Chapter Text
It’s hard, sometimes, to imagine what life could have been like. It hurts to imagine it, but sometimes Izuku just couldn’t help it. He’d think about all of the different quirks he could have been saddled with. He thinks about his mother’s weak telekinesis quirk, his father’s fire breathing.
Sometimes he curses his fate. No one in his family has a quirk like his. It was a complete mutation. A fluke of evolution and quirks mixing over and over until a whole new one was born right along with him.
“Izuku! Are you done in the bathroom? I have to finish getting you ready for school!”
Izuku gives one last look at his mouth, his lips, his chin. He doesn’t meet his eyes as he wanders slowly into the dining room where his mother is finishing her breakfast. She has a small smile on her face. It doesn’t mean much, though, coming from a woman with a resting nice face.
“...Hi mom..” He rasps.
She frowns slightly, but doesn’t say anything back. She’s not looking at him anymore, either. “Come here, Izuku.” She says to the wall.
He settles next to her, facing away. He’s already had breakfast and brushed his teeth. He needs to finish getting ready so he can go to school.
“There we go.” Her fingertips barely graze his ears as she latches the leather straps over and behind his head. She doesn’t tuck his hair behind his ears, or tell him he’s been a good boy, or hug him from behind. She doesn’t do any of the things she used to do when he was so much smaller and wore this so much less. Her lips used to tremble when she had to put this on him. Now it’s just a chore like anything else. Brush her hair, make the rice, put Izuku in his muzzle, check the mail.
“Well, you’d better be off. You have practice in a bit, don’t you?” It’s a dismissal. He scoops up his worn yellow backpack and makes for the door.
She doesn’t say goodbye or wish him well. Probably because there would be no answer even if she did.
~~*~~
Izuku is still reeling from the embarrassment of the last class. Of being called out by his teacher in front of everybody for daring to apply for hero schools.
He’s still spacing pretty bad when the bell rings, which is why he doesn’t hear Bakugou marching towards him. He doesn’t notice until he’s being slammed into the wall right next to the large, open window of their third floor classroom.
He’s afraid, but of course he can’t say anything. Bakugou spits in his face and calls him names, just like he normally does. Just like any other school bully. Sometimes Izuku wonders if he’s been taking notes from The glory. It would explain the burns.
“Fucking look at me you useless waste of space!” Bakugou snarls, slamming him harder into the wall. Some plaster falls into Izuku’s blazer and he thinks it’s going to be a pain to beat the dust out.
“Look at you, a fucking space cadet. What, Deku? Head so empty afraid you’re going to float away?” The lackeys behind his laugh like this is a standup, and maybe that was part of his tight five? It wasn’t half-bad to be honest.
Bakugou shakes him again so he does the effort of focusing back into the situation. Lackey number one has a hold of his notebook, and wow he must have really been out of it the last couple of minutes to have missed that. He’s actually kind of pissed off now. There was a lot of hard work and effort and lost sleep dedicated to that notebook. He wants to tell the guy to drop his book, to fuck off and bother someone who can actually respond and defend himself.
That’s always been the point, though, in a way. No one else in his school knows sign language. Even if he did try to communicate to the teachers or the counselors or even the damn principal, they’ve never been very patient with him. They do whatever they can to avoid him. They don’t read what he writes out for them. They don’t believe him even when they do read what he writes.
He’s the perfect victim. Silenced in every way one can be. He’ll never tell and when he does he’s never taken seriously.
He is one of two children at Aldera middle school with what the general public deem a ‘villainous’ or ‘dangerous’ quirk. The other one is a grade below him and spends most of his days at school in detention for things he didn’t do. His quirk is called ‘klepto’, named by his parents. Izuku knows he doesn’t steal. He’s seen first hand a kid take something from the locker room during gym and then turn right around and say it was the ‘klepto-kid’. He hadn’t even been at school that day. It didn’t matter. He was in detention for two days.
“...look at him, he's not even paying attention to anything we’re saying.” The second lackey is saying, and Bakugou looks ten seconds away from actually throwing Izuku out the window which is far less than ideal. Bakugou hisses right in his face before finally backing up. He gets a cruel look on his face and Izuku pales. Oh no.
“Well, maybe we’ll just have to wake his shitty ass up.” Izuku watches, frozen as Bakugou takes his notebook from lackey one. He holds it between his hands, looks Izuku right in his wide eyes and
Pop Pop Pop
It smolders in his hands.
“Yeah, think he’s awake now?”
“Hmmm,” Bakugou pretends to think. “Just in case…”
He chucks in out the window. Straight into the pond below.
Izuku doesn’t turn around to check when he hears the splash. Turning his back on Bakugou is like waving a red flag at a raging bull. Never a good idea.
Bakugou is, fortunately, mostly across the room now. He’s leaving. Izuku’s disappointment over his notebook wars with the relief of that.
Then Bakugou turns around and opens his mouth.
Izuku’s ears are ringing.
The world doesn’t come back into focus for a long time after that.
