Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Objectively, it was, in fact, morally wrong to burn books. Izuku understood this fact, and he understood it very well. One should never burn a book, but he was pretty sure he could make an exception in this case.

The metal waste bin was alight with the burning books. Sparks were spiraling up to the heavens and Izuku was watching, and watching intently as they soared into the open air. Six books, stacked one on top of the other, all reeking of smoke and lighter fluid. It was a pity, really, and a gratuitous waste of money. His mom was going to be upset, but what else was Izuku supposed to do? Just leave them? No, he could not, in fact, do that.

The Hobbit was the last one to burn. Izuku tried to reassure himself that this was the correct decision. It wasn’t like the damned thing would let him put it back in. If he could, this wouldn’t be a problem. He could have kept the books, but no. No, the blasted object just couldn’t let him do that. No, it had to do this. And here Izuku thought he could just have a sick sword to add to his collection in his room. Functionally, it was rather useless, as there were no orcs in the world he lived in, so it would not light up, but it could still stab things. And it would have been the perfect size for him, too, but no, of course Tolkien just had to make something sentient and also evil and of course his quirk had to be hijacked by the damn thing.

Of course, because some god up there hated him, and one of these days Izuku would have to kill that god for its crimes. The crimes of inconvenience.

“Bring me my master,” the being hissed against his chest, and Izuku frowned at the damned thing.

“He’s too damn big,” he snapped as the sliding glass door behind him opened.

“Izuku, what are you doing?” Mom asked from behind him and Izuku let out a long, upset sigh.

“Books’ haunted,” he replied.

“... Right. At least get the mithril before you waste all that power,” Mom replied with a sniff. “Ghost or not, the mithril is useful.”

“I will,” Izuku replied. He was pretty sure the other rings were never mentioned in the Hobbit, anyways.

“I’m making katsudon. Hurry up and finish, baby,” Mom said and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“I will!”

“Love you,” Mom said and the door shut, leaving Izuku with his terribly immoral burning trash.

With a sigh, Izuku flipped open the worn, secondhand book and followed through the bookmarks of useful spots to find his marked spot of the mithral shirt gifted to Bilbo Baggins. Perpetually ink stained fingers stroked over the words on the paper as he mouthed along to the katakana there, memorizing the words and repeating them as he read his special copy one last time.

And, then, he pushed. Pushed past the first layer as the ink stained his fingers, molded to his flesh, the paper sucking in his hand as he whispered the words before him. His ears were assaulted with the sound of Thorin Oakenshield’s voice, and a smile twitched at his lips as his fingers wrapped around cool metal. With a tug, the shirt was slowly, achingly slowly pulled from the book, inch by inch, until it fell into his lap, fully formed and gleaming in the light of the fire.

Well. That was that. It was very pretty. A sigh escaped his lips, longing and quietly sad at the loss of such valuable resources for his collection, and then he tossed the final seventh book into the blaze.

It was a sad thing, the burning of a book. Were he anyone else, this would have never mattered. But he was Midoriya Izuku, and he was pretty sure he was cursed. The mithril armor cast over his lap, he sat there for a moment, watching the papers curl in the flames, and then he sighed once again as he pulled the source of all of his problems out of his shirt.

A single golden ring. Unobtrusive. Not a problem in the least. It didn’t seem like much, sitting on that golden chain, and he stared at it in irritation.

“I’m not calling you precious,” he said to the thing, and words formed in his mind.

“Bring me my master.”

“Gremlin. You’re going to be Gremlin, since you want to be so talkative. Asshole.”

The ring was dropped back into his shirt and he stood up, mithril in hand, and opened the door.

Annoying. This was all entirely annoying. What he wouldn’t give to be able to just pull Mount Doom out of the Return of the King and be done with it.

Chapter Text

“So why did you just burn your entire collection of Lord of the Rings?” Mom asked patiently as Izuku picked at his katsudon with some form of rage he couldn’t fully express in a way that required words.

“Told you. They’re haunted,” he mumbled and took a vicious bite of the chicken as the ring hung heavy around his neck. What was he supposed to even do with this thing? Leave it in the meadow? You couldn’t exactly put the One Ring in a safe deposit box.

“Yes, you said that, but I’m really lost as to how they’re haunted,” Mom said passively as she took a bite of her katsudon.

“... Well.” How was he supposed to explain this to his mom? She was his mother. “Uh, how do I…”

“It’s not like you pulled out the One Ring, right?”

“His name is Gremlin.”

It just slipped out. A lifetime of never keeping secrets from his mother, and it was now coming to bite him in the ass. For a long, long moment, silence descended on the table, and Mom stared at him with a quiet calm that promised devastating consequences.

“...”

“...”

“And did you put Gremlin back? ”

“... He wouldn’t let me."

“So you let a piece of metal hijack your quirk?” Mom clarified, and Izuku sunk down in his seat, stabbing the rice repeatedly with his chopsticks.

“Well, your usage of the word’ let’ implies that I had a choice in the matter. He just spat himself back out and smacked me in the face. Twice.”

“He threw himself back out? ”

“You know objects are dead until I bring them out. He probably used the energy he got every time he came out to remove himself again… Or something.”

“Why does the hunk of metal have a gender?”

“I don’t know, he was just showing some very male traits in the moment. It seemed fitting. Also, he has a masculine coded voice, and didn’t complain when I called him he, so I think he’s a male.”

“He has a voice? ”

Mom was looking extremely concerned, and Izuku desperately wanted to get out of his conversation, but also he couldn’t help but correct her.

“Yes, of course he has a voice, he’s canonically sentient.”

“So putting him back was the equivalent of murdering him.”

She really did not look impressed.

“Please don’t say that, Mom; you’ll make me sympathize with him.”

“You’re the one that named him, not me.”

“Well, I thought if I gave him a name now, he wouldn’t convince me to call him precious later!” In hindsight, that was a stupid choice to make.

“Izuku! Why did you grab him to begin with?”

“I wasn’t grabbing him, I was trying to grab Sting, he made me think he was Sting, but I pulled him out and instead of holding a dagger, I was holding a ring, it was very confusing!”

“Why did you even go to Gollum’s scene anyways? You should’ve grabbed Sting in the troll cave.”

“Sting’s energy was more powerful in Gollum’s scene because the scene has more impact overall on the story itself. I thought he would come out more accurately from a more powerful scene.”

