Chapter Text
My fellow liberators. These are dire times. Despite our initial victories, despite our strength and conviction, despite fighting for what is right… it is becoming increasingly apparent as the United Government conquers our territory that the Meta Liberation Army is on its last legs.
But we are not merely a collection of men! We are the envoys of the change that meta abilities will bring to society! Meta Abilities cannot be stopped, cannot be suppressed! Even if the world tries to stick its head in the sand, Pandora's box cannot be closed!
Scientists have been unable to deny the indisputable truth, time and time again, because their ideals clash with observable reality. Every generation, a higher and higher percentage of children are born with meta abilities, ones yet more adept with the power within them. The world as we know it will see its funeral pyre one way or another, and a new one is rising… even if we, comrades, won’t be the one to build it.
Do not expect for a second that the government and its ‘heroes’ will change their tune. Do not accept their placatory measures or their bribes, their distractions, their bread and circuses! They uphold nothing but the status quo, empower meta abilities only insofar that they be used to subjugate and suffocate! Under their regime, the unique individuality we have been blessed with is exclusively put towards the task of beating the world into a mould it will not fit in!
They cannot keep us chained forever! The drums of liberation beat in our chests as one! We are the flag-bearers of truth, justice, equality, change, and freedom! It’s abundantly clear that the third limbs we are born with will chafe when cuffed, ache when shackled, and perpetually resist against any manner of tyrannical restriction! The human rights of human beings cannot be bound down forever, and even if we fall we will rise once more! Have faith, have courage, have dignity even in defeat that we are on the side of history! Meta abilities will proliferate in the next generation, and with them our spirits will follow, fighting from beyond the grave!
Do you see these black marks around my eyes, fellow liberators? Do you know what they symbolise? That hope is not yet lost! The Meta Liberation War will outlive us all, and the future generations, ones far more numerous and more powerful than we, will carry this burden for us, for humanity!
I depart into battle soon, against the combat dogs and assembled armies of the United Government, to buy time for a dignified surrender before more blood is shed, before more lives are wasted. For now, we are in a period of retreat, but this war is ours to win!
Shed no tears for me, soldiers. I will not be the last! We will keep fighting the fight in our hearts and minds even after our gun-barrels fall silent and the last sparks of light leave our palms. Resist where you can, retreat into the shadows where you cannot! Soldiers! Hear these words!
The dream is not yet dead!
Hope is not yet lost!
- Last communication of Destro to the Meta Liberation Army before his subsequent defeat and capture in the last battle of the Meta Liberation War, XX/XX/2099.
XX/XX/2212
MUSUTAFU GENERAL HOSPITAL, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
A trickle of sweat ran down Midoriya Inko’s brow, leaking into her facemask so she could taste the salt, providing an unwanted momentary distraction from the task at hand. A heart monitor beeped steadily beside her.
“Mayo scissors,” she ordered.
“Here,” the orderly provided.
“Thanks.”
Scissors in hand, she continued her journey down through her patient’s chest. Harsh, sterile light shone from above the operating table, and the baby blue of her latex gloves was stained with crimson blood. This woman was just one of many that had been rushed in straight from the scene of a huge villain attack, and she and her colleagues had identified two potentially fatal injury areas - one on the neck, one on the chest, with sharp pieces of debris embedded within.
Her coworker made a delicate incision in the neck, diving deeper to extract the piece and close the wound. The wound she was working with was nastier, lower on the gut and having absorbed most of the shrapnel damage, tearing up flesh and bone where it had collided as if a threshing machine had made contact with the inside.
Snip. Snip. A pair of forceps was asked for and handed over, and she carefully removed bone fragments littering the area and placed them in a separate tray. Some clamps were applied to stem the bleeding. Her head hurt. Right now, she was in work mode - panic was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
“McIndoe Scissors.”
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
Something was odd about this woman’s body. She peered closer, discovering that the greyish sacs that made up her lungs were bulbous, larger than a normal person’s had any right to be. It made sense, for someone with a quirk named ‘Blast Breath’. What made less sense was how incredibly hot they were, glowing red and almost pulsating with heat that ate at her hands and heated her tools.
“Lungs are incredibly hot. Quirk-based adaptation,” she informed her peers, seeing a nod out of the corner of her eye.
“Throat as well. Double-layer your gloves,” her fellow surgeon responded.
Every second counted, and it nagged at her to abandon her patient for even the slightest moment. She pulled two pairs of newer, heavy-duty gloves over her hands, discarding the bloodied old ones with expert speed. ‘Back to work.’
A single hair escaped her medical cap, but she paid it no mind, too focused on the task at hand. It was hellishly hot as she operated, removing shards of metal from around the lung as she found them. A man ran in with an air pump machine for the patient as she calmly ignored them, zeroing in on the largest of the many fragments of shrapnel. It would have to be removed, but unfortunately… it sat on the pulmonary artery, wedged between bleeding flesh, almost taunting her with its audacity.
Inko grit her teeth under her mask. “The major shard is trapped, I’ll need to make another incision to remove it.”
Reaching for it with her forceps into the furnace that was this woman’s body, she felt regret that she hadn’t triple-layered her gloves. Closer, closer, minutely trembling as all hands do even with the most modern and precise tools on hand, she let the small clamps at the end of her forceps make contact with the metal shard, bouncing off it. Another droplet of sweat.
She made another try, but pulled back, not trusting herself. A deep breath in and out didn’t help, the air beneath her mask hot and muggy enough without the injured woman’s assistance. She made to try again, reaching closer and closer and closer…
FWOOM!
“Shit!” her colleague yelped.
A sudden gout of flame blasted out of the woman’s mouth, and the orderlies dove for cover as Inko flinched back. The woman’s body began convulsing, and it only took a moment for her surprise to recede as Inko realized what had just happened, bloody forceps still in hand.
She returned to position and peered in through the waving, mirage-lesque heated air, and her worst fears were confirmed. “Artery pierced! Clamps, NOW!”
Another spurt of flame made their patient’s neck heat up, fire licking her lips. “Someone hold her down! I can’t get close enough!” One man bravely ran to her side and restrained her with a wet rag, still feeling the heat through it.
“Get us some quirk suppressants! She’s having some kind of attack!”
Inko moved with blazing speed as she made desperate attempts to grab for the deadly shrapnel that blocked her path to the artery. The blood on her gloves blackened and hardened in the hot hell she worked in, Inko’s heart racing to keep the one in front of her beating. Blood continued to spew from the artery.
“The carotid’s clamp melted! We’re losing blood!”
“Where are those quirk suppressants!?”
“We won’t be able to apply any suppressants if she keeps bleeding out!”
Inko snarled, trying to plunge in and being forced out again - this time, not even by the woman’s convulsions or injuries, but by the sheer force of heat. She took a step back, then another, feeling her skin tingle under her scrubs.
“Midoriya!”
“It’s too hot! I can’t get close!”
Her colleague grit his teeth, throwing away his dirty gloves and swiping a veritable river of sweat out from his palms. “I can’t either!”
“We’re losing her! The machinery’s short-circuiting, I think she melted the wires!”
Her head spun. Her heart raced. The woman in front of her was dying, and even Inko’s trained hands weren’t enough to do a damn thing about it. Her vow as a doctor, her conscience as a person, all of it called to her to save the sacred life that was starting to dim in front of her.
‘Think, Inko, think!’
They wouldn’t have suppressants in time, but they couldn’t approach without them. The bleeding needed to be stemmed.
‘Think! Think! Do your damn job, Inko!’
Distantly, someone yelled something she didn’t hear. Another call for suppressants, unanswered.
‘Do something! Anything! Don’t give up now!’
She needed to do something. Something smart. Something adaptable. Something Izuku would do.
“She’s losing too much blood!”
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Call for a blood transfusion! And where are those suppressants!?"
Beep! Beep! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"BP crashing! Sixty over thirty!"
“She’s losing too much blood!”
Blood rushed through her ears in deafening thuds as the red liquid gushed out of her scorching patient.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
'THINK!'
‘THINK!’
…
…..
……
The solution, ironically enough, came when she acted on reflex. Inko, situated safely away from her flame-spouting patient, heaved heavy breaths, calming herself down. She brushed herself off and surveyed the room, where each and every other person in the surgical theatre had gone silent.
