to give him hope of somebody eventually caring about him. They only appeared at midnight of a person’s sixteenth birthday, so he had a little under two years left to go.

Izuku was obviously having a grand old time there. With nobody wanting to be his friend anymore, Izuku turned all of his attention to his hero journals. He wanted to be a hero when he grew up, even if he was quirkless. He wanted to be the hero that could inspire other quirkless kids into not giving up. His heart always hoped that he could be the one to convince the world to stop hating those who were unfortunate enough to be born without a quirk. He wanted to put a stop to the abuse, and he would make sure that no kid in an orphanage would be bullied like he was.

The hero journals filled quickly, and soon, Izuku became a mini expert in everything to do with heroes. He knew more about them from just watching from afar than most people who saw the action up close did. Nobody could tell Izuku he wasn’t smart. The staff and other kids might hurt him, physically and mentally, but Izuku would not allow them to try and convince him that he was stupid.

His close examination and expertise on heroes was the reason why he knew exactly who the man who came in to talk to his middle school class was. 

“Class, today we have a guest who would like to speak to you about a high school option for some of you next year,” the teacher said. “This is Aizawa Shouta. He’s a representative from UA High School, which I am sure all of you have heard of before. I want you to give Mr. Aizawa your full attention, alright?”

Nobody dared go against that request. Everybody was too excited to hear about UA to do their usual interruptions. No whispered conversations came from the back. No pencils doodled aimlessly on random papers or the desks. It was silent as everybody waited for what this man would say.

Izuku was extra excited. UA was his dream school, so somebody coming in to talk about it gave him the perfect opportunity to see if they thought he had what it took to get in while quirkless. This man would be even better to ask since he was a hero himself. The other kids did not recognize him, but Izuku made sure that he knew a lot about all of the underground heroes. They were some of the ones he would write about most in his journals since a lot of them had quirks that didn’t allow them to be flashy. He could appreciate trying to be lowkey since that was what he would probably have to do too.

So having Eraserhead in the same room as him right now was kind of a dream come true. He felt like he was extremely lucky to not have been hidden away from the presentation like at the orphanage.

“I’m sure all of you have been thinking about what high school you’ll be going to soon, especially if you are looking into trying to become a hero,” Aizawa said. He had a tired look on his face, not seeming to want to be there. Izuku could understand that feeling; he never wanted to be there. “Most of you probably know about UA already too, but I’m here to tell you a little more about the school.”

Aizawa began talking about the kind of classes they offered at UA, about how there were other career paths to pursue there other than just hero training, such as business. Izuku listened closely, wanting to learn everything. The more the man talked, the more he wanted to get into the school.

“Are there any questions?” Aizawa asked when he was done with his prepared speech. Pretty much the entire class raised their hands at once.

“How many people get in every year?” One kid asked. Izuku rolled his eyes at that. It was widely known that only the best of the best got into UA and that only a small number of people would make it.

“Are the classes hard?” Of course they were hard, heroes had to save people’s lives.

“Has anybody ever made it in quirkless?” Izuku asked when it was his turn. The entire class turned to stare at him, shocked that he was even thinking of such a thing. Izuku gave no inclination to the hero that he was the quirkless kid who wanted to get in, and he hoped that Aizawa only thought that he was asking in general. 

“No,” Aizawa said. 

Izuku’s heart sank, feeling a little less hopeful than before. He wanted to be a hero so badly, but if even the representative of UA said that it was impossible for kids like him, then-

“But just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it won’t in the future,” Aizawa continued before Izuku could finish his thoughts. He stared at the man, eyes wide and starry. 

Eraserhead thought that there was a chance, and Izuku was going to do anything he could to prove that he could get in despite not having a quirk.

As the questions came to an end and Aizawa made his way to leave, Izuku noticed the man was wearing a soulmark band. He could see an outline of it through the sleeves of his shirt the entire presentation, so he assumed he hadn’t found his soulmate yet. What shocked him, though, was that as he was walking towards the door, he scratched at his other wrist and Izuku could see a darkened name on his skin.

Did he have two soulmates? Izuku had never heard of such a thing before, but he guessed that it made sense. Would the second person be romantic too, then? All soulmates were romantic, right?

Right?????

The class went right back into their normal curriculum, but Izuku was no longer paying attention. All he could think about was UA and Eraserhead. He didn’t hear the kids around him making fun of him for thinking he could get into UA as he pondered over Aizawa’s two soulmates.

*-*

Izuku’s newfound hope in becoming a hero surpassed that of the hope he had from before he found out he was quirkless. For the first time in years, he felt like it was possible for him to be what he always longed to be. He thought that maybe he would be able to help people after all.

Of course, the biggest boost to getting closer to his dreams was getting a quirk. It might not have been his own personal quirk, but it was a quirk nonetheless, possibly even the best quirk he could ever have received.

All Might shook up his world by offering a piece of his hair to eat, and from there it all changed. Izuku had gained some of All Might’s quirk, and he was then undergoing training in order to start controlling it and get into UA. The orphanage had no idea that this was happening, and frankly, he was a little nervous for when they would find out about him trying to get into UA since he would still have to live there if he got in. He did not want to think about how the staff would hate him for making them “look bad” as they usually claimed. It didn’t matter that it would be one of their own at the best hero school there is; nothing Izuku did could impress them. For now, he would not allow those thoughts to consume him. He had to focus on training and actually getting into his dream high school.

All Might might not have been the first hero to express belief that he could be a hero, but he was the first to actually help him work towards his goals while knowing about his quirkless situation. He had watched as Izuku tried to save one of the teachers from his middle school despite her always belittling him. He saw the bravery Izuku held, so he decided to pass his quirk down to him.

Izuku felt like nothing would ever be better than this.

During one of his days training with All Might, Izuku brought up something that had been on his mind since noticing Eraserhead’s soulmark. 

