Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All Might retires on a warm, sunny day in July.

It is not a quiet affair. News stations worldwide are quick to capitalize on this phenomenon, highlighting how out-of-the-blue it felt. Many channels present discussions of what’s and why’s and where do we go from here’s?

The world can’t believe it. He’s retiring from Pro-Hero work, the livestream on every TV screen in Japan explains. His new way of helping will be taking up the form of sizable donations and charities, all behind the scenes. A Hero’s work is never truly over, he laughs boisterously, declaring that the legacy of All Might isn’t over yet.

It is understandable. All Might was not only the pillar that held up the current Hero vs. Villain society, but he also constituted a great percentage of Hero victories, all by himself. Other Pro-Heroes will have to work more than twice as hard to maintain this fragile peace that All Might held up, all on his own.

Naturally, his retirement is all that people talk about for weeks.

One would think that retirement would keep his face from being broadcast daily or his merch from being sold at every shop at every corner, but the actual effect is the opposite. People are expressing their support harder than ever. On social media, hashtags celebrating All Might’s work trend daily, during all hours of the day. On the streets, murals are painted, statues are lifted, and shrines are decorated by grateful civilians.

All Might is regarded as the greatest Hero of all time, and he is commemorated all around the globe.

—

Yagi Toshinori dies on a warm, sunny day in July.

It is an entirely quiet affair. His funeral is attended by few, and he is not mourned by others outside this circle, as he was not a particularly extroverted person. All the seats were filled, but there was no spot saved for a successor no one had ever even heard about.

The obituary in the journal talks about him as a compassionate philanthropist who gave his all to the benefit of society and never asked for anything in return. It is clear that whoever wrote it knew him personally and cared for him deeply. 

For the friends that knew him as his secret identity, however, his death is a complete mystery. How can the man with the strength that allows him to turn entire city blocks into dust (with ease, too) be caught by surprise like this? 

Naomasa drops his head on his hands, resting against the cold of his desk. His eyes are still red and blotchy, and he’s on his third coffee cup in the last hour. He was one of the first to arrive at the scene, but he is still leaping between the stages of denial and anger. 

So far, they had nothing on the killer.

What kind of Quirk allows their user to overpower the Number 1 Pro Hero in all of Japan, much less someone like All Might?

The scene had been, well, it had been so ordinary it couldn’t be anything other than extraordinary. There were no clues. They simply have nothing to continue the investigation on. And that is what convinces Naomasa that there is something wrong, even though his superior officer has threatened to bench him temporarily if he keeps going. You’re too close to the case, he’d said with a bittersweet smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Take some time off.

As if he could. If anything, Naomasa owed Toshinori to…

There had been no fingerprints. Nothing to suggest there had been anyone else. The worst part was that it had happened on a beach – Takoba Municipal Beach Park, to be precise – so any evidence that Toshinory had company during his last moments had all been blown by the summer breeze before it could’ve been collected. Nevermind that they’d arrived so many hours after it happened, too.

The state of the beach itself was contradictory as well. Several areas were completely clean of debris despite eyewitness accounts claiming that a few months ago, they’d been overrun by trash. That, combined with the sight of Toshinori’s truck parked by the entrance, led to the only conclusion that he’d been involved with the removal somehow, and it had been going on for several weeks.

Except what had been the point, exactly?

If he’d just buffed up and used his strength, he could have the entire place cleaned in a few days, and that was only if he took it easy, which he definitely wouldn’t have, knowing him. So why was the beach still not clear of trash? Why even clean it up in the first place? What did Toshinori know that they all don’t?

Naomasa sighed, and blatantly ignored the few teardrops rolling down his cheeks.

Damn it.

—

Here is how it happens:

A – concerned – father checks up on his son after not hearing much about him from his people for a few months now, and discovers him training on a beach with his biggest enemy, All Might. He appears to be hauling trash around under the blazing heat of July’s sun. Knowing how powerful One for All has gotten, there’s only one possible reason that spurred this on.

All logic flies out the window.

His son – his own flesh and blood. Trained, tainted , by his arch-nemesis. All for One is more than furious. This absolutely cannot be a mere coincidence, he is sure of it. All Might has gone and done this on purpose, knowing what Izuku is, and All for One promises due retribution.

You can imagine the rest.

—

Izuku, still in shock and terribly dehydrated, only notices the 20 missed calls from his Mom after what appears to be a few hours of wandering around. He feels like he only blinked, yet he finds himself a few blocks away from his house when he’d been miles away before. He recognizes the houses surrounding him, and knows that Kacchan’s is only one street over.

         Mom

         Izuku, call me soon!

         Izuku?

         Your father is moving back to Japan!

He rereads the text a dozen times, but it doesn’t spark anything in him.

Despite what is undoubtedly good news for his family, he can’t bring himself to feel anything at all. Nonetheless, there’s what seems like a candle gradually igniting to life within his chest, next to his heart. It’s so warm, and he focuses on the feeling that he’s so sure he’s never experienced before.

Was this… One for All?

Had All Might passed down the torch to him?

—

Here is how it happens:

All Might feels All for One’s presence long before he sees him. It’s an instinct deeply ingrained into him after the battle he nearly lost. He doesn’t panic. Instead, he’s filled with a deep sorrow – he had thought he’d have more time with Young Midoriya.

He looks at Young Midoriya, keeping down his panic for the sake of his successor (so young , younger than even he had been when he’d lost Nana. They aren’t even anywhere close to Yuuei’s entrance exams), and plucks a strand of his hair. “Eat this,” he says quietly. “Next… it’s your turn.”

Izuku, stunned into silence by his mentor’s uncharacteristic solemnity and blinded by his hero faith, does as he’s told without complaints, even though swallowing it without water is a struggle and it leaves the bitter taste of gel behind. He’s scared, he thinks. “All Might…?”

All Might picks him up and, with a show of his characteristic inhuman speed, drops him off somewhere safe.

—

Following the news of All Might’s retirement, Izuku spends a week not moving from bed.

—

Here is how it happens:

Izuku can’t hear them from where he’s crouched down even when he holds his breath and blocks out every other sound, but he can see it. A tall, faceless man in a suit appeared where Izuku had been standing just a moment ago.

They’re talking, though Izuku can see how his mentor holds himself stiffly.

A chill runs down his spine. The faceless man has no eyes, but when his head turns towards Izuku’s general direction, he freezes in place. His entire body is cold from pure, raw fear.

Whatever he says next shocks All Might so much that he doesn’t reach fast enough to dodge the hit.

—

Midoriya Inko tries her best. She understands it must be hard for Izuku, to have All Might retire so suddenly… She’d hoped, at least, that the news of his dad coming home after so many years would cheer him up a little, but she hadn’t been surprised when it didn’t. Heroes are her son’s entire world, and All Might had always been the pillar that upheld it.

Between her graveyard shifts at the hospital and Izuku’s diurnal routine, the only times they see each other nowadays are in the early mornings when he gets up to train. However, he hasn’t done that since the announcement. He’s been eating so little too – she thinks he’s only getting the bare minimum, a drastic change from Before The Retirement, when he’d been wolfing down everything she made for him like he’d been starving. Thankfully, he’s on school break, since she’s certain he wouldn’t be attending school either if that wasn’t the case. The worry is killing her.

And then Hisashi called and told her about his plans to send her overseas on a months-long cruise.

To pay you back for everything you’ve done for our family, Inko, he’d told her, voice like silk, over the phone. She could already imagine the gentle smile on his face.

But what about Izuku? She’d asked, still anxious. She hadn’t been on board with this. Not so soon after everything that’s been happening, and not when Izuku still refused to leave his room.

Don’t worry, Inko, I’ll take care of him. You just rest and have fun.

And those words had slid in like magic, sweeping away all her doubts.

With a sigh and one last forlorn look at Izuku’s closed door, she turns to her own and starts packing her things. She doesn’t understand why exactly she’s so quick to agree to leave Izuku behind, but whenever she thinks about it too hard, she starts getting a headache. She shakes her head, but the pain on her temples remains.

Oh, well. Hisashi has always been reliable, hasn’t he? She can trust him without reservations. 

—

Here’s how it happens:

Izuku only stops screaming when he gets lightheaded and he nearly loses his voice, and he runs towards his mentor without sparing a glance to the soon-to-be murderer who has vanished without a trace. 

“All Might,” he stops next to him, dropping to his knees. He’s rubbing his eyes because it’s hard to see with all his tears, but they just keep on coming. He brings up his hands to apply pressure on the wound, to stop the bleeding, to do anything – but they’re quacking so violently he fears he would just hurt him instead.

“Young Midoriya,” All Might starts, putting down his gigantic hand on top of both of Izuku’s own and squeezing gently. He’s smiling, but it’s a lot softer than his usual grandiose smile. If anything, it’s…  fond. “No, Izuku . I trust you, my boy. You have such a heroic heart.”

“All Might,” he wails between large gulps of air. He’s too out of it to notice his voice breaking, or the fact that his throat is so raw it must be bleeding. “ All Might .”

“You’re a kind young man. I know I couldn’t have picked a better successor,” he says, choking on his blood but eyes still bright and hopeful for Izuku’s sake. “My only regret is not getting to see you become a Hero.”

—

There’s a knock on the door. Izuku hears his mom’s excited pitter-patter and then the sound of the front door opening.

He doesn’t get up from his bed. He’s laying down, face towards the ceiling. He’d torn down (carefully, without ripping) every single All Might poster in his walls, leaving them dull and bare. All Hero merch had been packed tightly in boxes he’d stored under his bed.

He couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore.

Izuku hears his father’s voice coming from down the hall and his mom’s giggling. He’s not aware of how long it has been since… everything, but it must’ve been a few weeks if his dad has arrived already. It feels like it’s been longer. It still feels like it was yesterday.

He moves through the motions, giving a blank smile and a rigid, sort of formal hug to his dad. If either of his parents notice, they don’t show or call him out on it. He nods along every now and then to let them know that he’s listening but, truthfully, it’s all just blank noise to him.

His father brought snacks from America. He dangles them in front of Izuku’s face like he’s showing off a new toy to a dog. It kind of makes him want to bite off a finger. He briefly entertains the thought, but ends up dismissing it.

As it is, he just watches wordlessly as his dad rips it open and drops a few in Izuku’s palms, laughing when a few miss the mark entirely and fall to the floor instead. Izuku’s lips don’t even twitch. From the corner of his eye, he watches his mom helping herself to a few.

She seems really excited to have him back, Izuku notes. It has been a while since he’d seen her like this. She talks about the cruise his father is sending her on, how she really wishes she could bring Izuku with her but how she understood that she can’t. How happy she is that he’ll finally be getting some bonding time with his father. But it’s more like she’s speaking at him instead of to him .

There’s something weird going on, Izuku decides. He doesn’t think he cares enough to do anything, though.

Turning his sight back to the gummies or candies or whatever, he pops all of them in his mouth at once. He expects a too-sugary flavor, but they just taste like ash and dissolve in his mouth in seconds.

His mom is suddenly engulfing him in a bear hug. Past her shoulder, he can see his dad carrying suitcases, and he hears the honking of a taxi in the driveway. She doesn’t seem sad to leave him, Izuku notes. The notion almost stirs the ugliest of feelings inside of him, but Izuku blinks and it fades. He waves goodbye.

He finds himself tucked neatly into bed. His mom hasn’t done that in years. She’s gone, too, so it must’ve been his dad who took time out of his too–busy day to pull the covers. Huh. How come he couldn’t take time out of his day to call for the past five years or so ? His dad left his mom entirely alone and without any support, and he decides to come back just like that? After all the grief he’d given her, he thinks some little vacation is going to fix it?

Izuku finds himself energized in the middle of the night with pure, unbridled rage. His fists are clenched tightly in his bedsheets as he tries to find ways to redirect this uncharacteristic anger, since it won’t do him any favors to drive his dad away when mom still seems enamored with him. Finally, he stills and then relaxes as he makes a decision – it’s too late to do anything about All Might’s death, but...

He can, he will find the man who killed All Might. And he’ll have his revenge.

No matter what.

As his resolve builds around him, his veins start pulsing red with several generations worth of vengeance. One for All makes a home weaved around his heart and nestled in his ribcage.

—

Naomasa, already worn to the bone from constant interrogations with local residents and no progress in the case to show for it, knocks at one last apartment and prays for a breakthrough. Maybe he’ll ask Sir Nighteye to use his Quirk on him so he can save a few hours of work. He almost grins tentatively at the thought, then he remembers the situation he’s here for and it goes away entirely on its own.

An old lady’s croaky voice answers from deep within the flat. “Come in!”

He sighs and pushes the door open, already taking out his badge. “Ma’am, my name is Detective Tsukauchi. I work for the Musutafu Police Department. I’d like to ask you some questions, please.”

“I’ve never broken the law,” she says from where she’s sitting on her old couch, hands pausing from where she appears to be knitting. His Quirk rings the statement as false . The needle suddenly feels a lot more threatening than it should. 

Naomasa takes a second to compose himself, coughing quietly. “That’s… not what I’m here for.”

She sighs in relief despite still giving him the stink-eye. The knitting eventually resumes. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

There’s a short silence.

“Yes, well,” he says professionally, pulling out a picture of Toshinori to show it to her. His hands don’t tremble nearly as much and he counts it as a success. “I’d like to ask if you’ve seen this man around the beach recently.”

She plucks the photo from his tight grip and gives it a glance over. Her eyes light up with recognition and Naomasa nearly cheers. “Yes, him! He comes to the beach nearly everyday, I see him from my window,” she tells him, then makes a face. “Well, I used to.” True.

Naomasa nods. “Before he stopped showing up, did you notice any weird behaviors? Was there anyone else with him?”

The old lady pauses. “Any odd behaviors, no.” True . “But he did meet some kid.”

This is news to him. Naomasa is about to leap out from joy. “Do you remember what he looked like? Are there any characteristics specific to him? A Quirk, maybe?”

“He greeted me once on my way home. He was green,” she says with finality and does not elaborate further. True.

His brain halts to a stop. “Huh?”

“Very polite, too.” Also true.

“Green,” he repeats flatly. “Do you remember anything else.”

“He looked really plain, if it helps.” True.

It doesn’t, Naomasa thinks but doesn’t say aloud. “No specific characteristics? Did he give you a name?”

“He didn’t,” she says as she hands back the picture. True.

“Was it his hair that was green? His face? Or was it his clothes?”

“He was green.” True.

“Yes, but where ?”

“Hmph. I don’t appreciate your tone, young man,” she scolds lightly.

“Right, my bad,” he says, dragging his hands down his face. So much for a breakthrough. “Can you tell me what exactly made him green, please?”

The old lady seems to gather her thoughts before answering. “I don’t recall.” True.

Neither of them speak for a short while.

“Well,” Naomasa gets up, joints cracking, and swiftly delivers a card with his contact information. “Please let me know if you happen to remember anything else. Thank you for your cooperation.”

—

Later, Naomasa receives a call from Nighteye. “No luck on my end,” is the first thing he hears.

“I thought I’d gotten a lead,” he admits, setting down a new coffee cup on top of a stack of papers. “But all she told me was that she’s seen a plain green kid around.”

“Plain green kid?”

“Plain green kid.”

“... Green as in, green skin? Or just green clothes?”

“Just green.”

“I’m guessing it’s not enough for a police sketch.”

“No, Nighteye.”

“Right. Just to make sure. We don’t have an age range, Quirk, or general description?”

“No, Nighteye.”

“... My apologies.”

—

Izuku gets up early the following morning. Perhaps too early. Well, he didn’t actually manage to sleep at all but right now, the last thing he feels is tired.

He picks the closest hoodie to him without realizing it’s All Might merch until he’s already wearing it. An immense pressure fills his chest, making it hard to breathe, but he pushes on. He’s not willing to let go of his mentor yet, so this hoodie – he’s not taking it off. It doesn’t matter if it’s something he can do right now, wearing his mentor’s colors. He’ll do it regardless. He owes it to him.

He finishes the look with a surgical mask and makes a mental note to buy reusable ones, since all they have at home is a box of single-use brands that his mom must’ve brought home from work.

Careful to not make too much noise, he puts on his shoes and leaves his bedroom. These past few months (and they’d been so few ) of waking up at ungodly hours to train at the beach have really drilled into him which floorboards are creaky and exactly where to step in order to avoid them.

When he passes the kitchen, though, the smell he catches makes him stop in alarm. He turns towards the stove.

Father and son lock eyes.

His dad breaks out a huge smile. He looks exactly as Izuku (barely, he thinks bitterly) remembers him: curly white hair, red eyes and deep laugh lines. He’s wearing an apron that says ‘World’s Best Chef’ and he’s supporting a mixing bowl in the crook of his elbow. “Izuku! Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

He only stares.

“I’m making pancakes for breakfast,” he continues, appearing unbothered by the lack of reply. “Do you want chocolate chips for yours?”

Izuku turns and walks away.

“Oh, are you going somewhere? No matter! I’ll have them done by the time you return,” he hears from behind him. “Is there something specific you want for lunch so I can buy groceries later? Maybe you could come with me, too!”

Izuku walks away faster.

“Well, then. Stay safe, son!”

He slams the door shut behind him, unaware of his dad wiping an imaginary tear from his face.

