Chapter Text
He’s got a map of the cosmos on his back.
A puckered scar from Cuspurn sits under his left shoulder blade. Knots of gnarled tissue line his lower spine, courtesy of Spars 101. A patchwork spot of pink and tan-- a burn wound presented to him in the asteroid belt bordering Eplion-- is slapped on his hip.
There’s a million and one nicks and scratches and bruises and puncture wounds and hell, even bite marks plaguing his skin, and Midoriya Izuku is proud of them all. A story and a solar system hides behind each of them. He can poke and prod at himself all day, finding a new scar with a fresh history every time.
But of course, the process of getting scars isn’t so much fun.
The sprint through a small town on Glayseas is a new tier of torture in Midoriya’s book. His breath catches in his throat every time his feet hit the ground. His legs are clumsy. The muscles in his right calf have been sliced, but he’s too stubborn to slow his pace even marginally.
Add that to the ground’s startling lack of traction-- the main feature of this planet-- and Midoriya is starting to get worried.
His shoes squeal as he dodges a few civilians wandering the streets, arms flailing as he puts extra effort into not losing his footing.
“Sorry, sorry!” he stammers to the curious and offended stares shot his way. Most people don’t respond. They notice the stun gun strapped on his belt, size up the goggles obscuring half of his face, and then scurry away. His outfit alone is a bad omen.
A lump of panic is caught in his throat as he flips through the scene, frantically trying to reset his sight on his target. There’s a woman and her child window-shopping to his left. A man tying the laces to his weighted shoes a small distance ahead. Three boys openly gawking to his right.
Something glints at the mouth of an alleyway, right beyond the neat row of shops. Midoriya scrambles towards it.
He clings to the wall of one of the stores to slow his momentum as he approaches, teeth gritted against the resulting sting in his leg. He swallows his discontent down in the next breath. Puts on his brave face. The alleyways seems to ooze with a certain sort of foreboding, but he rounds the corner without hesitation.
Incision is stationed as far away from him as she can possibly be, back nearly pressed against a wall. Just his luck-- the alleyway’s a dead-end. He skitters a step closer before she hurriedly points the blades on her forearms in his direction.
“Get any closer and I’ll cut you into ribbons, kid!” she growls. Midoriya stumbles to a halt. She’s certainly not the type of person who would bluff.
“Better.” Her smile bares an assortment of jagged teeth, none of which give him a friendly impression. “We don’t want a replay of what happened to your leg, right?”
“Not really,” he sheepishly agrees. In reality, if it meant she would be caught, he’d easily endure it again. All Might wouldn’t like it, though-- not even remotely. So he scours through his other options.
His stun gun only works within a close range, meaning any long-range attacks are out of the picture. The alleyway is too narrow for him to pounce on her from the side. Jumping over her and using the wall to rebound would take too long; she’d be able to swing her blades in his direction before he could land a kick.
A slight movement interrupts his thoughts. Her foot shifts ever-so-subtley, grappling for a stronger stance. It stills. A moment passes. It shifts again.
The gears in his head resume their turning, faster this time.
Her stance is unsteady-- possibly worse than his own. Is her upper half heavier than her lower half? With blades of that size, it’s entirely possible.
His eyes skirt over her metallic skin, the gunmetal gray hair drawn into a ponytail. Her build is disturbingly familiar, like an echo of something he’s seen before...
She’s clearly trying to bargain with him as he stares, oblivious to the way he’s chewing the side of his cheek in contemplation. Only some of her words manage to float into his ear.
“Look, boy. You’re what, fifteen? This is going to end up hurting you a lot more than it’ll hurt me. Don’t get yourself killed over this. Back out, and we can both go our merry ways, eh?” She sounds extremely confident in her reasoning skills as she continues to ramble, probably because she assumes she’s dealing with a kid. Her voice creaks like footsteps on a rickety metal beam. High-pitched. Strained. Absolutely grating.
And something in his memory finally clicks.
Midoriya is thirteen and perched in a stranger’s cockpit, fiddling with severed wires that dangle from beneath the ship’s steering wheel. The patron watches him work from behind. The New Terran sun gleams off his metallic skin, catching in his gunmetal gray hair.
“Ship manufacturers just don’t bother with accommodatin’ for us,” he eventually sighs, embarrassment tangled up in his grating voice. He eyes the blades on his kneecaps and elbows with a hint of disdain. “Folks from Metallumnus are so few and far between, nowadays. No one even knows who we are.”
The gutted wiring is repaired at almost a break-neck speed. The moment Midoriya finishes tucking everything behind the ship’s battered and slashed paneling, he eagerly asks for a chance to talk more about Metallumnus. The patron doesn’t even pause before answering with a stunned “sure”.
After dinner they wander the soft orange field behind the Midoriya Family’s Bed and Breakfast, taking their time to breath in the evening air before settling down in a clearing. Midoriya scribbles diligently in his ratty notebook as the patron tells him about his planet, about the tiny population on his planet.
Smack in the middle of the page in his journal, Midoriya recalls writing a sentence.