“Is it hard to be with your soulmate when you’re a hero?” Izuku asked.

All Might glanced over at him, surprise on his face. “Every soul pair is different, so that is hard to answer. Some probably struggle with their soulmate always being in danger, but others might all be heroes and be better at handling it. I once knew a hero whose soulmate was her daughter, so that little girl grew up being used to it.”

Izuku dropped the giant weight he was holding, barely missing his foot. “Her soulmate was her daughter? How? Didn’t that make her uncomfortable? Is that not illegal?”

All Might gave him a strange look. “Why would that be uncomfortable or illegal? They were familiar soulmates.”

“...familiar soulmates?”

The two stared at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to say, before All Might spoke up.

“Young Midoriya… how much do you know about soulmates?”

Izuku shrugged. “Just everything that my mother told me.”

“And what had she told you?”

Izuku told him everything that his mother taught him when he was a kid, from how sickeningly in love soulmates were with each other to how heartbreaking it was to lose one another. He told him all about how it made him shudder to think that that woman would be in a romantic relationship with her own daughter and how he thought it was cruel of the universe to do that to her.

“Soulmates don’t have to be romantic,” All Might told him.

“They don’t?” Izuku asked.

“No, my dear boy, they don't. It is quite common for them to be, but it is also common for them to be platonic. They could be your best friend, a family member, anything really. There have even been very rare cases of enemies being soulmates because that was what they needed out of their soulmate bound.”

“Needed?”

“Soulmates are the ones somebody will be the most connected with in life. A lot of them are romantic because a lot of people consider their closest person to be their partner. Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” Izuku nodded.

“My soulmate was an old friend that I had. We were completely platonic, but he was everything I ever needed out of life.”

“What happened to him?”

All Might gave him a sad smile. “He died a few years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Izuku frowned. All Might must have been very sad, then. He seemed to be handling it a lot better than his mother had, though. “Can you have more than one soulmate? I thought I saw somebody with a band and a mark before.”

“Yes, it is possible,” All Might said. “It is not as common as a single soulmate, but a lot of families will be soulmates with their partner and their child or with two romantic partners. Sometimes it’s a group of best friends, a mentor and their mentees, anything. I believe the record for the most soulmates is at five, but who knows, there could be somebody out there with more that never came out to the media about it.”

Izuku nodded, thinking everything over. It was a lot to process, but it did make him feel a lot better about it all.

“So when I find my soulmate, it can be platonic? I won’t have to kiss anyone?” Izuku asked.

All Might gave a loud chuckle. “Not unless you want to! You can be as platonic as you wish with them!”

Izuku smiled as they got back into his training. All Might kept him focused on what he was supposed to be doing, but he let him ask more questions now and then. 

Perhaps this meant that he’d one day find a family with his soulmate instead of awkwardly telling them he didn’t like to be intimate.

*-*

When Izuku got the news that he got into UA, he could not be any happier. He didn’t even let the angry reactions of the orphanage staff get to him. They hit him, bruised him, and tried to bring him down as much as they could, but he did not care. He was going to be a hero, and nobody was going to stop him! Mrs.Jones sent him to bed without dinner again, and even the hunger that plagued him all night couldn’t bring him down.

“Are you ready?” All Might asked as he met up with Izuku the day before his first day at UA.

“Yes!” Izuku grinned. “Thank you, All Might! I could never have gotten here without you!”

All Might eyed the bruise that was visible on Izuku’s arm, furrowing his eyes. Izuku saw his gaze and brushed it off, telling him he accidentally ran into a doorknob the previous day in his excitement of preparing for UA and not because the orphanage hated him for it. All Might allowed himself to believe this, but he made a mental note to keep an eye on his mentee just in case.

The two talked for a while, neglecting any last minute training Izuku could have done before starting his new school. It was much too exciting of a time to focus on training right now.

Izuku thanked All Might for helping him get so far, giving the hero a hug before running off back towards the orphanage so that he could make it in time for his curfew. He had a lot to do tonight before he could be mentally prepared about attending school in the morning.

The next day, Izuku was one of the last students to arrive in the classroom. The teacher wasn’t there yet, so all of his classmates were introducing themselves to each other.

The first person that noticed him walk in immediately stood up, staring at him wide eyed.

“Deku?” The blonde asked loudly, causing the entire class to turn towards them.

“K-Kacchan?” Izuku was stunned for a moment before he grinned at his old friend. “I knew you’d make it to UA!”

Bakugou’s mouth fell open before he leaped over his desk to approach him. “Of course I did, but how did you get here?”

“Guess I got my quirk late,” Izuku shrugged. He was happy to see Kacchan, but he also did not know how the other boy would take this. Would Bakugou remember him as the kid he bullied or as the kid he let cry on his shoulder when things got to be too much for him? Would he be willing to be his friend again or would he hate him forever?

What Izuku did not expect was a quick hug from Kacchan. The entire class was silent, obviously shocked that the loud, rude classmate of theirs was hugging the life out of somebody. Izuku let himself hug his old friend back, afraid that he would never get the chance to do so again.

“What happened to you, shitty nerd?” Kacchan asked when he pulled away, crossing his arms and pretending that he had not just hugged him. “I thought- well, my family heard what happened with your mom, and then we never saw you again, so I thought that… you were with her when it happened.”

Izuku smiled at him. “Nope, I’m alive! I was taken away to live somewhere else, and I was never given the chance to say goodbye or write to you. I’m sorry.”

Bakugou huffed, but he told him that he was happy that he wasn’t dead. He seemed to realize that the entire class was watching them at this point, and he immediately went back to his usual grumpy self, glaring at all of them.

“So you two know each other?” A boy asked. He had black hair and wore glasses, holding himself in somewhat of an up-tight posture. 

“We used to go to the same elementary school,” Izuku explained. “I moved away, so we haven’t seen each other since then.”

