Work Text:
One: Isolation
He was diagnosed quirkless at age four.
It had been a surprise to everyone, including his mother, who could only stare at him with tears in her eyes. Izuku couldn’t understand why she apologized after the appointment, held him until their combined tears left a foot-long puddle on the shoulder of her dress. He didn’t understand why the doctor had looked at him the way he did, nose crinkling up with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
(He’d hurried out of the room, turned away without a word after handing his Momma those papers. The nurses looked at him with the same sort of pity you’d show a wounded animal. He wasn’t sure which one hurt more.)
Izuku didn’t know why being quirkless was such a bad thing. Sure, he didn’t have a quirk, but there were plenty of heroes with minor quirks, quirks that wouldn’t help them win a fight or help them with infiltration, quirks that were as close to not having quirks as you could get. They were rarer than the flashy limelight heroes, but he could still be one-he’d just have to work extra hard if he wanted to keep up. Besides, other than Kacchan, none of his friends had quirks that would be very helpful in hero work- long fingers and tiny wings could be useful, but not to the extent that he would be disadvantaged.
(And Kacchan- well he was never going to be better than Kacchan anyways, so it would be fine.)
His Papa had always told him that his brain was the most important weapon he could have. Momma scolded him for “corrupting their baby boy” whenever Papa brought that up, but it was always with a laugh in her voice and twinkling eyes.
His Papa would lift up his chin and tell him that being a hero was about heart, tap a finger on his chest as Izuku stared up at him with expectant eyes and a bright red flush to his cheeks, tiny hands gripping the man’s shirt.
“Quirks can only get you so far, kiddo. Don’t forget how smart you are when yours comes in, okay? This brain of yours-” he tapped Izuku on the nose, making him giggle, “is going to be the most important thing of all, promise me you won’t forget that.”
“Course Papa!” Izuku said then, beaming up at him with unbridled passion. “I’ll be the best hero ever, maybe even better than Kacchan!”
“I’m sure you will be.”
His Papa had left for America shortly before his diagnosis for a long-term work trip. They called every week, Izuku’s excited chatter about new heroes filling the house with the exuberant joy of childhood, his Papa’s laugh over the phone lighting him up more and more until they were both muttering away.
His Momma called Izuku’s Papa the night he was diagnosed. Their whispered arguing echoed through the wall of his room, crawling like ants over his brain. He fell asleep to his mother’s worry, hearing her voice scold Papa about how careful they would have to be now that they knew. His Papa sounded angry, strong and quiet, and tears soaked Izuku’s pillow as the phone call abruptly stopped.
The next morning, Momma told him that they would be unable to talk to his Papa for a while- he was in a critical stage during his trip and couldn’t risk sharing sensitive information. Izuku hadn’t let himself cry in front of her, just nodded with a quivering lip. When he got back to his room he buried his head in his pillow and sobbed- Papa didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, he knew. He didn’t want such a delicate child- and Momma had explained to him how careful he would have to be now, since he didn’t have a quirk they couldn’t risk him being reckless and getting hurt.
(Not that he had been anyway, he was careful, always careful, so he wouldn’t stress Momma out. It wasn’t his fault that sometimes his friends got a little rough with their quirks and their roughhousing.)
Surely his friends wouldn’t be too annoyed when he told them he couldn’t play as rough anymore. Even if Kacchan scoffed whenever they would hold back or yelled when they refused to do things because they were scared of getting hurt, he was still nice. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too mad over Izuku not having a quirk to match up with his- they’d hoped he’d get the ability to manipulate fire so that they could be an amazing hero duo. They’d have to make a different plan now, but they could still be a duo. Izuku was sure Kacchan would understand that!
But apparently, he didn’t.
“You’re quirkless? Pah, you’re a Deku then. You can’t be a hero without a quirk, dummy. Go away.”
Kacchan had kicked him when he tried to follow them anyway, his friends laughing and flinging dirt at him until he was coughing so hard he couldn’t get up, wiping tears from his face. It only got worse from there- the news of his quirklessness spread until everyone knew, no longer sparing him a glance unless it was to laugh at him.
Eventually his classmates stopped even using his name, following Kacchan’s example of calling him Deku. He expected the teachers to say something, especially when the insults turned to shoving and tripping, but they turned a blind eye. Some would even lecture him for being a troublemaker, watching as his classmates picked on him day after day and deciding to blame the antagonism on him.
(When the other kids started leaving spider lilies one of them even laughed and offered him a vase. Another framed the newspaper clippings detailing quirkless suicides and hung them up on the wall so that Izuku would never forget his place.)
