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Izuku never had the best relationship with his mother.
Even at the small age of 6. Two years after he was supposed to have manifested a quirk. So no, the universe decided Izuku wasn’t worthy of one, and left him quirkless.
After that his mother was colder, more distant. It wouldn’t take Izuku much to tick her off and make her explode.
And that’s exactly what was happening right now. Well, about 3 minutes before it that is.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Mom?” Izuku said as he padded into the kitchen, his All Might plushie -that hasn’t left his side since he’d gotten it dragging along with him-.
“What, Izuku.” Inko sighed heavily, she was currently washing the dishes from last nights dinner, and every so often there would be a small clang of plates colliding with one another, or the scrape of a utensil.
“um” he clutches his plushie tighter, holding it to his chest.
“Izuku, I’m busy, would you please just spit it out” she said from the sink
He gulped before saying “I was just wondering if maybe… I could go to kacchans today..”
Izuku hadn’t seen his best friend in a while and he was starting to get lonely, it gets quite boring being stuck in his room with nothing to do.
“Hah” she exhaled “You know you’re grounded, you won’t be seeing Katsuki until I say.”
“Ok..” he says sadly “but… why was I grounded?” he pouted.
His mother sighed again, he seemed to do that quite a lot around him, he didn’t understand why at the time, he was only a kid. “Izuku, you expect me to let you go and see Katsuki when I keep getting phone calls saying you two have been fighting??” She says, her voice getting louder as she put the dishes down and turned towards him.
“We were just playing!” He defends himself, the two boys were just playing heroes and the teachers mistook it for ruff housing, it’s not their fault!
“Playing? Really Izuku?- you know what, just go to your room, you embarrassed me when I got that phone call.” And Inko comes up to him and takes his All Might teddy right from his small hands, ignoring his high pitched protests.
“But mom!!” He shouts and runs to her, grabbing her leg and pulling at her clothes “No please! I’ll be good, I promise! Please give me All Might back!!”
“Then you will go to you room, Izuku!” She shouted sternly
“But I don’t wanna! I wanna play with Kacchan!” He grabbed tighter on to his mother’s leg.
“Get off of me, YOU BRAT” she kicked her son off of her and he slid across the wooden floor, his head banging against the corner of the kitchen counter.
And just like that, Midoriya Izuku had struck his mothers last nerve.
Izuku could feel the sharp pain in his head as tears began to fall down his freckled cheeks. Tears of sadness, tears of a child’s meaningless anger
Something started to bubble in his throat and he could feel a burning sensation rise from his airways.
Something deep within him began to manifest.
He began to cough and sputter, spit, blood and smoke.
And before he knew it a raging orange fire began to spew from his mouth.
The fiery liquid burned in his mouth, it hurt!
He couldn’t stop
He didn’t know how to stop! It was all happening too fast. What’s happening to him!!
He turned to his mother, when he heard he scream, but as soon as her cream coloured apron caught fire, her shouts continued as she tried to get rid of the fire, screaming in agony, Izuku cried and covered his ears. He couldn’t bear the noise.
He felt a thud echo through the ground and when he looked up, he seen his mother’s body engulfed in yellow orange flames.
He stared widely at the sight, and didn’t even notice when the apartment slowly caught fire until he felt his arms stinging.
It snapped him out of his daze, he had finally stopped spewing fire, but the black smoke still travelled out of his mouth.
It was so warm, his arms and throat, head, were sore. He just wanted to go play with his friend and now his home was being destroyed.
He crawled away from the flames and into a corner, he didn’t recognise his own home anymore, with it covered in fumes and ash. Part of the ceiling had already collapsed.
His eyes began to feel heavy, and so he crawled up into a ball, unconscious slowly taking him, as the fire surrounded him.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
All he saw was darkness.
He heard someone begin to scream.
Mom!?
“AHHHHIZUKU-“
He couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t move! Was he moving??
All he heard were his mother’s cries for help.
Slowly, they began to morph into something different.
Sirens?
The noise got louder and louder, as did other sounds of people rushing around and the sound of water spraying furiously.
He opened his eyes to see the starry night sky above him, covered, by a layer of thick smoke.
Which is when it all started coming back to him…
Did he..
No…
Kill his mom?
Wait no, he’s sure she’s ok!
He sat up, but quickly clutched his arms, feeling the burning sting.
“Hey! The kids’ awake!” He heard someone shout.
He wanted to see what they were talking about, but he grew tired, everything hurt.
Everything hurt so much.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He woke up again, this time shutting his eyes tightly when the bright white lights hit his eyes.
He remembered everything this time.
He breathed in through his nose, realising it didn’t smell of smoke anymore, but of cleaning products and cleanliness.
Izuku opened his eyes slower this time.