Inko’s hands, adorned with half-melted baby-blue latex that burned black on the tips, were outstretched in front of herself. One pointed the direction of the woman’s neck, the other towards her lungs, both with their fingers pinched securely around air.
Her quirk had activated, and she’d clamped down on the open veins. “...I’m holding the arteries shut. Get me those damn suppressants ,” she spat out, huffing with her elbows locked in front of her. The others closed their gaping mouths and snapped out of their shocked reverie, shouting orders and calling for various pieces of equipment.
Inko tuned them out, focusing on keeping the pressure down, pinching the arteries closed so that the blood fighting to escape wouldn’t have a chance. She was, by now, thoroughly shocked out of her surgeon’s mindset, that delicate trance she immersed herself in, and the treacherous outside thoughts began to creep back in.
‘I… used my quirk unlicensed. Oh. Oh my. Oh dear.’
She sighed behind her mask, turning her heat-dried eyes back to the woman on the operating table. She could think about the consequences later. For now, a person’s life needed saving, and the day was still young.
Tick.
Tick
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The time passing was agonizing. The day was done, the woman had lived, yet here Inko sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair in one of the hospital’s many backrooms, waiting for her supervisor to see her after her shift when she should’ve already been headed home to take care of her son.
She didn't know why they were making her wait this long… well, she did, but chose to put it out of her mind, lest she let her nerves get the best of her. Until the other penny dropped, she’d still her heart and clutch her hands to each other in reassuring pressure, hoping for the best.
The door wheezed open on a dying hinge as the Director of the Hospital walked in. Inko immediately straightened. The lines on his face were deep enough to cast shadows, and they plunged his features into a disgruntled gloom. He wasn’t a happy-looking man, and this was further exacerbated by the day’s harrowing events, combining to write a sordid paragraph beneath his eyes.
He slumped into the chair across from her, down behind a modest desk - it wasn't his actual office, perhaps to sidestep the theatrics of a walk of shame through the hospital, or to allay the creeping inevitable feeling of what was coming. Steepling his fingers, he made an attempt to look her in the eye, but hers were fixated firmly on her lap. ‘Hope for the best. Hope for the best.’
“Midoriya.” His tone was sharp and precise, despite dripping with lethargy.
“Director Kuno.”
He sighed. “I assume you know why you are here?”
Her resolve cracked a little. She never did work well under this type of pressure. “Y-Yes.”
“I… regret to… you… look, you know our policy regarding quirk use on the job.”
“Y-Yes, I-I’ve tried to get a license but it’s so hard, they deemed it ‘unnecessary’, and I-”
“It's explicitly banned, Midoriya-san. It's the law.”
“I know,” she breathed out in a quick shudder, her back painfully tight as raw nerves ran through it. ‘No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.’
“I suppose I'll cut to the chase.”
Inko braced for impact.
“Your medical license has been suspended for five years.”
“F-Five years!?” Inko’s gut churned. This was… far, FAR worse than she'd thought. She thought she'd have to resign, or take a demotion, which she could accept. This was…!
“ Additionally, you will receive a permanent mark on your record,” Director Kuno kept going.
Everything was going up in flames, and Inko desperately tore her fingers through the wreckage trying to salvage something, bargaining in the face of the inevitable. “ I- you can't do this to me!” she began to panic. Kuno sighed again, a thing he did a lot. “I understand I-I made a mistake, but it was to save that woman’s life! We’re doctors, that’s what we’re meant to do!”
“I know. After those five years you have the possibility of undergoing the review process and-”
“I have- my son, Izuku, he’s just ten! He- our- my husband left me, we don't have the money for- I need this job, it's our only source of income! I- P-please reconsider!” She tried to appease him with a bow as deep as she could manage, but he wasn't impressed.
“That's not something we can do,” Kuno explained, forcing calm into his own tone as Inko’s flooded with fear, regret, indignation. “You got lucky this time, but that won’t always happen, you can't be lucky every time. Something could have gone seriously wrong. We can't just allow every well-meaning doctor to use their quirk however they please. It’s malpractice, as well as national law. My hand’s being forced here, Midoriya. I can't keep you.”
“W-What? ” She wasn’t surprised, at least intellectually. It was commonly known, standard procedure, the way the world worked, every turn of phrase one could use to describe something so known it just… faded into the background. Emotionally, however, a bomb had been thrown into her mind and she was still dealing with the scattered papers.
“Your actions have already been submitted to the medical board for review and their decision is final. Regrettably, there’s no possibility of an appeal. What you did was blatantly illegal, textbook unlicensed quirk use on the job, even vigilantism under some definitions.”
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair . “She- that woman was-!”
“Do you think I WANT this!?” He roared, his calm facade breaking. “ Dammit, Inko, you're one of our best, but you forced my hand! I can't overlook this, it would put the entire hospital on the line! I can’t sacrifice this whole place just for you!”
“How were we meant to operate on that woman then!?” Inko demanded, scrunching her work tights between her fists as her brow quivered. ‘Don't cry. Don’t cry. Don't be weak. Hold it in.’
“We… will be upgrading our equipment to handle a number more hazardous cases, while petitioning the police force to make Quirk suppressants more readily available.”
“B-But what was I supposed to do in the moment? What did I do wrong!? What should I have done instead!?”
Kuno stared at her. She stared back, waiting for an answer as she stared him down with a growing bitterness. She was a short woman, but she liked to think she made him shrink. It was a momentary balm on a screaming wound, and it certainly didn’t satisfy her. She just felt… dead.
“You wouldn't have been blamed if that patient died, Midoriya. These things do happen, and and her quirk was a volatile one that would've been plenty grounds for-”
“Y-You make me sick .” Inko stood up, the chair screeching behind her. “It's already done, right? My license. It's already suspended?”
“Yes-”
“Then it’s goodbye, Kuno.” She forced herself out of her chair and made for the door. The director didn't say anything, but the frown on his face and the tension in his hands - the silent, unspoken insinuation that this was in any way as bad for him as it was for her - revolted Inko on a visceral level, and she left with an unceremoniously quiet click.
As soon as the office door shut behind her, she collapsed on the floor, her knees aching. Nothing impeded the deluge of tears streaming out of her burning eyes now that she didn't have to keep up appearances. That was it. An infraction on her medical record worse than anything but outright malice. Her career was over.
‘How will I look after Izuku now? I- my license! Five years! I need to find another hospital to- no, I’ve got a mark on my record. Unlicensed, illegal quirk use during surgery - there’s no institution in Japan that would take me in! I’ll need to find another job, and I won't be able to finish paying off the house. How long will it take for my account to empty out?’
No answers presented themselves as she crouched against the hall’s wall, crying into her legs as colleagues walked past, giving her looks of mixed pity and sympathy. Life went on for the rest of the world as Inko’s crumbled into dust over a single mista- no . It wasn’t a mistake. How could saving a life be a mistake? And yet…
Time passed. How much, Inko didn’t know. Finally, she picked herself off the ground and made for the nearest bathroom. She stared at her exhausted face in the mirror before splashing some cold water on her face and washing the crust out of her eyes. Two fingers beneath her eye pulled a bag back slightly, and she exhaled miserably, returning to the job of cleaning her face into something presentable before she left for the train station.
Midoriya Inko had very few things in her life. She did not have an expensive car, nor a car at all, nor did she properly own a house - that was financed by a loan she could no longer pay back - nor the most modern amenities or the most friends. She didn’t consider herself particularly smart or attractive. She had no husband and no child support. She had no vast seas of riches. She, in truth, had nothing of worth to her name but her little Izuku, her bright and intelligent son, the shining beacon of joy in her life. And without a dependable salary… how could she take care of her boy, make sure he stayed happy, full, and out of harm’s way?
She could only hope Izuku was having a better day than she was.
Midoriya Izuku fell backwards with a pained squeak, cradling the fresh burn on his arm as his former friend turned schoolyard bully Kacchan stood over him, hand popping and crackling with explosive force.
“You kiddin’ me, Deku? Really? Defending Eight-Eyes?” Kacchan chortled. Behind Izuku, his spider-like classmate shivered, sporting similar burns. “I mean, I get he’s gross looking and his quirk’s super weak, but at least he has one! But why’d he hidin’ behind you?”