(“He’s already sneaking out of home without a word… They truly do grow up so fast,” he says to himself, then finally smells the smoke. In his panic, about thirty of his Quirks rise mistakenly towards the common goal of putting it out through whatever means necessary.)

(The kitchen is only mildly destroyed by the end of it.)

Izuku’s first order of business is to find somewhere to train himself.

Since the beach is otherwise… occupied, and constantly swarmed with police, he’ll have to find a new place. Especially somewhere with minimal Hero supervision and the least amount of foot traffic possible, which leaves him with fewer options than he’d like. Walking towards the train station, he makes up his mind and heads towards the gloomier streets of Musutafu.

He watches through the window restlessly as indistinct shapes of buildings and people rush past him. His thoughts are too fuzzy to make heads or tails of them.

A few short stops later, Izuku finds himself in the seedier districts of the city. He’s pretty sure this area doesn’t directly intercept with any limelight Heroes’ patrols, and he doubts he’ll have to watch out for underground ones. He specifically chose this time of day – when the sun is about to rise – because it’s too early for the former type of Heroes yet too late for the latter.

This is also an excellent spot to gather intel. Where else can he find out more information on that faceless man than in the places where fellow murderers hang out?

Lost in his thoughts and unknowingly mumbling aloud, he only barely notices the scream in the near distance, a few blocks away from where he’s standing. Only barely, but he does notice it.

His body moves before he has a chance to think.

—

Shouta is at his wits’ end. Following All Might’s abrupt retirement, crime had been spiking and his patrol hours were lengthening. He could criticize the man all he wanted, but he could never deny the change his mere presence established. Now, villains were getting bolder without the threat of a godlike Hero who could plummet them into the ground in seconds with a smile.

He’s finishing up the last legs of his patrol, but every time he turns there’s a drunken fight breaking out, or someone attempting a mugging, or just unruly teenagers using their Quirks publicly without licenses. Every time, he stops and leaps towards the conflict, even though it means he’ll be getting home later and later. Zashi already knows what he’s like. He won’t mind.

Hearing the scream when he’s not far from the train station he’s taking home only makes him groan. He was so close to getting away, too…

He’s a Hero first, though. He springs towards the source of the noise and registers a set of footsteps suspiciously getting closer instead of farther away, fuelling the headache behind his temple. This better not be another concerned citizen attempting a one-hit wonder bout of vigilantism. Or, even worse, someone actually playing as a vigilante, though he doubts it. Vigilantes are far more rare than people seem to believe.

He is quick to dissect the scene: there’s a giant goat-like man (with equally giant horns to boot, unequivocally a mutant type Quirk) giving chase to a regular-sized man who looks tiny in comparison and is dodging swipes from large claws by the skin of his teeth, jumping to the sides a split second before they even happen. Presumably, this man has a minor premonition Quirk, as he appears to–

A blur of blue-red-white shoots forwards as fast as a bullet, making Shouta’s eyebrows fly to the stratosphere at the speed of it. This vaguely person-shaped visage coils its arm back, veins pulsing bright red and electricity crackling, and then punches.

The sheer force of it sends everyone within the vicinity flying more than a dozen yards away from the blast, Shouta himself included, who only manages to whip the tail-end of his capture weapon around the victim before he can crash into a wall. The air pressure is so extraordinary that his ears get that feeling of fullness and mute his sense of hearing momentarily, but that doesn’t distract him from the fact that it shattered windows, bent a few lampposts in half and sent debris flying everywhere. All from a single punch.

Shouta pulls off catching himself successfully and stops in a roll, sparing a glance to the victim who seems unharmed but shaking from the scare before taking stock of the rest of the situation once more. His eyes blow wide when he sees it.

It’s just a kid.

A kid wearing an All Might hoodie and a surgical mask over his mouth to protect his identity. A kid with half his right sleeve missing and a broken, purplish arm – the same one he presumably used to punch, which spelled disaster. A kid wearing an All Might hoodie, with All Might levels of strength (or perhaps even higher ), right after All Might’s retirement…

Holy shit. There’s only one conclusion (because Shouta refuses to believe their former Number One deaged himself just to be able to continue his Hero work while also wearing his own merch).

This teenager is All Might’s son.

—

“Toshinori!” Nana weeps, her arms wide open for a hug. The other vestiges stand at a respectful distance away.

Toshinori runs towards her, and is enveloped in her loving embrace. 

—

“Ow, ow, ow…” he says, valiantly trying to keep the tears at bay. He fails and sniffles in defeat. What the hell? This Quirk is broken!

Well, actually, it’s your arm that’s broken, a de facto voice says in the back of his head.

Thanks, he thinks pettily. That’s really helpful.

He glances towards the street, or what’s left of it, incredulously. This… this really was All Might’s Quirk, wasn’t it? His whole strength, now within little Quirkless Deku’s grasp. It hadn’t sunk in yet, just how big this legacy All Might had entrusted him is .

Breath catching in his throat, he remembers Eraserhead was caught in the blast and he rushes over, extending an arm towards the Hero. The resulting jolt of pain is the only thing that reminds him that arm is very, very broken at the moment. He pulls it back. “Oh my gosh! E-Eraserhead-san, are you okay? I didn’t mean to do that at all I’m so so sorry I-I didn’t think that would happen o-oh my gosh. I’m sorry.” 

Eraserhead gawks at him like he’s from outer space. Izuku remembers that he just committed a crime, and that Eraserhead is, by law, obligated to arrest him. He imagines his mom having to come home from her vacation to bust her only son out of jail and pales. Even worse, it might be his dad.

“I’m really sorry. I h-have to go now. S-Sorry again, Eraserhead.”

Before Eraserhead can regain his bearings and/or arrest him, Izuku’s fleeing the destruction he left behind.

He just met Eraserhead, he thinks as he gets on the train again, unaware of the weird looks he’s getting as a teen with a purplish, gnarly-looking arm and a half-ripped hoodie. He just met Eraserhead and sent him flying. He also broke his arm, but he did meet Eraserhead. And he didn’t even get an autograph. In fact, not only did he not get an autograph, but he’s probably signed himself off on Eraserhead’s shitlist. 

It’s the only thought that runs through his mind until he gets home.

Chapter Text

Midoriya Hisashi sits at his table, sighing every few minutes. He’s starting to think Izuku won’t be able to make it for breakfast. And he’s gone all out too! He hadn’t quite managed to salvage the bacon – yet a quick call to Kurogiri easily fixed that. The fridge was an entirely different story, but he could turn it into a fun shopping trip with Izuku, something he could never do with Tomura (both due to his anger issues that showed in his gratuitous use of Decay and also because of his refusal to wear gloves).

He rests his head on his hand, letting out yet another forlorn sigh.

Just as he’s about to get up and start clearing some of the dishes, one of his Quirks detects a presence pacing outside the front door, one he instantly recognizes as his son. His curiosity piqued and good mood restored, he makes his way over and throws the door open with a flourishing gesture.

He only gets to give a distasteful glance to the All Might hoodie before he fully stops in his tracks. “Welcome– Izuku? What happened?”

His son is nursing a clearly broken arm , mumbling anxiously and walking around in small circles in the narrow hallway outside their apartment. Hisashi stares incredulously. They just saw each other a couple hours ago, how did this even happen?

Well, no matter. He thinks back to Tomura when he’d been younger and how much trouble he would get into – it was the entire reason why he made Kurogiri back then, after all (well, that and the convenience that was the ability of warping without any leftover hazardous sludge). Boys will be boys.

“Izuku?”

His son’s eyes snap up to attention. “O-oh, well…” He seems reluctant to say anything else and, for the life of him, Hisashi can’t figure out why. Doesn’t he want some form of assistance? 

Except a treacherous thought makes its way to the front of his mind. Could it be that Izuku has finally gotten over his love of Heroes? His room had been devoid of Hero Merch entirely just the day before, and now he was leaving home at weird hours without an explanation… Is it happening?

Is Izuku finally embracing this side of him?

(Izuku watches distrustfully as his dad’s eyes light up suddenly, and he’s reminded of how much he would rather not be here. He is, however, lacking options.)

“Don’t worry, Izuku, I won’t ask questions. In fact,” he clasps his hands together. “Let me call my doctor, he can fix you right up!”

His son nods once, grimacing, then goes inside and takes a seat at the couch. He’s breathing too fast, Hisashi notes absentmindedly as he gets his phone out and runs his finger down the contacts. He probably has a fever, too – a quick use of an inconspicuous Quirk confirms it so.

Doctor Garaki will be too-much, too-soon for the boy, and what he primarily needs is someone who works best with bones, so Doctor Kotsuru it is. He holds the phone against his ear as he waits for the call to connect.

“I-I think I’m gonna throw up,” he hears Izuku say faintly from somewhere behind him. The sounds of rushed footsteps and a door opening are soon followed by loud, harrowing retching. All for One winces sympathetically.

“Master?” The doctor asks timidly the second they pick up.

“Good morning. I hope I’m not catching you on a bad time,” he says, politeness dripping from each syllable.

“No! No, of course not, master. How can I be of service?”

“You see, my son recently broke his arm,” he ignores the miserable groaning coming from the bathroom. “Could you make a housecall?”

“Y-Your…? I mean, of course!”

All for One starts rattling off the address but then decides this cannot wait. His Izuku is in anguish, after all.  He sends off a quick text to Kurogiri, letting him know to pick up the doctor for a swift, safe trip to his apartment. Within minutes, a portal has opened in the middle of his living room and a certain doctor is falling through it. Kurogiri himself, who already knows better than that, does not make an appearance.

They land with a loud thump and hastily scramble to get up and bow deeply. “Master!”

“Oh, good! You’ve arrived. Stop calling me that while you’re in my home,” he says, then cups a hand around his mouth. “Izuku, dear, come here!”

“Coming,” a weak voice replies. His son stumbles out of the bathroom, drenched in sweat and eyes squeezed shut. Undoubtedly, he’s in a tremendous amount of pain. Urgency had been the right call, after all. “A-are you the doctor,” he slurs with squinted eyes, swaying lightly on his feet.

“I am. You can call me Kotsuru.” Doctor Kotsuru says with a feeble smile. “And you are?”

“‘zuku,” he answers then adds as an afterthought, “Midoriya.”

“Right. Why don’t you lay down on the,” they spare a glance around the living room and decide not to push their luck asking for a better work environment, “couch, so I can take a look at your injuries?”

Izuku lays down on his back wordlessly, wincing as every movement jolts his broken arm. All for One thinks he can hear loud and clear his son’s fluttering heartbeat without the need for a specialized Quirk.

“Good, good. On a scale from one to ten, how much pain are you in?”

Izuku blearily opens one of his eyes to send the doctor a scathing glare and gestures wildly at his injury with his good arm, almost as if to say ‘are you kidding me?’ . Truly, he is just like Tomura when he was younger. Perhaps he should have them meet sometime in the near future. They’ll get along, surely.

Doctor Kotsuru coughs. “Sorry, sorry. May I take a look at it?”

“G-Go ahead,” his son huffs.

They examine Izuku’s arm carefully, hands trembling at the presence of Japan’s worst supervillain and the heavy weight of the unfortunate knowledge that he has a teenage son. Queasily, they realize they could get in a lot (the life-ending kind) of trouble if they make the wrong move.

“My Quirk is called Fusion,” they start, noting the way Midoriya seems a lot more alert now. “It allows me to fuse collagen and calcium–based materials, that is, bones. In this case, I’ll be using it to fuse your broken arm back together. It’s broken in… at least 17 different places (but definitely lots more). Is that okay?”

At the mention of a Quirk, Izuku springs back to life.

He starts voicing his questions, but it quickly dissolves into muttering. “Collagen and calcium–based materials? Do you need a specific balance between the two or does your Quirk work on things outside of bones? What happens when you try to use it on materials with collagen only? Or calcium? What about skin or muscles? Does it simply not work or is it just weaker? What are your parent’s Quirks? Can you manipulate other tissues in the human body? Does it work differently on animals? Can you notice when someone lacks calcium or collagen? What about other proteins?”

It’s little more than indecipherable, crazed mumbling now. The only one who stands a chance at comprehending is Izuku himself.

And All for One is so, so proud of his boy. Just listen to this! He’s already posing questions much more intelligently than All for One ever did at his age, and he’s even started answering some of them himself with hypotheticals.

Doctor Kotsuru twitches as they look between the faces that both father and son are sporting right now. Too similar…

“I’ll just get on with it,” they say but it’s more of a question the way they turn towards All for One. At the sight of a positive nod from the father, they don’t give another warning before placing both their hands on Midoriya’s arm.

Izuku screeches in pain as his bones start glowing to the point they’re visible underneath his skin and muscles, and passes out.

When he wakes up, his arm is completely fine and the doctor is long gone.

—

Shouta faceplants in his and Hizashi’s bed a few hours later, where his husband is wearing his reading glasses and holds a novel in his hands. He doesn’t bother to change out of his gear into something more comfortable.

“Woah, Shou, you look a little worse for wear,” Zashi yelps as he’s startled by the sudden movement, only half-joking. Shouta can feel his eyes on the back of his head. “Trouble during patrol?”

“Absolutely. I need to talk to Nedzu,” he groans but makes no move to get up.

Thankfully, Zashi knows not to pry. If Shouta wants to tell him, he would do so.

Shouta’s thoughts drift back to the vigilante – or, well, the kid probably wasn’t trying to become one. Rather, it had been just a teenager making a single bad decision. He wouldn’t put it past All Might to be a terrible father, what with the whole weight of the world on his shoulders.

Additionally, the man appeared to be clueless to a fault, which is a terrible trait to have when you are parenting a rebellious teen with a power level out of this world.

He works with high-schoolers on a daily basis, save for school breaks. He can understand where they’re coming from when they decide to act out. This is probably no different, and they can get this settled without a fuss, allowing Shouta to uproot the problem by its stems and get this kid off the streets. All he needs to do is give All Might a stern talk or two and check up on the results in a few weeks.

—

Father and son sit at the table for a late breakfast. Izuku is stabbing his cold pancakes rather viciously with his fork as he glares at Hisashi. He has yet to take a single bite, even though Hisashi put so much love into cooking them.

“Son,” he ignores the way Izuku’s face twists uglily at that word. “Would you like to share with me how you got that injury?”

Not like he doesn’t already know the answer, anyway. In his anger, he had half-hoped the big, incompetent oaf hadn’t have passed on his Quirk before he killed him (despite knowing that would mean One for All would be lost to him forever), but he’d also known All Might wouldn’t have let it die with him when he had already picked Izuku.

Despite this, he doesn’t push. The whole ‘hiding the existence of a new Quirk you’ve gotten’ is something he also did often in his youth to his own parents with varying degrees of success.

Remarkable, the way Izuku mirrors him even unintentionally. Hisashi kept encouraging Tomura’s similar habits, and just look where he is now. He’s certain this parenting approach will work on Izuku as well.

“No.”

“Okay,” he shrugs.

At this lackluster reply, Izuku raises his head. “Huh?”

“I said it’s okay. I’m just glad you’re feeling better now,” he says, putting another blueberry-flavored pancake on his plate. Those ones are only a little burnt compared to the rest, and a lot easier on his taste buds.

Izuku’s hands cease their violence. “You’re really not gonna keep asking?”

“No, why should I? You’ve made it clear you don’t want to tell me,” this comes off a little too bitter for his taste, so he quickly backtracks. “I mean, you’re entitled to your privacy.”

He had hoped this would reassure his son, but if anything, it’s made Izuku even more skeptical of him, except the glare is now directed at the food. Izuku still brushes it off, apparently, and digs in.

“Thank you for the food,” Izuku says blankly, only to spit it out the second it's in his mouth.

—

All Might had a perfectly good Quirk and useless little Deku has gone and broken it, Izuku thinks as sobs wreck his pitiful frame. He’s curled up on a corner of the shower, water droplets mixing with his tears. He bites his knuckles to stop himself from screaming, and blood soon finds its way down the drain as well.

Izuku stays there for a long, long time.

—

Shouta sits down in front of Nedzu, once he’s well-rested and less prone to illogical, rash actions. He hadn’t been surprised when the office’s doors opened before he could even raise his hand to knock.

“Tea?” The principal asks.

“Sure,” he says as a formality. However, he knows it is not a question, therefore his answer is meaningless – Nedzu is already pouring a new blend for Shouta. He sighs and decides to bite the bullet as prolonging his suffering is illogical. “Nedzu, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Oh?” A dangerous glint has formed in the mammal’s eyes. Favors never come cheap from him, though Shouta dismally hopes this will be easy for both of them. “Anything for one of our best Yuuei alumni and current teacher.”

“I need you to get me a meeting with All Might,” he answers, accepting the tea and taking a sip. It’s excellent, of course. He’s long since stopped questioning how Nedzu always knows exactly the flavors he’ll like.

The rat halts in his tracks. “Pardon?”

Every hair on Shouta’s arms rises up, but he keeps his face calm and composed. His headache is only exponentially growing in size. “I need a meeting with him. It’s important.”

“Oh,” Nedzu says airily. “Oh dear.”

This rings each and every alarm bell in Shouta’s mind. The silence eventually gets to him.

“What? What’s wrong?” He finally cracks, already halfway to standing and arm reaching for his capture weapon. He’s not sure what for, but he’d rather have it ready anyway.

Nedzu turns away from him. “Aizawa-kun, what I say right now absolutely cannot leave this room,” he says gravely, pressing the button that mutes every microphone in the room and turns off the cameras.

