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When All Might had crushed his dreams on that rooftop months ago, there had been so many different paths he could have taken. Of course that hadn’t stopped him from going through with what seemed inevitable, and taking Yuuei’s entrance exam. Failing the exam had just reiterated to him exactly what All Might had already said. He couldn’t be a hero. He was a quirkless nobody. All he was good at was sitting on the sidelines, watching the heroes fight, scribbling creepy notes in his stalker books, just like Kacchan always said. Sure, he’d been sent an offer for Yuuei’s general studies program, and of course he’d enrolled, but everyone knew general studies was what you did when you couldn’t do anything.
This fact of life was just proven time and again every time Izuku was able to finish his homework before mom had even finished dinner. Every time he tuned out during a math lesson, only to be able to look up at the board and answer the problem when Ectoplasm thought he could be tripped up for not paying attention. Every time he finished a test before his classmates. General studies was the bottom of the barrel, boring and complacent. It’s where you went when you couldn’t go anywhere else.
With his free time, Izuku should have been able to pursue whatever hobbies he wanted. Eighteen months ago, he’d have been delighted to have all the time in the world to chase heroes, taking notes on them. Now the activity was a bitter reminder of what he could never be. Years, nearly a decade, spent so focused on learning what made a hero tick, so that when HE was a hero, he’d be able to be the best hero he could be. Too bad he could never be a hero. No quirkless, stupid, useless nobody could be.
His phone was ringing, and Izuku was pulled from his somber thoughts, the same black swirl of depression that he’d fought since he was four, only now he’d been giving into it. He pulled his phone from his uniform pocket, frowning. His mom never called like this. He wasn’t late home yet, so she shouldn’t be worried. He answer the phone quickly, not wanting to let it go to his inbox.
“Mom! Is everything okay? Is something wrong?”
“No, sweetie, nothing is wrong. I just forgot to go grocery shopping yesterday. Work had kept me late, you remember, and since I usually shop on Wednesday I didn’t even think about it today. My boss just told me he needs me late again, and there’s no real food for you at home. You’re still out right? I didn’t catch you too late?”
“Yeah, I’m still out. Just walking home.”
“Oh perfect! I just put some more money on your card, sweetheart. Why don’t you stop at the store on your way home and pick up a few things. I’ll send you a small list, nothing too bad. I’ll try to get out this Saturday and do the real shopping. But I want you to have something for dinner.”
“Oh, okay! I’ll do that. I’m actually pretty close to the shopping center now, actually.”
“Oh good! Alright, I need to get back to work. Don’t be afraid to skip some things, if it’s more than you can carry home!”
“Okay, mom! I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetie!”
And the line went dead. The call made sense now. He’d noticed this morning that they were low on rice and miso. As expected, his phone chimed, and in his inbox was a small list. Some produce, meat, miso, rice, and then the ambiguous ‘and something for your dinner, maybe a treat too?? ( ๑ ╹◡╹ ๑ ) ‘. Well that was easy enough. Izuku was fairly easy to please with food. Maybe he’d find a bento or something, and some coffee jelly? No, he shouldn’t have the caffeine with dinner. It didn’t matter, he’d see what there was at the store.
Finding the things on his moms list was easy. He wasn’t totally sure that he was getting the ‘best’ things, but they all looked nice and fresh and well-packaged, and more than that was beyond his skill to decipher. All that was left was what to get for himself. Dessert was easy. He’d already ruled out coffee jelly, but there were many different options. There were little Mount Blanc desserts, or small cakes, or maybe he’d get purin! Okay maybe dessert wasn’t easy. Finally he settled on a mouthwatering tanghuru, the bright red strawberries looking even more perfect with their thin but clear candy coating. Now for dinner. He wasn’t picky, really, and if he’d been able to cook he’d have gotten ingredients for katsudon, but he couldn’t cook. He was on his way to where the bento were, when he passed the little ‘American’ end cap, the brilliant red, white, and blue matching their flag and All Might’s costumes, which really drove home exactly where the hero got his inspiration from. It was a bitter reminder of what he could never be. What caught his eye, though, was a nice row of soup cans. They were new. Normally the display had pop tarts, a couple cereals, condiments like ranch and barbecue sauce, some candies, just… mostly junk food. These soups looked like real meals though, and it could be fun to try new foods from America!
