Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was nowhere to hide.

The small crowd of black-clad mourners, Midoriya Inko’s friends and co-workers, stood at a respectful distance from the one person in the world who had been closest to her, unwilling to intrude on his grief.

Midoriya Izuku had his mother’s green hair and eyes. On normal days, he had her bright smile that could light up a room. That day, he stood alone at the front of the crowd, closest to his mother’s grave, with empty eyes. The occasional blink was all that signaled he was alive.

Midoriya Izuku was a boy who had eyes like stars. He shone brightly without consideration. No matter the person. There was something magnetic about his personality that caused people to gravitate toward the young boy with the radiant smile, at least until he had been diagnosed as quirkless.

Midoriya Izuku was a star, but he was a collapsing star.

There was no longer any substance to his light, not without his mother.

When the ceremony was over, the mourners filed by him, offering what comfort they could. The young boy, not even in middle school, accepted hugs and firm handshakes and pats on the shoulder from the strangers around him with a stoic face.

If they knew…

“He’s so young,” one woman said as she walked away. She had splotches of blue swirling around on her skin. “Midoriya-san didn’t have any relatives. He’ll be all alone.” She walked away arm in arm with a man. The patches of color lightened to a sky blue tinged with pink as she clung closer to him, and he squeezed her arm in return.

Some kind of manifestation of emotion, Izuku thought idly. Like a mood ring. Most Likely a very sincere person on account of that.

Was it really the right thing to be distracted by quirks at his own mother’s funeral? Probably not, but he couldn’t help it.

He felt so exposed.

If only this were a nightmare. He could pull his blanket over his head to block it out, block out all the people who kept touching him, ignorant of what they were doing. If only he were in his room, with its four walls to box him in and keep him safe. The open air left him vulnerable, like he was out in the middle of the ocean with nothing between him and the elements, the currents pulling him about indiscriminately.

He would have felt better if he could cry about it, instead of the numb state he was in. Normally, he had the opposite problem. It was difficult to hold back his tears most days. How ironic. He was such a crybaby over getting reprimanded in class but couldn’t shed a tear at his own mother’s funeral.

A woman with a head of blonde spiky hair approached him last of all, flanked by her husband and son.

“Auntie Mitsuki,” Izuku croaked, the first words he had spoken all day.

Mitsuki held out her arms. Others had simply hugged him, thrust their condolences into his nerveless grasp. “I’m sorry for your loss.” “She was a good woman.” It was the discharging of a duty on their part, and it was his duty to accept. This was an offering. It was for him.

Izuku stepped forward, hesitantly at first, then stumbling over his own feet. He wrapped his arms around Mitsuki. It felt safe. He was closed off from the rest of the world. He wasn’t crying, couldn’t cry, not yet, but the warmth of that embrace melted some of the icy numbness in his heart. How long had it been since the green-haired boy had been hugged so firmly?

Uncle Masaru stepped forward and rested a warm hand on his shoulder. The gesture was reassuring. A man of few words, everything Bakugo Masaru did held weight. This was his offer of sympathy and support.

“Get in here, brat,” Mitsuki said, and pulled Kacchan into the hug.

Izuku’s best friend looked….damp. There was a grimace on his face, which was pretty standard for Kacchan, but unlike usual, he wasn’t looking Izuku in the eye. Aggressive eye-contact was his style. Seeing him so out of it was unsettling for Izuku.

He had already known that nothing would be the same after his mother died, but this was a concrete confirmation. He had kind of hoped that Kacchan would be his usual brash self, inappropriate as that would be at a funeral. It would mean that nothing had changed in that aspect of his life at least.

“If you need anything, call me, okay, Izuku? You have my number. I’ll be there right away,” Mitsuki was saying. “I wish we could take you home with us, but there’s a lot of paperwork in the way.” She sighed aggressively. “You’ll have to wait a little while.”

Eventually, she let go, and Izuku was drowning in the open space again. A social worker came to pick him up. He said goodbye to Auntie and Uncle. Kacchan didn’t look at him, but he did give Izuku a hug after a sharp elbow from his mother.

Heaving his duffle bag over his shoulder, Izuku followed the social worker who was picking him up to her car. It contained everything he was bringing from his home. Everything else would be in storage until he came of age. Strangely, he hadn’t wanted to bring much of it with him.

He had packed before the funeral, staring at his hero merch and the posters and figures that adorned his walls like they belonged to someone else. Maybe they did. In the end, he had left most of his merch, only packing an All Might hoodie that was several sizes too big and an Eraserhead hoodie that looked like an ordinary black hoodie except for the golden goggles embroidered on the cuffs.

He had hesitated over his notebooks but ended up taking them with him. They were so much a piece of him that being separated from them would have been unbearable. He could enclose his knowledge and observations within their pages, so that it would still be there even if he forgot. In a way, part of him was stored between the pages.

Clothes. Toiletries. His medicine box and first-aid kit. His notebooks. A blanket his mother had crocheted. That was all Izuku took with him.

The drive to the home was silent. Evidently, the social worker was content to let him be. She had faintly blue skin, finlike ears, blue freckles along the sides of her cheeks. Aquatic quirk? Maybe a secondary mutation. Her dominant quirk could be an emitter type. When they arrived, she took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before leading him inside.

Izuku wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, so it was a good thing the social worker was handling everything. There was a roaring in his ears. He looked around the home. Big rooms with high ceilings. They took him into the dormitory. Rows of beds along the walls.

Nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to hide.

Izuku wouldn’t be staying there. Numb as he was, he had already come to that conclusion. The social worker, he had never caught her name, gave his hand a goodbye pat and she was gone and Izuku was alone, and everything was too big, too open, too much.

*

It was fine. Everything was fine. The other kids were fine.

That was probably because they didn’t know he was quirkless, yet. People were always different after they learned that. Everyone except…everyone. Even Auntie and Uncle Masaru had started treating him like he was made of glass. Kacchan was the exact opposite. He had gotten more aggressive after Izuku’s diagnosis.