This gives Shouta pause and, with a huge deal of reluctance, he sits back down. “What?”

“All Might is dead.”

—

They have lunch together, but only when Izuku insists on takeout (he’s still hungry, but does not want to risk food poisoning) after he’s cleaned his hand. He ignores every attempt by his dad to start up a conversation and, once he gives up, the quiet is almost bliss.

In the middle of it, they both get a text from his mom (and finding that she’s made a group chat and added both their numbers, meaning his dad now has his personal phone number, is demoralizing), which includes a short message that reads how much she is enjoying the cruise as well as a few selfies. She’s smiling in such a jovial way that Izuku hasn’t seen for years now. But Izuku can’t find it in himself to be happy for her.

Resentment grows in his chest from being left behind in Japan, and then he hates himself for feeling that way. It’s not like his mom doesn’t deserve to have some free time for herself – she works so hard! –, but it hurts him that he was sidelined so quickly once his dad arrived. It just- it wasn’t fair.

It’s what he’s dwelling about as he does the dishes when he feels a sharp, stabbing pain on the side of his skull. It says danger, danger, danger . He whips around at record speeds, eyes frantically moving around the room before they settle on his dad, who is just about to hand him the last empty glass and looks sufficiently startled by this new development.

Danger , he doesn’t hear it as much as feels it.

Izuku stumbles a few steps back, bumping into the kitchen counter.

He’s hyperventilating, he realizes, and not enough oxygen is going to his brain – his sight is getting blurry and dark blotches are appearing around the corners. His pupils are dilated and focused solely on his father. Why? He thinks, breaths stuttering and leaving his body in little gasps. What’s happening to him?

His eyes are getting watery, and now he can barely see shapes in front of him.

He puts a hand on his chest and clutches his shirt tightly, not noticing he drops the plate he was holding even when it shatters it into dozens of pieces, and feels his heart trying to burst from his ribcage. The rush of adrenaline from his fight-or-flight response is too much.

He can faintly smell ozone in the air.

“ Izuku? ” He sees his father’s mouth moving around the syllables of his name, but he can’t hear any of it. It’s like something, someone’s holding his head underwater, and he can’t fight back against this hold they have on him. His dad’s hand hovers a few inches away from Izuku, fingers slowly extending.

Somehow, that simple gesture makes it a hundred times worse .

Danger, danger, danger .

Then, for a split second, he gets a vision that nearly sends him to his knees. Blood on the battlefield around him, his optimism dwindling to an end, and a hand that reaches towards his skull. All that’s left is hope – hope he’s pinning on the next one, he thinks, but who?

Run.

Izuku bolts. His dad doesn’t follow.

—

Hisashi raises his eyebrows as he watches his son race towards his room like he’s possessed. That look in Izuku’s eye…

He doesn't like it.

—

It’s not even noon and he’s already cried on at least three separate occasions today, Izuku laments later. He’s hiding inside his closet, crushed between stacks of boxes full of Hero merch and sight entirely blocked by his clothes. He’s swatting at a sleeve that’s covering his face but it, inevitably, falls back to its place every time.

His feet are also bloody from stepping on the plate he’d dropped earlier in his rush, but he doesn’t feel any ceramic digging around inside of him, so he’s in the clear. He’s pretty sure he bruised his shoulder when he body-slammed his bedroom door open, too. Izuku doesn’t even want to know what happened to the wooden frame, since it had creaked horribly.

His throat hurts when he swallows, and Izuku notes he is dehydrated – it’s not that surprising, considering he and his mom are both heavy criers, and he knows the symptoms intimately. His hands are clammy, knuckles bleeding again, and he’s still not calm , but he’s doing leagues better than before.

Still, that feeling… He’d seen everything so clearly but couldn’t focus on anything in particular except for the hand stretching towards him. Every one of his senses had intensified to the point he swore he could hear his dad’s breathing just barely beside his own.

He needs some time but – he doesn’t have any. He needs to be strong. All Might trusted him, and Izuku will, he will prove him right. He can be a hero. Izuku lets out a shuddering breath. He’ll be someone All Might can be proud of. He’ll learn how to use the Quirk and he’ll be a hero.

There’s a stray thought in his head that says that he… just can’t do it. Not without his mentor.

But he’s gonna have to.

Izuku gingerly stands up. While his legs are still trembling from the leftover adrenaline, he’s feeling well enough to try walking now.

And he does, taking uncertain steps like a newborn fawn, except instead of going towards the rest of the apartment, he turns to his window. He unlocks it with twitchy fingers and lets out a sigh at the gentle breeze and the sun kissing the tip of his nose. It’s been too long since he just admired the beauty of, well, just existing . Whatever the hell he’d seen earlier in that vision had been like a slap to the face, and now fresh air feels so underrated.

A kind, motherly voice in the back of his head tells him, trust us, Izuku, and he does, without a doubt. He’s always trusted them, hasn't he? Fuzz fills his head as Izuku climbs up the latch, one leg hanging out and the other pulled towards his chest. He doesn’t look down.

He grabs the window frame, lunges forward and takes a leap of faith.

—

Hair blowing into his face, he opens his eyes and finds himself hovering a few inches above the ground, limbs splayed out awkwardly. He can see a few ants meandering around from where he is, carrying the tiniest of crumbs and pebbles. He spends a brief time admiring the little creatures, noting they’re getting smaller as he floats upwards.

Then it really hits him.

The scream he lets out is unholy, and he falls those last inches to the unforgiving ground.

—

Shouta… did not expect this. Not in a million years, and definitely not with his limited insight.

It changes everything.

He’s not looking for a rebellious kid with a subpar father, he’s looking for a grieving kid with a too-powerful, self-destructive Quirk with a dead father. He’d instantly recognized him as Eraserhead, too, which had only ever happened in extremely rare cases. However, he guesses that a pro-hero’s son would have higher chances of pinning his hero name on him.

And thankfully for Shouta, he has years of experience dealing with unruly teenagers coming from all kinds of situations and setting them on the right path.

It’s what he does for a living.

—

Izuku’s about had it. And the day isn’t even close to being over yet.

First, he breaks his whole arm while accidentally hurling Eraserhead ( the Eraserhead!) across the street and he has to ask his dad for help. He regrets not asking how the doctor got there so quickly as he had more pressing matters at the time, but that was really weird, right? Not to mention he nearly puked out his stomach from the pain. It was a horrible experience all around.

But if that wasn’t enough, he also had to eat the half-burnt pancakes this morning because there was no fridge in the kitchen anymore (and he definitely noticed the suspicious bumps and scratches on the rest of the furniture that hadn’t been there when he left that morning), therefore, no other options for breakfast. At least he hadn’t had to argue too much to have takeout for lunch.

Then, when he’s washing the dishes, his dad’s looming presence behind him sends him spiraling into one of the worst panic attacks he’s had ever since he started training with All Might.

Finally, he jumps out of his fifth-floor window on a whim and finds himself floating a mere second before he could splatter on the concrete. He still ended up falling flat on his face.

Is that an aspect of All Might’s Quirk? The floating didn’t make any sense, as he’s sure he’s never seen All Might actually floating – only flying, thanks to his superpowered jumps – so Izuku dismisses that train of thought. Besides, it was more like the nullification of his own body’s acceleration, or some zero-gravity ability…

Izuku finds himself unthinkingly walking towards the general location of Takoba beach, but he can’t stomach the thought of being there, and with the day he’s had, he’s not too keen on trying. Leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him, he turns towards the opposite direction as he examines his arm. The scarring is minimal – it really is like he never even broke it. What kind of doctor was that, anyway?

He showered earlier but now he is, once again, covered in dirt and sweaty. His nose is bleeding a little because of the impact, and he rubs it with the back of his hand, finding that the small lacerations on his knuckles are also bleeding again. Whatever. This is… not fine, actually.

But he has to deal with it, so he will.

His thoughts inadvertently drift back towards his dad. Is it unfounded paranoia or does he have a right to feel so skeptical? His dad, who had fucked off for the past five years or so, is suddenly back in Japan and his mom doesn’t even bat an eye. Then she decides it’s a perfectly reasonable idea to leave him alone while she goes on a months-long cruise across the Pacific ocean, when just a few months ago she couldn’t stand to let him leave her sight.

Not to mention, his dad is perhaps too trusting of Izuku? Izuku shows up with a broken arm after going out without telling him anything and he concludes that Izuku is entitled to his secrets, so he’s not going to pry. The doctor he called looked so scared, too… Or maybe Izuku was projecting.

He sighs, disheartened.

He hadn’t meant to break his arm. In his head, he’d envisioned All Might’s overwhelming power, and tried to channel it in himself. He doesn’t understand how that translated to a broken arm, even though he knows All Might said it would make him explode without training. Maybe he’d just been in denial.

It doesn’t matter.

These are all – obstacles. Little setbacks. And he’s had many, many (many!) of them through the years. If a decade of being told he was worthless and useless for merely being born unlucky, then this… issue with All Might’s Quirk isn’t gonna stop him. If he has to break every bone in his body, he will. Without hesitation. And he’ll smile through it all.

For All Might.

He absentmindedly runs a finger along the newest scarring on his right arm. 

“Hey, kiddo,” a voice rings from somewhere to his side. Izuku nearly jumps a foot into the air. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just wondering if you were okay.”

It’s a blonde man with a thin mustache and his hair on a ponytail, waving his hands around as he talks. His eyes are a really pretty shade of green behind his glasses. His clothes are rather stylish. Izuku searches for any signs of deceit and doesn’t find any. Moreover, the leftover panic from earlier dissolves in his presence. Izuku has grown so used to it that its abrupt absence is rather bewildering.

“Oh,” Izuku says shallowly. “I’m okay, thank you.”

The stranger glances nervously towards the sidewalk and Izuku follows it with his own eyes. They land on a trail of blood that stops where Izuku stands currently. Then he gives a small, awkward gesture towards his hands which, if he recalls correctly, are covered in bite marks and not doing him any favors. It probably looks like he got mauled by a particularly vicious dog.

Now that he’s noticed, every single cut starts stinging until Izuku is blinking back tears.

“Sorry,” Izuku says as he courageously manages to not cry, though he knows any wrong movement will send him back to wailing. He’s starting to think of ways to clean it all up until a hand softly lands on his shoulder. This time, he manages to suppress his flinch for the sake of this man’s kindness.

“Are you sure?” When Izuku takes just a little too long to reply, he moves on. “What about this, just stay here for a little bit and I can come back with some gauze for your injuries?”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” he replies on autopilot. He’s still staring at the puddles of blood. He’s sure someone could follow them back to his apartment and find where he lives, which is scary. He then remembers that his mom is away on vacation, leaving his dad as the only adult in the house, and the thought suddenly doesn’t bother him as much.

“Don’t worry, it’s not an inconvenience at all,” Mustache Man smiles brightly, even though it doesn’t hide his concern. Surprisingly, it eases some of Izuku’s nerves, though the tension on his shoulders doesn’t dissipate. “I was just on my way to the store, too.”

“... O-okay,” Izuku hesitantly agrees, if only because he’s still too anxious to do anything otherwise.

“You can sit down over there for a little while, yeah?” He gently takes Izuku by his elbow and guides him to a nearby bench. Now that Izuku’s taking the pressure off of his soles, he’s become more and more aware of the pain.

Right, his feet. The dish he broke into shards earlier. The shards. In his feet. Right, right, right. And he isn’t wearing shoes because he jumped out his window. Right, of course.

“I’ll be back in just a few minutes!” Mustache Man calls out before speed walking in the direction of what Izuku presumes is the nearest convenience store.

Now that he’s alone but slightly more coherent, he’s starting to take notice that people are staring at him, but not approaching. He guesses it must not be a pretty sight, considering all the… blood and such. He leans his head against the backrest with a soft sigh and stares at the sky. The longer he looks, the less real the clouds appear to him, like they’ve been rendered over a greenscreen. Izuku focuses on his breathing. In and out, in and out.

He must’ve concentrated too hard, because he’s startled by a voice too close to his ears.

“–hear me? Kiddo, are you–”

“Sorry,” Izuku interrupts, then feels terrible for it. “Sorry, I-I’m listening.”

Mustache Man is back, holding a tote bag and kneeling next to Izuku. The concern is a lot more pronounced in the furrowing of his brows, and Izuku is devastated that he was the one causing it in the first place. He tamps down on the urge to flee, especially after the man had taken precious time from his day just to make sure Izuku was okay.

“I brought some things,” Mustache Man says as he holds open the toge bag, “but if you need stitches, I’m gonna have to get you to a hospital.”

The mere mention makes Izuku flinch and tears involuntarily form once again. His mom’s coworkers’ all know his name and face, and he doesn’t doubt that they’ll be calling to let her know that her only son has injured himself the day after she’s left for vacation. He can’t do that to her!

“Okay, okay. No hospitals, I get it,” Mustache Man says, sounding faintly distressed at whatever Izuku must be showing on his face. “I’d really like to see your injuries, though.”

“Sorry, Mustache Man,” Izuku absently mumbles, making himself less useless by peeling his bloody sock off himself. It’s quite hard to do so, as it's relentlessly clinging to his skin.

Said man sputters.

“Mustache–? Oh, I never gave you my name!” he gasps. “I’m Yamada Hizashi, it’s nice to meet you.”

“M-Midoriya Izuku, sir,” he replies politely. His intuition doesn’t scold him for a lack of stranger danger despite the whole situation, so he thinks he’s in the clear. The name does ring a bell, but in his state of mind, he can’t place it.

“No sir, just call me Yamada. I’m going to clean it a little, okay? Just water for now, until I get to look at what we’re dealing with,” he explains soothingly as he uncaps a water bottle and pours it gently into a towel, both items that Izuku was sure he did not have before, and presses it lightly against Izuku’s foot.

Izuku makes a rough mental estimate of the prices and resolves to pay him back later. “Okay.”

Yamada-san works in silence, humming a song Izuku recognizes from the radio but doesn’t know the name of. He thinks it might be in English. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he raises his head with a smile. “I don’t think you’ll be needing stitches. Do you know if any of the shards are still stuck?”

Izuku pauses for a moment. Most of the ones he’d stepped on had still been too big for that. Big, but pointy. And so very sharp. “No, I d-don’t think s-so.”

“Good!” he says in English. It reminds Izuku of All Might, and he tenses at the connection he unwillingly formed. Yamada-san doesn’t notice. “Can you hold your hands out for me, please?”

Izuku does.

Yamada-san cleans them with the same gentleness until all the red is gone, making the lacerated areas stand out even more. The towel is drenched in pink from all the water and blood. Izuku then flexes his fingers experimentally, finding that they don’t hurt nearly as much as they probably should. “T-Thank, thank you.”

The older man searches the bag for a few moments, and he makes a little triumphant sound before bringing it into the light. It’s a generic brand of antiseptic – in fact, it is the exact same one in Izuku’s cabinets. That helps a lot with his internal pricing. “I’m gonna clean the area, yeah? It might sting a little.”

“T-that's okay.”

It does sting, a lot more than just a little, but Izuku doesn’t let it show. The last thing he wants is to appear even weaker to this stranger who is already doing so much for him. Before he’d met All Might, the bar had been entirely too low. The idea of an unrelated adult doing this much for someone like Izuku had been incomprehensible. Yet it’s not like he knows Izuku has a Quirk now .

So, what gives?

“You’re doing a great job! All that’s left now is wrapping it up, okay?” Yamada-san is still looking at him with such… kindness – kindness that Izuku has never been so freely given before – and it spurs on a new, fresh wave of tears.

Absently, he thinks that, if this hadn’t made him really sad, he’d be really, really angry right now.

Yamada-san startles and starts babbling comforting words while making a lot of fidgeting motions with his hands around Izuku but not quite touching him. The consideration only makes Izuku cry harder. “S- sorry – sorry, I’m sorry,” he bawls, fiercely rubbing his eyes. At least he’s not bleeding anymore, or he’d be looking like a raccoon with red markings right now. “I-It’s just – rough day, sorry.”

It’s kind of an understatement. He just – he feels too much.

“– understandable if not. But. Can I give you a hug?” Yamada-san asks finally, a little blunt.

Izuku nods feebly.

He’s enveloped in strong arms just a split second later. It’s warm, he notes distantly as he’s pawing at Yamada-san’s leather jacket, and nothing like his mom’s hugs. Different, but the good kind of different. He hides his face in a stranger’s shoulder and lets it all out.

—

Later, Izuku will walk home with bandaged hands and feet, covering his face in embarrassment.

He really just did that, huh.

—

Hisashi turns on the TV a few hours or so after his son raced into his room. He has spent all day dusting the shelves and reorganizing them to his liking, starting with throwing out whatever nonsense he’s sure Inko won’t miss and/or can be replaced if necessary. He’d even ordered a new fridge online after calling Kurogiri for a quick, efficient drop-off, but had refrained from setting it up as he thought he could make it into a pleasant bonding activity with his son. It has little to do with the fact he has no idea how to do it himself.

Speaking of his son, he understands teenage rebellion. He does!

Raising Tomura had, at the time, been extremely hard as well, even setting all the issues from Decay aside. But the disappearing act had also played a huge role in Tomura’s development as a person and villain, which was why Hisashi was allowing it with Izuku.