Izuku scrambled back up to his feet and held his hands out in both directions, stretching them defensively out from his chest. It was a largely symbolic move, seeing as the only thing he’d done so far was take hits, but he’d take any hit if it meant stopping Kacchan from doing this.
“S-Stop it, Kacchan! His quirk’s super cool! A-And even if his quirk’s not great for fighting, w-why does that matter!? Leave us alone!”
“LeAve us alOne!” Kacchan mockingly mimicked, his cronies Tsubasa and Tatewaki snickering behind him at the lousy impression. “Word to the wise, Deku! Nobody here wants to be the friend of a quirkless loser like you, not when you can’t hack it doing anything! It’s you who keeps getting in our way!”
“I-I don’t care! The job of a hero is to-!”
“SHUT UP!” An explosion forced Izuku backwards with tears in his eyes, tripping over the shivering body of the boy he was defending. “You lookin’ down on me, fucking Deku!? You’ll never be a hero, so stop quoting that goddamn All Might line to me! I’m sick of it! You’re not All Might, so stop pretending you are! Eight-Eyes here is a damn weakling, almost as much as you!” the blonde bomber retorted. “He’s so frail and weak he may as well be a real bug!”
“I-I” Izuku cowered. What were you supposed to say when presented with the roaring, raging face of someone who was so completely, confidently, assuredly convinced they were right in a way of such magnitude that trying to cow them was akin to trying to quench a firestorm with a leaky pail.
“I-I’ll fight you!” Izuku’s voice trembled, fists shaking as he raised them.
Kacchan’s sneering, shit-eating smug grin only widened like it were carved longer with a butcher’s knife. “Really? You will? Then do it, Deku! Hit me! I’m open, hit me! Hit me right now, do it, prove you can do it, prove you’re not a damn quirkless weakling! I’m waiting! I’m-!”
Izuku’s fist hit his chest with the force of a pillow.
Kacchan was agog. “Wow,” he gasped, surveying himself and patting his shirt down comprehensively. “Look. At.That! I’m totally fine! That didn’t hurt one bit!”
Tsubasa and Tatewaki laughed uproariously as Kacchan continued to make theatre of Izuku’s weakness, his worthless resolve and miniscule strength. Izuku’s eyes itched.
“S-So what, Kacchan-”
“I’m not your Kacchan!”
“-I can still be a hero! J-Just you watch! I-If heroes protect people, then-!”
“Then you’re not a hero, you’re still just a damn worthless Deku! ” Kacchan scoffed. “Look behind you! See anyone being protected?”
Izuku’s heart dropped like a stone as he turned his head back. Spider-boy had run away.
RIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!
“There’s the bell,” Kacchan turned away. “Tch. Guess it’s history now. Boring. Hey, Deku?”
Stupidly, Izuku rose to the bait. “W–what?”
Kacchan shoved him sideways, Izuku twisted to avoid falling, but failed, resulting in his clothes becoming scuffed and stained with the green of grass, the stiff collar bent awkwardly. Izuku’s breath hitched, and he looked back up at his tormentor, whose crimson eyes glowed with disgust as the midday sun shadowed him from above, his sharp features laced with disdain.
“You got a little something on your shirt.”
Izuku was five minutes late to class, arriving with his uniform dirty and his eyes red. The history teacher, Mr. Reikishi, scowled. “Midoriya. You’re late for our pop quiz. Sit down and get to work, your paper’s on your table. Do you need extra time?”
It would sound like a kind request if he wasn’t asked it before every test, late or not. “I-I’m fine, sir. I can do it. Thanks,” he grit out, words tasting like burning ash in his mouth. He sat down, briefly puzzled by the fact that his quiz sheet was not on his desk, before he realized it had somehow drifted beneath his chair.
The classmate behind him snickered. Another mystery solved.
The quiz itself was basic, and the mundanity was appreciated. Kacchan beatdowns were routine at this point, so being able to sit and calm his mind with simple, dull questions was a breath of fresh air, despite the stale subject matter. When was the glowing baby born? 2021. What years were considered the Dawn of Quirks and which were considered the Global Dark Age? 2021 through 2052, 2052 through 2121. When did quirked population surpass quirkless population worldwide? 2150.
It was all rote memorization of certainly important facts, albeit not particularly applicable ones. Izuku finished it early and placed in on Mr. Reikishi’s desk. He frowned.
“Finished already?”
“Yes, sir.”
The teacher’s moustache twitched in amusement. “Of course. Well then, sit down and wait.”
Class passed. Class ended. The class after that, in a shocking twist, passed and ended too. The bell rang for the end of the day, and a clamorous excitement broke out as Izuku’s fellow teens flooded out of the room in droves, heading for the school gates or their respective clubrooms or meeting up with other friends from different classrooms. Izuku picked up his things and shoved them into his bag, red shoes tapping off the tiles as he speedwalked as fast as he could without calling it a run, booking it for the door.
“Going somewhere ?”
The back of Izuku’s filthy gakuran slammed against the wall of the broom closet as he stumbled backwards, and the door slammed shut. He let out a resigned sigh, committing himself to the next few hours until the janitor came. The crack of yellow light shining through the door’s seams and the thud of weight against it made it clear Kacchan was leaning with his back against the thing.
“This is payback for gettin’ in my face earlier, by the way.”
Izuku scoffed bitterly. “T-Thought that was the push.”
“No, that was for being a weakling,” Kacchan replied without missing a beat, tone blasé. “I’m actually kinda curious now, Deku, so tell me. Why’d you do it?”
“D-Do what?’
“D-Do what?” he jeered. “Shut up, idiot, you know what. Spider-boy. Why’d you stand over him and pretend to be All Might, just to get beaten up like you always do?”
“I-It was the right thing to do! I-It’s what heroes do! It-!”
“I know your stupid hero dreams already, Deku,” Kacchan snarled, clicking his tongue. “But I’m the one who’s gonna be a hero. My quirk’s awesome.”
“I-It is awesome.”
“See, you get it. So why are you bothering? Just give up, Deku. Even if you saved someone, no-one would notice. No-one would care.”
“They would care, Kacchan!” Izuku insisted.
“Did spider-boy care?”
His mouth snapped shut.
“Didn’t think so. Stop kiddin’ yourself, Deku. It’s pathetic. You’re pissing me off. What’s the point of trying to be a hero if you don’t even have a quirk, huh?”
“W-What’s the point of h-h-having a quirk if you aren’t even trying to- trying to help people, h-huh?”
“...”
Kacchan fell silent at Izuku’s response, soaking in his words. Izuku watched the shadows shift in the crack between the broom closet’s doors, breath held in apprehension.
Finally, he spoke. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m gonna be a hero to win.”
“...”
“So you finally shut up.”
“...”
Kacchan’s shadow shifted. “What’s with the silent treatment, nerd?”
He heard a sigh from Izuku. “Nothing, Bakugou. Don’t you have stuff to do?”
“Tch,” Bakugou clicked his tongue. “I do. Have a nice nap, Deku.”
His shadow disappeared from the crack between the broom closet’s doors, and Izuku sat back and got comfortable on a flipped mop bucket, his newest burn still stinging on his arm. He produced a hero analysis notebook from his bag and squinted at it, peering through the dark to review what entry he’d written last with his pencil in his other hand idly.
He idly tapped the main beats of All Might’s theme song on his paper. His mind felt muddled yet clear, foggy yet focused. He chipped away at an entry for recently debuted hero Ms. Joke. Did her gas mask serve as a real respirator for emergencies such as fires? Were the distracting bright colours and stripes on her pants meant to distract and draw the eye so she could land punches? How much could her quirk be resisted? Could it cause death if prolonged? These were the questions worth asking when one was stuck in the broom closet for hours.
Izuku’s phone rang, breaking him out of his analytical trance. There was only one person that called him, so he picked up immediately without checking it, forcing bright cheeriness into his voice. “Hi Mom!”
“Izuku! Where have you been? I-I just got home, and you aren’t- did something happen?”
Izuku cringed. “I-I’m fine, Mom!” he assured her. “Really, I’m just out. I- I’m sorry I forgot to tell you! I’m hanging out with friends right now.”
A pause. “Really? Oh, of course that’s fine, Izuku… um, what are their names? I don’t think you mentioned them before.”
“...Tsubasa. And Tatewaki.”
“...T-That’s great, Izuku. I - snf - I’m a little busy, so I’ll see you later then?”