Somehow, Izuku had made it through dinner the night before. He followed the other kids, going out to a short recess before they were called back into the dormitory to shower, brush their teeth, and go to bed.

One of the other boys helped Izuku make his bed. He was on the top bunk. The sheets the home provided were stiff with starch and scratchy to the touch. They gave him a blanket as well, which promised to be very itchy. It smelled funny, too. The whole home smelled weird, nothing like home. He was given a flat, lumpy pillow. It barely showed when he tucked it underneath the blanket.

Izuku sighed when he was finished. It had helped, having something to do. He turned to his next tasks. The other boys were changing into their pajamas so he did the same.

He’d changed in front of other people before, but always in the school locker rooms, and everyone there already knew what his scars looked like, knew where they came from. Also, in the locker rooms, everyone faced their locker. There was no such rule in the dorm.

Izuku unbuttoned his shirt, letting it hang loosely on him while he maneuvered his sleep shirt over his head. Then he slipped his arms out of the sleeves and through the sleeves of his pajama shirt, pulling it down over his chest and stomach before anyone could see.

The soft chatter in the room went silent.

“Hey, new kid? What got you here?”

Izuku looked up to find the whole room staring at him.

The boy who had asked looked older, probably a teenager. He had unruly black hair that hung in front of his eyes. He was half changed into a band tee, the name of which Izuku couldn’t read.

“Did your parents…hurt you?” This time it was the boy who had helped Izuku with his sheets. He had big blue eyes and mousy brown hair. As he spoke, one of his fingers turned into a corkscrew.

Realizing that the other boy must have seen Izuku’s scars, Izuku tugged his shirt down more securely. The silence in the room stretched on.

“No,” Izuku said at last.

“What’re you doing here, then?” the older boy asked again. “I’m in cuz my old man likes to drink his paycheck and my mom skipped town. You don’t have to worry. Most of us are the same, just waiting for the next foster.”

“My mom…got caught in a villain fight..” Izuku said. It still felt so unreal, like he shouldn’t even be saying it. It had been days, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all a particularly bad dream, and he would wake up in his room with the blanket pulled over his head. His mom would be in her room down the hall, safe and alive. He could sneak into her room and curl up at the foot of her bed.

“Oh,” the older boy said. He finished putting his shirt on and cleared his throat, clearly feeling awkward about the subject. “Sorry about that.”

Izuku nodded numbly.

He grabbed his toiletries and walked out of the dorm, down the hall to the bathrooms. Once in the shower, he turned it on and sat on the floor, letting the water trickle over him.

The home’s showers were small, but at least they were private. Izuku was grateful for the walls boxing him in.

It didn’t last very long. He hadn’t been in the shower more than a few minutes when someone rapped their knuckles against the wall outside the shower.

“Midoriya,” a man’s voice said. “Try to finish up. There are others waiting. Next time, keep it under three minutes.”

Izuku laid his head on his knees. He didn’t want to get out, didn’t want to face the others. The water drumming on his back was soothing.

The man outside was clearly waiting for an answer. “Midoriya?”

Reaching up, Izuku twisted the knob and the water shut off. “Hai,” he said weakly.

Seemingly satisfied, the man left.

Izuku sat dripping on the shower floor for a few moments longer. Although he hadn’t washed it, his hair was damp. The ends dripped water down his face. The droplets ran like tears down his face. Izuku wished he could cry. Anything but this.

He was still lost in his head when he returned to the dorm. The other kids gave him a wide berth, unwilling to intrude on his grief. Izuku made his way to his bed. By the looks of it, his bunkmate was already asleep, or trying to be. A shock of purple hair stuck out from the covers that had been pulled up to keep the light out.

The ladder creaked beneath Izuku’s feet as he climbed it and the bedframe groaned ominously when he lay down, but it didn’t collapse. The mattress was thin. Izuku could feel the coiled springs in it, creating bumps and knots that dug into him uncomfortably. He pulled the sheets up to his chin, then over his head.

After a few minutes, the supervisor came by to get everyone else in bed. The lights went off, and the door was closed.

High on his top bunk, with the darkness all around him, Izuku felt even more vulnerable than before. He was floating in a sea of inky blackness with nothing to shelter him. It stretched out for miles, forever maybe. He couldn’t see where it ended. And there was no one to save him.

His mother’s warm arms were gone. He would never feel her quiet strength holding him up again. With her gone, all the warmth was sucked out of his life, and he was left in this cold, swirling maelstrom, unable to cry because the tears were frozen in his heart.

He didn’t realize he was whimpering until a hand snuck under his sheets and shook his shoulder.

“New kid,” a tired voice said. “You were sleep talking.”

“Sorry,” Izuku whispered back.

“Bad dream?”

It wasn’t a dream, but Izuku nodded his head. It was close enough. Realizing the other boy wasn’t able to see the motion, he hurriedly whispered, “Yeah.”

“We all get them. You need anything. I can stay until you fall asleep if you want.”

Izuku shook his head, then remembered the other boy still couldn’t see him. “No, I’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.” The ladder creaked as the other boy made his way down. He climbed back into his bed, shaking the frame ever so slightly. Izuku didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed him climbing up. He wrapped himself up in his blanket again, with the phantom sensation of his bunkmate’s hand still echoing on his shoulder, grounding him.

*

It was only a matter of time before someone asked. Asking someone’s quirk was a standard icebreaker, so that time was very short.

Izuku had been talking to the boy with brown hair and fingers that could shift into the standard attachments of a pocketknife, whose name he had discovered was Mori.  They were dusting the main hallway of  the home, which left them plenty of time to talk while they worked, and Mori was very talkative. Izuku wanted to know if he could change multiple of his fingers at once, and then the other boy had asked him the fatal question: “What’s your quirk?”

Not for the first time, Izuku considered lying. In school, it was impossible. Everyone already knew. Even if they hadn’t, Kacchan would have told them. But there were other times, brief meetings, where he could just lie.

