Plot Bunnies and (rarely) One Shots

Most kids would have been thrilled when their cheaptastic school got their act together about the harassment going on towards them, and had them move to another one nearby. Most would be relieved and grateful, excited even for the future.

Aaida was not most kids.

One, this new school took twice as long to walk to and from, and she had a brother to take care of because someone had to. Two, school was school. 

School is full of people, and people suck.

Especially quirkcist ones.

So she got up a half-hour earlier that morning, bonked her little bro on the way out the door and told him to go back to sleep, (or just to bed, if he had yet to do so that day/night, wouldn’t be the first time) and trooped over to her new stomping grounds.

It looked like a cliche school. Clock on a raised section in the middle, two right wings to either side, all red brick and orderly windows.

She hated it already. 

It was the sort of place people go to die of boredom in. Or disassociate so hard they don’t notice the monotony. 

Aaida was running low on red bull, so only the first of those was a valid option. 

She’d have to get more, or she’d run low on bomb supplies soon too.

The stream of people in the building had largely not yet started, so she could successfully duck under the radar for another hour while she waited for her brain to wake up, and stashed her coffee in her bag in case the new teach had a problem with that like the last prick. Worst case, she could have some of her anxiety juice at lunch. 

She caught sight of several people on her way to her new classroom, 1-h, due to being a seniors, and all were pretty unassuming. Your usual gossip girls, one of which was using her buglike quirk tail to fend off an annoying jock boy, who had attempted to keep them from escaping with telekinetic hair, an adrogenous kiddo who ducked into the library on sight of it with no obvious quirk.

The teacher wasn’t even there yet, but neither was anyone else. She found the only empty desk easy enough and set up shop.

Funeral flowers were laid out in a messy jumble on the desk next to her in the row, far too intriguing to leave alone.

She raided the teachers desk and flipped through the roster. No notes for illness, an accident, nothing in case of a sub. Steady appearances by the whole class…

Ah. She recalled the main story from the news that morning, a quirkless high schooler who had jumped off his school roof that Friday. The media frenzy, the varied reactions from sad to uncaring from just a single word.

Suicide baiting. (Fine, two words.)

She swept the bundle into her bag and wrapped it snugly in plastic.

Maybe she could return the favor.

Sure enough, a green-haired boy with a tentative smile entered the room just before first bell, one of the first in the mad rush to get inside.

The vague pleased surprise brought on by his clear desk made her frown into her hand.

The teacher introduced her in a bored tone and had her stand up for the whole new kid song and dance.

She scowled briefly as she stood up, and sighed at the bloodthirsty curious looks trained on her all at once. “‘M name’s Zhou Aaida.” Nice and crisp, no room for argument or descriptions.

The teacher frowned but didn’t protest, and just told her to sit down moodily. 

Works for her.

Roster was called. A Tsusaba, Bakugou, a Xien, a Ming.

And then completely out of any sort of order at the very end- 

A sigh. “And Deku’s here, as always.” The green child next door ducked his head in shame (?) but said nothing.

She stared the teacher down, unblinking.

English started without a hitch, their home room apparently also their English teacher. She had already forgotten his name. She snuck a sip of coffee behind a textbook and glared back at curious and eager eyes on her.

Lunch was going to be an ordeal.

It indeed was. Bakugou, a kid with a crazy spiky mess of blonde hair she was pretty sure was either his quirk or actual magic, sauntered up with two people she had missed the names of that morning grinning behind him.

“Ey, Extra!” He grinned maliciously, and his palms started smoking. Heat-manipulation quirk, maybe?

How fitting. 

He went on about the hierarchy and quirks and being the best, and Aaida idly stayed put and watched Green Hair (his updo was equally miraculous, was that trend in this school or something?) scampered out the door, looking relieved at the lack of attention to himself before the inevitable came.

“So what’s your quirk, huh?”

She couldn’t help the small grin as it surfaced, and snagged her bag from where it was hooked on her chair for safe-keeping. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy?”

With that, she rammed her knees upwards, sending the desk flying into his hunched over, scowling form. There was no cracking noises, just confused and panicked yelling as she threw the bag over one shoulder and raced out the door to Food Land.

Maybe she could track down Greenie. Ask about the hair, if she was feeling calm, and the abuse symptoms if she wasn’t.

Either way, a friendship was on the horizon.

She wondered if he liked space, or was at least an equal level nerd to her bro.

She found Midoriya cowering in the library a safe distance from the nerd she had spotted this morning, still neck-deep in his own paranoia. He knew she was coming from two rows over.

She spotted loose bandages slipping beneath his crumpled white button-down sleeves on both sides, and a hint of blistered, red skin along the collar. She recalled Bakugou, and Midoriya’s utter terror of being in his presence.

Ah. 

Good thing she brought her bat, disguised as an umbrella, then. It was made of tungsten, the densest metal could get before it got radioactive, and was about three times the average weight of a weapon like it. 

People thought it was her being quirky, that she got it custom made online or something like that. 

They were partly right, anyway, so she didn’t correct them with more than a secretive smile.

He looks up at her nervously over the edge of a textbook on quirk history (promising) with an expression like a scared rabbit. She snorted quietly at the internal image of a tiny, dark green bunny in his place looking at her. Not now.

“Um. H-hi?”

She smiled reassuringly, and scared off the smirking brown-haired nerd down the row with a warning glare. He hadn’t been horrible so far to his peers, but he hadn’t been great either (not surprising with the incredibly toxic environment around her) and she wasn’t taking chances right now. Or ever, really.

Well, sometimes.

Anyway.

“Hi. I’m Aaida Zhou. I heard you were quirkless?”

He grimaced and winced away from her seemingly without noticing, reinforcing the image of the baby bunny in her mind. “I- uh. Y-y-yeah.” His throat clicked with the sheer anxiety, and she resisted the urge to bundle him up and away from here and to somewhere with sweets and a high temperature and maybe a cuddly cat or two, a few other nerds for company. 

She smiled wider. “Great! Just like me. Nice to meet you.” She kept her voice light to keep him from being too terrified. She had that effect sometimes.

Whoops.

Something sparked in his eyes, and he gasped loudly as he dragged air into his shocked lungs. It was weirdly cartoonish. 

“You’re-” 

She grinned again, and winked. “In the flesh. Mido, was it?” Green. Appropriate for his hair.

She banished screams of ‘DEKU’ from her brain with a spare thought. He looked grateful at the moment of respite. “I- uh. Midoriya Izuku. It’s an honor.” She snorted, and smirked. She telegraphed her movements as she wrapped a protective arm around his shoulders, careful for signs of pain. He flinched away on instinct (out of habit) before relaxing like putty into the touch.

Touch-starved. She could work with casual platonic cuddles.

She took the opportunity to banish Brown-Hair from the library with her eyes before focusing on Midoriya. “Likewise. Quirk history, huh? Can’t get enough from class?”

He blushed like a bunny in human form would, too. The stutter made an incredible comeback from its temporary disappearance at the sudden confidence and wonder. 

“I-uh. W-well. I just- it’s really cool! And so unique! And the genealogy behind it and how it passes down and the mutations and what can be done with them is just soawesomeImeantheyfixedglobalwarmingintwoyearswithatmasphere-basedquirks-” She grinned into the air harder.

He and her brother would get along just fine. 

She made a mental note to slip books on gene science into his backpack when his back was turned. 

The mumbling sped up to incomprehensible speeds, but she could get the general meaning well enough, and nodded along when she couldn’t make a quick comment. She sat them down at a nearby table as his brain took up more and more of his energy output, careful for obstacles as he might as well have been a blind man for how deep in thought he was.

The surprise and delight at her not shutting down his ramblings made her heart melt just a little bit. 

Bakugou was a dead man walking if he touched this one now that she was here. He was too pure for that prick’s world anyway.

Then he got a fearful look in his eyes. The librarian had entered the room, bento in hand, and scowled at his meandering speech. He flinched again, and Aaida barely resisted the urge to turn in her seat and dig in on the staff member.

Later, later. All in good time.

“I-I’m sorry… I know I can be annoying sometimes and most people don’t like it when a mumble and oh no I’m doing it again-” He clapped a hand over his own mouth, and she snorted as she pried it off gently. 

“Nah, it’s pretty cool. I think you and my brother would really hit it off. Your theories on possible uses are really cool, too, ya genius!” She couldn’t, however, resist the urge to ruffle his hair.

It was exactly as fluffy and soft as it looked.

He flushed again, and sputtered a bit.

She hadn’t been lying. He had opened her brain to some new fun strategies around others. 

Like covering Bakugou in gasoline just to see how he’d react with all those anger management issues and no quirk usage. I’ll see you try to blow me to the moon now, Baka-go. Bounced around her brain at the imagined scenario. 

She bit her lip to keep in the predatory smile. We are being non-scary right now, scaring the baby rabbit off now was not an option. 

“I-uh. Not really! It’s really just the ranting of a fanboy… I’ve just… done this for a long time. I think half of my first journal is done in crayon.” He laughed at his own self-deprecating joke, and she swallowed the urge to scold the behavior. Later, later, just like everything else. Plan, act, be effective. 

“Nah, man. You’re a regular genius. And don’t think I didn’t see your grades. You don’t get top of the class for nothing, yeah?” He swallowed at the hard facts (can’t protest hard numbers, can ya you little anxious wreck?) before she cut in again.

“Plus your theories for President Mic’s speakers are really cool. Can you imagine him falling off a building and the criminal is all like ‘ah, I’ve bested you! Die, hero!’ and he just screams real loud at the ground and grins at him when he lands? I’d pay to see that. Imagine the memes!” 

She added in dramatic voices for effect, and succeeded in earning a wet, slightly teary giggle. Water pooled noticeably in his eyes, and she fished out a cloth from her backpack she kept on hand in multitudes for her little bro. 

“So.” She finished triumphantly. “What’s your theory on how quirks surfaced?”

And the shine was back in his eyes, just like that.

She didn’t end up eating much or having any of that lukewarm coffee in her bag, but that was fine. As long as Bunny Boy was happy. 

It was towards the end of the school year, so even though it was only their first year, the teacher pulled out forms meant to like, predict your future career and all in a thick stack from his desk. Ugh. Paperwork. 

She watched him shuffle them neatly in his hands on his desk, smiling slightly at the back of the room in a placating manner as he held them up in a stack. 

And threw them into the air like cheap confetti with a sudden and violent arm motion. “But we all know you just want to be heroes, right!?”

This prompted an explosion of blatant illegal quirk usage, as well as a lot of jeering at Midori and curious looks her way. She snarled at them quietly, covering Midoriya as well in one fell swoop.

She couldn’t help herself, she really couldn't. Besides, Green Hair would be introduced to her wilder personality traits eventually, might as well ease him in right away.

“Aw, teach. Don’t be rude. Where do you think buildings come from, growing out of the dirt like mushrooms? Where’s the food come from, yeah? Some people have actual goals.” 

People never had enough respect for mundane jobs, or non-suicidal hobbies. It was a plague on humanity. Besides, Heroes are mostly corrupt, money-seeking biatches. She respected some, (all underground heroes were automatically awesome, obviously) but many more besides were attention-seeking dangers to human life and a waste of valid protein and oxygen. 

Not that she’d say most of that in a place where she was being recorded. She’d have to stop by over the weekend to swipe all the cameras. The place was too poor to replace them, plus she could anonymously turn in the footage to the police to get the staff at least investigated. She never liked being watched. 

The teacher, a bland man with brown hair and a square-ish face topped with glasses, blinked. He had no time to react however, because Bakugou was on a rant about being the best, better than all the plebs, and all that. She was reminded of the pokemon theme song, and grimanced, knowing it’d stick in her head for hours. 

She tuned him out and kept an eye on Mido’s reaction to the entirely unnecessary and slightly violent posturing as smoke and tiny explosions (like popcorn popping, but extra smokey) poured from his hands and wrists. He was gnawing on his lips to keep calm, and was huddled into the seat on instinct. Eyes down, totally at the world’s mercy and scared for his life. 

She felt her heart squeeze, and warded off cruelly amused looks from all around the room. 

It was ok. She could beat Spiky Hair to a pulp easy, anyway. There was no way he could melt her bat, anyway. Tungsten started melting in the 6,000 degree range. (she looked up during lunch under the table as to not discourage Mido and his nerd ramblings) 

Plus she did have a bit of gasoline in her bag, too. Plant Hair (it looked suspiciously like a bush, she wasn’t kidding) had suggested water to dilute his sweat (“Kachan? His quirk is Explosion and it’s really cool, his sweat contain nitroglycerin and I’m not quite sure how he creates the spark but he’d be an awesome hero, but there are some drawbacks like if you dumped him in water to water down the nitroglycerin percentage rendering it essentially harmless-”) but she had always made an effort to be a bit more efficient than the norm. 

Aiden and his ‘friends’ Demetri and Jiri would tell her not to commit murder. No, Jiri and Aiden would, Demetri would tell her to kidnap him and put the fear of God and Anime (and Aaida)  in him for the rest of his days. Still, none of the above would want her to be arrested on her first day of school, so the point stood.

Besides, if he died because he lit up while knowing he was covered in flammable material because he happened to possess a God complex, that probably wasn’t her fault if it was framed right.

Aiden would tell her she was destined to be a lawyer. She would respond she’d rather die than verbally duel with old white men till the end of her days, thank you.

Anyhow.

Class had ended while she hadn’t been paying full attention, and the curious crowd was closing in on her and her new Bush-Like Friend. 

She smiled pleasantly and curled her feet around one of the legs of her chair, angled towards Bakagou and his posse, and leaned onto her desk casually to lessen the chance of a broken ankle if her weight wasn’t on it.

Human Pomeranian was snarling at her openly. The teacher ducked out of the room so fast it was impressive he didn’t get whiplash. 

Midoriya seemed to be trying to meld into his chair. Or maybe the floor. Out of reality in general.

Yeah. Him and Aiden would get along fine alright.

“Oi, b*tch! You little-”

Mido whimpered, drawing his attention onto the smaller boy, and Alena felt her protective nature bristle uncomfortable.

D*mn it.

“And you- little quirkless runt! Give up on UA, you hear me? I’m going to be the number one hero, and the perfect backstory to go with! I’m going to be the only one going to UA out of this sh*tty school, ya hear me nerd?!” 

Bunny Boy flinched into his chair, hard, nodding frantically, eyes pulled wide. And her heart clenched. He had been so enthusiastic about UA, and he could help so many heroes with I dunno, surviving? Helping more people? Doing their jobs?

“Who says he wants to go to the hero course, brat? UA’s a great school, he could be going to the business side, ya jealous brat. And quirkless doesn’t mean jack sh*t, quirkcist dumb*ss.” 

Cue the dramatic volcanic eruption cut scene. Oh hoh. She internally cackled.

His smoky hands slammed onto her desk, leaving blackened marks on the cheap plastic top, and bared his teeth like a wild freaking animal. Adrenaline flooded her system, and she locked her foot to keep it from twitching her into a sprain. 

Here we go. 

Finally.

Sparking, sooty hands grabbed her by the shirt collar, nearly bringing the chair with her before she adjusted. Mido noticed, opened his mouth to do… something, I dunno, before taking one look at Bakub*tch’s face and snapping it shut in resigned silence.

“Like the quirkless nerd could get in anyway! Besides, who are you ya tricky little coward.” Aaida grinned at the nickname. (Was it a nickname? Does that count? Insult might be more accurate, except it was rather uninspired.) Demetri would be proud. After all, tricky cowards make it alive, and make the history books to boot if they’re crazy (and careful) enough. 

She put her hands on her shoulders, pressing him down so he wouldn’t be able to escape the coming hit. “My name.” She said with the strength of a thousand suns, the power of a million exploding stars and all the confidence of a teen who has been through much, much more than this obstacle. “Is Aaida Zhou. And I’m quirkless. And I like it that way. Because people with quirks are always so predictable.” 

Right leg kick (not a roundhouse, this isn’t a movie, she wasn’t trying to break a bone or five)(of hers, anyway) straight to his gut, and he dropped her like a hot coal with a howl.

She hit the ground on one foot, corrected herself as she glanced over at Planty Boi (no injuries, still trying to break the laws of physics to escape, but now there was a distinct look of awe in his eyes. Weird, he only got that way with heroes) Nothing is broken, and Bakugou and Company have been driven back a few steps. Good, now she has room to hit him in the family jewels next. 

Quirked people are so easy to predict in fights. They go straight for their quirk, and panic and flail when it’s gone. Someone with experience in non-quirked martial arts might give her some trouble, but if anything she’d like the challenge. 

Bakugou Katsuki had about as much killing ability when you take away his quirk as the average goose does. Sure, they’re angry and intimidating, but really can’t do much when push comes to shove.

She had her coffee. Maybe she should cover him in that and drop kick him out the door for good measure. That would be enough to scare his friends away, since they had spines made of uncooked spaghetti when they didn’t have backup.  Heh, future heroes indeed.

Or maybe she should save some tricks for later. Brute force him out the door, show off some fighting skills, and wait for the real party to pull out the big guns. 

Plus she would probably have to make Mido stay home that day, because he looked like he was about to start crying any millisecond now. 

“You- you-” Bakugou growled like that one stray dog did in her direction once, then barked out. “Ya know what all you quirkless losers should do! Jump off the roof and hope to be more useful in the next life!”

And he stormed of, no manhandling needed.

And the damage was done in a single breath.

Green Child was bawling, Baka’s cronies looked faintly sick but hid it well when they ran after him, and she bit her lip as she considered how on earth to handle that.

Then he started muttering again, and she caught something about how dumb Kachan was to say that because it would hurt his record for being a future hero, and felt her heart sink.

This boy was on the verge of being broken. No wonder he had the same aura as the sun- the best, kindest people have the darkest past. But even the most compassionate soul on this miserable rock would crack at some point. 

She had to be there for him, she thought as she hugged him and started gently guiding him off school grounds towards a nearby cat cafe. Because she didn’t know if anyone else would be.

Izuku Midoriya, One Month Prior

Izuku Midoriya was a teen who was in the habit of helping others. He helped Nakumara-san, the elderly lady next door, get the mail, take out the trash, and care for her equally old dog when she traveled. Or Ming-san, a Chinese immigrant a block over, who needed someone to watch over his two daughters fairly regularly while he was at work. And he especially tried helping people his age, as well as strangers he happened across. 

Not that many let him.

But that was ok! They were independent, and their own person, and didn’t need him (useless, quirkless DEKU) to help.

Mom told him he had a bad habit of not taking care of himself, but that wasn’t true. He always took care of his injuries and ate three meals a day and barely considered any darker coping mechanisms to his day-to-day life. (to the torment, his eternal loop of inescapable depression that only shifted backgrounds but not meaning-) Sure, he didn’t brush his hair, and showered based on when people started getting annoyed at him, (and only cold showers, as short as possible. His mother worked two jobs, she didn’t need more to pay for or worry about. Or to care about his quirkless, useless self in general.) and overworked himself constantly. But that was what heroes did! They saved people, even when they were off-duty. Or… not a hero. 

He bit his lip, and focused back in as he walked along the street. They were running low on soy sauce, so Mom had asked him to go grab a few bottles at the convenience store a short walk from their apartment. 

They lived on the rougher side of town, but he had insisted on going out. He could do it; he reassured her. He was fully capable of walking down the street and making a simple purchase.

His anxiety swelled in his throat. What if he couldn’t? What if everyone else was right? What if he was useless, and delicate, and made of glass. He should just give up, and let his mother fuss over him. Or listen to Kachan, and just… make sure no one would ever have to worry about him ever again. 

