Chapter Text
Izuku is never born. He just wakes up one day.
It's spring, and the sun is high overhead. Flowers are beginning to poke out of the ground, and the trees are shaking off the last of the winter cold. The year is 1030 AD.
Izuku wakes with a start, sitting up from the bed of leaves and dirt that coats the forest floor. His knees are barely covered by a simple grey tunic, secured around his waist by a belt, but aside from that, he's wearing nothing.
He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know why he's there. He doesn't know where he's come from, or who his family is, or where he lives.
All he knows is that his name is Izuku Midoriya.
He stands up, and his vision swims for a moment. When it clears, he looks around. He's in a forest, pine trees scattered around him. The trunks seem to hum with energy, faint wisps of light dancing through the branches. He reaches up to touch them, and gasps as the light curls around his hand almost affectionately.
A twig snaps behind him. He turns to find a small fox, staring up at him with muted curiosity. Something pushes him to reach out slowly, crouching down as he invites the fox to come closer. The creature glows with that same hum of life as the trees, but louder, more rhythmical, almost like a heartbeat.
When the fox pushes its nose gently against Izuku's hand, he feels something brush against his mind. That's the only way to describe it; something foreign, a dim consciousness, pushing against his own. With a start, he realises it's coming from the fox.
He's not entirely sure what he is, but he's pretty certain the world wasn't like this, so vibrant and glowing with light, before.
Wait. Before?
He shakes his head. He doesn't remember anything from before he woke up. But still, there's this niggling sensation...
The fox whines softly, and Izuku buries his hand in the soft fur on its back. They stay like that for a while, in silent companionship, before the fox raises its head, stands up, and trots off happily into the trees. Izuku watches it leave until he can't feel the gentle push of its thoughts against his anymore.
He stands up and looks around again, and as he feels the life of everything in the forest thriving around him, he feels an inescapable, unstoppable urge to protect it.
That's his purpose. The knowledge slots into place in his mind like a jigsaw piece.
He wanders for a while, following the path of a little river until he leaves the forest. In the distance, he can see soft plumes of smoke and thatched houses. With nowhere else to go, he decides to head towards the village.
Despite the view, the walk takes him a few more hours, and his feet are beginning to feel sore by the time he reaches the village gates. He's hungry and sort of about to pass out, and desperately hoping he's somewhere that speaks the same language as him.
A sentinel peers through the gates. "Who are you?"
Izuku falters. "Um. Just a... traveller. I just need somewhere to rest."
The guard looks sceptical. "Yeah. Got any money on you?"
Ah. That's something Izuku forgot about. He fumbles through his pockets, expecting to find them empty, but his hand discovers a few coins, although he doesn't know how they got there. He shows them to the guard, and the man sighs, pulling the latch on the gates to open them.
"Alright then. Don't cause any trouble. Don't stay too long."
Izuku bows hurriedly, mumbling his thanks. The guard just huffs, and shuts the gates behind him.
The village is empty, but not uncannily so. Dim lights glow in all the windows, and when Izuku reaches the tavern, he finds it bustling with people.
The abundance of life here is almost overwhelming. He can feel each individual heartbeat, each individual consciousness, and he has to take a few moments to process it all and filter it out before he can push open the tavern door.
He makes his way to the bar, and a lady greets him. She seems about middle aged, rosy-cheeked and warm. She asks him if he wants a drink.
"No, no, thanks," Izuku stutters. "Just a place to rest, if you have one. And, maybe some food?" He pushes the coins from his pocket across the bar.
The woman collects the money in a leather pouch and leads him upstairs to a small room with a bed and a desk. He thanks her profusely, and five minutes later, there's a knock on his door, which he opens to find a steaming bowl of stew.
That night, Izuku sleeps fitfully. His dreams are haunted by people whose names he doesn't know and whose faces he doesn't recognise, green hair and blonde hair and screams in voices he feels like he should know. He wakes up the next morning in a cold sweat.
When he stumbles downstairs to the tavern, there's a plate of bread and soup waiting for him. He takes it gratefully, eating in silence in the corner of the room.