The janitor would be here by then, so Izuku nodded. “O-Of course, Mom!”
“I…I love you, Izuku.”
“l-Love you too, Mom.”
Click.
Izuku sighed, energy drained from the marrow of his bones. His mind whirred back into analysis mode, but this time he wasn’t obsessing over heroes, instead slightly concerned. Was Mom acting… off? There was an odd sound over the phone, and her voice sounded strained too.
Half an hour later, the janitor arrived, sighing at the sight of the quirkless kid sitting on her equipment and shooing him away. Grabbing his bag straps, Izuku began to plod his way home, thoroughly spent.
“I’m home.”
Izuku tentatively stepped through the door, his half-muttered greeting to his mother dying on his lips. The house had a different atmosphere than it should’ve, feeling almost cold and lifeless. The lights were all off save for one, which drew him into the kitchen where his Mom hunched over the dining table surrounded by papers, an expression of profound misery on her face that sent a pang through his heart.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
She flinched, her head snapping to face him as she dragged a sleeve over her eyes, only succeeding in making them redder, tears welling up to instantly replace the ones she’d dispelled. “I-Izuku! I thought-! Oh, I… I lost track of time. Is it- I should make dinner, okay? I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Most days Izuku would retire to his room to do some hero analysis, or sit in front of the TV to watch anything hero-related he could find, until a beautiful aroma wafted over from the kitchen and he sat down at the dinner table to eat.
Seeing his Mom in front of him, clearly trying to distract him, made him even more concerned, and he walked up to the table to read what she was working on as she ineffectually tried to cover them up, to protect him from seeing her pain. Bills, long and short, crinkled receipts that had clearly been scrounged and uncrumpled from where they’d been discarded, sheets and notebooks accounting for expenses, her laptop open with what looked like a hundred tabs in the top bar. Something was deeply, deeply wrong.
“N-Nothing’s wrong, Izuku honey, I just… don’t worry about it, why don’t you work on your notebooks? Dinner will be on the table soon, I-I- don’t worry about me!”
Izuku frowned. She was unraveling, and he took a step closer, ending up next to her chair with a concerned hand on the base of it. “I can do that later, I-I was doing it earlier too. Right now, I… is there anything I can do to help? Why are you going over the bills?”
“I’m… rebudgeting,” Inko admitted, shame in her body language. She shrunk a little more.
“Rebudgeting? What happened? Did rent increase?” Izuku asked, concerned yet oblivious.
His mother bit her lip, before sighing. “I… I lost my job at the hospital, Izuku.”
Izuku stilled. “You’re not a surgeon anymore, Mom? T-That’s… why did they fire you?
“There was… a patient, who I was working on. Her quirk went hayfire, starting shooting flames and overheating, and we didn’t have suppressants on hand. She was bleeding out, and in the heat of the moment… I used my quirk to clamp her arteries shut.”
“I- that’s illegal, right?” Izuku sat down with her at the table, taking note of her wringing hands. She wanted to say more, but was holding herself back, and quivering minutely.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then…”
“I’ve been… essentially, blacklisted,” Inko’s breath hitched up a note as she caught on a cry, trying and failing to preserve a strong front in front of her ten year old son, trying to keep Izuku feeling safe and secure. “I’ll need to- to find a new job. I’ve just been going o-over our expenses…”
Izuku’s analytical mind kicked back to life as he began to string together the conclusion his mother didn’t want him to reach. “Blacklisted… then you can’t take any important jobs in hospitals, and- do you have any other q-qualifications?”
His question was answered with a guttural sob as she collapsed forward, burrowing into her arms and holding in desperate wails. “I’m sorry ! I’m so s-s-sorry, Izuku! I- I don’t know what to do! Everything’s… it’s-! It’s all-!”
“Mom, mom, it’s fine! Don’t worry, it’s okay!” Izuku reassured, rubbing her back, lost for options. What could he do to help? He wanted to be a hero, researched them for ages, but what on earth could he do to help his own mother?
She sniffled into her cardigan. “...You deserve better, Izuku. Better than me. I don’t know what to do.”
For a long while, he just sat there and kept rubbing her back, unsure what to say, unsure how ro respond, unsure what would help make his mom smile again. They needed money, and he was old enough to realize that this wasn’t just a momentary setback.
“...I could find a part-time job?” Izuku finally offered.
Drying her eyes, Inko stared up at her wonderfully generous son, and teared up anew. “You… I wouldn’t ask you to do that, honey. I-I couldn’t. You’re a growing boy, you need a life outside of school. How will you hang out with your friends if you’re always at work? I’m your mother, I can’t let you sacrifice your own happiness for mine.”
“I-It’s fine Mom, we need this,” he insisted, and she saw a new determined light entering his eyes. Izuku breathed in, and out, and steeled himself for the hard conversation that he knew would be coming. He’d hidden away from her his mother, trying not to worry her for too long, letting her keep this rosy-cheeked idea of what his life was life, but now… now he had to tell the truth. He couldn’t hide it all anymore.
“I… I don’t really have a social life anyway. I lied about having friends.”
“I-Izuku?” Inko whimpered. “But… you… then where were you today? You said…”
He scrunched his eyes shut and braced himself at his Mom’s sudden confusion. “I was locked in a broom closet, Mom.”
The dawning realization set it, and her hands hot up to her mouth. “ No..!”
Izuku sighed. “I’m sorry for hiding it. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”
“You… you -! I’m-! I told you to come to me anytime, oh honey..!” Inko surged forward to clamp him in a bear hug, and his gut began to convulse as he held in his own tears, both pressing against each other in a desperate attempt to comfort the other. Her child had had to grow up so much already, hid a whole world from her eyes so he could bear it alone instead of worrying her.
Inko squeezed him a little tighter in reassurance, a physical message that she was there for him. “That’s… I’m so sorry, Izuku. What about Katsuki?”
“H-He’s the worst one,” Izuku gasped, recalling his former friend’s vile words and actions throughout the day, the week, the year, the past six years. “He’s been t-terrible ever since his quirk came in…”
“...I knew you didn’t talk anymore, but this … oh, Izuku, what can I do to help?” Inko warbled.
“A p-part-time job would help me avoid them if I could leave some of my classes early,” he suggested. “It’s not like I do anything else after school. This way, I can b-be useful to you!”
“I don’t care about that, Izuku, I don’t want to force you, or for you to feel obligated,” his Mom whispered. “But… it might be necessary. I’m so, so sorry about all of this.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Mom. You saved someone’s life. It’s just… not fair,” he decided, giving her a reassuring squeeze of his own that she seemed to melt into.
“Do you regret it?” He murmured. She stilled against him.
“Izuku,” she breathed, and he separated to look back in her eyes, deep and green and swimming with tears. “If I…” she trembled. “I… if I told you I did? Would you hate me?”
“No.” He surprised himself with his own words.
“I… I don’t, not really, but I did, j-just for a little bit. I regretted saving that woman, losing my job, causing all of this. What… what kind of p-person does that make me?”
“A good person,” Izuku answered easily. “In the end of the day you still saved her, right?”
“It was the right thing to do,” he sighed. “Izuku. Promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t learn the wrong lesson from t-this… this mess. I- you’re already got such a heroic heart, Izuku. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you for so long, but I can tell you still have that dream right? You still want to save everyone.”
“Uh-huh.” His eyes grew watery again.
“My little hero,” she crooned, hugging him close. “No matter what… make sure you always try to do the right thing.”
“M-Mom?”
“The world’s so unfair,” she continued, a rising fire igniting in her voice, the spark of anger, of indignation, of determination and motherly love coming from the ashes. “I don’t want you to ever just bend to it, okay? Even if it causes a bit of a mess, even if they tell you not to, even if you regret doing it, do the right thing. You’ll… I think you'll regret it more if you don't.”
Everything came rushing up inside him, his whole life, her not believing in him for so long, and yet finally she was calling him a hero, her hero, asking him to keep his chin up, to keep fighting, even after it had cost her that much.
“O-Of course, Mom, I promise,” he sincerely responded. “B-But why-”
“Am I asking you this, when it just cost me my job?” she preempted, receiving a weak nod. “I know this is going to hurt you too, Izuku, so it might be selfish of me to say all of this, but… I took an oath as a doctor to do everything I could to save a life. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself if I just stood by and did nothing. What kind of example would I be setting for you as a mother then?”
