Chapter Text
Chapter One
On any normal day walking home Izuku would have taken the shortcut through the street that separated the business district from the residential district. It was close enough to the business district that the hero fan could stumble upon an active scene sometimes and take some notes. Nothing too major in a small city like Musutafu, but once in a while he would get a good chance to see first hand what the small-time heroes were made of. If he was lucky a newly debuted hero would be leant out temporarily during the peak crime seasons.
But this wasn’t a normal day. It was a day of highs (meeting and being saved by All Might) and lows (seeing Kacchan nearly smothered by a villain that escaped because of his fanboying). Even the high of meeting his favorite hero was tainted by All Might telling him he was better off getting a new dream. Between that and being scolded by the heroes who stood by while Kacchan suffered, it was an especially terrible day.
If he went home he’d be either forced to interact with his loving yet anxious mother or alone with his All Might posters and merch in his room reminding him of the fact that his favorite hero didn’t see a future for him with the pros.
The park was as safe a bet as any. When they, Kacchan and him, were kids it had been a lively place where young kids and their doting parents would come after school and during school breaks to enjoy the simple joy of jungle gyms and swings, running around the perimeter to made up games, and wandering into the wooded area to catch butterflies and other critters with simple little nets.
Now the abandoned park looked incredibly small to the middle schooler. The swings were too low for his current height, the slide incline too gentle to give him that old swoop of joy it used to. And the wooded area that he frequented with Kacchan and the others was fenced off to the public because one too many had fallen and skimmed their knees walking over slippery logs.
Of course that didn’t stop some older kids, who fancied themselves delinquents, from prying open a tear in the fence for a private place to meet up. Not anyone Izuku was acquainted with of course. As unpleasant and downright mean Kacchan and the others had been they never quite earned the title delinquent, no matter how Auntie Mitsuki would scold Kacchan for how he wore his school uniform.
While the green haired boy didn’t dare venture into the wooded area he did look to the far corner of the park. Tucked away in a corner, unseen from the park entrance, was a dumpy little slide in the shape of a penguin. It was more targeted towards small kids, low enough that climbing on it wasn’t particularly hard or dangerous. What attracted the green haired boy was the hollowed out body, best used for a game of hide and seek. It was one of his favorite spots to hide when they were young, even though Kacchan always found him.
The middle schooler walked over to the penguin, blue paint, once vibrant, now chipped away and dulled by the elements. Ducking down he first shoved his big yellow backpack into the space before crawling in after, just barely fitting though he was not quite fully grown himself.
As he sat there, in the empty park, hidden away from anyone passing by, he begged his mind to clear all thoughts. Sealing his lips shut to keep any rambling thoughts from escaping as was his unfortunate habit to do. It was easier somehow when he wasn’t working through a problem or analysis, but still he didn’t want to let any of the negative thoughts be breathed into the air. His heart and mind had always agreed, he could dream and never let the people around him change his mind.
Being a hero, it was everything. And even having his favorite, Japan’s unequivocal Number One, hero tell him being quirkless meant he’d never be a pro hero, it didn’t change what his heart and head agreed on. He’d already been faced with his own personal hero telling him the same thing for years, much more brutally and mockingly even.
Having the supernova of heroes tell him the same didn’t change much at all. But his stomach still felt like a sinking pit. His dream lived on in his heart but today…. Today felt like it was alright to feel a little lost and a little broken hearted. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the heartache, and he doubted it’d be the last.
“Yo, kid,” a boisterous voice echoed across the darkened park. Izuku’s head lifted from his knees, hitting the roof of the penguin with a painful thunk. Crawling forward out of the hiding spot he finally noticed how late it had gotten, it was so dark that he couldn’t even see who was talking to him by the faint street light. They just cut a tall and confident silhouette from where he was still kneeling on the ground.
“You better get home quick. The town’s on high alert since that villain incident earlier today.” The middle schooler called out his response in the affirmative and tugged his backpack out from where it was lodged. By the time he’d swung it onto his back and made for the exit, whoever had called out to him was gone.
When he got home a few minutes later he was greeted by his mother tearing up at the door asking where he'd been and saying how worried she’d been since she’d seen Katsuki on the news. She didn’t mention his part of the villain encounter so he assumed it hadn’t made the news coverage. She’d surely have been beside herself even more if she’d known he’d gotten in the way of the real heroes.
That night he shut his eyes tightly against the street light filtering through his curtains, avoiding looking at the posters on his walls. He fell asleep to half formed dreams of drowning in thick viscous substance and bright red eyes pleading.