Chapter Text
Twelve days ago, Izuku should have died. Twelve days ago he should have died, and he didn't, and now everything is different. Twelve days ago, he should have died, just so he didn't have to see this fucking guy again.
"What do you want?" Izuku asks, annoyed.
The man is unfazed, arms crossed in front of him in a lazy posture. He can't see his mouth under the scarf, but he knows he's smirking. "You know what I want."
Izuku does know, but he glares and goes to make his coffee anyway. Almost every day since Izuku's first shift at this 24-hour café five days ago, this man has come in and pestered him. Why are you working a night shift? You look too young to work. It's illegal for kids under fifteen to work after eleven. How old are you? Who hired you?
Izuku's generally a pretty patient person, but he's been going through a lot of changes recently, so forgive him if he's not in the mood for small talk. Not to mention he works the night shift. Who tries to make small talk with an underage barista at two in the morning?
Izuku's feeling petty today, so even though the man is still standing at the register, he puts the cup down at the pick-up counter and loudly announces, "One red-eye for Eraserhead."
Seeing the hero's face visibly fall, even if he can't see half of it from this angle because of that stupid scarf, is really awesome. The ultimate payback.
The man picks up his cup with a twitch in his finger. "I didn't tell you that. And don't announce it so loudly."
Izuku crosses his arms now, shrugging, really rubbing it in. "You didn't need to. And you're the only maniac ordering coffee at this hour. Chill out."
"Well, Midoriya, I hope you have a nice night." Izuku's own face drops, now, as Eraserhead gives him a smug look and leaves the shop.
That girl from the day shift must have spilled his name. She's too talkative for her own good, something she should really work on since she's about to be a third year in UA's hero course. He didn't think a hero would go so far as to do recon to get his name of all things, but being an underground hero must have loosened some of his screws. Doesn't he have better things to do than stalk a fifteen-year-old?
Even if Eraserhead looked up his name, he wouldn't find anything. Just his Mom's Facebook with some pictures of when he was a baby from before he was diagnosed Quirkless and his name in the most recent graduation class from Aldera Middle School from a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe a few ugly pictures of him that his classmates used to post online to make fun of him and spread the word of his condition. Keeping the community informed, they called it.
Yeah, that was really funny of them. Local grocery stores still upcharge him since finding out. They don't even try to hide it anymore. He wonders if Eraserhead is a Quirkist.
Is Izuku still considered Quirkless now?
His back aches as the long hours of his shift drag on, his fingertips twitching with phantom pain. It's only been twelve days, but the memory of feeling normal is already fading away. He sighs and takes out his notebook, half-full and peeling at the edges, and starts analyzing whatever fight is being broadcasted on the small TV on the wall across from him. He just needs to focus and stop thinking about it.
—-------
Despite being Quirkless his entire life until now, he's starting to only feel normal when he lets his Quirk out.
After his shift he trudges home in the cool, stale early-morning summer air, fingers shaking slightly as he twists the key into his apartment door. He calls out a greeting for his Mom, but he knows she's probably not here.
She’s always been distant. No, hesitant. She treads on eggshells around Izuku, like he’s going to combust any second from Quirklessness. Not sure if she knows this, but he’s statistically less likely to do that without a Quirk. She flits around him, constantly worrying, but never getting too close.
It’s probably easier for her that way- the Quirkless don’t have great life outcomes, something she’s been told by everyone from the moment he was given his death sentence. But despite her usual nervous helicopter-ing, she has become more distant lately. Long shifts at the hospital, she says when he asks.
Sometimes he feels upset that she never noticed his disappearance. It was only for one day, and he knows that she definitely would have cared if she was home at the time, but she wasn't. And she didn't.
She didn't come back for days after, all while Izuku was bed-bound, sick with a fever, confused and weak, heart aching for something he didn’t know, scared and alone-
When she came back, Izuku was back to acting normal. She hadn't noticed a thing, and he greeted her, but it felt hollow. Izuku doesn't know why.
She's not here now, so he sighs and releases the uncomfortable energy that has been gathering in his back since he left the house for work.
Wings unfurl from between his shoulderblades, white and grey and fluffy, each one a little bit longer than the length of one of his arms. He shivers as dark talons protrude from his nailbeds and small feathers grow along the sides of his head.
He knows that his pupils look unnatural, too, responding to light in ways a human's never would. He doesn't feel human, like this.
Izuku doesn't know what happened. One day he was Quirkless, and then suddenly he woke up, and he almost died, and he wasn't Quirkless anymore.
He doesn't know why he is able to hide his features either. He's studied Quirks his whole life, but his own doesn’t make any sense. Quirks don’t just pop out of nowhere a decade late, especially mutation Quirks. People are born with mutations, every rock under the sea knows that.
He had theorized that it was just a strange emitter type Quirk, except for the fact that the wings and talons were his natural state now. When he slept they came out, and it took energy to keep them hidden when he was awake. At its core, it’s a mutation. An impossible one. And he has no idea how he got it.