And he has no idea where he was. But he knew it was a hospital of some sorts.
He only just realised that he was breathing through some type of mask connected to something.
It’s fine.
Everything is going to be ok.
If this is a hospital, and he’s here, they must’ve saved his mom too right?
He jumped when he heard the click of the door, when it opened someone stepped through. A women with blue skin, and wavy purple hair, dressed in a lighter blue nurses uniform.
“Oh good! Your awake” she says cheerily
He tries to speak but his throat is so dry all he gets out is a croaky noise.
“Oh sorry honey, I’ll get you some water in a sec, I just need to let one of the doctors know you’re up kay?” She seemed nice, but Izuku was still on edge, he nodded slightly and she went away, closing the door behind her.
Looking around the room, he seen nothing out of the ordinary. He was sitting in a hospital bed, the light from the day seeping in from his window, it was daytime? How long had Izuku been sleeping?
The door clicked open again and this time the nurse came in with a tall man holding a clipboard. He was bald and pale. And very very tall.
“Hey kid, I’m Dr Kuto, and we’ve been looking after you whilst you’ve been asleep.” The doctor said calmly.
“Let me get you that water sweetie.” The blue-skinned nurse said as she walked closer to him and poured him a glass of water, once she was done with that, her hands moved to his face and he startled and backed away.
“Oh sorry for scaring you!” She apologised “would you let me take your mask off so you can have some water, you’ve really been through it honey”
A moment of silence passed before his head tilted into a nod and she removed the mask he was breathing from. And held the cup of water up to his mouth. It was only then he realised how thirsty he was.
“That any better?” She said kindly
“A- lit-tle” he hoarsed out. He looked down to see his arms covered in bandages, making his eyes widen in panic.
“Kid,” the doctor started “the heroes said they found you in an apartment fire, you remember that yeah?”
Izuku winced and nodded, not wanting to use his voice to confirm.
“One of the people living there told us your name was Izuku Midoriya, is that right, sweetie?” The nurse asked him and he nodded again. “You don’t have any other relatives apart from your mom do you?” This time he shook his head.
The nurses expression changed to pity and the doctor sighed and looked at his clipboard “look kid, this is gonna be really hard for you to her but..”
What?
“Your mom.. didn’t survive the fire.”
Everything the tall man said afterwards he didn’t hear.
She’s gone?
Did he really?…
He… killed his mother?
He has a quirk?
He felt the same thing from the fire rise from his throat. Izuku began to start coughing up blood, smoke spilling from his mouth once more.
He heard a gasp come from the other two people in the room, and one ran out shouting down the hallway.
Please! No! please!
I don’t want to hurt anybody!
Please stop!!
But then. The flames never came.
The smoke stopped escaping out from his throat.
And a man stood at the door.
His blaring red eyes staring right at him.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Shouta is too tired for this.
Last night he had rescued some civilians from a large apartment fire and he was making his rounds around the injured people’s hospital rooms to see if they could recall anything important. Though he’s been up the whole night talking with the police and other heroes about the fire.
And the police still don’t have much, they still aren’t sure if the fire was arson, on purpose or not.
There was only one deceased, a single mother. She had one child who had apparently survived but had suffered severe trauma to his lungs and airways. He also heard the child has some serious burn marks on his arms, as well as a gash on the back of his head.
He deals with this all the time. Going and seeing kids who might not have any family left, but no matter how many times he’s done it, it doesn’t make it any easier.
As he makes his way down the hall to where the child is located, a nurse comes running out of the hospital room, calling for help.
“Eraserhead! Thank god! We need your quirk!! The child started panicking and smoke started coming out of his mouth!”
He immediately went on high alert “where’s the room?” He says sternly and follows the nurse down the hall, he can already hear the child’s cries, they must’ve broken the news to him.
When he enters the room, he sees what the nurse told him, smoke erupting from the child’s mouth, there was also blood dribbling down his chin and onto the sheets. He was pulling at green, curly strands of his hair. And Aizawa noticed an orange light begin to appear in the child’s throat.
Before anything happened though Aizawa set off his quirk.
He walked slowly over to the child, him still crying and coughing up blood, backed away from Shouta in an attempt to get away from him.
He knows how his hero attire looks and the all black probably doesn’t put kids to the right direction that he’s not a villain.
When the kid backed away from him he put his arms up even though that was meaningless due to his quirk, but the kid didn’t know that.
“Hey kid, you’re alright now ok?”
He waited for the kid to respond but nothing came out of his mouth.
“He can’t talk too well because of all that smoke he inhaled, poor guy” the nurse said sadly.
Looks like he was making the smoke to.
Shouta isn’t one to jump to conclusions but he believes that the kid has a quirk something to do with fire, fire breathing maybe.