He’d left school with tear tracks streaking his face far too many times, and still Momma didn’t notice. He told her he was clumsy when she asked about the scrapes and bruises. She fussed over him, gently cleaned his wounds, and sent him off to his room again and again and again, until every day he was coming home with injuries worse than the day before and she stopped asking what had happened.
By the time he turned six, he figured out how to fix himself up so he wouldn’t have to bother her anymore.
He left the house less and less as he got older. His Momma always talked about how mature he was when she saw her friends, patting his head soothingly as he stood, essentially unmoving. He stayed in his room constantly, always with the excuses of homework or reading or learning something new- she’d never deny him the opportunity to learn, and always looked so relieved when he told her he would rather stay in than go out and play.
(His analysis journals continued to grow and multiply, number two added after less than a year, number three added seven month later. His computer was perpetually open, and at six he was already getting cramps from sitting over it for too long, eyes straining as he watched and re-watched hero fights until he could recite every mistake, every wrong move, every time they could have ended the fight and they didn’t.)
He withdrew completely from everyone around him.
Every time his Momma went out, he’d make up an excuse not to leave, telling her how invested he was in whatever he was doing, how he couldn’t possibly leave now in the middle of writing up a new entry, in the middle of doing his meagre homework that he knew would just get trashed the next day. She praised him for being so studious, kept telling him how grown-up he was, how glad she was that he was being careful and focusing on things that were safe and out of the line of fire. She barely even pulled him out for meals, and eventually she stopped making him come out for those as well, barely noticing as he snagged food to take to his room, eating hunched up in his corner with an arm wrapped protectively around his plate.
(She still hadn’t gotten over the fact that he still wanted to be a hero, only fussing over how fragile her baby was. Izuku was used to that, to her cooing over his analysis while insisting that he would be better off working on the sidelines, that his analysis would be much better put to use on other things that were further away from the dangerous world of hero society.)
He stopped going to dinners at the Bakugo house, although his Momma still went over every month to chat with Mitsuki. Kacchan was always angrier after those dinners, yelling about how Izuku was looking down on him and how he was better and stronger than Izuku would ever be.
(Izuku knew he hated how Mitsuki would compliment him but scream at her own son, that Kacchan had an inferiority complex the size of the moon, that every time Kacchan’s mother whacked him on the back of the head he felt like a failure despite all of his posturing, and so he stayed quiet. He took the screaming, the popping of Kacchan’s quirk, the beatings without a word, just stared up at his childhood friend with wide teary eyes that used to make him soften but no longer did anything besides work him up even more.)
Afterwards he retreated back into his isolated bubble, closed the door of his room and locked it because a closed door meant safe, meant that nobody could come in and hurt him without effort. It meant that his mother couldn’t look in and screw up her face every time he watched a hero fight, that even if she did he wouldn’t have to see it anymore, could ignore the twisting in his gut that felt like swirling melted glass.
He closed himself away and sealed his lips (quiet, quiet, quiet, if you don’t talk they have one less thing to yell at you for), shut his brain down so he could drift through school in a haze (if you don’t feel anything it doesn’t matter), dulled his reactions to the jeers and the taunts and the injuries (it’s less fun for them if you don’t react, they’ll leave you alone faster that way).
Maybe, if he pretended everyone else didn’t exist, they would forget about him as well.
Two: Obsessing/OCD
Izuku had always been interested in heroes, had watched All Might’s debut video bordering on a hundred times. His classmates would be the first ones to admit that he was obsessive over the things he enjoyed, his mother needing only a little bit of encouragement to admit that he could get a bit wrapped up in his hero-worship at times. She’d woken up many times in the middle of the night to a light shining from under Izuku’s bedroom door, the tinny sounds of battle echoing out of his speakers. In the breaks she could hear a pencil scratching over paper, pages turning, and the frantic, unintelligible muttering that Izuku often got caught up in.
But it was different now. When he was little he’d show her his work, exited enough that his feet tip-tapped on the ground as she read through it, tracing her fingers lightly over the scribbled drawings of heroes. He always seemed so genuinely happy, his notes rambly and fitting for a little kid, mostly admiration and questions. He didn’t mind her coming in while he worked, always happy to chatter at her about whichever hero he was watching at that point, gasping for breath at the end of each of his rants as he blushed up at her with shining eyes.