Tomura had used his unsupervised time to (presumably – no, presumably is not the right word. Definitely ) murder people and commit theft, along with other assorted crimes. Hisashi wonders what Izuku is doing with his own, but resolves to only find out second-hand from his son if possible. He would hate for Izuku to think that Hisashi doesn’t respect his autonomy, because that is simply untrue.

However, the apartment has been quiet ever since, and it’s been getting to him. At least in the Doctor’s labs there was usually background noise to distract him (the screams of agony), and even Tomura was rarely quiet (the screams of rage), especially in the moments that would lead to him bugging Kurogiri for a new gaming console.

Of course, he knows when his presence is unwanted. He understands the last thing his son wants right now is to see him.

It still stings a little, though.

He sighs as he channel-surfs, finding that everything is a lot more distracting when one is capable of sight and not just relying on their hearing. Sadly, mostly everything is hero-themed in one way or the other, and it’s grating on his nerves. He loosely identifies a few cartoons from Izuku’s childhood, but these newer adaptations are unrecognizable to the original material from nearly a decade ago. He makes a face like he’s sucking a bitter lemon and moves on.

Until a news report makes him pause, and he leans closer to the TV.

“– in the early hours of the morning, when residents reported a disturbance. A loud bang that woke up the entire street only for the neighbors to find that their road had been utterly destroyed. Thankfully, all were unharmed, but this sparks the question: is this a new vigilante-in-the-making, or just a freak accident–”

Hisashi stares at the screen. An image of Izuku leaving home at an ungodly hour, only to come back with a broken arm pops up into his mind. He knows the consequences of All Might’s power when he sees it, even though the hero had been a prodigy (and hadn’t that been a surprise) with it.

“— the only clue to their identity is a picture taken by one of the residents,” the reporter continues, adjusting the stack of papers in her grip before a blurry photo takes her place. “It shows what appears to be a short figure, around five feet, wearing a Golden Age All Might hoodie and a mask covering their mouth. If you have any clues towards uncovering their identity, the Musutafu Police Department asks–”

That confirms it, then.

It was Izuku who tore up the street against whatever poor two-bit villain had made the wrong decision to be there at the wrong time, wrong place. And this is definitely an act of vigilantism, as Izuku performed heroic duties using a Quirk without a proper license. Very illegal, is what it is.

Hisashi smiles giddily.

All Might would surely be rolling in his grave if he knew that the first thing Izuku does with One for All, the most heroic and lawful Quirk of all, is commit a crime. Not just any crime, but one with so much property damage to boot! Enough that the police were actively looking for him. And this is a great start for Izuku’s descent into eventual villainism, which Hisashi is dead-set on.

It’s more exhilarating than he imagines hitting two birds with one stone is. Rather, this is more akin to winning the lottery twice in a row.

Hisashi can’t wait to see what Izuku will do next.

—

Miles away, a teenager with evenly split half-and-half hair logs into a forum, cracks his knuckles, and starts typing.

Chapter Text

Izuku sits on his bed, having successfully avoided an awkward conversation with his dad once more (by that, he means that he ignored Hisashi calling his name and slammed his bedroom door shut behind him in the universal teenager sign for ‘do not talk to me’ ). He absentmindedly kicks his feet back and forth. 

He needs to… get a hold of All Might’s Quirk.

He’s sure that whatever is happening is simply not supposed to happen. The whole, y’know, breaking his bones (okay, he knows what All Might said. He’d thought it was a joke ! A very bad one, but still a joke), the random death vision (or memory? Had it been a future yet to come, or the past?) – that whole bit where he was entirely suspended in mid-air for a few seconds. It's just. It’s too much.

This had all led him to having a mild breakdown in a stranger’s arms – not that Yamada-san could really be called a stranger anymore, not after Izuku had left his snot all over his leather jacket –, an incident which he refuses to acknowledge any further. Yes, he’s locking this particular memory away and losing the key.

But all that brings him to where he is now.

He pulls his legs up in a crisscross position, taking a few deep breaths. He has to master this Quirk, but first he needs to fix it. Whatever useless Deku has done to it should be able to be undone, because Izuku cannot handle being the one who has irreparably damaged All Might’s Quirk, all within a measly few weeks of receiving it.

If damaged is even the right word.

Whatever Izuku has done to it, it goes beyond just breaking it. It’s like it’s mutated . Does that make sense? Izuku itches to write it down, to analyze it, but he can’t risk anyone uncovering his notebooks and finding out his secret. Not when it’s been kept for eight generations – that means they must’ve kept it really hush-hush, therefore, Izuku can’t count on anyone else but himself.

(The thought he’d briefly entertained of asking someone more qualified for help is quickly dismissed.)

He tries to slow down his mind, focusing instead on the little wildfire within him. It roars gently at him, almost like it’s alive. It beckons him closer, and calms his mind.

Izuku, having now sufficiently settled yet still agitated, calls One for All. He thinks of molten lava streaming through his veins, that exhilarating rush of strength characteristic of All Might and the time he’d briefly used it against the villain. The adrenaline rush that came with knowing that he could do anything. Save anyone.

He waits, patient, eyes scrunched up tightly until he’s seeing stars dancing behind his eyelids.

But nothing answers.

His eyes flicker open in surprise. He closes and opens his fists a few times experimentally, yet still nothing happens. His skin is unmarked, barring his scars. He can’t feel any energy, and he instantly starts to panic. There is no way he’s suddenly lost the Quirk entirely, right? That’s not a thing that can happen? It hasn’t developed its own conscience and decided it hates him, right? That he’s undeserving of it?

Right?

Movements now frantic, he mimics throwing a punch even knowing he’s inside his apartment building and that the damage would screw over so many people, and still, there’s no blast of power behind it. He stares at his fist in despair. It looks entirely normal, which, under these circumstances, is abnormal.

He mimics throwing another punch. Then another one. And another one.

But nothing happens.

It’s just Quirkless, useless Deku who’s repeatedly hitting the air like an idiot.

He’s hyperventilating again, but this time, he’s getting angry. At himself, at this Quirk, at his mom for leaving him, at his dad for coming back, at All Might’s murderer – for one brief second, he thinks he’s even mad at All Might – and, that’s just. It makes him feel even worse, because what kind of shitty successor is angry at their mentor for dying ?

He spends the following minutes alternating between punching and harshly gripping his hair every time One for All doesn’t activate. Because it’s just not answering .

He can feel the energy deep within him, but it’s like getting locked outside your own house, then banging on a window to let your parents know you’re outside, but they don’t just leave you in the cold – they have the lights turned on and they’re passively watching your struggles. The glass is too thick, and he can barely feel it budging under his unrelenting blows. It stands firm, and Izuku is tiring. There’s many pairs of eyes watching his every move, and it’s giving him goosebumps.

Furious with himself, he changes tactics and, rather smartly, elects to kick his wall out of frustration. He doesn’t feel the sting on his foot, but the force behind the blow ripples through the plaster, and jostles a wooden shelf a few feet away. Emptied from all his Hero merch, it only houses a few of his journals and a picture frame of him and his mom. One of his oldest Hero Analysis Notebooks lilts to the side and dangles off the edge.

Izuku contemplates it, attention in his gaze like a hawk about to snatch its prey.

Then it falls.

He knows he won’t be fast enough – not with the time it had taken him to react in the first place – but he still reaches for it, palm outstretched.

Big mistake.

Dark tendrils with glowing green outlines shoot from between each of his fingers at breakneck speed, though none of them wrap around his notebook. Instead, they shoot past it and into the wall, then beyond it. Izuku is bodily dragged along like a puppet by its strings, and he stops with a noisy crash that has surely disturbed everyone in his vicinity and might’ve also given him the tiniest of concussions. He makes no move to get up.

There are definitely holes in the plaster now. The tendrils slowly snake back into his body, reabsorbed into… somewhere. And, yep. There are what look like peeping holes that lead to the apartment next to his own now.

Sure enough, within seconds, a shrill woman’s voice that he recognizes as his longtime neighbor’s cries out.

Izuku, getting perhaps too accustomed and tired of this, only sighs. The anger he’d been feeling earlier is now replaced with a faint dismay, but he’s mostly just… empty, now. The tendrils, thankfully, stay wherever they are inside of him. (The thought of not knowing where they come from or where they’ve gone sends shivers down his spine.)

But. Yeah. This might as well be happening now.

He’s starting to feel like he’s disconnecting from reality. Sounds around him grow dimmer and duller, and his sight gets fuzzy around the edges. Maybe he hallucinated all that. Is that a thing? Stress-induced hallucinations? It makes sense, kind of. Because this isn’t real. Is it?

“Izuku! Izuku, what happened?” And that’s his dad, accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps getting closer. Great. It makes the tingling from before come back full force, but Izuku is too out of it for another panic attack.

He sighs again, with more feeling behind it, and leans his head backwards. His Hero Analysis Notebook still lays on the floor, undisturbed.

—

Shouta leans back against the car headrest, closing his eyes. If he's lucky, he'll get some sleep while they arrive home. If he's luckier, Zashi will take pity on him and just carry him up the stairs without waking him up instead of being obnoxiously loud until he's back in the land of the living.

The light from passing lamp posts manages to annoy him even behind his eyelids, however, and no matter how much he will deny it to the end of time, the absence of off-pitch singing accompanying the tunes from the radio is preventing him from fully relaxing. He sighs.

Shouta half-open his eyes, regretting it the second his headache goes from mild to worse. His husband taps his fingers against the steering wheel, biting his lip, and it's obvious something is bothering him. "Is there anything wrong?"

Behind them, Bastard swipes at the bars of her pet carrier with a low hiss, still on edge after their brief vet visit. When that yields no results, she scrambles around in the limited space, accompanied by a few thumping noises, before settling down into that eerie stillness only cats can achieve once more.

Zashi takes a moment to collect himself. "No! Of course not," he replies, even as the car takes a sharper turn than usual. Bastard meows, displeased. "It's just… I met this one little listener, and he was hurt."

"Okay," Shouta says. "So you took him to the hospital."

"I didn't," Zashi corrects, frowning, tone regretful. The tapping gets more insistent. "He seemed so anxious about it when I offered."

Shouta isn't particularly surprised. Every now and then, they meet someone who will absolutely refuse any kind of help, and then get mad when they receive it. If they receive it. This specific scenario isn't particularly rare, despite how much he – and every other hero – wishes for the contrary. "So you let him go, and you're worried he's going back to a place where he'll be hurt again."

Zashi nods absently. "He let me wrap up his injuries, but…"

He understands. Zashi's instincts have never failed him before, and they've only gotten sharper with over a decade of experience in the hero industry. Nonetheless, at least now the kid will know that there are people out there who can help him, and might even consider reaching out on his own. Sometimes, as heroes, that's all they can do.

The lack of conversation only lasts for a few somber seconds until Zashi breaks.

"So! What happened on your patrol? You never told me!" His tone is back to sounding energized, though Shouta can still catch the undercurrents of worry in it.

The change in topics is not unwelcome, but he doesn't really know what to say. Somehow, he finds that ‘All Might is dead and his son is struggling with his grief to the point of commiting crimes’ is a hard sentence to let out. He groans. "I think we've got a new vigilante now," which isn’t far from the truth, though he’s hoping that’s not the case.

"Ooh! You mean the All Might hoodie one? I saw it on the news!" Zashi makes brief eye contact with him, short enough that Shouta doesn't reprimand him for taking his eyes off the road. “Did Tsukauchi put you on the case?”

"He didn’t."

“It’s just a matter of time, then,” Zashi replies cheekily, pride leaking into his voice. “You’re the best at bringing in vigilantes!”

Bastard meows a few times miserably behind them. Zashi shushes her sympathetically, with a few whispered reassurances that the cat is simply not smart enough to comprehend. She seems to settle down anyway.

Shouta does indeed have a streak with vigilantes, but that’s neither here nor there. “The kid’s a powerhouse. The police are worried what he’ll do if he’s left unattended.”

Zashi winces. Shouta guesses it’s because he knows that once someone shows themselves willing to break a law, they show that they may become willing to break many more – many of the vigilantes Shouta has met have ended up going off the deep-end, without any hope of turning back towards the light. And with the kind of damage the kid can do…

Shouta guesses the kid was raised with morals, considering his parentage, and his heart had been in the right place too – if anything, he was just a little anxious about it all, which was understandable, considering he was caught committing a crime. He just hopes that means Shouta will be able to guide him towards proper, legal heroism.

—

Izuku refuses to explain to his dad that he has a Quirk now, so he’d just shrugged, lips sealed shut, whenever Hisashi looked at him weirdly and asked what had caused the crash and the holes. It was clear he didn’t buy his silence, and that he knew there was something going on, but he stopped pushing.

Izuku hasn’t decided whether that’s better or worse.

Father and son had bowed deeply at their disgruntled neighbor, and Hisashi had used his charm (was it? Just charm? It gave Izuku’s neighbor that same glint in her eyes that his mom had been wearing the day she left) to assure her that yes, everything was quite fine, there was no need to, say, press charges or call the police, and he would take full responsibility for fixing the wall. Indeed, they were both truly, truly sorry this happened. Yes, Izuku would make sure that this doesn’t happen again, but could she please be more lenient? His son was trying so hard, after all.

He’d stood tall, hand firmly on Izuku’s shoulder like he was a flight risk, but his grip hadn’t been harsh. Izuku could’ve shaken it off if he’d wanted, and in any other situation he would have, but he doesn’t, simply because he’s still detached from everything and he can’t bring himself to be mad about it.

He’d only caught one out of every five or so words spoken but, somehow, the adults worked it out without involving any of the proper authorities, which was awfully convenient for Izuku. Not that he wants to reap what he sows, but there is definitely something shady with the way his dad had talked to their neighbor, even though he’d been present and knew nothing else happened – it was just a bad feeling in his gut.

Brows furrowed, he makes a mental note of it.

—

“So, Izuku,” Hisashi grabs a slice of pepperoni pizza and starts cutting it into pieces with a knife. It is exceedingly greasy to the point of looking (and tasting) gross, but he eats it regardless. After that whole fiasco earlier, he’d been about to get started with dinner. However, his wonderful Izuku had probably anticipated that he might be quite tired (he wasn’t, but it was the thoughtfulness that counted), and had decided to order food ahead of time. What a considerate son. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Of course,” he continues, smoothly. Perhaps it was too much to ask for Izuku to confide in him so early into this. He decides to change topics. “How was your day today?”

Hizashi is hoping to get something out of his son this time, because whatever had happened to his room had not been One for All's stockpiling power. It had looked like bullet holes, if the bullets had been several inches wide in diameter. And Hisashi has no idea how Izuku could’ve caused them, despite all evidence pointing towards him.

Briefly, the idea of Izuku having developed a Quirk like his own seeps into his mind - of Izuku being a late bloomer, and having taken someone else’s Quirk for the first time. He shakes it off before it can grow into a legitimate concern, however. His son had without a doubt been Quirkless, the Doctor had confirmed it.

(Then again, so had his brother.)

There’s a long, long pause. Izuku reaches for his glass of water and takes a slow sip, but otherwise makes no move to reply.

Hisashi coughs quietly into his sleeve.

Izuku takes an even slower sip, all while staring directly at him. His eyes are slightly blank and unfocused.

“Right. My day was great!” He says, as enthusiastically as he is able to. Tomura has always been quick to share his activities for the day (even though most of it had sounded like utter nonsense to him, woven with terminology he was unfamiliar with) but that is exactly why he’s floundering like a fish out of water. He has no idea what to do when his son doesn’t seem too keen on speaking to him, and he makes a decision to invest in a parenting book as soon as possible. “I cleaned up some around the house. Did you notice?”

His son hums non-committedly. All his attention is back on his pizza. Hisashi doesn’t understand how he can stomach it.

“I’ve been thinking that it has been a while since we had any father-son bonding time,” he mentions, trying to sound casual but not too casual, because he doesn't want Izuku to think he doesn't care for him. “I’ve booked tickets for Manual’s Meet and Greet for tomorrow.”

He hadn’t, but Kurogiri could manage to get them even at such short notice, surely.

(Izuku perks up internally at the idea of attending the event, then wilts as he recalls every single other incident where his dad was in the presence of a pro-hero. He has a personal vendetta against anyone who is in charge of upholding the law, and it is multiplied tenfold when they happen to be a hero specifically, which his mom has always dismissed as a quirk of his dad’s. No, not a Quirk. Just a quirk.

And so it would always, infallibly , end up embarrassing him in some way or another, which was the main reason he stopped begging his dad to take him places, and instead started going on his own. There’s no way he’s falling for this.)

“Sorry,” Izuku replies, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “But I’m busy tomorrow.”

“Oh? Pray tell, what will you be busy with?” Is Izuku truly finally losing his interest in heroes? About time! He does not voice this aloud, and instead wonders if his son is planning something not within the realms of legalities. Fleetingly, the thought of using one of his Quirks to tempt Izuku into saying the truth slips into his mind. He decides against it.

Izuku shrugs. “Stuff.”

That about confirms it, then. Whenever Tomura got cagey with his questions, it meant that he was getting involved in things he was explicitly told not to do.

Hisashi barely contains his delight for the rest of their dinner together.

—

Instead of going to his bed to sleep even though he’s dead on his feet, Izuku once again dons a hoodie (he’d grabbed it randomly but, knowing the contents of his closet, was not surprised to find it was All Might-themed) paired with a face mask and climbs out his window. He takes his time scaling down the side of his apartment building –which had been a fundamental skill mastered during the months he spent chasing underground heroes for his analysis– and trying his hardest not to slip. It’s preferred to facing his dad, who is most likely not yet dozing off and might have questions that Izuku doesn’t feel inclined to answer.

