Chapter Text
Izuku groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, blinking as he stared at a white ceiling. He hummed, wondering why he wasn’t in pain. He could swear that the last thing he remembered was… No… That wasn’t right... The last thing he remembered wasn’t trying to die.
As he thought about it he realized he still didn’t want to be in this world. It was too tiring, the people were so beautiful, but blinding, and he was too ugly to belong. He raised his hand, staring at it. He didn’t belong. He began to stand but was stopped by cuffs. He paused, blinking as he slowly came fully into reality.
He was at a hospital. He was cuffed to a hospital bed… Was this right or was this wrong ? It felt wrong … He frowned, swallowing down the growing panic at things being wrong . He hated things being wrong . He frowned as he noticed that parts of his handcuffs disappeared. He felt something within him short circuit as he thought...
He had a quirk… But it was still… It was… He didn’t know what to call it. He pulled his hands out of the cuffs that had fallen apart because of his quirk. He frowned as he flexed his hands, wondering what his quirk was. He looked up as he wondered where he was.
Everything seemed to get darker around him, greying out as he slowly realized his surroundings, dread climbing up his chest as he tried to breathe. He swallowed, clutching at himself as he felt like something crept closer.
And then it was gone. Someone had opened the door… He blinked as he looked at the man, vaguely recalling that he was Eraserhead. “Oh… What would someone like you be doing here?” He asked, his voice sounding small, even to him. The man blinked, staring at him.
“I’m here to look after you.” The man declared after a second, and Izuku couldn’t help but blink, staring at the man.
“Why? I’m nothing but…” he blinks, looking away. His nature and his quirk warring with each other. His quirk was whispering, telling him that everyone else was wrong, that he was okay, and that he could just make everything right. Things began appearing around the room as he fell back towards the comforting emptiness in his mind, even as another part of himself called him a monster, something useless that should’ve ended long ago.
Then the man was there, the darkness was gone, words stopped whispering and whirling, and things stopped appearing, disintegrating into nothingness. “Kid. You’re so much more than nothing. You’re an amazing kid, with or without your quirk I’m sure you would’ve been amazing.” The man said, gripping onto Izuku’s shoulders, looking… He was looking at Izuku. He was staring at him, a gaze heavy and certain, something grounding in the world that had suddenly seemed so wrong.
Izuku couldn’t bring himself to doubt the man, his eyes filling with tears as the voices fell away to the voice of the man. He stared at the man, unable to find his voice for a second. “R-really?” He asked, his voice quiet and strained, eyes overflowing with tears as his lower lip trembled.
The man pulled him in for a hug, causing Izuku to freeze up a bit, unused to any affection from anyone except his mom… Except she had become distant… After middle school started… He had kept dreaming of being a hero, and she had told him that he needed to find something else. He had insisted, tears in his eyes, and she had merely sighed, walking away.
Izuku didn’t notice the shadows beginning to gather around them, until the man said, “Izuku. You’re okay now… I’m gonna be here to help you, okay?” Izuku looked at him, as the world seemed to rearrange itself.
“O-okay… Okay…” Izuku said, gripping onto the man, memorizing what he felt like under his fingers. He memorized it because he didn’t know how else to process this. He could barely tell what was an illusion and reality and had at times run into real people, expecting them to be fake. Or he had walked through someone who he thought was real.
Not that he had processed it at the time, at the time he had become a complete robot, responding very rarely. His past had trapped him within it, causing him to question everything that had ever made him… him. Izuku had lost not only his dream but his childhood hero and his spirit. Izuku didn’t notice the… thing… manifesting above him.
The man gently grabbed Izuku’s arms. “Problem child, please look at me.” The man said, his voice firm, but not demanding. Izuku looked at the man, not having known that he had stopped, having an image of that man burned into his eyes as he tried to process why someone would want to-
The man shifted, gently patting Izuku’s shoulder. “Jeez. It’ll be quite the journey we’re gonna have together.” The man… Joked? Was that a joke? Izuku couldn’t tell.
Izuku nodded slowly, not noticing the thing behind him dissolve away. He slowly calmed down, staring at his hands as he thought. The hero didn’t say anything, merely watching him in silence as he processed his situation and decided what he wanted to do next. “Do you think my mom looked for me? I hope she didn’t… She doesn’t-” He was cut off, looking up to see something flutter outside of his view, and before he could look at it again the man was speaking.
“She should have looked for you.” The man asserted, making Izuku blink at him, staring at him.
Izuku said, “She doesn’t need to think about something like me.” He stared at the man’s dark eyes, he wondered quietly whether they were black, or just a very, very dark brown.
Izuku hummed, thinking about how he had wandered the city he had created. He remembered how peaceful it had been. His next thought tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Why would you wake me up?” He asked, looking at the hero before him.
Shota had walked into the room that he had put Izuku in expecting a lot. He was cuffed to the bed to make sure that he didn’t disappear from the room and attempt to rebuild his city. Shota had walked in, expecting a kid that was confused and slightly scared. He got what he expected. He watched the remnants of illusions fade as he walked over to the bed the kid had been cuffed to.
