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Midoriya Izuku is extremely self-aware.
Has been since his mother left and didn't come back when he was eight years old.
Needed to be.
If he wasn't, his burns and other injuries would have gotten infected. He would've forgotten to eat, go grocery shopping, shower, do his laundry, etc..
He's aware that he has an anxiety disorder, depression (possibly, he doesn't like to self diagnose), and ptsd from his former best friend's explosions.
He's aware that it's probably not healthy to work several jobs, go to school, and be a vigilante (but not technically, to be a vigilante he'd need a quirk) at the same time.
He's aware that he should probably dedicate some of his money to pay for therapy, but, eh, he hasn't died yet, so.
But yes. He's very self-aware.
And because of this, he's able to control himself much easier.
He's able to control his urges to beat the shit out of Bakugou when he leaves yet another scar on his body. Can stop himself from treating Bakugou like the villains he faces damn near every night.
He's able to control his urges to linger on rooftops or in medicine isles for too long.
He's able to grit his teeth and walk past (but not ignore, never ignore ) when he sees anything happening on the street when he's not in his vigilante costume.
He can resist the urge to reach out a hand to trust that underground hero, Eraserhead, whenever the man offers to patch him up after a rough patrol.
So yes. He's self-aware and has massive amounts of self-control.
And it is taking every ounce of everything he is to not deck this fucking detective in front of him.
It was an accident, on his part, at least.
He had taken down a wanted child predator pretty easily.
Too easily.
So he should have seen it coming when Exho, an underground hero that isn't too fond of him, had jumped out from around the corner and kicked him in the face.
Normally, a hit like that wouldn't have knocked him out, but Izuku had already been patrolling for about four hours. He was exhausted and had forgotten to eat his pre-patrol snack.
So, instead of being almost unfazed, he had dropped right then.
And now, he has to sit here in a heated staring contest with the lead detective on his case.
The detective blinked and sighed heavily.
“Kid, I just want your name.” The man ran a hand down his face.
Izuku just kept his glare in place.
“Look, I want to be here just as much as you do. The faster you answer, the faster we both get out of here.”
“Ehh.” Izuku made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Correction, you get out of here. I just go into a shitty holding cell.”
The detective’s eye twitched and he sighed again.
“Kid, just tell me your name.” Izuku has to admit, the slightly desperate tone makes him want to giggle a bit.
“Okay fine,” Izuku smirks under the mask he has on. Exho had tried to yank it off after he had woken up in this interrogation room, but they had left after Izuku had bitten them through the fabric. “Lifeline, nice to meet you.”
The detective groans loudly and slams his head onto the table. “Your actual name. Like. The one that you would have to use on government documents or schoolwork.”
Izuku tilted his head. “I don't do schoolwork, so I wouldn’t know.”
The detective sits up abruptly with a frantic grin on his face. “ HA! You just gave me information!!”
“Detective, we both know you're not stupid..." Izuku deadpans, one eyebrow raised. "Do you really think that me admitting I have bad grades will lead you to my civilian counterpart?"
The man thinks for a moment before his face crumples, actual tears of frustration building in his eyes.
He stands and leaves the room without another word.
As soon as the man is gone, Izuku allows himself to giggle a bit.
The vigilante leans forward and puts a hand into his hood. His fingers rummaging through his hair for a minute before finally colliding with a clump of bobby pins he always puts in before patrols, just in case.
Izuku smirks and leans back up, preparing himself to pick the locks on the flimsy handcuffs on his wrists, and promptly freezes at the unimpressed stare of Eraserhead.
When the hell did he enter the room??
“Can I ask what you’re doing, problem child?”
Izuku’s mouth flounders as his fingers fling the bobby pin across the room. “I- Wh- Y-Your mom?”
Eraserhead’s mouth twitches before forcefully settling, like the man is trying not to laugh.
“Right. Doing ‘my mom’ with a bobby pin.” The man makes quotation marks around what Izuku said and the vigilante feels his face heat up.
Instead of replying, Izuku snaps a glare into place and settles it on the hero.
The man sighs and rolls his eyes before sitting. He crosses his arms and leans back, studying the little bit of Izuku’s face he could see.
The man doesn’t speak up, just sits there. Watching him.
Izuku feels himself squirm. He’s never liked being studied, as if he was unusual.
“So, where’d the detective go? Did I finally make him cry?”
Eraserhead scoffed, his lip twitching up.
“I think if he was in here for another minute, yeah.” Eraserhead rolled his eyes.
Izuku smirks again. Mission accomplished .