It was too risky, he decided. His official records had that he was quirkless. If one of the supervisors heard about him lying, it might not end well.

“I’m quirkless,” Izuku said.

“Oh,” Mori said. “Is that…why you’re here?”

“What?”

“Y’know, a lot of kids get dropped off here because their parents don’t like their quirks. Shinso’s like that. He’s the one who sleeps in the bunk below you. Don’t talk to him. He can control you if you do. If he tries to talk to you, you can tell one of the supervisors.”

Izuku decided not to comment on that. He and Shinso had spoken the night before and nothing had happened. In fact, the other boy had been…nice. Nicer than anyone else at least.

He decided to address what Mori had said before that. “L-like I said yesterday, my mother was…was caught in a villain attack. She never w-would have abandoned me.” It felt like an insult to his mother’s memory and her love to cast doubt on her like this.

Mori winced. “Sorry, I remember you told us that. What about your dad?”

“Not around,” Izuku said. For that, Izuku didn’t have an official reason. His father’s absence dated back to his birth, so it might have been his fault. He would probably never know. If his mother knew, she had never told him and taken that secret to her grave. “He was never around,” he clarified.

Mori nodded, like he understood. Izuku didn’t think he did. He probably took it to mean that Izuku’s father had abandoned his quirkless son. Whatever. Mori was just a kid, younger than Izuku. He didn’t know better than to construe the world according to his own experiences.

Izuku grew to regret that conversation, and his honesty, by evening. Mori evidently hadn’t kept his mouth shut. When Izuku entered the cafeteria, a number of curious and mischief-filled eyes turned his way.

Squaring his shoulders, Izuku joined the line for the food. He felt like a fish among sharks, trapped in the vast ocean and surrounded by danger.

The boy in front of him turned around, grinning widely. His teeth had metallic gleam to them. “You’re the new kid, right? The quirkless one?” Izuku’s obvious discomfort was all the answer he needed. “Heard your mom died. That sucks. Were you there?”

“No,” Izuku said curtly, praying for the line to move quicker.

The other boy laughed. Laughed. “Not that it would have mattered. You wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyways, am I right?” He leered at Izuku, taking advantage of the few centimeters he had on him. His square face and buzzed hair looked no better up close.

Several other kids laughed with him, clearly enjoying the spectacle, probably expecting it, too.

“Hey, was she quirkless, too? That would explain why she died, and why she had a weak kid like you.”

Izuku clenched his tray tighter, until he thought the plastic might crack beneath the strain.

“Tanaka, cut it out!” the older emo boy from Izuku’s dorm barked somewhere further up the line.

“I was just messing with him,” Tanaka whined.

For a few brief moments, Izuku saw a light, like maybe it would be different in the home than it had been at school. Sure, a lot of people already looked down on him, but he could deal with it as long as the no-bullying rules were enforced.

It all came crashing down with the next words. “Save it for later.”

Izuku hunched his shoulders even more. So what if he was safe for the duration of the meal? After, it would be just like school. It already was. Just like how the teachers told the other students to keep it down in the classroom but turned a blind eye to whatever happened between classes and after school.

After the meal, the kids were herded outside for some fresh air before dormitory. There wasn’t much in the yard, and there was nowhere to hide. Izuku was cornered immediately. It was a familiar feeling.

“So,” Tanaka crossed his arms, trying to look menacing. “You were telling us all about your weak, quirkless mama,” he prompted.

“She wasn’t quirkless,” Izuku said through gritted teeth. His head was already in a fog. The headache of dealing with bullies was too much. He was almost minded to just let them beat him up and get it over with. But he wouldn’t tolerate any slander of his mother.

“Sure,” Tanaka drawled. “But you are, and you know what that means. Less evolved. What we’re looking at here is an endangered species,” he said to his goons. He stalked forward until he was in Izuku’s face and grabbed his collar.

Instinctively, Izuku curled in on himself, ducking his head in to protect himself from the blows that would be coming.

Tanaka yanked him down sharply and kneed him in the stomach.

Izuku started coughing and Tanaka released him. “See, I told you he was a real weakling.”

Izuku’s eyes were watering, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was still in a daze, and this was nothing he wasn’t used to.

“Think he’ll try to fight back?” one of the goons asked.

“Do you think he know how to?” Tanaka laughed sharply. “What do you think, Quirkless? Want to fight one of us?”

Izuku held his tongue.

“Too good to answer us, huh?” Tanaka slapped him across the face.

Izuku sank to the ground on one knee, nursing his stinging cheek with one hand. Tanaka loomed over him, and Izuku prepared himself to get kicked. If he could just position himself right, he could prevent the worst injuries.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a tired voice drawled.

Tanaka halted.

Izuku didn’t dare look up and expose himself, but there was something familiar about the voice.

“Careful, don’t answer him!” one of the goons hissed.

“What are you doing, Tanaka?” the newcomer repeated.

After a few tense seconds, Tanaka growled out, “You wouldn’t do anything. I’ll tell Mr. Yamamoto, if you do!”

“Leave!” the newcomer ordered.

And to Izuku’s surprise, Tanaka turned and walked away without another word.

“The rest of you can leave, too.”

The rest of the goons followed their leader, although they were closer to shuffling away than Tanaka’s steady gait.

“You can get up now,” Izuku’s rescuer said.

Izuku looked up. It was Shinso, his bunkmate. He was a little taller than Izuku, but not particularly intimidating. With the shadows under his eyes, he just looked like he needed a nap. But he had made the bullies leave. What had Mori said? ‘Don’t talk to him. he can control you if you do.’ He probably had some kind of mental quirk.

“I won’t do anything. Are you okay?”

Izuku picked himself up. Apart from the blow to his stomach and face, he was unharmed, and neither of those were likely to bruise too badly.

“Thanks to you,” he said.

Shinso looked a little shocked but nodded. “Good. Steer clear of them, if you can. They might come back.”