Shota’s situational awareness let him notice that the kid was definitely not cuffed anymore, but he needed to focus on keeping the kid from losing himself in illusions again. He gently laid a hand on the kid, but he knew the kid wasn’t in the right mind to be able to process much.
To hear the kid claim to have hoped his mother didn’t search for him made Shota feel sick. Shota frowned as he thought about that. However, all thoughts stopped as he heard the kid call himself ‘something’ instead of someone or a human at all.
Whatever he said next would obviously be lost on the kid, as he watched him space out. Shota was about to stop him because he saw the city slowly being rebuilt around them. However, he was stopped by a question that made Shota’s heart stop. “Why would you wake me up?” the kid asked, looking at him with green eyes that weren’t as empty as they had once been. They still felt less expressive than they should be, which made Shota a bit uncomfortable.
However, to hear the kid refer to what he did as ‘waking him up’. It made him sad. “Problem Child… You need to see the world. What you saw before… Wasn’t the world… People need you… There will be people that need you. And… And I want to help you become a hero.”
The city completely shattered, falling and crumbling around Shota as the kid looked at him, eyes widened to a comical degree and tears filling his eyes. “Really?!” the kid suddenly cut himself off, hesitation as he looked away.
“But I can’t be a hero… Even All Might said it.” Said the kid, his voice small and muttered out. Shota suddenly had the undeniable urge to go murder the retired number one hero.
“No, of course, kid. You can be a hero. Most everyone can be… It’s just certain people will have to work more to achieve it. Just because you have to work more doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Some people will have to find new ways of being a hero...” Shota said, taking into account that certain people probably wouldn’t be able to fight all that well. However, with progress in technology, he doubted that would last long.
The poor boy looked at Shota with tears in his eyes, looking as if Shota had just told him that he’d been granted a miracle. He quickly began crying and Shota pulled him close, rubbing his back and wondering how there could ever be a person that cried so much.
The kid cried himself asleep, again. Shota sighed a bit, shifting on the bed so he laid against the back, staring at the kid. The doctors had been impressed by his condition, considering that he was completely isolated for a year or two. Shota ran his fingers through green hair as he thought.
The doctors had said he would suffer mentally, and just that was an understatement. Shota wasn’t sure how he would keep the kid’s psyche together, he could only hope that he didn’t let it slip through his fingers.
He looked over as Hizashi entered the room, and he smiled tiredly. Hizashi chuckled a bit and walked over, touching the kid’s shoulder. “Shota, you should really be more careful about the strays you pick up.” Hizashi scolded quietly, a private joke between them about a time that Shota wasn’t gonna think about.
Shota rolled his eyes and looked away. “He’s gonna be quite a handful,” Shota said honestly, “But he definitely needs someone… I’ll probably keep him here for a few weeks, then give him a placement test. He needs to start a slow integration into society… I think… I think his quirk is making him look younger than he is… I don’t know how much of him there is and it’s concerning. I-i suspect that he’s a very late bloomer, and I am very worried about what situation surrounds his quirk manifesting.” Shota wanted to get as much information as he thought Hizashi needed immediately out of the way.
“He has a powerful quirk, but I can’t figure out too much about it,” Shota admitted as he rubbed said boy’s back. “It seems to be an illusion quirk, but he hasn’t returned to his actual age. The doctors also said that he seems to be a normal weight for his age, which is impossible because he stayed in that city and I know for a fact he was in no condition to eat anything. Also… During his panic… There was something… Off.” Shota talked, not minding that Hizashi hadn’t said anything. Hizashi knew that Shota was just talking to make sure someone else also knew.
“I’m pretty sure his quirk kept him from dying even though he himself had given up. I don’t know whether it was his body’s natural survival attempt or… Something more.” Shota said, making eye contact with Hizashi to make it obvious that he was very concerned about it being something more. If they were dealing with a semi-sentient quirk things could go to hell very quickly. Especially since they knew next to nothing about it.
Hizashi nodded a bit as Shota seemed to finish. “Well, that does seem very concerning. We should probably deal with this one at a time.” Hizashi answered honestly as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed.
Shota nodded a bit, looking down at the boy he held in his arms. He sighed as he ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. Both Shota and Hizashi had managed to temporarily fend off the Hero Commission by claiming the boy was currently in a dangerously unstable state whenever they came asking after the boy. Shota couldn’t help but wonder whether they’d be as interested in him if he were still the quirkless kid he obviously was beforehand.
He wondered whether All Might would recognize the kid he had told couldn’t be a hero. He debated showing the kid to Nezu, who would surely be interested in his analysis abilities. But he didn’t know who he could trust right now. Shota sighed, wondering whether quitting would be smart.
He took a second before a realization hit him. He had recognized one of the voices. He had recognized it, and the smell that came with it. Who had that voice? Why did he recognize it? Who was it? Shota frowned as he held the kid close to him. He wouldn’t let the kid keep getting hurt. He debated whether he should put the kid in a class according to his physical age, what he tested at, or his mental age.