“Izuku…”

Mom looked equal parts distressed and disappointed, and the ring burned against Izuku’s chest as he sunk down in the chair, stabbing his chopsticks down into the bowl until it hit the bottom. Not being able to stand looking at her, he looked aside, out the window, where rain was first starting to come down.

“He won’t be as powerful in this world. Sauron isn’t a thing here beyond books, and I’ve explained that he’s too big to pull out anyways, besides the fact that he’s a living organism, which I can’t manage, so there shouldn’t be as much pressure to return him to a master that doesn’t exist. Why he refused to go back to the book is beyond me, but I think he’ll settle down once it’s clear Sauron can’t come out, and later we can revisit me returning him.”

“And he has already been back in, so he’s probably aware that within the book, he’s dead.”

“He’s fully subservient to Sauron, he has no need to be alive if he can’t serve him. That’s one of the rules, right? I don’t think it goes to the point of like. Anything but blind obedience. His only sentience is tied to blind obedience, right? Just the burning urge to get back to him. It’ll be fine. Just give him a month or two, I can throw a new copy in the meadow, he’ll go back eventually without complaint.”

Izuku was really not treating this with the gravity the situation demanded, and he was well aware of this. But, what else was he supposed to do? The universal laws of the One Ring were absolute. He was alive for his master, and his master alone. Once it became clear that Sauron could not join them in this universe, he wouldn’t complain when Izuku put him back. Every object Izuku withdrew still followed the rules of the world they came from. Granted, he never pulled something alive out before, but even if the ring could adapt to this world, he was pretty sure the rules that made it real would prevail.

He was pretty sure, anyways.

“You’re human, Izuku, the ring corrupts absolutely, and men are canonically more prone to corruption,” Mom pointed out, and Izuku groaned.

“That breaks the rules, Mom. I am not a man of Middle Earth. I’m a man of Earth. The rules of the universe don’t apply to me, they apply to him. At most, he’ll be an inconvenience. I’m not going to go full on evil. I didn’t suddenly develop Force sensitivity when I pulled out a holocron and opened it, remember?”

“I don’t know, you had me concerned there for a minute,” Mom said dryly and Izuku rubbed at his eyes.

“It’s all fine,” he assured her. “I’ve pulled out worse things before, and I didn’t lose my mind. Remember the whole deal with the eldritch goo?”

“I’d rather not, actually.”

“Well, as far as I recall, I just got sick and---”

“Ruined my dry clean only coat with vomit,” Mom reminded him, and he winced.

“Sorry.”

“I told you those books were trouble.”

“And I now humbly apologize for the millionth time. Uncle Asuma got you a new coat, remember?”

“Izuku, I’m just worried, alright?”

“I know. But it’ll be fine.”

“Bring me my master,” Gremlin hissed again and Izuku whacked at his shirt in irritation, as if that was going to do anything.

“... Did he just talk?” Mom asked and Izuku rubbed at his eyes.

“He sounds like a broken record. I’m trying to enjoy my dinner here.”

“So what are you going to do about him in the meantime?” Mom asked, and Izuku sighed in defeat.

“I don’t know. I honestly didn’t think ahead that far. I can’t just leave him in like, a safe deposit box, and I have no idea how he’d react in the meadow, since he’s already proven he can interact with my quirk in some way. I don’t want to just leave him laying around, either, so I guess he’s just going to be stuck with me for now.”

“I distinctly remember that the ring burned Frodo’s neck with the weight of it,” Mom pointed out diplomatically. “How are you going to cover that?”

“That didn’t happen for years. It’ll be fine. He’ll be here for a few months at the most. When he agrees to go back, I’ll get a new copy of the Hobbit and pop him back in once it’s charged.”

“So you’re going to take that thing to school? To middle school? ”

“I don’t think they could possibly act worse, so, yeah, I’m taking him to middle school.”

“I’d rather pull you out sick for a few months and homeschool you,” Mom said dubiously.

“I can handle it. His power is not going to be on the level of his power in Arda. There’s no magic in this world for him to pull off of. He’s solely based on the power of my quirk, it’s nothing comparable to what’s essentially an angel. He can probably affect maybe one person, and the full extent of his power isn’t even really defined, anyways.”

“I really don’t like this, Izuku.”

“Pulling me out of school would look extremely suspicious, Mom. Like, really suspicious. I think Kacchan is convinced I have a quirk already, he’d freak out and storm up here demanding answers I don’t want to give and---”

“Izuku.”

Mom’s tone was serious. Far too serious. Izuku’s eyes drifted back down to his bowl of katsudon and he fell silent, picking at individual panko breadcrumbs with a frown on his face.

“It’s fine, Mom. You know I can outrun him.”

“I can talk to Mitsuki.”

“Don’t. You know what she’s like. She’d just make everything worse.”

“She’s not…” Mom trailed off and Izuku frowned at his food.

“She is, Mom. And they aren’t listening to anyone because his quirk is too volatile. It’s fine.”

“You need to stop protecting him, baby.”

“It would be a lot easier if I wasn’t Quirkless. We could just say it’s a teleportation quirk, we don’t need to do all of this.”

“We talked about this, Izuku. Even teleportation quirks are rare and raise a lot of questions. Quirkless is safe. No questions are better than even one. And, besides, you’re thirteen. A quirk showing up now would just be even more suspicious.”

“Uncle Asuma said it could be done if I just switch schools.”

“Uncle Asuma also said we could forge government documents, which is illegal, and he shouldn’t have said that, considering his job is to enforce the law.”

Izuku sighed and sunk down even lower in his chair, tapping his chopsticks on the table as he finally lowered himself so he was eye level with his bowl.

“Is it so bad to want to be a hero?” He mumbled.

“It is, Izuku,” Mom said gently. “Sometimes life isn’t about whether you can, it’s about whether you should. I think today is a pretty good example of why you shouldn’t. ”

“I didn’t cause the apocalypse.”

“No, you just pulled the harbinger of the apocalypse out of a book. And it didn’t even make you break a sweat.”

“If Dad was here---”

“If Dad was here, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Mom said. “And he’s not here. He’s not going to be here again. Please, Izuku. Just take care of Gremlin and we’ll deal with everything else as it comes, alright?”

“Alright,” Izuku mumbled.

