Trigeminal Nerve Boy
“Deku, what the fuck?!” Katsuki shrieks
“I swear to god, you say that name again and I will knock you out with the fire extinguisher as well,” Izuku growls and stalks toward where the man was crumpled on the sidewalk.
Katsuki rushes after him, and snags Izuku’s shoulder, trying to tug him to a stop and failing miserably.
“You just knocked a fucking cop out, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He whispers in the vigilante’s ear.
“One, he’s not a cop. Two, I’m getting answers. You can either come with me and help or keep your fucking nose out of my business,” Izuku brushes Katsuki’s hand off his shoulder and quickly steps over the supposed cop. He heaves the man upward, feeling his stitches pull in his ribs, and starts to heft him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
Katsuki scrambles after him, helping to put the adult man, who was much bigger than the two of them, onto Izuku’s shoulder.
“Ok, ok, fuck! Where are we taking him?” Katsuki grunts as he helps adjust the man.
“The old apartment building where I used to live, the roof. It’s only 4 stories, so we should be fine,” Izuku starts quickly walking down the street to where his old apartment block was, not even attempting to keep up the typically-blind person act for Katsuki. He had questions and this man had to have the answers.
The two boys, vigilante and friend, scramble to the apartment complex and up several flights of stairs to the roof. Izuku has to pause to kick in the roof access door, holding onto the wall to keep his balance as the heavyweight of the man throws him off.
Once they made their way to the center of the roof, Izuku tossed the man down. “Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,”.
---
“Why’d you help me, Katsuki?” Izuku leans against the railing of the apartment roof ledge.
“We’re fucking friends, Deku,” Katsuki snaps.
“No, we’re not friends,” Izuku snaps back just as sharp.
“What are you talking about? We’ve been fucking friends for years,”.
“No, Katsuki, we have barely been acquaintances since middle school started. You’ve been ignoring me, pretending I don’t exist, or you’re out there burning my shoulder and telling me that I can’t be a hero, pick one. Friends or enemies, Katsuki?”
Katsuki is silent for several moments, his footfalls the only sound on the roof as he paces in front of Izuku.
“Why are you doing this?” He finally asks, stopping in front of where Izuku is leaning.
“Doing what?” Izuku asks, slightly confused.
“This!” Katsuki gestures wildly, caramel wafting through the air on the breeze as he moves.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Three nights ago, cops brought 3 men into the ER after they were caught robbing tourists and beating them up real fucking bad,” Katsuki states, voice tense.
“The reports say they would have gotten away with it if not for a man in a black mask that beat the shit out of them and left them for the heroes. They had nine broken bones between them. A few days before that, a nineteen-year-old was brought in after a guy she knew attacked her in an alley after work. He had followed her around for weeks and finally made his move, dragging her into a side alley. She said she screamed and screamed until she was hoarse, afraid that she would die there, but a man in a black mask heard her and saved her life. I’m not stupid Izuku, I read the hero news networks religiously. Just as religiously as you. So yeah, the word is getting around. Standing on this roof, you can’t tell me that all of that wasn’t you. So, answer my fucking question. Why?”
Katsuki steps closer to Izuku, almost nose to nose now, arms crossed over his chest as he hunkers against the cool breeze. He breathes in deeply, the soft exhale breezing over Izuku’s face in a wash of mint toothpaste.
“I want to believe in whatever you’re doing, ‘Zuku, but this,” he points to the man that Izuku had tied to the water tower that sat on top of his old apartment building and scoffs, turning away.
“Don’t call me that,” Izuku hisses.
“Call you what, your name?”
“No, what she called me. You don’t get that right.”
Izuku could hear the distinct sound of tense, jaw-grinding teeth, Katsuki’s next words being spat out in frustration.
“Just tell me what the fuck is going on!”
“I know you’re freaked out, Kacchan, but-”
A low groan emanates from Izuku’s left and he immediately stands up straight, shoving Katsuki behind him as he walks toward where he has the man bound to steel beams.
“You can’t give in to that fear. If you do, men like this win.”
---
“There is a price to be paid for division and isolation. Democracy cannot flourish amid hate. Justice cannot take amid rage. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear,” Izuku reads.
“Either you’re actually reading all of that, or you’re making it up as you go along. Either one would be impressive,” Inko Midoriya says as she cooks dinner at their small stove.
