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The tears are gathering already, and Izuku wants-needs to just burst into sobs, right now.
He never wanted to be here, or to see this. He just- he just wanted to be able to help. And, yes, he knew that things might be horrible, might be nasty, might be ugly, but he lives with discrimination every single day. Izuku (DekuDekuDeku-) knows what it is to constantly walk with rounded shoulders, alert, and to analyse every single word of those around him because the next word could be the promise of some sort of attack, of yet another slur or plan to lure him over under the tree because Kotaro's Arbour Quirk is perfect for making the branches curl around Izuku, to trap him-
He knows what it is to have bloody knuckles and a bloody nose and blood buried beneath his nails because he kicked and scratched and still couldn't get free.
No single part of Izuku was prepared for this. For the agony and the blood and the terror, for that woman with the wide eyes and the torn clothes, and the man who turned around and, when Izuku jumped back, when he tried to dodge, it wasn't quite enough.
It wasn't enough at all, and now something is shattered, fractured like a mirror but it feels like more than seven years of bad luck, shards poking out of his skin, distended in other places, and the moment that he tried to put any weight at all on the limb, it gave way in a crunching agony. Izuku fell. With a shout that was closer to a scream than he would like (the lady still looks so scared, she is sobbing with eyes feverish and scrabbling hands and so much shuddering terror that it makes Izuku's heart hurt, and he doesn't want to scare her even more-) he crumples to the ground, scrabbling at the ground until his fingers are bleeding, his nails snagging, because it hurts and he needs to help and everything is so, so wrong and this wasn't supposed to happen-
Through a half-blurred gaze, Izuku looks up again, trying to see if the man is going to hurt him more, or try and hurt the lady more, or just to try and focus on anything else but the fact that his leg hurts enough that it's going numb, and he can barely feel it at all which can't be good, can it?
He looks up to see a figure leaping down the a rooftop, all blurs of white and black and the flash of something red. It isn't blood, is all Izuku really processes, and there is more shouting, a man crying out in pain in a voice that Izuku dimly thinks might have been the villain's voice. He hopes so. He hopes that the bad man is hurt. He hopes, even more, that the bad man cannot hurt anyone even more, and that the person who came down to help them is good. A hero, maybe.
It's a shame Izuku can't open his eyes up enough to really be able tell.
He wakes up... a time later, and he aches. He feels wrong in so many ways, to so many depths, in his bones and mind and fears.
"Kid?"
"Uhm- Wait, Eraserhead?" Izuku cannot help how his eyes widen, how he leans forward, because he recognises the man at his bedside (where is he? the beeping, the white sheets, the acrid scent that feels like it is burning at the back of his throat, surely he isn't hospital-) and this seems impossible.
"Call me Shouta, kid," the man offers,
"I'm not here as a hero." But that only earns him a tilted head and furrowed brows, freckles shifting,
"You-" Shouta doesn't cut him off out of cruelty, but rather because he doesn't want to risk the kid panicking, not when he doesn't have to,
"Sorry I'm the one here for you, kid, not your Mum, but she had to go and deal with a bunch of paperwork and logistics and things."
"Uhm, that's alright, Eras- Shouta-san. I just, why am I here?"
"They need to keep you in for observation and to ensure your leg heals correctly."
Izuku looks down, and suddenly so many of the way he feels wrong makes so much and so little sense. He's in hospital, and Eraserhead must have been the hero who saved him and the lady, and his leg...
"I- But it hurts?" Yeh, that doesn't surprise Shouta at all,
"Most likely residual aches and phantom pain, I'm afraid kid."
"Oh." Shouta leans a little closer, keeping his palms open, posture matching, trying to make sure that he doesn't intimidate or scare the kid at all, he doesn't want to make this situation any worse for the Problem Child.
"It's shit, kid, I won't lie to you, and it will take time for you to be back at something around full mobility, but this isn't the end of your life, understand?"
"Yes, Shouta-san. I understand." And Izuku is gasping then, the words dissolving into sobbing in the way that he couldn't in front of the lady in case it upset her even more, because everything hurts and he doesn't know how to process this and he-
Izuku just wanted to help.
