Chapter Text
"Now really kid, that was super dangerous! What the heck were you thinking?!"
He could barely hear All Might's scolding over the blood rushing in his ears, clutching his racing heart with trembling fingers. "I-I'm sorry Mr. All Might sir, I just...I needed to ask you something, it's really really important!" he wheezed out, lungs on fire and eyes burning from strain and stress alike. "So please, just wait—!"
"No, I won't wait! Just send me a message on my website kid, I really have to go! Just bang on the door for a bit, someone'll come and let you down, I'm sure!"
All Might turned, his massive back casting a deep shadow over the roof as he prepared to jump away. Izuku could feel his chance slipping between his fingers, and he knew it was now or never. If he didn't spit it out, he's never gonna get this chance again. And as great as Taichan is, Izuku hasn't even asked him this question. In his mind, it's All Might or bust. So, he gathered up his courage and with every last scrap of passion left in his bruised, battered body, he called out after All Might: "Do you think someone without a Quirk can be a hero?!"
All Might stopped. Straightened. Izuku sees none of this, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He's started this ball rolling now, and at this point all he can do is hang on for the ride.
"I-I just.....everyone makes fun of me for being Quirkless. They say I'm weak, or useless, or that I can't do anything, just because I don't have a Quirk. But ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to be a hero. I just want to help people, to save people, just like you! A-And I know I'm working at a disadvantage here, but I just have to try!" His breath hitched, a few desperate tears rolling down his cheeks. "So please, All Might, tell me honestly. Without a Quirk, with only my baseline human strength, can I be a hero like you?!"
He looked up, and there's a bleeding skeleton where All Might once stood.
--
Izuku didn't remember how he got down from the building. He didn't remember following the sidewalk home. He didn't remember changing course to the familiar sounds of a villain fight, and he didn't remember chasing the familiar explosions until he was already throwing his backpack at a pile of sludge and slime. He had no plans beyond that, not even a pen in his pocket (and boy, Taichan is not gonna let him live that one down), but somehow, it was enough.
All Might (be realistic) comes in and smashed the villain apart (again) with a punch, leaving the previously cloudless sky drizzling rain over the cramped alley. He laughed something about going beyond before speeding off, too fast for the media to catch. Izuku is about to head home, once again feeling that creeping fog surrounding him, but the other Pros decided he hadn't suffered enough.
He let them talk, listened to them fuss over him for doing something so incredibly dangerous and warn him about committing vigilantism before a screech from Kacchan Katsu...Bakugo about not needing help from a "shitty Quirkless Deku" changed their tune. He can almost pinpoint the exact moment they register his Quirk status, because they go from annoyed-but-grateful to just plain annoyed.
"—could have died—"
"—utterly reckless—"
"—were you thinking—"
"—easier ways to kill yourself—"
That last one caught his attention. It's barely a mutter, and he's certain he wasn't meant to hear it. His eyes narrowed, mouth thinning. "45 seconds." His voice was flat and cold, cutting off the heroes tearing into him.
"....Pardon?" It's Kamui Woods who's brave enough to ask. He glanced at him, before continuing to speak.
"45 seconds. That's how long it takes that villain to take over your body. He pins you in place and crawls into any opening he can find, and it hurts the entire time you're dying. You drown on dry land, and he walks away, without anyone being any the wiser." Izuku took a shuddering breath, feeling the phantom sensation of slime on his limbs as he forced himself to continue. "The only parts of him that aren't liquid are his eyes and teeth. He has no other visible organs or physical structure. The best ways to disable him are to either go for the eyes, scatter him with a high-pressure blast, or dilute him." He kept his eyes on Backdraft for that last part, something the hero obviously didn't appreciate.
"The fires—" he started, but Izuku doesn't care.
"The fires," he started, speaking over him, "were caused by an out-of-control panic response from the Quirk of the boy who was being actively murdered while four Pro Heroes stood around and treated his death like a hostage situation." Said Pros at least had the decency to shuffle slightly at the scolding.
"Listen kid, you don't get to tell us how to do our jobs! Our Quirks were a bad matchup, so we had to wait for backup!" Death Arms snapped, glowering down at him like his size would be enough to shut Izuku up. Too bad for him; people have been trying with varying degrees of success to make Izuku feel small since he was 4 years old, and his best friend was much scarier.
"Then why did it take a Quirkless kid to do your job for you?" he asked, head tilting. Death Arms sputtered, croaking out something that sounds like All Might before Izuku continued talking. "There were plenty of ways around this so-called bad matchup." He blinked slowly, fixing his eyes on Kamui. "Wet wood burns slower. Backdraft could've doused you, and you come in from behind to pull out Bakugou. The boy. You may have been injured, but that's the risk you chose to accept when you signed on to be a hero."