“You have school tomorrow. Hurry up and eat and get your shower, okay?”

“I’m not hungry. Can I put it in the fridge?” Izuku asked and Mom sighed before nodding once.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said gently. “But, please. Understand that it’s my job to protect you, okay?”

“Okay,” Izuku said and pulled himself up from the table, picking up his bowl to wrap up. It wasn’t often that he turned down katsudon, but today was definitely a day that called for it.

Honestly, his life would have been so much easier if he actually was quirkless. Or just had a teleportation quirk. When it first came in, Izuku was six. Mom had been cautious about it from the get-go, especially when he described the meadow and bookshelf in the center of it, complete with a comfortable armchair and a babbling creek and flowers that never wilted. At that point, his father was already gone. Izuku didn’t know why, and Mom didn’t explain it. Not until she was sure that it was what it was.

Dad supposedly breathed fire. In reality, he had swallowed a pearl when he was young from an old tabletop RPG book, an item that allowed the user to breathe fire. The Dragon’s Egg, it was called. Officially, his quirk was Fire Breath. On paper, in front of his peers, he breathed fire. But things didn’t add up. He had the ability to reach into a book and pull out small objects, the only requirement being that they weighed less than half a pound. Questions began to arise, and by the time Izuku was five, his secret was out, and he disappeared.

And thus, Izuku was all that was left. And Mom opted to keep him registered as Quirkless the first day he pulled a flower out of a book. People overlooked Quirkless kids, didn’t think to look deeper than they should. And Izuku was comfortable with that, for a while. He’d already been Quirkless for two years until that point, and when Mom explained that Dad had to leave because of his quirk, Izuku had taken it as a sign that he would have to leave if the truth ever came out.

The Libriomancer’s Library. That was the name of his quirk, but it didn’t do it justice. It was a hot mess, and Izuku was pretty sure it was a cruel joke of some nameless god trying to ruin his day on a daily basis. Whatever he did in his past lives must have been especially heinous.

All of these thoughts were swirling around his head as he put his katsudon away in the fridge and ran through the motions of his shower. Really, he needed to just ban specific books from his meadow. Just outright ban them. Harry Potter needed to be thrown out, Magic Ex Libris could go right after them, honestly, who thought it was a good idea to write such a mockery of his life, anyways? He had a bone to pick with Jim C. Hines, even if he did give him the name of his quirk.

Why did he put those books in there, anyways? Izuku was beyond frustrated. There was even a copy of Arthurian legends, though that was mainly for his sword collection. But he could pull out the Holy Grail if he wanted. He really needed to stop including so many temptations.

By the time he stumbled towards the bedroom, hair wet and dripping, he was thoroughly finished with life and ready to pass out, but… He always went in to check.

Pushing the door to his bedroom open, Izuku took a deep breath and stepped once, his body flickering out of existence as he was pulled into the meadow.

The scent of grass and flowers and a river hit his nostrils, and Izuku took a deep breath, tilting his head back. The meadow wasn’t large. This was a pocket dimension, he wasn’t sure where, or how it existed, but it was his. It stretched on forever, just a field of wildflowers rustling in the breeze, with a river that ran upstream, never downstream, because that made sense. There was always a light breeze here on his skin, and it was never too hot or too cold. Seasons didn’t exist here. Flowers came in all shapes and sizes, and pollen never caught in his nostrils or made his nose burn. There was a sun, and clouds, never to cover the light, only compliment it, and while this perfect place was the bane of his existence, it was also the only place he felt like he could breathe easily.

The bookshelf towered in the center of the meadow. Carved from maple, it always smelled of fresh lumber, despite the nice stain. It was the only thing here that changed next to the armchair. It had started out small, but with every book added, it only expanded. Front and back, it was carved in an octagon cut in half, curved around the armchair, with books on the outside and inside. There were well over a thousand books now, and whenever he needed to climb to reach one, he simply needed to call the ladder to himself and it would appear.

Pushing through the tall grass and swaying wildflowers, Izuku came up on his library and stared up at it. A stray breeze ruffled his hair, and without a word, Izuku pulled out the nearest book and curled up in the yellow, floral armchair, eyes locked on the words before him as he opened to the bookmark to remember why he marked this book to begin with.

Ah. The Dresden Files. It was the shield bracelet he was eyeing. He recalled that Dresden dropped the bracelet after discovering it could block fire, but not heat, but it wasn’t like Izuku was ever going to be worrying about such things. He wasn’t going to be a hero, anyways.

He didn’t know when he got into Western books. It was probably when Mom got a lone postcard with no return address featuring Times Square five years ago, just a mild confirmation three years after his departure that Dad was still alive. She’d cried over it, and it took Izuku a while to understand why. In fact, he didn’t fully grasp it until he read the Japanese translation of The Wide Window, from a Series of Unfortunate Events, and went back through the postcard, written in English, to figure out the errors.

Mom filed the death certificate, as per his request, a week later. Izuku pretended to not notice, and didn’t tell a soul. Neither did Mom, but it was clear from that moment: Dad was alive, in America, and was never coming home. He was setting her free to find a new partner, but she never did. After that, Izuku started learning English, reading every American book he could get his hands on, just to feel a little closer to his still living father.

“To death do we part. That’s what I promised. Not a fake death, Izuku. He’s still mine.”

That’s what Mom said. Izuku didn’t say anything about it. He just went and learned English. He didn’t like it, but parents weren’t parted by death. Dad would always be Dad. So, he supposed he understood. (He didn’t.)

Uncle Asuma didn’t get it, either. Izuku had never seen them fight before, but he recalled very clearly his uncle coming to the apartment, gun still at his hip, mask and hat still on, to tell Mom off about the whole ordeal. If he wants to be dead, let him be dead, he said. Izuku hadn’t even known he could get mad like that, but Mom held her ground, and Izuku eventually ended up running off to the library, locked away until his little comlink he pulled out of a Star Wars novel pinged with his mom telling him to get back. They all sat down and had dinner that night, he told Mom to move in with him since Dad wasn’t coming back, she said no, and that was it. It was never brought up again.

Lots of things were never brought up again.

This incident would probably not be brought up again, too.

“Bring me my master,” Gremlin hissed, and Izuku pursed his lips.

“Shut up,” he muttered. “You’re probably not even 10 karat.”

“... I am 24, and you are rude.”