“Has he always been this grouchy and mean?” A red haired boy asked. Izuku nodded, causing Bakugou to scowl and the others to laugh.

Everybody began introducing themselves to him, and Izuku knew that he was going to get along with every single one of them. These were the students that he would be spending his years of high school learning and training with, and he didn’t think there was a single one that he would hate being around. They ask each other questions about their quirks, where they were from, and why they wanted to become a hero.

“I live in Musutafu,” Izuku said, “but I’m kind of on the edge of it, near where they put that new McRonalds. The Musutafu Orphanage, if you’ve heard of it.”

Nobody asked him why he was living in an orphanage, and he was thankful for it. He didn’t want to tell his life story to a group of people he barely knew yet.

Soon, their homeroom teacher came in. Well, sort of. It was more like he crept in, wearing a sleeping bag and not caring that he was supposed to be up and ready to teach the class. When he stepped out from the sleeping bag, Izuku gasped. It was Eraserheard! Aizawa Shouta was their teacher!

Throughout the day, Izuku’s mind once again drifted to the topic of soulmates. He focused on not getting expelled during the surprise tests Aizawa had them do, but as soon as his brain was left to think of anything else, he was thinking about soulmates again.

When their class had their first English class, Izuku was ecstatic to see that Present Mic was their teacher. He was another cool hero that he wrote about in his journals. All of their teachers were turning out to be heroes, and he could not be happier about it.

What was even more wild was that Present Mic was not shy to reveal things about his personal life to them. Nothing very top secret came out of his mouth, but he did like to gush on about his soulmate, who just so happened to be Aizawa. While their homeroom teacher was quiet and didn’t tell them anything about himself, Present Mic spilled too much. It was quite a difference in personality, but Izuku could see that the two worked well together. They were definitely romantic partners. He even mentioned that the two of them were still searching for their third!

“Who do you think it could be?” Mina asked, wanting to know everything.

“We don’t know, but we have a feeling they’re platonic,” their teacher said. Whereas Aizawa made them do a lot of work on the first day, Present Mic was using this time to let the class get to know him and each other. “Neither of us feel like we’d be comfortable having another romantic partner, so unless this other person can miraculously change our minds about that, they’ve got to be platonic. We’re thinking it’ll either be a close friend we’ll meet or even a child.”

That got the class even more interested.

“So does that mean you guys are looking into adopting?” Uraraka asked.

“Do you want it to be your child?” Mina asked.

“Awe, they’re dreaming of a happy little family,” Momo swooned.

Present Mic laughed as they all speculated and asked him more questions, answering every single one of them to the best of his ability.

*-*

Soulmarks appeared on people’s skin at midnight of their sixteenth birthday. Izuku’s sixteenth birthday happened to be in the middle of his first year at UA, and to say that some of his friends were just as excited to see what his marks would say would be an understatement. The night before his birthday, Uraraka asked him if he would be comfortable sharing what they said to some of them. Some people liked to keep their marks hidden, but Izuku trusted his friends enough to let them see. So that night, before it hit midnight, Uraraka, Mina, Todoroki, and Bakugou all sat in his room with him. He did not feel comfortable with every single person in their class finding out at once, so he let four of them see first. Uraraka and Bakugou because they were his two closest friends, Mina because she was the most supportive of soulmates in their class (and even though she gossiped a lot with the other girls, she knew how to keep a huge secret such as soulmarks), and Todoroki because he felt like they were becoming better friends and like he could trust him.

The five of them sat silently as the clock crept closer to midnight, giving Izuku space to think while he was simply holding his breath. He was terrified of what it would say. That old fear of ending up in a romantic relationship was bubbling up in his mind again despite him knowing that platonic soulmates existed.

He must have looked too stressed out because his friends grew concerned.

“Are you alright, Deku?” Uraraka asked.

“You’ve got to breathe if you want to be alive still to see your marks,” Bakugou said, rolling his eyes.

Izuku took a deep breath, but that did not calm his nerves. “I’m just worried.”

“Why?” Mina asked. “It’s your soulmarks! There’s nothing to worry about!”

“I’m worried that they’ll want more from me than I would be willing to give. What if they want a romantic relationship? What if they end up wanting a sexual relationship? I would rather jump off of a bridge right now than have to go through the awkwardness of telling my soulmate that I don’t want them like that.”

Mina laughed. “Don’t be silly! Your soulmate is whoever you need most in your life, and if you think you can’t handle a relationship like that, then your soulmate won’t be somebody who wants that from you.”

“But what if they think there’s something wrong with me? What if they think I’m broken for not wanting normal human relationships like that?” Izuku asked, burying his face in his hands.

“The hell that’s normal,” Bakugou said. “There aren’t rules on what happens in a relationship like that.”

“Sounds to me like you’re aromantic and asexual,” Todoroki said, causing everybody to look at him.

“What’s that?” Izuku asked, never having heard of it before.

“It means you don’t feel sexual or romantic attraction to anybody. There’s a lot of different sexualities similar to those two that sort of branch off from them, but those are the big names for them. I can help you do a lot more research online about them if you want to see specific names and definitions of them to see if you feel like any of them fit you. I’m demisexual myself, so I know some about it.”

Izuku grinned at him. “I’ll take you up on that.”

The group took some time to do some research with Izuku on it, successfully distracting him from the fact that his soulmarks would be appearing in less than an hour. From what he read, he felt like Todoroki was correct: Izuku was asexual and aromantic. It made perfect sense with how he felt, and while he would definitely do more research later and think about it harder, he felt fairly solid in that being what he was. 

He actually had a name to describe his feelings. It felt so freeing to know that there were other people out there that felt like this too.

“It’s midnight!” Mina exclaimed when the clock finally showed that it was Izuku’s birthday. Izuku paused from where he was typing on his computer, his wrists faced down as his fingers hovered over the keys.