He turned to Backdraft. "The fires were important. In the long run, however, it probably would've been better to make sure there were no more fires being made. You could've done the same as All Might, except by spraying the villain with a hose rather than a wind pressure blast. It would've left the fires burning a bit longer, but wouldn't it have been worth it to prevent them from happening at all?"
Mount Lady. "What were you even doing here? If the street is too small for your large form, then shrink." She gaped at him, like that hadn't even occurred to her. "If you're useless in your small form, or....I suppose I should say, if you're useless when you're Quirkless, then reach your arms in and evacuate civilians. Don't just stand there and block traffic. Do something useful." She looked away, a bright flush on her cheeks as a scowl crossed her face. Maybe that was too harsh. "......Sorry. It's your first day. Mistakes happen. This was just a really big one." She nodded stiffly after a moment of thought.
Finally, Death Arms. "And you. Did you even try?" Death Arms scowled. "You have a strength quirk. Pull him out!"
"I was manning the perimeter line!" he defended. Izuku glared at him, feeling the adrenaline crash beginning to threaten.
"That's the police's job!" he snapped. "So next time, let them do it, and figure out a way to do yours!" He hopped off the edge of the ambulance seat when the paramedic cleared him, waving away their concern for his bruises. "I think all of you have really cool Quirks. But I also think you should learn how to do your jobs without them, because otherwise things like today are gonna happen again." He spun on his heel and began to stomp away, ignoring the rest of the crowd and the cameras he could sense behind him. Mount Lady asked where he was going, and his shoulders tensed. "Home!" he snapped. "The police have my details if they need a statement, so leave me alone!"
--
Izuku managed to get in a shower before crashing into his bed face-first, still wrapped in a towel and on top of the blanket. He passed out for about an hour, the adrenaline crash and looming breakdown from Everything Else that happened during the day hitting him like a speeding shinkansen to the face. He woke up sore and shivering, his weird chicken skin prickling at the chill in the air.
He groaned and peeled himself off the bed, stumbling around in the dim light to get dressed before flipping on the lights, freezing as he's confronted with dozens upon dozens of All Mights beaming down at him. His breath catches in his throat like a startled rabbit as the walls begin to loom, heart thundering in his ears.
be realistic.
It's not bad to dream, but you need to face reality.
Be Realistic.
Without power, can you become a hero? I think not.
BE REALISTIC.
He blinks. There's a headless All Might figure in his hands. Thankfully, not one of the expensive, resellable ones. His hands are trembling, and he drops the figure to the ground. The plastic bounces off the rug with a low thud, the head rolling off to places unknown.
He can't do this. He can't spend the rest of his life in this......this All Might shrine, not when his worldview had been so harshly tarnished. He still respected All Might as a hero, but.....maybe not as a person. It's complicated.
It's with shaking hands and averted eyes that he pulls down the merch, carefully rolling posters and repacking figures in their boxes until his room is completely bare of the Symbol of Peace. Only a few other heroes remain, the discolored spots on the walls and dusty shelves a monument to his previous obsession. It's almost funny, just how deep he'd been. He sits in the middle of the floor, surrounded by his packed-up merch, and dazedly wonders if he could sell it all before the value dropped. Should he sell it?
A problem for Future Izuku. Selling it meant taking photos of it, and he couldn't even look at it right now. For the moment, he just shoved the boxes and poster tubes into the back of his closet, replacing his sheets with a plain black set instead. Idly, he wondered what his mom would think, seeing his room like this. Would she worry, thinking he'd finally snapped? Or would she be relieved, thinking he'd matured and finally given up his worthless hero dream?
A sharp pang in his chest momentarily broke through the fog, and he reached a hand up to idly massage his heart. "Ah. No thinking about that for a bit, then....." he muttered, a soft sigh escaping him. "I.....should eat.....right?" he wondered, before shaking his head. Too much work. The merch purge was necessary. Food? Not worth it.
He laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. What now? If he wasn't going to be a hero, then there would be no need to strive for UA, right? Should he even bother going to high school? UA was the only one he knew around here that was guaranteed to take Quirkless applicants.....at least the only one worth a damn. The others took everyone, and if you had one of those schools on your record, your chances of getting employed were basically zero. Not that his chances were any good in the first place. He wasn't a genius, he got average grades at best, and he had no extracurriculars to speak of. His disciplinary record was filled with whatever they could get away with pinning on him, and his only "character references" were a delinquent and his mom.
Not exactly a shining review.