Izuku sits back in the chair, “It’s Thurgood Marshall,”.
“That one actor on my daytime soap opera?”
“I know that you know of Thurgood Marshall, Ma. He was a famous American civil rights activist and supreme court justice.”
“Honey, history wasn’t my strong suit in school, especially American history. I stuck to the sciences so I could be a good nurse.”
She sets a small plate in front of him, steam wafting into his face and forcing him farther back in his chair from the heat and heady aroma. Her footsteps recede and she comes back, dropping a package on the table. A small gasp escapes her as she opens it, and Izuku can smell the distinct scent of metal and new clothes.
“What is it, Ma?” He asks quietly.
“My new nursing uniform for the Hero’s Ward at Musutafu General,” she replies and gently pushes the package over to him.
Izuku runs his hands over the soft scrubs, the high quality of them apparent under his fingertips. His index finger snags on cold metal, and he lifts his hand slightly to run an inquisitive touch around the edges of the item. It’s cool, smooth, with a rough engraving of the Midoriya name on it. Her name tag.
“What color are they? The scrubs?” He asks in a soft tone.
“Burgundy, almost red, it’s definitely a color I can see you liking.”
“You’re going to look like a Christmas tree, just like I do with my red shoes.”
“‘Zuku,” she laughs and ruffles his green curls, “We’ve taken quite a few hits lately, but I think this is a fresh start for us. It’ll be good for the both of us, this job.”
“Because we get up, right Ma?”
Izuku can feel her looking down at him from where she’s gently running her fingers through his hair, the silence feeling like a question to his response.
“Because we’re Midoriya’s. We always get back up,”.
His mom doesn’t say anything, instead, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his curls.
---
“Head down, don’t speak,” Izuku says in a low voice to Katsuki, the pitch deepening as he hears the man start to struggle against the ropes around his wrists.
Izuku stalks forward to the man, fisting the color of his pristine, white shirt in his hand and pulling him down so he is closer to Izuku’s face.
“This is how it’s going to work. I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to answer them. If you’re lying to me, trust that I will know, and I will be unhappy. Where’s the boy?” Izuku threatens.
“What kid?,” the perfect Japanese the man had been using drops, flipping to a heavily accented Russian version.
Izuku slams the side of his hand in between the man’s ribs, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to swing widely from the water tower.
“This is what unhappy looks like,” The vigilante slams his knee into the same spot, nearly grinning in satisfaction at the wheeze he hears when the little bit of air the man had managed to suck in is knocked out of him again. “Where’s the kid?” Izuku asks again.
“Why do you care? If he’s not dead yet, he will be,” The man gasped.
“Why did you take him?”
“Figured you would come running.”
“And after I was dead?”
“Sell the kid, like all the others.”
Izuku snaps a punch into the man’s face, deep satisfaction filling him as he smells the metallic copper pouring from the man’s nose. He feels his stitches start to give, a thread or two popping, and he has to step back for a moment, gritting his teeth as he grips his side and forces the pain under control.
“I was telling the truth on that one,” the man pants, swinging still from the momentum of the punch.
“I know,” Izuku tries not to gasp out.
“We got you good, didn’t we?”
“Who do you sell the children to?”
“I don’t know, whoever has the money.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“So what? Find him, we take another. Kill me, another takes my place. ‘Long as people are buying, we’ll be selling. Nothing you do tonight will change that. But go ahead, keep hitting me, let’s see who drops first. You’re not looking too hot with that cut our men gave you earlier.”
“Try stabbing him in his trigeminal nerve,” Katsuki calls from where he’s standing tensely across the rooftop. His heart is pounding in his chest even as he speaks up to give Izuku advice.
“Why the f-” Izuku startles as the boy moves closer.
“Go in through here,” Katsuki points to just above the man’s eye, “right above the eye. That’s the supraorbital foramen. You want to go in right under there.”
Izuku shrugs and pulls the knife from the strap on his left thigh, holding it up to the man’s face.
“Wait, wait, wait!” The man attempts to throw his head back out of reach of the knife, struggling harder against the ropes.
“Hold still, I might do some serious damage if you squirm like that,” Izuku rasps and presses the tip of the knife to the guy’s eyebrow. He gestures over his shoulder with his head to where Katsuki is standing, nodding at the other boy as he asks a question. “How will I know when I find it?”