“...”
“...Izuku?”
“...You’re my hero too, Mom.”
Izuku and his mother held on to each other for a while longer waiting for their tears to dry out. Their dinner that evening was smaller than usual but tasted all that sweeter with new hope on the horizon. Tomorrow would be a new day and come what might, they would face it together.
“Here’s my resume, miss!”
Izuku tried to hold a cheery smile together as he handed the summation of his life’s experience - not very much - over to the lady who ran the flower shop he was standing in. She pulled down her spectacles and peered over at the sheet he’d provided, reading through the paltry list of references.
“It doesn’t say your quirk here,” she supplied dryly.
Izuku cringed. “I-I, ahm…”
“Spit it out, kid, I don’t have all day.”
He stumbled over a few syllables before recomposing himself and deciding to rip the band-aid off. It shouldn’t hurt this much after all the other times, yet it still felt raw. “I… don’t have one.”
She stared at him, totally deadpan. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“No, I-”
“Get out of my store.”
With a cutesy ding-a-ling of the overhead doorbell , Izuku left the rustic old flower shop, departing back onto the sidewalk and drinking in the new, familiar sights around. He was downtown in a quieter area, shopping for part-time jobs, since his mom had just lost hers a few days ago, and was having a harder time of it than he’d anticipated.
To list things off, the first was that he was a short and weedy ten-year-old boy, and that alone exempted him from anything overly physical or… legal. The second matter was that he wasn’t commonly described as an icon of charisma or people skills. The most potent people skill Izuku had developed since the age of four was to sense when a conversation was turning nasty and book it. Finally, there was that prickly issue of quirklessness, and that wasn’t one that could be allayed by age or experience.
Patting his messenger bag, the stack of resumes he’d printed out was perilously thin. ‘And I thought I over prepared.’
Walking a little down the block, he came across a cornerside dollar store, not one affiliated with any of the larger brands. It was a little decrepit with age, having the aura of a place that had been standing for a decade with the scars to prove it. The lights on the sign were dimmed and the windows were dusty, and the candies it was selling were almost certain to be a month expired. Not the best, but they might be willing to hire a ten-year-old.
He almost walked straight in before reminding himself to read the aging signs pasted to the windows. A cursory examination revealed three, the first warning would-be-thieves that they were being watched by CCTV and the second dissuading solicitors from knocking.
The third was a little more worrying, a placard in big block letters decreeing that “WE RETAIN THE RIGHT TO REFUSE ANY CUSTOMER FOR ANY REASON”.
Expected, and perfectly legal. Izuku knew firsthand that this applied to quirks - or lack thereof. Preparing to be disappointed, he walked in and weaved through a dense gate of shelves to find a rough-looking man watching the till from behind a glass screen, a cheap desk fan whirring loudly in front of him.
“E-Excuse me, sir?”
“Whaddya want, kid?” he growled out.
“I… was wondering if you have any job openings?”
The man raised his eyebrow and sat up properly, switching the fan off so he could hear Izuku better. “Sure do. Last guy ditched on me a while back, so I won’t tolerate a quitter, got it?. I can tell well enough that you’re not a mutant but what’s your actual quirk?”
That confirmed that this man was not a fan of heteromorphs. Izuku balked at the idea of working for him, but money was money, and he and Mom both needed it to live. “I-I won’t ditch on you, sir!” he assured him. “A-As, for, um, my quirk… I’m… quirkless?”
His stubbly jaw dropped open. “ Fuckin’ hell. Whatever, not like I’m spoilt for choice or anything, and you don’t look like a complete invalid. Can you run a till?”
“N-No, sir, but I’m willing to learn!” he squeaked. The man rolled his eyes at his exuberance.
“Good, ‘cause I’m not teaching you. I’ll watch you for one shift, that’s it, I’m a busy man. You start tomorrow,” he grunted. “One final warning. I’m not the kinda person to turn away a payin’ customer, no matter how much they stink up the place, but here’s a word of advice from an experienced old man like me to a scrawny kid like you.”
His voice took on a paternalistic affect. “You see a dangerous-lookin’ mutant staying too long around one of the shelves, maybe with their hands in their pockets, maybe say somethin’ that makes you think they’re part of the Sisterhood, or just plain lookin’ at you nasty? Tell ‘em they gotta get out, final warning. Phone’s on the counter on your side of the screen and there’s a taser under the desk as well if they ain’t cooperating. Got it?”
“Y-Yessir.” The words tasted like bile in his mouth.
“Good. You’re a smart kid, don’t want you getting hurt. Come back tomorrow for training, six on the dot till eight,” he remarked, and clicked the fan back on, propping his phone up beside it to blare out the loud tones of short-form video content. Conversation over, he left, and made for the train station home.
“I’m home!” he announced. The smell of fresh, fragrant rice greeted him, as well as his mom’s kind words, and he shed his shoes to find a seat at the table. “I found a job, Mom.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, honey!” she congratulated, setting two bowls on the table and grabbing chopsticks for herself and him. “I… still haven’t found anything. I’ve been looking around hospitals still, but I don’t even qualify for a nurse anymore. I might have to start looking for entry-level positions at this rate. How was your day?”
Izuku sat down with a weary sigh - was this what it was like to be a grown up? - and tucked in. “...Okay,” he mumbled, eating a small spoonful of rice and pickled vegetables. “I looked all day and found a corner store. I-I don’t think it’s legal, but it’s not really legal to hire me anyway, so I guess I got lucky?”
His Mom sighed. The prospect of her ten-year-old boy scrounging for cash at illegal shops broke her heart and just made her feel more like a failure, but it was that or begging on the street. She’d already begun looking for small apartments with cheaper rent.
“The owner was super quirkist against heteromorphs too,” he grumbled. “I-I had to just stand there and nod and not say anything in case it lost me the job! At last he hired me.”
“Did everyone else reject you?” Inko probed concernedly.
“Y-Yeah, since I’m quirkless.” His response wasn’t without a trace of bitterness, none of it directed at her. She felt a pang of unreasonable guilt on her part. It wasn’t as if she could’ve chosen whether he was born with a quirk or not, but emotions were irrational that way.
Izuku picked at his rice. “I just… did I do the right thing? What if a heteromorph customer comes in and he expects me to k-kick them out?”
“I’m confident that if something eventually happens… you’ll do the right thing,” she reassured him with a steady, shaky but unwavering smile, a hand on his own. “You’re my little hero. I believe in you.”
Ever since a couple of days ago, it felt like despite the troubles they had, his relationship with his Mom had improved drastically, like a chasm had been bridged between them. She was still sad, sure, but now she believed in him. It made the prospect of working in a stale old dollar shop on the corner of the street bearable, if he could help support her the way she supported him. Of course, he knew she’d protest it, insist he didn’t need to, but he wanted to.
That night, the two of them washed dishes together, humming along with each others’ songs as they blasted from her cellphone’s tinny speaker, and ignored the bills pinned up on the fridge for one more night together.
Eventually, Inko found a job as a hospital janitor, the only one she was able to secure given the black mark on her medical record. They’d hired her for her familiarity with hospitals, and she did an admirable job, but janitorial work would never have been her first choice. Predictably, it was dull drudgery that paid less than it ought to.
The Midoriya household that had served the family of two faithfully for ten years was, sadly, emptied out. Inko and Izuku packed up their possessions into cardboard boxes and shipped them to another - one that was closer downtown to where both of them worked, a smaller and cheaper place in a taller complex. This, of course, meant moving schools, and so with no hesitation Izuku waved Aldera goodbye, and Bakugou with it. The new school was not much better, but at least they didn’t call him Deku when they mocked him, or know his route home yet.
Inko could only watch as Izuku insisted on raising more money to make things easier after he ran across her poring over bills another night. His hero merch collection began to dwindle as he auctioned off the rarest pieces online and sold the rest to whoever would buy it, insisting he didn’t have enough space in his newer smaller room to store it all anyway. He started with novelty trinkets and action figures, collectors’ books and trading cards, and all manner of incomprehensible things that she knew meant a lot to him, and by the end of the selling spree he was left with a single silver age All Might poster on his barren beige walls and a matching set of drapes. Izuku put up a strong front but she could tell that losing his life’s collection in such a short time stung. In recompense Inko bought him a nice-looking bookcase to store his many notebooks, which seemed to continually multiply.