Izuku sighed, closing his eyes. Maybe he could just lay here forever. Become a shut-in. Never have to deal with the outside world again. That'd be nice.
He's just about to drift off to sleep again when a pounding on his door jolts him awake. For a brief, delirious second, he's afraid it's Bakugou come to kill him at last. Then he thinks it's the cops, here to arrest him for vigilantism, or for tearing into the Pros earlier. "Oi, Mido! I know you're in there!"
Ah. No, it's just Taichan.
He flopped back on the bed and resumed staring at the ceiling. "You don't have to break my door down," he called back, unable to muster the energy to sound more than vaguely annoyed about it. The knocking paused, before the door opened abruptly. Taichan poked his head in, sucking in a harsh breath.
"Jesus, you look like shit. Are you having a breakdown? Do you need me to hide a body?" he asked, coming further into the room. "Where'd all your posters of Big Smiley go?" he asked. Izuku tried (and failed) to hide a flinch.
"I put them away." He turned his head, trying for a smile, though judging by the look on Taichan's face it's more of a grimace. "Figured it was time for a change."
"........Well, that's a load of [horseshit]," he said bluntly. Izuku dropped the smile. It wasn't fooling anyone anyway.
"Did you know I met All Might today?" he asked instead, returning his gaze to the ceiling. He can hear Taichan shuffling, probably sitting in his desk chair. He makes an interested noise. "He signed my notebook."
"Real shit? Bet you flipped," Taichan teased. Izuku managed a weak smile.
"I did," he admits. "At the time, at least." The smile dropped. "I asked......I asked if he thought I could be a hero. Without a Quirk," he admitted. He continued staring at the ceiling.
"........And?"
Izuku blinked. "What?"
"What? Of course you can, there's been heroes for as long as there's been humans. Don't need a fancy bullshit superpower to be a hero," Taichan snorted derisively. Izuku felt tears welling up in his eyes as he turned his head to stare at Taichan in shock. "Did.....Did he not say that?" He shook his head mutely. Taichan's face morphs from confusion to wrath in an instant.
Izuku flinched back before he could help it. Taichan sucked in a deep breath, a fragile, tense silence falling over the room. Izuku knew he'd never hurt him, but.....he'd seen Taichan's temper before. He lashed out, teeth bared as he fought like a wild animal in a blind berserker fury until whatever pissed him off was down. He wasn't gentle, either. Taichan was strong, to the point that Izuku knew that if he hadn't been confirmed baseline, he'd assume the other had a strength enhancement. He'd never lashed out at Izuku before, but.....well. There was something about him that just screamed dangerous. Maybe it was a dormant gene from his mom's side. She did have a bear mutation, after all.
"......Sorry. Mad at All Might. Not you," he bit out finally, words clipped and rough. He took a deep breath, holding it for a bit before letting it out slowly. "Do you have....." His fists repeatedly clench for a moment as he tried to think of the word in either Japanese or English. "[Pillow]?" he said finally. "Need to grip something. Make fists too long, hands grow blood," he says. Izuku blinks, sluggish brain turning that sentence over a few times before understanding it.
"Ah. Yeah." He grabbed a stuffed Endeavour, handing it over. "Here. Grab it as tight as you want, I don't care if it gets torn up." Taichan gives him an incredulous look, shaking the Endeavour plush questioningly. "It's Endeavour. I bought it specifically to beat up on. Also, I'm pretty sure that thing could survive a bomb, so....." He shrugged, going back to staring at the ceiling like he's on a therapy couch.
"Your loss." It's quiet for a moment as Taichan resettled, apparently testing the strength of the plushie fabric. He made an impressed noise after a bit, shifting his attention back to Izuku. "Anyway. Continue explaining? I need to know what motive to give the police when they ask me why All Might is dead," he said. Izuku stared at him for a moment, unsure if he was joking or not. He doesn't seem like he is, but then again he never does.
"......Right," he said hesitantly. He continued explaining the Roof Incident, brushing past things like All Might's Secret Wound and the whole Missing Time ordeal. He doesn't talk about the time limit, because he knows that was a Bad Idea to do. Taichan isn't a villain, but.....sometimes, the look in his eye that he gets when he jokes about killing someone that's bothering Izuku......it doesn't feel like a joke, is all.
When they arrive at Sludge Villain Part 2, things take a turn for the worse. "...ran into the sludge guy again—" Izuku said, only to get cut off.
"Wait, hold on. Again?" Taichan asked.
Izuku froze. "Ah. Did. Did I not mention that?" he asked weakly.