“I’ll try,” Izuku said.

“I’m gonna go,” Shinso said, jerking his thumb toward the building. “Before I get in any more trouble. Tanaka’s probably already tattled on me.”

“See you tonight.”

Shinso grimaced as he walked away. “We’ll see.”

No one came back to bother Izuku for the rest of the recess. He was faster changing in dorm this time and got in the shower quickly. When he got out, Shinso wasn’t in his bed yet. Izuku climbed into his own bunk, having nothing else to do. If he were at home, he would have used this time for his notebooks, but he didn’t particularly want to pull them out at the moment.

Shinso still wasn’t back when the supervisor turned the lights out.

*

The next morning, Shinso was in his bed. Izuku didn’t know when he got there. He didn’t have a chance to talk to him, since mornings were a rush of trying to get all the kids ready for school.

It would be Izuku’s first day back at school since…

He was not looking forward to it.

With his school uniform on again, he looked…normal. Like nothing had happened. Like his mother hadn’t died and he was going to school like it was any other day.

He walked slowly. The home was farther from Aldera Elementary than his mom’s apartment had been, but he had left so early that he wasn’t in any danger of being late. He also didn’t want to be early, hence why he was dragging his steps, praying for a fight to break out so that he would have an excuse to be late.

He had no such luck.

He slipped into his classroom just as the bell was ringing, earning a disappointed glare from his teacher, but no reprimand as he wasn’t technically late. He slid into his seat with a sigh of relief. No one had noticed him.

It didn’t last very long.

After the lesson, their teacher passed out worksheets for them to work on quietly in pairs, and she paired him with Kacchan.

Kacchan scooted his desk over to Izuku’s with a scowl. He snatched the worksheet out of Izuku’s hands and began to work on it.

“We’re supposed to work together,” Izuku began.

“Shut up,” Kacchan snapped, turning red eyes toward Izuku. “I don’t need help from you, nerd.”

Izuku tucked his hands into his lap and kept his head down, not daring to say anything else.

“The old hag is worried about you,” Kacchan said, after they had sat in silence for several minutes. “Keeps telling me to take care of you. It’s dumb.”

“Sorry.”

“Shouldn’t be my job to look after a weakling like you,” Kacchan grumbled. “I got better things to do.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be. It’s your fault.”

Kacchan carried on with his work, thinking nothing of his words, but Izuku froze.

Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

His mind had been screaming those words for days now, till the sound blended into a white noise muffling everything else. He had been able to tune them out. He hadn’t been there. There was no way his mom would have been able to make it out no matter what. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t.

It was.

Hearing the words out loud cemented it.

Kacchan might have as well have punched him in the gut. All the air had been forcefully pressed out of Izuku’s lungs. He was gasping for breath, but breathing didn’t help, like he was too high in the atmosphere and there was no oxygen.

“Midoriya!” the teacher’s voice washed over his ears. “You’re disturbing your classmates. Please go out into the hallway.”

When Izuku didn’t move, barely even registering what she had said, she rapped her desk. “Bakugo, please escort Midoriya outside.” There was a glint of vindictiveness in her tone.

Kacchan got up and hauled Izuku to his feet by the elbow, then marched him outside. Once they were in the hallway, he whirled on him. “Why did you even come to school today? You shouldn’t even be here!”

I shouldn’t, Izuku agreed. Out loud, he said, “I had to.”

Kacchan snorted. “Didn’t even try saying you were sick?” Izuku shook his head. “You’re such an idiot. I can’t believe I’m stuck out here with you.”

“Sorry.” Izuku had his breathing a little under control now. The hallway was nicer than the classroom.

“Whatever.”

Kacchan went back into the classroom a few minutes before Izuku. He had finished the worksheet by the time Izuku got back to his desk.

Surprisingly, Kacchan left him alone for the rest of the day. When the bell rang at the end of the day, he stalked over to the group of the rowdier kids that he often hung out with, the ones Izuku knew to avoid.

Izuku slipped out of the room while they weren’t watching.

The walk back to the home was uneventful. Privately, Izuku wished a villain had attacked. If it killed him, better.

He couldn’t shirk the thought anymore. His mother was dead, and it was his fault. He couldn’t keep putting it off dealing in hypotheticals, like maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. He would never know, and he would never be absolved.

What would the police think, when they figured it out? He wouldn’t go to jail for murder, because he hadn’t killed her, but he was the reason she was dead.

Because he was a weak, quirkless Deku who made everyone around him suffer.

Mom had said that it was okay, that he was just sick. And maybe she was right, because it had never happened again. It was just a side effect of being quirkless. But other people might not see it the same way. They might lock him up so it wouldn’t happen again, experiment on him.

Izuku wandered back into the home still in a daze. He was directed to a study hall, where they could work on their homework. He settled down at a desk and began to work through his assignments.

He had almost finished, when there was a disturbance. A titter went through the room. Izuku looked up to determine the cause, and saw Shinso walking in.

He looked like he had just gotten back from school. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and his eye bags were deeper than ever. But what really caught Izuku’s eye was the muzzle covering the lower portion of his face.

Izuku’s blood turned cold with horror as he processed what he was seeing.

Shinso had a quirk that had to do with speaking. He had used it the other day to save Izuku from the other kids. They had threatened to tell a teacher, and the teacher…Izuku gulped.

If this what they did for a quirk that had hurt no one, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if they found out…if they found out he was the reason his mother was dead.

His hands trembled as he completed the last of his homework. It was pointless really, but he couldn’t leave it undone. Fear weighed on him, a thundercloud ready to burst into storm. At any second, they might find out, and then, then it would be over.

He nearly jumped out of his seat when the supervisor rose from their desk to announce it was time for dinner.

This time at recess, he didn’t go outside. Instead, he stopped to use the restrooms while the other kids were filing out. Once the recess supervisors had followed them out, and the dinner supervisor had gone off to eat their own meal, he slipped out and snuck back into the dorms.