“What are you waiting for?” Bakugou asked. “Look at what it says, dumbass!”

Izuku was not ready for this. His friends were doing so well at comforting him and preparing him for this, but now that it was time, he realized he was nowhere near ready. He shut his eyes tight, looking away from his wrists so that he couldn’t see when he flipped them over. His friends could see what it said first, he didn’t care.

Not knowing which wrist his mark would be on, he flipped them over, still not looking. 

There was a collective gasp from his friends, making his heart pound even more. What could have made them react like that?

“Izuku,” Uraraka said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “look.”

He sucked it up, forcing himself to open his eyes and turn to see what was on his arms. 

The first thing he noticed was that he had two marks. There was one on each wrist, both a single word in the same size lettering. Now that he knew that multiple soulmates were possible, him having two did not shock him that much. 

It was what they said that blew him away.

Erasure. That was what his left wrist said. It was in that faded ink that all soulmarks were when their soulmate had not yet looked at it.

Voice. The mark on his right was faded too, of course.

“That’s-” Izuku started, but he could not get the rest of the words out. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. 

“Awe, you’re our senseis’ third,” Mina giggled.

“Hah?!” Bakugou shouted, the reality of what he was reading on Izuku’s wrists hitting him fully. “How is that possible?!”

“It does feel unusual,” Todoroki said, “but if they’re his soulmates, then they must be what he needs most in a soulmate.”

“You should tell them!” Mina suggested.

“What?” Izuku said. “No! Why would I do that?”

“Why not?” Uraraka asked. “They’re your soulmates!”

“Please, you can’t tell them,” Izuku begged them. “I’m not ready for that to happen.”

“Will you ever be ready?”

“I don’t know, but please, I can’t do this right now. Please!”

His friends were reluctant, but they agreed to keep it a secret for now. They comforted him for a little bit, but soon they had to head back to their own rooms in the dorm.

As they were leaving, Bakugou stayed back for a moment.

“So why are you really scared of telling our teachers about being their soulmate?” Kacchan asked.

“I don’t know how to feel about them being my soulmates,” Izuku told him, which technically wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the whole truth, either.

“Bullshit. That might be part of it, but there’s more. Spill.”

There was no getting out of this one, and frankly, Izuku was tired of keeping this secret from the one classmate he had that knew he used to not have a quirk. Mentally apologizing to All Might, Izuku came clean.

“Because their mark will say that their soulmate is quirkless.”

Bakugou stared at him for a long while. “But you have a quirk now. You’re not quirkless.”

“Technically, I am. I don’t have my own quirk.”

“That makes no sense! Have you gone insane?”

“It’s All Might’s quirk, all right!”

And so, Izuku explained everything to Bakugou. He told him all about All Might giving him his quirk, how he trained all summer to get the little control he had on it so far, and that he knew for sure that their teachers’ soulmarks would still say what he truly was on their wrists.

“They’re not going to care,” Bakugou said.

“You used to care,” Izuku said.

“Yeah, well, I was stupid, and you’ve managed to get to UA anyway, right? They’re not going to care.”

“Maybe… but I still don’t want to tell them yet.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, but he agreed to keep the secret too. 

*-*

Izuku ended up feeling extremely guilty about telling Bakugou about One For All, so he immediately came clean to All Might about it. The hero was annoyed at it at first, but after listening to Izuku’s reasons behind it, he agreed that it was okay as long as the hothead did not spill it to anyone else.

“I understand being scared about your soulmates knowing you’re quirkless,” All Might said, “but I have to agree with little Bakugou there. I believe it will be fine. I won’t ask you to tell me what your wrists say, but I will say that whoever they are, they are your soulmates for a reason.”

“Yeah, but it’s still scary. Remember when you said that soulmates can be platonic and that if I really hated the idea of a romantic soulmate, then I probably wouldn’t get one?” Izuku asked.

All Might nodded. “You said you know who your soulmates are. Does that mean you think they’re romantic?”

Izuku shook his head frantically. “Not at all! Thankfully, no, but it is still an awkward situation.”

“And why is that?” 

“I, uh… I think they could possibly be my, um, family one day?”

“And what is so bad about that that you don’t want to tell them?”

Izuku looked down. “I’m scared that they’ll be disappointed when they find out that it’s me and leave me at the orphanage. What if they want a younger kid? What if they don’t want to deal with a teenager who has already gone through a lot of trauma and will be an adult in a few years? I can’t be good enough for them.”

All Might frowned at him before he leaned forward, giving his protege a hug. “Are you saying that you think your soulmate situation would be a parental one?”

Izuku wasn’t stupid. He knew his teachers were married and looking to adopt a child, hoping that their third would be the child they adopt. He knew that he conveniently lived in an orphanage where they could walk in at any time to adopt him if they wanted. But what if he wasn’t the kind of kid they wanted? Why would they pick him over all of the younger kids there, especially with how the staff would lock him away if they went to visit the orphanage anyway?

It felt like the universe was playing a huge joke on him.

“Yes,” Izuku said quietly.

All Might pulled away from the hug so that he could look him in the eyes. “I think you’d be the perfect son for whoever your soulmates are, my boy.”

Izuku felt tears pool in his eyes. He wished All Might could have been his soulmate since he already knew his quirk situation and he already trusted him, but alas, the universe had other plans for them. Izuku wanted to say that he wanted the universe to fuck off, but he knew he could never do that.

Honestly, he wanted everything to work out. He already saw Eraserhead and Present Mic as some of his favorite heroes besides All Might. He definitely admired them as his teachers. It was scary to think about, but Izuku would be okay with calling Aizawa and Yamada, as Izuku had once learned was Present Mic’s name, his fathers.

And that want for a family just made it harder to prepare himself for the rejection he thought would come his way.

“What are you going to do about your soul marks?” All Might asked, trying to lead his focus away from the negative thoughts.

“What do you mean?” Izuku asked, confused.