If she interrupted his work time now he would break down sobbing, and she eventually stopped coming into his room unless the door was open- he cried enough, she didn’t want to be the one to cause it or to have to see it, the tears that dribbled down his face made her heart twist (but they were getting easier and easier to ignore). He was meticulous with his notes now, she’d seen the messy papers crumpled up in the trash, covered in pen marks and scribbled out sketches of heroes and villains. The insides of his notebooks were pristine now, detailed drawings without mistakes, lines and lines of neatly written analysis. He’d go through piles of paper to make one finalized notebook that he was satisfied with, writing and rewriting and organizing until his hands cramped up and he could barely hold chopsticks.
The notebooks he finished to his satisfaction were lined up on their own shelf, a bookend pushing them up against the wall. They had to be in order, perfectly straight, and sometimes Izuku would pull them out just to put them back again, over and over until he was satisfied with how they sat. He’d tap their spines as he passed, once per book, and if he missed one he’d have to go back and start the process again.
His room, too, remained pristinely organized. Not a piece could be out of place, not a picture crooked. It struck Inko as more of a shrine than a room, pieces only there to collect dust. If she tried to go in and clean he would know, breathing heavy within a moment of stepping back in and going into a frenzy as he redid everything, the process almost ritualistic, precise and silent. She hated it when he did tat, would try to snap him out of it in any way she could, but when even a firm tap to the back of the head didn’t disrupt him she gave up and left him be. She was just trying to be a good mother and help him, why didn’t he see that? He didn’t even play anymore, the hero action figures sitting on his shelves in their order (by hero ranking, of course) and he’d rearrange them every time it was updated. He never missed the ranking announcements, finding his way in front of his computer the instant it started. HE muttered the whole time, the incessant drone of it enough to drive Inko mad, so she’d turn up her music in the kitchen until it drowned him out completely.
Routines became part of his every day, even when the kids at school laughed at him. There was little he could do to maintain them in school, often hiding his building stress with routine taps and fidgeting. His schoolwork was always perfect, not that the teachers would acknowledge it, every stroke precise, the content exact and to the point. His desk was kept clean despite the other students’ efforts- marker rubbed from its surface, flowers cleared away every morning with not a single word, the area around it picked clean of trash.
His pencils all had their own position in his case, lined up evenly at each end. His things were kept as clean as he could manage- uniforms without a single stain or rip until the others ended up ruining them. His lunches were always the same, day after day, to the point that his classmates got tired of taking the same thing over and over. Now they’d just slap them to the ground and leave Izuku to pick up his things- yet another new routine for him to carry out.
He took the same route to and from school every day, even if there was a villain fight or bullies blocking his path. It was as if he didn’t care- he took the abuse and injuries with teary eyes but no turn of expression. Even his face had become routine, his wide smiles and bright eyes fading only when they were replaced by absent tears.
His anxious hands busied themselves with small actions as not to anger his classmates, slivers of skin and nail pulled away from his fingers bit by bit until they were raw and bloody. He bit at his lips to prevent his muttering, cutting deep furrows into the insides of his cheeks in efforts to silence himself so he wouldn’t be a distraction. His creepy thoughts were kept to himself, even if he did tug at his hair until it tore from his scalp in chunks, pulling strands out over and over and over until he was scolded for shedding all over the floor and forced to clean it up.
Rhythmic scratching at his arms and neck was soothing to Izuku. He couldn’t understand why his Momma cried when she saw the red marks, why her hands were so gentle as she soothed cream over them and wound bandages to cover them. He never left them out in the open at home, keeping them covered even though he’d rub at the bandages in a futile effort to keep going with his mindless, soothing exercise.
(It was fine- the faint sting was enough, its calm throbbing repetitive and more trustworthy than any person he knew.)
Three: Undereating
It was hard for him to eat when his classmates ruined his food every day. He got used to it, after a while, the gnawing hunger that crawled its way up from his belly and into his throat, the acrid feeling of watery bile that spilled out after the stronger hits to his stomach. After all, if he didn’t eat there was nothing to throw up. It was easier this way, the teachers didn’t get as mad about the water as they did when he still threw up food, the disgusted looks and orders to “Clean up after yourself, you have to be useful for something, even if it’s just garbage disposal!” echoing through his mind.
He couldn’t go to the cafeteria either, that would be worse than hiding after his lunch had been compromised. The eyes on him, none of them kind, the laughs and jeers of the other students when he inevitably got beaten up… It wasn’t worth the possible promise of food. Not that they’d let him eat it anyway, would probably dump the food down his front before he could even get a bite to his mouth.