“He’ll tell you,” Katsuki sounds like he’s grinning behind his mask as well.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!” The man shrieks, “Fuckin’ hell! Just put the knife away.”
Izuku steps back, letting the knife slide down and point at the man’s throat. “You’re right. I kill you now and someone takes your place. But you all will just end up right back here, and sooner or later, one of you is going to crack.”
He climbs up the ladder over the man and slices his knife through the ropes holding him up. The man crashes to the ground, breath labored and heart racing in Izuku’s ears.
Izuku grabs the end of the rope and starts pulling him across the roof behind him, letting the man bump against an air conditioning unit as he goes.
“W-wait, where are we going?” the man’s voice trembles as he speaks.
Katsuki’s running footsteps fall alongside Izuku as he keeps pace with the vigilante.
“What are you doing with him?” Katsuki says under his breath.
Izuku doesn’t answer, not stopping until he’s at the ledge of the roof and hiking the man up, leaning him so that he’s just over the edge, tipped backward over the alley running between apartment units.
“No, no, no, what are you- please! Hold on-” the man starts to beg, fighting the grip that Izuku has on his suit jacket.
“Listen to me,” Izuku snarls.
“No, no, no,” the man mumbles.
“Shh- Listen, I need you to know why I’m hurting you. It’s not just the boy. I’m doing this because I enjoy it.”
Izuku shoves the guy until he’s barely on the roof, his entire upper body hanging off over the ground far below.
The man pleads, begging Izuku not to drop him, but Izuku just holds his bound wrists in one hand and slams his elbow into the man’s solar plexus.
“Where is he?” Izuku pauses, waiting for the man to answer, “Where is he?!”
Izuku holds the now sobbing man even further, his toes barely scraping the gravel of the rooftop. The man screams for Izuku to pull him back up, to not drop him, but Izuku keeps his grip firm, letting the man dangle precariously until he hears what he wants to hear.
“Underneath Kiriko Ramen House. Block fifteen in the red district,” the man finally shrieks.
Izuku hauls him back onto the roof, letting the man catch his breath from being held over the edge for so long. The man lets out a manic cackle, bending forward and shaking his head like he knows something that the others don’t. Thick cologne and sweat are carried on the wind toward Izuku, making his nose scrunch in disgust.
“They’ll be waiting for you,” The man laughs, “If you’re lucky, they’ll kill you before they start in on the boy. It’d be a shame for you to have to watch what they’ll do to-”
Izuku shoves his shoulder into the man’s chest, body checking him over the edge of the roof.
Katsuki lets out a scream and races for the edge of the building, peeking over to see where the man landed.
“What the fuck? Is he going to be alright?” He screeches, small explosions popping in his palms to burn off the excess sweat from stress.
“I don’t know trigeminal nerve boy, why don’t you tell me?” Izuku snarks and bends over to grip his side, pain radiating from a few more popped stitches.
“Deku,” Katsuki hisses, “You dropped a man off a building!”
“He’ll be fine. He landed in a dumpster. I fell from this roof a couple of nights ago and fell in the same one, he’ll live.”
“You what?!”
Izuku ignores the shell-shocked blonde and heads for the door he had kicked in earlier, already racing down the stairs before Katsuki can pick his jaw up off the ground.
“You need to get your things and leave,” he calls to the other boy over his shoulder, “don’t tell anyone where you’re really going, not even Auntie and Uncle. Head out to that mountain you like to hike or to Tokyo to see your grandma for a few days.”
“What?” Katsuki demands as he pounds down the steps after Izuku.
“When he wakes up, well if he wakes up, he’ll be back and he won’t be alone next time.”
“Why does that matter? He didn’t see my fucking face.”
“Don’t be an idiot Kacchan, you know better than that. It was just for effect, to scare him.”
“Fucking- Whatever.”
Izuku leans heavily on the rail at the bottom of the stairs, groaning as the last of the stitches in his ribs popped.
“Deku you can’t-” Katsuki reached for his shoulder worriedly.
“Don’t call me by my name when I’m wearing this,” Izuku smacks his hand away and gestures to the mask on his head before standing up straight, taking in a deep breath as he feels blood start to seep through the wraps on his ribs.
“Fine, what do I fucking call your shit face?”