“Metallumni physiology leaves them misbalanced; heavier up top, while their lower half is lighter.”
And now his plan is set in stone.
Whatever the woman’s been saying is abruptly cut off as he meets her eyes.
“--You’re from M-Metallumnus, right?”
She gapes as if the wind has been knocked out of her. “How the hell did you--?”
That moment of disbelief is all he needs. He sprints directly towards her.
Midoriya can’t go above or around her, so he might as well go through her.
He’s only a few feet away when her forearm swings around to meet him. He ducks into a crouch before using the tension in his legs to spring forward, tackling her legs. She tumbles face-first with all the grace of a two-hundred pound brick.
He allows himself the privilege of one tired, shaky exhale after she lands. Then he clambers upright, only to drive his both knees into her back as she tries to push herself up. They both clatter onto the ground again.
Midoriya has enough time to pin her in a straddle, legs bracketing her upper arms and a hand planted between her shoulders. Her forearms must be trapped under her chest, if her pained hissing is anything to go by. But Midoriya’s too nervous to try and readjust her position.
She twists her head to glare at him, clearly on the verge of giving him a verbal thrashing when a third voice barges into their fight.
“Hurry, my boy!”
Silence.
Then realization dawns on her with the immediacy of a freight train.
“Oh God,” she whispers, eyes practically spinning in her skull. “Shit!” Midoriya tenses as she struggles with renewed vigor.
A curious glance towards the rooftops confirms that they look as empty as ever, but now he knows better. Had All Might been watching him the entire time from up there? Something about that thought causes uneasiness to roil in his stomach, probably due to the clumsiness he’d suffered from throughout the mission.
Regardless, All Might is right. Midoriya shouldn’t be sitting around here. He’s tired and aching and the sooner he gets Incision off the streets, the better.
So he reels his fist back right as she gives a blood-curdling snarl and--
Nine million credits.
The bounty makes them nine million credits richer.
The first thing they do with their earnings is buy groceries.
When they board the Symbol of Peace, plastic bags in hand, their day snaps into a sort of mundane that’s paradoxically surreal.
They clean Midoriya’s leg wound with a detached sort of duty. Saline water to flush out the germs. A clean line of stitches. Guaze wrapped around the entire area. Painkillers. Nothing new.
All Might shoos him away from the kitchen when they’re finished, urging Midoriya to go rest for a little while. Too compliant to argue with All Might, but too wired to take a nap, he ends up parking himself on the couch in the ship’s hub. He drags his gear over to the couch and does some maintenance. Then when he’s done, he stares out one of the hub’s windows, watching a distant galaxy slide by.
The clattering of pots and pans starts to drift from the kitchen’s doorway. Midoriya frowns, already apprehensive.
An hour later, dinner proves itself to be a rather quiet affair.
And while the meat in his stew is undeniably fresh, he still has to hold back a grimace at the flavor.
It’s not that All Might can’t cook-- he totally can, and what he makes is edible. But his mindset of food revolves around protein content. Flavor is a casualty in his cooking. Midoriya’s not sure he’ll ever be brave enough to complain.
All Might’s curious gaze forces him to hastily stomach another bite.
“How’s the stew?” he asks, the corner of his skeletal mouth twitching upwards.
Midoriya flashes a smile before taking another gulp, just for show. “It’s great!” he lies with a chirp. His tongue is starting to feel strange-- had all his tastebuds died? When he doesn’t feel the urge to immediately spit out the next bite, it’s like some sort of twisted confirmation.
All Might watches him for one, two, three more weighted seconds before turning back to his own bowl.
“You did well with Incision today,” he adds through a mouthful of stew. “Absolutely splendid.”
This is the fourth time All Might has complimented him since they had turned Incision in. It’s also the fourth time that Midoriya has felt light-headed, his face flushed red. “T-Thank you, sir,” he stammers. “I wasn’t very graceful, but I guess in the end that didn’t really matter.”
He receives a sage nod. “Bounty hunting’s primary goal is catching the criminal. The showmanship can come later.” All Might’s brow slowly furrows. “I am curious about one thing, though.”
Midoriya’s back straightens, eyes wide. “Yes?”
“You didn’t use One For All. Why?”
“Oh,” he wheezes. There’s no way he can explain this without sounding ridiculous. “I, uh, promise I didn’t forget about it! But…”
All Might waits patiently as he tapers off, struggling to make a coherent answer. “I’m sure your reasoning is perfectly understandable,” he soothes.
“That’s debatable, sir,” Midoriya counters. “To be honest, I was just nervous.”
“Nervous?” All Might tilts his head. “About what?”
Midoriya stares at the his bowl. At the table. At his hands. He resigns himself to his fate.
“I was nervous about launching myself halfway across the planet by accident.”
All Might’s resulting laughter is raspy, pained, but unrelenting; Midoriya would wince in sympathy to the harsh sound if he didn’t know better. He’s mortified as All Might reaches over, patting his shoulder in amusement.
“That’s entirely understandable; no debate required!” he says as he settles back into his seat. “One badly aimed punch with no traction to slow you down? You’d be skidding into the sunset before the criminal even knew what tried to hit them!”