His anxiety rose to behind his teeth, beating on his lips in a tireless wave of endless thoughts and worries chipping away at him and themselves into senseless wandering trains of thought that threatened to spill out into the world and expose him to everyone around him-

He bit his lip, his usual coping mechanism, and looked around to assure himself no one was nearby. He was fine, no one was going to hurt him.

Except there was a person nearby. Blue, stringy hair, scabbed skin, a hesitant but permanent smile despite the frown lines already on his face, despite being only in his early twenties or so. 

Izuku knew most people would think he was a villain type, and avoid him. But Izuku wanted to be nice to people, regardless of appearances. Most thought he was plain, and had the personality and abilities to match. 

So he wouldn’t judge. He wouldn’t be that person.

He wouldn’t let himself be.

So he kept his smile up, shy and positive. (hiding everything he regrets and hopes for and will inevitably fail at because he’s a stupid, useless, worthless-) 

The man initially glared at him as they grew closer, but huffed when they both went into the store. The other man slipped off towards the video game section, scowling now.  

Izuku sighed, letting his grin momentarily slip, before slipping the shiny-sunny expression (mask, a worn, threadbare mask) as he headed for the bottled good isle.

He picked up three glass bottles, and slipped them into the canvas bag from the mall he had brought along, not wanting to pay the extra fine. 

But when he headed for the checkout lane, he recognized the cashier. A lady who didn’t care about his diagnosis; didn’t listen to the poisonous, cutting comments of her other coworkers on her shift. (He had only just managed to avoid the man with bat’s wings that restocked the shelves by ducking behind a display.) 

He smiled again, for real this time. She winked at him as she walked up. “Hey, kiddo. Here, I’ll hold on to your stuff for a second. There’s a new All Might comic book, how about you pick that up for ya self? Your lookin a liiiitle down.” He blushed, then nodded wordlessly and scurried off to the back of the store, where they had the racks of glossy papers.

The blue-haired man was there, sneering at the rows as he examined the covers critically.

He gulped, but gathered his courage. Cashier-san would be disappointed if he didn’t come back with at least one comic!

He could do it. Walk by the man, who was hovering over the All Might section. Grab the booklet, with it’s shiny red sticker, and calmly walk away. (Likely with a hammering heart.) Of course he could. He was going to be a hero!

He slipped over beside the man, making himself as small as possible as he reached for the book with shaking hands. (Damnit, anxiety! Damn it!) 

“Hey.” His heart stopped, missed a beat, and restarted in a breath. 

Sh*t.

“You a fan of All Might?” He bit his lip. Just because the man looked like a villain, doesn’t mean he was one…

“I-uh… yeah. He’s really cool, and his quirk is really strong! But, um…” He could go on for All Might’s many strengths (usually literally) all day, but his mind flashed back to hero_or_no.net, a website he had seen the other day comparing heroes by yen reconstruction costs, life risk and casualties…

Endeavor had effortlessly and unsurprisingly been far in the first slot, but All Might had only been fifth… Millions of yen worth of destruction…

The man cackled, and Izuku startled. Had he said that outloud?! 

“I-I uh! Not that that doesn’t make him a good hero or anything! Like, he’s doing it for the greater good and stuff!” He begged the man silently to not rag on him for the unintended comment. Kachan wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if it had been so much as whispered on school grounds. (from his mouth)

But when he hesitantly looked up amid his continued apologies and mumbling (strengths of All Might and different moves he had used over the year and how smart they were to use and how much training it must have taken-) and the man’s hacking laughter, all he saw was the return of the stretched out smile.

“I like you kid. My name is Shigaraki Tomura.”

He smiled, just a bit, relieved he had dodged the bullet there. Cashier-san would be sad if he returned visibly hurt. 

“I-I-Izuku Mi-Midoriya.” His throat clicked under the pressure of his emotions in the way Kachan hated.

He bit his lip again, and felt the bite marks still there from earlier. His teeth slotted into them easily out of habit. His eyes teared up. Why was he this way? 

His arms burned. His head hurt. His face hurt from smiling in front of mom. He wanted to hide in his room, maybe analyze the news while mom finished dinner, safely out of sight from his silent tears.

Shigaraki’s eyes caught on something. He glanced down. His sleeve…?

Oh. His bandages were peaking out. Kachan had held his hands still last week so he couldn’t ‘cheat on a big test ever again to beat me, ya nerd.’ (He hadn’t cheated, but he did make sure to make it look like he had in the future, letting his grades, especially test scores drop.)(Just slightly, to keep Mom happy. Every time it was a gamble between Kachan and his mother’s happiness, a moment of bated breath and endless anxiety-) He had almost forgotten they were there- they had been on so much he had stopped noticing them.

Yeah, that was probably weird for the man to see. His arms wrapped in red-tinged white cloth down to the last inch.

His hands twitched. He wanted to write. He hadn’t been able to continue with his hobby with the pain at every movement, especially on top of homework. The craving had only gotten worse.

Especially when he was stressed.

He tucked one loose end in and smiled sheepishly at the inevitable question.

“How’d that happen, brat?” The words weren’t kind, but the tone was. Weird. It made his brain hurt.

The words raging behind his lips worsened. The flow had raged ever since he could no longer freely write, probably wouldn’t for months, since it was largely untreated and ignored-

“Oh I-uh.” A stranger would blame Kachan, and that wasn’t right. Plan B, then. “I deserve it. I- um. I’m quirkless.” He whispered the last bit, and kept his eyes on the ground.

Maybe he’d ignore him, brush by with a snarl, and check out and leave him in peace, cowering in the isle until he left. Maybe he would be fine. Maybe-

A scoff “That’s what's wrong with the system. Glorifying people like Endeavor and All Might who have killled, labelling others as useless or even worse, villains from toddlerhood. Me? My quirk is called Decay. Everything I touch with all five fingers turns to dust.” 

Izuku perked up a bit. “That’s a really cool quirk though! You could clear debris in a disaster situation, like Space hero: Thirteen! Though, I suppose that would be annoying in day to day life… have you tried gloves?”

His nostrils flared, and Izuku shrank back. “They’d decay, brat.”

It was almost… curious sounding on what he’d say next.

“Not if you cut all but one finger of it off. Then you’d be able to touch with most of your hand, and still have easy access to your quirk! I know quirk suppressors aren’t great to experience…” 

A classmate had had to go on them during a surgery to not hurt the surgeons with his quirk on reflex, and had been grouchy and twitchy for a week even after they wore off.

Shikaraki frowned, then smiled abruptly. “You’re a smart brat, yeah? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, or point them to me. I’ll… prove them wrong.” He stumbled a bit at the last remark, but came back with a confident grin quickly.

Izuku ducked his head in a nod, despite the fact that he doubted he’d ever see the man again. It was an innocent enough request, anyway. 

He grabbed the booklet with a rustle of paper and a shy smile, and put out a quick goodbye, and raced back to the counter, taking deep breaths.

He had done it. He was fine. Nothing had gone wrong. He wasn’t even hurt!

Maybe he could do these things…

Aaida arrived home half an hour late (so just on schedule, for their new one anyway) and was immediately comforted by their normal routine of Aiden tackling her to the ground before complaining when they both landed on her hefty backpack. “What do you have in here, rocks? You just started!” 

She grinned, and pushed him lightly off her. “I found another quirkless kid. A real nerd, so I’m going through different textbooks to see which one I should give him.”

“Aaaah.” A moment of silence, and she counted to three in her head. “Can I have them first?” He whispered hesitantly.

She hummed. “You can help me choose one, but then you have to socialize to learn more. Like a study group, but entirely made of dorks.” He huffed at the idea of going outside, low-key terrified, and they both knew it. 

She hugged him again, still smirking at the change back to normalcy, and glanced into the kitchen/living room. The kettle was on, with tiny jets of steam every once in a while and a jar of dried orange already on the counter, along with a cup.

Aaida had had to save up for months to replace all their dishes because they started chipping, making her little bro anxious about ingesting china shards. He still kept the habit of checking before eating, but was much more open to snacks. Thus, the twin cups were small, plain, and white, so utterly boring, (if clean and new) but she had suggested that over the next break they could paint them in the backyard. Possibly with nail polish, because Gods know they have plenty to spare with her hobby.

It was totally worth it. 

She glanced at his skinny form, and coil of smoke trailing out behind him unnoticed, and smirked as it started moving in time with morse code. She kept visibly busy with the tea, getting spoons out for the oranges and a healthy snack because Aiden straight up forgot to eat while on nerd tangents, watching the little sneak get his opinion in.

Eaten once today… NASA’s done something, ask about that, duh. He’s a space nerd, like I didn’t know. Wants to decorate bedroom. Worries about money. Huh, the trouble with sleeping is new. I’ll make chamoilline tonight. Lots of it.

She grinned to herself, and he looked at her for a few beats, suspicious, before the kettle saved her bacon and they had their tea.

Gods, she loved her family. 

Aiden and her were a special pair. He had DID, dissociative identity disorder. He only had two other personalities, but they were eccentric enough to make up for it. Demetri was the one that surfaced while Aiden was being particularly emotionally and instinctually available while Mother was in, panicked, and made a person capable of handling the situation. 

Like a vigilante in the trench coat with moves straight out of a cartoon (the black and white ones. Not, like old, just the vibe in general) that could summon fire hot enough to melt through pretty much any obstacle and could take to the shadows like a ninja.

Yeah, apparently separate personalities could have quirks of their own. That had been a fun learning curve.

Jiri could teleport, and was much more calm in general. He was the sort you’d imagine to be able to pull a clipboard out of thin air in order to better take notes. He acted like a PA/bestie to Demetri and Aiden, and handled geeky passion projects every once in a while so Aiden could relax and be a person outside of the internet and his bed.

He also just happened to naturally scan for exits and entrances, threats and allies, enemies and dangers in literally every situation, meaning Aiden didn’t have to worry about whether or not the cracked concrete beneath his feet was about to open up and drop him down the center of the earth anymore.

Aiden often made both of them tangible outside his body using his quirk, Shadow Manipulation, to give them a form ‘so he wouldn’t have to sound crazy talking back to them. Plus, all of them could suffer instead of just him.’ That had been a joke. 

Aiden would rather break a bone than deliberately put someone through any sort of pain, even emotionally.

Especially emotionally.

Aaida had been born two months ahead of schedule. She was lucky she had all limbs and senses in generally working order, even if her hands constantly shook and not all of her receptors in her stomach had grown in so she was constantly hungry and had loose enough ligaments to easily pop bones out of place and it happened often enough that she had actually stopped feeling much pain at all years ago-

Oh yeah, and she didn’t have a quirk. Her quirk gene had been turned off, apparently, in the womb, even though she had it, because her itty bitty baby body concluded that she would f*ck herself up with it, and would probably die when it manifested instead of like, being normal. 

Most of the time, it was vaguely annoying, or even helpful. Being able to know you were in the right in kicking the local gang’s *ss was a huge confidence booster, and she had an insane pain tolerance, and could definitely think fast on her feet.

She knew most quirkless people were depressed, anxious b*stards terrified of everything and everyone around them.

She knew very firmly she was not and would never be that.

That was mostly because of how crummy their parents were. A father that was unknown and no money for a test to find out, and a mother too busy with two minimum wage jobs and a consistent party animal life to bother with them. With Aaida’s three jobs (one wasn’t even minimum wage anymore!) and hers combined, they had the roof over their heads, and food, and the occasional luxury, like on holidays.

But no supervision in sight.

Mother only really returned home to shower, sleep in a comfortable bed that was reliably there, and mooch of the food in the refrigerator that Aiden made whenever he got too bored of nerdy things. So, about two or three times a month.

So, they both turned out… different. Aaida had never had the influence most quirkless people had of the ‘you’re weak and useless’ variety, and Aiden (She was more present when Aiden was tiny, having learned that a baby was only more work the longer you ignored it the first time around) was told all through toddlerhood that he was worse than his ‘no good’ sister, (“Better a zero than a negative-”) that he would only hurt people because he was going to be a villain because of his quirk, (It surfaced when he was two, far ahead of schedule. Aaida had been so proud of her little bro that day.) that society would be better off without him, that maybe he could stop that if he just didn’t get near people at all.

Aiden, being an impressionable and incredibly anxious toddler and person in general, took this to heart. Because that kind of thing stuck with ya forever, as much as Aaida tried to knock it out of his brain. 

He was in self-induced house arrest. All the time. 

Like a house cat.

She hated it, but she didn’t have the money for therapy or an anxiety medication, so she did her best on ‘field trips’ to markets, coffee shops, libraries, and museums. Calm, normal-people places. 

He learned through her textbooks and homework she brought him, her notes and ramblings, since he legally didn’t exist. (Mother said the hospital was a scam center, and Aaida had been keenly aware of the debt that she had caused in her younger years in her first ever moments, so she just stuck around the house when labor hit.) Probably more, because he was fascinated with space and math and engineering, and was naturally drawn to online culture by the whole crippling loneliness thing. Aaida was really the only person he talked to not in Internet, and she wasn’t exactly the paragon of normalcy.

Hm. She’d have to check in on Bunny Kid’s home situation, huh? Would it be too awkward to invite herself for dinner?

She did her little homework over dinner. Aiden used her stuff more than she did, honestly, so she’d rather let him have at it later than have him go through her bag at 3AM like a vengeful raccoon scholar… thing.

It was mostly well-let’s-see-what-you-can-do-then-new-kiddo-I-have-to-deal-with-now sort of thing, with extra low bars because of her ‘unfortunate diagnosis.’

She smirked into her short history essay. She’d blow them out of the water, just to see what would happen. If they didn’t give her the grade to match, all it would do is spur Aiden on anyway. 

Midoriya was a certifiable genius. She pondered how to not-awkwardly ask about his grades to get a rough estimation, before deciding to cut her losses and just ask him point-plank. Besides, they might butcher his grades anyway. It would get a more straight answer anyway, he definitely wasn’t the type to brag. 

She took pictures of every page in case an ‘accident’ happened on campus. (She wouldn’t put it past Bakagou, frankly. Maybe she’d slip him something to help him chill out, he probably needed it. In small doses at first, of course. But then she’d probably have to raid the nurse’s office to be safe… Bah, she was only in one three of the week anyway, that wouldn’t exactly be difficult.) That meant Aiden would still be able to see it later, even if the physical copy was ash on the floor several cities over. She didn’t care if her grades were trashed, no one else did either. And Aiden’s second-class education was frankly more important than all of that anyhow.

Jiri did a spell check for her while she checked in on lil’ bro (Demetri had it well handled- they were testing new cuddle technics with Mira, the long-haired kitty that had wandered in one day and never wandered back out, so they were her humans now) before she took a shower since she smelled like ash and scheming, then remembering she had Bunny Kid’s number, and texting if they could hang out tomorrow. She could bring up the meet-the-parent thing then, most likely.

She settled on an out-of-the-way park with a fun ‘hidden’ trail that could give them the semblance of privacy, and packed lots of snacks in her satchel. (Several layers of toughened leather, which unlike a backpack wouldn’t get too bulky and awkward to handle and look at, making her suspicious if she wasn’t like, on a mountain hike. It was the bag she used for non-school occasions, though due to how quickly she went through bags -the bunch of trigger-happy pricks- it was more of than all-of-the-time thing by now.) 

She was well-packed already. Several knives, an empty notebook in case one or both of them needed something to do with their hands, bug spray, water, peppery spray, taser, umbrella-but-make-it-mini, (pride edition) several maps of the area, two spare burner phones, and emergency pack of everything one might need for two to three weeks in the eventual apocalypse and collapse of society, bomb supplies, handcuffs, duct tape and zip ties, (just in case they wandered into some crime-breaking idiots) a couple of garbage bags, some candy and lots, lots of tissues. (travel edition, she had bought them in bulk a while back on a whim and they were now sprinkled it a cushy layer on top of all her other mess)

She came prepared. To every situation. She didn’t come to a quirk fight with a knife, she came to it with a knife, a taser, handcuffs, and bombs. 

Midoriya Inko was a certifiable delight. The park visit had gone well (no bullies, crime scenes or tears!) and she had been invited that Wednesday for dinner. She headed over two days later (with Aiden, for a tame introduction scenario she couldn’t pass up) after school.

Inko-san was a chubbier, older, and female version of her new friend. She had the exact same chin wobble as she tried not to cry happy tears at ‘her little boy bringing home friends!’, the same pool of water in her eyes, and the eventual beaming smile was pure Midoriya Sunshine(™).

She served up Katsudon minutes after they arrived, and did awkward but incredibly friendly introductions in his room, and Aaida steered them into both geeking out over Thirteen, the Space Hero.

Because.

Space. Hero. 

They had their akatsudon, which delighted both Aiden and Izuku, (Aiden both likes it, meaning he’s willing to eat it, plus it’s authentic and not from a recipe so he’ll probably harass Mrs. Midoriya for the how and why and Izuku had mentioned something about celebratory food night?) so Aaida was more than fine with the situation. 

But the thing was the Midoriyas had a habit of asking questions they didn’t realize were problematic.

And considering how little she cared about most topics, this was legitimately impressive. 

“So, dears, tell me about yourself. I haven’t heard about you from Izuku, Aiden. Where do you go to school?”

Aaida slapped on a gentle smile over her plate and butted in. “Oh, he’s a genius. He’s home schooled so he can go at his own pace and do what he wants to actually study, you know? He still steals my textbooks anyway, though.” 

Aiden squawked. “Hey!” She received an elbow to the ribcage, but it was worth it to properly rope him into the Social Interaction Time without extrEME ANXIETY. 

She grinned into her food as Izu and Aiden started explaining their nerd session about Thirteen from earlier. 

Inko Midoriya seemed in some sort of odd state of awe, which was strange. Neither of them had done anything too strange, and Jiri and Demitri weren’t out to play. Was it because of how fast he was talking? She knew they both talked fast, it was something they had developed when tiny and never bothered to grow out of, because why would they? 

No, usually that caused confusion, and asking her to slow down. Was it how much he knew about space and the hero? Her boy’s a hero otaku, surely she’s used to it, right?

She decides to let that rest as an eternal secret of the universe so it would stop bugging her and dug in again. 

There was no mention of a Mr. Midoriya, which suited her fine. Less people to freak out the lil’ bro, after all. 

(Less people for Demetri to consider decking or protecting with his life.)

School stayed school, which sucked.

She walked Bunny Boy the next morning to their class, ducking away from a pack of bullies that was waiting for them past the gate. She didn’t bash them because it would probably spook Izukun somethin’ bad.  

They were halfway to their room when she paused midstep, and frowned. She glanced over at his confused face.

“Is the hair dyed, then?”

He started, then sighed in relief at the lack of trouble. “Uh, no. The green hair runs in the family. Mom’s the same, but her quirk is Attraction. She can pull and push objects she can normally lift around her. It’s really cool! I’ve told her that if she goes to the gym she could make it more useful to herself, so she could be less harassed and all. Though that might be… uh… because.” 

Because of him.

She shook her head. “Wrong. That has to be a quirk. A really passive one, but a quirk. When I first looked at him I thought Bakagou’s was the ability to keep his hair in that weird poof thing. You too, actually. How much hair gel do you use?” 

He flushed. “If I don’t it’s a frizzy, tangly mess. So. Uh.”

She grinned in anticipation. “I could braid it for you.” She painted her and her brother’s nails all the time, and bought him good looking clothes, (no more neon yellow jackets and purple sock combos for him, thank you very much) so a bit of braiding would be no sweat.