Life passed by in little, noticeable ways. The water took a second longer to leave the tap, the stove a few more tries to ignite. Their old dining table was just slightly too wide in the dining room and had to be pushed against a wall, and the couch was just sold off for a smaller one which wasn’t nearly as comfortable. Inko’s medical degree, once proudly displayed next to a filing cabinet of her important documents, now sat covered in dust in a dark corner they rarely visited.
The last pictures featuring Hizashi were gone with the move, and good riddance in her opinion. The man had hung them out to dry and his squirreling out of child support had landed them in this debacle in the first place. Inko had no love left in her heart for her former husband. Instead, the walls of the house were decorated with other things, prints of pictures she and Izuku took outdoors or important events in their lives.
Life still had its ups. They went jogging in the park together, and watched pirated movies together on her laptop the evenings they both weren’t exhausted by work and collapsed straight into bed. Izuku’s grades still remained excellent, and she enthusiastically congratulated him every time he brought a test paper home, occasionally finding the time to peek over his shoulder and correct the few mistakes he made on things like biology. They didn’t go out to eat anymore, but she tried to spice up weekend night meals with an interesting meat dish and cheap microwave popcorn that stunk up the house with the stench of artificial butter. Izuku still bore that bright, hopeful smile brightly whenever she tried to summon it, and just for that Inko was thankful.
Waking up early in the morning to a cold bed and beige ceiling, Inko’s routine was the same as it used to be. She took any old clothes out of her closet - a salmon blouse and basic slacks, - that her janitor’s scrubs would fit over and stumbled tiredly out the hall to the house’s only bathroom and washed her face, debating whether to apply some light makeup. ‘I’m not in my prime anymore, but it's not like anyone will be looking at the janitor’, she decided, and forewent it.
Breakfast was a quick ordeal, steaming up some rice and serving it with smoked fish in two bowls, a subtly larger one for her son. Around this time, Izuku woke up to go to school, devouring his meal in short order as she fussed over the plainly visible grains of rice he’d accidentally dropped on his gakuran. As he packed up she brushed her teeth and applied some light perfume before the two of them left, locking the stiff door behind them and getting in the elevator.
Fourteen floors below, they split, each heading in the opposite direction. Inko had a brisk fifteen minute walk to work, one of the main reasons she chose their apartment, and popped in her earbuds to pass the time as she made her commute. Most days it was routine, but today the sight of a man panicking and squabbling with a police officer piqued her curiously, and she paused her tunes.
“Come on, it's really not that big of a deal, man!” the stranger complained. He was young, wearing a cheap baggy salary man's suit that would better fit a man twice his age. The collar was loose on his neck and his sleeves flapped slightly as he panicked.
The cop looked upon him without sympathy. “It is. Public quirk use is against the law. We can partially excuse flare-ups or accidental use but yours is purposeful and major. You jumped a building, I have to write you up for this, we both know that.”
“But I’m late! Please, you gotta bail me out here!” the salaryman begged. “I can't have that on my record, I’m gonna get fired! I-I wasn't hurting anyone with it!”
“Be that as it may, you still used it in public, and that's inviting danger.”
“D-D- what danger!?” he was freaking out now. It was like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion. What could Inko do, watching helplessly as this man suffered the same fate she did? How could she stand by and watch as life inflicted it's unfairness on another? She wasn't Izuku. She wasn't confrontational, she couldn't run up and yell in the cop’s face and demand he let the stranger go. She didn't have the composure to make a scene like that. ‘But what can I do?’
She fumbled for ideas as the cop pulled out his little police notepad and jotted down the man’s infraction in it, before sending him on his way, stuffing it into the back pocket of his belt. Inko stilled.
‘I could…!’
No. It was stupid, and risky, and the exact sort of thing she shouldn’t do if she had any sense of self preservation. But here was a stranger on the street, just like her, who was being trod on by people who couldn’t care less. It was blatantly illegal, more illegal than anything that man had done, and yet…
She glanced around casually, internally sweating. There were no cameras around.
A slight tug of her finger was all it took, and the cop’s notepad slipped out and fell onto the floor, Inko giving it another quick tug to cushion the landing and prevent a telltale thud that would alert him to her tricks. The uniformed man was oblivious, heading off onto another street, but just to be safe a third swipe sent it through the grates and into the gutter. With any luck, he wouldn’t remember the name of whoever he’d written up, and the ‘crime’ would be rendered void by faulty memory.
The deed done and everyone else departed from the scene, Inko put her earbuds back in and held in a cheeky, giddy smile as she walked to work, feeling like the mischievous schoolgirl she used to be, who flouted the rules and stuck it to the man! ‘Maybe some good deeds go unpunished after all.’
XX/XX/2217
Five years passed.
In this time, life went on as usual, and older memories of the old house or Bakugou and learning at Aldera faded away; not enough to be forgotten, but enough that they left a now-fifteen Izuku with the acrid taste of bitter nostalgia in his mouth when he recalled them. The life of a ten-year-old child was not really relevant to him, nowadays.
He’d never been able to secure a better job. His Mom, trapped in her long janitorial hours, never had the time nor the energy to seek training for something better. She’d at least gotten a raise or two in that time, and combined with their frugal living Izuku had been able to cut his hours at the dollar store back to focus on his studies. He would’ve rather kept working more to keep them off the fringes of the red, but Inko had come to his room in the morning with tears in her eyes after she saw him collapse in exhaustion the night before, and begged him not to make her see her child grow up like this.
The manager of the store remained as unpleasant as ever, Izuku grinning and bearing it as he mouthed off about ‘damn fuckin’ mutants’ whenever a heteromorph knocked over a shelf or ranting about the national election results to a pair of ears he believed to be far more receptive than they were. He’d only racked up a couple of reprimandings from him, all of them for being ‘too permissive’ of whoever he’d decided looked a little too ‘undesirable’ from the cameras.
Izuku’s days went like this: he’d wake up at 6:45 in the morning for breakfast, shovel it down and get on the train. That commute took up an hour, and by 8:15 or so he’d have arrived at school. He kept his head down, took insults by the chin and dodged hits where he could. School ended at 3:00, and he had no clubs, so it was the commute back home. An hour and change later and he was at work before 4:30, when he clocked in, picking up his bi-weekly paycheck - in cash, of course. The manager left, and he busied himself for a few hours stocking shelves and doing whatever needed to be done, manning the till and selling the cheap fare he unloaded, and later in the night sat down with a notebook in hand and jotted whatever analysis he had time for. Thankfully, Inko had the foresight to pack him a box dinner, so he never went hungry. He closed the shop at 10:00, barring any holdups, and walked home to take a shower, say goodnight to an equally-exhausted Mom, and go to bed before it was 11:00.
He didn’t have as much time for analysis as he used to. Heck, he didn’t have as much time outside to even see heroes in action as he used to, having to settle for grainy online clips taken by overly-enthusiastic spectators. Sure, he’d also be excited to see the rabbit heteromorph Mirko perform her Luna Arc on that huge villain - and she definitely deserved a better rank than number forty-eight, of that he was convinced - but was decent camerawork too much to ask for?
Bing-bong-bang-bong~ chimed the shitty electronic doorbell to the corner store. Izuku switched his phone off and slid his analysis notebook #13 under the counter. Anxiously, he adjusted his nametag - he wasn’t technically required to wear it, or a uniform at all, but he felt it paid to be pleasant.
A quick glance at the door showed a man with rather pronounced lizard features - scaly green skin and an impressive mop of pink hair atop them, he trudged in in a hoodie, keeping his head low. He’d probably seen the sign outside and recognized it for its quirkist implications, but it was late, so decided to take his chances.
He grabbed a few expired candies and bags of chips, as well as a cheap hairbrush, from the looks on the cameras, stuffing them into one of the plastic bags that were offered on racks at the entrance - for a small fee, of course, and stepped in front of the dividing window. “These,” he rasped out, voice scratchy like it was unused to talking aloud, and dropped a few coins in the collecting dish.
Izuku pulled them in and counted them. “I-I’m sorry sir, but you’re missing five hundred yen.”
The scaled man sniffed, and brushed his snout on his sleeve. “Gimme a sec.” He rummaged through his pockets, pulling one fully inside-out, and muttered in frustration. As he did, the electronic doorbell chimed again, and a group of younger boys - university age, by Izuku’s measure - walked in, chattering amongst themselves.