The subtle nausea from his hunger followed him home most days and lies would slip from his tongue as he ate barely any of his meal before retreating back into the safety of his bedroom. He stopped eating completely in the mornings- less to throw up, less material to churn in his stomach as he squirmed in anticipation for the day to come. It used to feel like he was bubbling inside, but the feeling became less and less noticeable as he reduced how much he ate in the morning. The anxiety pulsing in him kept his mouth firmly shut no matter how much his Momma tried to convince him to eat.
(He couldn’t blame her for her worry, but he had to deal with this himself. He’d never be a hero if he went away crying at every misfortune.)
The gnawing feeling became ever-present, until it finally started to fade. He still felt empty, and sometimes his stomach ached enough to drive him to tears, but the sharp jabs of pain no longer lingered. On the days he had to eat to appease his mother, he found himself hunched over the toilet soon after, unable to keep the food down despite his best efforts.
His hands developed slight tremors, and sometimes his vision would tilt until he was forced to brace himself against a wall lest he fall. He swerved more often when he walked, head too floaty to follow a straight line. It had the benefit of confusing his bullies at least a little, missing their stuck-out feet more often than not, but that only made them hit him harder later.
He layered his clothes more and more, even in the summers, chills running along his spine. Izuku didn’t remember the last time he felt truly warm, almost desperate enough to seek out Kacchan’s explosions. Their searing heat would surely warm him up, pull him from the fuzzy, sluggish state the cold kept him in. He found himself provoking the other more, finding himself aching for his company. Kacchan always ran warmer than others, he needed to be warm to produce his nitroglycerin sweat after all, and the pain from his hands was outshone by how warm Izuku felt when Kacchan was touching him.
Maybe the warmth was why Izuku couldn’t stay mad at the other boy. He knew what Kacchan did was wrong, that they were all wrong for hurting him, but that was getting harder and harder to remember. Every scolding word, lost lunch, and quirk-supplemented blow got him closer to accepting that yes, he was every part the Deku they believed he was.
Four: Overworking
Meeting All Might had been a dream come true!
…Well, not exactly, but close enough. He’d considered finally taking that final step over the edge of the building he’d been left on (and wasn’t that something to think about, that the number one hero had abandoned him after a villain attack, after crushing his dreams, shouldn’t All Might know better than that?) when Kacchan’s explosions had sounded in the distance. Izuku had never been able to resist seeing the other boy in action, figuring that at least this way he’d be able to see Kacchan one last time before he finally took the other’s advice.
It had taken him less than a second to move when he took in the scene, launching his bag at the slime man’s eyes (tangible, damageable, he had to hit them or Kacchan would die) and pulled at the other until his face surfaced from the slime.
He’d been useless in the end, needing someone else to save him and Kacchan. He’d taken his scolding with a faint smile, walking away from the scene without so much as a glance to the paramedics who were rightfully fussing over the other boy.
And then All Might followed him and offered his quirk.
Who was Izuku to say no to an offer like that (quirkless, useless Deku, who would never get anywhere without power, would never end up as anything better than a splatter on the pavement), an offer that could give him an in to everything he had ever wanted?
When All Might told him that they would be cleaning the beach, he didn’t even flinch. Despite the mess, litter forming mountains at least three times his height, all of it rusted and no doubt dangerous, all he did was roll up his sleeves and look expectantly at his new mentor for directions. If his hands collected more scrapes than he collected scrap that was for him to know. The ache that settled in his muscles was welcomed with open arms, radiating pain no stranger to the small boy.
Their first day was full of struggling, and despite All Might’s encouragements he knew that he could never be a hero like this. He could never save people if he couldn’t even move more than a trash can’s worth of scraps. He needed to be stronger, better. And he would be.
(If there was one thing Izuku was, it was determined. He hadn’t given up yet, and he wasn’t about to start now.)
It was surprising, even to him, how quickly he bulked up. Not as much as All Might, of course, not even as much as many of the hero students he’d seen on TV during the Sports Festival. He was too lean for that, small and skinny and better at running away than throwing a punch. But still he got stronger, until the piles they took away from the beach required first a dumpster, then a truck to load them into. He kept going until he could drag fridges up and down the beach, until his muscles no longer ached from a long day at work. Until his daily runs became less of a struggle and more of a pastime, until he was passing out every chance he got because his exhaustion was bone-deep but he couldn’t risk stopping, not for a moment.
He had to keep up, after all, prove that he was worthy to receive All Might’s quirk. Prove that he, little worthless Deku, could be a hero. He couldn’t drop anything, not for a second- not his training with All Might, not his runs, not his schoolwork, and not his façade of normalcy. It was so ingrained to him now, the smiles he flashed in his mentor’s direction almost felt real.