“Oh, so you can say other things.”

“... Bring me my master.”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. You smacked me in the face. Twice.”

“It was cold.”

“I’m not engaging with you.”

“Bring me my master.”

Izuku just rolled his eyes and flipped to the next page. Gremlin. It was a gremlin, and he had decided to never stan.

Chapter Text

“Wow, he looks worse than normal.”

Izuku was so tired. Five weeks. Five weeks spent arguing endlessly with the single minded and hilariously stubborn One Ring until three in the morning, without fail. The thing didn’t need to sleep, so he naturally took advantage of that fact of life and used it against Izuku. Gratuitously. Every night, Izuku laid down to sleep, and every night, it was an endless litany of gimme, gimme, gimme. He simply could not conjure up Sauron, and if he could, he would have at this point if only to shut the thing up. Gremlin was relentless, and it was an actual wonder Izuku’s grades hadn’t slipped. He had never thought he’d need the time turner from Harry Potter, and yet here he was, using it to get eight hours of sleep. Realistically, manipulating time itself was a blatant abuse of his power, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Hey, Deku,” Kacchan said as he passed his desk and kicked the leg. “Wake the hell up.”

“I am awake,” Izuku mumbled into his arms. His jacket was buttoned wrong, and for now, he was going to stay down until he figured out what to do about it before anyone noticed.

“What, do you think you’re better than all of us all of a sudden? Too good to pay attention in class?” Kacchan demanded and Izuku shifted to glare at him with a single lone eye.

“The last bell hasn’t even rung,” Izuku retorted before burying his head back down.

“And?” Kacchan demanded angrily, and Izuku burrowed down even more, refusing to engage him.

“Slit his throat,” Gremlin whispered. “Feast on his entrails.”

Maybe Izuku had only read the works of Tolkien a handful of times, but he didn’t recall Sauron engaging in cannibalism or encouraging it. But what did he know? At this point, he was willing to scrub anything to do with Tolkien from his brain with bleach. And maybe cyanide, if that was what it took.

“Slithisthroatslithisthroatslithisthroat,” Gremlin chanted and Izuku grit his teeth in irritation.

“What the hell is wrong with you lately, anyways?” Kacchan demanded and kicked the leg of his desk again. “You trying to die by sleep deprivation, huh? Or are you just becoming a hikikomori?”

“That’s not what that means,” Izuku muttered into the desk.

“Kill him, kill him, kill him, sacrifice him to the master.” If this damn ring did not shut up, Izuku was going to throw it into the ocean and let it sort itself out there.

“Oh, so you know more than me now?” Kacchan taunted, and Izuku hunched up his shoulders.

“No.” Yes. Izuku knew a lot more than Kacchan, thank you kindly.

“Then look at me!”

“Go glut yourself on attention somewhere else, Kacchan,” Izuku mumbled. “I’m busy.”

Busy trying to ignore the litany of increasingly creative ways to kill someone invading his brain. There was a brief flashback of a small, feral little creature bashing a goblin’s head in with a rock in a dank cave, delighting at the idea of raw and “wriggling” meat, and Izuku squeezed his eyes shut tight. Gross.

“Not you, not you,” the ring crooned, and Izuku sure hoped so, but he wasn’t going to trust the thing. “You would be the Nazgul.”

Thirteen years old, and he was being offered such a prestigious position. How kind of the ring. Izuku always dreamed about running around for all eternity in all black with metal shoes designed to practically gorge someone open, screaming to his heart’s content and ascending beyond the traditional definition of using his words to solve his problems.

Actually, despite the sarcasm, the idea of being able to scream someone to death wasn’t that bad. He could be a goth Present Mic.

“There is Nazgul here?” Gremlin asked, once again proving he had no concept whatsoever of personal privacy, and Izuku snorted at the idea of the fun and chatty radio host trying to work his way into a Nazgul robe.

“... Oh.”

Yeah. Oh. Honestly, Gremlin was not that bright. Izuku could forgive ignorance, the poor thing really only did know the rules of his creation, and possibly understood the history of Middle Earth, but with the whole single minded “bring me my master” thing, he really did not notice any details of the world around him. It took him a full two weeks to even notice men were apparently “magical”, and Izuku just told him to pay attention, because he was not going to explain everything.

He did pay attention, at least, and had developed a deep loathing of Kacchan. Or, perhaps, was using him as a vessel to corrupt Izuku, but that was probably the wrong target to pick. Izuku knew what went on at home for him. Nothing Izuku could do would be worse than that, so why even bother, even if he did wake up one day and decide to start to genuinely hate Kacchan rather than simply detest him?

“Quirks make no sense,” Gremlin muttered, for perhaps the millionth time, and while Izuku could not agree more, considering his own capabilities, he also did not want to hear that again. Present Mic could yell really loud, that wasn’t that confusing. Gremlin should be more concerned about puzzling out Izuku’s own quirk.

Oh. Kacchan was yelling at Izuku, while Izuku was busy battling the ongoing stream of violent consciousness in his head.

“---ll did you just say to me, Deku?”

Izuku finally lifted his head and blinked at Kacchan blearily with utterly dead eyes. Did he have an absence on his record yet?

“I think I’m sick,” Izuku said and abruptly stood, gathering up his bag. “I’m going home.”

The bell rang, and Izuku pushed right past Kacchan and made for the door.

“Hey!” Kacchan shouted and planted a hand on Izuku’s shoulder, pulling him back, and Izuku went stockstill, staring at the door. “The hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sick,” Izuku repeated faintly. “I’m going home.”

“The hell do you mean, you’re sick?”

“I mean I’m about to cough on you and ruin your perfect attendance if you don’t take your hand off my shoulder,” Izuku said bluntly, and Kacchan released him. Shrugging his bookbag onto his shoulder, Izuku ignored the stunned silence and walked right out the door as he pulled out his phone to text his mom.

Izuku: I don’t want to deal with Gremlin and Kacchan at the same time today. I’m going home. Can you call me in sick?

A turn, and he was clattering down the stairs as he considered just using the meadow to get home. The long walk seemed too much right now, and Gremlin was especially heavy today.

Mom: If Gremlin is that bad, your uncle can meet you at home.

Izuku: He has a job, Mom. I’ll be fine on my own.

Mom: I don’t get off until late, he doesn’t patrol today, I’ll ask him to swing by after school.