Izuku checked the cameras here and there, but apart from being a bit rowdy nothing seemed amiss, so he waited patiently for his customer to find his change. He’d scrounged up one coin, but it wasn’t enough, and was rooting for another like a determined miner.
The pack of university-ish boys filled in behind him. “Oi, lizard, what’s the holdup?” one complained, the rest exploding in laughter like he’d said the funniest thing this side of the equator.
“...”
He didn’t speak back, continuing to rummage through his pockets as Izuku watched in discomfort.
“He’s lookin’ for his eggs,” another of the boys sniggered. The rest chortled along to this too, and the pink-haired man’s eye twitched. Izuku felt an indignant fire in his chest at watching the poor man’s mistreatment, but he felt paralyzed.
“Nah, he’s tryna shed his skin!” one of them chortled. “Oi, Mr. Lizard man, what’s takin’ so long? You hibernating?”
A nasty snarl crossed the shopper’s face. “ Shut the fuck up, ” he growled, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. The snickering became a boisterous explosion of laughter.
“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP! What the hell is wrong with you people, you f-fuckin’ CRC wannabes!?” he blew back, and the smiles on their faces were quickly replaced with nasty sneers. One of them stepped closer, his nose practically pressed against the hoodies man’s snout, so that his beer-soaked breath was hot against his scales.
“You wanna try that tone with me again , freak?” he said in a low, dangerous tone.
A scaled hand retracted from the customer’s pocket and curled into a fist, but he didn’t say a word.
“Ooh, Mr. tough guy. All it takes is a little poke and you smell blood, isn’t it? Fuckin’ animals,” the leader of the posse spat out. “ Go ahead. Punch me. Give me a reason to show you your fuckin’ place.”
Idly watching sickened Izuku, he stood up and pointed at the door. “O-Okay, that’s it, OUT!”
Somehow, the leader of the university boys had the gall to act shocked. “What, you’re talkin’ to me?”
“Y-Yes, you! All of you! You and all of your friends!” Izuku yelled. “T-The sign outside says we have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, so get out before I c-call the police!”
Instead, he shoved past the customer, letting him fall on the floor, and pressed a knuckle against the screen separating the two. “See if you have time to, zoophile.”
Izuku’s other hand raised from beneath the screen to clearly display the taser in his hand. “Just go,” he repeated. His frown tightened.
“You’ll get what’s coning to you very soon, freaks . Just you wait ,” the offending man spat, and he turned on his heel to leave, knocking over a rack out of pure petty spite. Izuku waited for the gang to leave with his taser still in hand, and exited the comfort of his screen, helping the heteromorph man back onto his feet and picking up his bags for him.
“A-Are you okay, sir?” he stuttered out.
“Yeah. Thanks,” he mumbled, standing to his feet and recollecting his supplies. “You’re a good kid.”
“I’m so sorry about those guys, they’re the worst! I just-!” Izuku fumed, before taking a breath and releasing his anger. “It’s whatever. I can pay the difference, on the house!”
“No need,” his customer answered. “I found that coin I was looking for when they knocked me to the ground. Lucky break, huh?”
Izuku had no answer for that. The heteromorph man laughed at his puzzled expression.
“At least there’s still a few decent guys in this scummy world of ours. Between you and me, someone really needs to deal with…” he waved a claw around. “...everything. Clean out the trash, you feel me? Set things right.”
“Yeah,” Izuku agreed easily. “That would be nice.”
“Yeah,” the man echoed, glancing down to his nametag. “See you around, uh, Midoriya. Thanks again.”
“No problem, sir!” Izuku chirped.
He exited with a friendly wave. “Call me Iguchi.”
After cleaning up the rack the hooligans knocked over, the rest of the night was dead silent. Izuku busied himself with some more analysis, drawing a sketch of Iguchi. Ten PM hit and he cleaned up, closed, shop, and clocked out, stretching his arms above him and taking a look around. There was some kind of commotion going on down the street. He could hear the faint sound of screams and explosions. Before he even realized it, his feet tugged at him, and he was running towards the sound of danger, opposite his usual way home.
The smell of smoke filled the air and the crowd got denser as he approached, despite the late time of night. Izuku perched on his tiptoes to see if he could spot what was happening.
“It’s Death Arms! He’s going in!” one spectator announced. “There’s Slugger, too!” Izuku recognized both names. The first was a silver-haired bruiser whose name was as brutal as his deadly blows, focusing on close-combat, and the latter a masked man who could materialize balls of kinetic energy and whack them at villains with his bat.
“I head Mount Lady’s gonna be on the scene too!” another excitedly gushed. He knew of her, too - a new talent in the hero community who’d made a big splash, with a gigantification quirk and a large personality to match. She appeared dedicated, if a bit vain.
“Stand back, citizens!” that was Backdraft. The crowd grumbled as he sectioned off water to form a thin line between the crowd and the incident. But what exactly was the incident? What was going on? Izuku squeezed through to the front of the crowd, and almost immediately his eyes were seared with an earth-shattering BOOM!
The hackles on his back raised, but why on earth would Bakugou be out this far this late? The flash faded from his eyes after a few seconds of determined blinking, the last purple spots receding to give way to a vision of nightmares: the dark street was lit up with raging fires the heroes were working on putting out, explosions randomly erupting from the ground with seemingly no rhyme or reason, like an erratic invisible minefield had taken over the street.
Backdraft cautioned everyone away further as more and more explosions popped out from the ground, scaring civilians. Some heads parted from the dense crowd, others joined. The flashes of phone cameras surrounded Izuku as he breached the masses and found the front.
There, in the epicentre of the disaster zone, was a writhing, wriggling, gushing body of oozing grey-green sludge the colour of landfill water, two bloodshot eyes and a maw of crazed teeth sticking out of it. An indiscernible figure thrashed within it, their hand failing to gain purchase against the villain’s liquid skin.
‘Why aren’t the heroes doing anything?’ Izuku wondered, the thought lazily trailing through his hazy mind. His head felt disconnected from his limbs. Backdraft put out some fires and kept the civilians at bay, but Death Arms and Slugger just… stood there. Watching .
“Darn it! Our quirks aren’t effective against this guy at all!” the broader hero complained, crackling a solitary knuckle in frustration. “Isn’t anyone on the way that can handle him?”
‘What are you doing? Someone needs help? Aren’t you heroes?’
Izuku felt sick watching them flounder. Was he the only one who could see what was going on? Whoever was inside that sludge villain was going to suffocate and die. More explosions erupted from the street, kicking over a lamppost.
‘Why aren’t they doing anything?’
His blood rushed, hot and fast, and he heard his heartbeat in his ears as his temple throbbed, hard drumbeats echoing within.
‘Why is everyone watching? Can’t a single person help? Not one?’
Passerby shrieked and shouted as the imprint of a hand desperately clawed its way out of the sludge, the person within still resisting against the villain’s onslaught, suffering yet still fighting.
‘I should do something. I should do something. I should do something.’
Death Arms barked something out, but in his hazy state, Izuku only heard unintelligible noise.
‘I should do the right thing.’
A face surfaced from the sludge, skin a pale blue the colour of pastels, hair flowing and lilac, dirtied by the ooze she was trapped within. Perhaps most striking were her eyes, sharp and striking, a sclera as pitch black as the night sky above him, irises blazing in emerald.
Her gaze snapped to his, and the woman’s eyes trembled and painted a picture that was worth a million words, but above everything else the fear coursing through this woman’s gaze sent a lightning-bolt message into Izuku’s head.
‘Help me!’
A single second passed.
Izuku was flying, legs blurring beneath him as he soared towards the sludge villain before his eyes even finished blinking. Explosions rocketed around him, deafening barrages of heat and light that just barely licked his sides with the familiar sting of a burn. His eyes watered from the heat as he ran through the minefield.
‘Think, Izuku, think! What can I do here! Don’t be stupid! Do something! Anything! Don’t give up now!’
A dangerous, risky idea came to mind, but it was all he had. The sludge villain’s wild eyes locked onto him, and the man roared as the woman trapped within his liquid body fought to free herself. Another explosion sounded off. Deep in the fray, mere metres from his face, Izuku put his plan into action.