He packed everything back into his bag, except his pajamas and toiletries, then lowered it out of one of the dorm’s windows. They were on the first floor, so it was no risk. Outside the window were several bushes in need of trimming, which Izuku took advantage of to conceal his bag.

With his preparations complete, he snuck back out to recess. He was only outside a few minutes, not enough for anyone to take notice of him, before the kids were called inside again. He went through the now familiar motions of getting ready for bed. Shinso was in bed already when Izuku got out of the shower, blanket pulled over his face.

It was yet another thing Izuku was at fault for.

Waiting for the others to fall asleep once the lights were out was torturous. The darkness seemed to swallow him up. His heart was pounding so loudly he was sure the others had to be able to hear it.

And then, everyone was still. Izuku crept out of his bed, grabbed his clothes, and climbed out the window.

He turned his back on the home and ran.

*

Izuku briefly considered going to Auntie Mitsuki, but just as quickly threw that idea away. If she knew what he had done…she was mom’s friend, she had every right to be angry at him.

There were some problems with being on his own.

For one, he was eight and had almost no money. Actually, that was pretty much it.

Izuku remembered his mother had a savings account for him, but he had no way to access it. That left him with just the small stash of cash he had saved up from his allowance. It was quickly dwindling.

He stumbled into the train station and bought a ticket. He had done it before with his mom. The lady at the desk (bright red irises, wore color correcting lenses) smiled at him and helped him count out the change. Izuku didn’t really need help with the counting. He was good at math. It was just a lot for his small hands to hold. She told him to hurry home. He gave her a tiny, scared smile and hurried onto his train.

The car was mostly empty. A few passengers dozed in their seats or browsed their phones. No one noticed the tiny boy who curled up in a corner until he was practically out of sight.

He liked being on the train. It was compact without being cramped. Izuku could scrunch himself into a corner and still see the open section of the car. Trains were nice.

When he stumbled onto an unfamiliar platform, it was very late. If anyone thought it was odd for an eight-year-old to be out so long after his bedtime, they didn’t mention it. he wandered the darkened streets, shivering at the wide expanse of the sky overhead.

Eventually, he turned down an alley and tucked himself into the crack between the wall and a dumpster. He briefly considered climbing into the dumpster itself, but one sniff dissuaded him. He no longer had access to a shower. Mom had always told him to shower after he got messy.

Hugging his bag to his chest, Izuku pulled the hood of his hoodie over his head. He closed his eyes, and exhaustion washed over him.

*

The thing about sleeping soundly was that waking up from it was the absolute worst. Izuku was out like a light, but when he woke to someone shaking his shoulder insistently, he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He might as well have just blinked.

The hand that gripped his shoulder was small. That was the first thing Izuku noticed as he snapped awake.

The second thing was how yellow the girl’s eyes were. She had pale blonde hair cut in choppy bangs across her forehead, but her eyes were a stark cautionary yellow in contrast. She grinned, showing off pointed fangs.

A secondary mutation? Izuku thought. Probably an animal- or blood-based quirk.

“Hey!” the girl chirped, still shaking his shoulder, bringing Izuku’s attention back to her. “My name’s Himiko. What’s yours?”

“My name’s Izuku.”

“Izuku! That’s so cute! Almost as cute as Himiko, dontcha think?” She peered at Izuku with insistent eyes, until he nodded. “Why are you out here? I had to run away. Mom and Dad looked at me weird. They didn’t like my quirk, but that’s okay. Nobody likes my quirk. Did you run away, too?”

Izuku sat up, wincing at the stiffness in his limbs. “Yeah, um, no, I mean, yes. Not from my parents. My mom,” he swallowed thickly, “my mom is dead, so they sent me somewhere else, but they weren’t nice. There was a boy who helped me, but they—they muzzled him because they didn’t like his quirk, and I couldn’t stay.”

“Why?” Himiko cocked her head to the side, like a bird, watching him curiously. “Did they not like your quirk?”

“I don’t have one,” Izuku admitted nervously. “But I’m…sick. My mom said I have to be careful not to get anyone else sick. And if they knew…”

“My momma said I was sick,” Himiko offered. “But I don’t think she was right. I’m not sick. Sick is when you take medicine and it gets better. But I couldn’t take any medicine. She said I was sick in the head. Are you sick in the head?”

“No,” Izuku shook his head. “I have medicine, and it gets better when I take it, but I have to keep taking it, or I’ll get sick again, and I’ll get other people sick, too.”

Himiko wrinkled her nose. “That’s an awful sickness. I hate taking medicine.” She brightened. “You don’t have to take the medicine anymore, though.”

Izuku’s throat constricted. Himiko didn’t know. She wouldn’t say that if she knew. “No, I have to keep taking it.” His ears buzzed with a non-existent rushing, and he hunched over again.

“That’s stupid,” Himiko pouted. She grabbed Izuku’s arm and pulled him out of his hiding spot. “You should come with me. I know all the best places.”

Izuku pulled his arm away from her. “You shouldn’t touch me,” he warned the little blonde girl. “I’m sick.”

Himiko cocked her head inquisitively. “But you said you were taking medicine. So, aren’t you not sick?”

“Maybe,” Izuku said hesitantly. If he was telling the truth, he didn’t really know himself. He knew that if he stopped taking the medicine, he would be sick again, and he would get other people sick, but if the medicine didn’t really make the sickness go away, then wasn’t he still sick? His mom had always been careful to keep her distance, even though he was taking the medicine, so maybe he was. Maybe the medicine just stopped him from getting other people sick.

And even though he was taking the medicine, he still felt sick. All the time. Or, he thought he was sick. That one time he had gone to the school nurse, she had told him that what he was feeling was being sick, but he always felt like that. It was confusing.

“Whatcha thinkin about?” Himiko cut into his thoughts. “Do you think I’m cute?”