“Now,” Eraserhead starts. The serious tone caught Izuku’s attention and made him stiffen in his seat. “I get that you don’t want us to know your name, but in order for you to get out of here, it’s essential.”
Izuku grit his teeth and glared. “That’s the same line that the detective told me. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. It’ll only get me into a shitty holding cell.”
Eraserhead clenched his jaw and his eyes flicked to a camera in the corner of the room.
“Actually.” The man looked back at Izuku. “They don’t have anything to hold you for, so, no. We just need your name, because there is no reason your parents should be allowing or not noticing you out after midnight almost every night.”
Izuku wanted to do several things in response.
One is laugh, because parents ?? He hasn’t had those in so long he doesn’t remember what it’s even like for someone to take care of everything.
Two is kick Eraserhead. It’s not any of the hero's business what his home life is like.
Three is glare, purely because that’s his response to everything nowadays.
So of course his body does none of the above and decides to fucking snort .
Both the hero and the vigilante freeze right after the sound escaped.
“Did you just-”
“What do you mean.” Izuku cuts the hero off. “That you guys don’t have anything to hold me for.”
Eraserhead lets the boy change the subject, thankfully.
“Tsukauchi can’t get you for vigilantism, for one. We have no evidence of you using a quirk at all.” Izuku thinks he hears a murmured ‘which is fuckin impressive if you think about it’ , but he doesn’t think he was supposed to hear that. “The criminals you turn in all strike you first, so it’s technically self-defense. The most he can pin against you is being out after city curfew, but the most he can do with that is speak to your parents about letting you be out this late.”
Izuku is silent as he thinks about that.
He already knew all of this, of course, but he had been under the impression that the detective (Tsukauchi??) was wanting to, like, actually arrest him.
Exho certainly made it seem like that.
“What makes you think I’d believe that, Eraserhead?” Izuku intones, tilting his head to the right, making brief eye contact with the hero before continuing. “How do I know that as soon as I tell you guys my name you won’t lock me up?”
Eraserhead pauses, thinking.
“Aizawa Shouta.”
Izuku blinks.
“Now if we lock you up, when you get out you can spread that around if you’d want to.”
A knot of anxiety coiled in Izuku’s stomach.
He’s pretty sure that Eraserhead didn’t mean it like this, but it feels like he’s pressuring Izuku into giving him his name. Like, ‘Oh, I gave you my name, why the hell won’t you give me yours??’.
Izuku grit his teeth and glared at the hero.
“Why the hell would you just trust me with that?” Eraserhead raised a brow. “If you let me go like you’re saying you will, I can go around and spread your name, whether you lock me up or not.”
Eraserhead blinks, unconcerned, then shrugs.
“Will you?”
Izuku glares harder. “ No , but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. You can’t just go around giving your name to random vigilantes.”
“I’m not. I’ve never given my name to a vigilante.” Izuku opens his mouth to argue when Eraser rolls his eyes. “Kid, I already told you, you’re not a vigilante.”
“I already knew that, long before this conversation, Eraserhead, I’m not fucking stupid.” Izuku snaps. “But it’s the same thing. I am almost constantly in close contact with villains. I might as well be a vigilante.”
Eraserhead tilted his head.
“If you already knew you couldn't be nailed for vigilantism, why won’t you give us your name?”
Izuku’s jaw clicks shut.
The bastard just tricked him into giving up information.
Normally, that tiny piece of info wouldn’t matter, but Eraser is smart . You have to be to be an underground hero.
So with Eraser knowing that, it’s only a matter of time before he puts two and two together-
“You don’t want us to talk with your parents.” Eraser stated, eyebrows slightly raised.
Fuck.
“I never said that.” Izuku growled through gritted teeth.
“But it is implied. If you’re not worried about going to jail, you’re worried about getting your identity figured out. And since we’ve already confirmed that it’s not because you can go to jail, it must be for a different reason. And the only other reason it could be is your living situation.”
Izuku glared as Eraserhead’s eyebrows furrowed in faux concern.
“Is your home life good, kid?”
“Fuck off, that’s none of your business.” Now that he thinks about it, the hostility may as well have been a solid ‘yes’.
The way the man’s eyebrows furrowed further confirmed that thought.
“I can’t do that, kid, it’s my job as a hero to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Then you can go ahead and go home and stick it in your wifes’ cu-”
“Husband.”
“Husband, then. Same thing.”
The two stare at each other (Eraser stares, Izuku glares, but is there really a difference?) for a moment.
Izuku grits his teeth and huffs, breaking the eye contact.