With a feral, almost deranged full-chested scream to hype himself up, he ducked under a lethargic swipe aimed at his midsection and grabbed the villain’s eyeball, squeezing with every finger. The liquid stiffened, then rippled as the villain howled in agony, and Izuku took the opportunity to grab the other one. Both in hand, he hurriedly slipped off his shirt and pulled them through the sleeves, retreating as the villain blindly tried to attack, and tied his shirt into a bundle, throwing it to Death Arms, yelling that “IT’S HIS EYES!”
As the hero fumbled with the bundle, unsure what to do, the sludge villain pawed around for his unseen attacker, gnashing his teeth ferociously. The woman receded further into the sludge, and Izuku reached out a hand to grab her.
‘Almost… got it..!”
Izuku’s fingertips brushed the woman’s own as he met her eyes , hope and gratitude shining through as the beginnings of a smile appeared even submerged beneath the muck around her mouth.
“I-I’ve got you!” Izuku shouted. Through the woman’s gaze, she directed her saviour with a single message, equally legible to her plea for help.
‘Thank you!’
That hope was abruptly wrenched away as the sludge re-coalesced, bonds and chains forming around her limbs and she was yanked back into the villain’s main body. Even blind, he was a threat, and tendrils of slime lashed out in all directions. He hadn’t even won her crucial seconds to breathe. His gut sank. ‘What do I do now!?’
The sludge darkened, confusing Izuku for a second before his own outstretched hand darkened too. Actually, the entire road darkened, all of it covered with a massive shadow. A single, gargantuan purple glove appeared from above and deftly plunged two fingers into the sludge villain, plucking the thoroughly-disheveled civilian out with a pinch on the back of their coat’s collar.
“Sorry I was late! Mount Lady, on the scene!” the hero announced with a confident smirk and a saucy wink, eyes glimmering at the sight of the cameras. “Make sure to get my best side! Hint: it’s my back -side.”
Izuku couldn’t even find it in him to be mad at her blatant pandering, just relieved that someone had offered a helping hand, one so much larger than his own paltry offering. The beautiful blonde heroine blew a kiss at the cameras before her attention was grabbed by the raging, infuriated sludge villain below her.
“Sheesh. You’re ugly.” A large palm smooshed it against the ground, collecting the villain in a cupped hand with a disgusted expression. “Anybody got a water tower handy to fit this fella in, or something?”
She was met with a wave of resounding shrugs. “Nuts. Guess I’m keeping this guy way up high then,” she lamented, raising her hand as high as it could go at her maximum size. “Hey, villain guy, don’t try jumping! I don’t think being made of slime would save you at this height.”
A miserable groan resounded from her palm.
Back down on the ground, Izuku navigated his way through the fires, which were being hastily put out by Backdraft, and towards the main crowd again. A hand landed on his shoulder. Slugger.
“Kid. What the HELL were you thinking!? That was stupidly risky of you!” the hero reprimanded. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was!? You could’ve died!”
“Someone had to do something,” Izuku grit out, glaring back. The shock of the situation washed his nervousness out, and now he just felt indignant. How could these… heroes lecture him about right and wrong when they didn’t even try?
“He’s right, kid. We’re professionals for a reason,” Death Arms added, walking into the fray. “What’s your name?”
“While we’re at it, what’s your quirk?” Slugger pitched in.
Izuku’s ears burned in silent fury.
He’d been held up for fifteen whole minutes before the pair of heroes finally let him go. Izuku departed in a huff, swearing to revise their entries in his book… as well as Mount Lady’s. She’d surprised him. She still stood tall, talking with the crowd and holding the villain up. With a simple text sent to his Mom that a villain was attacking someone and he was held up trying to help, with promises to speak later, he embarked on the short, familiar walk home.
A few steps in and a corner turned, he was stopped by… the civilian from earlier? She wasn’t immaculate, but she certainly cleaned herself up well considering she’d been entombed in dirty sludge only fifteen minutes before. Wearing a salmon jacket collared and hemmed with black fur and a long, dark dress, she stood tall above him, an excited grin on her mature face. Her striking green eyes shone with hungry curiosity.
“It’s you! That kid who ran in to help me!” she exclaimed, and Izuku was taken aback by her shocking level of energy considering having been held in a hostage situation moments prior.
“H-How’d you get clean so fast?” he sputtered unintelligently.
“Hm? Oh, this. Believe me, you get into way worse messes as a reporter, so I always keep a spare change nearby. Kizuki Chitose, Executive Director of Shoowaysha publishing, at your service!”
“The book company?”
“Mhm!” she chirped. “Books, news, TV, broadcasting, we do it all! One of the leaders in the field, too! I practically run the place, and when you ran in to save me I just knew I had to talk to you!”
“O-Oh, me? I didn’t really help that much…” he trailed off, embarrassed at the attention.
“Pish posh, you helped loads! You just couldn’t seal the deal, but you’re just a kid! I don’t care about how much you did,” she replied with a dismissive wave of the hand, before poking a blue finger at the centre of his chest. “I care about how much you cared! And I want to interview you for that daring deed of yours!”
“I just got in the way,” he mumbled, though secretly he preened at the attention. After a lifetime of being beaten down by everyone but his mother, it was just plainly reassuring to have the urge to help affirmed by someone else.
“Oh sure, that’s what those heroes said,” she snarked with a bored expression, “but I don’t care what line they fed you. Off the papers, I think what you did was super cool. You acted quickly and cleverly, and blinded that guy. Who knows? He could’ve dodged Mount Lady if he’d seen her, right? I think you saved my life, and I know I saw that spark in your eyes when you ran up to me. We both know all the other heroes that told you off were being completely useless out there, don’t we?”
“Y-Yeah,” he agreed. It was a load off his chest.
She smiled warmly at his response. “Is there a name to go with those pinchable cheeks?”
He blushed and she chuckled at his skittishness. “ M-Midoriya, Midoriya Izuku!”
“Well then, Midoriya, I have to ask: what spurs a young boy like you on to run in and save me from a rampaging villain when three other pro-heroes were on the scene, telling you to leave and trying to hold you back?”
“I…” he began, eyes meeting his red shoes as he fumbled for an interview-ready answer, something articulate and intelligent, and finding nothing. He glanced back up and to his surprise, there was nothing but kindness and curiosity in her black-green eyes. “I… I don’t know, really. It was just instinct, or at least part of it was. I’ve always been into heroes, I always wanted to be a hero who saves everyone, like All Might. Everyone always made fun of me for it, said I couldn’t, said I was weak and stupid. M-My Mom raised me to be kind. She’s the best person I know, the only worthwhile person in my life. She… made me promise, once, after she was fired from her job for helping someone, to always try to do the right thing. I’m just one person, but can’t I try to make a difference? I… everyday I just see how unfair the world is. I want to reach out and be there to help. Today, even, with you, and with this other man earlier. Even if I couldn’t do much, when I saw those heroes just watching, the crowd just standing there, my feet just… moved on their own.”
His words burnt with conviction, and Kizuki just stood listening in awestruck rapture. “What… a perfect response,” she whispered, just loud enough that he could hear the words pass her lips. “You are just exceptional , Midoriya Izuku. Absolutely exceptional.”
He blushed at the gushing praise. “A-Anyone would’ve-”
“They didn’t”, she cut him off, determination in her sharp words. “Only you did. Only you. But… there are others like you out there, more than you might think. Like-minded people. People who feel that… drive in their hearts, to do the right thing, to make their mark upon the world to the best of their ability, who believe that anyone can make a difference. From the sound of it, you and your mother are the same.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
Her warm, reassuring hand patted his shoulder. “Believe me, there are. Don’t feel disheartened, okay? Don’t feel alone. Forget what everyone else says, what the heroes say, what the government says. You’re doing the right thing.”
“That’s exactly what my Mom tells me,” Izuku recounted.
Kizuki grinned. “She sounds like a smart woman.”
“She is. She’s the best.”
“It’s a shame I can’t meet her too then,” the reporter sighed. “Oh. I can’t believe I forgot to ask, but your answer was so good that the question slipped my mind. What’s your quirk?”
Izuku laughed nervously at the sudden change of topic, carding a hand through his curly hair. Kizuki gave him a patient look, waving him along.
“Heh, it’s funny, really. I uh… I don’t have one. I’m quirkless.”