She could slip in a few braids at lunch without him noticing, maybe. He certainly got distracted enough for that to work no prob. Could take some of the poof out of that floof for him, see how long it took before he’d notice. 

She felt her nose scrunch up. “And at the park, too. You like, cracked concrete with a waterfall of tears, and showed zero signs of dehydration. No way that ain’t a quirk, my guy.”

He swallowed. “Well. I’ve been diagnosed. And I have the extra pinkie joint and everything, so.” She snorted. That wasn’t a definite test, not really. But at this point he’d have to be brain dead not to have activated a quirk in self defense over the years, so it probably wasn’t something to worry much about.

Even if it was weird and would bother her for the rest of time. 

They kept going, and walked into their good-for-nothing teacher already at his desk, along with a shocking number of students.

She already didn’t like him. Then again, that wasn’t exactly impressive. Like everyone else at this school and her last one, there was an undercurrent of shadiness to everything he did. Which didn’t even make sense! The man was just drinking coffee!

Her brain is very unfair sometimes. 

“Ayyyy, Deku.” Someone help her, she’s going to drop kick him. Out the window. She just won’t be able to stop herself.

She turns in her seat in the most unimpressed way she could. Bakagou was snarling at Izuku, followed by his two favorite backup dancers, Dumb and Dumber.

But surprisingly, he didn’t do much. He smiled like a predator on the hunt.

“Ya like your present?” 

Aaida squinted, still unimpressed, before looking down at their desks.

Ah.

There, almost delicately laid across the top, was a Red Spider Lily. An identical one was on Izuku’s desk, too.

She sat down without any hesitation, in direct contrast to how Bush Boy was frozen and on the edge of tears.

She rummaged through her bag, and pulled out her plain silver lighter. She picked up the flower by the stem with enough controlled malice to make a grown man shiver. She glanced around at her sniggering peers, still very much unimpressed. 

The teacher was still grading papers, purposefully not paying attention to the scene unfolding in front of him.

Izuku appeared to be having trouble breathing, and she held the lighter under the flower to speed this up a bit.

Then she paused. And grinned.

She took out her beauty bag; full of hair supplies, nail polish things, and makeup supplies. She looked through for her hair separators, washout hair dye powder, and matching makeup colors to the flower.

She took the two bit so hair on the side of her head, ran her fingers through them with the dye using her water bottle, and threaded them together by braids, creating a thin braid crown with tie-dye-ish coloring that was judged to be ‘good enough’. She then swept the larger back piece of her hair over one shoulder and began a larger braid after dying a third of it in the same way. Flakes of red float down to the floor without any commenting. It looks like dried blood. Fitting, she supposed.

“Hey, Izuku. Can I have that?” He started, still incapable of processing, so she plucked it up herself from his desk herself. 

She weaved it into the braid confidently, amid dead silence in the room. That was about midway down for the first, so she took her own flower, which had a shorter stem, and stuck it in the end before finishing it off with a maroon ribbon. 

She opened up her makeup compact with a click, and took out a larger brush for some eye shadow.

Pink with thin lines of red spiralling through, along with some rather obnoxious red blush and a nice shade of lipstick in a pinup style.

She grinned into the mirror, and shut it with a satisfying clack.

She turned to Izuku, by now shaking in place in his seat, though less spooked then earlier as he watched her in blatant shock.

“How’s it look?”

Haunting, deafening silence. Izuku sputtered about something like ‘it’s nice’ while avoiding eye contact.

She flung the larger braid over her shoulder with a straight back, and folded her hands in front of her. The bell rang perfectly on time, and she grinned in return to Bakuou’s shell-shocked one, his earlier expression still stuck on his face. 

“Anyway, next time do a white lily. I’d like to experiment with white eye looks.” She grins feral like a predator that had caught her prey, and they all knew it. The silence hung in the air.

Bakugou filed into his seat without a word, (jaring compared to his usual screaming fits) and she cackled.

What a delightful morning. Lunch would be damage control with Greenie, but that was alright. She could bribe him with homemade ice cream. (orange flavor, of course) (afterschool, duh)(she hoped he wouldn’t tear up when she asked him to come up again. She only brought one handkerchief today, like a fool) 

Aaida wasn’t so much a vigilante as a person who took no sh*t. Or accepted any sh*t going on in her general vicinity.

It didn’t help that she lived in a yakuza-ridden neighborhood (the police fought they had died off decades ago. The police were idiots.) filled with petty crime and rowdy teenagers. Yeah, definitely not. 

I mean, she was constantly armed to the teeth and was more than willing to hop into a fight, but that basically wasn’t her fault. Society had made sure she would know how to get out of any situation, or else. 

So she whacked the lady mugger over the head without a hint of hesitation and watched Kine, another local angsty teen, scurry away, wallet in hand without a scratch. Not even a thank you, huh?

She checked the lady over for serious injuries before scooping her up in a bridal carry. God knows the police wouldn’t come out here to get her. (she knew from experience. She had to give them enough of a chance, just to check) 

But that left the problem of what to do with the poor schmuck.

She looked through her pockets. Judging from the layers on tattered layers of clothes, the amount of necessities on her, and her general state of half-starvation, she concluded she was probably homeless. 

She sighed, tucked twenty dollar bills into each of her shoes (she wasn’t made of money, but she felt bad, damn it)(and she would find the money easily enough; there was already a stache of some change rattling around in there, so she was already using that trick. Score.) and carried her to a tucked away alleyway that was rarely inhabited by anyone at all. There were no dumpsters or anything, so there was nothing to claim in the area. Unimportant, discreet.

Perfect.

She left her on top of a cardboard box to keep the concrete from chilling her and continued her walk home. 

She had some legal research to do.

Aaida didn’t have a plan at the same time as she did. She was either going to be a lawyer to kick *ss in court,(unlikely, but Mido was pushing hard) a vigilante to clean up the city like she so deprestaly wanted to, maybe some high-up government member to shape things up from the inside if they were lucky, or leader of a social/literal revolution. Maybe all of the above, if she had the time. 

So she studied law in her freetime, finding all the loopholes and hoarding them like some weird scholar dragon. Mob mentality, phycology, social rules, (as in power vacuums when you, say, kill a mob boss, not like, being polite or some garbage) fighting tactics including modern warfare strategy, social warfare strategy to match, philosophy, finances, made a battle plan of in-case-of-homelessness, (how to make nutritious meals with a few cheap ingredients, DIY recipes for stoves and fridges as well shelter set-ups) basic engineering and hacking, camping skills, out-door cooking, the ins and outs of the foster system, sweet talking guides, human and animal biology, first aid, (and a bit more complicated stuff like field surgeries and substitutes for blood transfusions) common architecture designs and blueprints, lie-detection skills, nutritional needs, regular cooking, a slew of random nature facts that could or could never be useful but oh well, sewing, knitting, crochet, rope-making, water filtration, food preparation in case of disease, radiation, or rot, farming, different poisons and antidotes, along with the stuff you’d have to do after because it turns out it’s super easy to poison someone and really hard to save them, basic manipulation tactics (sadly a necessity. She didn’t plan on using it much, if she could help it) and ever-increased levels of self-defense. Nothing even remotely useful was safe from her. 

But the law was ever changing and thus she came back every once in a while when she wasn’t dead on her feet or full of violent righteous anger. Quirkless people could legally be vigilantes, for instance. Aiden could totally get away with the same if the person hit him first, because that would be self-defense. 

The Hero Commision was something she had yet to unpack. Heroes were corrupt, a lot of the time, and it had finally occurred to her to maybe go back to the root of the problem instead of viciously shearing off the branches. She also could do some background checks on the police at least in the area, look for dirty cops as opposed to people actually doing their jobs. ACAB, but there’s got to be some poor b*astard out there somewhere doing his best, yeah?

Plus, a good number of officers and firefighters or whatever were failed hero-wannabees, so that could go either way. On one hand, jaded rejected hero, cool sure yeah, a desire to help people, noice, on the other, rejected jaded hero yikes. 

She decided to leave that for another day, presumably after coming up with a plan of attack to change the face of Japanese society as they knew. As it was, her bro wanted help with dinner.

And Aiden’s spicy fried chicken kills. 

Time skip brought to you by writer’s block. Just imagine Aaida put the fear of god into the school as a whole, ya know.

Izuku was nervous. He usually was. His friends helped, (friends! Multiple! After Shigaraki, who asked him over to game with him with his foster parent with an awesome warping quirk and- no not now, uh, and introduced him to Shuichii, who had an awesome looking reptilian quirk and a very well maintained pink mohawk, and he had met a girl with a blood quirk at the park that was going a little screwy so he volunteered some blood while explaining the concept of blood bank handouts, in the sand pit so it’d be easy to clean up, and Dabi, who he was 110% sure was an abuse victim of a government member or something and had gifted him a tiny taser emblazoned with Miruko mid-kick. He had skickered when handing it over, but Izuku loved it. Aaida had even approved!) obviously, and Aaida suggested getting him anxiety medication, but the thought of asking his mom for drugs past a painkiller just made it worse.

But it was fine to be nervous! It was the day of the UA entrance exams after all!

Aaida had disappeared off the map for a little while now. Initially he had broken down, thinking she didn’t wanna be his friend anymore, before she calmed him as 3AM one day to catch up and he bawled for half an hour. She was off studying (though she refused to clarify) but said he was welcome to come over to keep her brother company and pet the cat. She had gotten him a ridiculously soft oversized sweater in a shade that was a bit darker than his hair (she cursed him out for a solid five minutes and mourned the coordination when she noticed) to support him; he planned to wear it constantly for the next few months when he could. 

He hadn’t told his other friends he was aiming for UA. It was miracle enough they still wanted him around with the whole quirkless reveal, but aiming for one of the top schools in the country and having to tell them he failed miserably would be terrible!

His mother was more supportive than usual, though. He told her he was aiming for the Gen Ed course to study his analysis, and she had cried tears of joy. He tried to not think about that immediately upon being given the impression that he had given up on his lifelong dream she had cried with happiness. She had made him an extra-large breakfast that morning and they had watched a video together to learn how to tie his tie when he came down to the table with it laid across his shoulders in defeat. They had laughed together and chatted openly over the meal. It had been unbelievably nice. 

He boarded the train as a ball of anxiety, and tried those breathing exercises Aaida had talked him through on the phone two weeks ago. He could do this. He was confident for the written exam (Aaida had looked over his papers personally and pointed that almost all of his missed questions were either intentional to keep Kachan off his back or deliberate on the teacher’s behalf, which hadn’t honesty been too shocking to hear, if mildly disappointing) 

He checked his bag and smiled as he remembered the phone call he and Aaida had last night. She had mailed him a giant package and ordered him not to open it until the night before today, and had talked him through each item.

“So, I knew you’d be anxious, so I got you a bunch of stuff. There’s breathable exercise equipment, with padding and metal in the knuckles, elbows and knees. Metal slip-ins you can put in your shoes to improve your kicks, too. Okay, so I got you a lot of stuff. There’s some smoke bombs because I know you aren’t comfortable with chemical ones yet-”

“Excuse me?” He gaped at his wall, stopping his pacing. 

“Shush, Greenie. And a staff-”

“You plan on making me comfortable with chemical bombs? And I don’t know how to use a staff!” He backed up to hit the edge of his bed and sat down on it with a slight bounce. 

She huffed into the mic. “Of course. Come prepared, my dude. And the smaller the surface area behind the force, the bigger the hit. You’ll be up against inexperienced, unarmed teens. You’ll be fine, just swing it as hard as you can. Oh, and remember, jaw’s the knockout button, the nose will automatically make the eyes water but don’t punch too hard or you might break it, specifically on the bridge, on men it’s aim for the middle, on females it’s similar but make room for the curves, fighting dirty is in fact encouraged… Where was I?”

He sighed and laid back against his bed covers, defeated. “Weapons.”

“Right! So, you have your taser, I also slipped in a pocket knife, an SOS signal for if you get in a jam, it sends to both me and every other device with a hundred meters for good measure, might up that soon… Oh, as well as an EMP blast. It’ll knock out any nearby tech, very useful. Let’s see, what else… There’s the knuckle toppers but the suit will do fine, make sure to wear the armour pads at the bottom, those are important. They’re slash and explosion proof! In case you run into a certain *sshole. Ear plugs and cancelling headphones just in case, some basic tools ya know, hammer, knife, machete, scissors. Wear exercise clothes you don’t care about underneath everything, they might see some action if things go sideways. A hair tie for your totally quirked hair-”

“Aaida-” He was medically diagnosed! This was getting ridiculous! 

“Nope, not yet Bunny Boy. You’ll get your turn to talk. Eat bananas, they give bravery, and lots of protein. And remember to drink water! You’ve been keeping up with the exercise plan I sent you?”

He hummed confirmation and pulled the box to riffle through and see if he had everything she had mentioned. The bombs were disguised in book-shaped boxes, which made him huff in amusement, and didn’t look at all like the heavy metal ones from movies. 

“Good, so you should be all sent for a speed-based approach. Get in, help, and get out, you get me? Oh, and a bunch other emergency signals too, just in case. One in case of poisoned gases, ah, I sent a silver spoon, that help you with the same deal, one that gives a signal constantly so I’ll be there if it stops giving a signal, one if you get caught in an EMF, don’t worry I’ve taken in account the one I gave you, it won’t go off today only, for certain sound frequencies like the ones that cause hearing damage immediately or like, shatter your bones within your body. Oh, and med stuff! Yeah, I know you have your own stuff, but you can never have too many bandages! Also, painkillers, salves, the whole nine yards. We’re prepared, Mido-bro. So, now it’s your turn. Do the shoe thingies fit in your shoes?”

He stuck out his tongue, despite knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. “I’ll check tomorrow. I’m sure it’s fine, there’s only that one brand that serves quirkless people anyway, and you know my size. And… thank you. Even if I’m going in blind, I’m not going in unprepared.”

“Exactly!” She confirmed from the other end. “Good to hear, cinnamon roll. Anything else?”

He swallowed and dug his hand through the stuff in the box, eyeing it carefully. “Uh. I’ll call you if something goes wrong, but I don’t think so. Thanks for the sweater, too. The sweater paws are great.”

“Yeeessss, welcome to the land of coziness, my dude!” 

And then they talked about fall clothes, because he couldn’t just wear his long sleeved ‘jacket’ shirt forever, and it wasn’t the same under a hoodie until his mom popped her head in to tell him to go to sleep. Aaida had made her ruffle his hair in her stead, which had made all three of them giggle.

He had stuffed all that into his old bright yellow bag, outfitted in his usual running gear (leggings, an old shirt, thick socks in case he stepped on something, and sneakers.) There hadn’t been a requirement for school uniforms, so he opted to be prepared. He didn’t know how much time he would have to prepare before the test, and he probably needed to figure out where to put all of Aaida’s gifts so he could both use them and not litter them all across the testing grounds on accident. That would be a disaster. 

He abdicated his seat for an older woman who thanked him profusely. It was near his stop anyway.

He read through the hero news for the morning for that feeling of normalcy until the tired-sounding conductor came on the intercom to announce they had come to his stop. He ducked under a few arms (a perk of being short) to avoid the scramble to exit the car and gripped his backpack arms tightly.

UA was only a block away from here. 

The building was even more impressive in person than on TV, though maybe a little over the top. Aaida had ranted about UA’s funding once, and while she approved of the not taking government money deal, the amount they got from overly successful heroes was obscene.

She did like Best Jeanist, though. He had finally found a hero she liked, and was fully planning on buying at least a few merch items for the New Year. Ironically or no, she would like them either way.

The gates were open, and there were waves of teens coming inside intermittedly. He took a step forward, feeling his confidence gather in his chest in a trick Aiden had taught him for a confidence boost.

This is it. My first step towards being a hero!

He tripped on a loose brick. Luckily, Aaida had made sure he felt comfortable enough in his own skin to react instinctively for something like this. He rolled how she had shown him during their parkour lessons, but never hit the ground. He floated peacefully midair, much to his confusion.

“Oh, sorry! Looks like you had it handled! Sorry, I was trying to keep you from tripping on exam day, it’s a bad omen.” A bubbly female voice sounded from behind him, and he used his arm closer to the ground to nudge him into an angle capable of seeing her. Wide, red cheeks, a blunt brown hair cut in pleasant shade of chestnut, and a grin that spoke of hidden power the same easy way Aaida’s sometimes did.

He blushed a bit. “Ah, no that’s alright! I totally would have crushed my bag. Thanks for the help! Is this your quirk?”

She nodded, and pressed all five fingers together with a smile. “Release!”

He dropped into a crouch. Disaster averted, he’d rather not have all of Aaida’s bombs explode underneath him in an enclosed space, thank you very much. “Wow, that’s really cool! Oh, uh, good luck on the exam!” He hauled himself to his feet with a sheepish grin.

She beamed in return. “You too, Stranger-kun. Have a good day!” And she swept past him, humming cheerfully to herself as she went.

He let out a breath to calm himself. Well. That went better than it could have. 

He smiled slightly to himself. Now was his first step toward being a hero.

The written exam was easy. Suspiciously easy. Had his old teachers really undergraded him that badly?

Aaida had said he shouldn't overthink exams, so he flipped the page from the multiple choice section to the essay portion, and nearly cried with relief at what he found. 

A hero student is having trouble with their fire-breathing quirk, on account for possible property damage and civilian injury risk. What tactics might you suggest to help them? 

Quirk analysis! 

He smiled. Oh yes, this was going to be fine.

He had brainstormed his father’s quirk for years when he was younger, fantasizing on what could have been and what his father could do to bridge a gap with a man he will never know in one fell swoop. 

There were so many possibilities! Intimidation tactics, heating up weapons to be more efficient, careful maneuvering could free someone from restraints or spare a civilian in a hostage situation from burns while saving them, cheering up kids with circus-style displays. Bringing joy was an important part of being a hero, after all!

The stars had aligned for him at this moment.

His pencil went as fast as it could in an effort to keep up with his brain. He kept showy tactics to a minimum with an explanation that those wouldn’t exactly be in short supply for the student; a quirk like that would garner plenty of such suggestions, but purely efficient ones would be more rare, so he tried to focus on those. He even tried his hand at figuring out the outline of a hero costume, based on the assumption that the fire created by the student would have the possibility of burning them once it left their mouth. 

He smiled to himself, slightly smug at the panicked expression of his next-door-neighbor tester, who had just arrived at the same question. 

Maybe Aaida was right. If being a hero wasn’t an option, (she would thwack him for thinking badly of himself right now, but it was important to be realistic!) being an analyzer wouldn’t exactly be terrible. Think of all the cool quirks he would get to work with!

Focus, focus. He flipped the next few pages over, and found the next bit to be focused for the support students; engineering and the like. Not exactly his forte.

Time to batten down the hatches. It was serious.

By the time they were being herded into an auditorium for President Mic to explain the practical test, most of his nerves had miraculously worn off. He had found a secret path to the hero course even if he failed; the Sports Festival. One of his favorite heroes, Eraserhead, had pulled that off in his second year. It had been awe-inspiring. 

Even if the test was biased towards strong, flashy quirks, (and it likely would be) or he had to spar someone else, (which in a quirked battle be wasn’t exactly comfortable yet) or otherwise failed completely, he wouldn’t give up.

He was going to be a hero.

He squeaked in surprise when the boy with glasses pointed him out for his muttering. It felt a bit hypocritical for the boy to single him out for being distracting when he felt it necessary to stand up suddenly and yell.