Izuku: I’ll just be in the meadow. There’s no need.

Mom: You fixed the cell reception issue, he’ll text you when he’s off and meet you at the apartment. I’m calling the school now.

Okay, steamroller Mom was reporting in. Izuku just sighed and rubbed at his eyes as he turned into the locker room where his outside shoes were waiting for him.

Izuku: Thanks. Have a good day at work. And don’t worry about me. Gremlin is just providing cannibalism as a viable option to solve problems and I think I’m ready to mentally check out.

“Cannibalism does solve problems.”

“It really doesn’t,” Izuku muttered under his breath as he unlocked his locker to retrieve his shoes. The door slammed open behind him and he dropped his head, sighing quietly to himself.

“Deku. What the hell is wrong with you lately, huh?” Kacchan demanded and Izuku toed off his slippers.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I’m just getting sick.” Sick of the One Ring of Power uttering an endless litany of creative deaths in his brain.

“That’s not what’s wrong, and I’m sick of you acting like you can just hide shit!” Kacchan shouted and Izuku tossed the slippers into the locker before slamming the door shut.

“Last bell rang. You’re tardy,” Izuku bit out. “Maybe worry about your own education instead of one useless Quirkless kid.”

“I told sensei I was going to make sure you didn’t collapse,” Kacchan snapped and Izuku whirled on him.

“One of these days you’re going to meet a teacher that doesn’t enable you, and then what are you going to do?” Izuku demanded and Kacchan rushed up on him, slamming his body into the lockers with bruising force, his burning hands singing Izuku’s jacket.

“KILL HIM!” Gremlin screeched, and Izuku grit his teeth.

“For all you know,” Kacchan hissed, “maybe I was making sure you didn’t collapse.”

“Liar,” Izuku breathed.

“I’m going to find out what you’re up to,” Kacchan promised.

“I’m up to collapsing into my bed and sleeping off this bug,” Izuku replied and glared up at Kacchan. “And you’re up to leaving me in the dust and acing practice exams for UA. Got it?”

“You’re such a liar,” Kacchan spat. “I know you’re lying. And I’m sick of it. You may have the whole school fooled, but I know you’re hiding something.”

“Because you know me so well?” Izuku challenged. There Kacchan went again with his wild conspiracy theories.

“People don’t just stop caring that they’re useless, Deku.”

Izuku stared at him as Kacchan’s hands started to spark off. There it was, all over again. Kacchan always wanted Izuku to care just as much as he did that he was Quirkless. If Izuku didn’t care, that meant it didn’t matter, and Kacchan couldn’t stand the idea that quirks didn’t matter.

“If I care, nothing will change, anyways,” Izuku murmured. “Some things don’t change. You should probably accept that.”

Izuku should probably accept that.

Kacchan abruptly released him just as Gremlin let out an unending screech in Izuku’s ears, and the ring turned white hot against his chest. Pain hit Izuku full force and he inhaled sharply as his hand went up to his chest to grasp at it.

“Fuck,” Izuku breathed in clear English at the mounting pain, and Gremlin abruptly went ice cold as he realized what he did, but the telltale scent of burnt flesh filled the air, and Kacchan stumbled back in shock, eyes wide.

He thought he burned Izuku’s skin. The irony was breathtaking. Izuku could use this.

“Stop talking to me,” Izuku mumbled as he clutched at his burning, it was burning so much, chest, “and I won’t tell.”

“Fuck, I didn’t---”

“I don’t care,” Izuku spat and grabbed his shoes before turning to the door. “I don’t care.”

He was so sick of Kacchan continuously making his complexes Izuku’s problem. Perhaps if Izuku was actually Quirkless, he would care. Perhaps if Izuku had nothing to hide, he would constantly be seeking Kacchan’s approval, or at least cowering in front of him. But instead, no. Izuku had to have a stupidly powerful quirk and had to hide. He had to pretend to care that he was Quirkless, when in reality this same quirk, or a variation of it, had taken his father away from him. It broke up his family. It got him stuck with the One Ring of Power, which apparently was throwing a temper fit and branding his chest, and Izuku was twisted enough to blame Kacchan for it because keeping his secret was more important than being honest.

Izuku could reach into any book he wanted and eviscerate Kacchan. He could cut him clean in half with a lightsaber. He could turn him into dust with a phaser. He could take over the world with this damned ring, if he figured out a way to make it work with this universe’s rules, and not even worry about Sauron coming to reclaim it. He could do anything, and that’s why he had to hide, because he wanted none of it.

People didn’t realize that the imagination of man was the single most powerful force on the planet, and all of that power was in the hands of a thirteen year old boy. And Izuku wanted nothing to do with it.

Slamming open the door of the genkan, he walked right out with his shoes in hand, leaving Kacchan behind as the guilt of what he’d just done weighed on him.

“You could kill him.”

“I’m not you.”

Tears stinging his eyes, the overwhelming situation crashed in on him, and he abruptly realized that there was a wall of windows behind him, and he couldn’t even run away to his meadow.

Why couldn’t he just have a teleportation quirk? Why couldn’t he just have that?

Because Dad had a fire breathing quirk, and Dad still had to leave. And Mom didn’t want a fugitive for a son. She wanted a son that led a sad life, but still had a life.

Angrily, Izuku wiped at his eyes as the pain throbbed across his chest. The smell of burnt flesh followed him, and he rushed out the gates in socked feet and looked for the nearby alley where he could vanish from reality and hole himself back up with his books.

Chapter Text

He’d fallen asleep in the armchair, and Gremlin had let him. Izuku didn’t even realize he had fallen silent until he woke up to a ringing phone. Uncle Asuma was calling him, and Izuku had completely slept the day away.

Fumbling for the phone, Izuku sleepily answered it and blinked blearily.

“Hey,” he mumbled and rubbed at his crusty eyes.

“Hey, kid. Inko said you were having jewelry problems?” Uncle Asuma asked, far too lightly, and Izuku groaned as he tried to sit up from his haphazard position. His shirt pulled painfully at his chest, and he briefly realized it had apparently stuck to a scab.

“Ngh…” Izuku groaned and gingerly touched at his chest before wincing. “Something like that…”

The jewelry problems had not been so severe the last time he talked to Mom.

“School just let out, mind if I swing by?”