He looked at Hizashi, considering him one of the few men he could trust. “I’d die for this kid, and I’ve barely known him.” He admitted, looking at the kid. Hizashi chuckled, smiling as he looked at Shota
“That happens with every stray you find~” He teased lightheartedly. Shota sighed in relief, taking that as the agreement it was. Shota sighed as he shifted, watching colors flow around them, a small illusion that was probably some sort of representation of the kid’s dreams.
It wasn’t uncommon for kids with illusion quirks to have them active while sleeping, it was something parents either broke their kids out of or learned to cope with. The only time it ever became a problem was when kids had chronic nightmares and an illusion quirk. Luckily, Shota had rarely seen an illusion quirk as strong as Izuku’s, especially combined with clearly being able to limitedly make things a reality, indicated by his notebook and the fact that he still looked like a middle schooler.
The colors around them weren’t a full manifestation of the kid’s dreams and were just abstract, misty-looking colors. Shota didn’t mind, they were quite beautiful and colorful. It reminded him of how the boy saw people in that small glimpse he had. He tried to recall and hummed. He could swear that people had colors that represented their quirks...
He didn’t know what that meant, whether it was that the kid had seen everyone’s quirks and had given them colors… Or something more curious. Shota hummed, looking back at the kid who was clearly full of mysteries. Shota sighed as he leaned his head back. “I reckon we only have a week before the Commission is on our ass again. And we need to leave him alone to deal with the school.” Shota said as he thought over their options.
Hizashi shifted, “I don’t know. We could bring him to the school, at least for a while. With what you’ve said, Nezu will probably give him some leeway. You know how he is with people who he thinks could be interesting.” Hizashi said honestly as he moved, laying back against the bed.
Shota moved, letting Hizashi lay his head against his legs. “Yeah, but the more people who know about him the more likely they are to say something,” Shota said, looking at Hizashi seriously. “I know that the Commission are the ones who control who becomes a hero, and they trained Hawks, but it seems… cruel to leave him to the commission, who only seems interested now that he’s actually manifested a quirk.”
Hizashi silently nodded, watching Shota and waiting for him to finish. “I want to be able to dip if we have to. I have… No idea what lengths the Commission might go to… But… That might just be paranoia.” He said honestly.
Hizashi shifted, closing his eyes a bit. “That is very true. I don’t know.” He said as he thought about it.
Shota sighed a bit as he rested his head against Izuku’s head, closing his eyes tiredly. “He’ll probably be awake within an hour,” Shota said quietly, holding him close.
Hizashi hummed “That’s good. We should choose a few people to begin to introduce him back to socializing,” Hizashi said as he kept his eyes closed. Shota sighed, frowning as he stayed in the same position. He was thinking over what to do next.
Shota just quietly held the boy, enjoying the closeness of the people he considered family. Hizashi sighed as he opened his eyes, unable to stay still long. “I’ll go see whether I can pull some strings and see what’s up with the Commission while not being discovered…” Hizashi said as he sat up, patting Shota’s leg. Shota let out a soft sound of confirmation as Hizashi stood.
Hizashi left the room, leaving Shota alone with the problem kid. Shota sighed as he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He hoped he could trust the people around him, but with how the Commission had behaved earlier he wasn’t trusting it.
Shota sighed as he shifted, waiting patiently for the kid to wake up
Izuku woke up, and his eyes hurt from crying so much. He whined a bit, not wanting to open his eyes and aggravate it. He was warm, and whatever he was laying on was soft.
And then it began to move. It was soft and steady up and down, and then Izuku heard it breathing and had a heartbeat. He slowly moved, looking at Eraserhead and opening his eyes. The man was still looking at him and smiled when he saw Izuku looking back.
Izuku smiled at him, before beginning to go to stand. The man chuckled “No, you’re gonna stay in the hospital for a few days. Just to make sure you’re healthy and get you a place to stay.” Eraserhead said honestly, “Oh, yeah, kid… My name is Aizawa Shota… Just… call me whatever you feel comfortable with.”
Izuku smiled happily at Aizawa, “Thank you! I… I think I told you my name.” He said, looking away. His memories from the two years were… murky. He knew that it was a good thing, like sleeping… He hummed at that thought but was shaking out of it by Aizawa shifting him slightly.
“Well, Midoriya, would you mind living with me?” Aizawa asked as he looked at Izuku. Izuku was amazed, not having expected anyone to want to take him in.
“N-no I wouldn’t..” He said quietly, looking away as he moved, curling up a bit. Aizawa rubbed his back, comforting him.
“Good,” Aizawa said, smiling as he held Izuku. Izuku relaxed into it, just enjoying the positive attention. It was something he didn’t get a lot of since starting middle school and had been decreasing over the years as his mother lost hope.
Izuku sighed as he closed his eyes, which were still a bit sore. He wasn’t gonna fall asleep, but he would just enjoy this before it went away and he was left alone again. Izuku relaxed as he shifted, leaning into Aizawa’s touch.
Izuku wondered how the world had changed since he had hidden away, and whether he'd want to be in this world. He would find out later, right now he was safe and happy to be near someone who seemed to care for him.