When he’s only a few feet above the ground, he lets go of the bricks underneath his fingers. The force behind the fall makes his legs tremble when he lands, but he swallows his cry with years of experience – the kind that comes mostly from bullying, and the knowledge that he’d be the one getting in trouble if they were caught by a teacher.

This time, he’s doing the sensible thing and bringing a switchblade that he’d scavenged from his dad’s stuff years ago with him.

Not because he’s planning on using it, no!

Not unless he meets The Faceless Man, of course. Barring exceptional circumstances, he’s not heading out with the goal of beating up criminals like a vigilante. It’s just in case he needs it. For self defense and such. Which he’s sure he won’t, since he doesn’t plan on seeking out any trouble. Besides, it’s a perfectly practical tool. That Izuku won’t be using to stab people at all. It’s for his own safety!

Meeting Eraserhead last night (morning?) had probably been a bust, too. With how dynamic his patrol route and schedule tended to be, what were the chances he’d meet him twice in a row? It’s still pretty early right now, too, since it’s not even midnight yet. So he couldn’t count on bumping into a hero that could get him out of trouble this time.

He dusts his clothes off and does some light stretches, then sets off.

His feet automatically move towards the beach the moment he steps into the main street, out of pure muscle memory. Then Izuku falters as he remembers, guilt and shame seeping through every pore on his skin. Right.

There’s no one waiting for him there. And there will never be again.

(Izuku recalls a voice cheering for him, encouraging him, and his own determination firing up in response. Long, bony fingers stretching towards him as he’s handed a refreshing drink. Those same fingers ruffling his hair, calling him ‘my boy’. Gaunt face contorting into a smile and rooting for him. Frowning and fretting at injuries from outside of his training.

And then – strong arms carrying him away. A strand of hair carrying the next generation of heroism. Foreign words shared between two large men he can’t hear. An overwhelming presence. Fear. Kind, reassuring words. Blood beneath his palms. One last breath.

His memories are tainted.)

Sobered up by the thought, he pitifully heads to the train station instead.

There are few people walking on the streets at this time of night, because it’s just slightly later than most jobs let off, and cram school doesn’t run at these hours. That means that the regular passerby is most likely to be a businessman heading home after a long workday. He’s still sticking to the darker paths, if only so he doesn’t stand out.

Which is why the sight of an old lady, smaller than him by a whole head, waving hurriedly at him disorients Izuku for a split second. Upon closer inspection, she has no visible mutations, other than her eyes, which appear to dimly glow, accentuated only by the dark. Thoughts and half-formed theories on what her Quirk is spring to his mind, distracting him for only a moment, as he scrambles to her side.

“Excuse me, did you need anything?” He gently asks, absently wringing his hands. The chances that he’s about to get mugged, or worse, are pretty low, but they’re never zero. Despite that, if this old lady needs his help for anything, he won’t be refusing.

“It’s you, Greenie,” she says by way of greeting, eyes wide like saucers. Then drops the biggest bomb like it’s nothing, wrapped in a sweet little conspirational whisper as she leans into his personal space. “The police are looking for you.”

Izuku makes a little noise akin to a dying seagull. “Huh?”

She pats him on his back a little too harshly, nearly sending him sprawling to the ground, then turns and leaves.

—

It takes an embarrassingly long while for his brain to reboot, but then he realizes she must be absolutely right.

The police will eventually link The All Might Hoodie Guy who blew an entire street with Midoriya Izuku, no-longer-Quirkless middle schooler. He had been planning on getting his Quirk Registry updated (though he’s not sure how that’ll go if he tries to use his strength enhancement and accidentally floats himself to the ceiling instead) to Superpower, the name he’d agreed on with All Might, but, maybe…

Maybe he shouldn’t, in order to keep those identities separate. Maybe, if he can use a different Quirk at the Entrance Exam at Yuuei, then he can avoid getting jailed for illegal Quirk usage.

The tendrils that had… manifested , earlier today seemed like a great, versatile ability. He knows he is still somewhat in the denial stage, however, and he has been steadfastly ignoring any other aspect of his Quirk that isn’t All Might’s strength as well as their dubious origins, but if only he can figure out how to swap between these abilities at random, he could easily compete in the Entrance Exam.

It’s just that with every step forward he takes, he gets pushed five feet back.

And the deeper he digs into it, the less he is convinced this isn’t all a vivid hallucination and that he’s also not dead by the hands of All Might’s murderer, because none of this makes sense. But he thinks about the possibility of this being his own Quirk, one that was evidently dormant up until now, but he quickly dismisses that with a scoff.

Ha. As if a Quirk is so meaningless it can only work if the user is given another Quirk, as implausible as that is…

—

Deep within the soul of One for All, a white-haired, green-eyed vestige feels a sharp pang in his chest at his nephew’s thoughts.

—

A thought strikes him, the most concerning of all. How did that old lady know it was him who accidentally committed vigilantism? Was he that recognizable? Did something give him away?

He sprints around the area, searching every nook and corner for any signs of her, but wherever she is, he can no longer find her. She had mentioned his hair – called him ‘Greenie’. He was sure he’d pulled up his hood and that his hair had been wholly covered. If she’d noticed, however, then it meant the police were on the lookout for a green-haired teenager, but didn’t have enough clues that could link him to his civilian identity.

And, oh wow, that is such a cool thought. His civilian identity… In his daydreams, though, his other half had always been a pro-hero. Certainly not someone who was breaking the law and absolutely would do it again, under the right circumstances.

Izuku gulps anxiously. He’s really messed up, hasn’t he?

This chain of events is how he finds himself at a rather shady corner shop, staring intently at the two different brands of temporal hair dye in his hands. One says that it washes off easily with cold water specifically (meaning he could get the product out of his hair in a single shower, or if it rained on him), but the other promises ease in applying as well as brighter colors. He glances back to the shelves. There’s a billion brands, most of them Quirk-infused in some way.

His skin tingles in anticipation, and Izuku half-expects himself to freak out like earlier, but nothing happens. The feeling still doesn’t ebb away, leaving him shuddering even though it’s the warmer days of August and he’s wearing a hoodie.

From the corner of his eye, he catches sight of a stranger, similarly dressed in a hoodie and a surgical mask, reaching the aisle and coming ever so closer until he stops a respectful distance away. From what little Izuku can see of him, he’s dark-haired and covered in burn scars that look painful enough to make Izuku shudder unpleasantly at the view, older and newer phantom pains springing to life in his own skin, shaped like little starbursts.

They’re not that close, but Izuku still smells the stench from smoke and, looking at the stranger’s soot-covered clothes, he can take a hard guess on why.

Izuku mentally curses. Two weirdos in hoodies and masks in a single aisle is one too many.

And he got here first, he thinks petulantly. If they get the cops called on them – which, considering the area of Musutafu they’re in, is kind of doubtful – then he’s, well, he’s not doing anything. What can he do? He’s not doing any vigilantism again, and he’s not so stupid that he’ll try to actually fight police officers.

“You got a problem, kid?” The stranger drawls, not even bothering to even turn his head. He is also examining the hair dyes, though apparently with much more criticality than Izuku.

Izuku sweats nervously. He is wholly unprepared for any kind of social interaction at the moment. “N-no.”

The guy snorts. “That brand is shit, by the way,” he says, nudging his head to his right to indicate which one. “It barely even lasts a week, and it’s too fucking expensive.”

“Y-You seem… r-really knowledgeable on this,” Izuku observes like a compliment, carefully putting back the box on his left, the one that promised brighter colors. It did seem a lot more costly, compared to the other brands.

The stranger shrugs. “Gotta cover all my bases.”

Cover all your bases for what? Izuku asks, but only inside the (debatable) safety of his own mind. “Uh,” he says outloud.

“Well, what are you here for, then?” Scar Stranger snides. “Don’t tell me you’re also planning murder in the name of revenge.”

He says the last part like a joke, even starting to snicker before he’s finished his sentence, but it makes Izuku freeze in place all the same, every inch of his body tense. “ Um ,” he wheezes out rather emphatically, hysteria leaking into his voice. He ignores the sweat building in the back of his neck.

Scar Guy’s eyes widen impossibly, and he whistles, vaguely impressed. “Damn.”

“Y-Yeah,” Izuku shifts from one foot to the other. He’s a few words away from fleeing. He really shouldn’t be here anymore. He really, really shouldn’t be here anymore.

“Getting a jumpstart for your future villain career?”

That drags Izuku out of his spiraling thoughts. “I’m not a villain,” he hisses, glancing to the sides in case someone is overhearing them. He unintentionally scrunches up the product in his grip. “And you’re the one planning murder!”

“What? So are you .” Scar Guy retorts accusingly. He looks more like a faintly scandalized suburban mother than a shady criminal. This is so unfair! How come this guy is criticizing Izuku when he knows nothing about him?

Izuku bristles. “Say it louder, why don’t you?”

“I will, thanks. You’re planning murder ?”

“I didn’t mean that literally! Shut up!” Izuku whisper-yells, affronted. What’s with this guy?!

Scar Guy throws both of his hands in the air, all reservations lost. Before he can think of a retort, Izuku opens his mouth like an idiot, his nature too curious for his own good, because he simply can’t help but make bad things worse – a trait he inherited strictly from his dad.

“Wait,” he regrets ever coming here as the words leave him. “Who are you planning to kill?”

He lowers his hands, exacerbated. “Seriously, kid?”

“Well,” Izuku crosses his arms in his best approximation of Kacchan, trying to embody his courage. “You’re being o-obnoxious, so I thought I could be too.”

“Of course,” he scoffs, raising a single eyebrow. “Let me tell some random kid about my murder plans so he can go report me to the police and get me arrested.”

“How would I even report you? I don’t know w-what you look like, who you’re killing or w-when,” he counters, wisely choosing to not mention that the police are already hot on his trail, and that he has no intentions of ever going anywhere near a precinct, for obvious reasons starting with v– and ending with – igilantism . “That’d g-go over well.”

Scar Guy slowly nods, considering. He seems a lot more subdued. Now that Izuku can get a better look at him, he can see that his scars are – stapled? – to the rest of his skin. It looks uncomfortable. Especially the ones above his cheeks, resembling the world’s worst eye bags. “That’s true. But–”

Before either of them can say anything else, they’re interrupted by the beeping of sirens steadily growing louder. Sharply, they turn to each other with similarly blaming, narrowed eyes. Izuku is already reading up on accusations, and he can imagine the stranger is doing the same.

Then a lightbulb goes off on his head and he instead raises himself on his tip-toes, facing the store’s clerk. He appears to be a young teenager, not much older than Izuku, looking terribly jittery and with a phone still upheld to his ear. That explains it, then. They did not bother to keep quiet at all.

Scar Guy follows his gaze (he never had to move his head above the shelves of the aisle because it was already high up, Izuku notes with a degree of jealousy) and curses. “Time to go, kiddo.”

He grabs Izuku by the elbow and forcibly drags him behind him, power walking to the entrance and pushing the glass door open with urgency. Izuku, still deciding between fight-or-flight and wisely electing to ignore the former, follows along like a lost duckling. Is he getting kidnapped? His stomach mangles around itself in apprehension, but he doesn’t bring himself to wrench his arm away from Dabi. His survival instincts have been steadily dwindling ever since All Might…

They take a couple twists and turns as they pass through gloomy alleyways that stink like how Izuku would expect them to, except worse. He is still too out of it to react when he realizes he’s still holding the box of white hair dye. He never did put it back.

“O-Oh my god, I just s-stole something.”

“What?” Scar Guy briefly glances back at him but is quick to turn his sight to the streets.

“I s-stole this,” he murmurs, vehemently raising the hand still holding the dye. “Stealing is bad,” he reiterates like he’s explaining to a toddler as they draw to a full stop.

Scar Guy appears to be dumbstruck at this. “You’re fine with murder, but draw the line at shoplifting ?”

“I-I mean,” Izuku has no words to defend himself. “Shut up,” he says instead, but it sounds weak even to his own ears.

“Your moral compass is fucked.”

“That’s exactly what I want to hear right now from the murderer,” Izuku stresses. Though if he is getting called out by a criminal, what does that say about him? He pointlessly wipes his sweaty hand on his hoodie. There’s no way he can go back to the store and apologize, right? He’ll have to come back later and discreetly put it on the shelves somewhere…

“I’m not a– okay, I am,” he relents easily. “So what?”

Izuku makes a little noise in the back of his throat.

Scar Guy leans back on a building, almost entirely covered in its shade. However, Izuku can recognize an attempt to look cool when he sees one, as he finds himself surrounded by Kacchan and his lackeys on a daily basis, and he is not intimidated by the display. Okay, maybe he is a little intimidated. Does it matter? This is a criminal, not a middle schooler. “Premeditated murder is worse than manslaughter charges, anyway.”

“Not always,” Izuku replies vacantly, inspecting the box of dye for its price tag, turning it around this way and the other. Since it had gotten damaged in his clutch, he’s pretty sure he’ll have to leave money instead. No way anyone else is buying it. “It depends on each individual situation.”

Scar Guy rolls his eyes. “Sorry, Mr. Murder Expert.”

He scowls, but it’s more like a grimace on his face, pocketing the hair dye. “Knowing the law only makes me a dutiful citizen.”

“And planning murder makes you a what?”

Izuku is silent. “I’m going to be a hero,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper. He’s not even sure the other was able to hear him.

Scar Guy doesn’t immediately reply, seeming to think long and hard about something. His eyes are distant, like he’s not even fully there. Izuku both wants to leave and stay, but he’s also a few seconds away from crying, so he refrains from moving.

The minutes stretch into the quiet, both seemingly endless. He wonders if Scar Guy ever regretted killing anyone, but has enough self-preservation to know that asking would not go well for him. Izuku wrings his hands and prays he’s not about to get murdered himself. Another tentative glance at his face reveals that he looks conflicted.

Eventually, Scar Guy shakes his head, then pushes himself off the wall.

Izuku cautiously monitors his movements, but he gets the overwhelming notion that within those few minutes, they’ve managed to form a bond. Somehow. 

“Name’s Dabi,” Scar Guy declares, appearing to have come to a decision.

“... Akatani Mikumo,” is what comes to mind. It’s a combination of his mother’s maiden name and the first name his dad had suggested before it was rejected (almost instantly) by his mom. “Dabi” is obviously fake too – or at least not what he’s legally called –, so there’s no harm done here. Guessing by the nonchalance oozing from the other guy, Izuku is right, and he doesn’t mind.

Dabi puts his hands on his pockets and struts down the alleyway without a care in the world. He’s clearly expecting Izuku to follow, who notes that his pants are also heavily stapled all over them. Why? “Well, come on then.”

“Wait, what? Come on where?” Even as he asks, Izuku trails behind him in what might be one of his worst cases of poor judgment, if he is currently in possession of any at all. 

He’s definitely getting kidnapped, isn’t he? Is it kidnapping if he’s going along willingly, even though he’s marginally worried of what will happen to him if he doesn’t? And he didn’t even bring his phone, like an idiot. Though he does have his knife.

And All Might’s Quirk, which he can rely on. Maybe.

Dabi tilts his head towards him, mouth curling into a grin that only stretches wider as the silence grows.

Izuku raises both of his eyebrows, but doesn’t run away. He’s stopped shivering.

—

Twenty minutes later, the scene finds them both under the cheap, flickering lights of a gas station bathroom. It shoots off sparkles every now and then, causing Izuku to flinch and Dabi to curse behind him as he accidentally yanks on his curls.

“Stop moving, brat,” he chides as he readjusts his gloves and changes his grip on his tint brush, each soaked in white. It’s dripping all over the tiles, too, but those were already covered in various nondescript stains, so Izuku doesn’t worry.

“Stop yanking on my hair,” Izuku retorts childishly and, surprisingly enough, doesn’t flinch right afterwards, like he would’ve with anyone else. He’s snacking on a pack of gummies that Dabi had returned with after his little venture around the store, as well as sitting on a little wooden stool that he’s pretty sure Dabi threatened an employee to get. He didn’t ask. Plausible deniability and all.

Dabi scoffs and playfully tugs at a few strands, and is rewarded with a gummy bear to the face. He inherently responds by tugging harder.

Izuku is not sure how they’ve gotten past their initial animosity and into an easy camaraderie in so little time, but he’s not complaining. He has next to zero friends, since no one at his middle school counts, and he’s never been popular. His only companionship came from his mother, the elderly couple that lived in the apartment across from his own and the occasional stray cat he fed on his way to-and-fro school.

Up until recently, this small ensemble had counted his mentor. Tears spring into his eyes involuntarily at the thought of the one man that had believed in Izuku’s dream wholeheartedly, and he hastily blinks them away, barely suppressed sobs wreaking his chest. He hates how he’s fine one moment and back to grieving in the next, and he bitterly wonders if it’ll ever go away.

Above him, Dabi makes no moves to acknowledge it, but his hands turn gentler.

—

Izuku’s hair drips over the sink as he tries to wring it like a soaked towel. But his hair has always been generously voluminous, and there’s just so much water that it’s starting to dribble down his hoodie, staining it. And that’s just plain uncomfortable too, since Izuku’s not wearing an undershirt. From the reflection on the mirror, he can see Dabi rearranging some of their things.