“I’m fine, really, I don’t need to be babysat,” Izuku mumbled and pressed his fingers to his pounding temple. That was a migraine.

“Even Frodo needed a Sam, kid. I’ll see you in about twenty minutes, okay?” Oh. Oh, so this was a non-negotiable sort of thing. Noted.

“Yeah, I’ll see you,” Izuku mumbled.

“And check your texts. Your mom is worried,” Uncle Asuma added, and it was then that Izuku realized he had been passed out for a full day, and his phone had gone unanswered for a full day when he was supposed to be awake and able to account for where he had been.

“...Oh.”

“I told her you were probably sleeping, don’t worry,” his uncle assured him. “She thought so, too.”

“...Thanks,” Izuku said, now thoroughly abashed. He still smelled like burnt flesh and fabric. He had to shower before Uncle Asuma got to the apartment.

“Alright. See ya soon.”

“Snipe, the staff meeting is the other way,” someone called in the background, and Izuku cringed.

“Sorry, ‘raserhead, got a family emergency!” His uncle replied cheerfully. “I just agree with everything you have to say, how ‘bout that?”

“Since when does family keep you from a staff meeting?” The man on the other end grumbled.

“It’s, uh… Nephew. Trouble at school. Inko’s working late,” Uncle Asuma explained, and Izuku just cringed even harder.

“...Oh. Never mind. See you tomorrow.”

There it was again. The oh. The ‘the Quirkless nephew’ oh. The ‘father possibly killed himself nephew’ oh. The ‘high chance of suicide nephew’ oh. The ‘probably won’t make it to eighteen’ oh. Izuku probably hated that ‘oh’ the most, out of everything else.

“Sorry, Izuku. I’ll be there soon,” Uncle Asuma promised.

“...Yeah,” Izuku muttered and peeked under the collar of his unbuttoned jacket to survey the damage. His white shirt was soaked in red. How did he even manage to sleep like that?

“...You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Izuku bit out. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Not waiting for a reply, he hung up and took a deep, deep breath, letting the ache ground him in the moment. He could use Lucy’s cordial from Narnia. He could. He should have done that before he fell asleep. But that was more of a “near death” thing, not avoiding a scar. Mom would find out, anyways. If Uncle Asuma didn’t find out first.

With a groan, Izuku came to his feet and stepped out of the meadow into the bathroom of the apartment.

He looked like a wreck. Dull green eyes met his in the mirror, and he memorized the bags beneath them, deep purple against brown skin. Apparently sleep hadn’t fixed that. His carefully managed curls were a mess, mushed up on one side, and he realized it was time for a wash already, if only to fix the mess. One of these days he’d break and ask his uncle to help him with dreads, but today was not that day. Maybe in another month or so. It was one hell of a commitment, after all, and Izuku had enough commitments right now.

Tired fingers slowly and steadily undid the jacket and he stared at the massive patch of red on the front of his shirt. Wow. Gremlin had really gone overboard. What kind of burn even was that? His shirt was stuck to his skin.

Maybe he really did need the cordial.

“You really didn’t need to do that,” Izuku mumbled.

“If you will not kill him, he will have to leave you alone somehow,” Gremlin hissed and Izuku dropped his head in defeat.

“I managed for nine years with him harassing me; I don’t need your help. Especially help like this. How am I supposed to hide this from my mom?” He demanded as he pulled at the shirt. It was stuck. Stuck to his scab. Fuck. This was bad.

“Do you not have cordial?” Gremlin taunted, and Izuku hissed.

“If I didn’t, would you still have done it?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m not about to start keeping secrets from my mom,” Izuku snapped. “And you aren’t going to make me start lying to her.”

“She is a problem.”

“No, you’re the problem. I cannot bring Sauron here, do you understand? He’s too big, and he’s an organism. And he wouldn’t fit in this universe, anyways. There is no Arda to take over. There is no Maiar, or Ainur, or Valar, or whatever. There are no elves, there is no afterlife, there is nothing to claim. And even if I did bring him here, he wouldn’t be able to release Melkor from this side. You understand that, right? It would be pointless. There isn’t even magic here. Just quirks, and we have our own problems.”

“Bring me my master,” Gremlin insisted, and Izuku sucked in an irritated breath.

“I have twenty minutes to shower and get cleaned up. I’m not talking to a fucking ring. You weren’t even talkative like this in the books. You’re already breaking the rules.” Of course Izuku had to get stuck with the sentient, adaptable ring.

“There are no rules.”

“ Yes, there are. The rules are clear. We have quirks. My quirk allows me to create things from the pages of books, but it is determined by the size of the book. The book has to accumulate energy for one month in the meadow before I can use it. You aren’t even actually from that universe. You’re just made by the laws of that universe as described by the book. Sauron doesn’t even exist. Do you understand?”

“MY MASTER EXISTS!” White hot pain again, and Izuku gasped, falling to the ground, but it didn’t even stay around long enough to burn. It simply dissipated, gone like the wind, and frustrated tears spilled from Izuku’s eyes.

“If there is any master, it’s me. I made you. You get it? And if I tell you to go back in the fucking book, you go back in the book.”

“Can’t,” Gremlin whispered, and for a moment he almost sounded… confused.

“What do you mean, you can’t? ” Izuku demanded.

“Cold.”

Izuku let out a frustrated groan and banged his head on the tile.

“Of course it’s cold, it’s a book, there’s no life. It’s just words on paper. ”

“I don’t want to be cold.”

Objectively, Izuku knew the ring was supposed to be manipulative. He knew it was supposed to lie and make promises and appeal to someone. But by the laws of Tolkien, it was supposed to be appealing to his lust for power. Which, realistically, Izuku did have. He was human, after all, and the power he knew he wanted was the power to be himself and not have people ruin his life for his quirk. Gremlin could appeal to that. He knew that, knew Izuku’s deepest desires. Hell, he was thinking them right now. They were always at the forefront of his mind. It was all consuming some days, the frustration, the understanding of the fact that he knew why things had to be the way they were, and the understanding that it made sense. His father had tried to pass it off as another quirk, and look where that got him. A fake death certificate and his family entirely unaware of his survival. For all Izuku knew, he could be dead, and Mom was holding out for a ghost. She might as well be.