~~*~~
It’s late.
He missed the last bus home, so now he has to walk. It’s not far, but it is inconvenient. He’s stuck with his thoughts, thinking about what happened that day. What Bakugou did. What he said.
It’s… honestly not the absolute worst thing he’s ever said. Maybe it is? Izuku doesn’t exactly have a sliding scale for it. It’s not the first time Izuku’d been struck frozen solid for hours like that by Bakugou, at least.
He hates when he gets foggy like that. Like the world is dripped in bitter honey that he has to suddenly swim in. Everyone else seems to do just fine so why is it so hard for him to just.. be? Things get a little overwhelming and the next thing he knows he’s losing time, mind lost in a fog he fights to escape.
He’s a little lost now, even still. He knows where he’s at. He’s passed under this tunnel before. Mentally though it feels like wading through thick trees in an unknown forest. He just hopes he can get home before his mom does. Most likely he will. She works until late into the night and then usually goes out with co-workers for a few hours still. It’s routine that he’s asleep before she stumbles her way home.
He’s thinking about what he’ll have for dinner. There’s a convenience store up the road a bit, right before the last turn to his neighborhood. He could get some ramen, or just onigiri since he’s not feeling too hungry-
There’s hot breath on his neck, then, “Mmm, a fresh meat suit… This one is pretty young too…”
He only has time to gasp a small breath of air before he’s engulfed and paralyzed. He can’t move. His chest heaves with a startled inhale that won't enter his lungs. Whatever’s encased him is too thick to get through his muzzle. His limbs won’t move in the viscous gel. His eyes burn. His lungs burn way too fast from the small amount of air that was quickly running out. His chest kept fluttering, trying to draw in air that wasn’t available. The villain, and it must be a villain at this point, is saying something. His whole body rumbles with the timbre of the man- slime? Sludge? Sewer monster?
He can’t hear what is being said. He can’t see anything other than the green blur of the tunnel he’d just been walking through. It’s nearly dark out, there might be a hero nearby, there might be…
His vision is getting blurrier, and Izuku realizes that he is beginning to black out.
He’s close to dying now.
He thinks this might be fitting.
He might be a bit hysterical.
His muscles are beginning to slacken, and he thinks, ‘at least I’ll have been useful to someone before I kicked it.’
His vision tunnels. He can’t really see anything at all. His thoughts are syrupy and far away. His limbs are prickly and mostly numb.
He blacks out.
His whole body comes back online all at once at the sting of his cheek and the cold, violent air entering his lungs way too fast.
He spends the next few minutes hacking what must be an entire lung up through his throat. There’s a large, warm hand that helps him sit up. He notices that his muzzle has been taken off.
“There, my boy. You gave me quite the scare!”
Izuku looks up so fast he almost breaks his neck. Because he knows that voice. The hand still on his back is attached to an arm bigger than his torso, which leads up to the smiling, terrifying face of All Might.
He’s dead. He drowned and now he’s in heaven living out his wildest fantasies. Next he should sprout wings and start flying around.
“Ah, no. Not quite, young man! You are very much alive and well!”
…Shit, he just said that outloud.
He just admitted that it was his personal heaven to me saved by All Might.
Who is still standing a foot away from him.
…And then the man stops, smiling still, almost indulgently down at the mess of a child at his feet. Izuku snags his backpack, finally, and practically rips his scorched and soggy notebook out like it’s on fire. Well, again.
“A-All Might! Could you- um…” Izuku scrambles to stand on shaking legs, heat crawling up his cheeks as the hulking man in front of him bends down to hear him better. “Could you… sign my notebook?” It’s a question, which means it should be fine, right? He’s being so careful with his phrasing. He doesn’t want to mess this up.
All Might takes the worn notebook from Izuku’s cold fingers with a cheerful “of course, young man!” and materializes a pen out of seemingly nowhere. Izuku has half a mind to accuse him of a secondary quirk because where the hell did that thing come from? That suit has no pockets.
“And who should I be addressing this to, then?”
“I-Izuku. Um! Midoriya Izuku.” His throat is starting to hurt.
With a flourish, the man scrawls his signature and a small message before handing it back. Izuku doesn’t even look at it, scared he’ll burst into tears at the sight.
All Might gives him one more once over before nodding to himself. “Well then, young Midoriya, I believe it’s best I be off! Be careful on your way home!”
He’s crouching to jump away. Izuku, staring up at his life-long idle, at the man who has inspired him since he was smaller than a pebble, panics. Just a little.
“But All Might, I still have a ques-!”
He snags the edge of the man’s pant leg, hoping to catch his attention for just a minute more.
Instead, he finds himself gripping on for dear life as hems rocketed up into the air, clinging to what feels like a pillar of stone to keep him from falling.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOUNG MAN!?”
All Might redirects, angling his body so that his fall is slowed as he aims for a nearby rooftop. Izuku hopes he’s not too far from home at this point.
