Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya was hardly a normal boy. Like most people with mutation quirks, he’d had his since birth. Unlike most of those mutative type folks, however, his form wasn’t very…Humanoid. Izuku was what most video games would call a “slime.” He was in the rough shape of a boy, yes. He had two arms with three fingers and a thumb each, and a head with two very distinct eyes, a nose, and a big wobbly grin. He had two legs, with feet that fit into his big red chunky shoes that he loved so dearly. He even had hair! Gooey and wobbly and more the suggestion of hair than anything else, but it was where hair belonged on his “head”.
But all of these adorable features were made of translucent, bright green slime. On particularly sunny days, the boy’s shadow even went from black to a dull green, and kids in the park would have fun distorting their images through his body. All in good fun of course, especially when it was done with his two best friends: Katsuki and Katsumi Bakugou. Twin wonders with blonde hair and crimson eyes, and all the charisma a kindergartener could ask for. The two were inseparable from Izuku, as their mothers were close friends. As such, the twins had a long couple years to be jealous of their friend’s inborn quirk that made him such a good playmate. He didn’t get hurt from roughhousing, he was good for cool, if moist, hugs on hot summer days, and on the odd chance you got to lick him, he even tasted like lime jello!
Izuku Midoriya maybe wasn’t the coolest kid on the block, and certainly not normal, even in a world of Quirks, but life was good for the first four years of his life.
And then all of his classmates began to get their quirks too.
Suddenly little Izuku wasn’t quite as special, now that just about every other day someone could show off a brand new trick or a special ability. The Kacchan twins (He’d been calling them that forever, as talking with a mouth made of goop was a little tricky, especially for a four year old) remained by his side, but everyone else was starting to lose interest in the sticky boy who always smelled like citrus.
A week after Katsumi and Katsuki’s fourth birthday, the playground was rocked by a literally explosive debut. The two blondes had stuck straws from their juice boxes into Izuku’s arms and were blowing bubbles into him, which always made the slime boy laugh. When that got boring, they played a three person game of pattycake. After a particularly hard clap from Katsuki, a sharp crack rang out, and suddenly Izuku’s hand went splat!
There was a three count of silence before the trio began to freak out, garnering attention from the other kids and the teacher supervising playtime.
“Kacchan, where’d my hand go?!”
“I don’t know, Izukun, can’t you bring it back?!”
“Can you do it again, ‘tsuki?”
“Can you do it, ‘tsumi?”
Quickly, after a bit of somewhat embarrassing straining, Katsuki discovered what had happened, as little snaps and pops began to ring out from his palms, like little firecrackers. The display drew admiration and awe from the onlookers, who turned next to Katsumi. The girl, 8 minutes older than her brother, was concentrating intensely, apparently trying to mimic whatever he had done.
“C’mon, Kacchan, you can do it!” A happily gurgling voice called out, and something in her head just clicked .
Suddenly, that look changed, to one of surprise as instead of an explosion bursting from her palms, Izuku’s hands were pulled in like a vacuum against hers.
This turn of events puzzled the young children, until their teacher cleared her throat. “It looks like the Bakugou Twins have quite a flashy combo indeed. A boy who explodes to keep things away, and a girl who implodes to pull things in. Quite the fearsome Quirks for both of you. I’m sure you’ll make great heroes one day!”
The crowd gathered around the trio a little more tightly, the other kids fawning over the twins while Izuku was left to bubble uncertainly off to the side. Katsumi-chan gave him a sympathetic look for a moment before joining her brother in basking in the attention.
The slime boy squished his way out of the center, unnoticed by even the teacher as the twins started showing off their newly developed powers.
The young boy shrugged it off though, and returned to the small kindergarten classroom, deciding to sit and color for a while. He could hang out with Kacchan and Kacchan once all the kids got bored with their quirks. Surely everyone’s interest would wane eventually. They got bored of his quirk, after all.
Unfortunately for young Izuku, that was going to take much longer than he thought…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Over the next couple years, the Bakugou twins grew… distant. Playdates happened less and less often, they stopped sitting with him at school, they started to hang out with other kids. The twins weren’t mean to him. Surely they couldn’t ever be mean to their best friend! But they’d been giving him looks recently in class, especially whenever he’d mention heroes he was excited about. They weren’t nice looks either. Sympathetic in the worst way, pitying, and a little bit of something else…
It only got worse when someone pointed out that the last kanji of his name could be read like “useless.” The bigger kids took to calling him Deku after that, and soon even the teachers had to correct themselves when addressing him.
By the time they were ten, it was practically official. Everywhere he went he was Deku the Useless Wonder. A lime-flavored blob who couldn’t stand up for himself, couldn’t fight back, and couldn’t do anything useful. Meanwhile the Bakugou Twins just kept getting more impressive. Their quirks were strong and versatile, that much was obvious to anyone. Years of being reminded of it at every turn was starting to affect the duo as much as being called useless had affected Midoriya.