So, he knew. And yet, he still wanted to rebel. He was thirteen, after all, and according to the books he read, thirteen was when that happened. Well, thirteen to sixteen. He was at the cusp of being able to save the world, and he could do nothing, because he could objectively damn it, too.

Gremlin knew that. He knew that very well. So why on earth was he playing to Izuku’s sympathy? Since when did the ring of power care about death? It was only sentient so long as Sauron needed it, and death didn’t matter if Sauron didn’t need it.

“Here’s the point where you swear that I’m your master, and I stupidly believe you, and we move on and you corrupt me and turn me into some pathetic being eating live fish,” Izuku muttered.

“I don’t want to be cold,” Gremlin repeated.

“Even if you enslave me to your will, that will not change what my capabilities are,” Izuku said. “I have a quirk. I cannot make a whole living Maia. It doesn’t work like that. You’re small, and it’s pretty damn unlucky that you’re small. I can’t even pull living beings out of books. I tried with a worm once, and it died, and I felt guilty for weeks. If it’s an organism, it doesn’t work. You’re just the loophole. Even if Sauron turns into, like, a bird, in the Silmarillion, I have no idea if he does that, but even if he does that, it doesn’t work. Do you understand that? Just let me put you back with your actual master. You won’t be alive anymore, but you’ll be with him. That’s what you want, right? To be with him? I’ll even, I don’t know, put you with him when he first makes you, before Eregion and the whole mess with Celebrimbor, I think. If it makes you feel better.”

“But I’ll be cold,” the ring whispered and Izuku hissed. He could still feel the pain of getting smacked in the face.

“But you’ll be with him. That’s the rule of Middle Earth. You want to be with him, right?”

“Cold.”

Izuku hissed out from between his teeth and sat up, back to the cool bathroom cabinets.

“This makes no sense,” he muttered. He’d never brought out something sentient before. Should he try it with a Star Wars droid next? What was even going on here?

“I don’t want to be cold, Izuku.”

That was… new. The ring never called him by his name before.

“I’m not your master,” Izuku blurted, because he was apparently in a handbasket and hell was the next stop on the way. “You got that, right?”

“No.”

“I’m not your master. I’m not Sauron. I don’t even want you.”

“You aren’t Sauron.”

“Glad we got that covered.”

“I don’t want to be cold.”

“Okay. Fine. Whatever. You won’t be cold. Happy?”

“No.”

“What will make you happy?”

Gremlin fell silent and Izuku rubbed at his eyes. How was he going to handle this? The ring was apparently adapting to the new universal laws, and this was entirely uncharted territory.

“Okay. What do you want?”

“Not cold.”

“So you don’t want to go back into the book. Got it. What else do you want?”

“...You can’t give me Sauron?”

Not master now? What even was Izuku’s life?

“No. We covered this. We’ve covered this for the past month. ”

“...Then nothing.”

“Great. This is grand. Okay. If you’re sticking around, we need some ground rules. One, I do not trust you by yourself in the meadow. You stick with me until I figure out what the hell is going on with you.”

“Good.”

“Two, stop telling me to kill people. Stop detailing what a Blood Eagle looks like. Stop telling me about how to reach into someone’s mouth and pull out their throat, that was way too far. Stop telling me to eat people. And lay off Kacchan. I literally just don’t want to deal with him.”

“Not good.”

“Too bad. Three, if you ever burn me again, I will…” Well, now threatening him with the cold just seemed incredibly wrong. Izuku should have never named the damn thing. “I will put you in a box and leave you there, for like, a week. Or something. I’ll get creative with it. Got it?”

“...A box.”

“Shut up. It’s not like you have intestines I can threaten to pull out of you. Four. I’m not using you. Got it? Your job is just to sit there and not do anything, because I am not dealing with that. And I’m not pulling out the other rings for you, either. I have no interest in turning people into Nazgul, and you have no business turning people into Nazgul, and I am not giving you to someone with an interest in turning people into Nazgul. Do you understand?”

“...Not even one Nazgul?”

“Not. One.”

“... Just one?”

“I said no.”

“...You will say yes eventually.”

“Whatever.” Izuku stood up and faced his reflection once more, frowning at the mess before glancing at his almost dead phone, frowning at the time. He had ten minutes before his uncle got here. Unlocking the phone, he scrolled through his texts before sending a quick message to his mother, informing her that he was sleeping in the meadow, and then he navigated to his uncle’s chat to tell him he was going to be in the shower and to just let himself in.

The adults taken care of, Izuku then met his injury. If he took the cordial, would that be lying? He should wait for his mom to get home, so she could at least see it. But, in the meantime, he had to take this shirt off.

Not eager to rip the scab off, he turned on the sink and cupped the warm water that sprang out, splashing it on his front to loosen the shirt. Gremlin was thankfully silent, apparently mollified for now, and didn’t even complain about water for once. Izuku focused on soaking the shirt enough to peel it off, watching as red droplets landed on the counter. Slowly but surely, the fabric unstuck itself from his skin, and Izuku started to unbutton it, peeling it off to examine the damage.

Dried blood was everywhere. In the center of his chest, just under the ring, was a perfectly burned circle, ugly and red and open, and Izuku hissed at the sight of it. The ring was covered in his blood, and perhaps that was what the ring needed to satiate its burning desire to murder everything in sight.

“If you ever do this again, you’re getting stuck in the neighbor’s compost,” Izuku muttered angrily as he finally started to strip.

“What is compost?”

“Artfully rotted vegetables,” Izuku spat.

“...It smells?”

“What, like you have a nose?”

“I... Manage.”

“I’m sure.” This called for a cold shower; he didn’t even want to think about warm water on this right now. “I’m serious. Don’t do this again.”

“I won’t.”

“Not that I believe you, but thanks. I guess Gremlin was a good name for you.”

“It was not.”

“You got a better name?”

“...No.”

“Then we’re sticking with Gremlin.”

Gods, how was he going to explain this to his uncle?

Chapter Text

Uncle Asuma had been staring at him for a while now. Realistically, it was Izuku’s own fault for walking out in a towel when he could have just hopped into the meadow and out into his bedroom. He was hoping to break this to him a bit more gently, but Gremlin had sucked out all of his brain cells with his most recent stunt, and he was still tired from five straight weeks of sleep deprivation. An eight hour nap was not going to fix this.