“Y’know, I can dry your hair for you,” Dabi says airily, a mischievous tone in his voice though his eyes are still half-lidded.

It doesn’t stop Izuku’s curiosity. “Dry it how?”

The criminal raises one hand, palm up, and it suddenly lights up in a huge burst of blue fire that fills the whole room with a white blow and is way too close to Izuku for his own comfort. The thought of having fire anywhere near his head, face and neck – the most vulnerable bits of every human being – doesn’t sit well with him, especially from someone who should probably be in jail.

For a split second, Izuku’s brain is stuck on the Quirk itself. It’s beautiful, he thinks. It kind of reminds him of his earliest memories with his dad, when he was a toddler begging him to show him his fire and he’d get a little show in return, and then his dad would tickle him until he was shrieking with joy – all before his diagnosis. Then the split second is over.

“I-I’ll pass, thanks,” Izuku yelps as he scrambles backwards, but the floor is wet and slippery and he just falls flat on his ass with a groan.

Dabi doesn’t laugh (Izuku is beginning to sincerely doubt he is capable of laughing), but he does huff a little amusedly at whatever face Izuku makes, and he internally cheers at himself, unbearingly proud of himself. Look at him go! Getting an A+ on friendship.

That is, until the smoke detectors start beeping, loudly , then sprinklers activate and they’re both sopping wet. It’s Izuku’s turn to laugh at Dabi looking like a drenched cat until Dabi decides to vigorously ruffle his hair, sending droplets of white dye everywhere – including Izuku’s eye, and they only call a truce when the store’s employee opens the door and stares incredulously at them both.

—

(The cashier, timid and cowering under Dabi’s wrath, explains in stutters and stammers that they installed smoke detectors in the bathroom to prevent both employees and customers from smoking inside. They’re very, very sorry, they say.

Izuku tugs at Dabi’s sleeve to hold him back, remembering Dabi is very much a murderer, and he doesn’t know what his standards are for killing. If he has any. As a future hero prospect, he should be a lot less desensitized.

But he can’t bring himself to feel any self-righteous furiousness – not until he has All Might’s murderer under his mercy.

And, well. Izuku is terribly isolated, and angry, and he’s so starved from regular human contact that he’ll take whatever he’s given. If, in this case, it comes from a murderer… At least it’s someone who might understand what Izuku is going through, and won’t try to stop him.)

—

(Izuku watches Dabi set himself on fire to dry himself – after Izuku has rejected his offer for the nth time – and realizes his soot-covered clothing and the distinct smell of smoke around him must be because the man has never heard of towels in his life.)

—

Later, as they’re both walking away in opposite directions, Izuku with a head full of white and Dabi’s with a sharper black, his instincts will tell Izuku that there is definitely someone in the shadows behind him. There are few situations where the approaching presence of someone behind him doesn’t send him into a panic. Taking into account his location and the current time, this is not one of them.

He starts jogging.

Izuku catches sight of something black and white moving just beyond his peripheral vision, freaking him out immensely. There’s extremely low chances of meeting two murderers in a row, possibly. He idly wonders if there have been any studies on this, then imagines it must be terribly hard due to survivorship bias and–

He shakes his head. Right now’s not the time. He might be about to die.

The same vaguely humanoid shape keeps moving steadily closer, so Izuku takes to running. Not his smartest choice since his stamina is not so great, but when he’s being chased, his mind devolves into his base instincts, which collectively yell at him to get away .

Something slightly off-white is propelled forward so fast that Izuku can’t quite manage to dodge yet despite his intensive beach training (which, to be fair, was focused on building strength rather than speed), and then all the air in his lungs leaves him as he’s wrapped up with a squelching noise (no, he still didn’t take Dabi’s offer to dry his clothes) like a burrito in, Izuku looks down, a… scarf? He squirms, and it doesn’t budge. He finds that he actually recognizes this not-scarf.

Holy shit.

This is Eraserhead’s capture weapon.

After their meeting yesterday, however brief it had been, Izuku had managed to both see it in action and get a closer look. And now he even got to touch it! Not under ideal circumstances, but ohmygodhe’sgoingtobearrested. All the oxygen leaves his body in a painful little wheeze.

“Eraserhead,” he croaks out, dizzily awed from both the lack of air and his genuine excitement at meeting the other pro-hero.

Eraserhead blinks. “It’s you again.”

Even the absolute disappointment radiating from the man isn’t enough to stop Izuku’s delight (he is, in fact, rather used to it. The disappointment, he means). He wiggles a little in captivity, but finds that he is unable to reach his knife. Damn it. He guesses criminals must often have something hidden up their sleeves, and that Eraserhead has perfectioned a method of binding that prevents the target from being able to move without restricting their breathing, and that the cloth the capture weapon was made out of is most likely infused with a metal alloy that allows for both its rigidity and fluidity in its mobility…

When Izuku tunes back to the present, he sees Eraserhead watching him with a critical red eye and hair mistily floating. It makes him want to shrivel up and die, kind of. But this time he hasn’t even broken any laws, so what’s with the look?

“Um,” Izuku says weakly. “I’m sorry. Can you put me down?”

“I don’t think so,” Eraserhead replies after a while (which Izuku spends imagining worst case scenarios), then he sits down on the floor and pulls down his goggles. Izuku is gradually lowered and maneuvered until he’s in a parody of Eraserhead’s own position, but looking relatively more worm-like in comparison. At least the binding has loosened enough for him to be able to take deep, deep breaths. “Listen, kid, I think we need to have a talk.”

Izuku thinks that Eraserhead is trying to make his voice sound gentle, but it’s only making him tremble in anticipation. He tries very hard not to cry. “Okay.”

Eraserhead seems faintly surprised at his easy compliance (not that Izuku has any other choice), but it’s gone in a flash. He seems to collect his thoughts for a moment, and then he begins speaking. “What you’re going through must be hard.”

Izuku freezes, blood turning to ice. How does Eraserhead know…

Eraserhead continues, unaware and undeterred by Izuku’s downward spiraling. “I understand that you must have a lot of feelings, and nothing to direct them towards. But vigilantism isn’t the answer you’re looking for.”

Izuku is too busy trying to stop himself from having a breakdown to really understand Eraserhead’s words, but at the mention of vigilantism, he is listening. The hero’s words are cutting deep inside of him, then twisting the handle around the knife. It’s not that Izuku thinks that his revenge will solve anything – at the end of the day, nothing can bring All Might back, he knows that – but… It’s the closure he needs. For his mentor, because he trusted Izuku, and Izuku now has a duty to repay him in kind.

Besides, if there is an enemy All Might couldn’t defeat, then the responsibility falls to Izuku. That’s how successors work.

“He wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” Eraserhead concludes, ending his brief speech. Izuku missed probably half of it, lost in his own thoughts.

He is only vaguely aware of a wetness running down his cheeks but, since he’s still mostly covered in water, it doesn’t register. The feeling in his chest, which has been alternating during the past several weeks between a fullness so overwhelming it gushes out of him and a void so empty Izuku can’t perceive anything besides the absence of everything, is tipping towards boiling anger. Eraserhead doesn’t – he doesn’t understand. How dare he pretend like…

Izuku, stewing in his own frustration, doesn’t notice Eraserhead has gone quiet. The hero makes a move to open his mouth, but a shriek in the near distance makes both of them still. It’s almost enough to startle Izuku back into that emptiness inside of him.

“Shit,” Eraserhead curses, just loud enough that Izuku is able to hear it. He gets up and, once again, stares at Izuku like he doesn’t know what to do with him, weighing his options. Finally, he sighs, and adjusts his goggles back over his eyes. “Here’s how this is going to go. You’re coming with me, but you’re staying on the sidelines. Do not use your Quirk under any circumstances. Got it?”

Izuku, previous wrath simmering to a stop and with a rising hero-infatuation, nods fervently. He’d never pass a chance to see any of his heroes in action.

The capture weapon is carefully unwrapped around him and coiled back into Eraserhead’s shoulders, and then he’s lifting himself up on a lamppost and launching towards the rooftops, heading towards the source of the noise. He doesn’t send a single glance back just to check that Izuku is following, for some reason.

If this is some attempt to discreetly let Izuku go without any repercussions, it flies right over his head. He starts running behind Eraserhead but on the ground, stumbling on a few missed steps, yet still roughly keeping his pace. His socks are still soaked, though, and it’s extremely uncomfortable. He passes a small crowd of older teenagers, whose chatter dies down as they are startled by him.

When he arrives, he finds Eraserhead using his capture weapon to launch one assailant into the other – and oh man, he gets to see Eraserhead’s style against multiple enemies in front row view seats. His movements are almost too fast for Izuku to track, which, taking into account that Eraserhead does not have any kind of mobility enhancement support items, is incredible. There’s no victim in sight, though Izuku still scans the environment just to make sure no one will be caught in the crossfire.

At his side, his hand clenches and unclenches because of muscle memory. He’s itching to get a pen and paper so he can write in real-time, just as he would during any other hero sighting. But this is Eraserhead! He doesn’t have hero sightings. He’s not going to get a chance to write down his thoughts until he gets home (though he’ll use his phone’s writing app in the meantime) because he’s focusing so hard on watching how he works.

Eraserhead’s hair temporarily goes down between blinks. And that split-second where his eyes are closed is sufficiently enough time for one of the villains to activate their Quirk, a sort of shield-type that allows the user to manifest a shield of varying sizes around their body. It’s not particularly offensive, except this villain in particular has managed to weaponize it by rapidly expanding it once it’s manifested, almost like inflating a balloon but at near supersonic speeds. That, combined with its durability, has the potential to send targets flying.

And Eraserhead hasn’t noticed, too busy dodging and parrying hits from the second assailant. Izuku holds a breath.

His feet move before he can – oh, you already know how this goes.

Time slows down to a stop, to the point where Izuku feels like he would be able to see a butterfly in the midst of flapping its wings. The power of One for All burns alive, filling Izuku with adrenaline and pure, unrelenting power, fueling the little torch inside of him into a raging wildfire. A feral smile reaches his face without thinking and, with red-lava veins, he leaps towards the fray.

(Later, he’ll lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wonder how this initial jump didn’t break his legs. He’ll realize something had felt slightly different, almost like the build-up energy in him, dormant up until that instant, had bursted out in his legs but, well, if it wasn’t One for All’s stockpiling, then what was it?)

He grabs Eraserhead’s arm and pulls him away from the danger area just in time, as the villain’s forcefield expands to where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Izuku digs his feet into the concrete to stop their acceleration before they slam into a wall, and hears Eraserhead cursing again under his breath.

“Kid, I told you–”

Izuku has used his Quirk already during this encounter. What’s once more use?

He springs back towards the villain, whose shield is humming with energy. Theories and hypotheticals on the Quirk temporarily cloud his mind, but he sets them aside in favor of harnessing One for All’s strength on his left arm (he has enough presence of mind to decide that breaking the same arm two days in a row is probably bad) and punching .

(He spares half a thought to say thank you to whoever has allowed him to use One for All and not whatever weird tentacles he’d manifested earlier. Seriously. That would’ve been… embarrassing.)

It doesn’t break the forcefield upon initial contact. But Izuku keeps pumping firepower into the blow until the tips of his fingertips feel like they’re turning into mush, and then some more. The result ends with a shockwave and the shattering of the shield (and oh wow, that disproves so many of his assumptions about it, but raises more questions) that sends him flying, and he closes his eyes with a wince.

Briefly, he thinks that’s no good.

A swish of air brings the capture weapon to wrap around his leg before he can collide into the street, but the abruptness still jostles his body. He is awkwardly, once again, lowered to the ground.

He woozily opens one of his eyes just to see Eraserhead smacking his hand against his forehead. “The first and only thing I tell you not to do…”

Izuku swallows, but brings up nothing as his defense.

“Are you hurt– nevermind, don’t answer that. I can see your arm is broken. Again. Jeez. Just stay still,” Eraserhead says, looking extremely weary and tired after the fight, considerably more than he should be considering it’s not even that late yet. Izuku feels a pang of guilt. Eraserhead rubs his eye, before searching his pockets.

Izuku notices the second villain has been apprehended or, well, he’s unconscious on the ground. That counts, right? The forcefield villain, however, is very much still awake, and Eraserhead heads towards him with a pair of Quirk-suppressing handcuffs. Then he pulls out a phone, presumably to call this in with the police.

Wait. The police.

Izuku stands up so fast he almost stumbles back down, and he gets dizzy to the point he almost blacks out on the spot, but he remains standing. That’s enough for him. He knows that Eraserhead can’t go after him as, per protocol, he has to stay here until the police arrive. Unless he decides protocol can go fuck itself, in which case, Izuku is screwed, and he’s gonna have to call his dad from the precinct to ask him to pick him up.

He makes a run for it.

He makes the shortest eye contact possible with Eraserhead, who only appears resigned from his spot beside the villains before he looks away. He doesn’t move a muscle in pursuit, instead crouching down and checking their vitals.

Huh , Izuku thinks as he turns his head back to the front, barely dodging a post before he can slam into it. “Sorry,” he calls out, then recoils because it is an inanimate object, who does not have the ability to feel offended. Nevermind that. What was up with Eraserhead? Did he… willingly let him go?

What?

—

The first incident – it wasn’t Izuku’s fault. It wasn’t! It really was a bad case of wrong time, wrong place. And he easily solved it, too, because of the rush of adrenaline that prevented him from fully feeling the extent of his injuries, though later he would realize that had made them a lot, a lot worse. Getting thanked by the would-be victims, who were nearly beside themselves in relief, was just a bonus, not the purpose behind his aid.

On the second one, well, he didn’t actively seek it out, but he’s always moving towards danger before he can think better of it… And he wasn’t about to just leave once he’d arrived! What kind of concerned civilian would that have made him? Especially since there hadn’t been any other hero around.

And the third, and fourth, and so on – okay, fine, those ones he did do on purpose.

But, at the end of the day, all he was doing was helping people. What did it matter if the police called it illegal, or vigilantism? To Izuku, it’s fulfilling his life purpose. He might regret it tomorrow, but today… Today, he’s a hero.

—

Hisashi sleeps every night.

It’s a personal choice. With the Quirks at his beck-and-call, he could easily forgo the need for throwing away one third of his lifespan towards resting and recovering, which he imagines many others would decide to do in his shoes, especially with his position as one of the biggest criminals in world history.

But it’s not like he himself does most of his work. The important things, yes – those tasks he can’t delegate to anyone else. But he’s lived such a long life, and he’ll surely continue living it, so what’s wrong with being patient and taking time for his own health? His latest fight with All Might, and Izuku’s subsequent acquisition of One for All, has proven that he can take it easy for a while.

However, he finds that sleep doesn’t come easy when he is aware that his son is out there, doing who-knows-what, and possibly getting injured. Is this how Inko feels every single moment of the day? How terribly tiring. Hisashi has only been taking care of their little Izuku for two days, and he is already contemplating making use of the Vault again. If it means Izuku will be safe and sound…

He sighs, and ventures towards the kitchen for a cup of tea. He is grateful that Inko is an avid tea enthusiast, which is one of the things they had bonded over in their earliest meetings, and has always kept a few extravagant blends around. A few of these boxes are in the highest cabinets, too, and knowing his wife and son are both… vertically challenged, it means they were bought and stored with him in mind. The thought warms him from the inside out. His family is so very lovely.

He’s just filling the kettle with water when the front door creaks open. He hears his son's timid footsteps, sounding a tad louder than they normally are which an untrained ear would not notice, but he pays them no heed. He actively projects cheerfulness into his voice. “Welcome back, Izuku!”

The lack of reply doesn’t demotivate him in the slightest, of course. Izuku has been a little bit harsh on him recently, though he has been lenient since, well, he did murder his favorite hero and mentor. He would’ve told Izuku already, but the wound is still too fresh, and he’s hoping to build a better relationship so Izuku won’t hesitate to let bygones be bygones.

Nonetheless, the absolute stillness in the room after his words does concern him.

Hisashi finally turns around, and his entire world spins to a halt.

It’s his son, Izuku, it has to be, but his hair looks white and slightly unruly (is it damp?) like his brother’s. And with those green eyes… He’s frozen in time, memories long buried rushing back to the surface. His brother, feeble arms wrapping around him in a tight hug. His brother, condemning his actions. His brother, harshly pushing him away.

His brother, dying.

Yoichi’s – Izuku’s – his son mouths words he can’t hear, because his brain is still stuck on the afterimage of Yoichi. Yoichi, who’s telling him “Get it, brother? The villain always loses in the end!” on loop. Despite these decades spanning into centuries between them, the memory of Yoichi is still stuck in the back of his head.

“Dad?”

Hizashi takes a sharp breath of air, then steels his heart. There’s never been any use in crying about it, much less now of all times. The second he takes a good look at this son, he does a double-take. “Is your arm… broken, again?”

Izuku has been staring at him with unbridled curiosity, possibly since it took him quite a while to react. After his question, however, he at least seems sheepish about it, a redness growing in his cheeks. His one unbroken hand is fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie. “Yeah…”

Hizashi nods like he understands, except he doesn’t. Why is One for All hurting his son so much? Did that bastard hero overcharge the stockpiling portion of it? He burns with rage, though none of that shows on his face, as he looks as proper as always externally. If anything good has come out of this, at least, it is that Izuku is actively seeking him out this time, with a lot less hesitation than before. “I’ll call the doctor, Izuku. In the meantime, just rest.”