They were loud and brash in school, overconfident and self assured. Anyone who wanted to pick a fight with either of them was quickly outmatched by both. And sometimes… sometimes they joined the other kids who picked on Izuku. Tossing his books back and forth, taunting him with that nickname, turning away whenever he was surrounded by a group. There was always a slight edge of guilt on both their faces, but it didn’t seem to stop them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then they started middle school, and suddenly it did. The twins stopped bothering Izuku completely, day one of middle school at Aldera Junior High. The other kids, well used to bullying him at this point, didn’t seem to pick up the hint. But his oldest friends, and yes even through it all he still considered them friends, just sort of… left him alone. Completely, it seemed like, as they didn’t even talk to him in the halls or acknowledge him during class, on the walk home, anywhere.
They still had that guilty edge to the pitying, dismissive looks they gave him, but Izuku just couldn’t understand why. It was his fault, right? His fault for leaving back then, for being weak? He wanted to be a hero so bad, but he knew he couldn’t hold a candle to his Kacchans. It wasn’t their fault life had dealt the three kids these hands.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The silent treatment continued through middle school, and by the time they got to high school, Izuku figured that was as good as he was ever going to get from his one-time best friends.
Still, he held his head high. It was freshman year, and he was determined for a fresh start! He glooped his best foot forward, waving a cheerful goodbye to his mother before he was out the door and off to school.
This year was going to be a big one for Izuku, for a few reasons! Primarily because it was the year he could legally start training his quirk. He’d had to get a residential quirk license forever ago, since his quirk was such a major mutation and not one he could turn off. The license let him walk freely in his normal form, even at a young age, but as soon as he turned 15 it would also allow him to actively engage his quirk outside of his home.
As hard as Izuku’s parents had worked to make it a nice home, there simply wasn’t enough space to really stretch his quirk. He knew the basics of course. His body composition was some unique, highly digestive slime. He wouldn’t dissolve a person (not quickly anyway), but food went down easily and he’d had to be careful with toys growing up. He could store things inside his body for a time, but even without focusing on dissolving something he was a little corrosive, so he couldn’t just eat his backpack and keep it in his chest all day. He was also pretty malleable, as he’d learned to squish himself into smaller spaces growing up. Early on, hauling Izuku around as “Bucket-kun” had been great fun for the Bakugous… but he was still in the dark about so much to his quirk, he could feel it. So he eagerly awaited his fifteenth birthday, the starting line to pursue his dream.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those daydreams were waylaid a bit on his way to school as he came upon a blockage in the street: a massive crowd looking up at a fight up on the railway overpass. Apparently, some massive man who looked like a land shark practicing Rastafarianism had snatched a purse, and was being pursued by a group of heroes. Death Arms and Backdraft kept the crowd at a safe distance on ground level while Air Jet and the semi-new pro Kamui Woods kept the villain from causing any more damage.
The commuters below were relatively unfazed, more annoyed at being delayed than afraid of the giant villain fending off two pros.
“Dammit, I’m gonna be late for work again…”
“I was out really late last night, if I don’t get home soon, my wife is gonna think I was cheating again!”
The young hero fanatic tuned it all out, vibrating in place eagerly at the display. Thoughts about school and first bell drifted through the back of his fluid brain, currently dominated by gotta get close, so cool, what’s that thudding, wish I had a camera, Kamui Woods, Air Jet, that thudding is louder, he’s gonna use a super move, OH WOW SHE’S REALLY BIG.
A massive woman burst out of nowhere, delivering a vicious double barrel jump kick to the side of the massive villain, incapacitating him instantly. As the other pros watched in shock, she began to pose, hips cocked and chest out while she made her debut introduction. The slime boy quickly turned to continue along, not wanting to get caught up as a rush of young men with cameras moved in to take advantage of the photo op.
School came rushing back to the front of his mind as he left the scene, and he picked up the pace to a jiggly sprint as he realized he was going to be late for his first day at Aldera High. He stumbled slightly up the stairs at the front of the building, losing a bit of fine control of his legs in his haste, and dashed to his class. If he could blush, his whole body would be lit up as he took his seat, five minutes after the late bell.
He was met with hushed laughter and pointed looks, and the teacher warned him that future tardiness would mean an instant detention. The day continued without much incident from there,basic syllabus week and first day type stuff, at least until the final bell rang and class let out. As Izuku was getting his bag ready to leave, he was stopped by a pair of hands slamming on his desk at the same time.
He looked up to meet two faces framed by blonde hair, one cold and dismissive, the other hot with anger. The slime boy shrank, literally, into his seat as they started speaking to him.
“Oi, Deku… you never gave an excuse to the teacher. What had you so busy you were late to class, nerd?” Katsuki’s hands began to pop and crackle softly, a dangerous precursor to a splattered Izuku.