"No. You didn't." Taichan's voice is perfectly neutral, only Plushie Endeavour's bulging eyes betraying the amount of stress he's under at the moment.
"I.....uh. May have run into him earlier. Under a bridge." Izuku swallowed nervously. "All Might saved me. That's why I was on the roof with him in the first place," he explained.
"......why were you under the bridge?" Taichan asked suspiciously. "Isn't that the long way back?" Plushie Endeavor was fighting for his life at this point, one eye bulging awkwardly in Taichan's fist.
".............I needed to think," Izuku said softly. "Bakugou......he......" His breath hitched at the memory. "He told me that if I wanted to be a hero so bad, there was a quick way to do it......Believe I'd be born with a Quirk in my next life.....and take a last-chance dive off the roof," he choked out, eyes clenching shut. He could almost hear the sound of his heart, the last strands of childhood attachment to Kacchan, tearing away at the memory.
"He what." Izuku froze. Taichan's voice was glacial, promising pain to anyone who crossed him. Izuku chanced cracking an eye open, the other quickly following at the sight before him.
Plushie Endeavor had lost the battle for survival, head torn messily in two with the sheer force of Taichan's rage. Pink-tinted stuffing spilled over his fists like cotton-candy viscera, the absurd tableau only adding to the joint-locking terror running through him. "H-He.....I'm sure he didn't mean it! I-I mean, suicide baiting is a real big crime, and if I really did it and it got traced back to him he'd never be a hero, there's no way he'd risk his record like that!" Izuku rambled, sitting bolt upright and waving his hands as if warding off any accusations. "H-He was probably just posturing, just s-saying things to get a reaction y'know?" he rambled, a nervous laugh spilling out as he paled further at the dark aura emitting from the desk chair.
"His record? Is that what you're concerned about?" Taichan growled lowly. For a brief, terrified moment, Izuku wondered if it was possible for someone to inherit everything but the appearance of a mutation quirk. "He told you to kill yourself, Izuku!" he snarled.
"I-It's not his fault! N-Nobody's ever told him no or taught him it's wrong—!" he tried to defend, only to be cut off by choking on a yelp as Taichan slammed a fist on the desk.
"That's bullshit and you know it!" he snapped. "He's fifteen, Izuku! Even if he'd been raised in a goddamn coal pit, he's old enough to know better by now!" Half of Plushie Endeavor's head gets hurled at the wall (the furthest from Izuku, he notes), stuffing trailing behind it like a comet. "Don't make excuses for his actions! He could've killed you twice today, and I would've found out from the goddamn news!" he shouted, teeth bared. Izuku stiffened.
".......Twice?" he asked faintly.
"Twice." He took another deep breath. "Congratulations. You've made your hero debut on just about every local news network in town. Half of them even have you reaming out the Pros on site too, though most of them don't catch what you said." He ran a hand through his hair, tugging harshly on the bubblegum-pink curls. "You're goddamn lucky your mom worked overtime tonight, or there'd be a flood warning across the entire prefecture."
Izuku's face makes a valiant effort to both flush with mortification and pale in fear at the same time, the result leaving him feeling mildly nauseous. "I'm gonna die....." he whispered, horrified. "I'm gonna go to school tomorrow and Bakugou's gonna kill me....." He swallowed painfully, glancing over at Taichan's derisive scoff.
"Bakuso won't lay a goddamn finger on you if he knows what's good for him," he sneered. "The faculty might be fucking useless, but I'm not afraid to put an end to his hero dreams myself if he tries anything stupid." Izuku's eyes widened, the fear winning over the embarrassment.
"T-Taichan, no! You can't kill Bakugou, that's horrible!" he wheezed, limbs trembling. Taichan narrowed his eyes in return.
"I'm pretty sure I could kill him, actually. I won't, because I'm not a murderer, but it's not like it'd be hard. Just spray him with a hose and be done with it." He rolls his eyes, fingers absently tearing stuffing out of Plushie Endeavor's mangled corpse. "See how far he gets being a hero after I break his hands when all he's trained is his goddamn Quirk though," he mutters darkly.
Izuku winced, both at the thought of a handless Bakugou and the implications behind it. ".....Taichan," he started, hesitantly chewing his lip as he waits for the other's attention. "Do.....do you...." A breath. "Do you think.....that in this day and age, a Quirkless hero could exist? That, without powers, I could be a hero too?" Izuku asked, voice small. He already knew Taichan thought heroes-without-Quirks could exist, but what about a Quirkless Hero? A man without power, going up against those with an evolutionary extra with nothing but his own body?
".........That depends," he said finally, drawing Izuku out of his contemplation. "What are your goals?" Izuku blinked.