“Okay,” Izuku replies, followed by a quiet, solemn “thanks, dad.”

Hisashi’s pride grows in his chest, though it is bittersweet. Indeed, his son is ever-so good to his father.

Chapter Text

Izuku is cursed.

That’s the only possible explanation. Nothing else can justify the incidents that have been happening for the last week or so. The whole floating – which had happened a few times in his sleep, causing him to wake up inches away from the ceiling – towards the sky bit? A ghost, maybe. Or a demon. Maybe an unholy combination of both. The demon would probably explain the tendrils, too, since he thinks ghosts can’t be corporeal, except for those cases when they are…

(Additionally to the floating, he'll wake up with dried tear tracks on his face and a bittersweet feeling of contentment. He never remembers what his dreams are about, but he thinks they might be of his mentor, because he gets the feeling of kind blue eyes looking back at him.

However, no matter how much he tries to recall what his mind conjures up in his unconsciousness, there's no image beside one of a void populated entirely by shadows. And by the time he sits up in his bed, those memories will have flowed away. He’ll feel as though a weight had been lifted off of him, though he has no idea how or why.

It adds to the ghost/demon theory, though.)

The bone-shattering? Surely that’s the work of a curse as well. There’s no logical, sensible reasoning that covers all of this, so he’s going to have to look at other alternatives, whether or not he thinks they are actually within the realm of possibilities (the era of Quirks has proven mostly anything can be possible. Rule 43. If it exists, or can be imagined, then there’s a Quirk for it.).

But what really takes the cake is waking up to scratches on his ceiling.

He doesn’t even scream – he’s kinda too busy paralyzed in fear for that. But he comes really, really close to that.

Why, why, why, why, why.

He rubs his eyes with a desperate ferocity until he’s blinking spots from his vision, but when he opens them again he can still see the scratches.

Izuku thinks that maybe, maybe they were meant to be words, and he says this very generously! But the “letters” (if one could call them that) were too jerky, cluttered, and looked rather like a child’s first attempt at writing, if the child was also furious and prone to violence. Actually, it kind of reminded him of how Kacchan used to write in preschool. All angry lines, with way too much pressure behind them, until the crayons snapped under his grip and–

–that’s not the point!

Izuku is cursed, or haunted, or both, and he needs to do something about it before he loses his mind. He’s more likely haunted, anyway. He doesn’t believe a curse is sentient enough to attempt to communicate. He shudders, noting the room is a lot colder than normal, and burrows back under the covers. He even tucks his feet in. For safety.

He spends a long, long time staring at his ceiling, contemplating putting up another poster (one that isn’t All Might, as he still can’t… muster up the courage to unpack all his Hero merch) to cover the scratches up since it’d be awkward if anyone else sees them (not that anyone comes into his room, ever), but he really doesn’t want to leave the comfort of his bed. Especially when he doesn't know what might be underneath it. One would believe these are stupid, childish fears, but… he certainly did not do anything to his ceiling, and the idea of his dad being behind something so unreasonable was out of the question. Maybe.

He spares a glance to his bedside table, where his alarm clock spells 4:41 AM, and tries to close his eyes and sleep. If this had been last month, he would’ve already been up and hauling trash on the beach. But considering that, for the past half-dozen days, he had been going out at midnight and committing kind-of vigilantism, it means that he has only gotten less than two hours of sleep.

(It’s not that he can’t do anything without using the Quirk, or that he wants to injure himself! He’s since learnt his lesson, through blood and sweat and tears, but since his dad looks more and more miserable everytime Izuku shows up with broken bones, he can’t help but continue to use One for All. Should he be finding healthier ways to get back at his deadbeat dad? Possibly. Is he winning here? No, he’s really not. Is he going to keep doing it? Absolutely.

Plus Ultra.)

But no matter how much he tries not to think about the “writing” on his ceiling, he can’t stop thinking about the “writing” on his ceiling.

Few minutes into his restlessness as he realizes that no, he will not be falling back asleep anytime soon, he grabs his phone, temporarily blinding himself with its screen, and taps on his search engine.

A furtive query yields very few results. Most sites speak about actually sentient Quirks, and while that is extremely intriguing for him, it doesn’t apply in this scenario. Because All Might’s Quirk isn’t sentient. His mentor would’ve told him if it was, right? Izuku likes to think that he would’ve. Then again, Izuku wasn’t supposed to be getting it until after he finished cleaning the beach, and he had barely gotten a few areas cleared of trash. So whatever else he should’ve known about One for All before receiving it has died with their former Number One. 

His hope dwindles.

But he doesn’t give up. He settles for searching on older, pre-Quirk sites (however few of them are still standing) about people who hunted proof of ghosts for a living. The practice has mostly ebbed away, as the rising of Quirks made most non-believers at least hesitant to dismiss the notion, but that also is pointless. A lot of it is clickbait material, heavily edited and exaggerated to a degree. It also does not apply to his situation, because apparently ghosts just do not Do That, which leaves him back where he started.

Izuku still ends up in a deep rabbit hole of old, peculiar websites because they’re pretty interesting to read, until an ad (looking fairly modern) stops him in his tracks. It’s very bad Photoshop of All Might shrunk down into frankly laughable proportions with a red circle around him, with several tastelessly glittery arrows pointing towards him. What really sells the whole thing is the words “SECRET LEGACY SON?” in a garish font.

He raises his eyebrows. It doesn’t make him laugh or anything, because looking at All Might is still a heavy reminder of what he’s lost and what he still has to work hard for, but, well, it comes really close. It’s a little bit hilarious. The ad looks so out of place, and Izuku can’t, for the life of him, imagine someone paying to display it on such a site… Or any site.

Izuku is too sleep-deprived from incidents that cannot be explained without Quirk involvement or straight-up supernatural elements, so he shrugs and just clicks on it. At least this is a decent enough distraction from the “writing” on his ceiling.

It’s a link to an article titled “YOUNG MIGHT? All Might’s SECRET SON rising into VIGILANTISM?”, from a site that Izuku recognizes as distinctly spam.

But then his eyes look down and–

The picture below displays a shaky, blurry picture of Izuku from almost a week ago, where he’s throwing a punch at the goat-Quirk villain front and center.

In his surprise, his sweaty hands drop his phone on his face.

—

Ignoring the sharp pang of pain in his nose, he picks up his phone again and swipes down. Movements frantic, Izuku scans the article at unmatched speeds, except his brain doesn’t actually catch on any of the words except “All Might”, “successor”, “secret child” and “legacy”. The article is not particularly long, but each of them is akin to a stab to the gut, especially considering that he is carrying All Might’s legacy through his Quirk. 

He feels like – crying. Or laughing. Both, most likely. But leaning towards crying.

While the idea of him being All Might’s son is so out of left field and incredibly incorrect, it does leave way for the heightening of a feeling of longing that he hadn’t noticed has been dwelling in his chest since their training at Takoba. And that makes Izuku awfully guilty, because he already has a dad (no matter how much resentment he feels towards the man after leaving his family and going no-contact for five years), who is trying really hard to make Izuku welcome him in his heart again.

He hates himself for being so – so greedy. He should be happy with what he has, not want more .

The article, still sitting in an open tab, links a “source” which Izuku doubts has any truth to it, but he clicks on it anyway. It opens a forum post by a user named Cold Soba, which depicts an interesting… take on his vigilantism. Just reading the title nearly gives Izuku an aneurysm.

—

Villains & Vigilantes Category

Musutafu’s Youngest Vigilante: All Might’s Secret Lovechild?

14.7k points    Reply    Share    • • •    Villains & Vigilantes |  Cold Soba  |  2 days ago

Musutafu's youngest vigilante, Junior (short for All Might Junior, name given to him by the press), has been patrolling the streets for a few weeks now. He has a strong strength-augmentation type of Quirk with the potential to destroy entire city blocks with just a blow. Here is why he's All Might's secret lovechild.

Exhibit A: All Might retires, and a few days later, Junior shows up.

The timing is too perfect for it to be just a coincidence. The most reasonable explanation is that he's taking up his father's mantle and becoming a Hero on his own terms, especially after the power vacuum left behind. Since his age is unknown, it is possible that he is not old enough to go Pro. Therefore, he might be trying to protect Musutafu the best he can...

Exhibit B: Similar Quirks, except Junior's might be even stronger.

This is self-explanatory. Rarely have we seen Quirks as strong as All Might's, and Junior's is not only extremely similar, but just as powerful (or perhaps even stronger).

There have been many theories on what All Might's top power out-put is, but the average puts it somewhere around the same level that the Vigilante has shown in the few recorded sightings we have. The only difference appears to be the level of backlash between their Quirks...

Exhibit C: Out of all the possible clothing he could’ve picked, he chose an All Might hoodie.

This could be taken as a statement. But why pick an All Might hoodie specifically? It could be that he's spiting his father through illegal activities that would be frowned upon on the son of such a high-profile Hero...

Read more...

—

By the time he reaches the end, Izuku is half-convinced All Might is his dad, despite looking nothing like him and also having inherited his Quirk through other means – though, it had been a transference of DNA, which is how people normally pass down their own Quirk genes… – and, he shakes his head. No, his dad is very much a real person separate from All Might. He’s not that delusional. His dad’s odd obsession with the former pro-hero aside, they really couldn’t be more different.

It is kind of scary to see someone analyzing him the way he analyzes heroes, too, though it’s mostly since this wasn’t supposed to be brought into light or anything. It’s not like he wants to be recognized. And it’s not like he wants to be named (especially since All Might Junior had been one of his hero name ideas as a toddler, before the diagnosis), because when you give something a name, it makes it real, meaning that Izuku has been committing Very Real and Very Punishable crimes.

He thinks of his mom, who would be unconsolable if she came back to Japan to find her only son in jail, and suppresses a shudder.

The post itself has probably hundreds of thousands of views and an outstanding amount of replies (though a huge part of them humorous in nature, but some discussing its veracity), and the OP has gained a lot of followers from it. Izuku clicks on Cold Soba’s profile and yep, the account is less than two years old, but it has over 300 posts (okay, huh, wow? That’s… quite a lot, and that’s coming from him , Mr. Thirteen-Notebooks), and just looking at the second most recent one, titled ‘ Snipe and Gunhead: Long-lost Brothers? ’ tells Izuku everything he needs to know.

He makes a quick account, picking Deku as his username because it’s the first non-All-Might-related name he can come up with, doesn’t even bother to set a profile picture , and just goes back to the post to leave a comment. It’s really easy to find – he doesn’t even need to search for it – since it’s on the front page , the very first thing that all the web traffic sees when they click on this site.

The least he can do is tell Cold Soba that they’re wrong, right? Maybe that’ll even, who knows, inspire them to take down their post. Since they’re spreading misinformation. Which Izuku believes is at least a little bit illegal. Perhaps. His brain entirely blocks out the part where it is just a theory, in denial of the possibility that it is not meant to be taken that seriously.

(Of course, not that his denial matters. Cold Soba wrote the post one hundred percent dead serious.)

—

Deku • 2m ago
Okay I understand that you have good evidence that supports all this but I promise you he is not All Might's son he is not related in any way, shape or form to All Might in fact I believe All Might would never condone this and maybe he IS spiting his father but this father is not All Might can you take this down plea

2 points    Reply    Share    • • •   Edit

Cold Soba • 2m ago
I believe I've made my case clear. Why should I take it down? Do you have any proof of any of this?

1 point    Reply    Share    • • •

Deku • 20s ago
I don't know how I'm supposed to prove this to you but I swear you're wrong I mean I do have proof but I absolutely cannot share it here sorry

2 points    Reply    Share    • • •   Edit

Cold Soba • 9s ago
DM me.

1 point    Reply    Share    • • •

—

He sends the first comment a couple letters too prematurely, but doesn’t get a chance to edit it. The replies are near-instant, however, so much that the ping his phone gives off startles him into bumping his head against his bed frame with a yelp. He rubs the spot absentmindedly with one hand, the other still holding his phone.

Even weirder is that Cold Soba, despite having thousands of other comments in their post –both harsh criticisms and strong agreements, each with “evidence” backing them up –, has chosen to reply to him specifically . Izuku’s comment, from a throwaway account that doesn’t even have a profile picture and is only a couple of minutes old. It probably says a lot more about Cold Soba than about Izuku, though.

His hands tremble as his fingertip hovers across the Direct Message button on Cold Soba’s profile.

Should he? Message Cold Soba?

…

And then he’ll say what?

‘Sorry, but can you take your post down? I don’t want people to look for a connection between the vigilante I created on accident-slash-purpose with All Might, my dead mentor who gave me this Quirk – and yes, it looks similar to his because it is his Quirk.’

Was. It was his Quirk.

Izuku has it now.

He lets out the breath he’d been holding. Best case scenario, Cold Soba makes a follow-up post telling everyone that he was really quite wrong about his assumptions, and everyone will drop it. Worst case scenario, Cold Soba calls him a loser like most other people in his life and blocks him forever and also makes another few posts telling everyone how stupid and useless Deku is and goes to the police.

Should he tell the truth? Just tell Cold Soba that he’s the vigilante, and that he’s entirely certain that All Might is not his father? Send a picture, however old it may be, of him with his real dad?

Izuku falters.

Obviously not. There’s a very real probability that the site isn’t safe and might send this information straight to the police. Or that the user may be able to track down his identity and tell the police themselves, who will show up at his doorstep, be greeted by his dad and then be forced to arrest two Midoriyas at once, as his dad will inevitably cause a scene, because that’s just how embarrassing he is. Then his mom will receive a phone call, be told that both her son and husband are in jail, and have a heart attack or something.

Really, what can he say? Or do?

Izuku thinks long and hard about it.

Then the solution slaps him in the face because of how obvious it is. Why didn’t he think of it before?

—

– Hi. So, the vigilante isn’t All Might’s son. At all.

– Hello. That’s what you told me.
But what makes you so sure?

– I’m sure because I know who he is, and All Might isn’t his father.

—

Way to go, Izuku! Good job on this. Let’s just create an entirely new identity for the vigilante, that way, he won’t be linked back to Midoriya Izuku, the currently Quirkless middle-schooler and future Yuuei Heroics Course applicant (hopefully student), as well as All Might’s handpicked successor.

This is surely not going to backfire on him in any way, shape, or form!

He sighs, sliding back down into his pillow, and then sees the “writing” on his ceiling again. Goddamnit. He squints his eyes, but still can’t make anything out of them. It does look hurried, though, like the demon had been working on limited time, and the last few “letters” were barely scratched onto the surface. Literally. 

Izuku covers his entire face with his hands, and only removes them to unlock his phone as a notification buzzes. It’s a picture from his mom, though, sent in their family group chat, where she appears leaning against the rails in the cruise ship with dolphins (real, actual dolphins!) swimming behind her. The sky looks beautiful, with the sun nowhere near setting yet but as bright as always. At least one of them is having a good time, he thinks. His dad texts back just a few seconds later with a bad pick-up line that makes Izuku faintly nauseous. He mutes the group chat.

Going back to the DMs with Cold Soba, he sees a little pop-up message saying ‘Cold Soba is typing…’ appearing and disappearing every few seconds. Izuku understands. He would do the same in his position. It takes a surprisingly long while for a reply.

—

– And you’re certain of this?

– Absolutely!!

– How certain?

– I know his dad (who isn’t All Might) personally. They look exactly alike.

– People generally have two parents.
Can you confirm the second one isn’t All Might either?

– None of my parents are All Might!!!!!
I mran
Mean
NOne of his aprent
None of HIS parents are All Might

– Very well.
But this does not exclude a distant biological connection.

– There is no biologgical connection between my friend and All Might.

– As far as you know.

– I’m really, really sure.

—

Izuku, trying very hard not to throw up at the idea of his dad and All Might together (no matter how implausible it is, the mere thought is plain disgusting and makes him shudder violently. All Might and his dad. Ew, ew, ew.), realizes the guy must be fucking around with him. Right? There’s no way he bought it just like that. There’s no way he’s convinced Cold Soba now that he’s had a mild slip-up. The guy’s pulling his teeth, for sure.

Except, does it matter? Cold Soba might think that he’s messing around, too, and might just take everything as a joke. So Izuku will just leave it at that, and pray that nothing else comes from this. If Cold Soba ever tries to bring it up, Izuku will just play it off as a prank or something. Yep. Sure. Easy.

Besides, this is the internet. Nothing’s meant to be taken that seriously.

He turns off his phone, deciding that’s too much for one day (it’s not even 6am) and tightly clenches shut his eyes. Sleep still doesn’t come. Izuku is very close to bashing his head on a wall until he falls unconscious, then he imagines his mom’s evening getting ruined by a phone call from his dad telling her Izuku is too troublesome and that he’s leaving them again, and decides he should put his unrestfulness to use.

He doesn’t put on any of his All Might hoodies, electing a plain-colored one that just says ‘swimwear’ in very small letters in the front, one of his favorites. This isn’t him choosing to do any vigilantism twice in a day (night? Or dawn?) at all. He’s just going out for breakfast. Definitely just breakfast, and nothing else. Just some food.