He takes a deep breath and sits down at the dining table to sort through the mail with the pitiful hope of taking his mind off of things. He grimaces as he tries to get comfortable; with a chair like this, he has to keep his wings raised up because of the tall back. It's uncomfortable and strains his wings, but Izuku ignores it. It still feels better than keeping them hidden.
He carefully sets aside the bills for his mom after peeking at the numbers so he knows if he should try to pick up extra shifts at work (he does) and collects all of his high school decision letters into a neat pile in front of him.
He's not too optimistic about being accepted anywhere nice despite his decent grades. One look at his profile with that life-ruining Q word and the teacher's comments on his report cards over the years and he could probably guarantee nowhere with a reputation would take him. He applied to less competitive schools, too, especially since tuition was cheaper. But it couldn’t hurt to just apply everywhere.
Actually, yes it could. It very much did hurt. Turns out he wouldn't be paying any tuition at all. One after another, all rejections. He set the letters aside, each one a bit more suffocating. He saved UA for last, having applied to the gen-ed course in case he didn’t make the hero course, which was good planning in hindsight seeing as he didn’t even make it to the exam.
The general exam was held a few days before the hero exam and he thinks he did well, honestly. He daydreamed about walking up to those gates in that fancy uniform and gazing longingly at the hero students.
He takes a deep breath and slowly unseals the letter. He reads through it silently and then places it in the stack of rejections. That was it, then. He wouldn't be going to high school. Optimism is a bitch and he won’t be practicing it anymore.
An ugly feeling bubbled up inside him, the same one he feels when he looks in the mirror nowadays. He takes the stack of papers and rips them with his talons. Pieces of paper flutter to the floor as he wills his bird traits away, hastily pulling his jacket on and running out of the house again.
Mom won't be home to see what a mess I made. Or how her son couldn't even get into high school. How can I look anyone in the face and tell them I’m a middle school graduate?
Izuku walks in a daze, mind too clouded to really know where he was going until he ends up at the park sitting on the swing and kicking his feet lazily, hand clenched on the rusty chains and feeling sorry for himself.
He should have expected this, honestly, but reality still slapped him in the face once again. After what happened, he just wanted something good to happen to him, anything at all. He was hoping to forget this whole summer and go to school so he could get a high school diploma, maybe even enroll in a community college and get a decent job for a Quirkless person. UA was his dream, and was definitely a reach, but anywhere would have been fine.
He should have just died that day so he didn't have to come to terms with his lack of future. The outcome would've been the same either way.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here when he hears the quiet crunch of damp mulch and looks up to see Kacchan standing over him, backlit by the still-rising sun.
He smiles, but he has no earthly idea what Kacchan would want from him right now. He’s literally in the middle of a mental breakdown and looks like absolute shit. “Hi, Kacchan.”
Kacchan scowls at him. “Aren't parks for little kids?”
Izuku points at him. “Well, you're here too.”
Kacchan doesn't dignify him with a response. He just stands over him with his hands in his pockets. “You weren't at the entrance exam.”
Izuku leans his head against the chain of the swing. He actually did sign up for UA's hero course entrance exam and had every intention of taking it, but he has absolutely no memory of the day it happened. All he knows is that he went to sleep the night before the exam, and then he woke up drowning thirty-something hours later, and he had wings.
“Sorry, Kacchan. I chickened out.” He smirks at the unintentional truthness of that statement, but Kacchan must interpret his expression differently and gives him a weird look.
“Dumbass. I didn't want you there anyways.”
Izuku doesn't point out that the blonde wouldn't be asking him about it if he didn't care in the first place. Ever since graduation, something changed between them. Kacchan seems more… restrained, almost.
He still very openly hated Izuku, but he never would've approached him like this before. Maybe once he realized Izuku wasn't going to follow him into hero school, he didn't see the point in pushing him away as aggressively. A tentative, fragile sort of peace. Not respect, though. Never respect.
“Did you get in?”
Kacchan scoffs. “‘Course I did.”
Izuku smiles again, eyes squinting, betraying nothing of the burning in his gut. “Congratulations!”
A few seconds of silence pass awkwardly. Even if his former(?) bully was trying to be nice to him now for whatever fucking reason, holding a conversation was still way out of both of their comfort zones.
“So, where are you going then?”
Izuku blinks. “Nowhere.”
“The fuck?”
Izuku smiles again, but he can't keep the bitterness out of it this time. “Nobody wanted the Quirkless kid. I'm sure you can understand that.”
Kacchan scoffs again and turns around, walking away and leaving Izuku looking at his back. Not even a goodbye. That's always how it seems to go.
For twelve days, everything has changed, even Kacchan. He doesn’t know yet if that’s a blessing or a curse.
Izuku sighs as the blonde gets farther and farther away, barely visible anymore. He should ask his boss to schedule more shifts now that he'll have the time. He hates that stupid coffee shop.