“Well, Stanger-kun. Some of us don’t have combat-based quirks. Muttering helps me think, thank you very much. And pointing out that I might be interrupting by yelling at me is a bit hypocritical, don’t you think? If I were you, I’d sit down and let President Mic finish what he has to say.” And then he’s standing, oh boy. He tries to look the boy in the eye, but feels his confidence waver and instead glares at the slightly dusty floor. His voice did stay steady, though, so at least he didn’t stutter!

“I-I. You are correct. I apologize, President Mic-san!” The boy collapsed into his seat again in a series of perfect right angles, and Izuku let out the breath he had sucked in.

He had enough to worry about with the robots, anyway. But at least that went well. 

When they’re led to a series of changing rooms, Izuku dodges the Glasses Boy and, apparently, the oncoming rant about wearing his uniform and aspiring heroes should look prim and proper at all times (??)(too much work, frankly) and takes shelter in a corner of the room behind a crowd of people to hide his presence. He opens his bag, and takes out the belt he had fashioned with Aaida’s virtual help the night before to fit everything in. All the pockets and leather loops were there, he just had to position them the right way. 

So he does the obvious thing; calls Aaida in a panic.

“Aaida!” There's the sound of a pencil or pen being put down forcibly from the other end. 

“What up, Green Bean? Something come up?”

“The entrance exam is robots!” He knows the exam is supposed to be a secret, but they probably change it every year anyway, and he’s panicking too much to think of the consequences of the call. 

“And?”

“And I can’t take out a bunch of robots with my… quirk status.” He makes a valiant effort to not reveal his diagnosis to the entire room. 

He fails.

He should have seen this coming. 

“AND YOU THINK YOU CAN’T KICK A BUNCH OF BOLT’S *SS BECAUSE YOU’RE QUIRKLESS?!” He holds the phone away from his ear with a wince, and another one at the looks everyone around him is giving him. He flushes red, and desperately turns down the volume on his phone. “HIT ‘EM, GREENIE. THOSE THINGS ARE MADE TO BREAK! CAN’T TAKE DOWN A ROBOT MY LEFT *SS CHEEK-”

“Aaida, please, language.” He tries meekly.

She snorts, but calms down marginally. She’s no longer yelling, but the tone of her voice is steel. “Fine, my left foot. Listen here, Bunny Boy. Do they have exposed wiring? Obvious cracks in panels? Cheap-looking materials or rushed designs?”

“I- yeah?” Making them to break makes sense, too. How had he not seen that?

“THEN WHAT’S THE PROBLEM SIR BROCCOLI?” He makes a mortified squeak at the sudden volume, and covers his flaming face in embarrassment. 

“I-I.” 

“Greenie. I know you’re scared, and anxious, and still being affected by a lifetime of discrimination. But here’s your chance, Hunny Bun. You’ve been training for months, strategizing for years for this. You’ve got this.” Her voice is unexpectedly soft at the end, and he feels his heart warm. 

“I-” He sniffles. “Thanks, Aaida. I’ll hang up now, I have to figure out the belt-” and get away from the staring-

Glasses pops up again, causing Izuku to flinch. “Excuse me! It is highly appropriate to share sensitive information like the test’s contents to non-examiness, and extremely rude to make a phone call at such a time! Shame on you!” 

His throat clicks shut in raw terror.

“Izuku.” He shivers. Aaida almost never uses his full name. “Put me on speaker phone.”

Too scared to do anything otherwise, he dutifully puts the call on speaker mode.

“LISTEN UP, YOU BUNCH OF WANNABES. MY FRIEND HAS LOOKED ENDLESS DISCRIMINATION IN THE GODAMN EYE, AND I’M DONE WITH THIS. EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU IS GOING TO TREAT HIM WITH THE RESPECT HE DESERVES. I AM FULLY WILLING TO BECOME A VILLAIN TO KICK THE COLLECTIVE *SSES OF ANY DISCRIMINATORY *SSHOLES WHO DECIDES THEY HAVE A STICK TOO FAR UP THEIR *SS TO THINK OTHERWISE-” 

“Please don’t.” He manages weakly. Aaida calms down again just a tad at the way his voice trembles.

“So all you future colleagues of his better act right, yeah? If I hear a single thing about you beating him up, or yelling at him, or triggering his PTSD, or anything of the sort again, I will personally track you down and put the fear and God and me into you. GOT THAT?”

There’s a collective shiver in the crowd of teen boys. That is the tone of someone who is not messing around.

“Glad we could come to an agreement, gentlemen. Izuku, hang up, do some breathing exercises, and try to get your ducks in a row. I want another call in two hours of exactly how awesome you did, capiche?” He nods with newborn confidence, then realizes she can’t see him and mutters and affirmation. 

“Fantastic. On you go, then.”

The call ends, and he takes the stunned silence as an opportunity to lock himself into the nearest free stall. Glasses is frozen in place, (he had engines like Ingenium’s, is he related? How disappointing.) and everyone else is still staring, obviously shocked. 

He indeed runs through his breathing routine again, and slips on the belt to distract himself. Aaida got the measurements right; he’s able to reach all the compartments even when bending over, and running in place doesn’t dig into his legs or back at all.

He breathes a sigh of relief and listens carefully to the sound of the majority of the crowd in the room rushing through getting dressed and out the door. The engines he had spotted earlier on the calves of Glasses goes with them, thankfully.

He slips out the door to a crowd as silent as a funeral in a big waiting space in the center of the fake city, outlined with white spray paint. (there’s even street signs and advertisements in shop windows, wow!) 

He puts the embarrassing parts of Aaida’s call out of his mind and focuses on the raw support that had flowed to him from his friend.  

He could do this. He really could. Quirkless or not, people had his back. And he wouldn’t let them down.

The test starts with a great shout by President Mic over the loudspeakers he doesn’t even hear past the first ‘go!’ He bolts forward, well practiced in running with violent people at his back. Kachan roars forward in a flurry of explosions, but thankfully goes deeper into the city, way outside of his possible/likely running distance. 

He sets off the EMP to take care of every bot that was gathered at the start just as everyone else takes their first few steps forward.

One that had been midstep tumbles forward into a comical faceplant, prompting a genuine laugh from him as he sprints past. There’s a general uproar of frustration and confusion from behind him, and he ducks into an alley to avoid any vengeful attacks before they can occur.

He estimates that he already has about twenty to twenty five, maybe thirty points. Pretty good for the useless quirkless kid, huh?

He notes the familiar sound of explosions to the North, (or, like, in front of him) and avoids the shortcut to his right that would bring him dangerously close to his constant… grudging companion?

No time, less existential crisis, no panic allowed, just running.

He pushes a bubblegum pink girl out of the way of the robot she just turned to sludge when she slips on her own acid (oil? Slime? Some fascinating mixture?) and nearly gives herself a concussion.

She thanks him hurriedly, and then they both take off in different directions once again. 

He repeats this with a blond boy covered in sparkles who nearly killed a boy with purple hair as they both try to take down the same bot, thanks to a misfire of his stomach laser. He grins at the purple guy, who’s muttering about this being totally unfair for mental quirk, and slips him a taser with a wink, showing much more confidence than he feels. 

He’s got around another twenty points as things start winding down. There’s no visible robots, just the corpses of them in various states of disrepair. 

He automatically widens his stance when the ground starts to rumble (earthquake?) and catches another examinee who really did fall. He rocks dangerously onto his heels at the movement, but it’s worth it.

The pavement a few dozen feet in front of them rolls back to reveal the shiny head of a familiar robot.

“The zero-pointer?!” The red haired boy he had yelped. “It’s huge!” 

He nods grimly, and turns to tell him to run, when he hears a shriek.

He whips around to see Bob Girl from his trip earlier at the front gate, curled painfully around a jagged piece of concrete that had fallen onto her ankle. He winces in sympathy, and makes a break for her prone form.

“Come on!” He calls to the other kid, and takes out the EMP he had made from spare parts he had picked up over the course of the exam. He had looked at the insides of the original one last night, fascinated by the little piece of tech that could take down whole cities if used right. Recreating it from scrap, spare wires, and fallen chips had been a piece of cake.

He places it hurriedly a few feet from the massive feet of the oversized robot, and presses the button harder than necessary when both feet are on the ground, one hinge-style heel pressed to the fake road. 

“Come on, the EMP won’t last long!” His newfound ally doesn’t ask any questions, and squats down to haul the concrete block off of the girl to lighten the pressure. The purple-haired guy from earlier appears, and drags the quietly crying bobbed teen out of range when the redhead, who’s arms are now made of rock (?) lets it fall again. He must have used his arm like a lever to get her out. 

Izuku rushes forward, scooping the girl (he really needs to learn her name) into his arms and starts to run. Purple keeps pace, Red just behind him.

“I’ve got medical stuff on hand, we just need to get to a safe space!”

“In your bag?” Purple questions, and he nods, hopping all his sweat doesn’t drip down onto the poor girl.

Red digs through as they move, eventually pulling out a roll of gauze. Izuku tells him not to use it until they’re no longer moving, and tries to keep the injured foot elevated above the heart, like his mom had shown him when he got a nasty cut on his leg in fifth grade.

But before they can find somewhere to settle down, President Mic comes on the speakers again. “AAAANNNDDD, TIMES UP LITTLE LISTENERS! ANY FURTHER POINTS WILL NOT BE COUNTED! FILE OUT NEATLY, AND ANYONE INJURED SHOULD HEAD TO OUR LOVELY SCHOOL NURSE! THANK YOU, LISTENERS!” There’s a crackle as the message repeats, then shuts off. 

Indeed, the robots around them, the few lone survivors, go still.

Izuku huffs in a breath into his (poor, poor) lungs, and puts the girl down on a non-rubble covered piece of the sidewalk. 

“Okay, do either of you know how to wrap an ankle? I’ve only ever done it on myself, and I don’t wanna make it worse-” Purple gives him an odd look as Red shakes his head, and Izuku takes a deep breath to gather his wits as another, older voice calls out to him.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, dearie. Anyone else injured?”

His head whips up, causing a loud crack in the neck. “Recovery Girl! The youthful heroine! Oh, uh, no. Um, I think it’s sprained, ma’am.” He dials back the fanboy-ness quickly to get to business. He could freak out later, right now someone was hurt!

She smiles with plenty of teeth and gums at him. “Why, thank you, dearie. It’s not every day I get regonzied. Now, honey, is that the only place that hurts?” She narrows in on Bob Girl, and he, Purple and Red back off and take a collective sigh of relief.

“Man, I thought that was gonna crush us!” Purple gasps, hands on his knees as he recovers.

Red brightened. “Yeah, but it was so manly, though! It was so bad*ss!” He pumps his fist in the air, and Izuku smiles weakly.

“I wasn’t sure it was going to work, I made that a few minutes ago. Oh! Where are my manners! I’m Izuku Midoriya!”

Purple snorts, and covers his mouth to hide a smile. “Greenie, really? Is that joke?”

Izuku smiles, remembering Aaida asking something similar when they first met. “Nope, totally true.”

“Nice to meet you, Midoriya! I’m Kirishima!”

“Shinsou.” The other, purple-haired, obviously sleep-deprived teen adds. He takes out some sunglasses, muttering about sunshine people. 

Izuku beams, especially so when Bob Girl pipes up, having regained her strength and sounding much less nauseous now that Recovery Girl had squared her away with a kiss and a gummy. 

“Urakaka, nice to meet you, everybody! Thanks, I thought I was toast for a second!”

Kirishima frowned. “Yeah, it was totally unmanly how everyone ran away from the zero pointer when you were yelling for help.”

Urakak flushed, and Izuku rushed to comfort her. “Hey, that’s okay! Knowing your limits and when to call for backup is really important for a hero!” He began listing instances where communication and partnership has saved ‘doomed’ hero missions, and Urakaka began to giggle. 

“Thanks, Mido. Hey, wanna trade numbers?” They all swapped contact information, and Izuku felt immensely proud of himself. Aaida would be happy when he told her about this!

“I’ll add you guys to the group chat.” Urakaka stated, fiddling with her flip phone.

Kirishima nodded. “Same, it’s one labeled Meme Lords Extradnoire.” 

Izuku frowned as the chat invite popped up with a soft chime. “That isn’t even close to being spelled right.” 

Kirishima grinned, all shark teeth and raw enthusiasm. “I know.”

Izuku sensed a story there, and decided to stop while he was ahead.

Shinsou sniggered into his hand, and from the looks of it entered himself as SleepyCatLord.

He scrolled through the other names on the chat list info page. Nerd Queen, Froppy, Goth Flowers, OctoLad, PunkPunkBaby, Mad_Scientist, WhamBam, and SpitefulDisneyPrincess. As someone who had either had Midori or SmallMight for his handle all his life, a little overwhelming. He felt a bit intimidated, so simply put in Greenie, at least for now. The other group chat held BubblesB1tch, AlienQueen, HumanTazer, RockHard, Cellophone, DropDatBeat, PastryGod, and now him, he guessed. Shinsou also added himself, this time as CoffeeCat. 

He put his phone back in his pocket for now. Alrighty then. 

“Cool. I’ve gotta check and see if they need something else for General Education, I’ve got that as a backup.” Shinsou declared suddenly, and Izuku’s eyes widened. 

“Ohhh, that’s a good idea. I should have thought of that.” Shinsou smirked and ruffled his hair as he strolled by.

“Nope, It’s been claimed, Green Bean. See all you guys later, then. Good luck or whatever.” 

Urakaka snorted. “Sure thing, Mr. Insomnia.” Shinsou threw up a peace sign over his shoulder in response but otherwise didn’t respond.

Izuku wondered if this was what it was like to have friends. 

Then he looked at the time, and realized that he still needed to do that grocery run for mom (they didn’t have the stuff for dinner quite yet) plus him calling Aaida, he’d have to leave like, now.

“Bye guys, gotta go! Have a good day!” 

Kirishima and Urakaka waved, equally cheerful as they chatted about the various misadventures in their group chats. “Bye, Midoriya!”

He gripped the straps of his backup again and felt proud swell in his chest.

He’d done well.

The next few weeks of waiting for the letter were agony. He checked the mailbox religiously between workouts, twice-daily runs, meals, sleep, studying, and uploading his analysis to that hero communication network he had found recently. Several heroes had requested personal analysis from him!

Several heroes thought he was worth something.

Not that he hadn’t known that before! It’s just… hearing Aaida say it and seeing it on screen from one of your top idols is just so different.

And he had lived curled up to no face the threats around for so long…

But not anymore! He was going to face the music, live his best life, and be proud of who he was and what he had accomplished!

To kick things off, he invited both friend groups to the mall for an inexpensive cat cafe. Nerd Queen, Mad_Scientist, Cellophone, Froppy, and Pastry God hadn’t been able to make it, since they were either studying or were just too busy overall, (cellophone mentioned something about a prank marathon with his family? Izuku hadn’t asked questions) but everyone else had agreed!

He walked the distance from the train station to the entrance of the mall without issue, and hovered awkwardly around the main entrance (the agreed meeting spot) for the others to turn up.

He brightened when he saw Urakaka, in a plum skater skirt with overall straps and sneakers, run to another group of teens that had been chatting near the side door for a while. She grinned brightly at a girl that was bright pink he was pretty sure he remembered from the exam, and laughed when she spotted him.

“Midoriya! Over here!”

He shuffled over, and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer happy energy of the group.

“Hi! Midoriya, was it? Thanks for the save at the exam. I’m Mina Ashido!” The bubblegum pink girl popped out of seemingly nowhere and barrelled into him for a hug. He nearly caused them to hit the floor, before she rebalanced the both of them with a giggle and a fancy movement with her legs. He noticed the maroon leggings and neon green crop top with a similar feeling to his beloved pants shirt, and made a mental note to pick up some pastels. 

“Whoops. Should have warned you!” Her cheeks turned a shade pinker than the rest of her face as she huffed, before launching into introductions. 

“Okay, this Urakaka, you know her. Then there’s Tokoyami Fumikage, Mashiaro Ojiro, Koji Koda, Mezo Shoji, Denki Kaminari, Eijrou Kirishima, Shinsou Hitoshi, and Kyoka Jiro! Say hey, guys!” She pointed to a kid with a raven’s head (so cool looking!), a blonde with a tail, someone almost as pink as Ashido with a blocky skull he wondered if it was his quirk (some sort of invulnerability? Maybe durability?) a towering giant with a black mask covering the lower part of his face but not the obvious smile, another, thinner blonde with black highlights (more like a design, actually, more quirk effects?) of course Kirishima and Shinsou, some clothing in the general shape of another girl who waved and introduced herself as Toru, or NowYouSeeMeNowYouDon’t, who’d recently been added in the chat, and a girl in a leather jacket and jeans with extended earlobes like earbud jacks.

A series of grins, and a bit of shared laughter. Kaminari slipped forward to clap him on the back with a smile. He so wanted to ask about the invisibility (refracting light or negating it? Possibly something else entirely different? What if she absorbs light, and can fire it of as energy-) 

“Hey, Greenie, right? I’m HumanTazer, call me Kaminari. Nice to meet ya!”

“DropDatBeat and Punk, Punk Baby is me. I’m Jirou. I see the username thing, now.”

He flushed. “Yeah, my last name doesn’t help. I’m Izuku Midoriya, it’s nice to meet you all in person!”

They started their day, further introducing themselves. Ashido was Alien Queen, Tokoyami was Goth Flowers because something about a dark bouquet, OctoLad was Shoji, who they bantered with for a little bit on the username and how ‘totally bad it was!’ Urakaka was Bubbles B1tch, WhamBam was Ojiro, Kirishima was RockHard, Spiteful Disney Princess was Koda, who blushed at the mention of the name, and Cellophone was one Sero Hanta, who was Ashido, Kirishima, and Kaminari’s friend, Mad Scientist was aspiring support student Hatsume Mei, Nerd Queen was Yaoyorozu Momo, who they insisted was Yaomomo, and Pastry God was Rikido Sato, who really liked baking, and sent him a box of homemade candy to apologize for not coming along. The shapes weren’t 100% there, something about cheap molds, but the flavors were all delicious. He made sure to text to tell him so, too.

He was being pretty good about keeping up with names so far, and it hadn’t been too long either. They had stopped by a tech store because Yaomomo had entrusted Tokoyami with the money to get Urakaka a phone that wasn’t horribly out of date by several decades, (and called her to assure the poor girl that there was backing down on this one. Urakaka promised to send her a box of mochi in thanks, along with a box of her favorite tea brand if she could manage it) and now they were headed for the food court, since meeting up had taken longer than expected and lunch was on everybody’s minds. 

Kaminari popped into existence by his shoulder, flashing that wide grin a little less at the subtle flinch. “Hey, my dude. Can I have a lemon? Sato’s great with these things.”

Izuku nodded shyly and handed over three of the yellow hard candies, prompting another huge smile from the blonde. Kaminarih hugged him in thanks (several were really touchy-touchy people, apparently) before diving back into an argument with Ashido about why water is wet. (???????)

It was all going fine. Well, actually. The constant feeling of giddy butterflies refused to leave him, not since Mom had exclaimed with joy at the thought of ‘her baby boy going out with friends!’ 

Then he spotted a familiar spiky set of blonde fear, and felt the happy butterflies turn to anxious daggers in his stomach.

Shinsou noticed the change in posture immediately, along with Shoji, ever perceptive with his multiple eyes and mouths on the end of his extra limbs, which Izuku could ask him about endlessly if terror wasn’t worming into his bones at the current moment.

Kachan spotted them easily, of course, because they were a large group moving at once, and all chances of things staying on track went out the window all at once.

