Chapter Text
Curled up on his side in some random alleyway near his school, Midoriya Izuku retched as the spikes of Bakugou Katsuki's steel-toed boots once again slammed into his stomach. Izuku had tried to run straight home after grabbing his notebook from the koi pond, but apparently, telling him to kill himself wasn't enough to satisfy the ‘future hero.’ Izuku wanted to scoff at the thought of his bully becoming anything but a wanted criminal, but instead he bit down on the meat of his cheek to prevent himself from crying out as his eyes watered from the pain.
"You fucking crying, Deku?" Bakugou snarled down at him, hands flexing at his sides and smoking with the promise of even more pain. The crackling sounds reminded Izuku distantly of popcorn in a microwave. I haven’t had any in since the release of that Miruko documentary, he thought, and his inner voice has a distinctly hysterical edge to it, I'll have to pick some up from the store after this--
His musings were interrupted by Bakugou reeling back to kick him again, and this time it connected with enough force that Izuku nearly took a chunk out of his cheek trying to keep himself quiet. "Ignoring me, shitty nerd? Fucking typical," the bastard spat, as if he would’ve actually been any happier if Izuku had responded to his bullshit question. Nothing is ever enough for him, Izuku thought as his lips pulled into a snarl, practically mirroring the expression of his tormentor. Well, if he was already getting the shit kicked out of him, he might as well go all in, right?
"Yeah, I'm fucking crying," Izuku snapped, squinting up through his sweat-soaked fringe and savoring the way Bakugou's face twisted in shock. "I'm a crybaby. Must get it from my mom. You remember her, right? Did you flip the switch and start beating her ass, too?"
Bakugou reared back at the mention of Inko, and Izuku took his opportunity to get away without a second to spare, scrambling to his feet and running like hell down the street. He ignored whatever bullshit Bakugou was yelling and kept going despite the white-hot pain in his ribs, not looking back or so much as stumbling as he booked it to a trashy-looking underpass that no one sensible would dare step foot into. Once inside, Izuku leaned against the dirt-caked walls and caught his breath for a minute or so, only to hunch over and throw up his breakfast all over his shoes the moment he was no longer panting like a dog. (No lunch; he never ate lunch on school days, since that was basically a flashing red sign saying, Hey, come steal my food and maybe even dump it on me! It's happened enough times in the past that Izuku hasn't eaten at school in years. So, yeah. Just breakfast.)
After a solid minute of the most painful heaving he'd ever experienced, Izuku let his body slide down the grimy walls of the tunnel, only sparing a passing glance at the filth that was now streaking his school uniform. He was too fucking tired to care that he'd probably need to spend his allowance on replacing it, and besides, he'd already had to do that several times over when his clothes got too burnt to salvage with his handy sewing kit. Izuku slowly unfolded his legs from where they'd been bent against his chest, and he grimaced as his ribs protested against his sitting position but didn't dare to move again. What's a little pain in the grand scheme of things, anyways? It's not like he won't get beat right back up again tomorrow. Might as well suffer on his own time, too.
"Shit," he hissed as he was suddenly pulled from his depressing thoughts, having remembered the state of his notebook. He pulled himself up just enough to tug off his backpack, hastily unzipping it and digging through a bunch of textbooks, loose sheets of paper, and broken pencils in search of his notebook. He needed to assess the damage done by Bakugou's quirk and the pond it was subsequently thrown into so that he could hopefully come up with a plan to salvage what was left of what he'd written. Hopefully. In the end, it wasn't very hard to find, what with it being sopping fucking wet.
Izuku stared down at the pitiful thing and its apparently completely ruined contents before a sudden surge of anger overtook him. He used trembling hands to throw the ruined notebook away from himself, jerking his arms so hard that his torso felt like it was on fire. Izuku watched his most prized possession hit the opposite wall with a wet, satisfying thwack, before it slid miserably to the ground. He ignored the flaring pain in his everywhere and got to his feet, hobbling over to the already thoroughly wrecked notebook and grinding it into the dirt with his puke-covered shoe. Just like he did to me, he thought with dark amusement. Life really had a way of connecting the little things like that. For good measure, he spat a glob of pink-tinted saliva on it.
"Shit, fuck, that's a tight fit..." An unfamiliar voice alongside the downright awful sound of metal scraping against concrete startled Izuku into abandoning his current task of taking out his anger on a bunch of paper. He spun around to look for the source of the noises, wobbling on his feet, only to bluescreen as he was met with the sight of a slimy, green substance oozing its way out of a sewer drain.
"A kid?" The liquid asked, causing Izuku to realize that this was not a liquid, but, in fact, a human with a mutation quirk. A million different questions and analyses ran through his head, most of which sounded like something along the lines of what the fuck, and he almost missed the person's next words. "Eh, I'd prefer an adult, but you'll do just fine."
Izuku didn't even get the chance to process that extremely fucking concerning sentence, as the slime had already reached out for him and yanked him inside it within the span of a second.
Wow, could his day get any fucking worse?
Turns out it could, as thick tendrils of slime crawled up his legs, over his torso, along his face, and then began forcing his mouth open.
No, no, no, not this--
Izuku flailed and shook as slime slid past his lips, feeling so much unadulterated panic that he couldn't even hear his own thoughts anymore. Stop, stop please--
He could take neglect. He could take ridicule. He could even take pain! He'd taken it all for years upon years, and he'd somehow managed to get through it all and stay kicking. Despite all that, though, he decidedly could not take the visceral, indescribably horrible feeling of sludge pushing its way down his throat against his will and effectively suffocating him alive.
It feels like-- like when he--
Izuku tried to jerk his head as if to physically shake that thought from his head, but the tight hold of the slime didn't even allow that much. He did not need to think about that right now, especially if he wanted to focus on how the fuck he was going to get out of this situation alive. Through the haze of panic and oxygen deprivation, though, a frantic thought arose: Do I even want to get out of this alive?
Izuku’s hand faltered where it had previously been scratching at the slime. I thought I did, because I don't want to be in pain anymore, but if I just die right now, I'll never have to worry about pain again, he rationalized, vision blurring at the edges. Plus, I've been wanting to off myself for a while now, so this just makes the whole thing easier, doesn't it?
Izuku closed his eyes as he came to a decision. He couldn’t see anymore, anyways.
Sorry, mom.
And with that parting thought, Izuku let his body fall completely slack. He still felt the wretched tendrils pushing their way down his esophagus, but strangely, he felt calmer now. This was his choice. Everything was okay now. He felt as though he was in a daze as he waited for the lack of oxygen to hit him, and his last thought before he passed out was:
Fucking finally.