“Mask is fine, that’s what Eraserhead has been calling me,” Izuku shrugs and adjusts the bandages under his shirt.
“Eraserhead,” Katsuki says flatly, “what the fuck are you doing at night?”
“Can’t talk Kacchan,” Izuku calls over his shoulder as he takes off in a jog, “Have a Russian gang to go take down!”
Katsuki races after him, combat boots smacking the concrete as he reaches to snag Izuku’s wrist.
“What you said earlier? Before you dropped that fucking guy off the roof?” Katsuki pants out, “ I don’t believe it. You wanted to be a hero, I don’t believe you enjoy hurting others like that.”
Izuku stops, keeping his back turned to his childhood friend.
“You don’t know me anymore, Katsuki.”
The vigilante sprints away, leaving his friend standing slack-jawed and bent over from running on the sidewalk. He knew that Katsuki would listen to him. That the boy would leave in the morning to go hike for a few days on his favorite mountain, but that wouldn’t stop the ridiculous amount of calls that Izuku knew he would be getting from the boy. He’d explain… eventually.
Slipping into the shadows behind the old bakery he frequented with his mother, he scrambles up the wall before hauling himself onto the roof. Izuku collapses on the ground gasping, his side screaming at him to maybe take a fucking breather.
“Fuck,” he groans and rolls onto his back.
He really shouldn’t go after this lead tonight. His side is a mess, there’s a chance that they would send people after Kacchan and his family, and he just knew that Eraserhead would spend the rest of his patrol keeping an eye out for him.
But the kid.
The poor kid that he had watched shoved into the back of a van a few nights ago, the one that had led him to be perched on the rooftop listening for clues tonight, the one that had ended with his side nearly gutted after a fight, needed him.
He could take five minutes, that was it.
Taking a deep breath, Izuku let the scents and sounds of this area of Musutafu wash over him. Old pastries, salt on the sea breeze, and yakisoba from the stand down the street wrapped around him. The soft crash of waves on Dagoba beach echoed the sounds of his childhood and settled some of the unease he was feeling.
“Ma, ma? Mama!” Izuku sobbed, down on his knees and cradling his mother’s broken body to his chest.
Ash and blood caked his face, the screams of the dying echoing in his ears as his mother took her final breaths.
“Midoriya’s always get back up,” she whispered.
Izuku shoves up off the ground, grunting as he gets to his feet. Time to find the kid.
---
Soft, indistinct chatter of a TV fills the dimly lit hallway, electricity barely humming enough to light a lightbulb at most. Male voices intertwine with it, laughing and gambling in a room that must be a few doors down. There isn’t much else that Izuku can discern from the din of the restaurant and the gang operating below it until a door cracks open and heavy footfalls make their way down the hallway, a bolt sliding before another door creaks open.
“I want to go home,” a small voice whines, “I want my daddy.”
A much deeper voice tells the child to shut up in Russian before closing the door, the bolt sliding back in place.
Izuku has his mark.
He slips off the roof of the building, landing one story down in a crouch before making his way into the restaurant through the back door. No one even spares him a glance, if they even heard him.
Creeping down the basement stairs, Izuku sits at the closed door for a few moments, letting his hearing tune into the basement hallway again.
Russian chatter fills his ears, the volume increasing and decreasing as doors are opened and closed. The volume of the TV raises one more time before it’s dampened again with the click of a door locking and Izuku decides it’s time.
Walking slowly down the hallway, he stops to stand at the one that dead-ends in the room where the child is being kept. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, the rage building to fuel the adrenaline starting to pump through his body.
Slow steps forward. He keeps them quiet to avoid alerting any of the people that he can hear in the two rooms. Stopping at the door where the TV must be, he places a gentle hand on the wood, bending his head to focus on how many men are in there. Five heartbeats echo back, four in the corner on the left and one in the corner on the right. Filling his lungs one more time, Izuku slams the door open and swings at the first guy who stands from the couches.
Izuku knocks one guy out before throwing punches at the next, dodging grabbing hands from the other two men who are just now jumping off the couch. A gun fires to his right, the one heartbeat in that corner now higher than before as a woman stands from a wooden desk chair. He hears the soft click of the door shutting from air pressure as a door across the hall opens, men spilling out from the opposite room. Throwing his knife at the third guy from the couches, Izuku pins him to the wall while he grabs a beer bottle to smash over his head. The woman with the gun trips as she stumbles around the desk and Izuku sends a kick to her temple, easily knocking her out. The last person from the couches tries to get a few more punches at Izuku, but he easily dodges, running for their waist to lift them up and then chuck them at the door.