“Well, it is custom for heroes to keep their marks hidden so people can’t fake being their soulmates. Even at such a new start into trying to become a hero, students will cover them up so that people can’t learn about them early on and then spread the news of what it is when you become a pro hero. UA requires it to keep all students and staff safe from snoopers and the media.”

“That makes sense,” Izuku said. “I did not think about that before. I guess I’ll try and get some bands before tomorrow.

“There’s no need, my boy,” All Might said. “I figured you wouldn’t have any yet since I neglected to tell you about it before now, so I took it upon myself to get you some myself! It’s a good thing they’re sold in pairs. I didn’t consider the fact that you might have more than one soulmark!”

All Might held out a pack of soul mark bands to him. They were always sold in pairs, both for those with more than one and so that those with one could have an extra pair if the first one got torn or too dirty. They were a pretty green that matched his hair perfectly, which Izuku found really funny. Soulmark bands were exactly what they sounded like: bracelets that could properly cover soulmarks. Slipping them on, Izuku found that they were tight enough that they wouldn’t accidentally slip off but still comfortable to wear for long periods of time. 

“Thank you,” Izuku said, grateful that All Might was always prepared for these kinds of things.

That next week, there were a few days left before the students would all be going home for a small break they were getting from school. It was wintertime, so it would not be as long as they had off in the summers, but it was enough for them to all go home and see their families for a little bit before they’d have to be back.

Everyone was excited to go home for that short while, not even caring that they’d be out of the dorms and in possible danger of a villain attack. They were all given an emergency number to call if any of them ran into danger so that the school could be quick to come help them out.

Most of their classes were as intense as usual. Their teachers were not bothered by the break coming up, only wanting to keep up with the schoolwork and not let the students slack off. The only class they were getting a little bit of a pre-break from was English.

Present Mic let them take half of the class each day that week to relax and talk amongst each other. He’d teach for the first half and then tell them they had the rest of the time to finish a paper he handed out. Each paper was extremely easy, and since he made the excuse that that was all he planned for those days, they used the time as free time.

“Are you doing anything during break, sensei?” Kirishima asked after the rest of them had shared what they were doing with each other. Most were going home to visit family, but a few had interesting plans such as going somewhere for a small vacation. Izuku mentioned that he was going home too, but he did not mention the orphanage. His classmates knew about where he lived, but he didn’t want to mention it to his teacher. He did not need his soulmates knowing where he lived yet.

“Sho and I are going to spend most of the time at home,” Yamada said.

“Boring,” Mina snickered. 

“Buuuuuuuuuuut,” he continued, smirking at her, “it won’t be all that boring! We’re going to start looking into adopting!”

Everybody started cheering and asking more questions, but all Izuku could feel was dread.

“How are you going to go about adopting?” Uraraka asked, giving Izuku a glance as she spoke. He shook his head at her, pleading with her not to reveal where he lived.

“We wanted to check the local orphanage first,” their teacher said. Izuku groaned internally. The only orphanage there was Musutafu Orphanage, meaning that they would be coming to where Izuku lived.

“What kind of kid are you looking for?” Momo asked. She didn’t know about Izuku’s soulmate situation, but he could still feel her interest in it all since she did know that he lived there. He was so glad that he had asked the class not to tell the teachers where he lived a while ago, embarrassed about them knowing that he lived at an orphanage if they didn’t have to. It would be on his school file, but he doubted any teachers would look into them so much unless the need called for it.

“What kind of question is that?” Present Mic laughed. “We’re not too picky. We don’t care how old they are, what their gender is, or anything like that. As long as we feel a good connection with them, we’ll be happy.”

They weren’t picky, but Izuku still felt like they wouldn’t be interested in adopting a sixteen year old like him. They already saw a lot of his bad days at school, so what would make them want to deal with even more of his emotions and worse breakdowns in their own home?

Class was over soon after that, so there was no time for them to ask anymore questions. School was over for the day, so Izuku did his best to escape the classroom before any of his classmates could confront him, but the moment he stepped into the hallway, he was pulled to the side by Uraraka.

“You’re coming with me,” she said as she began to drag him towards the dorms. She didn’t give him any room to refuse, shutting him down every time he tried to say anything. 

When they got to the dorm, she brought him up to her room. They were also followed in by the other three that were there when he got his soulmarks.

Yeah, this was sure to be fun.

“So your soulmates are trying to adopt somebody from where you live,” Uraraka got to the point right away.

“Uh-huh,” Izuku didn’t try to pretend like that wasn’t happening.

“It’s time for you to tell them.”

The others nodded, agreeing. 

“Just let yourself be happy with your soulmates,” Mina said. “You’ve been saying that you want a family, and now you have the perfect opportunity to have parents as your soulmates!”

Before Izuku could remember that he shouldn’t say anything about how the staff at the orphanage treated him, he blurted out his thoughts. “I would never be allowed to be adopted.”

It was silent for a moment, then another. 

Before it could be silent for a third moment, Kacchan broke it. “What the hell does that mean?!”

Izuku winced, realizing that he messed up and revealed too much. He tried to backtrack by telling them that it was because the orphanage would be showing them all of the younger kids first, but they were adamant that they’d see every kid before making a decision. He kept trying to make excuses, but they debunked every single one, so finally, he had to tell them the truth.

“They don’t let me meet anybody!” Izuku spilled, his hands coming up to cover his mouth immediately.

“Deku…” Uraraka whispered, not knowing what to say to that.

“How do they stop you from meeting them?” Todoroki asked.

“They lock me in a closet so that they can’t run into me. They’re embarrassed by me because I had been quirkless for so long, and by the time I got my quirk, they hated me enough not to care,” Izuku said.

“That’s all the more reason to tell them before they go there!” Mina said.

“No! I can’t do that! I’d be in so much trouble after they leave if they confront any of the staff about it! Mr.Jones would never let me live after that!”