He fought back tears as Kachan looked to growl, get into proper ‘explode the extras’ position (hands forward, finger curled, hunched over with a scowl embedded into his features) as he stormed straight towards him. 

“DEKU!” He yelled over the steady sound of hundreds of people talking in the distance, and Shinsou slotted himself in between Izuku and living firecracker without a word.

He felt his hands shaking, and hated how weak his old (bully) friend made him feel. He curled them into fists and shoved them into his hoodie pocket so Kachan wouldn’t see the possible sign of aggression. 

“H-Hey Kachan.” All eyes previously on Kachan zeroed in on him at the sudden stutter. He forced a smile onto his lips with practiced ease. “What are you doing here?”

Kachan snorted like an angry bull. “There’s an All Might signing merch setup, dumb*ss. What are you doing here, useless deku?”  

The aggressive boy drew closer, ignoring the several glares being aimed his way with a sneer.

He felt his shivering in place stop, and felt everything Kachan had ever done for him crystalize in his gut. But so did every encouraging speech his new friends had ever given him, every cheer that he could do it, every reassurance that no, he wasn’t useless, what was he thinking?

He looked Kachan in the eye for the first time in years. “What, Ka-Bakugou? Like I’m not allowed to step outside the house without your permission, because the whole world revolves around you, right? Because I’m too weak, right? W-w-well?” Kachan stopped short at the sudden lack of the nickname he had clung to for years. His stutter only took hold at the very end, and he shocked himself with how confident he seemed even with it’s presence. 

“Maybe, just maybe, I’m weaker because of you. I’ve got scars, Bakugou, scars, in the shape of your hands. I know exactly how big your hands were at 7 rather than 8, because it’s seared into me. I’ve been kicked down and told to stay there, and that was all you. I wasn’t weaker than you before or after I went to that f*cking quirk doctor. And- and. You want to be a hero. Of course you got into UA, we both know you passed the test, and nothing showed on your record because of our stupid teachers.” He was cracking under the pressure. No, he was compressing. Turning into some new entirely. 

He gripped his hair on reflex, and felt hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of his throat. Of course this would happen in front of all his new friends. Of course Kachan’s grand sendoff would be damaging his social life to all h*ll. “But- but. That’s not how a hero acts. Heroes don’t yell and scream and throw tantrums and explode without warning and leave f*cking scars on the nearest weakest person. A hero, Bakugou. Is like All Might. They support, and hold up and save. But you- you’ve done none of that. For as long as I can remember, really. You-”

He came to a great, horrible, terrible, awesome realization. His world narrowed down to him and Kachan. That narrow band of reality, held together by the raw something boiling over in his heart. “You’ve been the villain.” He barely dared to breathe it for fear of every injury K-Bakugou had ever given him being given to him all over again, and he shrank back.

And hit something solid.

What? The wall was ages away, what-

He looked up to see Shoji, towering over him by at least a foot, at his back. (literally) Glaring hard at his old (bully, tormentor, companion, personal shadow and eternal curse) friend with hard eyes. All of extra limbs flexed threateningly, and Izuku he blurrily saw everyone else, at his back as well, standing strong together to support him, through teary eyes. 

He was moments away from bawling from the emotions. A wet, vengeful sort of anger that made him feel so, so weak but so, so strong joined by that ever present feeling of anxiety and fear that gripped him.

He thought back to a course the school had been shown in a required assembly two years back, on abusive relationships, and then he really did laugh. Oh, oh this was almost too good. Too bad. Too much.

But not quite.

Instead, it was just so perfect. 

Friends to support him. The big bad villain unmasked for who they were. The taste of sweet orange on the back of his tongue, the press of an ally at his back. Even the burn of tears unshed in his eyes, the feeling of air caught in his lungs through sheer gripping terror,  fit in. It was so, so familiar. 

“So you know what, Bakugou?” His voice was starting to shake. He’d have to hide soon, break down in a bathroom stall and put himself back together over the cheap porcelain sink. “No. I won’t throw myself off the roof and pray for a quirk in the next life, or any of that bullsh*t.” He seethed at the end, practically feeling the effect of him swearing once in forever on his old (bully) companion hover in the air. 

He raised his chin. No more staring at Bakugou’s shoes, or his retreating back. He looked him in the eye once again. (his eyes must have slid down out of habit) He brought the fists out of his pocket, balled fiercely at his sides. 

“Because I’m going to be a hero. I’m not going to be useless, or a deku, or anything you’ve ever told me!” He was yelling now. He was yelling? He never yelled. What was happening again?

His arms spread on instinct, some crazy, delusional, amazing instinct. “So back off, Bakugou.” He sniffed away the tears that desperately wanted to fall. He focused his best glare (probably utterly ridiculous looking with his luck and crumbling confidence) on the boy. He was breaking, but he was building something new as well. “Because my name is Izuku Midoriya. And I’m not scared of you anymore.” For a split second, he basked in that feeling. Or getting back, of feeling powerful, of vengeance and justice and everything he had been holding himself back from thinking and saying. 

And then he turned tail and ran towards the nearest bathroom.

There was shouting behind him, the familiar sound of small-scale explosions and people fighting getting quieter as he fled. 

He didn’t even get into a stall. He went to his knees on the unwashed tile floor and sobbed. He felt all this new support, friendliness, (why hadn’t it been there before?) all the light and happiness and confidence he had picked up in just the last few months, and held it to his chest in an attempt to keep all the precious, invisible new pieces of him intact.

He swallows thickly, and sniffs in an attempt to stop the river of tears. This isn’t middle school, or elementary school, or sleepovers, Bakugou family dinners, preschool, or that one time Bakugou concerned him and wrecked a 100$s worth of groceries along with his entire left hand. This was now, with new Izuku. Who would be braver if not brave, quicker if not quick, stronger if not strong. He would be different. He’d work twice as hard to get a smidge farther than everyone else, he wouldn’t just roll over into obscurity. He refused-

The door creaked open on old hinges. He desperately tries to throw himself together to some semblance of ‘fine’ as heavy footsteps get closer. 

What if they think he’s weak, overemotional? A pathetic crybaby? A deku? Who’s he kidding, of course they do, what else would they think when you walk in on someone crying on the bathroom floor-

“Can I hug you, Midoriya?” Shoji’s light yet rumbly voice breaks through his frantic thoughts, and blinks confusedly to clear his vision.

Huh?

He waves with two separate arms, careful to not tower over him. “I’m not the best at verbal comfort yet, but I won the Janken tournament to comfort you. I prefer cuddles. Most people don’t think I’m a hugs kinda person, because I look so intimidating and all, but I think affection can be the best type of therapy.” He stares down at Izuku with truthful and caring eyes, and Izuku could cry from what he’s saying.

In fact, he does.

He nods, and hiccups something like a warbled ‘yes’ and is immediately enveloped in a strong, all-encompassing embrace. But instead of being suffocating, like mom’s hugs sometimes, or overwhelming in the worst possible way like Kac-Bakugou holding him close so he can’t escape, it just feels like… safety. Comfort, in a slightly weird but not unwelcome way. 

He sniffles, and allows himself to shuffle farther back into the warmth. 

“Can I pick you up? I have a blanket with me, I could turn you into a human burrito if you want.” He laughs wetly at the offer, remembering pictures Shinsou had sent in the group chat at ridiculous times in the morning and night of cats wrapped in blankets and towels and once a series of ribbons with various levels of consent with only the caption ‘purrito.’ 

He nods after sniffling a few times, and then Shoji is on the bench by the door, wrapped expertly in his many armed hug, knees to chest and perfectly cozy for his continuing breakdown. He felt cradled, held close in a good way.

He closes his eyes to any possible embarrassment and instead feels a small sliver of pride at what he had done. He had stood up to Bakugou. And gotten out without a scratch, which was basically winning!

He remembered all those time he had had his *ss handed to him for defending someone else. A seven year old with too-sad eyes, wondering why helping hurt so much. 

But not as much as being pushed away from Bakugou’s intended victim when he eventually peels himself off of the ground to check on them. Not as much as the cutting glares and poisonous whispers they need he could hear that surrounded him at school. And, maybe just maybe, a tiny bit more painful that the hollow smile his mom wore, ignoring the cuts and bruises (and impossible to fully disguise broken bones) he came home with regularly. She didn’t ask if he had gotten shaken down by the neighborhood gang, or ‘did Katsuiki play a little too rough again, dear?’ like she did when they were small. Just… smiled. And asked if he had homework, or would like to help with dinner. Not a word about any of it.

He chewed on his lower lip, and tensed fully, every muscle in his body. It was a trick Aaida had taught him to subconsciously relax; trick his fight-or-flight response that the danger had been taken care of. (it hadn’t, it really hadn't-) 

And he did perhaps what he did best. He analysed. He prepared. And he planned.

Bakugou was going to make it into Class A by the top people instead of an even number of people across the leader board to both. There was an off chance they split the group that passed the exam and half with people from all over the leaderboard going randomly to each class, but he couldn't bet on it, not by a long shot. 

So, he’d have to break out the fire-retardant clothing spray again. And his old notes on his fighting style…

His notes! Of course. Let’s see, he always started with a right hook, but if he changes it up because of a new technique or the training in class at UA he had to be prepared for that too.  Really it would be down to how fast he could react, and after all these years, he was fast. So, how could he even try to match him in firepower? He could dilute his sweat, or figure out how he lights the spark to trigger the explosion in the first place, unless he secretes a secondary chemical that sets off a reaction? Well, he certainly had plenty of charred specimens to check on that theory. A cheap chemistry set wouldn’t make too much of a dent in the sizable sum of cash he made from selling all his All Might merch, and it wouldn’t hurt to explore the possibility. Assuming he somehow did trigger an explosion via combustion rather than chemistry, he could…

He swallowed.

Carry around a decent amount of gasoline and when he felt threatened by the boy just… dump it on him?

Aaida was rubbing off on him.

He shook his head. He had to focus! And consider every option, or he’d be toast.

He didn’t know where the fight would happen, but using the environment to his advantage could be key. Or maybe timing it so there are trustworthy witnesses on standby, and mayyyybe a teacher if they prove to be better than… well, every one he had ever had, really. Having someone snatch Bakugou up before he had to even blink would save him a huge headache…

He could also spray Bakugou with that spray! That might be a good idea. But he’d have to aim right… Or maybe he could use one of Aaida’s bombs to his advantage? He still had two left over from the exam, and she hadn’t mentioned anything about wanting them back…

Smoke bomb for confusion, and to buy time or get to a better location or position. Chemical/pressure bombs could be useful to interrupt any fiery/chemical explosions going on, and Aaida had said his tracksuit was fire and explosion proof, (which he had requested on his costume as well) so maybe he could wear it underneath? He’d have to check the dress code, and likely made some small adjustments so it wouldn't be horribly obvious, but he had long since picked up sewing for Mom would quit having to buy him new uniforms on a clockwork, so that was doable. He had a thread and needle stash that had been under his bed, but now had a space on the corner of his desk after he realized how empty the space felt after throwing out/selling the vast majority of his merch. (and therefore, decorations/furniture) 

That would cover his body and hands (if he wore the gloves, which were fingerless, so he'd have to bring finger self-aid supplies along, too) but would leave his face and most of his neck exposed, and possibly his feet unless he could figure out a shoe situation? He had just gone for the cheapest stuff for years, knowing they wouldn’t last long, hence the bright red high tops from the clearance section. It would be more an investment and a dip out of his cash supply, but still possible. Maybe? He’d have to research more sturdy shoe options. If he couldn’t find tactical boots or something like that, he might have to settle for something with thick walls and soles, and he’d have to spray down the shoelaces to make sure he didn’t light his feet on fire or suddenly be down a shoe midfight. He could use those slip-ins Aaida had gotten him, they had easily survived the exam. But he would have to modify the shoe anyway because of his pinky toe, so how would he…?

Koji was chuckling underneath him, and Izuku felt himself turn a vibrant shade of red. “Ah- I’m sorry Koji-kun!” His voice cracked more than he would like, but he was expert on recovering quickly from crying sessions. “I know it can be annoying, but I want to be prepared. I- uh really thought Bakugou would follow me…”

Actually, why hadn’t Bakugou followed his hasty retreat? Shock might have bought him a minute, maybe, but certainly not this long. 

“I think it’s really cool, Midoriya-kun! You’re super smart, I’d love to have you in my corner in a fight.”

Izuku flushed further. He-!

Later, later. He needs to find a possible murder scene at the moment.

He squirms a bit in his blankety prison. “Uh, thank you Koji-kun. But uh- why hasn’t Bakugou uh-?”

Koji began laughing in earnest. “Well I won the comfort-you tournament, but that means I was banned from the deal-with-the-bully one, so.”

His mouth fell open. What-

His brain refused to compute that.

“I think Urakaka and Ashido tied their three-way round, so they went as a team at him.” 

He paled. They weren’t allowed to use their quirks in public against Bakugou, they would get hurt and it would be his fault-!

Koji felt his wiggling and set him back down on the floor and began gently unraveling the fluffy restraints. “Urakaka grew up on the poorer side of town, so she can handle herself fine. Well, she knows how to throw a punch at least. And Ashido’s a dancer and gymnast, so she can avoid anything he throws at her. Plus, she hates bullies. They’ll be fine, but he won’t.” The mask covering his mouth crinkled in a way that meant he was smiling as he pulled the blanket off his back and began stuffing it back in his bag. 

He paled. He can’t imagine what would happen to him if he had ever hurt Bakugou! The teachers would have freaked out, no matter his condition or who actually started the fight. He would have been expelled, or severely punished- 

The girls were in trouble!

With plans in mind, a purpose, and freshly dried tears, and he opened the bathroom door with a shocking amount of confidence.

He was going to be a hero, even if Bakugou would be one too. But he’d be the hero that helped people. 

The door swung open equally as loudly as before, and to his surprise, he was met with the worried faces of all his new friends(?) instead of a looming Bakugou or a pair of beat-into-the-ground teen girls, all gathered in a circle with a narrow path left open to the door for passerby. They all blinked when he emerged, then rushed forward.

“Midori! Don’t listen to that bully, you were totally awesome!”

“Mido-bro!”

“Greenie! You alright?” 

“Midoriya! Are you okay? I have tissues…”

“What an inspiration to the faithless you are, Midoriya-kun. You are truly something the dark will never have as its own.”

They hovered a few inches from his skin, probably remembering at the last minute to ask before touching. He sniffed one last time, and opened up his arms. “Bear hug?”

He’d never been in a group hug, not that he could remember.

There was a great whoop, then the firm pressure and steady warmth, all he could ever want. He melted from his compressed form, and flowed once again. Not into his old shape, but something different.

It was odd, but not unwelcome. Truthfully, he had been pushing this off for a long time.

But for once, he felt safe. Truly safe. Not like he was hiding from his problems or had a moment of calm to ignore them with like at home, but truly safe. 

It was such a massive relief, something he hadn’t known he’d needed so desperately.

“I think I’ll take those tissues, guys.” His nose was running horribly; it always did. He was a messy crier. Or at least he’d been told.

Tissues were handed to him, and he dabbed at his nose and eyes for a moment before letting his signature smile shine through.

“Well. I’ve been holding myself back on that for a while. I think this calls for a celebration, huh?”

Everyone grinned, and hugged him again. Ashido’s eyes lit up. 

“Oh! We could go to the arcade, they have a bunch of old games there! Or we could stop by the video game store and crash at your place, maybe. Or go shopping! I love your shirt, Midoriya, but you need to wear something else too. Ooh-” 

He giggled. “Sounds good, Ashido. But first, food please.”

Several stomachs rumbled as if on cue, and he felt Shisnou’s hand slip into his. He gripped it gratefully, and smiled back at the insomniac.

“Thank you, everybody. I mean it. Urakaka, Ashido, um. How did Bakugou react?”

Urakaka’s smile was predatory.

They got a massive feast of KFC (and some noodles from the shop next door for Koda, who was vegetarian) and claimed three whole tables in the food court, pushing them together and ignoring the dirty look one store manager gave them. Otherwise, they were left alone. Boxes were passed around until everyone had a full plate, and then the gossip could commence. 

He took a minute to compose himself, (and appreciate the greasy goodness of the fried chicken) absorb the situation, (friends, chatting idly. Food being passed around freely. No one mocking his breakdown or picking fights. Just… a busy sort of peace) before getting to it. 

“Urakaka, Ashido.” He barely dared to breathe the question, hesitation winding through his whole body. “Um, what happened with Bakugou. You said ‘later’ and…”

Ashido grinned like the maniac she clearly was. “I mean, his quirk pretty much announces itself, like mine. Ura was able to get away with lightening her clothes and shoes and stuff, but I couldn’t just start throwing around acid. Him though, he was dumb. Started screamin’ and blowing sh*t up.Yeah, well, we really only had a few seconds before security got all up in our business, but it was glorious.” 

Urakaka smiled into her mashed potatoes. “Ashi kicked him real hard in the stomach. It looked totally awesome too! Like something out of a movie! And uh, I kinda… punched him?”

“Socked him right in the face.” Ashido proclaimed proudly. Urakaka smacked her lightly, flushing pink. “It was great!”

The next few seconds was a mess of ‘omigod don’t say it’ and ‘honey you grew up with construction guys, I know for a fact you can cuss like a sailor and knock a guy out. Accept it’ and finally ‘quite embarrassing me!’ ‘I would never, Ura. It’s a compliment.’ before they got back around to focus on him.

He was covering his face with his hands, fighting his beaten-in instincts that were screaming. 

Logically, he knew that how the teachers had acted was wrong. That mall cops were supposed to and would actually do their jobs. That not everyone in the world knew of ‘Kachan and his perfect quirk’ and wouldn’t automatically bow at his feet upon seeing him. That the world did not work how his middle school did.

But he couldn't stop the emotions. Emotions aren’t logical, they don’t care about stuff like that. 

Oh, and the memories.

The time he tried reporting Bakugou, when he was young and naive and so full of trust and hope, and they had punished him. ‘Well, Midoriya. We can’t tarnish a future pro-hero’s record, and someone needs to be punished. Be a good lad and work with us, yeah?’

The time a teacher walked in on Bakugou ‘teaching him his place’ and he broke three ribs (one was an inch away from his lung, he could have died) and laughed. 

That time the nurse refused to get close enough to his ‘useless self’ to treat his broken nose because he’s ‘probably contagious or something’ and he had to google it and set if himself, screaming into the bathroom mirror.

The way the principal had threatened him when calling his mother had done nothing but summon Protective Lawyer Mom Inko upon them. To teach him a lesson himself. Or to see how long it would take him to escape the thrice-locked closet door. ‘You’re a smart, kid, Midoriya, you could do it.’ To tank his grades ‘and see what his quirkless *ss would do then.’ He was depending on his good grades for his future, for his life, and the man knew it.

He shook in place, the familiar burn of tears in his eyes and pull of bile at the back of his throat building until he felt gentle hands on his back, his arms, his stomach. Here, have some coleslaw. Yeah, he got chicken bucket dibs. Here, Midobro, have some mac-n-cheese. 

He swallowed his sorrows, and took in the good vibes. He had friends. And they were sharing food with him, helping him, defending him, touching him, hugging him.

He sniffed wetly one last time before focusing back in on Kaminari and Ashido arguing over… ketchup? Sauces? Smoothie? Something? And he smiled, just to test out the feeling of a real, emotional one. Yes, today was a good day.