“Ah, well, y’see, there was a villain on my way to school, and a bunch of heroes were there, and a new pro made her debut, and I got held up…”
Katsumi interrupted, crimson eyes narrowed as she leaned forward beside her twin, long hair braided over her shoulder. The sudden intrusion on his little remaining personal space caused Izuku to shrink further into his chair. “A villain attack, huh? Big brand new hero, on the first day of school, right on your path? Hell of a coincidence, I bet you went looking for it, you Hero dweeb.”
“You aren’t still holding any hope for being a hero, are you, Deku? Because a living jello cup is worse than useless as a hero, and you’re smart enough to know that, right?” The boy grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him up before the slime could ooze away.
“W-well, you don’t know that, I could have some u-u-unknown abilities… I could shapeshift or stretch or-” He stammered, before Katsumi cut him off again.
“But you can’t, Deku , because if you could do any of that you would have done it before. You can’t shapeshift, can’t grow, can’t make weapons, can’t do anything useful aside from hide and squirm out of danger. Get it through that squishy, slimy brain of yours. You can’t be a hero .”
Two lackeys snickered behind the pair as they turned and left the room, leaving Izuku alone to consider what they’d said. In another place, he might have tried to stand up for himself, or the conversation might have gone completely differently, or maybe his oldest friends would have said something even worse to him… But here, now, in this place and this time, what they said was still enough to break his squishy heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Izuku walked home, he couldn’t have said concretely what he was feeling. Maybe some lingering excitement from that morning’s hero debut, Mount Lady seemed cool, even if she was only doing this for the popularity. Some fear, and anger, and gloomy acceptance from the twins’ speech at the school. On some level he hoped they weren’t being unecessarily cruel, that their harsh words came from somewhere well meaning. Deeper feelings lay tucked away in the back of his fluid brain, not nearly defined enough to identify or unpack.
A touch distracted by this muddled mess of emotions, he was less aware than usual as he took the long way home, not wanting to run into the Bakugou twins after… after that. He glooped his way beneath an overpass, eyes focused on his translucent arms as he ruminated. Something rattled behind him, but the sound went unnoticed until a voice that sounded oddly like his own, but raspier, spoke.
“Ugh, just when I could’ve used a hiding place… Oh well, kid, you’ll make a perfect smoke screen!”
Before Izuku could even turn to see who was addressing him, a mass of sludge the consistency of swamp muck was surging against him, trying to cover him and coat him in the same awful substance.
He wasn’t sure why exactly they were doing this, but it definitely couldn’t be good. What if they were trying to absorb him?! He struggled and surged back weakly, squirming away from his assailant as that weird metal rattle from before started up again. The scene under the overpass devolved into something like two amoebas struggling against each other, one trying to envelop the other as it fought to escape.
Suddenly the manhole cover in the middle of the road, which is apparently what had been rattling this whole time, burst off and slammed into the ceiling of the overpass. The amoeba fight paused as a hulking figure hauled itself from the sewer with a booming laugh. The sludge person vacated the area as soon as that laugh began, but Izuku was instantly star-struck.
“ You’ve been giving me the slip all afternoon, villain. You won’t get away again! ” The man cocked a fist back, and suddenly Izuku realized he was the only target left now that the sludge guy had vamoosed. Dimly, he thought he should object to what was about to happen to him.
“ Delaware Smash! ” Before he could even attempt to speak to defend himself, the slime boy was splattered against a wall like a Pollock painting, his school uniform glued somewhat comically to the bricks.
As the number one hero All Might, for indeed that’s who had just pasted Izuku to the wall, stepped forward to begin some other speech or admonishment, he stopped and seemed to look Izuku over before that heroic face went very pale very quickly.
“Oh shit… I just murdered an innocent high schooler…”
The man began to, for lack of a better term, Freak the McFuck Out over what to do and whether or not to even check on the grease stain he’d just made of this poor young soul, when said grease stain began to peel itself off the wall back into the high school uniform?!
The large green splatter resolved itself into a young man with big eyes and a wide, if wobbly and fatigued, smile. He held his hands up placatingly, and the pro almost literally deflated in relief, steam hissing lightly off his form.
“ I can only offer my sincerest apologies for that, young man, I should never have used such intense force against an innocent bystander. You looked so similar to the villain I’ve been chasing for the last hour, I let my eyes deceive me! Truly a mistake I must make certain never to repeat. Lucky for the both of us your quirk is so… malleable, young man! ”
“Thank you, All Might, sir! Um, would you mind signing my notebook and…” Izuku took a deep breath, forcing himself to meet his idol’s almost entirely hidden eyes with as firm an expression as he could school his gelatinous head into. “And answering a very important question, please?”
The man nodded, smile back as wide as it ever was while the boy handed over his notebook and a pen, open to a mostly blank section with some sketches of the pro in his various costumes. “ I’d be more than happy to answer a question for a young fan! Especially after that... unfortunately aimed Smash. ”
Izuku gratefully accepted the notebook back and stowed it away in his bag, psyching himself up to ask the question. “I just wanted to know, sir… with a quirk like mine, that only lets me run away, or hide, or avoid a fight… If I can’t fight or protect anyone but myself… Can I still be a hero, like you?”