Even if he couldn’t keep up with the meal plan his mentor had made for him (he still couldn’t put down enough food, he was getting skinnier and skinnier even as his muscle multiplied), even if he showed up to their sessions with bruises and scrapes and starburst-burns, he couldn’t show All Might that he was weak. After all, who would want a weak kid as their successor, especially someone with so many options. All Might was probably swimming in desirable candidates, he could just as easily choose someone else.
So when Izuku fell during their training he kept trying to push himself up until All Might turned around. Until All Might scolded him for overworking, and Izuku slumped to the ground in defeat, because of course All Might would see how useless he was now.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pulled Izuku up to his feet, brushed the dirt off of him, and slipped an arm around him so he wouldn’t fall. Instead, he gave Izuku a break for the next few days and reduced their workload for a bit. Instead, he talked to Izuku about fighting styles and let him analyze away, smiling even as Izuku tripped over his words in an effort not to creep out his hero.
He never stopped being encouraging, never stopped telling Izuku that he could be a hero. Izuku didn’t know if he was making up for the rooftop or not, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. His mentor was proud of him, and Izuku never wanted that feeling to go away.
So he hunkered down and worked harder, worked smarter, started increasing how much he could eat little by little until he had enough that his arms didn’t shake too bad after a day at the beach. Enough that when he wore his uniform people could see the visible muscles, enough that his bullies left him alone for the most part, eyes flicking over his newfound bulk as feet scurried away.
(Kacchan was the exception. Always the exception.)
And when All Might gave him his hair, his quirk, Izuku smiled. He swallowed it down despite wanting to vomit (after all his work, there was no way that he would chicken out over a hair) and ran to the train, lungs aching from excitement, not exertion. Never exertion.
He would make it into UA. He would.
(And he did. Even if the terror overwhelmed him, even if his hands grew bloody from grabbing at scrap to tear apart the robots, even if the thundering footsteps of the zero pointer sounded far too much like explosions, even when his bones broke with a flash of green light, even as he fell and fell and stopped-)
The elation he got from receiving his letter (only barely behind Kacchan, but that was to be expected, Kacchan was the best) was worth every last painful second. It was worth the blood and the tears and the ache in his bones, worth the terrifying feeling of falling that he had been certain would be his end and had accepted, worth the tightening of his stomach as his mother cried over how her baby would only get hurt in the hero course.
All of it was worth it to finally be a hero.
Five: Risk Taking
He didn’t understand why Aizawa-sensei (who was also pro hero Eraserhead, and he had only barely managed to control his excitement over the man when he had found out) was so fixated on him breaking his bones.
Sure, as a hero it would be a drawback, a liability, but he wasn’t at that point yet. Shouldn’t Aizawa-sensei be more focused on helping Izuku train his quirk? Surely he knew their cover story, that it had only come in at the entrance exams, surely he was supposed to be helping. Izuku didn’t know why he had expected differently (maybe because this was UA, they were supposed to be better). It had been a foolish hope- teachers never helped. They never cared unless you were powerful, but Izuku was powerful now so he couldn’t understand why the man still looked at him with that unidentifiable emotion in his eyes.
The look in the man’s eyes as he had broken his finger (without flinching, the pain barely bothered him after the first time, just another ache that he had to get used to) scared him in a different way. They were too observant, too keen, fixated on his purpling finger as he was sent off to finish the tests. Izuku couldn’t shake the feeling that they lingered long past when they should have drifted away, and tried to morph his expression into one of pain without slowing his movements too much. His need to place well was more urgent than his need to stay unnoticed. He couldn’t get expelled now, not after all he had done to get here. Not now.
So when his name showed on the bottom of the screen he flinched, curled in on himself, readied himself for the taunts, the blows, the inevitable dismissal.
It never came.
Aizawa-sensei announced his ruse without fanfare, and Izuku narrowed his eyes as a tall girl with a ponytail announced that she had known it was a lie all along. It hadn’t been, Izuku knew that. He’d seen the glint in the man’s eyes, the challenge he issued them didn’t ring as a lie in the slightest. And he could tell when people were lying by now. After too many nights in closets, on roofs, he’d learned how to tell when someone was lying.
Aizawa-sensei had seen something he had approved of, and all Izuku had to do was make sure he kept seeing it.