“Exactly,” Midoriya gratefully agrees. He leans back into his chair, posture significantly less rigid. “I bet that isn’t a problem for you, sir.”
“I had time to learn,” All Might gives a humble shrug. “So do you. We’ll master using One For All before we start trying to adapt it.”
The metal chair he’s been sitting in screeches as he stands, sweeping both of their emptied bowls into his hands. He offers a prideful look. “You did the right thing, Midoriya.”
Without further ado, he paces away to start loading the dishwasher. “Get some sleep,” he calls from over his bony shoulder. “You had a long day.”
And as always, Midoriya gladly complies.
He’s rudely woken up when the bed decides to buck him onto the floor with little to no warning.
The digital clock blaring “4:27 am”-- Eastern New Terran Time-- lets out an offended clink as it lands beside Midoriya. He stares at it for a bewildered moment, registering exactly what had happened.
One, two, three seconds of silence.
Then he jolts into action.
The covers try to smother him as he quickly wrestles them away. He forces himself to stand up. The ground shudders dangerously beneath him, but his balance triumphs. He wobbles past the purged contents of his bed. Stumbles over to his nightstand. Every movement he makes feels borderline automatic. The gauntlets had been tossed from their usual perch, landing somewhere on the floor. It takes a few desperate gropes in the dark for him to find them.
He’s halfway through his frantic dash to shrug them on when an itch of confusion interrupts him. It’s loud and demanding-- enough so to shock him into a standstill.
The Symbol of Peace’s defense sirens aren’t on. The emergency lighting isn’t flooding his room with a stark, frightening red. The only possible sign of trouble is the turbulence the ship is fighting through. He takes this in with a slow blink, heart still beating an urgent rhythm in his chest.
Then he slowly peels the gauntlets off, placing them carefully back onto his nightstand.
A low roar continues to jostle everything around him. The ship’s engine must be working harder than usual.
The door to his room slides open almost reluctantly, the mechanics in chaos as the ship is shoved again by an invisible hand. He peers out into the pitch black hall.
“Hello?”
No response.
The first few steps forward are the most nerve-wracking. He’s been attacked on the Symbol of Peace before when captives have broken free, and there’s always the possibility that he’ll be attacked again-- even when he assumes it’s just him and All Might on the ship. His feet are tentative. Heel to toe to heel.
He lets himself go dizzy with a lack of air before finally letting the tension ease from his legs. Buttons are clicking in the control room, the sound carrying towards him from a little further down the hall. No frantic beeps from the dashboard. If it were a stranger, the machinery would be throwing a fit.
So it’s just All Might.
Midoriya starts to stride down the hall, significantly more confident, now.
His eyes catch onto the window right by the entryway. He raises a brow.
“We’re in a gate?” he mutters.
The ship seems to share his confusion, giving a furious rumble as it’s subjected to another bout of turbulence. He swings through the doorway.
At the opposite side of the room, he catches All Might’s silhouette. Spindly fingers rapidly tap at the controls. The Galactic Positioning System softly glows. Midoriya lets out an exhale.
He makes it halfway across the room before his feet catch on a creaky panel. All Might’s form stiffens in surprise, panic strung across his shoulders before he sags back into the too-large chair. He seems to sense Midoriya, rather than see him.
“Ah,” All Might sighs, “you’re up?”
Midoriya awkwardly scratches his jaw. “Uh, yep.” The metal flooring is cold against his bare feet. He really should start wearing socks to bed.
All Might continues to stare diligently through the windshield, stars blurring into streaks before being hurtled behind the ship like discards.
“I was planning to let you sleep in a bit longer,” he explains with an apologetic tone. Part of Midoriya wants to scoff, wants to remind All Might that the only way he would have slept through the gate would have involved him being in a coma. But he doesn’t. Because as always, All Might had meant well.
“It’s fine, sir,” he shrugs. He shuffles his way over to stand by All Might’s chair, nervously listening to all the features of the room rattle in protest to the pressure they’re being subjected to. “Can I ask where we’re going?” The gate could be leading them halfway across the galaxy, for all he knows.
“A station at the center of the Troona Galaxy.”
The surprised huff of air Midoriya lets out in response can’t be helped. “Wow,” he quietly murmurs.
A correction for his earlier assumption: they’re probably already two and a half galaxies away from where they’d started, if that’s where they’re headed. They haven’t traveled this far in at least a few years. He must’ve been sixteen at the time.
His voice sounds insignificant beside the angry hum of the engine. “Why?”
The cockpit is dark; dark enough that when All Might finally spares him a glance, it swallows the black glass of his robotic eyes and leaves only the neon blue rings.
“The officers at the station posted a bounty this morning.”
Midoriya can tell that there’s more to it. “...And?”
“It’s for thirteen billion credits.”
All Might ignores Midoriya’s shocked spluttering as he turns back to face the windshield. His features are stony, etched with determination.
“This man is extremely dangerous, Midoriya.” His hands tighten around the steering wheel.
“He needs to be stopped.”