Bakugou growled. “Are you implying that they hurt you too, Deku?”

Izuku gulped. “What makes you think that?”

“You just said the guy would kill you!!”

“If you don’t tell them,” Uraraka said, “then I will!”

“You can’t! Please trust me when I say this, but they can’t know! I’d get in so much trouble there!” Izuku begged.

“You won't be hurt after they adopt you!” Todoroki argued. “And if they’re hurting you like that, the orphanage can be shut down for child abuse! The kids could all be transferred somewhere better or the orphanage would be put under a better owner.”

“If you won’t let us outright tell them, let’s compromise,” Bakugou said.

They all stared at him in confusion. 

“What do you mean?” Mina asked.

“Do they give tours to those wanting to adopt at the orphanage?” Bakugou asked Izuku. When he nodded, Bakugou began to look around Uraraka’s room, pulling out a notebook he found and ripping out a blank page.

“Hey!” Uraraka said, angrily taking the notebook from him. “What if that was important?”

“This is more important!” Bakugou said, handing it and a pencil from Uraraka’s desk to Izuku. “Draw the closet. And don’t give me a shitty drawing. Actually try to draw it to the best your memory can give you. If you won’t let us tell them, one of us will give Aizawa this drawing so that when they see the closet on their tour of the place, they’ll recognize it and want to open it to free you.”

Even doing this terrified Izuku, but he agreed to the compromise. He’d allow his friends to give this to Aizawa and Yamada if it meant that they wouldn’t outright tell them. He, himself, didn’t know why he was so against them knowing right now, but he couldn’t help but want to keep hiding from them. 

Izuku did his best to draw the closet. He knew every detail of it from his years of being forced into it, but his nerves made it hard to concentrate on making it look right. He first drew the shape of a simple door. He was tempted to leave it at that, but he knew his friends would be annoyed at him for trying to get out of this too. So he added more detail. He drew the way the door had large, vertical rectangles indented into it. He added the posters he knew would still be there since they had never been changed out since he’d been there. He even drew the large sharpie smiley face that was still there from when one of the kids decided the door was their next canvas. Once done with the closet door itself, he drew the toy bin that was next to it, giving the room as many details as he could so that it would be more recognizable to his teachers.

As he finished the drawing, he found that he was starting to sincerely hope that this would work.

“Good,” Bakugou said. “I’ll give this to Aizawa sensei tomorrow.”

“What are you going to say when you do?” Izuku asked.

“I’ll emphasize that he needs to memorize it, but I’ll refuse to say more than that.”

When Izuku saw the drawing sitting on Aizawa’s desk when he was leaving the classroom on their last day before break, he knew that it was too late to back out of this plan now.

*-*

“We have a very special couple coming in to meet all of you today,” Mr.Jones said right after breakfast on the second day of winter break. Izuku had come back to a lovely welcome of no dinner and fists meeting his skin the day before, reminding him of why he was so much happier in the UA dorms than he was there.

“Why are they special?” One of the kids asked. She was much younger than Izuku, but she was old enough to talk and understand what went on around her.

“One of them is a hero!” Mrs.Jones said, obviously excited at the prospect of meeting a hero. “He and his partner are hoping that one of you will be the lucky kid they adopt!”

The kids all cheered at that, every single one of them confident that they’d be the ones to be lucky enough to become the child of a hero. Well, two heroes, but they did not know that. Aizawa didn’t seem to tell them that he was an underground hero, but Izuku knew that he would have to tell the orphanage everything he did for a living if they did end up adopting somebody. For now, they only thought one hero was coming.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes, so hurry and get ready! We’ll make sure they meet every single one of you if you can all be ready by the time they get here!” Mrs.Jones said, prompting all of the kids to run off towards their rooms.

“And you,” Mr.Jones said, pointing at Izuku, who knew not to get up and follow the others, “come with me.”

Izuku sighed, knowing what was coming. He followed Mr.Jones down the hall, dreading being locked up once again.

“Hands behind your back,” Mr.Jones said when they got to the closet. It was in a play room that the kids used everyday. They used the mess of the room as a way to distract people from noticing the lock on the closet.

“What?” Izuku stepped back. “Why?”

A fist came down on him, punching him square in the face. Izuku could feel blood coming from the split he now had in his lip, but he didn’t have time to reach up and feel how bad it was before he was grabbed and forced to put his arms behind his back. They were quickly tied together, the rope digging into his skin right where his soulmark bands were. He was pushed to the ground of the closet, and before he could right himself, his legs were also bound together. He could barely move. 

He hadn’t been tied up like this since he was young and they didn’t trust him to stay quietly in the closet.

“Why?” Izuku asked, wincing when his voice came out in a sob. Tears also started to roll down his face. He was so embarrassed to be in such a compromising position. He was disappointed in himself for not even trying to use his quirk to get out of this, but he knew it would be no use. He’d just get punished for using it, as Mr.Jones’ quirk was excruciatingly painful when used on humans.

“Why do you think?!” Mr.Jones asked, angry at having to deal with him. “We’ve got a hero coming in! You’ve been in that hero school, so why would I trust you not to make noise in here, huh? I don’t need some hero snooping in here and wondering why we’re locking up a child!”

With that, the old gag that they used to tie around him was once again getting shoved in his mouth and being pulled tight against his skull. It tasted disgusting, and if he could puke he would. It had not been washed since the last use, and it hurt a lot more since it was meant for when his head was a lot smaller. He could feel a giant headache come on as he began to choke on his sobs and the need to puke. Mr.Jones sneered at him for struggling, giving him a rough kick in the side as a warning to not try anything.

The door slammed and locked, leaving Izuku in complete darkness. His entire body was in pain, and the position he was in was nowhere near comfortable. He would bound on the ground, laying on his stomach and pulled back awkwardly due to his bindings. The headache got worse and worse, and he knew he was bleeding in multiple spots. He could even taste the blood from his lip soak into the gag cloth, making the taste go from regular horrible to metallic horrible.