"And you tried, kid. You did well. Just take a break now, alright? Let others help instead." Izuku, throat raw and eyes burning, hands trembling where they clench into the white sheets that feel so wrong, sobs still bubbling up, hot and heavy as magma, manages to nod, jerky though it may be. It earns him a hand that comes up to settle atop his head, a gentle weight that Izuku likes a lot more than anything else right now.
(It is warm and heavy and kind, calluses that he can just about feel against his scalp and forehead, and it's been a long, long time since Izuku had something like this, because Uncle Masaru has always been kind but he is a hand on the shoulder sort of dad, and Izuku does not go to their house much anymore anyway, so this affection... It feels like what Izuku cannot remember ever having, and it is from a hero that he barely even knows but whose eyes are so dark and warm and safe, and who is known by the Quirkless to be good-)
Izuku falls apart, then, with this man's kindness and with the realisation that his life has changed all weighing upon him. But he isn't alone. And that, if nothing else, makes things at least a little bit easier.
Things do not necessarily go well, from there, but they do go, and over time things gradually improve.
Izuku has a scarred stump ending just below his left knee. It hurts, sometimes, and he can often feel the sensations and pain of the one that's no longer there as well. Phantom pains are an awful, awful thing.
But he can still walk. He can still walk and talk and think, and the former isn't entirely the same but the latter two certainly are. School work gets done from his hospital bed for the first week or so, as the doctors ensure that infection shouldn't be settling in, that he is healing well, and also that he will be able to walk himself around with crutches or other supports. Izuku spends that time with his Mum, whenever she isn't working or getting their home ready for Izuku to come home again, ensuring that their walkways are clear and easy so if he has bad days things will be simpler for him to navigate. Eraserhead, or Shouta-san, rather, visits him every few days, bringing random books and even a cat soft toy, one that he offers up with a shrug, a comment on Izuku maybe being too old for it but it seemed like a gift that he might like.
Izuku has kept a hold of it, and it helps, at times, to just have something soft and squishy to bury his face in, when it's late at night and he's alone and wondering if he has ruined his life.
But he hasn't ruined his life. He has changed it, yes, in some ways made it more difficult, but not ruined it.
Particularly because, two weeks after, his Mum and Shouta-san sit down with him at home, their expressions serious but not sombre.
"Kid, Inko-san and I have been talking and we're very aware that you prioritise helping other people over looking after yourself." The words are far from unkind, and are probably worded more softly than Izuku actually deserves, yet he still has to try and repress a flinch.
"And your Mum has agreed that, if you want, you and I could train together to help you be safe. Obviously we'd prioritise supporting your physical therapy for the first while, until you're back at a sufficient point in pain and mobility, and we would keep those thresholds in mind no matter what, but once you're at a good point, I would keep in consultation with your physio and I would train you in self-defence down the line. Your health would be the top priority."
That... Izuku doesn't know what to say, or what to do, because this sort of offer... To even have a glimmer of a chance at training one on one with any hero is beyond what he could have ever hoped for, let alone a genuine offer from someone that he already likes and to, a fair degree, trusts. It's far too much, honestly, far more than he deserves, but still.
How could he ever say no?
Before he can even try and formulate that into some sort of response, or questions, Shouta-san leans further forward, gaze abruptly heavy, the threat of a damaged building, rubble starting to tumble.
"There is one condition though, kid: you cannot and will not go out as a vigilante again, understand? You will not put yourself at that risk."
"I- What if-" Izuku... The thought of not helping someone, of having to step to the side and just let someone get hurt-
"If you come across a situation, your first port of call will always be ringing the police, then me. You have options. If you're caught up in something in a way that is not your fault, that absolutely will not have repercussions, but if you intentionally put yourself in harm's way when you don't need to, then we will at the very least be having a very serious conversation."
There is a pause there, a moment where the room is silent, still, water as undisturbed as a mirror, reflecting Izuku's hesitation right back at him, his fears and instincts and everything that he knows in his heart.
Although, it does not hang forever, because Shouta-san, all still a heavy gaze and heavier words and leaning forwards, speaks up one final time:
"You are worth more than the people you can help. Sometimes, if you're not prepared, you can make a situation worse no matter your intentions." He falters, slightly, yet he presses on, something low and aching in his tone that Izuku cannot help but listen to, doubly so when his Mum reaches across the table to take Izuku's hand in her own, soft and warm and safe.
