Chapter Text
It started the day he was diagnosed, like it was some disease. He was quirkless. He knew this. Everyone he knew knew this, too. It’s no secret, it’s on his ID, and some places won’t serve him because of it, and the places that do overcharge him. The police won’t do anything either. Why would they believe a quirkless kid over quirked adults?
He was making his way back home from Aldera. Kacchan had told him to kill himself earlier that day. He isn’t entirely sure if he’s contemplating doing so or not; it depends on how the rest of the day goes.
The rest of the day goes horribly. He gets attacked by the sludge villain, gets saved by All Might, gets left on a roof after All Might crushes his dreams, saves Bakugou and gets yelled at by the hero’s on scene, and is almost home when All Might pops around the corner to tell him that he was wrong and Izuku can he a hero but with his power. Izuku doesn’t want his power; he needs to be told that he can do it with what he already has, not with something new. He turns down All Mights offer and promises to not tell anyone his secret.
When he gets home, the lights are off and his mom is nowhere to be found, not even a note. He assumes she’s gone out drinking with her friends again, so she won’t be back for a while. When she does come back, he has to stay out of her way lest he get beaten again. He goes to his room and changes out of his uniform and into a black hoodie and loose joggers, grabbing his pre-packed bag and heading out his window, closing it behind himself. He also grabs his key on the way out; he doesn’t want to be locked out again. He runs for a while, listening to some old music.
When he gets to the roof, All Might leaves him on he sits on the ledge still listening to his music. He lies down to look at the stars with his legs still dangling off the edge dangerously. He starts to think about what Bakugou said.
“Go take a swan dive off a roof and pray for a quirk in the next life!”
He sits up, stepping over the guardrail that was barely half a meter high, and stands on the edge, looking up to the sky with his back facing the edge. He tips backwards and feels weightless, falling through the air. He falls for what feels like hours, but it is only at least thirty seconds, and he feels himself hit the ground. Pain floods through his body, then darkness.
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Izuku wakes up with a start, looking around, he sees he's in a dark, dingy alley. He’s still in his clothes, but they feel dirty and look darker than they were before. He puts one of his hands down and feels something wet. He looks down and sees he’s sitting in a puddle of blood. He gets up and walks back up to the roof and grabs his bag, then leaves to go… somewhere. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He just walks until he can’t, and then he just sits there in an alley, his mind empty.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there, minutes, hours. He knew it was dark when he sat, and then it was about the middle of the day. He’s sure it was at least five hours. He pulled out his phone, but it was dead. He’ll have to go back to grab his charger. Inko should still be out.
He makes it to the house and opens the door. He enters and hears shuffling. He dashes to his room and opens the door, and quickly rushes inside and quietly closes the door. He scurries over to pull the cord and block out of the wall and jumps back out the window. He runs from the building, and his heart stops racing when he’s a couple of blocks away. He sinks down the wall of the alley he’s currently in and sighs. He feels so tired, he doesn’t want to do this anymore. He just wants to lie down and go to sleep forever. Instead, he goes to an Internet cafe. He goes over to an obscure booth and plugs his phone in, and waits for it to charge.
It takes a few hours for it to charge. By the time he can unplug it, the time is 5:34 pm. It took about three hours to charge. By the time he leaves the cafe and gets somewhere where he can just sit and think without being interrupted it finally clicks that he had fallen off of a roof that was high enough to have killed him upon impact with the ground, it dawns on him that he should be laying there, in that puddle of blood, dead. But for some reason, he’s not. But he can’t have a quirk. No, that's impossible, he has the extra toe joint and everything! But, but what if, just what if the join meant nothing. What if all this time he has been bullied and abused by everyone he knows, and it was all for nothing?
Don’t be ridiculous, that would never happen. Plus, his mom and doctor would never lie. Right?