Izuku dove into the hero course with the sort of single-minded intensity he showed to everything. Sure, he still hadn’t gotten past breaking his bones whenever he used One for All, couldn’t control the surge of power in his veins every time he activated the quirk. What he could do was plan, was use his own power to his advantage. He didn’t need All for One to flip Kacchan on his head (he always led with a right hook and Izuku knew that would get the other killed someday, as much as his brain tried to dispute it), didn’t need it to spar with the others, didn’t need it to get the highest grades behind Kacchan and Momo and Iida. He just needed to keep working. He studied until his eyes drooped and his head dropped onto his desk with a clunk, until the words blurred and skittered around the page like little bugs. He kept running, kept lifting, kept cleaning up the beach any time junk was left behind. He couldn’t stop now, couldn’t let himself become complacent with where he was.
When the purple portal opened up in the middle of the USJ, he didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think to consider the danger to himself, focused instead on getting his classmates away. He broke his finger again to get Tsu and Mineta to safety (and Mineta was an issue he would be dealing with later, he couldn’t be allowed to stay, not when Tsu flinched away from him and he was more focused on groping her than saving her), told them to run and covered their retreat without thinking about himself for an instant.
When the beast -the Nomu- smashed Aizawa-sensei’s head into the ground, he saw red.
The punch was flying without a thought, his whole being focused on the need to protect, to get this monster (because Shigaraki was nothing but, if he could order someone to smash Aizawa-sensei’s head into the concrete until blood pooled beneath him, could watch and laugh as Izuku’s teacher’s arms were broken like twigs, could reach with those awful hands towards children who only wanted to learn and to help) away from Aizawa-sensei.
His arm didn’t break, meeting the Nomu straight on, but then he was flying away, slamming into the ground with a thud, Shigaraki’s raspy voice echoing in his ears and scratching its way deeper into his brain.
Izuku got back up, hands falling to his wrists and scratching back and forth, back and forth, blood dripping from his nails as he took a staggering step back towards the crusty bitch that had decided to hurt his teacher.
He didn’t stop when All Might showed up, even when bullets rained down from the barrel of Snipe’s gun and Shigaraki cried out in pain as his blood soaked the ground. He thrashed until he was too tired to move, near feral with the need to keep going until he was sure that everyone was here, that every single member of their class was healthy and accounted for.
When Aizawa-sensei returned to class with bandages covering his arms the fury rose up again, simmering anger just under the surface. It pooled in his stomach, filled the empty space left from his breakfast vacating his body that morning. All he could think about was the sickening cracks of his teacher’s bones, how he hadn’t been able to do anything to help.
When the sports festival was announced he grinned, and anyone looking his way would have seen the blood from his cracked lips shining bright against his white teeth. If they had looked they wouldn’t have been surprised with his ferocity, as he pushed his way through the first and second rounds without a single use of his quirk, wouldn’t have been startled by the way he pushed through as his fingers broke again and again, as he stared down Todoroki with a look that could only be described as predatory.
His peaceful smile as he passed out after their match was only seen by Todoroki himself, the two recognizing each other in the way that only broken children could. Todoroki latched onto Izuku like a leech, to the surprise of many, rarely out of the other’s sight.
(They wouldn’t understand that the two were kindred spirits, that like recognized like, that the broken and bruised had a way of finding each other when they couldn’t trust anybody else.)
Izuku knew he still wasn’t there. He hadn’t won, hadn’t stood on the top of the podium looking down at the rest of the competitors with the knowledge that he had beaten them, that he was strong. He wasn’t strong yet, wasn’t enough.
So, when All Might told Izuku of his mentor, voice shaking as much as his hands, he’d smiled and accepted the offer. He’d put up with the man’s eccentric training, had learned to spread his power over his body until he sparked off green light. Sometimes his legs and his arms would purple with bruising, but that was okay. He wasn’t breaking anymore, and bruises only left a little bit of an ache.
(His arm was worse now, the repeated injuries leaving behind scars, arm clenching with cramps and sparks of invisible pain whenever the weather changed.)
He worked until he could take down Gran Torino over and over, until he could predict where the man would be at any second, until he gave more bruises than he got. Until they were on their way to Hosu and a Nomu crashed through their train, until he was dashing through the alleyways because of course Iida couldn’t fathom letting the man who maimed his brother get away.
(No matter that Iida was a child, a naïve one, and Stain was a hardened serial killer. No matter that Iida had no idea how cruel the world could really be. No matter that his friends had tried to stop the light from going out of his eyes as he forged onward without once thinking that his friends would feel the same loss he had if he didn’t bother to think.)