“What?” Izuku gaped. That question had come out of nowhere. Was it rude to say no? Was it weird to say yes? Why had she asked that? Had he been staring? Oh, he had been staring again. Kacchan always said it was creepy. Himiko was probably creeped out. She wouldn’t like him for staring at her. She would—

“I think you’re cute!” Himiko exclaimed. “You’ve got freckles. I wish I had freckles. Do you think I would be cuter with freckles?”

“I…don’t know?” Izuku said weakly.

“Come on, you keep staring at me. I gotta know what you like about me.”

Izuku felt his face heat up. He was utterly unused to this kind of interaction. He was…he was being teased about having a crush, wasn’t he? He’d heard other kids being teased like this at school. No one talked to him much, so it had never happened to him before. He was unprepared. He didn’t have a crush on Himiko. At least, he didn’t think he did. What exactly was a crush? He’d never really found that out. He thought Himiko was nice. She wasn’t being mean to him, but that couldn’t be all having a crush meant.

“I w-was wondering about, about your quirk,” he stammered out. It was half true. He was curious about her quirk, even if that hadn’t been exactly what he was thinking about.

“Aw,” Himiko cooed. “I can tell you about that. I can turn into other people if I drink their blood. Isn’t that cool? My parents didn’t like it. That’s why I ran away. It’s much nicer without them. Blood is soooo pretty. Don’t worry,” she must have noticed how Izuku stiffened, “I’m not gonna take your blood, cuz you’re my friend, unless you want me to.”

As wide and bright as her smile was, something about it didn’t sit right with Izuku. But, she had heard he was quirkless and didn’t seem to care. She had held out a hand to him when no one else had.

He was so used to having to keep people at arm’s length. Not that anyone at school would have touched him. They knew. “Stay away from Deku, he’ll infect you with his quirkless germs!” They knew to stay away. Ever since his diagnosis. His quirklessness was a disease that would poison everything.

Even Izuku’s own mother barely touched him. Not after that last hug. Izuku liked to remember that last hug. She had never given him another one, even if she had still been kind, the best mother he could have asked for.

And here Himiko was, reaching out a hand without a care in the world that he was sick. Maybe, this could be different.

He took the hand outstretched to him.

*

As it turned out, Himiko-chan, as she insisted he call her, hadn’t been on the streets much longer than Izuku had, a few weeks at best, but she still knew much more than he did. She showed him how to run away from the heroes that patrolled the streets. Izuku was able to help them avoid patrols in the areas he knew the schedules of. He discovered that they were safer in the areas more heavily patrolled by spotlight heroes than in those protected by underground heroes. The spotlight heroes wouldn’t spare a second glance at two young kids running in and out of alleyways, but the underground pros were more observant. Several of them had gotten very close to catching the duo.

“You’re really good at this, Izu-kun!” Himiko had giggled, after they managed to evade one of the pros. Izuku had noticed the hero seemed to have some kind of reptile mutation. Since it was so dark, he deduced the hero was following them by smell, so he and Himiko shook him off by a visit to one of the smelliest spots they knew of.

It wasn’t very comfortable. Izuku wanted a shower and a warm bed more than anything, but nothing was worth going back to the home so he just smiled a the compliment. “Thank you, Himiko-chan. I just like learning about heroes. We should get going, before he picks up our scent again.”

Later that night, when Himiko enlisted Izuku’s help to get the tangles out of her hair, she was rooting through his bag and pulled out his notebooks.

“Ooh, Izu-kun, are these all yours?”

Izuku blushed, thankful she couldn’t see him from where she was seated at his feet. They were in a gutted apartment building, probably the aftermath of a villain fight.

Himiko flipped through the pages of one of Izuku’s more recent notebooks oohing and ahing over it. “Can you do me?” she asked with a sparkle in her eyes. “You draw so good. Draw me!”

Himiko didn’t let up, so when Izuku had untangled her hair as best he could, knowing it was only a matter of time until her hair got snared in something else, he took his notebook back and made an entry for Himiko. He took note of her quirk, everything she had told him about it and some of his own observations. Then he made a quick sketch that Himiko squealed in delight over.

“It looks just like me!”

“It would be better if I had my pencils,” Izuku responded. He kind of regretted not bringing his art supplies, but he hadn’t anticipated needing them for anything.

“I don’t mind,” Himiko declared, looking at her page with star-struck eyes.

And Izuku basked in the warmth of having another person close to him.

*

Izuku didn’t know why he let Himiko convince him. He knew better. But he let her convince him to stop taking his medicine.

At first, when he didn’t take it in the morning, nothing felt different. As the hours passed, he still felt fine. In fact, he felt better than usual. His head was clear. Everything was sharper and more in focus. His stomach didn’t hurt as much.

Could it be that he really didn’t need his pills ? He wasn’t sick anymore? He felt so good.

That evening, Himiko had gone into one of the empty rooms in the apartment to eat. She liked eating by herself. That was something Izuku had noticed. He figured it was because of her quirk.

He wasn’t expecting her to burst back in, blood dribbling from her mouth and a stunned expression on her face.

Panic surged in his chest, closing around his heart with a tight grip. Someone had hurt her. They must have been found. They had to run.

“It doesn’t taste good! Why doesn’t it taste good!” she wailed.

“Himiko-chan, what is it?” Izuku demanded.

Himiko turned teary eyes toward him. “It doesn’t taste good anymore, Izu-kun. I can’t eat it.”

Izuku caught sight of what she was holding in her hand now. The limp body of a rat hung at her side, half hidden in her skirt. His stomach turned. Himiko had said she drank people’s blood but seeing it himself was different. He tried to tell himself that it was just her quirk. Why else would she have her pointy teeth, unless it was to drink blood? It was natural for her.

“What do I do, Izu-kun?” Hiimiko threw herself at him, wrapping him in a tight hug.

Izuku jumped at the contact, still a little spooked, but Himiko didn’t relent. She lay her head on his shoulder, her blonde hair tickling his neck. “Izu-kun! You have to help me!”

