Chapter Text

Chapter 1:

“It is so easy sometimes for a lonely individual to begin fantasizing about what the people outside are saying about him and, in result, irrationally and fearfully, and sometimes angrily, fancy himself a villain.”

ARC ONE: 1-7

ARC TWO: 8-15

ARC THREE: 16-23

ARC FOUR: 24-33

ARC FIVE: tbd

Here’s the sad truth: all men are not created equal. 

That was the first thing society taught children in a world full of heroes. Not kindness. Not fairness. Not perseverance. Power. 

In a society where eighty percent of the population possessed some kind of superhuman ability, a person’s worth was often decided before they even learned how to read. Strong quirks were celebrated, flashy quirks were admired, useful quirks guaranteed attention, praise, futures carefully laid out by eager parents and adoring teachers. Weak quirks were pitied. And quirkless people? They were forgotten, or worse. 

When Izuku Midoriya was four years old, his whole world fell apart in the span of a single doctor’s appointment. He still remembered the sterile smell of the office and the way his tiny sneakers swung nervously above the floor while he sat on the examination table. His mother had been squeezing his hand so tightly it almost hurt, though Izuku didn’t complain because her hands were warm and trembling and he knew she was scared. 

The doctor had looked uncomfortable the moment he walked into the room. Izuku remembered that too. “I’m very sorry,” the man had said carefully, refusing to look directly at either of them. “But there’s no sign of quirk manifestation.” 

Just like that. No dramatic music or lightning strike or a grand tragedy. Just a sentence; a quiet, clinical sentence that destroyed everything. 

At first, Izuku hadn’t fully understood what it meant. He thought maybe his quirk was just late and maybe they needed to wait another year. Kacchan got his quirk early after all —explosions bursting from his palms while he laughed like fireworks themselves lived inside him. Surely Izuku’s would come too. It had to. 

Except it never did. 

His father took a long-term job overseas only a few months later. At first, Hisashi still called regularly, promising he’d visit once work settled down, but the calls slowly became less frequent. Once a week became once a month; once a month became birthdays only. Eventually, even those stopped. Izuku couldn’t remember the last time he heard his father’s voice. 

His mom changed too after the diagnosis. Not in a cruel way, of course, she was never cruel, and somehow that almost made it worse. Inko Midoriya began treating him like something fragile, like if the world touched him too harshly he might shatter completely. She apologized constantly for things that weren’t her fault. Sometimes Izuku caught her staring at him with this awful guilty expression, eyes shiny with unshed tears, like she personally failed him somehow just by giving birth to him. 

At four years old, Izuku learned how to smile whenever his mother looked close to crying, but even that wasn’t what hurt the most. 

No, what hurt the most was losing his best friend. 

The second Kacchan learned Izuku was quirkless, he became Deku. It hadn’t even happened all at once. At first, Kacchan still invited him outside, he still dragged him through the woods behind their neighborhood while declaring they were brave heroes going off on dangerous missions. They still spent entire afternoons crowded around arcade machines, Kacchan loudly demanding rematches whenever he lost. But slowly, things changed: Kacchan stopped reaching for his hand and stopped waiting for him to catch up. Other kids started hanging around him now, drawn in by his strong quirk and stronger personality, and Izuku began noticing the looks they gave him whenever he stood too close. 

They were confused at first, then uncomfortable, then mocking. 

“Why’s Deku here?” 

“He doesn’t even have a quirk.” 

“Kacchan, aren’t quirkless people bad luck?” 

And eventually, Kacchan stopped defending him. 

There were no more adventures in the woods or afternoons spent pretending to be heroes. No more excited rambling over All Might videos while they sat shoulder-to-shoulder on Kacchan’s bedroom floor. Now it was Kacchan playing with the other kids while Izuku watched from at least two meters away so his “quirklessness didn’t infect any of them.” 

Their sleepovers became less and less frequent, only happening when their parents forced the issue or happened to be out late. And even then, something felt wrong. Kacchan got irritated when Izuku asked questions now. Snapped at him for mumbling and rolled his eyes whenever Izuku talked too much about heroes. 

Those stopped entirely once they turned ten and Izuku convinced his mom he was old enough to stay home alone. 