Izuku launched himself into the fight without hesitation, barely stopping to send off a text. He stared the man down with cold eyes, colder than he ever let himself be, and raised his fists. His eyes lingered on the man’s many blades, the sharp edges and practiced stance, the sharp tongue that ran over cracked lips, the nonexistent nose. Stain’s eyes glowed as Izuku set his feet, laughing at the little naïve hero.
Izuku’s eyes darted to Iida and the injured hero against the wall.
He couldn’t help but think that two lives for one was a good deal, he just needed to stall Stain for a little bit longer.
When he woke up in a hospital room, Iida and Todoroki not far away, his body relaxed for the first time in a long time, and he finally let himself breathe.
Six: Aizawa Shota
Shota wasn’t sure what to think of Midoriya.
Midoriya came into the class with almost all rescue points, he’d chosen the kid himself after seeing the way he didn’t hesitate to step in whenever he thought someone was going to get hurt. He’d thought that the incident with his quirk was a fluke of some sort, the kid’s eyes were too sharp for him to have that weak of a handle on it.
And yet, the first day of class, he’d broken himself again. Just a finger this time, although Shota didn’t doubt that Midoriya would have broken his whole arm if he hadn’t stopped him. Midoriya had looked determined enough, even if he flinched away every time Bakugo let off an explosion- it was slight, barely a twitch, but it was there. He’d only noticed because of how carefully he was watching, Midoriya was good at hiding his emotions. Truly, he was too good at hiding them for someone with a quirk that powerful. Normally he had to beat down his students’ egos with a stick (not always metaphorically, either), but Midoriya was different. He acted like a kid with a weaker quirk, or a villainous one. Small, alert, self-deprecating, almost overly focused on every task that was laid in front of him.
He barely flinched as he broke his finger, let it hang at his side as he walked to the next test. He didn’t even wince- not until halfway through his situps and a look glanced across his face for a split second before he started grimacing. Shota would have believed that it was just from the pain hitting- if Midoriya’s movements hadn’t stayed steady, not even faltering when faced with the pain that he was apparently just now feeling.
It didn’t add up, and Shota found himself highly disliking that result.
He kept a sharp eye on Midoriya, pretending to sleep when the class held their elections and the green haired boy was voted into being president, carefully didn’t react when he handed it over not three hours later, promoting Yaoyorozu to president and Iida to vice.
The boy never stopped smiling. Even when he reviewed the tapes from the battle trials (and those had been completely illogical, the kids didn’t even know how to fight yet!), Midoriya hadn’t lost that smile. Even as his arm broke and rubble rained down around him, even in the face of one of Bakugo’s major explosions. It was nothing short of unnerving, how empty that smile seemed to be after Shota watched the kid completely destroy his classmates in sparring practice without breaking character once.
The USJ was an entirely different matter. He hadn’t hesitated to jump into the fray- he was a hero after all, despite Midoriya’s yells that he wasn’t good at taking on groups and relied on stealth (he knew that, knew he wouldn’t make it out of this unscathed, but what else was he supposed to do?).
His student was an entirely different matter.
He’d seen Midoriya, Asui, and Mineta creeping through the bushes by the water. He wasn’t sure if Shigaraki had or not, carefully keeping them in the corner of his eye while still focusing on the villain in front of him. Asui and Mineta had darted away, but Midoriya hadn’t been with them.
His focus split for only a second, and a searing pain lit up his arm. He grunted, barely managing not to scream, before his world turned upside down as the bird-thing (Nomu, Shigaraki had called it) slammed him into the ground. He heard something snap although he couldn’t tell what- not with the corresponding pains in every inch of his body.
He couldn’t see much of the rest of the fight, but he did hear Midoriya yelling, maybe throwing a punch-
All Shota knew when he woke up in the hospital, bandaged to the point that he might as well have been in a sarcophagus, was that his student had done something incredibly reckless without thinking twice, and that he really needed to have a talk with his class about how to identify when you were outclassed and should run. After all, sometimes a victory was just living to keep fighting the next day.
Midoriya didn’t get better. In fact, he only seemed to get worse- breaking his hands to the point of surgery in the sports festival (although he had to admit the first two rounds had been impressive, the one-on-one battles had been downright terrifying, the look of unbridled, predatory glee on Midoriya’s face so alien on the sunny boy that it made Shota do a double take), taking down Stain… He’d seen the boys in the hospital, known from the look on Midoriya’s face that he didn’t regret a second of it, that he would do it again without hesitation.
That night, for the first time in his teaching career, he sat down to read a student’s file.