Why didn’t he just tell his soulmates that he was meant to be their son? He should have told them and refused to be rejected. Now he was stuck there, trapped and in more pain than he had ever been in the orphanage. 

He really hoped that Bakugou’s plan with the drawing worked.

The walls did not grow thicker since the last time he had been shoved in there, so he could hear when the rest of the kids started squealing after the front door opened. He couldn’t hear Mr. and Mrs.Jones greeting the guests, but the unmistakable loud voice of Present Mic rang out above the excited children, telling them how happy he was to meet all of them. Izuku felt a pang of jealousy run through him. He should be the one meeting them right now, but instead he was locked away and not able to go see his soulmates.

His self doubt really did it this time. He truly messed up his chance at happiness by keeping quiet for so long.

The tour of the building started. Mr.Jones always started on the second floor, showing whoever their guests were to the rooms up there and introducing them to most of the kids in their bedrooms. While he did that, Mrs.Jones always headed to the kitchen to prepare tea and snacks for them all to enjoy after the tour while they talked about the next steps. 

Izuku could hear Mr.Jones take the heroes upstairs, their footsteps loud on the staircase. Once they were upstairs, he could no longer hear them, so he sat in silence wondering what was going to happen.

The room with his closet was usually one of the last ones on the tour. It was strategically placed at the end so that everybody would be too tired from walking around the rest of the building to notice anything odd about the closet. Everything the staff did was in an attempt to keep people from seeing Izuku.

Izuku didn’t know how much time had passed, but it had to have been at least half an hour to an hour before they began to make their way back downstairs. There were a lot of kids to meet, so it made sense that it took a while to talk to them all. Izuku couldn’t help but think about his soulmates meeting all of those kids and seeing how much better they all were compared to him. Surely they’ve met one they wanted to adopt by now. 

Then, the time came. Footsteps entered the room his closet was in.

“And this is the main room where the kids play when they aren’t outside or in their rooms,” Mr.Jones said. “I’m sorry that it’s so messy right now, but as you can see, this is the only room we let be more on the messy side since it is meant as a place for the kids to have fun.”

“We can clean it up a little if you want,” a little boy’s voice said. Some of the kids were trying to suck up to the heroes, and Izuku wished he could see their faces to see if it was working.

“That’s alright,” Yamada said, “it’s your space, and we won’t be here for too long. Don’t worry about it!”

“Hizashi,” came Aizawa’s voice. Hearing them made the situation feel even more real to Izuku. His soulmates were in the room, but they had no idea he was there.

“Are you okay, Sho? You look paler than usual,” Yamada said. 

Izuku didn’t know what Aizawa said or gestured to Yamada, but his next question was directed towards Mr.Jones.

“Why is there a lock on that closet?” Aizawa asked. Izuku would have gasped if he could, but the loud gasp that came from Yamada made up for it. 

“Well, we keep some of the broken toys and cleaners we use to sanitize this room in there. As you can imagine, a lot of accidents happen in here while the kids are playing, so we have to have supplies to clean everything up. We don’t want any of the children to get into the cleaning products and drink something that could hurt or kill them, so we keep it locked up,” Mr.Jones explained.

Everything was over. Izuku was never getting out of there. That was a great excuse, one that was admirable and would make the heroes think better of the orphanage for not allowing kids to play with dangerous chemicals. They’d leave the issue alone, for sure.

If only he could move and make some noise. He’d never wanted to make noise and risk the wrath of Mr. and Mrs.Jones before, but now he wished more than anything to be able to yell or hit the door to get their attention.

“That’s weird,” Aizawa said. The room was silent from all of the kids that were likely watching the heroes and the staff. All of them were holding their breaths, hoping that the heroes would move on. 

“What’s weird?” Mr.Jones asked, his voice an odd, high pitch.

The distinct sound of a piece of paper being unfolded could be heard in the silence. Mr.Jones gasped at whatever it was he saw on the paper, and suddenly, Izuku felt himself become hopeful again. Could it be? Could it really be?

“That closet looks a lot like this drawing that one of my students handed me last week. Is there any reason for that?”

It could be! Aizawa recognized the closet!

He… could be saved?!

Anger and fear were obvious in Mr.Jones' voice as he tried to say that he didn’t know why the drawing looked so similar. He tried to say it was a coincidence, and Izuku knew that if this didn’t work, then he’d be punished harder than he ever had been before.

“Even the posters are the same!” Aizawa yelled. Izuku had heard his teacher angry before, but this was on a whole new level. He never wanted to be on the receiving end of that yelling. “How could one of my students have known what this closet looks like, yet not be here when we visit?!”

“Please, sir,” Mr.Jones said, scared, “I have no idea! I don’t even know where you teach! It could have been a kid that was adopted previously that drew it! Maybe they wanted you to know that they know the place? I can only give you guesses!”

“Open the door,” Yamada said.

“We can’t do that, sir.”

“I’ll open it myself, then!” Aizawa said, and then there were steps quickly making their way towards the closet.

“You can’t do that! We have a right to our privacy!” Mr.Jones said.

“It’s a good thing both of us are heroes, then, huh? We’re allowed to investigate suspicious activity like this, or did you forget who you were in the company of? Surely you knew that Yamada was a hero, at least,” Aizawa said as he was fiddling with the lock on the closet. It took Izuku a moment, but he soon realized that he was picking the lock!

He was going to be saved! He’d be taken away from this horrible place. Even if it wasn’t with his soulmates, there’d be enough evidence for him to be relocated anyway. Tears ran down his face faster now, this time because of both the pain and the hope he felt.

The door swung open before he knew it, and his tear filled eyes were struggling to look up at Aizawa from his position on the ground. He strained his neck to see him, but he didn’t notice the pain. He was too happy to see his rescuer.