“Campbell’s Chunky, Beef and Vegetable… Loaded Baked Potato… Clam Chowder…”
He rolled the English words over his tongue’ English was the one class that did give him some challenge. Present Mic said his accent was ‘terrible’, and he’d had to search his textbook index for the word. Beef and vegetable sounded like a safe and tasty choice. He added the can to his basket and moved to check out.
Ten minutes later and he was back on his walk home, only about thirty minutes later than he normally was. Maybe he’d be lucky, and the delay meant he wouldn’t run into Kacchan as he neared his neighborhood. The path was a familiar one, taking a back alley here and there to shorten what would otherwise be a much longer commute.
Izuku knew his neighborhood wasn’t the best. He knew that crime happened everywhere, but that a poor neighborhood was more dangerous. He also knew that the lower the sun dipped, the darker it got, and that that’s when the criminals crawled out from whatever rocks they slept under during the day. Even if Izuku knew all of this, he’d never really had to deal with the crime near his home himself. Maybe he’d just been lucky.
“No, no, please, I need that. It’s my rent I NEED that.”
“I gotta make rent too, and I care more about me than you.”
“Then get a job, please I can’t get evicted!”
“I don’t care.”
There was a sharp cry, almost a pained whine, and Izuku could hear a ‘thud’. He felt like he was frozen in place. The voices had to be coming from the alley ways to his right. Sure he couldn’t see anything now, but the alleyway extended behind the buildings, so really thats where the villain had probably dragged their victim. Without thinking, Izuku slid against the alley wall, toward the voices, groceries tightly gripped in his hands. Whoever it was had to be terrified, but they were still fighting back. At least he thought they were. It wasn’t loud and it wasn’t a proper fight, but there were the sounds of a scuffle, muffled thuds interspersed with the beggings and pleadings of the victim.
Izuku carefully slid his face to the corner, moving at a crawl as he looked at the scene. The victim was a young femininely dressed person, clinging to a backpack like their life depended on it, still begging to be let go. They had some kind of bull-like mutation quirk, their head looked almost exactly like a cow’s, with large horns protruding above their forehead. Horns that they kept jerking forward, trying to dissuade their attacker as they pushed against them with their legs. The criminal, on the other hand, was deceptively small. They were only about 110 centimeters tall, and their limbs were gangly and twig-like. This made it easy for them to contort and dodge the movements of their victim. It looked like they were at a stalemate.
Carefully, Izuku set the groceries down and pulled out the heaviest and densest thing he had on him, the can of soup. At a crawling pace, watching his feet so he wouldn’t hit some kind of debris, he snuck up behind the duo. He was nearly on top of them when the victim noticed him, eyes widening at what must have seemed like his sudden appearance. That was, unfortunately, all the distraction the villain needed to finally yank the backpack away, giving a small shout of triumph before turning around to run away. Izuku panicked, the thought of the perpetrator getting away scot-free filling him with anxiety and self-hatred. Of course he would be too useless to help. Of course he was also now directly in front of a robber. Useless enough to get himself mugged, too.
No. No he wasn’t. He raised the soup can before he even thought about it, slamming it into the side of the criminal’s head. He remembered reading something about blunt force trauma to the temple area? It didn’t matter really. All that mattered was that it worked. The bad guy dropped like a sack of bricks.
The victim shakily stepped away from the wall, bending to pick their backpack back up, eyes wide.
“Oh my god. What- Where did you come from? What did you HIT him with?”
Izuku glanced down at the can still clenched tightly in his right hand.
“It’s.. it’s uh, soup… for my family…”