The door of the tavern swings open, and three men enter, laughing raucously. Some instinct inside Izuku warns him of their violence and anger, but he doesn't know how it knows that so certainly. He just senses that something is off.
One of them, a broad man with matted brown hair, catches sight of him and whispers to the others. He tenses as they make their way over to his corner. Brown Hair shoves his face right up to Izuku's, and he can smell the alcohol on his breath.
"A new kid, huh? Where'd you come from?"
Izuku tries to regulate his breathing. "I'm just passing through," he explains as calmly as he can.
The man grabs the front of Izuku's tunic. "That doesn't answer my question," he growls.
"Oh, um, I... I just came from-"
"Doesn't matter." The other two snicker. "The point is, not here. This is our place. We don't want weak, pathetic children like you."
Izuku decides it's time to go. He stands up, immediately trying to back away, but one of Brown Hair's goons grabs his arm. He feels panic beginning to rise in his throat as he squirms against the man's grip.
Brown Hair hits him in the jaw. When Izuku stumbles back, he gets a kick in the stomach. He distantly notices the lady who took him to his room yesterday watching from the back door, looking pained. He silently begs her to help as he feels another punch break a rib, but she doesn't move.
He's not really thinking anymore. All he can process is pain and panic, and the adrenaline running through him feels like it's about to burst in his veins. His vision starts to black out.
No, he thinks. Not like this. Not now.
Desperation claws at his insides.
Suddenly, a switch flicks in the back of his mind, something he hadn't even noticed was there beforehand, but now wonders how he didn't see earlier. Something changes. The world gets slightly bigger. His senses sharpen, and the humming energy of the life around him gets even louder, matching the rhythm of his own racing heart. He opens his mouth to speak, and a low growl comes out.
The men's eyes widen, and Brown Hair steps back. "Demon," he breathes. "Demon!"
The woman, still watching from the corner, looks conflicted. Her face is painted in fear, but the corners of her mouth quirk upward in the tiniest smile.
Izuku's head snaps to the side as he hears the building begin to wake up at the man's shouts. He doesn't need to hear any more. He turns and sprints out the door, four legs carrying him far faster than two ever could.
When he reaches the gates, the guard is asleep. He'll wake up the moment the people chasing Izuku get close enough to be heard, but Izuku isn't planning to wait around to let him take any action.
He's running entirely on instinct now, conscious logical thought pushed entirely to the back of his mind. He pushes himself to run even faster as he approaches the gates, before taking one final leap into the air, flicking that switch in his brain again, and breathing a sigh of relief as his body is caught by a pair of wings. Distantly, he wonders how he knew to do that. Presently, he decides he doesn't care.
The air currents carry him effortlessly over the gates, and he leaves the village behind.
One day, Izuku returns a favour.
He's in the centre of Amsterdam, perched lazily on the roof of a beautiful red brick building, when Aizawa rings him. He sighs when he sees the caller ID, but answers the call.
"Izuku. I have a job for you." The man really doesn't waste a second. Izuku almost giggles.
"Is it interesting?"
There's a moment of hesitation on the other end of the phone, which is all Izuku needs to answer his question. "Then no. I'm taking a break, I told you. No work. I'm sightseeing."
"You haven't even let me tell you what it is yet. Will you not at least hear me out?"
"No thanks."
"I'm your boss, Izuku."
Izuku pouts. "Aw, I thought we were friends."
Aizawa is his boss, technically. He runs the underground agency that gives Izuku work and pays him a salary. In practicality, it's a bit difficult to order a 1000-year-old god around unless you're making them do something they wanted to do anyway. Even more so when that 1000-year-old god also happens to be a small, slightly cheeky teenage boy.
Fortunately, Aizawa is used to dealing with this particular teenage boy. He's still not entirely sure what exactly he is, although Izuku has tried to explain it to him several times before. All he really understands is that the human boy he finds lurking in his office every so often is only human when he wants to be (which isn't particularly often), and that even though it's been about 20 years since the two of them met, Izuku hasn't aged a day. Still, as strange and supernatural as Izuku apparently is, Aizawa has his ways of getting him to do things.