Aizawa was next to him in an instant, gathering him in his arms and trying to free him from his bonds. Izuku could hear Yamada calling for the police in the background as he began to restrict the staff from leaving and send the kids upstairs and away from the scene. 

“It’s okay, problem child,” Aizawa said as he untied the gag, “I’ve got you.”

The gag fell away, revealing his bloodied lip. The headache lessened as the pressure from the gag went away, but Izuku could feel it throbbing where it had dug into his skull. There would be a painful burn wrapping around his head for a while.

“Ai-Aiz… ensei…” Izuku tried to speak, but he found that he was in too much pain to say much.

“Don’t speak, Midoriya,” Aizawa told him. He didn’t argue.

Aizawa was able to get his legs free first since the knot was easier to undo. He hissed at what he saw underneath. Looking down, Izuku saw that the rope had rubbed his skin raw from how tight it had been. His arms were sure to be the same way if the pain he felt in them now was any indication. 

When the rope around his wrists finally gave away, Izuku was shocked to see that while it had also rubbed his skin raw, that wasn’t the worst of his problems. The rope managed to tear the soulmark bands down his wrists as it fell off, having been so tight that it stuck to the material of the bands. Izuku tried to move his arms away from his teacher, but Aizawa was already grabbing his arm to fully push the band off of his wrist.

Erasure . The soulmark darkened as Aizawa looked at it, confirming what Izuku already knew: they were soulmates.

“‘m s’rry,” Izuku sobbed as he weakly tried to pull his arm out of Aizawa’s grasp. He needed to get away and hide again. He wanted to be rescued so badly before, but now he wanted to run away once more and avoid the rejection. “’m so s’rry.”

“Shhh,” Aizawa cooed. This was the softest Izuku had ever heard the man, and if he wasn’t so panicked, he’d have been baffled. “It’s okay, I promise. It’s all okay, yeah? Here, look.”

Izuku watched as Aizawa pulled up his sleeve. The soulmark band that he had been so curious about since that day in middle school sat against his skin, and as Izuku watched, the man began to take it off. The mark on his skin immediately began to darken as he stared at it.

Quirkless .

The word only made Izuku cry harder. Quirkless. He was still technically quirkless. How was he going to explain the quirk their quirkless soulmate had?

Izuku was trying to break free from Aizawa’s grip again, but the man only held him tighter, positioning them so that Izuku was crying into his shoulder. He kept whispering reassurances to him, telling him that everything was okay and that they could talk about it later when he was out of there.

The police entered the building then. They began cuffing all of the staff members there, having to forcibly drag out Mr.Jones while the others went without struggle. As soon as the police had the situation under control, Yamada came running over to the pair in the closet.

“There’s an ambulance outside,” Yamada said. “We’ve got to get him out there.”

“Zashi,” Aizawa’s voice choked as he called out to his husband. Izuku felt an arm leave him slightly as Aizawa held up his wrist for Yamada to see the darkened mark. Barely a second later, Izuku had a second pair of arms around him and a second soulmark darkening on his skin.

*-*

Izuku was brought outside to the ambulance when the police came over to ask them to move away from the crime scene. The medical team treated Izuku in the back of the ambulance. They were able to heal him to the point of only having slightly tender skin and a dull ache in his head.

The police came to him next to ask him a few questions. They asked him about everything that happened to him there, why he was in the closet, why there were varying ages of blood in the closet, and much more. They were tough for Izuku to answer since he never thought he’d ever have to be asked about it, but they were patient with him. 

Aizawa and Yamada were by his side the entire time, refusing to leave even when asked by medical or the police. They were allowed to stay due to being heroes, which Izuku was very thankful for. He didn’t feel like begging the police to let his soulmates be near him.

When they were left alone again, Izuku apologized to them once more.

“Why are you sorry?” Yamada asked.

“I know you were hoping your soulmate would be good enough to be your child,” Izuku told them. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t live up to that for you.”

The two frowned at him.

“What do you mean?” Aizawa asked.

“Yeah, how do you not live up to it? You’re already our favorite of our students.”

Aizawa smacked his shoulder.

“Hey!” Yamada whined. “You can’t deny it, can you?”

Aizawa sighed. “No, I suppose I can’t. Listen, problem child, I don’t know what you consider being good enough to be our child or soulmate, but I can assure you that you’re enough.”

“But I’ll be an adult in a few years. Don’t you want a baby or a younger kid you can watch grow up?” Izuku asked.

“We don’t care that you’re a teenager,” Yamada said. “We didn’t want to have to deal with a kid peeing the bed or puking uncontrollably in our car, anyway.”

“I have breakdowns a lot. You don’t want to have to deal with my trauma.”

“We both have our moments too,” Aizawa reassured him. “It comes with being a hero, and we want to be there for you when you go through tough times too. We’ll help you when the past affects you, just as we will support your future.”

“I-”

“Izuku,” Yamada cut him off before he could come up with another argument for why they shouldn’t want him. Izuku went silent at the use of his first name, letting them talk. “We’re happy that you’re our soulmate. We want to adopt you.”

“You do?” Izuku choked up.

“Yes,” Aizawa confirmed. “We could not be happier that it’s you.”

Izuku began to cry again, and this time it was out of pure happiness. Later on, he’d have to explain how he was quirkless to them. Later on, they’d be there for him while he profusely apologized to All Might for telling them without asking him first. Later on, they’d apologize for finding All Might laughing at him and telling him it was fine as funny. Later on, the adoption would go through fully and he would officially be their son. Later on, he would go back to school with a new family name and a group of friends who were happy for him.

Later on, everything would be perfect for once and he would have the family he always longed for in his dads.

For now, though? Now, he let said dads pull him into a hug and allowed himself to stop questioning if his soulmates would ever really love him for him. Now, he knew that they would.