A feverish heat swelled in Izuku. It began at his sternum and expanded outward until it reached his skin. Himiko flinched back, tearing herself away from him. Her eyes wide in horror.

The heat disappeared, like it had been sucked back into the source, replaced with an empty cold.

But Himiko was still staring at Izuku in disbelief, her mouth agape. Her pointy canines…were gone.

“You…you were glowing…and it felt funny,” she stuttered. “I…it feels weird.”

No.

This can’t be happening.

“Izu-kun?” Himiko’s voice was trembling.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku gasped out. He stepped forward. To console her? To hug her again? Himiko flinched.

Izuku felt like a tornado had just run through him, throwing everything in his life into disarray and taking his breath away, like All Might had used his Oklahoma Smash.

“Stay away!’ Himiko shuffled backward. And Izuku’s throat constricted. Realization dawned on her face, like doom peeking over the horizon. “You’re sick,” she whispered it like an accusation.

Izuku nodded in shame.

Himiko fled after that. Izuku packed his things and left, too. He took his pill before he left, promising himself he wouldn’t skip a day again. Never again.

He was out on the streets again, friendless and homeless, just like the first day, with no idea where to go. He couldn’t stay in the area and risk running into Himiko again. She might tell someone about him.

Izuku walked until his feet were sore and the sun had gone down. He was in an unfamiliar part of the city, walking up a tall hill. Thankfully, this area seemed to be fairly empty. There weren’t many shops or apartment buildings. Just a lot of trees and grass. Maybe he could find a place to sleep. Being in a nicer area of town meant he needed to keep an eye out for heroes, but if he was far enough away from civilization, it shouldn’t have mattered.

Walking along a sidewalk bordered by a tall wall, Izuku thought over his options. He would probably have to sleep outside. There weren’t any empty buildings in this part of town. If there was a park on the other side of the wall, that would be a good spot. If it had a public restroom, even better.

Izuku rounded a corner and approached the entrance. He reached the gates and stood stock still in shock.

The logo on the gates was UA.

He raised his eyes to look at the tower rising in front of him through the bars. It hadn’t been visible before due to the angle of the wall obscuring Izuku’s vision.

This was UA, the best hero school in the country, All Might’s Almo Mater. If Izuku had to pick a dream high school, no matter how many years away from that he was, it would have been UA. And he was right outside the gates now.

He hadn’t intended to come here. It had been an accident, but it felt like fate, like he was a stray comet pulled into the hero school’s orbit. The pull tugged him closer, beckoned him inside. He wanted to go inside.

In the time he had spent with Himiko, the school year had come to a close. Izuku couldn’t bring himself to care at the time. Now, the fact came back to his mind with a jolt.

School was out. If there was no school, no one would be in the school building. He could stay there! It was too perfect.

Izuku hesitated in front of the gates. UA was a hero school. It probably had really good security. The gates would be locked, but maybe he could climb over the walls? They had spikes on top of them, there might be a spot with a tree e could use to drop over. No, the security couldn’t be that lax.

Before he could get too caught up in his thoughts, the gates beeped and opened in front of him!

Izuku jumped back and gaped in astonishment. He quickly looked up and down the road to see if there was someone coming, but no one was in sight. When the gates stayed open, he took a hesitant step forward, then another. Before the gates could close, or he could lose his courage, Izuku dashed through.

He was inside UA! The school All Might had gone to! The top hero school in Japan! If he wasn’t so scared of being caught, Izuku would have squealed for joy.

He put as much distance as possible between him and the gates, moving toward the main building through the bushes instead of the path. His heart was beating furiously. What would they do to him if he was caught? Would he go to jail? They might make him go back to the home!

Even with the adrenaline, Izuku was getting tired. He thought about curling up on the ground in the bushes but dismissed it. He would be found too easily. He needed a good hiding spot.

The best spot would be one of the exterior buildings. He dragged himself toward the nearest one. To his surprise, the nearest one was unlocked. Breaking into buildings with Himiko had never been this easy. Maybe UA was so confident in its exterior security that the buildings inside the compound were considered protected.

He slipped inside, noting the open layout. The walls and floor were padded. An entire wall was covered in mirrors. There were punching bags hanging in one corner. Izuku explored for a few minutes. There were a few other rooms: a weight room, a room full of treadmills, the showers, and a small room with some vending machines. A drink must have fallen off the shelf, because it was already in the dispenser. Izuku seized it happily. There was a protein bar in one of the other machines. He was getting really lucky tonight. Himiko had showed him how to shake vending machines to get stuff to fall, but it didn’t always work, and he felt bad doing it.

A clock on the wall with glow in the dark hands showed that it was now past ten. As sleepy as he was, Izuku didn’t want to go to bed yet. He desperately needed a shower, but if someone came in…it would be difficult to hide. They would hear the water running immediately. No one would be coming in so late, right?

Izuku gave in after a great deal of deliberation. He really was feeling gross. While he was with Himiko, they had only occasionally been able to shower, and it had been days since his last.

Feeling much better after a quick wash, Izuku reentered the main body of the gym. He still wasn’t comfortable sleeping out in the open. If someone came in early in the morning, they might find him.

He was almost ready to give up and just hide beneath some spare mats in the cleaning closet, when he noticed the buildings emergency escape map posted near the door. He looked it over closely, in case he had missed a room.

It was just a simple outline, but something about it wasn’t right. The rooms were all in the wrong places, like the map was flipped backward. Izuku tugged the plastic sheet down. It was fastened to the wall with a magnet, so it came down easily and he would be able to put it back. He turned it over to see if the map was different on the back.

On the back was a string of letters and numbers: 1000AU5. Izuku turned the paper over. The code was in the same spot as the weight room on the map, which was where the vending machines were in the actual building.

He put the map back in its spot and trudged over to the vending machines. None of the snacks’ codes matched the one on the map. Out of curiosity, Izuku inputted it anyways. Maybe it was a super-secret snack!