He put his hand on the kids small back rubbing circles over him.
“Let’s get you cleaned up ok?” He then turned to the nurse to let her take the lead. “You might want to open a window” he said, all the smoke was beginning to harbour around the ceiling, he didn’t want any fire alarms getting set off and the whole hospital evacuated.
“Uh yes of course.” The nurse headed for the window and slanted it up the way, letting a cool draft into the room and helping the smoke escape into the atmosphere.
The doctor was still standing exactly were he’d been since Shouta came in.
“Hey Dr..” Shouta began saying waiting for the doctor to tell him his name.
“Uh, Kuto, Dr Kuto.” He replied, his expression neutral.
“How long are you planning to keep the child under observation?”
“Ah well I was just trying to figure out what we should do, we were planning to discharge him when we found someone he could stay with, but the child told us he had no other living relatives but his mother.”
Shouta thought for a moment. It was probably a terrible idea. But the kid was clearly unstable and had no one else.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Izuku really had no idea what was happening.
One minute he was about to hurt people and then a man with red eyes made the smoke go away.
And now he was getting blood wiped from his chin by the nice nurse with the blue skin and purple hair, he wonders if it has something to do with her quirk. He wanted to ask but he was too scared to use his voice. What if it set off the fire?
“I just realised i never got to introduce myself” the nurse smiled kindly as she finished cleaning the crimson liquid, tears and snot. “You can call me Miki!” she beamed. Izuku just nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. He liked Miki, he didn’t want to speak and hurt her.
The moment ended when the man and doctor came back into the room.
“He’s alright now?” the man dressed in dark clothing asked.
“Yep! All cleaned up.” Miki said positively as she turned to him but Izuku looked down shyly clutching at his arms,
Which is when it clicked.
His All Might plushie!
It must’ve burned with his mom in the fire…
Silent tears began to travel onto the blood dripped bed sheets, alerting the people in the room but he kept his head down. He knew no one would ask what was wrong.
He heard footsteps come closer to him and looked up, still hiding behind his curls.
It was the man with red eyes, though he noticed they weren’t like that anymore, a quirk?
The man knelt down by his side on the bed and said somewhat tiredly “Hey kid. You probably don’t know me, but I'm a hero and I'm going to help you ok.”
A hero?
His tears had stopped and his eyes widened a tad at that.
He wiped his wet cheeks and nodded slightly, looking into the man’s dark black eyes. He didn’t know why, but he almost felt a sense of safety when he looked deep enough.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Now, the sky was pink and orange as the sun started to disappear. He had been in the hospital for 3 days, Miki said. Its only because of amazing healer quirks that he’s getting to leave so early, but leaving with a hero called Eraserhead. “You can just refer to me as Shouta ok, kid?” he remembers the hero saying.
Izuku was walking with the hero outside to were a black car was sat at the drop off and pickup spots of the car park.
Izuku had never been in a car before, and instinctively grabbed at the heroes jumpsuit, as if it was his mother he was holding on to, or maybe his All Might plushie, both now ash.
“Whats wrong?” the hero asked calmly but was interrupted by a rather loud blonde man.
“HEY HEY HEY! LETS GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD YEAH?”
Izuku squeaked and hid behind Shouta, still clutching the heroes clothes.
“Zashi” he sighed “I told you Izuku is a little jumpy, and its a hospital, quiet down”
“Oh right” the loud one said sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, he then made his way closer to Izuku to which he hid further behind Shouta.
The man knelt down to Izuku’s level and said quieter this time “Hey Izuku right? Sorry for scaring you, i just get a little loud sometimes. You can call me Zashi, thats what Shou calls me and so can you!”
Izuku peeked out from behind Shouta’s legs.
“There we go, hey little listener!” he said, happy that Izuku had came out of his hiding spot.
“C’mon let's get home.” Shouta said from above them.
Izuku, feeling a little more confident than he did a few seconds ago, decided that being in a car wouldn’t be such a big deal.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When they got to the apartment, Izuku seemed to be doing a lot better, he still seemed nervous, but he wasn’t constantly clinging to Shouta’s side anymore so that was good right?
Zashi surprisingly didn’t seem even at all against the idea of using their emergency guardianship licenses to help Izuku. In fact, he encouraged the idea when Shouta called him to talk about it.
Him and Zashi had been dating for about 3 years, but they’ve known each other much longer than that. Neither of them ever planned on having any kids, but this was different, it was only until further notice. Plus, they both wanted to help the kid, after reading his file, he read that the kid was only 6 years old, in his last year of Kindergarten. To go through something so traumatic that young made shouta’s heart squeeze, which really didn’t happen often.
He also hadn’t told the police about his suspicions on Izuku being the one who started the fire, he knows what the justice system will do to him, and he knew he couldn’t let Izuku go down that path, rejected by society at the age of 6.