"If you won't do it out of the kindness of your heart, at least do it because you owe me a favour."
Izuku groans. As much as he hates to admit it, he does owe Aizawa a favour.
How irritating.
"The agency has your next job lined up."
Izuku tilts his head. "Oh?"
Aizawa pauses. "You're not going to like it." At Izuku's narrowed eyes, he continues. "This isn't coming from me. It's straight from the higher-ups."
"You're stalling. What is it?"
"It's an assassination."
Izuku blinks once, and when he opens his eyes again they've turned a sharp yellow. It would be unsettling, if Aizawa wasn't used to it happening every time Izuku got even slightly emotional. "No."
"I can't-"
"I said no. That was the one condition when I agreed to work for you. The only condition. I won't kill anyone."
"Can you not just make one exception?"
"It's not that simple. I can't. My whole purpose is to protect life. Me killing someone would be like trying to push the same pole on two magnets together. It can be done with enough force, but it shouldn't. I feel deaths. It would put me in a lot of pain to be the cause of one."
Aizawa drops his gaze. Of all the jobs, this isn't one Izuku can just refuse without having a lot of powerful people angry at him, and it's definitely not in his power to give the job to someone else. But...
Expression softening, Izuku's eyes return to their normal green. "I'm sorry to put this on you. I know what the Commission are like. But you need to get me out of this. Please."
Aizawa internally slams his head against a wall. "Fine. I'll see what I can do. But you owe me a big favour, problem child."
Izuku giggles. "I'm older than you."
"Tell me that with a straight face, and I'll believe you."
The job turns out to be nothing like anything Izuku's done before. Aizawa tells him about the new program the Commission has put him in charge of, an experimental thing they want to test out before they expand it.
"They want teams of two agents that they can send out to do undercover work. Mostly stealing information, bodyguard work, et cetera. Quick things. They want people who can get in and out of places unnoticed, and stay alive to keep doing it again and again. They're hand-picking suitable people out of various military training programs and sending them to a new base in the country where they can live in between jobs. It's completely top secret."
"So where do I come in?" Izuku asks.
"Like I said, it's in testing stages at the moment. They mostly want agents who are already trained and who'll make the program look successful from the get-go. Quite a few people are hoping to make money out of this, so they're desperate for it to get picked up as an official undercover operation. And, well. With your, um, skill set, nobody will be better at the kind of things they want their operatives to do than you." The nature of Izuku's "skill set" goes unsaid. They both know undercover work is a breeze for someone who can stop appearing human at the drop of a hat.
"But you want to pair me with someone. Is that really a good idea?" He doesn't have any objection to working with someone else, per se, but he knows people struggle to get along with him. He's completely aware that most of the time he's weird, freaky, and slightly inhuman. It sort of comes with the job.
"Of course not." Izuku waits for Aizawa to continue, but he doesn't.
"Great," he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. "You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?"
"Nope. Get your sightseeing over and done with ASAP. I'll see you in my office tomorrow morning."
Izuku grumbles to nobody in particular as Aizawa hangs up. He slips the phone into his pocket, shakes his muscles loose, and pitches headfirst off the roof of the building he's crouched on, wings catching on the warm air currents as he loses his human form.
Izuku meets the bleeding man by accident.
He's hanging around some forest in the middle of Canada, bouncing between four legs and wings and enjoying the cold as he allows the glow of the life around him to give him energy. He comes here every so often to take breaks, in between rounds of dealing with human society. It's secluded, difficult for humans to survive in, and bristling with vibrant pine trees that protect the creatures living under them.
It's almost enough to feel like home.
He's nearing the edge of the forest, where it turns into more barren, rocky land, when he feels a conscious mind somewhere near him.
It's human. Animal minds are recognisable; blurrier, murkier, less sharp than Izuku's own. When Izuku reaches out with his thoughts to touch theirs, they don't quite respond with clarity.