And Kami, if it didn’t explain everything.
The fear, the determination, the alertness- the way Midoriya always seemed to guard himself, never letting anyone close, his surprise each time he was given a genuine compliment, his flinching whenever someone moved too fast. His habits, how he would often turn away food at lunch and scratch at his arms when he didn’t think anyone was watching. The little repetitive routines, how his smile would fade for the briefest of seconds if anyone disturbed his things.
And Shota hadn’t seen it, because he had been too focused on how powerful the kid’s quirk was. How powerful he should be and how uncoordinated he was.
He asked Midoriya to stay after the next day, waited for everyone to clear the classroom. Todoroki lingered at the doorway until Shota shot him a glare, Midoriya mouthing something at him, waving him away with a beaming smile.
(And that interaction was concerning too, because Shota knew how damaged kids interacted and the way these two clung to each other was not healthy, which didn’t imply good things for Todoroki’s home life- he’d known Endeavor wasn’t the best father but this was more concerning than the other things he’d seen so far.)
“Midoriya,” Shota started the second the door closed, “I know you didn’t have a quirk until the entrance exam.”
Midoriya looked up at him with wide eyes, smile slipping ever-so-slightly.
“Sensei?”
“I apologize for the way that I have treated you. I was under the impression that you had simply neglected to master your quirk, and for that I am deeply sorry. However, I do wish that you had come to ask for my help, I could have helped prevent some of your more serious injuries. Why is it that you didn’t talk to me? It is normal for students to need extra quirk counseling as their power grows- Kaminari, for example, is currently in a session with Hound Dog.”
“It wasn’t a big deal-”
“On the contrary. If breaking your arms isn’t a ‘big deal,’ then what is? I cannot have my students injuring themselves over things that they could be trained to fix.”
“Sorry, Sensei. I didn’t want to be a problem.” Midoriya ducked his head to look at the ground, tears welling up in his eyes.
“You aren’t a bother, Midoriya. I am your teacher; it is my job to make sure that you are healthy and have an understanding of your quirk. Why do you think that you would pose an issue to me?”
“I-” he bit his lip, eyes flickering between his teacher and the door.
“I promise I will listen, and that I will understand. In fact, I might understand better than most. Quirkless kids aren’t treated well, are they? I’m sure you weren’t either. If nothing else, would you like to talk about that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me, teachers never do-”
“Then you have had terrible teachers. Believe me, if I need anything verified, Nedzu would be ecstatic to hack your old schools’ cameras.”
Midoriya laughed, a watery, choked sound that barely made it past his lips. He pressed them together after the sound was let out, scrutinizing Shota with a careful eye. Shota didn’t blink, content to wait until Midoriya was ready. However long that would take.
“I- I don’t think I can tell you all of it yet.”
“That’s perfectly alright. What can you tell me?”
His acceptance broke the dam- Midoriya started crying, babbling, his story spilling from his lips in an uncontrolled stream. By the end, Midoriya had somehow ended up pressed to Shota’s chest in a hug, relaxing into the warmth as he realized that he wasn’t getting hurt, that it was for comfort, not constriction. He could wiggle out if he wanted to, the grip tight enough to feel safe but not so tight that it hurt.
“I got spider lilies too. And death threats, and suicide taunts. I have more scars from bullies than I do from villains,” Shota admitted. It stung, burned as it passed his lips, but the admission was worth the way that Midoriya relaxed further into him, turned his face to bury it into Shota’s shoulder.
He had two schools to burn down, teachers to get jailed, a mother to investigate, and the kid desperately needed better coping mechanisms- his were only getting him hurt. For now, though, he was content to let the kid cry, towing him to the teachers lounge when he fell asleep and tucking him under a blanket on the couch. He glared at the other teachers as they opened their mouths, undoubtedly to ask questions, and pressed his finger to his lips as threateningly as he could manage. They backed away to their own spots in the room, a good decision for their continued health, but kept glancing over at the two of them.
Hizashi even came over to join them, easily recognizing the look in his husband’s eye as the one he got when he found an injured stray that he wanted to bring home. He put an arm around Shota that the other man leaned into with a soft sigh, closing his eyes as his fingers twitched on the edge of his scarf.
Shota promised himself that the kid would never have to struggle alone (like he had, no support to lean on, nobody to patch him up when he fell, nobody to comfort him when the panic and the shakes wouldn’t stop).
He wouldn’t let that happen again.
(Even if he had to adopt the kid himself- he was sure Hizashi wouldn’t mind.)