"To us, personally, you are worth more than any random person, alright? So let me help you get that preparation, just for a few years, and then you should be in a position to properly and safely begin helping people." Izuku- Izuku isn't sure how much of those words he can truly process right now, in this moment, because his leg aches and his eyes burn and his heart is worse than all of it, but he can smile, he finds.
So he does so, bright and wavering and unflinching, and he nods, just once.
"Please. I- I want that, please, Shouta-san. I want to help people."
"Then that's what we'll do, kid."
Izuku is fourteen. He is fourteen, and he and his Mum love each other a lot, and they spend evenings cooking together and they watch shitty free films that are far too entertaining for their budgets; he and his childhood friend are not entirely friends again, but there is something in between them that has changed, because Katsuki saw Izuku get up again and again no matter how many times he fell, saw the angry scars on his leg, and perhaps realised that there was more to the world than Quirks, and that Izuku perhaps doesn't have the same motives as what he always thought; he and his hero, Shouta-san, grow closer. Because the man is kind, and warm, and he is firm, too, stern in a way that isn't harsh but is beyond unrelenting, but he always puts Izuku's needs and wants above all else.
He never lets Izuku push himself too far, not beyond what he can handle. Shouta-san supports him, will give him a piggyback if he's tired or in pain or just because there's no reason not to. Nutrition pouches are passed over without a thought, almost always the kiwi or watermelon flavours that are Izuku's favourite but never the orange or peach ones that he hates.
Izuku grows, like this. He gets a new prosthetic two years into knowing Shouta-san, partially for his fourteenth birthday, because he actually has grown a bit, and this one is better for faster movements, and it has better cushioning for his stump, which helps it not ache too much after he wears it for hours. He, over time, becomes able to jump and kick and punch, to duck a hit or run towards an opponent. Is he, at this point, as elegant as Shotua-san, or even Kacchan? No, he's not. But he's good enough. (He is determined. He spends early mornings and late nights training, running and sparring and going through kata that are half official and half so-called abominations that Shouta-san put together specifically for himself or for Izuku. His days are school work and revision for entrance exams and research on Quirks and heroes and fighting styles. Shouta, after a while, learns about said Quirk and hero analyses, and he encourages it far more than anyone else ever has before. Not only that, but he helps. He reads every single page that Izuku writes, and then he asks questions. He asks Izuku to explain his thoughts further, tries to push him to think further and deeper and wider, to pull in things he has done before or to consider new possibilities altogether.)
So Izuku grows, and he takes the UA entrance exam with the full support of his mentor and mother. Does he take the top spot? No, of course not, but he does damn well regardless. He pulls people out of the path of lasers or rubble, and uses sharp wedges of rebar or chunks of rock to take out the wiring in their necks or to jam their tracks or smash their eye-like lasers.
It does the job. He gets told that his family is proud of him, and he actually feels proud of himself, too.
He doesn't need to return to vigilantism. He doesn't want to. Because, no, Izuku won't pretend there haven't been moments in the last three years where he wanted to help someone at his own detriment, but he had mostly been able to remember Shouta's words, to pull his phone out rather than rush in. Because he knows that it isn't a child's place, no matter his intentions or ideals. He knows that, now. He suffers for it still, some days, and it has undeniably changed his life.
But Izuku is okay. He has far more good days than bad, now, years after. He gets to go to UA, to be part of his mentor's class (his father figure, in all truth-), and he gets to learn to be a hero. Sometimes he and Ectoplasm-sensei talk about what being an amputee means within the hero industry. He gets to know Midnight-sensei and Mic-sensei because he has met them a few times before but now he sometimes spends lunch times with them alongside Shouta-san.
He finds friends. He finds confidence and contentment and the genuine work towards a career that he well knows he wants. His family seems to grow by the year.
Izuku will save people, and that is an honour-calling-purpose more than worth waiting for. It's what matters most to him in life, alongside his family, and now he gets all of it, all at once. Izuku doesn't think he could be any luckier.