Being quirkless wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t lose Kacchan because of it. Sometimes, Izuku thought he could survive anything as long as he wasn’t alone. And sometimes —on his worst nights— he found himself wishing for a quirk not because he wanted to become a hero, but because maybe then Kacchan would look at him the same way he used to. 

Like he mattered. 

He thought he could give up on becoming a hero if it meant getting his best friend back. 

Once Kacchan started calling him Deku, everyone else did too. The other kids, the teachers, store owners in their neighborhood, even adults who barely knew him would glance down at attendance sheets or hear another student say the nickname and start using it themselves without question. 

Deku. 

Useless. 

Worthless. 

The name clung to him so completely that sometimes hearing “Izuku” felt strange. 

Thus began the long decade of running. Running from classmates after school while laughter echoed behind him. Running to the bathroom to clean blood off his face before teachers noticed. Running home before his mother could see the bruises forming. 

At first it was small things: his shoes went missing and his lunches were spilled or his pencils got snapped in half. Then came the tripping, the shoving, the mocking comments muttered just loud enough for him to hear. Eventually, it just became worse. Much worse. Because what better way was there to practice your quirk than on someone who literally couldn’t fight back? 

Izuku learned quickly that adults only intervened when the damage became impossible to ignore. A bruise could be explained away and a split lip could be dismissed. Even burns weren’t enough sometimes if the teacher liked the student responsible. After all, Bakugo Katsuki had a strong quirk and excellent grades and the kind of bright future teachers loved bragging about while Izuku Midoriya was quirkless. 

People saw what they expected to see. 

The small bright side to all this was that Izuku got really good at analyzing quirks. Scarily good, actually. When fighting back physically became impossible, Izuku adapted the only way he could: by watching, memorizing, studying. He noticed patterns in movement, weaknesses in timing, strain injuries from overuse. He could predict how someone would fight after watching them for only a few minutes. It became an obsession, or maybe it always had been. 

By age fourteen, he had filled twelve entire notebooks with observations and theories on hero combat styles, quirk applications, rescue tactics, mobility advantages, support item possibilities, and psychological weaknesses. He was currently halfway through notebook thirteen. This way, Izuku would be prepared to become the first quirkless hero. 

All he had to do was survive long enough to make it into U.A. High School. 

When the final bell rang for the day, Izuku bolted out of the classroom as fast as he could. Behind him, he could hear Kacchan’s friends chase after him, accompanied by some of the other kids’ footsteps. They had had an anti-bullying assembly earlier that day after a very kind substitute saw how everyone treated Izuku and reported it. Usually, the school would have just ignored it, but the sub was the daughter of one of the district officials and Aldera didn’t want to get in trouble. But the whole school knew who to blame.

Izuku knew he was going to get caught —he had never once outran any of his bullies— but sometimes the chase gained so much attention that the bullies went easy on him and left without doing too much damage.

Unfortunately, Kacchan caught him.

“Stupid Deku!” he yelled. “Thinking you deserve to be helped.”

An explosion hit Izuku’s shoulder and sent him crashing into the wall of an alley. “I’m sorry—”

“Shut up! I didn’t say you could speak, you shitty nerd!” 

By this time, the rest of Izuku’s assailants had caught up and were closing in on them.

“Poor Deku can’t even apologize properly,” one of them said. Kariage, his quirk allowed him to momentarily freeze atoms, which he always used to keep Izuku in place while they hit him. 

“He’s already crying and we haven’t even touched him,” the other one with long fingers, Togo, mocked. “Fucking crybaby.”

A few other kids were behind them, but didn’t say anything, choosing to watch as Kacchan rummaged through Izuku’s bag until he found his journal. Despite Izuku’s protests, the boy began flipping through the pages.

“Present Mic… Jeanist… Orca,” Kacchan muttered as he made his way through the book. “Hero Analysis for the Future, Vol. 13? You seriously think all of this is going to help you, Deku?”

When Izuku didn’t reply, Kariage froze his face long enough for Togo to slap him with his abnormally large fingers, leaving a dark bruise. 

“How many are there? Snipe” a few pages flipped, getting to some of his more recent entries… that meant Kacchan was nearing a page that Izuku knew would set him off. “Thirteen…” Izuku silently begged for him to stop. “Hawks and Endeavor” oh god, this was how Izuku was going to die. “And… WHAT THE FUCK, YOU FREAK?”