Ashido was delighted to shop for clothes with him, giving him a crash course on things like ‘pattern mixing but not clashing’ and ‘shade matching’ and ‘color combos.’ Urakaka helped with the cut and price of things, leading him through the great Get Stuff Cheap Coupon Theory, which he was more than a little awed by. Kaminari and Kirishima had run off to the hats section to browse the more ridiculous options and routinely popped into existence to bombard him with them. His new phone background was a group photo with each of them having at least three hats piled on top of one another into a tower on their heads, moments away from toppling a mannequin display. They had righted it right away of course, but it had still happened.

Jirou had reassured him that it was hilarious, and Shoji, and Asui (Tsuyu or Tsu? Unclear) had both apologized to the nearby employees, who seemed more amused and exasperated than angry. 

Jirou got him mildly expensive headphones that apparently could block noise and also play white noise. Koda pushed a soft, green bunny plushie into his hands without warning, and then Oijiri grinned and handed him a matching keychain, and Asui had a phone sticker. He stared at the gifts collecting in his backpack, and Toru giggled and told him that giving new friends something was a bit of a right of passage to the friend group. And then he nearly cried, because he was part of a friend group- 

After buying him some crop tops, new brightly colored workout pants, some hoodies and delightfully weird jeans, they trooped over to the pet store to get tons and tons of treats. Apparently finding strays and giving them food and love and animal shelter employees was somewhat of a tradition with the group, thanks to a blushing Koda. 

Then he accidentally mentioned how bare his room was, and after insisting he didn’t need furniture, they dragged him to an antique/general store to shop around. 

In the end, they got him a pinecone-colored bean bag second hand, a new desk sorter to replace his hero merch one, a blanket ‘to drape over the chair, duh’ that was zebra patterned, and yet a soothing shade of blue with purple mixed in. Graph paper with rainbow lines instead of black was a fantastic find by a very proud Kaminari, and Toru emerged from the rug section wearing a fluffy carpet around her entire body. It was ridiculously soft, and had a picture of a generic forest on it. Everyone kept occasionally petting it. 

They added star, sun and moon stickers for his ceiling, along with new pillows and bed set-up, (neon green as well) pastel plastic hangers for the closet, smaller stickers of heroes he still admired, bunnies, (they wouldn’t stop laughing about the rainbow rabbit pack) comic book text bubbles, numbers, and planets. (space was so cool! Urakaka and him talked about it for a whole hour while looking for a comforter and pillow with a sufficient level of squish) 

He then forced them to stop, based both on the size of his room and what he could reasonably carry back to the apartment with him in the first place. Koji grinned and promised to help him get the stuff home. Tyusu and Urakaka both gave him a quick overview of crime hotspots in nearby cities, which had him yearning for his notebook to write all this down.

Eventually, they all got tired. Toru disappeared only to return with two boxes of honey buns (pineapple buns for Koji and Tyusu, who preferred them) from a bakery.

They all had one as they meandered through the general path to the main exit.

“So. Did we all take the UA test? I’m pretty sure, but…” Jirou asked, tapping his earphone jacks together as the only indication of her anxiousness.

Everyone nodded, and Oijiro spoke up. “I’m not sure how good I did. It felt really biased against people with quirks like mine, I really struggled even though I prepared.”

Toru nodded, probably. Her beanie bobbed up and down, so most likely? “Yeah, I had to steal some kills. But it made me totally feel like a ninja!”

Izuku bit his lip. “I think I did pretty good considering my… quirk status… but uh…”

Ashido’s brow furrowed. “Hey, that’s right. That seems really biased! You could totally be a hero, Mido! Aren’t there like, intelligence heroes, Ura?”

Urakaka nodded vehemently. “Yeah, like Sir Night Eye! He worked with All Might, he’s really cool!”

Izuku blushed, but nodded. Of course he knew about Sir Nighteye! He had been obsessed with what little he could find about him when he found out about the non-physical (mostly) hero for almost two years! 

Tokoyami nodded. “It is a dark spot in the great shining light that is the hero system.”

“Well, maybe not light. That implies it’s perfect but for a few spots, it’s really kinda a whole-system thing.” He clapped a hand over his mouth in raw fear, but Toru only leaned in to hear him better, and the others only looked curious.

“Well, uh. It’s kinda encouraged to escalate situations for media coverage, yeah? Like, hero agencies want as much screen time as possible so they can get enough money to stay afloat. So they might dramatize a report, or purposefully do something to grab attention. Like, uh they might wait to take action so the news crews can show up. Or oh! Uh Mount. Lady’s debut, I say it personally on my way to school. Kamui Woods would have captured the criminal, and he’s not a villain- he was a purse snatcher, not exactly pure evil, but Mount Lady literally crashed into him and caused extra property damage to get a good angle with the cameras. And that’s not a big incident, but on a larger scale…”

“Woah…” Toru breathed, a contemplative look on her face.

Oijiri’s tail swished, possibly in agitation. “I had never thought of it like that.” 

Ahsido nodded along to everyone (including him!) before raising her fist. “Well, I’m not going to be that kind of hero! I’m no in it for my fifteen seconds of fame, I’m going to save people!”

Urakaka nodded, though a bit more shyly. Everyone else cheered. 

And Izuku marveled. They hadn’t booed him down or made fun of him. They had listened to what he had to say, and they had then agreed with it. It was a novel feeling.

“Yeah! But there’s different ways to say people! There’s your usual heroes who like, go out and fight the ‘bad guy’, but there’s also rescue heroes and informational ones and sideline ones like Recovery Girl! So keep an open mind at UA. Uh… if you want to.” Kirishima and Kaminari grinned with him. 

“Good point, man! I hadn’t thought of that either. Man, you’re really smart, Mido-bro!” His cheeks were flaming.

Urakaka lit up. “Yeah! My favorite hero is Thirteen, I want to be a rescue hero just like him!”

Izuku perked up at the possible theory-in-the-making. “Oh, you’re quirk would be great for that, Urakaka! And you seem to be good with people, so you could calm people down, too! I’m sure you’ll do great!”

Tsuyu nodded along more sagely. “I’ve been dreaming of being a hero for a very long time. I’ll be the water-based hero: Froppy.”

Ashido gasped. “That’s where the name came from. It’s so cute, Tsuyu!” 

Tsuyu smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

Oijiro sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Man, I don’t know what my hero name will be.”

“Not TailMan.” The entire group chorused, making Izuku startle. Kirishima laughed.

“A month ago he tried to convince us that would be a good name in the chat. Didn’t get very far. Sorry, bro.”

Oijiro huffed just a little, and Koji patted him on the back as Tokoyami appeared to be contemplating names for him. ‘Nightail’ was soon soundly vetoed, though encouraged over TailMan. Apparently it was a reference to a pre-quirk hero comic book, something about bats. He made a mental note to research it later at the mention of quirklessness and hero being in the same sentence.

“I don’t know what type I want to be either. I used to really look up to All Might but uh… something happened.” He swallowed at the curious looks that comment garnered. “I know I want to save people, but I don’t even know if I want to be an underground one or not.” Would an underground hero being quirkless be public knowledge? He wanted the little kid coming back from the worst doctor’s appointment of their life to know there was hope, afterall, and it wasn’t like there were quirk weaknesses to exploit. 

Jirou hummed. “Well, that’ll influence things a lot, like your costume and fighting style. I’ve always known I was gonna be spotlight. Underground heroes are so unknown, I kinda forget they exist…” She tapped her jacks together again, and he nodded alogn to comfort her, hopefully.

“Yeah, that’s kinda the point. But that doesn’t mean they’re any less awesome! There’s my new favorite hero, Eraserhead…”

He cried out of pure relief when he got home at the several near-misses of losing his new friends. And felt a new warm feeling after finishing up the new decor. The room felt full again, but in a different way. His old room had been fanboy merch collected over the years by him alone, like a dragon with it’s hoard. This felt like… the rooms he would read about in books, or see snapshots of online. 

Cosy. Personal.

He smiled. He liked it.

UA is only slightly less intimidating on the first day than it was on the day of the Entrance Exam. Everything seems overly big, but maybe that’s to accommodate the students like mutant quirks? That would make sense…

He narrowly avoids getting spectacularly lost by asking a third year with gravity-defying blue hair in pigtails where the hero classes were, and she was happy to lead him to the right place. He theorized about her quirk all the way, and she actually listened! Granted, she didn’t know he was quirkless, but still! 

Anyway, something like that was so cool! It also pointed to the existence of souls, or maybe the body produces a form of energy they haven’t fully discovered yet? Anyway, he gave her combat and rescue tips based on descriptions of her quirk in the past, and she seemed thankful. It was… nice. 

Despite how tall and intimidating and over-excited she was.  

He arrived to the (still huge) class 1-A door feeling only a little small, and prayed as he opened the door. He could handle Glasses with some calming meditation and music during lunch, but Kach- Bakugou-

The door rolled smoothly open to a unique scene. Bakugou was being yelled at about putting his feet on the desk by Glasses, which made something deep inside Izuku shrink away in fear of retaliation. But it seemed Glasses was getting off easy for now on account of his obvious quirk, Bakugou only snarled something about destroying him later before those ever-diligent eyes flicked to the door.

And saw him.

He felt suddenly sick. Maybe this is what looking death in the eye looks like.

Pure fury ignited in those familiar blood red eyes. “DEKU!” He launched himself right out of his seat in a flurry of explosions, and he did the unthinkable.

He didn’t just take it.

He hit the floor before he could overthink things and let the ferocious blonde sail right over him. Fire and smoke still hit his uniform plenty with a hasty smaller blast from Bakugou, but nothing like it would have been otherwise.

He was midway through scrambling to his feet and into a passable fighting stance when a familiar bubbly voice startled him.

“It’s you! The bully! Oh, hey Midori!” She waved from directly below where Bakugou was floating midair in the hallway. He opened his mouth to warn her of the incoming attack (a change in the environment like gravity loss would only slow down his old tormentor) before clever fingers opened the window and roughly pushed the blonde out.

She grinned as he went flying, neatly shutting the window again with a sense of finality. “You didn’t think I’d let him gank ya, did you?” An unfamiliar dark sort of determination shown in her eyes, and he instinctively shook his head. 

He resisted the bout of hysterical laughter bubbling up in the back of his throat as what looked like a giant neon yellow caterpillar wormed down the hallway in their direction before… molting?

And out came a middle aged man.

Was he dreaming? Was he high? 

“Explain, Problem Children.” Oh my God! It was Eraserhead himself! And oh my god, he thought he was a problem already! He wouldn’t make it through the day at this rate!

Urakaka took to the plate seamlessly. “That’s uh, Bakugou, was it?” He nodded, thoroughly in shock, watching numbly as she gestured to the raging figure steadily floating away from the window. “He’s been bullying Midoriya here for years and keeps trying to beat him up, even in public spaces. Uh, because of his… quirk status.” She flicked her eyes to the oncoming stream of students farther down the hallway. He appreciated the gesture, even as he questioned if he was actually dying. Was this heaven?

She forged ahead, even as Eraserhead guided them to an out-of-the-way section of the hallway.  “And I wasn’t about to let him hurt someone in front of me! Actually, I have serious concerns about UA letting someone with a record like that in, let alone into the hero course!” 

He made a slight squeaking noise, but piped up anyway despite how his throat clicked with sheer anxiety. “Ah, the teachers didn’t punish him because it would go on his record and he has the perfect quirk to be a hero…”

Urakaka turned to him, sensing there was more to the story. He winced. “Well, uh. I would actually be the one punished, because someone needed to be, and it couldn’t go on his record…” He wondered how on earth UA accepted him with his lengthy and well documented series of ‘aggressive events’ that had occured over the years, good test scores be damned. “And uh, no one cares about the quirkless kid, so it’s not like it would matter…” Urakaka gave him a look that he translated to ‘I know there’s more there but good job, you look like you’re about to pass out’ before turning back to Eraserhead, all expectant fury. 

The man seemed to be getting more tired by the second, yet somehow more awake. The yellow plush cloth pooled around his feet as he let it fall. His eyes flashed red to keep Bakugou from using his explosions to propel himself back to the building, before rounding out on them both.

Izuku consciously kept his spine straight like Aaida had taught him, even as his eyes burned. He would not be weak, he would not be a coward, he refused to be a deku!

“Right.” A phone slid into his hands smoothly. “Well, I’ll contact the principal. He looks over each student personally, so he probably is planning on bringing you up sometime soon anyway, Midoriya, if he already knows. Otherwise, he literally made his debut taking apart a quirkcist business school at the seams, he’ll be delighted. Rat b*stard…” He trailed off for a second, looking like a much older man, before his soul seemed to renter his body. 

“UA has a strict no bullying policy, and we mean it. No quirk or otherwise discrimination of any kind is allowed, and is responded to harshly. I can’t speak for the principal, but I can attest that he’s a sadistic son of a b*tch when he’s mad.” Izuku paled, but Eraserhead only smiled. 

“You’re in good hands, kid.” Paws, Izuku mentally corrected, stuck in place as his brain processed.  

The bell sounded, and the flow of students into the classroom stopped completely. Eraserhead eyes Bakugou as he bounced off the school wall and back on his arc towards the window, and sighed. “I’ll corral you brats, then restrain him. You’re safe, Midoriya Izuku.” 

It was a rough sort of support, and somehow exactly what he needed. He was used to constant fretting and concerned near-strangers who didn’t know what to do. An edge of actual care without fake concern was almost meditative.

Urakaka grabbed him by the hand gently when he didn’t respond and tugged them into the classroom. They took their seats, luckily nearby, without issue as Eraserhead made his secondary grand entrance, sleeping bag in hand. Gym uniforms were handed out, and they all rushed to the locker rooms under threat of expulsion.

He trailed behind the pack for a few moments, watching that glorious grey scarf shoot out the window and listened to the silence that seemed to echo. He smiled slightly, a guilty thing. He knew Bakugou had never known anything else in his life, but it was time for that to change.

He followed his class down to the ground level and prayed he’d be able to save Bakugou from his fate. 

The freshly named Aizawa-sensei was much scarier when he was threatening them, but less so than he would have been if he hadn’t seen that spark of protective fury in his eyes when he mumbled out the bare bones of his past. It reminded him of Aaida.

Anyway, a quirk test. Big problem and all.

He gathered all his courage, ignored Urakaka’s worried look, and raised his hand. “Sir?” He felt the anxiety crest in a wave of sour in his stomach. No going back now. “What if I don’t have a quirk to test?” It came out all mumbly, with a bit of a pause in some places, but not stuttering!

Aizawa nodded. “The point of the test is to test your ability, not your quirk.” He said simply, with an air of finality.

He lowered his hand and shrunk back from the stares he was garnering, (most of the class had met him but didn't know about his ‘condition’ but that one grape haired kid was making his paranoid with that sneer of his) bit his lip, and thought hard.

Use his abilities. He was built for speed and dexterity, so he could pull off a better result in those tests. But things like the ball throw and grip strength portion would be tricky. Would be near impossible, actually.

Would be near impossible alone.

His gaze flicked over to Urakaka, then Kirishima, Tsuyu, Jirou and Shoji. The faint taste of blood fluttered on the edge of his tongue from biting too hard, but he smiled, just a bit.

He couldn’t do this, but they could.

The entire thing was nerve wracking. The side steps and stretching tests had been easy, he had beaten out all but Ashido. The running was good too, experience born of years of running for his life served him well here. He was only beat out by a girl with a high black ponytail that was apparently Yaomomo, who created a scooter, Iida for obvious reasons, and Todoroki Shouto, who used glaciers to propel himself forward like something out of a movie. 

Then there were the hard ones. Urakaka was a bit confused when he asked her to throw the ball for him, but obliged. His theory-orientated side of his brain prickled. If her quirk was truly zero-gravity the ball wouldn’t truly work like it, it must be some sort of gravity manipulation, or maybe force manipulation? That was fascinating! But something for later on. 

He probably would do fine on the grip test on his own, so he let the murmuring of the class die down a bit as he did that test normally as well. 

Then the long jump.

Jirou apparently knew sign, something about one of her mothers, and was fine with blasting him with a wall of sound midjump to propel him. He landed in an inelegant roll in the grass, far beyond the sand pit. 

The hours passed with frightening quickness, and then the time came.

The score board filled out automatically, and he held his breath as he scanned the neat rows of writing. 

Todoroki, Yaomomo, Iida…

Him?

His brain refused to process. He thought this is what it must feel like to be a computer doing a hard reboot. 

He couldn’t have. Obviously he had done well, but not… that well. Right?

He continued down the board to check for an error. Grape head started sobbing; his name had been last, with Toru narrowly scraping out above him.

Aizawa held nothing back. “Mineta Monru, you are expelled. Not just because of your performance on this test, but more so with your behavior towards the females present. You had been given a warning before setting foot on campus, and you were made aware you would not be getting another one.” He strode over, and stared into the boy’s eyes. 

“Your pass, please.”

Mineta could do nothing but sob are he complied, fishing the plastic key pass out of his pocket with a sniffle.

Aizawa clipped it securely to his belt, dismissed the boy with a cold nod, and turned back to the rest (the surviving members) of the class. 

“Nothing like that will be tolerated here at UA. You are heroes in training, and you will act as such. Otherwise, head to lunch, and then you’re free to go. This is just the introductory day, be back same time tomorrow for the real first day.” And then he was slinking away, keeping an eye on Grape Hair, and Izuku noticed he used the door closest to the teacher’s lounge, from which the low sound of distant explosions had been periodically echoing all day. 

Izuku watched him go, and felt something that felt a lot like hope rekindle in his chest.

The intercom came on when they went back into the building to collect their things, indeed directing him to the principal’s office for suitably vague reasons.

He schooled himself, gripped his backpack straps in what was quickly becoming a nervous tick, and did his best to not get horribly lost.

Miraculously, he got Nedzu’s lair in shockingly short order. (he couldn’t decide if this was a good or a bad thing, having researched the mammal) 

The door, huge and imposing (was Nedzu playing a prank on the rest of them to get them to feel as small as he must? Is that what’s going on?) and plated thickly with metal that melded seamlessly into one another with that neat painted strip in the exact center. 

It opened when he was about a foot away from it, nervously wondering if his knock would even register. 

He was shaking minimally, memories of his old principals flashing across his eyelids with every blink. He felt like someone was going to hit in the back any minute.

But if there’s one thing that he knew about the terrifying mammal he was about to meet, it was that he didn't attack physically. (though the image of him hanging off of someone like a koala nearly made him burst into hysterical laughter) 

He took a steadying breath, and entered. (without tripping!)

The room was large, and the back wall was entirely made of large panels of windows. The two side walls of the longish room were entirely covered by bookshelves made of dark wood, packed with different titles as tightly as possible, though to the right of the door there was what looked like a reading nook, with three armchair in a loose circle around an extremely fluffy carpet and a hand-painted chessboard.

The desk was large and imposing at the back of the room, by the windows, and matched the color of the shelves. There was a fine mixture of neatly stacked papers and random knick knacks. A few rubik's cubes, some tea cups, a full antique tea set to match, some artsy sculptures including one that hurt his eyes to look at with how it twisted, like an optical illusion. 

The chair, plush and a deep, dark, foreboding red, seemed like a perfectly normal one. Izuku, knowing not to question the series of ridiculous things this day had brought upon him, took a seat in the plain wooden chair across from the grinning chimera(?). It even had a matching red cushion.

A cup of blood red tea was offered silently to him, and he took it when he saw the gleam in the bear’s eyes when he hesitated. No refusing tea from Nedzu, then.

He holds the traditional cup, dwarfed even in his small hands, carefully, and let the warmth seep into his bones. 

“Midorya Izuku, it’s lovely to meet you. I assume you know who I am?”