And after spending half a week with Izuku in the hospital, he got to know him a little, even though the kid didn’t want to speak, he still answered yes or no questions by nodding or shaking his head. He was a good kid, and wouldn’t do something like that on purpose. The reason Shouta wanted to take him in was so he could help the kid control his quirk, he believed it manifested the night of the fire and got out of control.
And that is why he is now letting a child into his home, showing him where everything important is and then to the spare bedroom that would now belong to Izuku. It was plain with nothing special in it, but maybe when they go shopping to get Izuku some new clothes, they’ll get a couple things for his room as well.
Aizawa had also noticed something about the kid, he was always grabbing at his arms, as if he was clutching something that wasn’t there.
“Hey kid?” He said after a very silent dinner “Will you let me change your bandages? The nurse said they should be changed every few days”
Izuku nodded shyly, Shouta knew he liked that nurse whilst he was there, he knew Miki from other times he's come to the hospital, she's always been good with kids, even when Miki was a trainee and Shouta was a hero student.
“C’mere” he said as he grabbed the first aid box out of the drawers and sat back at the circular dining table.
Shouta was as careful as possible when unwrapping the child’s old bandages, revealing the burn marks on his arms.
“You might want to look away, Izuku,” Aizawa said calmly. “These aren’t pretty.”
Izuku done as he was told, turning his head slightly the other way, his free hand fiddling with the bottom of his shirt, Miki was kind enough to make sure their were some clothes waiting for him when he got out, his old ones were singed and painted with ash.
Aizawa took a second to look at the burns made in his arms. Those will definitely scar.
He grabbed a bandage from the first aid box and began gently wrapping the white fabric up his right arm.
Once he was done, Shouta tapped the kids shoulder to let him know he was done. “Switch” he said and the boy complied, turning 180 degrees so Shouta could do the other arm.
“All done kid” he said when he tapped Izuku’s shoulder again. “That gash on your head doing ok?”
Izuku must’ve forgotten about it as his green eyes widened and his hand reached up to where a dried cut sat on his head. The painkillers could be wearing off but Izuku still nodded, telling Aizawa he was fine.
“You know what we could do Izuku?” Zashi said when he walked into kitchen, his hair freshly damp from the shower. “I could help you learn a little sign language! I’ve got a quirk that affected my hearing when i was a kid.” He points to his hearing aids “Without these i wouldn’t be able to hear what anyone says, but sign language is really helpful for people who have trouble communicating. I think it would help everyone out if we taught you some phrases!” Zashi said cheerfully.
It really wasn’t a bad idea, if Izuku was adamant about using his voice maybe they would be able to figure out why. It would also be a lot more helpful than Izuku having to use simple shakes and nods.
He felt his partners hand on his shoulder as Zashi said to him, “You’ve had a long week, go shower. I can handle it”
“You sure?”
“Yep!” Hizashi then kissed him on the cheek “I’ve got it.”
“Thanks Zashi” he sighed tiredly, a shower would probably do him a lot of good.
That night Izuku and Zashi fell asleep on the couch, Aizawa putting a blanket over them both, and joining them.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Hey Izuku, c’mere i’ve got something for you.” Shouta said
It had been about a month since they used their guardianship licenses on the green haired boy. Things were going well, there had only been a few incidents when Izuku had had nightmares about the fire, the first time Aizawa wanted to hear his damaged voice was not a scream, it pulled at Shouta’s heartstrings whenever he thought about it. But apart from that, everything had been fine. They’d gone shopping a day after Izuku came home with them, and now his room was filled with things for him to do and a chest of drawers full of clothes. Zashi done as he said, and was teaching Izuku some basic JSL, it had been helpful, Izuku was able to let them know if something was wrong, or if he needed help with anything.
His bandages had been taken off permanently about just under a week ago, they weren’t completely finished healing, it didn’t help that Izuku sometimes scratched at them when he got nervous.
He heard Izuku padding towards him, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.
“Now I know we got you some soft toys already, but I wanted you to look after someone very special to me, ok?” He said, his hands behind his back.
Izuku nodded and Shouta pulled a stuffed toy cat from his back.
“This is Koneko. He was mine when i was about your age, and i want you to have him.” His lips tugging into a fond smile, as he recalls the childhood memories he made with the cat plushie.
Koneko was a black cat with one blue button eye, the other was yellow.
Izuku’s eyes lit up as Aizawa handed him the plushie.
“Th- th-” Izuku’s croaky voice said, making Shouta’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Thank you!” the child said, jumping on Shouta and hugging him, making the hero fall to the ground, but he didn’t care. He just clutched onto the kid, wrapping his arms around him in a tight embrace.
He was never getting rid of this kid.