All Might miraculously manages to land so that Izuku isn’t jostled too much, setting him down with all of the care of a carton of eggs. Izuku nearly toppled over, adrenaline wreaking havoc on his body for the third time that day. Somehow he hasn’t fallen back into the fog but he can feel it on the edges of his mind. He doesn’t have much time left.
“Young Midoriya that was extremely foolish! If I hadn’t noticed you were there, the landing alone could have caused irreparable damage!” All Might is still smiling but somehow it doesn’t feel as reassuring anymore. Izuku shrinks in on himself, his words getting stuck in his throat.
All Might gives their surroundings a glance before he sighs quietly. “I’ll get you down from here and to the nearest train station so you can get home-“
Suddenly there’s a large cloud of steam in front of Izuku instead of the legendary hero. For a second he thinks it might be another villain attack.
Then the steam clears.
“… EH!?”
“Oh dear…”
A blonde man wearing All Might’s costume is standing in front of him now. His body has shrunk to a third of his size. The skin of his face clings tightly to sharp bone and his clothes hang off his frame like there’s nothing but skeleton underneath. His eyes are sunken in and hollow. It’s like suddenly he’s looking at a corpse of the great hero who once stood there.
“I need you to listen carefully, young Midoriya.”
All Might explains, and Izuku kind of wishes he wouldn’t, the way the story gets more and more disheartening. There was a fight, eight years ago. An awful fight that left the number one hero disabled and his quirk severely limited. He shows Izuku the scar, twisted skin warping his abdomen and chest. He’s missing his entire stomach. Izuku didn’t know people could live without a stomach. All Might- or Yagi-san, now- coughs up blood while he talks. Izuku can’t help cringe back, immediately feeling bad when Yagi frowns deeper. Even on such a sunken face, frowning did not suit the hero. Not at all.
“As I am now, I can only use my quirk for a maximum of three hours before I overexert myself.” Yagi is saying. “That’s why I was in such a hurry to leave. I’m sorry for displacing you like this, my boy.”
“N-no! I was the one who… who held on…” Izuku sheepishly trails off, scratching at his neck. He feels so stupid now, forcing The Number One Hero to reveal such a closely guarded secret over a dumb question.
Well, while they’re here, though…
“I- um… All Might?”
“Again, just Yagi is fine.”
“R-right! Yagi-san, um- do you think… can someone become a hero without using a quirk?”
It comes out in a rush, words almost tripping over each other. But there it is. His question is out, and it is a question. He might have put a little bit of ‘pleasejustthetruthdon’tliepleasetellme’ behind it, but that was neither here nor there.
Yagi regards the boy in front of him. He’s frowning again, a sad little thing pulling his lips down.
Izuku’s heart sinks.
“To be a hero without a quirk… even just a weak one, I’m sorry my boy. It’s just not realistic.”
Realistic.
Realistic?
“Being a hero is a dangerous job. I can’t very well condone pursuing such a thing without being able to properly defend yourself.” Yagi tried for a reassuring smile. It looks like poison on his face. “There are other ways you can help people, if that is your goal! You could become a doctor, or even a policeman.” He seems to think this is good news. That this should be comforting.
Izuku… goes away for a little bit. He knows All Might is talking again, wrapping up the conversation. He pats Izuku on the shoulder, Izuku says something back. All Might disappears.
He blinks and it’s nighttime. He’s standing way too close to the edge of the roof, looking down at the street below.
He takes a breath.
Ever since Izuku was little, before he’d even known about his quirk, he’d wanted to be a hero. He consumed hero documentaries, asked for hero plushies every time he so much as saw one, even went so far as to rope his mom into making him his own hero costume to play in.
Everyone, since his quirk was discovered, has discouraged him from following his dreams.
His quirk just wasn’t suited for it, they’d say. He’s already on his way to villainy , they’d spat. Teachers recommended rehabilitation centers, basically juvie, when he was just seven years old. All he’d done was defend himself when Bakugou had tried to blast him. In the face. For calling him a silly childhood nickname.
He’d been fitted with a muzzle, treated like a rabid dog, and still he’d worked toward his dreams. Izuku watched and followed along YouTube videos about self defense when none of the dojo’s would take him in. He studied hard in school and got some of the best grades in his entire year. He analyzed quirks and heroes and villains, picking apart weaknesses and strengths and puzzling out ‘how can I improve this here?’ ‘What could she have done better?’ ‘How can he apply his quirk in this situation?’ He was good at it. He knew he could be a hero, he had been working so hard. He ran until he threw up, read book after book until his vision blurred and his head ached. So why?
Mom looked at him like he was a monster.
Dad walked out the second his visa went through.
Kaccha- Bakugou suicide baited him today.
All Might told him to give up.
His thoughts are swirling around him like black and white film reels. Every hardship, every sleepless night. All the times he almost had given up. He can see it all spread out in front of him, all coming to the same conclusion.
“Fuck All Might. Fuck all of them.”
Izuku smiles mirthlessly.
“I’m going to be a hero. No matter what
anyone
says.”