This one is different. When Izuku's mind brushes it gently, it recoils, the thrumming rhythm of its thoughts getting faster. Human minds react like that. There's a person in Izuku's forest.
He finds the man quickly, padding silently behind him as a fox as he drags himself past a line of trees into a clearing. He's bleeding badly, drops of red liquid trailing behind him as he stumbles forward. When he slides down with his back to a large boulder, clutching his wounded side and breathing shallowly, Izuku returns to human form behind him.
The man's head turns instantly, eyes widening as he catches sight of a small boy in an oversized hoodie who definitely should not be wandering around in some freezing cold, secluded forest in the middle of nowhere.
Izuku crouches down, making himself look as non-threatening as he can. "Let me help." He's aware he hasn't spoken in a while, and his voice sounds slightly foreign, inhuman, but it's better than nothing.
The man flinches. He doesn't look much older than Izuku's human form, in his mid twenties at the latest. "Who are you?"
Izuku ignores his question, stepping closer. "You're bleeding. Let me help." He takes off his hoodie in one quick movement and rips a strip of fabric from his shirt. The man doesn't resist as Izuku moves his hand from where it's pressed tightly against his injury.
Izuku almost cringes. There's a messy bullet wound in the man's lower torso. It doesn't look like the bullet hit any vital organs, but blood is pooling on the snow where the man is sat, and he's looking more and more pale by the second. Izuku wraps the strip of fabric around the man's waist, stopping the blood flow as best as he can and securing it with a tight knot.
"I don't have anything to clean it with. We'll have to get you to a hospital. Were you here with anyone?"
The man hesitates, but Izuku insists. "I need to know. They probably have some kind of first aid on them. It might save your life if they're closer than the nearest hospital."
The man's voice is barely above a whisper. "A group of us. On a mission out here. Got ambushed. Separated. I think they went east."
That's all Izuku needs to know. He wraps his hoodie around the man, figuring he needs the warmth more than Izuku does, and steps back. "I'm going to find them. Stay here. Don't move. I'll come back."
"You won't find them. This place is too big," the man breathes, almost panicked.
"What's your name?" Izuku asks.
"Aizawa. Shouta Aizawa."
Izuku crouches down again until he's at the man's level. The man's eyes widen as they're met with yellow irises, not the green that Izuku's eyes had been before. "Aizawa. My name is Izuku. I will find them, and I will come back. I swear it."
With that, he gets up and turns away. Aizawa watches his back. Then he blinks, and Izuku is not there anymore.
The sun is beginning to set, but from the sky it doesn't take Izuku long to find the people Aizawa had been travelling with. There's four of them, all looking battered and bruised but none nearly as injured as Aizawa is. Izuku lands a decent distance away from them, covering the rest of the way on four legs before resuming his human form as he runs into the clearing that they're sat in.
Their murmured conversation pauses as they all jump to face him. Before Izuku can even react, one of them has a knife to his throat. His eyes are wild, his face dishevelled and his blonde hair messy. "What did you do to Aizawa, you little-"
Izuku grabs the man's wrist, twisting it until he's forced to drop the knife and ducking out of the headlock. He leaps backwards before anyone else can jump at him, his hands raised in the air in surrender. "I'm not with the people who attacked you. I found your friend. He needs medical help."
They all pause, but they still look suspicious. The blonde grabs Izuku's shoulder. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"That doesn't matter right now. Your friend is injured. He's bleeding out in a clearing a few miles from here. You have to trust me."
One of the others speaks up. "Why should we?"
"Because your friend's life is resting on it. Please. I promised him I'd find you."
They seem wary. They don't trust him. Izuku decides to continue. "I'm a kid. Do you really think I'm working with whichever people just attacked you?" It's not quite true, but they don't need to know that.
That seems to spur them into action. They turn to grab their packs off the floor, and the blonde turns back to Izuku. "Tell us where he is."
"Go west until you find the river. Follow it downstream. You'll come to a clearing with a tree stump and a boulder. He's waiting there."