He ducked his head in acknowledgment, remembering his research spiral on the mammal when he was eight, fascinated by the concept of a hero that helped through sheer brainpower, let alone his mysterious past and impressive exploits. 

He took a sip. The tea tasted like regular chamoilline, with a spot of earl grey if it weren’t for the slightly ominous metallic aftertaste. Not blood, he had swallowed enough of that to recognize the taste instantly, even when covered up by herbs and spice. Drugs? No, those were chemical-y. 

Had he put an iron supplement in? He had avoided taking his vitamin this morning, afraid it would make him throw up with his already frayed nerves all tangled up. Maybe Nedzu had noticed the slight difference in skin tone/behavior between now and the exam?

He took another sip to cover up his thinking-caused silence before putting the cup down in front of him, nervously watching the mouse-ish creature before him. 

He smiled, in a way that was just slightly off from a human smile, but not maliciously. “A simple vitamin supplement, young Midoriya, nothing to panic about. Now, I personally go through the files of every student that enters these doors, starting with the Hero course. And I must say, your treatment in the past is deplorable.” He swallowed protests, practiced speeches designed to play down concern and let him run off without too much suspicion, tail between his legs. 

He recited what Aaida told him often in his mind. How he had been treated was wrong. He deserved better. He deserved closure, if not revenge of some sort. He was not weak, though he was not (that kind of) strong. He was smart, and capable, able to do great things. 

So he stayed silent, amid the storm of Nezu and Aaida’s influence meeting. Straight backed, even as he shook. Mind whirring, even as his hands trembled. Strong, because he was not weak. 

He repeated it like a mantra, like a prayer. 

He clasped his hands together and locked his jaw to hide his shaking, though he doubted it worked. But it made him feel better.

“I- yes.” His eyes watered, and he blinked. He had always liked the feeling of tears on his eyelashes, brushing up against his cheeks. Which was good; it happened a lot.

How he had been treated was wrong. He deserved better. He was not weak. He was not weak. He was not weak.

He took another breath. “So I’ve been told.” And he hated the slight shake it had at the end, but at least his voice hadn’t cracked. 

Nedzu’s smile was encouraging, now. “Good! Now, the question is what we are going to do about it?” 

We?

He blinked, and Nedzu kept going when he didn’t immediately respond. “Normally I would wreak havoc upon the enemies of those that have been wronged, of which you have plenty, but I have been informed that you might have a different opinion of the matter, and I’m curious of other methods of vengeance.” Izuku is suddenly hit with the obvious: Nedzu is not a human. He is smart, very smart. And he’s by no means a sociopath or anything, but there would be some things, little abstract things, that he would just never get.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries to order his words, make sense of the mess that is his brain. 

He fails, and he tries again. His signature move, really.

And eventually the silence is getting to him, so he puts his struggle out into the air. “I- I don’t… Kachan- um, Bakugou. He was never taught right from wrong. Sure, he’s definitely screwed up. A lot. And should have known better even if just on the concept of causing someone else pain. But- please. Please don’t expel him. He- he has the perfect quirk for a hero, he’s destined to be the number one hero-” He can’t quite put into words the universal law that only he and Bakugou seems to truly get. Sure, Bakugou wouldn’t be a good hero. But he’d be a great one.

Nedzu’s cup hits the table with a click that speaks of the calm before the storm. 

“Quirks do not make the hero, Midoriya, nor the person. You are living proof of that. And while I would quite enjoy publicly kicking Bakugou out of the school, the public backlash would simply be unmanageable. No, I will resort to putting the boy in our General Education course instead, with mandatory anger management therapy and the like. Rather unsatisfactory, but it will have to do.”

His first thought is that that’s a terrible idea. One, that’s stopping K-Bakugou from being a hero! Two, he’d hate that, and he doesn’t know any of the GE kids, but he’s positive they don’t deserve dealing with that. But… if it was the best compromise...

He was smart. But Nedzu could take over Japan within a week. He should probably start with learning to play chess, maybe. Picking up advanced math, philosophy, some literature. Not… that.

So he nods his head, and lets the whirlwind continue.

He spends the entire next day getting his head back on straight, even though the empty spot where Bakugou should be in glance sparks a deep internal fear, and the way no one is even the slightest bit rude to him gives the weirdest impression that something’s wrong when it’s not. It’s not wrong when things are right. So why does his brain think that? 

(he knows why)

But it is nice. No one ruins or steal his lunch, Aizawa is less intimidating and more spooky to him now, he’s making friends without ruining it, he’s doing well in classes, and Power Loader asked him to give his students over in Support some tips on their projects as well as giving packets to the other hero students. (which was so exciting, so many cool quirks-!)

Bakugou’s parents are brought in that afternoon, but that beating that seemed to loom over him as soon as his brain caught up to the events going on around him never came. Aizawa muttered darkly about illegal quirk usage, hate speech and crimes, and discrimination under his breath as he writes down their adress and phone numbers, but he doesn’t seem to act on it. At least, he never noticed anything. The man might not have used the elevator, and so wouldn't even be in the hallway he had been watching carefully from the couch in the living room, but he hadn’t hear the sound Bakugou’s window always made when opening because they kept forgetting to buy oil and by now it was possibly on purpose-

Why was he protecting his old... companion? He didn’t know any more. Does everyone deserve to be protected?

He thought back to two years ago. A neighbor had moved in, a strange one. Broke, shifty, winced and flinched away from loud noises. Their quirk was really cool, though! Teleportation of objects within their eyesight, so many possibilities! They could be a hero, help so many people-

A hero found them stealing a loaf of bread after not being able to afford meals for two days and beat them into a coma that lasted three days. He left flowers and twenty dollar bills (he felt bad but they weren’t well off either) and Mom gave him her number if they ever needed it. 

They had permanent bone problems. Things that just wouldn’t heal right no matter what the doctors did.

And if an expose website popped up the day after their release from the hospital with years worth of debt, with detailed accounts of every crime that ‘hero’ had ever committed and gotten away with, well. Aaida really was rubbing off on him.

Or when a group of pickpockets (possibly a part of gang, but who’s to know?) found him, bleeding and concussed, after a particularly bad beating, and he blabbed his whole story as they desperately scrambled to get him bandages. 

He had been sure they- villains- would be evil. It was how the media made them out to be, after all. Every movement was sure to be followed by pain, every word laced with hate. 

But none of that happened. They patched him up, voices soft, made themselves small to seem less of a threat, asked him constant questions, ranging from ‘who did this, sonny?’ to ‘can I touch your arm? I need to wrap it…’ 

And he had cried. Hard. Harder than he had earlier.

He remembered that afternoon turned to night, spent huddled in an abandoned office building with people so much like him. Pushed away because of their quirk status, because of something they couldn’t change. 

Yes. Yes they do.

He settles in on the couch that night, gets a good cry in in the privacy of his own home, and snuggles up to watch some old animated movies, popcorn and cocoa in hand.

He was alright. Things were alright. Because he was not weak. And even if he was weaker, he was not alone.

The next day was shockingly, also not a disaster.

His instincts had screamed and cried at him when mentioned school-approved infighting, the sound of distant taunts and cries of pain echoing in his ears and memories. He kept glancing around, waiting for the first low boom of a nearby explosion.

Urakaka hugged him when they came out of the locker rooms, sensing his admittedly clear unease, murmuring reassurances and complimenting his costume.

He kept the green theme from when he was younger, but lost the bunny ears. He might add them back in proper, with satellites and such for information gathering and receival, but that mask thing would have just looked dumb. Otherwise, the support company had gone pretty protection-and-support happy on the interior; metal and plastic lining (meant to simulate whale bone for flexibility, he didn’t question)(something about corsets being able to stop a knife, he’d have to look it up later) to help with defense and heavy hitting. Iron knuckles and steel linings on his custom shoes (because no other ones besides his home-altered sneaker collection would have worked) and lots of cool features like slash protection and definitely everything one needed to survive a point-blank explosion. Specifically requested.

Seeing as Bakugou was nowhere in sight, he might not get much use out of that feature for a while, but oh well.

To replace the bunny ears comm’s, he had a helmet not unlike Urakaka’s, but more motorbike and less astronaut. It automatically recorded everything going on around him, had comms set up to link to any public tech in the area (he also didn’t question that) and any hero-issue communication channels, something he might sorely need. There was cushioning everywhere on the inside, and it was surprisingly comfy. The puff of hot air against his chin felt strangely comforting. (what would he do for a summer outfit, though? Is that when the bunny ears came into play? What if-) 

He was pretty anxious about how his fellow classmates would react to his quirklessness status. Sure, no one tracked him down the other day to ‘put him in his place.’ Yeah, none of them had even reacted past a few sidelong glances and confused mumbling. 

Kaminari even looked awed whenever he brought up him and the entrance exam in the same sentence, which seemed odd but not unwelcome. 

Everything seemed fine, though. Everyone was pretty distracted by their costumes, and of course All Might (and he only felt a slight stab of pain in his heart every time he looked at the man, which was an improvement) and all his muscled drama. 

The exercise was simple, though Izuku privately wished they had started with things like basic self defense and strategy, but the team aspect could pose a problem. 

Hopefully he got Urakaka?

His luck was terrible though, what were the chances-

“Team D, Midoriya and Urakaka!” All Might didn’t look him in the eye, didn’t even look in his general direction. An air of worry came from the man, very unwelcome. He had his costume, his wits, and Aaida’s bombs after all. But the relief still flooded his system, only slightly undercut by the sense of betrayal and fury. 

All Might seemed overall hesitant, something that seemed almost at odds with the laws of the universe. All Might didn’t hesitate. He smiled as he punched the danger away.

Maybe the danger wasn’t something he could punch away. But what-

Oh. 

Was it…

Because he knew.

Of course the one person he looked up to the most would be the least accepted.

Heart heavy, he plastered on a smile for Urakaka’s sake as the other team was called; Tsyu and Iida. An interesting matchup, especially with them being the villains. But as people with visible mutation quirks it would statistically more likely if-

Nope, nope, less stats, more strategy. 

Tsuyu’s quirk was fascinating, but so far seemed to give her the general traits of a frog; from when Urakaka and her compared ‘toe beans’ in the hallway earlier, she had the ability to stick to surfaces for a short amount of time, allowing her to effectively climb walls.  Her tongue was also probably a factor, so he’d have to be prepared for long-range and quick attacks.

Well, a tongue is a tongue. Making them as unpleasant to grasp as possible would be a good tactic, as well as generally being ready to ‘think fast’ so to speak. They were both agile, light fighters, which would work against them. 

He had Aaida’s bombs, and all the tools his suit had come with. This would be a speedy battle, no doubt. 

Iida no doubt knew how to fight, but Tsuyu and Urakaka were both a solid maybe, with more confidence in the latter’s direction from the mall incident. But with both living in less than ideal neighborhood then there was a possibility- 

Well, he lived in a ‘bad’ neighborhood, and look at him. He could barely beat up anyone his weight quirkless, much less a fight with the odds stacked against him.

So it was a good thing they were the villains. 

Preparation was key. Luckily, this was something he seemed to have a natural knack for.

Tripropes, looney-tunes style traps, selective destruction of bordering up of doorways and hallways, even improvised motion sensors. He was feeling rather proud of himself.

Whatever rubble they could gather went to the third floor where Urakaka would be guarding the bomb while he played god in Trap Land for ammunition. She grinned ferally and said something about a homerun, hefting a building pillar easily, if a bit awkwardly. 

He left her to it, and managed to get into the ventilation system. Apparently UA’s cities weren’t quite realistic; most places didn’t have vents like in a spy movie, but who cares if it works in their favor? 

Aaida was right; he had yet to touch the chemical bombs. They stayed firmly on his belt as a last resort. A very last resort. They were a mild sleeping gas, but he stayed firm. No chemical warfare, no sir. 

All Might’s voice came on in the coms at the same time as the speakers dotted around the system, booming out that the heroes were free to advance. 

He swallowed, and prepared to army crawl for the next while.

It went well, really. Iida was scouting, and initially kept trying to blast through the building at high speeds before tripping gloriously on a reinforced tripwire and hitting his head hard enough to make Izuku wince. He recovered after a few moments, and didn’t use his quirk again after that. Tsuyu entered the building soon after that point, all caution and calm calculation. They kept good communication up, even though there was nothing to report for the most part. 

Tsuyu indeed could climb walls and ceilings, something that was awesome to see and had him wishing for his notebook. It was also eerily similar to a pre-quirk superhero movie, which made him smile a little. He had been obsessed with that kind of thing for as long as he could remember, even if they were near impossible to track down. 

Anyway, they were both doing well when they weren’t getting stuck in traps, but were slowly but surely running out of time. Of course, in the real world this scenario wouldn’t be in their favor since he hadn’t prepared even a single exit, but that was hardly the point. 

They won soon after. Tsuyu-san got caught in the glue trap, and he sincerely hoped she hadn’t swallowed any of it as he wormed out of the vents. Iida san was unused to not being able to rely on his extreme speed, even if he was decent in hand to hand. When it came to a series of small, weighless boulders being flung at him in an enclosed space, there really was no contest.

The next day was also pretty normal. He ducks out of the house having inhaled a smoothie, and makes it to UA without issue. He sits down, and no one even yells at him.

It’s surreal. 

Especially when Aaida opens the door with way too much force, a piece of paper held high.

“Midoooo! Look what I did!”

He nearly gets whiplash from looking up so fast, and it’s only made worse by his scrambling to get out of his seat. 

“Aaida? What-?”

She grins. “I speed-ran law school.”

His jaw drops. “I- you don’t want to be a lawyer.”

She smirks, and hugs him. “Nah, I don’t wanna argue with old men every day. But the first quirkless hero’s going to need a good lawyer, right? Nice to see ya, man.”

He sniffs back sudden tears, and then they’re hugging, and things are fantastic, he can even ignore the surprised reactions of his classmates.

“Wait- it’s only been a month!”

Aaida snickers into his hair. “Yeah, that’s why I called it speed-running.”

He gapes into her shoulder, processing as best as he can. 

“Is that why you disappeared for forever?”

She sighs. “Yeah, sorry, I wanted it to be a surprise. Kinda backfired, sorry. I’m never going to leave you, you got that?” He nods into his shoulder, and holds her tighter. She squeezes him, but it isn’t caging. It’s nice.

He relaxes into it, and hears several coos and questions being swapped behind him. 

He had complicated feelings about the USJ trip. On one hand, rescue training! Cool, non-fighting-based heroics, awesome! On the other…

A possible extended period of time without adult supervision in an enclosed space with people who may or may not hate him.  

His brain told him that his classmates and friends were incredibly nice people; that he had nothing to fear. His instincts, the lessons of fear instilled into his very soul, screamed and yelled and begged for him to find an escape. 

But he trusted Aizawa, if only a little bit. The man didn’t have big shoes to fill, though, so who knows…

Things are fine on the bus; people ask him what he’s writing in his notebooks, and he’s hesitant to show them the full extent of his hobby, so he just shows a half-finished rambling page of analysis about Eraser, without any polishing details or quality sketches. They ooh and aah, with nothing ‘creepy’ to jeer at, and compliment him on his observations. Aizawa even nods nuetrally at him from the front seat, which he’s pretty sure is a good thing!

They enter, him still a ball of nerves but maybe less so than an hour ago, and Thirteen, an awesome rescue hero with an unconventional but very useful quirk, is there! They’re gender-nuetral, too, making them essentially the first popular genderqueer hero, which is pretty awesome all on it’s own. 

They give a relatively quick speech that he appreciates, even if the subject will never affect him directly (technically) and is already very familiar to him. 

Then his instincts go off, that Danger Sense he’s honed to a point over years of constant fear, and he nearly breaks down right there.

UA is supposed to be safe! It is safe! ...Right?

Then he thinks one it for another second, and comes to terms with the fact that he likes this kind of danger much more than the one he had grown well familiar with in his youth.

A crowd of hired thugs spilled out first, murmuring among themselves and looking around curiously. Then the real bit; three men. One, a hulking mass of black with a yellow black, something his mind screamed to be wrong, which was ridiculous, because people with mutant quirks are valid too! Two, a wispy mass of shadow(?) that closed the portal they had entered through immediately, and three a tall, dark-haired figure covered in burns that faintly oozed smoke.

He stares for an entire precious second as things start to go sideways. His classmates question, Eraser flies into action, Thirteen stands protectively between them and the newcomers and starts herding them towards the door hurriedly.

The misty figure appears in front of Iida, at the front of the pack, and nearly causes him in all his too-anxious glory to scream.

His first stage of fear; raw panic. It usually passes quickly enough, he just wishes it would go faster this time around. This is hardly the time to remember all the broken bones and burns of the past, or to zone out, or not worry about himself and others!

He hears the first few words of a speech, but then the void opens beneath his feet. His eyes widen, he makes a wide scrabble at Urakaka’s nearby arm, but then everything is gone. Inky blackness consumes him, and for a moment he worries that they’re no connecting portal, that he’ll be stuck here in the pitch black for the rest of his days, before he lands in a heap on sun-warmed concrete.

Phase two; a fine mixture of stupid bravery and compliance. The best stage, really, and just in time.

He gets to his feet just fine; he’s more than experienced in that. The scarred man doesn’t move to help or hurt him, just watches curiously with not unkind blue eyes. 

Considering most people’s influences on his life, Izuku briefly reflected on how the villain seemed to be one of the nicer types, before quickly throwing that thought out the window.

He scrambled back a bit, eyeing the man he wasn't quite sure was a man anymore, the massive hulking figure behind the scarred one. The beak hadn’t moved, he hadn’t even twitched or glanced at him when he arrived. Hadn’t moved even a little bit. Was he even breathing? And the eyes…

The eyes were empty but full all at the same time, something to send a shiver up his spine.

He blinked hysterical tears from his eyes and focused back in on the villain who didn’t appear to be brain dead. (why bring…?) 

He whipped his head around to get his bearings. He was only at the bottom of the stairs, in the plaza, thankfully. He could see Aizawa launching himself through the crowd of low-lives in an effort to get to him. 

The scarred man watched him curiously, before speaking up with the voice of a man who had inhaled far too much smoke. House fire, maybe? “Hey, kid. I dunno why Shigy’s got such an interest in you, but hang tight, yeah? I don’t hurt kids.”

There’s a moment of silence as he sputters within the safety of his brain.

“Aren’t you though? By… attacking, and all?” Oh no, that wasn’t supposed to come out. He slapped a hand over his mouth to contain any more stray dangerous thoughts, but the man only chuckled. 

“Nah, the kiddos are just going on an unexpected, long, long hike is all. We ain’t here for ‘em.”

Portals, inky black, just like the one he had been in earlier opened under his classmates, carefully containing each one as they fell to places unknown. He choked in subdued horror, and Aizawa roared in frustration, and Thirteen seemed to be challenging Mist Man, who seemed remarkably calm all things considered. 

His throat clicked how it always did when he was terrified, and he did his best to keep his breathing even. He was slightly dizzy already, and it wouldn’t be good news if he fainted in the middle of this mess. 

The man put his hands in his pockets and cocked his head slightly. “So, kiddo. Ya happen to know where the Numba One is? He’s supposed to be here for his party.” A wicked, dangerous grin. Izuku felt faintly sick.

But he knew the difference between him being in danger due to an angry person, and there being any angry person nearby to him, so he swallowed his emotions and did his best to regain his ability to speak.

“I-uh. Ai-Eraserhead got a comment from Thirteen about it- um, him not being here. But uh, I think it was in code?” Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why voice your suspicions to the villian, idiot?