"What?"
"Your goals," Taichan repeats. "As a hero. Do you just want to help people? Because you don't need to go Pro to do that. Could be a doctor, a firefighter, paramedic....." He trails off with a frown, like he wants to say something else, but decided against it.
"......Not police?" Izuku asked, ignoring the clench in his heart at the similarity to All Might's rebuttal.
Taichan grimaced. "........If this were a perfect world, yeah. But you and I both know damn well it's not." He sighed heavily, knee bouncing rapidly under the desk. "Police......I'm not saying they're all horrible people. Becoming a cop doesn't immediately make you evil, but it doesn't immediately make you a saint either. Cops are just......people. Human, like the rest of us." He glares down at Plushie Endeavour as he speaks, seeming to be pulling his words from a well of both experience and grief deeper than Izuku could've imagined.
".......There's more, isn't there." It isn't a question.
".....Yeah." He sighed. "Cops aren't all bad people. As an institution, however.....it's rotten." Taichan winced, rubbing one of his wrists absently. "They care about things like unity and brotherhood at the expense of justice and truth, and undesirables get caught in the crossfire. Bad cops are swept under the rug, and good cops end up fired or dead." His voice cracks on the last word, breaking into a muffled sob. "And even if you managed to survive with your morals intact, it'll wear you down until the day you manage to retire. You'll never escape it and it'll eat and eat and eat at you until you either learn to cope with it or die," he said, a haunted look in his eye. "The lucky ones turn to vices. Booze. Gambling. Drugs. The unlucky ones...." He shuddered, shaking his head.
"Taichan....." Izuku whispered, not sure what to say to this. Was....he speaking from experience?
"So, no. Not police," Taichan said roughly, clearing his throat and shaking his head. "Besides, Japan's worse than America when it comes to corruption, and America's already pretty damn bad, even with the reforms," he added, trying for a wry smile.
Izuku takes the topic change for the hint it clearly is, moving the conversation along rather than prying into just why Taichan was so invested. "Alright. And.....other goals?" he asked.
"Right. If you want to be a hero for.....money....." Taichan trailed off, lips pinched as a dark expression flickered over his face. "........I guess it would depend on why. But....you don't seem the type. Same with fame. So.....why? Why a hero? What's your core motivation for being a hero instead of just volunteering at a soup kitchen or something?" he asked, pinning Izuku with his sharp golden gaze.
Izuku paused to think for a moment. Before today, he would've said to save people. Save everyone. To show that even someone like him could be a hero. But now? He can't help but grimace as he remembers just how useless the heroes were at saving Bakugou, how All Might had revealed his "anyone can be a hero" lines were just canned lip service, and he burns.
"........Change," he said finally, voice so quiet he's not actually sure if Taichan heard or not. "I want things to change. I want to save people who were never given a chance to show they could be something, like us. I want the world to know that Quirkless doesn't mean useless, and......." He stops. Glances nervously at the door, like there's a camera out there waiting to catch him saying this. Looks back to Taichan and lowers his voice. ".......I want bullies to feel afraid again," he admitted. "For everyone who's ever hurt someone just to make themselves feel big, or because they think they're better than everyone else......I want them to face consequences. I want them to be afraid of those consequences. And.......I don’t think I can trust the heroes to do it," he explained, avoiding eye contact.
The room is silent for a long, excruciating moment. Izuku can't hear anything but his own heartbeat as he waits for Taichan's verdict. Finally, just as he's about to break and beg him not to get him arrested, a low, menacing chuckle fills the room. Izuku froze, some kind of thrill racing down his spine. The chuckle morphs into a deranged, witch-like cackle, and Izuku can't help but wonder (not for the first time) if he'd accidentally befriended a villain without realizing it.
"A real freedom fighter, hah?" Taichan laughs, a feral grin carved into his face like a slasher villain. "I'll warn you Mido, while I think you've got some damn good motives going on here.....the bigshots in power aren't gonna like 'em," he said. "You might be called a radical at best, and a villain at worst. Are you okay with that? Is your conviction strong enough to keep fighting for what you believe in, even when it seems like the whole world is against you?" he asked, eyes gleaming with something unhinged.
Izuku blinked, breath catching, before his own smile creeps across his cheeks. Manic giggles spill out of him as he's infected by whatever insane energy Taichan's filled the room with, bouncing lightly in place. "The world's been against me since I turned 5, Taichan. Might as well have it be for something I actually did!" he huffs out, grinning.
"That's the spirit! I knew you had a backbone in there. Now get some rest. I'll make you food, and then we can put that giant brain of yours to work and cause some chaos."