Izuku turns to leave, but stops at the blonde's voice. "Aren't you coming?"
"I'll meet you there." He doesn't explain further, vanishing into the trees and leaping back into the sky.
Something feels off when he gets close. Call it instinct, or foreshadowing, or anything else, but he knows something isn't right when he lands.
When he bursts into the clearing he left Aizawa in, the man is no longer on the floor. He's swaying on his feet, right hand clutching a tiny flip knife. Between him and Izuku are three lean wolves, creeping closer and closer to Aizawa as his back hits the rock behind him. It's the middle of a harsh winter, and many of the creatures they normally hunt have moved to kinder temperatures. They must be starving. They wouldn't normally attack a human like this, especially not while Izuku's prowling around.
He doesn't think. Everything happens in a second. Aizawa's eyes flick momentarily to Izuku as he emerges from the trees. The biggest wolf jumps at Aizawa the moment he breaks eye contact with it, but Izuku's reactions are quicker, and suddenly he's a wolf too, throwing himself at the one who jumped at Aizawa and knocking it aside. Aizawa's eyes widen, but he has the sense to move, clambering on top of the boulder with a pained hiss.
Izuku pins the wolf down under his paws, the other two backing off as they watch. The creature struggles, teeth sinking into Izuku's front leg and forcing him to release his hold. It leaps up and back with a growl, about to jump at him again, but he shifts back to a human, his eyes yellow and lips pulled back to reveal sharpened teeth as he snarls. Blood streams down the open cut on his arm. "Stop!"
The wolves back off. They know who he is.
"He is not prey. I know you're hungry, but you know not to attack people." The creatures' ears flatten, but Izuku continues. "You hunt them, they hunt you. Do you want to be hunted?"
The wolves whimper.
"Go."
They run off. It's almost comical.
Izuku turns to Aizawa, who's still sitting on the boulder, his jaw slack. "You..."
It's kind of funny. Izuku sort of forgets sometimes that what he can do isn't normal. That he isn't just a normal human.
"What are you?"
That's a tough question. "Do you want the long answer, or the short one?"
Aizawa laughs drily. "Try the one that will make the most sense?"
"I'm a spirit. God. Sort of. I think. I protect life, the balance between life and death. I was born like this and I'll do it until I die."
Aizawa raises his eyebrows. "Okay. So you're not..." He trails off.
"Human?" Izuku finishes his sentence for him. "No. I never was. At least, I don't think so. I'm everything. Everything that ever lived, breathed, thought. I'm all of it." He's aware it sounds slightly pretentious and very confusing, but it's the quickest way he can think of to explain.
Aizawa looks like he wants to ask a lot more questions, even though he's breathless and pale and still suffering from a bullet wound, but Izuku turns at the sound of people approaching. It's only minutes before Aizawa's companions stumble through the trees, rushing over to him and helping him down. One of them fishes through their pack, retrieving a first aid kit from the front pocket. Izuku hears the murmured conversation between Aizawa and the blonde.
"Can you stay awake? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"He saved my life. He's not with them."
"If he's not with them, who the hell is he? Why is he out here?"
Aizawa locks eyes briefly with Izuku over the blonde's shoulder. Izuku gives the faintest shake of his head. Even though his instinct is telling him insistently that he can trust these people, he doesn't really want his secret getting out.
Aizawa turns his eyes back to the blonde. "I don't know. He didn't say anything. Just that his name is Izuku. I trust him."
The blonde seems hesitant, but he accepts Aizawa's words. Izuku gives Aizawa a tiny smile and a grateful nod.
Aizawa hisses in pain and shuts his eyes briefly as his wound is cleaned out. When he opens his eyes again, Izuku is gone.
Izuku spends the rest of his sightseeing day and a decent amount of the night flying home. He's quite annoyed by the time he crosses the border and lands on the balcony of his flat. He wonders if it's worth trying to catch any sleep, but eventually decides he's too tired to care, and flops face first on his bed without taking anything off except his shoes.