The man hummed. “Right. And that was…?”

Izuku steadied himself mentally. “I- I won’t tell you anything if you don’t tell me something.” 

The man grinned. “Oh, I like you. M’name’s Dabi, nice to meet ya.” The man, Dabi, that is, sparked a memory of an article deep in the trenches of the internet. Tales of a vigilante, cloaked in bright blue flame, ‘dealing with’ child abusers. Victims carried away into the night, to a police station, relative’s home, or nowhere at all for a solid week until they turned up right as rain at the nearest hero’s agency, seemingly, as the house (the abuser still within, often burner near or beyond recognition) burned. Only ash afloat in the wind and a pile of bones and a few clumps charred remains ever remained. (the commenter had been admittedly a very good writer) 

This man was something akin to a particularly violent vigilante, really. Something Izuku could appreciate, preferably from a distance.

And he was apparently vehemently against hurting children.

So he willed his fear away. Because he had little reason to be scared, and even then, everyone who mattered was away from the larger danger. His death wouldn't be… as great a tragedy as his classmate’s.

Just a few months ago he would have considered his own death in his attack a moot point, but now he had a slight bit more confidence and self-identity. As well as people who cared, which was slowly becoming not-so-novel even as he felt the urge to cry every time a stranger was nice to him.

“I- He said All Might had run out of time, and held up three fingers.” Deal’s a deal, especially when talking to a pyromaniac vigilante. 

Dabi huffed, and glanced over to where Aizawa had nearly dealt with every villain in the initial group. 

“Nomu, restrain him. No lasting damage.” And the great big, muscled black thing finally gave a sign of life; a brief nod before it began to lumber in Aizawa’s direction. Considering his teacher’s skillset, he should be fine-

The black mass was gone, a blur in the air. He whipped around, and saw Eraserhead, utterly flattened into the concrete, struggling uselessly against the iron hold the beast had him in, a secure but undamaging position he had seen a million times before on TV, during arrest scenes.

He gaped, and Dabi snickered. “My boyfriend's an anxious type, so he gave me that big ‘ol thing for this. Couldn’t go himself and all.” He sighed as the eyed the beast in a similar way Izuku currently was, minus the raw horror. “Useful, though.”

Aizawa was seemingly at the end of his rope. “Let my student go!”

Dabi considers the man. “You know, when we couldn’t get info from UA with the whole reporter bit, we did some research on our own. And we found a whole lot on you in particular, Mido.”

Izuku stiffens, a million scenarios flashing through his mind’s eye. Distantly, Aizawa-sensei is yelling at Dabi, and Dabi is calmly talking, and purple mist is back in his peripheral, also saying something he can’t hear. (why can’t he hear? This could be important!)

A gentle touch to his shoulders snapped him back into reality. He flinches, of course, because K-Bakugou liked to aim for the upper back for the ease of it when he had him pinned stomach-down. The touch didn’t follow.

An arm retracted. It looked like someone had tried to loop an arm around him. Dabi, he registered, it must have been Dabi. “Hey, kid. Deep breaths, we ain’t here to hurt you.”

He sobs, his facade finally cracking wide open. The Smile mask had cracks as well, he should have seen this coming. “I-I. All M-Might. Isn’t here. So j-just leave!” He clutches at his own arms for something to grab onto, tears blurring his vision.

Neon blue streaks in his vision, a warm heat envelopes him. “Yeah. But you are.”

Aizawa attempts to strong-arm his way out of the Nomu’s grip, which only results in him being pushed down hard enough to crack the concrete beneath him. He only grunts, and Izuku feels terrible. 

He’s shaking. Are they going to kidnap him? Why? Why do they care?

“I’ve been treated like that. Like I’m not good enough, never will be. It’s all bull, you know? I hope you know, but I don’t think you do.” The warmth wasn’t like Bakugou’s suffocating heat; all explosions and pain. This was more calming and steady, but it still made his skin tingle all over. 

He tries to breath, but it’s like he’s breathing in soot instead of air. Like when he’s hit face-first with an explosion with inhaling, but minus the chemically sweetness he’s used to. 

The warmth recedes. “Now’s not the time. Kid, you trust your teacher?”

He blinks furiously, flashing back to Aizawa’s reaction to Bakugou. All his other teachers-

He nods as hard as he can. There’s silence, then “Nomu, ready for extraction.”

There’s a scrabbling, but he’s huddled on the ground now, trying not to bawl his eyes out.  There’s a slight whooshing as he presumes the villains drop through portals, and then Aizawa’s gruff voice is there, and he’s sobbing. 

“Midoriya, can I touch you?” He shakes his head furiously, memories of broken bones and bruises and burns and punctures all over coming back all at once and he can hardly breath-

A deep-ish, soothing voice washes over him. Slow and steady comfort in verbal form.

“Midoriya Izuku. It is alright. You are safe. Bakugou Katsuki is not here, the villains have left. I am the only one here, Thirteen is running over. You like Thirteen, yes?” He nodded, just a little bit.

He liked all sorts of heroes, but unusual ones especially. 

Puffy white between strands and tufts of emerald green hair. 

Random facts about both the heroes flash through his thoughts at the glimpse of grey metallic cloth and space-suit-white. Eraserhead was in the hero course as of his second year, winning the sports festival overall by using different sets of goggles to pretend to have a bunch of different quirks so people would counter the wrong thing. Not to mention the footage of competent and over-confident teenagers flailing at the loss of theri quirk was pretty hilarious. (His mind whispered if he had been treated something like he had. Making someone quirkless…) Thirteen faced serious backlash during and after schooling; they graduated from Shiketsu as opposed to UA, but worked with UA occasionally instead of his own school. He had made a speech about the difference between the two- Shiketsu was a place where you learned the protocol, how to do all the movements automatically. UA was a place of networking: You made friends and allies, figured out how to work with others and which situations were better to just go along with, or better to take control of. He had never thought of it that way before then-

A gentle hand on one shoulder- the talking had stopped without him hearing a single word of it, oops- and he flinched back, which was silly, since Kachan never would have been that gentle! 

Blurry eyes and foggy mind tried and failed to focus. Ah, well, that’s a shame. At least he’s not in pain yet.

No, that wasn’t right, Kachan wouldn’t be so gentle in the first place. There was no build up with their interactions; there was a tension and then there was release, with only a handful of terrible seconds in between. One of his other classmates, then. That was good.

Easier to handle, really. Kachan always left a bit of a mess.

There was a low bit of chatter around him, but thankfully he couldn’t hear any of the insults being thrown at him. He kept shrugging off the deceptively gentle hands until they finally stopped, more scared of being conned into being comforted to take the coming hit harder than to sharpen the blows to come. He’d had worse, certainly. 

Then something hard, unyielding, and very much not shrug-away-able wrapped around his entire body, holding him firmly in place. And for a moment, it was nice. Like a blanket cocoon, a nice steady sense of pressure all over, though not as soft as his worn forest-green-turning-grass-green homemade one. 

But then it set in that there was no escape. They had realized their newest ploy wasn’t going to work, and it was right back to the program. 

It was bright, so bright. Sunlight, possibly, steady and constant, punctuated by bright bursts of color- red, grey, blue, green. Mostly red and blue. Was he outside? 

Doesn’t matter, except for maybe how much debris he’ll have to dig out of his injuries later. It didn’t matter. It didn’t. The fact that anyone could see them and choose to stop his torment at any second, that no one cared enough to, that it was just the useless local parasite being put in its place, it meant nothing.

A cold pinch at his elbow, likely his classmate from the back row that could grow different animal features. He was more squeamish than Kachan- he preferred simply claws. So it was finally beginning.

But then, confusingly, the telltale darkness of sleep pressed in. Which made no sense, with his racing heart and rising waves of fear and panic cresting at all time-highs. Also nonsensical- it wasn’t like any of his classmates could do any real damage; they didn't have the quirks or the creativity for it. 

He tried to keep his eyes open, failed against the bright light, and then tried to meditate-sorta to stay aware of his body, the pain would keep him awake. He had to stay awake, or the beating would be worse. He would bleed out into the ground, he would fail to wake up and treat his wounds, he would be late getting home, no one would find him and if they did they wouldn’t care, it’d be so much worse on every level-

And then he was lost, dropping off a sudden cliff into unconsciousness. 

He woke up to beeping. Likely his phone alarm, (this one set to top volume in case of this very scenario of near-bleeding-out) and quite close to his ears from the sound of it, maybe a few inches away. It was mildly annoying, but nothing serious, and it would automatically turn off in ten minutes, in wait for the second one to really get him moving. He had time.

He felt out his body. Nothing ached terribly badly- his pain tolerance really was getting better. Or maybe he was still half-out, that was fine too. He could tell his torso and head felt the worst, the first because of slight cuts all over, prickling at his skin, the second because of how dehydrated and hungry and tired he was. There were also light burns all over his body, but when wasn’t he burned somewhere? 

He was tired in more than one way, it seemed.

Though, the burning under where his clothes would be weren’t too bad. That was unusual; maybe Kachan had only gone for a more verbal show of confidence, he had probably talked him down enough for it, leaving everyone else to get their shot at the vulnerable Deku. Kachan hurt the worst, but he also forced everyone else out of the way. Away from Deku, too, by extension. 

Also in more than one way.

God his head hurt. And he wasn’t improving things with how this was going.

He had to get up. If his alarm was going off it meant he had to hurry through his post-beat-down routine and get home as fast as possible so as to not raise suspicion- and it would make him feel better to have some water. 

Water. Water sounded fantastic right now.

Right. First things first- check before action. He didn’t hear anything past that beeping, (why hadn’t his alarm automatically stopped? It felt like it had been an age since he had surfaced from the deep sleep he had been in) so that was clear at least for now. Feeling revealed nothing much past the pain but a vague sense of coolness and light pressure over his body- shadows probably being the first culprit, and maybe they had dumped his bag on top of him? Set up some sort of trap for when he woke up? That would be quite imaginative. Smell and taste revealed nothing but blood and dust on his lips, though things smelt strangely chemical-ly. Had his med-kit been broken, or maybe ransacked again? That was bad, but he had extra ones around, like in his locker or in different hidden places around the school and neighborhood at large. 

It would hurt if the alcohol of sanitizer made its way over to him. A lot.

He had to move. 

Starting with his eyes.

It didn’t take much effort, by his waking-up-hurt-standards, to move his eyes without moving his actual eyelids. He was able to successfully replicate getting himself dizzy and therefore nauseous just fine.

Actually opening his eyes took much more effort, but he was used to and knew that.

He didn’t tug desperately at his eyelids, he had several methods. Storing up energy to open them in go, kick-starting the rest of his body. If that failed, he’d cause it to be a natural reaction, almost a twitch or tick that happened automatically or with a half-formed thought. Three was getting annoyed enough or in enough pain for it to happen whether his body liked it or not, but that was rather more of a last-ditch effort.

Luckily, the first one worked fine. After a minute or so of patiently waiting, he opened his eyes.

To a surprising amount of light, for what he would have thought from the color of his eyelids. Not direct fluorescent light, nor straight sunlight. A mix? Maybe a far away light from a classroom mixed with the glow of a window- he’d be in the hallway, then. Had he tried to run? That was dumb of his him. Then again, the last thing he remembered was being well on his way to a panic attack, so it was at least more understandable than it would have otherwise.

Nice of the janitorial staff to not move him, or maybe poke at him until he woke up earlier. Then again, he had always put an effort into being nice to the unrecognized. (he knew what that felt like) 

Things clear up a bit, and there were indeed plain white tiles and fluorescent light overhead- but he wasn’t in the hallway. Or a classroom. He was in… the nurse’s office? No, that doesn’t- who would-

He felt around in his memory. There was the feeling that he missed something, something big, and he could feel the space it took up in his brain, but not what it actually was. 

He blinked languidly. No one would think to look for him in the nurse’s office, nurse included, especially after hours. He was fine. He had time.

He had no time at all, yet all the time in the universe.

He still felt pretty numb. Had he popped a pain pill, knowing the beating to come? That was smart of him. He’d do that occasionally, when things were about to get bad; slip out to the bathroom during or before class, use a water bottle and a bit of luck to get it down in time and out of sight.

It didn’t feel like the kind of thing that would knock him out, though, especially if over-the-counter stuff was working this well. He couldn't even feel any major pain in his head, despite the gap in his memory. 

He made a vague choking noise as it hit him like a lightning bolt. UA. Friends, Kachan- no, Bakugou, USJ, villains-

What had happened? 

Where was everybody? Were they okay? Why and how had he been knocked out? He couldn’t remember anything after Dabi went through the portal, it got kinda blurry…

He hauled himself into a sitting position, vaguely noting the IV in his arm. He didn’t have much experience with needles, especially ones he didn’t put in himself and didn’t immediately go back out again, like a shot. Was it okay to pull it out? Was it just a saline solution in that bag, or something he needed? 

He looked around. Recovery Girl’s office was much more plush than his middle school’s: a separate true office space near the door, then a series of cots with neat white privacy sheets. Each sector wrapped in clean white held a cot, a nightstand, a small bench at the foot of the bed, and a bookshelf just barely within reach from the bed. Different genres were present; fantasy, informational, hero-facts, science fiction, adventure, strategy… His school bag was on the bench, and a tall glass of water on the stand. 

Izuku grabbed it, semi-confident in his limbs, and downed it immediately, though slower than he would have otherwise as to not overwhelm his system.

He came up for air a second later with a mission: find out what happened and if anyone had been hurt.

He swung his legs over to the side; they felt fine. No noticeable discoloration- he remembered skinning his knees on the concrete when he landed by Dabi, but the injuries were gone without so much as a fleck of dry skin. He felt at his head for any head injuries, checked himself for a concussion, thankfully came up empty, and lifted up his soft, grey shirt. (when had someone changed him?) Bandages applied liberally to his sides- when had he gotten cut? He didn’t feel any pain. And of course, the sheen that spoke of burn cream being applied. 

Overkill, really. Barely first degree, but it didn’t matter.

He left the bandages on, even though he didn’t see any blood coming through.

Izuku stood up slowly, wobbling only slightly, frustrated at himself. He was fine, why was his balance so off, his brain so- overwhelmed? He knew nothing! His normally racing thoughts felt sluggish in comparison, and the bright light of the bulb at the end of every cot space made his head spin and color pulse.

Was this what Aaida had been talking about, mental breakdowns? It felt a bit anticlimactic. Maybe it was like an earthquake: there were foreshocks. 

Not now, not now.

Kuriogiri had mentioned teleporting them away but not harming his classmates. Was that true? Where had they gone? Were they okay? And Eraserhead, he tried so hard, what happened-?

He made his way to the office section of the room, smooth hardwood replacing cold tiles on his bare feet, occasionally grabbing on to things for support when he leaned forward to much or overestimated an angle. 

It was like dizziness, but less of your body was trying to find where your center of gravity was in a circle around you and more of every direction, once it vaguely knew what direction and gravity was.

Unbalanced at his core, something in his brain at the wrong angle.

He blinked, ignored this, and made it to the door he knew to lead to the hallway. 

It opened silently, and he was able to pad his way through the halls without much issue. It was bright outside, but he didn’t see or hear anyone. Was it the weekend? He must have slept a while…

“Kid.”

He turned around more leisurely than he normally would have, making sure he didn’t nearly fall over at any point. KInda shuffling along in a circle to turn.

Aizawa-sensei was there, hair in a bun, coffee mug in hand and capture scarf around his neck, staring him down. He could tell from the way he was standing his ribs were probably wrapped, but otherwise he wasn’t visibly injured or wrapped up anywhere. 

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed. You had a series breakdown.” What did that matter?

“What happened? Where is everyone? Are they okay? What about yo-” 

Aizawa stepped towards him, nodding. “We were attacked at USJ by an unknown party-” Untrue, Dabi was a lesser known but documented villain/vigilante, and rumors of a misty cloud going around recruiting people had been circulating for days before USJ. “-where only I and you received any injuries, all minor. However, you had a nervous breakdown as soon as it was confirmed to be safe, and should be lying down.”

An arm wrapped around his shoulders. He would have flinched, but that might have set off a string of events to send him to the floor, so he just closed his eyes. “Your classmates were teleported to a forest on the edge of town and were able to get on a bus and be back to the school within the hour. The following day, today, we cancelled classes to give everyone a chance to recover. Which you should be doing.” A slight feeling of guilt swirled in his stomach, but mostly he felt relief.

“A girl who identified herself as Aaida Zhou has been inquiring about you- do you know her?” Aaida! She’d be so worried!

He flashed back to all the different alarms she gave him: several normal or edited ones and- one that gave an alert when it didn’t get a signal.

He blinks, taking that in. 

“Where’s my phone? I need to make a call.”

He hadn’t told his mom he was in the hero course yet. She thought he was the General course to work on his analysis to be a support person to pro heroes, not to be one himself. And he didn’t know how to address that. 

She thought he had failed the hero test, just as he had before he received that hologram disk. Made him katsudon every so often, listened eagerly to him talking about his friends, or his latest essay he might have gone a tad bit too far in (look, he’d never looked into any kind of theory past quirk theory, and it was fascinating!)(He was planning on picking up phycology later on in high school maybe, which his mother also approved of. She said he’d make an excellent physiatrist, maybe even a quirk specialist! They had both been so happy that dinnertime, even if the pinch of guilt wouldn’t leave him alone.)

And while picking up a secondary job might be a genuine thought later on, (a quirkles shero would a game-changer in an industry not prepared for him. It would be an up-hill battle all the way, so he could expect some scenarios leaving him behind, broke, or beaten down.) fueling his rants to her in the mornings and evenings, it wasn’t his main goal. It wasn’t his dream.

Being a hero had spurred him on for years. Without it, he might not be- he might have-

He pursed his lips, and sighed, pulling at his thick green curls. He fingered a strand, wondering if he could fake a quirk like had occurred to him last year. Some would be easy enough to pretend to have, like fast-growing nails, or even his beloved analysis, or fake with technology, like his father’s fire breath, or magnetism as a ‘mutation’ of his mothers. 

Well, it didn’t matter now. The cat was out of the bag- he was a Hero student, and quirkless. And he had never pretended to have a quirk. It would be impossible to fake now.

His mother was on her way, and really he only had a few minutes until his world came crashing down.

He closed his eyes and flopped back into the cot’s surprisingly soft sheets. He was perfectly healed- hadn’t even had any serious injuries to start with, he just needed to get something in his system so Recovery Girl had something to work with.

Normally he’d be itching to escape the confines of the nurse’s office, but now he almost didn’t ever want to leave. Lock the door, pull the blinds, hide from his future. 

He was quirkless. What was he thinking, trying to be a hero?

He couldn’t even stand up to Kachan.

He started counting the ceiling tiles above him, then categorizing and analysing the quirks of all the villains that had attacked, and reviewing everything he could remember about Dabi. 

She arrived soon enough.

“Izuku!” His mom burst into the office with palpable panic, and he sat up in the bed, pulling the curtain back to reveal himself. No sense hiding now. 

“Hey, mom!” He pumped his usual enthusiasm into his voice, and easily accepted the hug she smothered him in moments later. 

They squeezed at each other for a few seconds before she released him, looking him up and down with worried eyes. “Oh, I heard you were hurt. Are you alright now? I heard Recovery Girl healed you-”

“I’m fine, mom. Not even a scratch.” He cut in with a hollow-feeling smile.

He wasn’t made of glass. 

It was a ridiculous thought- he had been next to helpless in the attack, and had been specifically targeted! Of course she was worried! She loved him!