Kacchan shoved the pages in his face. “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, YOU SHITTY NERD?”

“It’s nothing, Kacchan,” Izuku said, “just some stupid thoughts.”

The few pages on Kacchan were ripped out by the boy. “You stalking me, Deku?” he asked. “What are you in love with me or something like that?”

Sadly, the answer to that question was yes. Izuku knew how sad it was for him to be in love with the boy who tormented him everyday —and he wished he wasn’t— but you can’t really control who you fall in love with any more than you can make yourself fall out of love. Ever since they were kids… ever since Izuku knew what love was, he loved Kacchan. How could he not? Kacchan was incredible —he was brave and strong, smart and passionate— and everything Izuku wished he could be. Yet at the same time, there was no one Izuku hated more in the world.

“No,” he finally whispered. For a brief second, Izuku thought he saw something flash in Kacchan’s eyes —maybe a hint of regret or sadness, he didn’t know— but it was there. 

“Good, I’d kick your nerdy ass if you were.”

Izuku didn’t see what Kacchan did with the pages about him because he was thrown on the floor and kicked at. Usually when this happened, he found that if he pretended he was someone else doing something else somewhere else, it didn’t hurt as much. Distantly, Izuku heard more pages being ripped out and tossed on the ground. A small part of him wanted to yell at Kacchan for discarding his work, but he knew that wouldn’t end well for him. 

So, Izuku let them beat him.

He had no idea when his classmates left, but like always, Kacchan was the last to go.

“Shitty nerd,” he sneered, “just let it go, okay? You can’t be a hero, not when you’re a quirkless deku.” Then, he threw the notebook on the ground and walked off.

Sadly, this was such a normal occurrence that Izuku knew to wait five minutes before getting up in case Kacchan or any of the others got a second wind and chose to come back. He slowly got up and repacked his fraying yellow backpack with caution— he didn’t want to have to tell his mom that they needed to buy something when he knew she was working double and sometimes triple shifts just to make it where they lived. 

The walk home wasn’t too bad, it was mostly just his ribs and back that would need attending to, and Izuku had dealt with worse. Once one of the high schoolers beat him so badly, he broke Izuku’s ankle and the boy passed out. He had eventually made it home hours later, and luckily his mom had taken a shift that night, and woken up with a sprained ankle that never quite healed right. After that, Izuku started mixing up how he got home so he wouldn’t have to walk near the high school since none of them would go after him if it meant walking extra.

Today’s injuries were manageable. Painfully manageable, but manageable nonetheless. Izuku kept his head down as he walked through the streets, ignoring the occasional glances from strangers. A woman passing by frowned briefly at the dried blood near his mouth before quickly looking away. A businessman stepped around him without pause. Two middle school girls whispered something to each other as they passed, eyes lingering on the bruises forming along his jaw. 

Nobody stopped. 

Nobody ever stopped. 

At this point, Izuku almost preferred it that way. Pity was somehow worse than indifference. The evening air felt cold against the burns on his shoulder. Every few steps sent a sharp ache through his side, making him suck in shallow breaths through clenched teeth. He adjusted the strap of his backpack carefully against his chest, trying not to bend the notebook inside further than Kacchan already had. The torn pages kept replaying in his mind. Kacchan had ripped through weeks of work like it meant nothing. 

Izuku swallowed hard. He knew the notebooks looked weird to other people. A quirkless middle schooler obsessively analyzing pro heroes and combat strategies wasn’t exactly normal. But the notebooks mattered. They were proof that he wasn’t useless. Proof that even without a quirk, he could still learn, still think, still become something. If heroes relied on power, then Izuku would rely on understanding. At least, that was what he kept telling himself. 

By the time he reached the apartment building, the sky had dimmed into soft shades of orange and blue. The stairwell smelled faintly of mildew and cigarette smoke, and the old fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as he slowly climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. His ribs protested every movement. Izuku fumbled slightly with his keys before finally managing to unlock the apartment door. The room beyond was dark and quiet. Relief loosened something tight in his chest. Mom wasn’t home yet. 