He does some small mental math. If he takes the train to a faraway café, he might make it in time for their opening hour since it’s still too early right now, and maybe he can stretch the visit long enough that he even sadly misses lunch with his dad on his way back. Excellent plan, Izuku. Considering his dad is already awake, guessing by the growing number of notifications from their family group chat that Izuku is definitely not ignoring at all, he should try to be more discreet. Window it is.

He still remembers fondly those months spent chasing underground heroes when he’d been around 11 years old, for the sake of his Hero Analysis for the Future. He hadn’t gotten a single glimpse of Eraserhead back then, and all his information had come from small forums and personal accounts of events instead, both judged harshly in their credibility, but he’d been caught now and then by other heroes, who had been both concerned for him and flattered by his praises. It meant that he was more-or-less up-to-date with most hero patrol routes and times, which was incredibly helpful for avoiding legal authorities during his night time activities.

The most seasoned pros tend to have fluctuating schedules, proven by Eraserhead in the flesh. The hero seems to have an Izuku-themed sixth sense yet hasn’t made another move towards capturing him – only attempting to talk to Izuku, which, arguably, might be even worse. Izuku doesn’t want to be talked out of revenge. He owes it to All Might to finish the fight he started, and to each and every one of his memories of his mentor, who’d been both the immovable pillar and the unstoppable force up until his death.

But, well. Eraserhead has been “attempting” to feed him (throwing store-bought packages of onigiri at him with little to no warning), and had even brought a small med-kit that he personally gave Izuku (kind of. He left it behind in a place where it was easy to grab without saying a single word, but Izuku guessed the man might be a little shy), and had even tried to teach Izuku how to throw a punch without breaking his bones (he still broke them, but they were actively working on it now which, huh, cool).

Izuku doesn’t know what to do with all this.

First All Might comes and gives Izuku hope for the first time in forever. He trains him, and teaches him, and gives him pointers and makes the dumbest dad jokes and shouts encouragement and then–

Then he… dies.

And suddenly, other adults start trying to fit into the All-Might shaped hole he left behind, despite being an impossible task. He’d yet to see Yamada-san again, but his dad was now almost always home and struggling to spend time with him (whether Izuku wanted to or not), then Eraserhead started to teach him several fight moves instead of bringing him to jail for some reason, and there was Dabi, too, who Izuku would sometimes find roaming the streets (Izuku never asks what he’s doing, and Dabi never offers any information) before being invited along… But it wasn’t like they knew Izuku is no longer Quirkless, so what gives?

Izuku eventually finds himself leisurely strolling towards the train station once more, though he distantly notes that it’s really cloudy, and it’ll probably rain soon. Just his luck. His dad probably would’ve known and made him drag an umbrella out with him, since he’s weird like that. He’s always been able to accurately predict the weather, even disagreeing with the meteorologists on the news and still getting it right. Izuku wishes he’d inherited that, somehow, since it always made his mom smile in delight every time they avoided a downpour.

(Sometimes, Izuku will recall a memory where he and his dad are in the park, playing with the falling snow. Before his diagnosis, of course. But Izuku will look back to the street and see it completely bare, and then turn upwards to the sky and find it sunny, not a cloud in sight. Around him, however, the trees and the grass and the playground are fully covered in snow to the point where the dirt isn’t even visible, so he’ll just shrug it off and continue to pelt his dad with snowballs.)

He doesn’t even bother to pull his hood up, since the water will still find a way to soak into his hair, meaning he’ll have to look for Dabi again for another makeshift dyeing session, since the box of dye had explicitly stated it would only wash away with cold water (Izuku had still only taken the most scalding showers, for the sake of cautiousness). The thought warms him inside, however messed up it is for him to actively seek out a criminal. Dabi is – he’s different. He’s similar to Izuku. He understands.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he grabs it to check it’s not his dad so he can put it on silent in response, but it’s actually a message from Cold Soba. Strange, but he unlocks it so he can read it.

Or he tries to, at least. A black tendril erupts from his palm at alarming speeds and nearly through his phone. It’s only Izuku’s lack of situational awareness leading him to dropping his phone that saves it from getting skewered. As it is, it only falls to the ground with a resounding crack that makes Izuku wince. He hopes it still works, since he’d rather go without a phone than ask his dad for another one – just imagining it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

The tendril, with a life of its own, attempts to pick up his phone but only manages to flip it over. Izuku watches it passively with a growing sense of terror. What can he even do? It’s clearly not listening to his thoughts of go back get back in get out stop stop stop oh my god go away , so Izuku decides the best course of action is to shake his hand vigorously like a bug’s landed on him and he’s trying to get it off.

It doesn’t work, though, and the tendril only wiggles comically through the air before completely falling still. Izuku swears it stops to look at the phone on the ground before turning around to stare judgingly at him, however impossible that may be.

Izuku – he almost cries. Almost.

But if these past few weeks have taught him anything, it’s that he doesn’t have time to be a crybaby anymore. So he’s gonna have to tough it out. He puffs out his chest like Kacchan when he’s trying to make himself bigger, and holds his ground.

The tendril doesn’t react, so Izuku lets out his breath of air and decides to change tactics by, once again, aggressively attempting to communicate with it via telepathy. It’s – that’s, it came out of him, right? So he should, theoretically, have some degree of control over it. But Izuku doesn’t, which, okay, it just doesn’t make sense. At all. Even if it is some kind of sentient Quirk, it should listen to him? But it just doesn’t.

Instead, it just taps urgently at the phone.

Izuku gawks at it with huge, wide eyes.

It’s… trying to tell him something, Izuku is sure of it. So he grabs his phone with his unoccupied hand, checks it over (the screen only has some minor cracks, which he can totally live with. But he could also, y’know, live without them, he thinks resentfully) and unlocks it again. He opens the notes app before realizing the tendril itself is definitely thicker than a finger, so it can’t exactly type, and he instead switches to a default doodle tool before offering it like it’s his last ditch attempt at trying to appease an angry god.

If it’s a ghost, then maybe it’ll tell him what he should do in order to help it move on to whatever afterlife. If it’s a demon, then – Izuku doesn’t actually know anything about demons. Do they also try to move on, somehow? Or…

Whatever it is, it appears to perk up at the blank canvas, and hurriedly launches towards writing.

Well. It tries to.

The tendril rubs itself furiously over the screen to the point where Izuku draws his hand back because he’s worried that it’ll finally crack his phone, but it still doesn’t trigger the detection mechanism. Izuku guesses it is because the tendril is not similar to a human finger, but considers that it may be because it’s a figment of his imagination, and he’s been hallucinating these incidents. His only saving grace is that there are now off-color patches over the holes in his bedroom wall, and their existence proves .

“Oh,” he emphasizes slowly, with the same intonation he’d use to speak to a scared animal. “I’m sorry.”

It says nothing, but it curls onto itself a little bit. It almost looks like it’s expressing disappointment. Either that, or Izuku is actually going insane, which is beginning to seem like the most probable explanation. If it is sentient, it’s probably best if Izuku gives it a name. He guesses Demon will do for now (he hopes it is unable to read his mind, or that it won’t take it to heart). Eventually, it just pats him on the head, like Izuku is a small child and it’s trying to console him.

The silence is only broken by a water droplet that lands squarely on Izuku’s nose, making him scrunch up his entire face. Great. He wipes it off, but he just knows that it’ll be followed by many more. And he’s still so far from the station, too…

He decides to start walking again, even though the tendril still hasn’t retreated to wherever it goes to when it is not tangible in this plane of existence, and it’s being dragged along like a dog on a leash. At least the company is kind of nice. Emphasis on the “kind of”. Izuku guesses he’ll just have to make peace with it, since it’s not going anywhere.

And because Izuku can’t have even one (one!) uneventful outing, his eyes catch sight of another teenager in the middle of getting mugged a few blocks down the street. Predictably, he runs towards the danger. There goes his morning breakfast plans. Izuku’s latent Quirk is to have a bad day every day.

It’s like time slows down for him, allowing him to analyze the situation long before he’s stepping foot into it. There are two muggers, which leaves Izuku dumbfounded, because, generally, mugging isn’t a two-person job at all. Not that Izuku thinks it’s a reasonable job or anything! But it doesn’t need to take more than one person per mugging, if they’re really trying to be efficient. Which maybe they don’t need to be! What does Izuku know about crimes, anyway?

The tallest of the two has a huge, scary knife. It gives Izuku a good idea about their Quirk – it’s not suited for fighting or intimidation at all. Or, it’s so suited for fighting and intimidation that they can’t even risk using it for something that should be very simple, cut and dry. There are Quirks that go from 0 to a 100 without any in-between, like One for All… And, wait, has Izuku tried to–

Not the time!

The other villain, shorter than the victim by almost a full head, has big, glowing yellow eyes. Guessing by the victim’s lack of movement and semi-frozen state, he has some kind of sight-based paralysis Quirk, which is bad news for Izuku. And anyone who is currently corporeal, really. The victim, however, seems to be breathing just fine, which means their heart is still pumping blood, and the Quirk does not paralyze involuntary movements, preventing targets from dying by restrictions of their basic functions. That’s… really cool! Izuku can already think of a dozen scenarios where such a Quirk could be useful. Shame they’re using it to mug people.

At least Izuku and Demon seem to arrive at the same conclusion at the same time, because when he leaps forward, the tendril retracts for a split-second before several identical ones burst out of his hand and towards apprehending the two villains at blinding speeds.

—

Gran Torino curses foully when clouds start forming above him. He should’ve called a cab earlier, but now he’s paying for it. Not everyone can have a future-prediction Quirk like Mirai’s. The boy should consider himself lucky.

He’s headed to Musutafu’s Police Department, where that one detective friend of Toshi’s, had asked for a meeting. They still have no leads on the case, and it’s only getting colder as weeks pass. However, they’d unanimously decided that if they truly are unable to solve it, then it must be the work of All for One.

The idea of that monster still alive despite Toshi bashing his skull is unbelievable – they had seen the aftermath, and they were fairly sure no one could survive that –, but they haven’t discarded the possibility of a successor, as unlikely as that would be. After all, One for All had been passed down through generations. Maybe All for One decided he was too old for the business–

His hero reflexes, not dulled at all by age, allow him to jump backwards just as a body comes flying towards the sidewalk. Said body rolls to a stop and groans, thankfully. It’s a short person, taller than Gran Torino himself though not by much. They clutch their head with an intriguing expression of regret, but Gran Torino can see they look guilty, as opposed to frightened. Most likely a villain, then. A quick cursory glance tells him they don’t have any life-threatening injuries.

He spares half a thought to consider personally calling in Tsukauchi for this, but the man is probably too overworked as it is (and still glad to take on a hundred more cases – leave it to Toshi to find similar-minded companions). He’ll just have to deal with whatever rookie they send his way.

Then he turns his head towards the source of the conflict, and.

There’s a white-haired boy who’s suspended in mid-air above the street, limbs sprawled around him for just a moment, before he gets tossed around like a ragdoll by what appears to be black-green tentacles flinching violently in every direction. What’s more, is that there’s a current of lightning traveling up and down his body, and smoke coming off of him in waves.

The boy’s eyes are screwed shut, but he’s crying.

This is impossible .

Gran Torino doesn’t notice the merciless rainfall, or the second villain and the victim both scrambling to get away from the onslaught of the tendrils, which are still viciously slamming into the street and the lamps and the buildings around them, because he only has eyes for this white-haired teenager who is using multiple Quirks at the same time .  

There is no Quirk on Earth that is as varied and all-encompassing as this.

There is no Quirk – except for one. One which was thought to have died with the villain who wielded it.

And yet–

The levitation… It looks so familiar to him.

When he tries to think of where else he’s seen it, he’s quick to recognize it. All for One had an extremely similar air-walking Quirk, one they had identified as stolen, leading them to finally close a murder case that had laid cold for years.

Gran Torino, despite no outside influences, and decades of pro-hero experience, stands frozen in shock.

—

Izuku doesn’t know what’s happening.

His body is on fire his mind is on fire every inch of his skin is on fire. There’s a blur of voices and colors and darkness, but what stands out to him is the coldness of water droplets in his face and his arms and the dampness of his hoodie. There’s – he had been doing something, right? But what? Where is he?

It hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts–

There’s actual, real molten lava pouring out of him and swirling around inside. He feels his teeth grinding against each other, and he knows his eyes are wide open, unblinking, because they’re burning dry despite all his tears. Stop , he thinks to no avail. Please, please, please. Please stop.

Why?

A villain, he recalls. A villain, and running towards danger for the sake of saving someone else, and then–

Pain.

He thinks he crashes into a building. It sure feels like it. Then another, until he’s tasting dust in his mouth. Debris is digging into his arms. There’s smoke going deep into his lungs.

He focuses, tries to focus, on sealing it shut. He imagines twisting the cap back on a jar of peanut butter, sliding it into a perfect fit, but it doesn’t work. The Quirk still doesn’t bend to his will, not faltering under Izuku’s undying volition. He can’t hold it back – it’s overflowing, like pouring the entire ocean into a measly little bucket.

Worst of all, Izuku doesn’t even know what’s happening. His mind is not really registering what his eyes are telling him. He’s not processing any of the sounds surrounding him. He can’t feel the dirt beneath his feet, he can’t feel anything beneath him at all. That’s – that’s really scary. There’s nothing beneath him, or around him, and when he reaches out a palm – no one grabs it. He’s alone.

And then, as sudden as it began, it ends.

He falls, his back to the ground, and it makes a horrible crunching sound that’ll haunt Izuku forever and ever. He’s still feeling his legs, however, so he attempts to stand immediately, but he only ends up crashing back to the ground. No time to frolic. He needs to – he needs to. His breathing is too fast, his pulse erratic. He needs to settle down again.

He can’t feel anyone around him, he’s alone. There’s no one with him right now. He also has no idea where he is. The street is unrecognizable to him. He must’ve run at some point.

He takes a deep, deep breath, and it comes out as a sob. Okay, okay, okay. You can do this, Izuku. You’re no longer allowed to be Quirkless, useless Deku. The next breath is slightly easier, and so is the next, until he’s back to semi-normal. His heart is still beating way, way too fast, perhaps even enough to be a cause for concern, but he dismisses it for now. As long as he’s getting air again, he can deal with the rest.

From the corner of his eye, he sees his phone laying a few feet away from him, miraculously intact. Mostly intact, he corrects himself with a wince. He half-crawls towards it, knowing he must look like quite the sight, because his phone is, in fact, water-proof, but only to a certain degree. It won’t withstand more of this late August downpour. And this downpour – he tugs one of his locks and sees it is, once again, deep green. Only the tips have a little bit of white leftover.

His knee ends up deep in a puddle of water, but that’s fine. Totally fine. It is fine, compared to everything else that has happened to him in the past month, or year, or decade, but the uncomfortable feeling that comes with wet clothes is what breaks the camel’s back and spurs on a brand new generation of tears until he’s sniffling back snot like a miserable toddler.

He walks towards the end of the alley, sitting down behind a dumpster, his back to the wall. He hisses when it connects, but doesn’t dare move any more than he has. Should he – call someone? He does, probably, but he thinks he’d honestly rather die than physically ask for help right now, and he’s scared he might actually mean it.

When he unlocks it, he taps on his conversation with Cold Soba by accident. The little mistake makes him both so angry he wants to choke someone until they turn purple, and so hysterical he wants to laugh like he’s the funniest comedian on the entire planet. Both are – bad options, of course, so he goes for the third one. A distraction. Despite his fingers as jittery from nerves as they are, and his phone’s useless autocorrect feature, he manages to get a conversation going.

—

– Sorry. My father is insistent that I eat breakfast with him.
Ever since the news of All Might’s retirement, it has become a tradition of sorts.

– I gget it its fien dw.
My dad a lso does the sme thing
Sincee All Mights retiement

– What a weird coincidence.
Though my father has always had a deep obsession with All Might.
He is the main reason behind most of my father’s actions.

– My dads too
He ws always like soemdya youlll surpass his powwer and defeat him

– So does mine.
Did yours also insist on bonding time since the retirement announcement?

—

And that’s how it starts.

—

(Izuku remembers his dad’s words before the diagnosis. And isn’t that such a disquieting thought. That he always, without fail, finds himself dividing his own life in Before and After his Quirklessness diagnosis.

“Someday, you’ll be the one to surpass All Might, my son.”

“You’ll put an end to his era.”

“You’ll defeat All Might, Izuku.”

As a four year old, he’d taken them the way any other young child would – he’d be the best hero! The next number one, better than All Might! He’d save the entire world, with a smile! It hadn’t occurred to him for the next few following years, not even once, that maybe his dad had meant them in a different context. One that didn’t imply Izuku as a hero, but as a villain.

And then–

And then, one day, he finds himself writing down the flaws of a new up-and-rising hero near Musutafu, the ways someone could use their Quirk against them for a brutal and highly effective take down, and realize maybe this really wasn’t normal. Maybe Kacchan was right in calling him creepy and stalkerish and obsessive. And this little habit of his had been cultivated by his dad, hadn’t it?

He grabs his earliest Hero Analysis notebook, number 1, half written in crayon in his own handwriting, and the other in his dad’s signature red marker: spelling corrections, little improvements, and a tendency to sway towards identifying weaknesses, like a shark smelling blood in the sea.)

—

Covered in grime, half-soaked in the corner of an alleyway next to the trash, and with a hoodie covered in leftover white dye but a head full of dark green, Midoriya Izuku makes an online friend.