He jumped back when the machine began to rattle. His eyes grew wide as the machine slid to the side, revealing a passage in the wall. Izuku caught his breath. A secret passage! He looked around, fearful that he might have set off an alarm, but nothing happened.

After fifteen seconds, the machine slid back into place. Izuku retreated the entrance and retrieved his bag. Taking a deep breath to quiet his fears, he entered the code again. When the passage, opened, he delved into the darkness and let it close behind him.

To his surprise, the passage, if a little dusty, was actually quite well-maintained. It was smooth concrete with rubber padding on the floor. There was a strip of lights along the ceiling, just enough to see where he was going.

The tunnel only went on for a few feet before Izuku reached the end. Thick metal steps were fixed into the wall, forming a ladder going down.

Izuku climbed down to find himself in a tunnel identical to the one above, except longer. He walked down it, admiring how the flooring dampened any sound he made. He wondered if these tunnels ran underneath the entire school. Maybe they were just to connect this one gym. He didn’t even know where this particular tunnel led. It might have been a secret tunnel out of UA, which would be nice if he ever wanted to sneak back onto the campus. The tunnel looked like it had been used before, but not like it had seen very much use, so it was likely not many people knew about it. After walking for several minutes, the tunnel branched off in several in two different directions. Between the fork was the outline of a small door, just barely perceptible.

Izuku pressed on it, and it swung open, revealing a room, only about two by three meters. The door closed softly behind him. There was a handle and a latch on his side, so he could open it or lock it as he pleased. He locked it immediately.

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, Izuku set down his bag and sprawled out on the floor using it as a pillow. He was so tired.

And lonely.

Ever since that night that Himiko had found him, he hadn’t been alone. He had liked her. She knew he was quirkless, but she had still been nice to him. And she had a cool quirk. But, he had gotten her sick. He should have known better. Now she was sick because of him.

The little boy curled in on himself, burying his face in the side of his bag. The world was a big, big place, and he was very small.

*

People assumed many things about principal Nedzu. They assumed that because he was an animal, he hated humans. They assumed that he was logical above all else, with no regard for emotions. They assumed that he cared only for himself.

In many ways, they were not wrong. Nedzu was an animal, and he did dislike humans. He had observed over the years that people had greater sympathy for their own species than any other. He had very little experience with that. Those he considered to be of a similar species to himself were few and far between. Quirked animals were rare, and animals with sentience were even more rare. Humans could not understand his experiences. They were fundamentally different. And so, without that shared humanity, Nedzu felt distant from most humans.

Now, he didn’t necessarily hate humans. Hate was a strong word. He had no love for them. Humans had experimented on him and put him through unimaginable horrors. However, he understood that not all humans were like that. Many would have opposed the actions of their fellow humans had they known. Still, Nedzu could not tame the animosity he felt toward the entire race.

Nedzu was very proud of the fact that he was logical, but he had to disagree with the statement that he had no regard for emotions. He had some emotions, although he was not so affected as most humans seemed to be. And emotions were simply an additional factor to take into account when dealing with humans. It would be illogical to ignore them.

And Nedzu did not care only for himself. He was selfish, that much was right. He cared fiercely for his school. That care extended to the students and the teachers as well. UA was his school. He cared about it as an extension of himself.

There was one more thing that people did not know about the principal. He was well aware of the rumors that spread even among his own colleagues that he was a power-crazed rodent of questionable sanity. He didn’t mind. They weren’t all that wrong. Also, he found the rumors quite amusing. People could conceive of him being jaded, nefarious, sadistic, but they never seemed to entertain the possibility that Nedzu could be kind.

Terrible suffering creates many kinds of people: angry, vengeful people, broken people, and kind people.

Not that the principal thought of himself as kind. He may have had exceptionally soft fur and great potential for cuddling, but the principal was not one to give away cuddles. It went against his image.

However, as Nedzu sat in his office brewing himself a fresh cup of tea and pondering what projects to take on while school was out, something snagged his attention.

On the camera feed of the main gate, a small boy came into the frame. He was disheveled, curly green hair falling in a mop around his face. His eyes were swollen. He looked underweight and malnourished. A grimy yellow backpack was slung over one shoulder. Nedzu’s gaze narrowed. He zoomed in on the child’s face. There was wistfulness there, and a shadow of sadness.

Curious to see what would happen, Nedzu opened the gate, and after staring for several seconds, the boy went in.

When the boy stopped at the nearest building instead of the main building, Nedzu’s suspicions were confirmed. The boy wasn’t there to sneak into the hero school or vandalize. He was a little young for that anyways. No, he was seeking shelter. Nedzu unlocked the door and triggered the vending machines to dispense some food.

He observed how the boy investigating his surroundings, disappeared into the bathrooms and emerged with dripping hair, then paused in front of the building plan.

Oh? Nedzu thought. He sipped his tea in anticipation. His ears twitched in delight when the boy took the map down and looked at the back. A manic grin spread over his face when the boy approached the vending machines, revealing the tunnels.

In all his years at UA, none of the students or staff had ever solved the secret and found any of the entrances to Nedzu’s network of secret passages, with the exception of Power Loader, but that was because Power Loader accidentally dug into one of them. He had technically found the entrance, but it didn’t count.

Nedzu switched his camera feed to show the tunnels. The boy didn’t go far, stopping when he came to the first crossroads and popping into one of the secret rooms. He lay down to sleep and Nedzu leaned back in his chair, humming to himself. His tea had long since grown cold.

He had time while the child slept to consider his next move.

A lesser being might have called Child Protective Services. Nedzu, from his dealings with the Hero Public Safety Commission, had a healthy dislike of bureaucracy. Finding and exploiting loopholes and laying down the law to criminals were some of his favorite pastimes, but systems like that were the bane of his existence. They reminded him too much of a past he would rather have forgotten.

No, Nedzu had no plans of sending the green-haired boy away.

This vacation would prove to be more interesting than he had anticipated.