The door cracks and falls into the hallway under the man’s weight, his body going with it before he rolls off and attempts to crawl away.
Men have started to pour out of the opposite room, their footfalls and the soft click of guns alerting Izuku to their presence.
One man from the couches tries to get up and swing at him just as another man steps into the room, but Izuku picks up the microwave from the table in front of him, crouching low before throwing it at the man entering the room and spinning around to kick the other man in the chest. Said man goes flying, slamming into the wall and sliding down to the ground unconscious.
Izuku can hear several sets of feet pounding on concrete, heading towards the room he’s in. He steps out and over the door, reaching for the first man who runs at him and tossing him over his shoulder. A gun clicks in front of him and Izuku grabs the barrel, twisting until the person gasps as their wrist starts to creak. They still don't let go of the weapon, so Izuku chops down on his elbows, satisfied as he hears the bones in the person’s arm crack.
He snaps another kick at the person’s knees and sends them to the ground just as he feels a fist come flying at his nose. Izuku ducks, slamming his elbow into the nose of the person he just kicked the knees out of before flying up to headbutt another man who had started to tower over him.
The man goes down hard, taking the person behind him down with him. The two start to yell at each other in Russian as another gun clicks to Izuku’s right. He spins to the person with the firearm, reaching for their shirt just as he fires.
The bang makes his ears ring, sharp and stinging as his overwhelmed senses try to adjust. This man seems more capable than the others, slamming a hand into Izuku’s chest and knocking the breath from his lungs. Izuku falls back slightly, wheezing, as he nearly trips over the bodies piled behind him. The man holds his gun up, ready to fire a second time, but Izuku is faster. He jumps up, bouncing off the wall and using the momentum to wrap his legs around the man’s neck. Izuku brings his fists down on the man’s face, pounding over and over until the man hits a wall and crumples to the ground.
Tucking and rolling as the man falls, Izuku gets to his feet just as he feels an arm go around his throat. A gun is placed at his temple, the soft click of the safety sliding to the off position just barely louder than the ringing in his ears.
“I’m the only one left. You fight well, but it’s time for you to go masked man,” the Russian guy mutters to him.
“I’ll snap you like a glowstick,” Izuku laughs and proceeds to yank the man over his shoulder and slam him into the ground. The man curses in Russian, his voice breathy with the lack of air, as Izuku grabs the hand still holding the gun, twisting the wrist until it snaps. The man screams, dropping the gun to cradle his now broken arm.
Izuku scoffs. “Wimp,” he mutters and sends a kick to the man’s head to knock him out.
He stands in the middle of the hallway, chest heaving from exertion. No more feet pound down the stairs, no more doors open, no new heartbeats join the chorus with the slow ones at his feet. Stepping over the body in front of him, Izuku lifts up his mask and catches his breath as he stops in front of the door at the end of the hallway.
Izuku slides the bolt, just like the man did earlier, and the same small voice calls out to him.
“Hi,” Izuku says as he crouches down in front of the small boy, “I know you’re scared, but I’m here to help you, okay?”
“Okay,” the boy says softly and holds his arms out to Izuku.
“Okay, let’s get you home to your dad,” Izuku smiles and lifts the boy to settle him on his hip, pulling his mask down as well.
“Don’t look, close your eyes,” Izuku mutters and tucks the boy's face into his shoulder.
Izuku makes his way down the hallway, grinding his teeth with how much his side aches and hiking the boy higher on his good side. He stumbles over the cracked door, but doesn’t let it deter him.
“Good, you’re doing so well, keep your eyes closed for me,” he says slowly to the child, patting his back softly as he walks.
As he steps out of the back door of the restaurant, the burner phone he keeps on him vibrates in his pocket. He shifts the kid one more time to reach the pocket in his pants that he’s kept in. He clicks the button to answer and puts it to his ear, not saying anything as he waits for the other person to speak.
“Mask,” a deep voice says over the line.
There’s a scream in the background, an angry one filled with a rage he was very familiar with.
“Come get your friend,” the Russian accented man laughs and the line goes dead.