“If I tell you my name you’re not allowed to look into me.” The boy proposes.
“I already told you, I have to.” Eraser says.
“Why??” Izuku nearly shouts. “Why the fuck does it even matter?? Like you said, I’m not breaking any laws, so just leave me the fuck alone!”
Eraserhead blinks.
“ You may not be breaking laws, but with your parents allowing you out this late, they’re, at the very least, being neglectful.”
Can’t be neglectful if they’re not there to be neglectful , Izuku’s brain whispers.
“Well then just let them be neglectful, or whatever.” Izuku grounds out instead of voicing those thoughts. “Nobody’s given two shits before, so there’s no reason for anyone to now.”
A flash of anger passes through Eraser’s features, making Izuku swallow.
“Kid,” Eraser starts, tone gentle, contradicting the emotion in his eyes. “Why in the hell has nobody bothered to do anything?”
Izuku is so tempted to spill his quirklessness, just to get this over-imposing bastard off of his back.
“Because I’m a little shit.” Izuku deadpans.
A flash of amusement crosses Eraser’s features before going back to rage, though it was less than it had been a moment ago.
“That’s not an excuse, kid.”
Izuku rolls his eyes.
“Kay, we both know I’m not spilling my name. So you can leave, go back to your husband and leave me to pick these locks and get out of here, sound good? I think it does, too. Bye!”
Eraser levels him with an unimpressed stare.
“No.”
Izuku groans and melts onto the table rather dramatically.
Eraser sighs, long and drawn out.
“Fine. I’ll make a deal.”
Izuku tilts his head in order to look at the hero.
“Instead of your name, give me your age.” Izuku blinks. “We both know that I can’t figure out much from just your age.”
Izuku sits up and looks at the man skeptically.
“...How would you even know if I’m not lying?” Izuku asks, narrowing his eyes.
Eraser tilts his head backwards and to the side. “Tsukauchi has a lie detector quirk. He’s standing behind that mirror right now.” There’s a thump on the glass, as if the detective is offended by Eraser saying that.
Izuku contemplates.
“There’s no other catch?”
Izuku can’t blame himself for being a bit paranoid. He’s had too many bad experiences in his life already.
Eraser purses his lips and thinks for a moment.
“There’s two.”
Izuku is already opening his mouth to decline when Eraser holds up a finger.
“Hold on, kid. Hear me out first.” Izuku huffs and would cross his hands over his chest if they were free to do so. “First, you have to let me patch you up from now on.”
Izuku blinks and can feel his eyebrows furrow.
Why?
He must have said it outloud because the hero sighs.
“I’d feel better personally if you’d let me. And that’s not me saying you’re not capable of taking care of yourself,” Eraser amends when Izuku’s about to say something. “But some of the injuries you’ve gotten before are concerning, kid. Like with the acid-spitting mutant you faced a few weeks ago? That acid leaves some pretty gnarly burns.”
Izuku almost makes a comment about being used to being burned, but refrains.
“The second,” Eraser continues. “Is that you have to accept any food I offer you.”
Izuku pauses, giving the man another calculating look.
“It isn’t a trick, like I’m sure you’re thinking. If it makes you feel better I can eat a bit of whatever I give you before you take it. But I’ve seen how skinny you are, and considering the high possibility that you’re in a neglectful situation, you need all you can get.”
Izuku thinks.
The man is right. There’s nothing he can gather from his age. And the conditions don’t affect him negatively, hell, Eraser’s right when he said that Izuku needs more food.
Izuku opens his mouth, then closes it again. It happens a few times before he’s able to get a sound out.
“The cuffs. They- They have to come off before I say anything.”
It’s a risk. The demand could be what makes the man run out of patience.
But Eraser just nods and stands up, leaves the room for a total of thirty seconds, and comes back with a small silver key in his hand.
He comes to stand in front of Izuku, on the other side of the table between them, and motions for Izuku to raise his wrists.
The boy stands as well and does so, and... the hero doesn’t hesitate to free him.
Izuku’s tempted to just turn around and leave without giving the information, he even takes a step backwards to follow through with it.
But Eraserhead just stands there. Doesn’t make a move to stop what the man probably knows Izuku wants to do.
Izuku pauses.
“What if I just leave and don’t give it to you?”
Eraserhead shrugs. “It wouldn’t be preferable, but if that’s what you’re going to do, I won’t try to stop you.”
Izuku feels his eyebrows twitch and he swallows. He moves to the door, not turning his back on the man, and opens it.
“T-Thirteen.” Then he turns and sprints out of the building.