“Welcome back,” he whispered automatically to the empty apartment before shutting the door behind him. He slipped off his shoes carefully and set his backpack down beside the couch with far more gentleness than he’d shown himself all afternoon. 

For a moment, he just stood there in silence, shoulders sagging now that nobody was around to see him. Then he moved toward the bathroom. The fluorescent light above the mirror flickered weakly when he turned it on. 

Izuku stared at his reflection. He looked awful. A dark bruise spread across the left side of his face, already turning purple beneath the harsh light. His lip was split badly enough that dried blood still clung to his chin, and angry red burns marked the skin near his shoulder where Kacchan’s explosions had connected. There was dirt in his hair. His school uniform was ripped near the sleeve. For a long moment, he just looked at himself. Then, quietly, almost by reflex—

“Could have been worse,” he whispered.

Izuku reached beneath the sink and pulled out the small first aid kit he kept hidden behind extra towels. His mom had no idea about it, and he intended to keep it that way. Every time he needed some extra money, Izuku sold some of his hero figures. It broke his heart to do so, but he had to. 

He soaked a washcloth in warm water and pressed it carefully against his mouth. Pain flared sharply. Izuku hissed through his teeth but kept cleaning. Antiseptic next. Bandages after that. Ice later, once the swelling started getting worse. He moved through the process automatically, each step memorized from years of repetition. Sometimes he wondered if other kids his age knew how to bandage bruised ribs properly or identify the difference between a cracked bone and a badly bruised one. 

Probably not. 

Lucky them. 

After cleaning the worst of the blood away, Izuku carefully peeled off his uniform jacket and folded it neatly despite the tear in the sleeve. His mother already worked enough. He didn’t want to make things harder for her by ruining another uniform. 

The apartment remained silent except for the occasional passing car outside. That was another thing being quirkless taught him how to deal with: loneliness. His eyes drifted toward his backpack sitting by the couch. Slowly, he walked over and pulled out Notebook 13. 

The cover was bent and several pages had been ripped out near the middle. Izuku stared at the jagged edges for several seconds before carefully flipping through the remaining pages. Some were crumpled from being thrown onto the pavement, but most were still readable. A shaky breath escaped him, at least it wasn’t all gone. 

No matter how many times Kacchan hurt him, some stupid part of Izuku still remembered the little boy who used to grab his hand and drag him toward the woods to go “fight villains.” The boy who laughed loudly and fearlessly and told Izuku they’d become heroes together someday. Izuku hated that he missed him, hated it even more because part of him still loved him too. 

A loud click from the front door made Izuku jump. One look at the clock told him his mom was home. Panicked, Izuku shoved the notebook aside and hurried toward his room, wincing as pain shot through his ribs. He barely managed to pull the blanket over himself before footsteps approached down the hallway. 

“Izuku?” his mother called softly. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. The door creaked open a moment later. For several seconds, there was only silence. Izuku could feel her looking at him. Then came a quiet inhale — sharp and uneven, like she was swallowing down tears before they could fully form. Gentle fingers brushed through his curls. 

“Night, baby,” Inko whispered.A soft kiss pressed against his forehead before she quietly turned off the light and closed the door behind her. 

Izuku waited until her footsteps disappeared before opening his eyes again. Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself upright and reached beneath his bed for the hidden ice pack he kept there. 

Outside the window, something caught his eye. A black crow sat perched on the fire escape railing. Its eyes glowed red against the darkness. For a second, neither of them moved. The bird simply stared at him, watching. A chill crawled down Izuku’s spine. 

“…Weird,” he muttered quietly. The crow tilted its head once. Then, with a sharp caw, it spread its wings and disappeared into the night. 

Far across the city, deep within the shadows of Kamino Ward, the same crow flew into a bar and landed on the shoulders of its master, cawing softly. The master scratched mindlessly at the dry skin along his neck with one hand while lazily pressing buttons on a video game controller with the other. Red eyes flicked toward the bird. 

“Oh?” he murmured. “Did you find him?” The bird nodded. “Good.” 

The master smiled and flicked away from his game for a second to the crumpled up papers he had found earlier that day while buying a new game. 

“Izuku Midoriya,” the master whispered. “Let’s see your feats.”