When he wakes up, it's 9am and the world feels slightly more alive. He drags himself off his bed, swapping his casual clothes for his black, armoured work clothes and strapping his knives to all the various places on his body that he keeps them.
He wasn't expecting to be back working so soon. It's hard to stick around in one place for a long period of time when you don't age, so he normally hangs around for a decade or so at a time and then drops off the face of the Earth for a few years in between. It's been a bit different ever since he met Aizawa and started working for the secret services, but only because it's easier to cover your tracks when you have a friend in a high place. Without Aizawa, he would be long gone.
Still, he owes Aizawa a favour, and he isn't one to avoid returning a debt.
When he's done getting ready, and shoved a granola bar down his throat at record speed, he climbs out on to his balcony and up on the railing, letting himself fall forward and allowing his wings to catch him as he shifts. He doesn't need to be so dramatic about the whole thing, but sue him. God knows he needs a bit of entertainment in his life.
It only takes him ten minutes or so to get to Aizawa's office. The agency paid for him to have a flat close to headquarters so they could call him in at any time and not have to worry about waiting for him to travel in. He appreciates them covering the costs, but he sometimes wonders if he should be more concerned by how prepared they are to overwork him.
Oh well. Entertainment.
He lands on Aizawa's window ledge, expecting to be let in like he normally is when he shows up like this, but there's another person in the office talking to Aizawa already. He's got his back turned to Izuku, but he has blonde hair that looks almost spiky, and he's wearing armoured clothes similar to Izuku's.
Aizawa meets his eyes through the glass. Izuku pokes his mind with his own, sending him a questioning thought, but Aizawa pushes him away. Go around, he hears Aizawa tell him.
You sound exasperated. What's happened now?
Aizawa just glares at him through the window, and Izuku takes the hint.
When he finally knocks on the office door and pushes it open when Aizawa shouts for him to enter, his gaze meets that of the blonde man that he'd seen through the window. The man's eyes are red, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, and the corners of his mouth quirk almost imperceptibly into a tiny grin.
He's... gorgeous.
Izuku swallows.
Aizawa coughs pointedly. "Ah. Izuku. So glad you could make it." Izuku makes a mental note to irritate Aizawa enough to drive him mad when he next gets a chance.
Aizawa gestures to the blonde man. "This is Katsuki Bakugou. You're going to be working with him for the foreseeable future."
Izuku thinks he might die. This must be fate.
"So you're Izuku, huh? Wasn't told you were gonna be so fucking small. Is he really as good as you say he is, old man?"
Wow. Okay. So much for fate. Now he thinks he might understand what's got Aizawa so exasperated.
The man in question sighs. "He's our best agent, Bakugou. Play nice. I know you two can work well together if you try to understand each other."
Bakugou's eyes narrow, but he spins back to Izuku and holds out his hand. "I guess you can call me Katsuki, if we're going to be spending as much fucking time together as I'm told."
Izuku shakes his hand with more confidence than he feels. "I'm Izuku. Izuku Midoriya."
Izuku holds on to Katsuki's hand for slightly longer than normal. Aizawa coughs again.
"Bakugou, there's some final paperwork you need to finish off downstairs."
Katsuki raises an eyebrow, but nods and leaves the office. Aizawa turns to Izuku.
"I know he's a handful."
Izuku blinks. Aizawa continues. "But he's got a lot of talent. You two will make a very successful duo if you manage to work together."
"I'm definitely not the problem when it comes to that."
Aizawa sighs like that's precisely the problem. "Just, trust the process. Trust each other. Please, for the love of God, make this work. I don't need the Commission down my throat asking why things aren't going to plan."
Izuku nods, and turns to go. His hand hovers over the door handle when Aizawa calls his name. He turns back.
"Don't..." Izuku tilts his head. "Don't let romance get in the way of things."
Izuku feels his cheeks burning. "Like you can talk, old man."
Aizawa groans. "Not you too. It's bad enough that Bakugou calls me that. I'm not even that old."
Izuku snorts as he shuts the door behind him.