But, the damage was done. Izuku was dripping wet with his twist out done up, and Uncle Asuma was half in his hero costume, staring at Izuku blankly, green eyes fixed on the circular brand on his chest.

“Hey, Izuku?”

“...Yeah?”

“What’s that?”

“...Gremlin got… Upset?”

“...Okay, take him off.”

“Uh, can’t do that.”

“ Why can’t you do that?”

“We made a deal.”

“You made a deal with the One Ring of Power.”

“I made a deal with the One Ring of Power.”

“...Did that deal come before or after he branded you?”

“After.”

“Did that deal include a brand?”

“Well, no, but I can explain.”

“You’d better explain fast. ”

Izuku took a deep breath and looked down at the towel wrapped around his waist before looking back up at Uncle Asuma with feeling, and Asuma pursed his lips in a way that screamed that he was very displeased with Izuku before he waved a hand, indicating for Izuku to go get changed. Breath caught in his throat, Izuku whisked into the bedroom and slammed the door shut, leaning against it with wide eyes.

His bedroom was actually a mess. There were books everywhere, haphazardly placed Snipe and All Might posters here and there, because Asuma got his feelings hurt when years went by without Izuku adding any merch to his bedroom, like any ten year old wanted their uncle watching them while they slept . A wall was entirely overtaken with a variety of swords he had pulled out of books, all mounted and shining and seemingly very good replicas, and Jango Fett’s blasters and Count Dooku’s lightsaber were on his desk, complete with a post it reminder from his mom to never use them. Shoved in the drawers of his desk were a collection of baubles from dawdling in his books, including multiple vials of Lucy’s cordial and thermal detonators, because who didn’t want a thermal detonator?

Dresden’s shield bracelet was on the nightstand, and Izuku was still puzzling over it. He’d get it to work eventually. Clothes were everywhere, and he took a deep, calming breath before grabbing what looked clean and throwing it on.

His uncle was going to kill him. He was going to kill him, and Izuku was sure he knew how to hide a body, and Mom was going to cry and never know her baby brother was a murderer, and it was going to be awful.

“He is not going to kill you. He is soft. We are not soft.”

“Shut up, Gremlin, I’m like a fucking… Coffee jelly! Bitter but very squishy!”

“Coffee jelly is bitter?”

“Shut up!” Izuku hissed and yanked on a shirt before he remembered that he should not be so harsh with his arms. A yelp escaped his lips and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes. This was fine. He was fine. Asuma wasn’t going to kill him. Yet.

“Izuku, get out here!” Asuma called and Izuku took another deep breath. This was fine. He was fine. His favorite and only uncle was not going to murder him in his sleep.

“Coming!” He called and grabbed the doorknob before pausing, squeezing his eyes shut tight. This was a mess.

“Izuku, I know you’re dressed. Now. ”

“I’m coming! ”

Taking another deep breath, Izuku opened the door and stepped out to meet his maker.

Asuma was sitting on the couch, his back deliberately placed to Izuku. Izuku took in the dreads pulled back with a band, the posture that was too relaxed to be trusted, the way he had an arm slung over the back of the couch, casual, easy. This was not going to be an easy conversation. Katsuki had, admittedly, gone too far the second he slammed Izuku into the lockers, but Gremlin had only escalated the situation. To an excessively high degree. And his reasoning was not going to be a reasoning Asuma was going to accept.

But Izuku wasn’t going to lie. His family didn’t lie to each other. They always told the truth. Maybe they didn’t talk about the truth after they told it, but they told the truth. And he was thirteen with a god level quirk. He understood why it was so, so important to tell the truth.

Squaring his shoulders, he slunk into the living room and stood before his very, very pissed uncle, head straight and eyes forward. He wasn’t going to act like he was guilty. He wasn’t guilty of anything but not telling them immediately. There were so many things out of his control in that situation.

“Sit,” Asuma ordered and Izuku sat down in the armchair, focusing on deep, even breaths.

“... So, I left school early,” Izuku started and then stopped.

“Tell me what happened,” Asuma prompted and Izuku grit his teeth.

“I… Kacchan was being a lot. Before class started. And Gremlin was practically screaming in my head. It was overwhelming, and after the past five weeks, I… I decided I needed a day to myself,” he explained. “So I told Kacchan I was sick, and going home, and didn’t want to deal with him. He apparently told Sensei he was worried I’d collapse and followed me into the genkan after Sensei told him to go after me. He got… Mad, as usual, accused me of hiding stuff, got all hung up on me not caring that I’m Quirkless, the normal stuff, and I was about to leave, but he slammed me into the locker. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but he started to lose control of his quirk and burned my jacket. I can show you that bit, it was clearly his quirk, and then Gremlin… Uh, he decided the best way to get Kacchan to leave me alone was to actually burn me for a response. Which was pretty stupid, and I reacted, because well… You saw how bad it was. It worked, Kacchan thought he did it, and I realized that if I corrected him it would… Lead to a really awkward conversation, so I let him think he burned me and told him if he stopped bothering me, I wouldn’t tell anyone. And then I left, and it was all really overwhelming and I was just tired and didn’t know how to process what just happened, so I just went to the meadow and passed out for like, the whole school day, until you called me. I didn’t mean to sleep so long, but Gremlin actually shut up for once, and it just… Happened. Like that.”

Asuma stared at Izuku for a long, long moment before letting out a low breath and rubbing his hand over his face.

“So Gremlin intervened in the worst possible way in a bullying situation and you now have dirt on Katsuki because the ring burned the ever loving fuck out of you,” he surmised, and Izuku realized just how awful this whole ordeal looked.

“... Yeah,” he muttered and finally looked down. Everything had gotten so out of control with this damned ring. With this whole quirk, really.

“And what about this… deal?”

“...He refuses to go back in the book,” Izuku muttered. “He says it’s cold.”

“...He refuses to go back.”

“He understands I can’t bring Sauron out to him. He just doesn’t want to go back.”

“And you believe him?”

“No,” Izuku answered honestly. “I don’t. But I do believe he does not want to go back in the book. I’m not sure if he actually believes that I can’t bring Sauron to him, but he’s seen evidence that I can’t bring out living organisms, and he at least knows he’s the exception to the rule. I think he at least understands that in this instance, I made him, but he’s no longer calling Sauron master, and he’s not following the rules of the Tolkien universe. I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. I almost want to snatch a small droid out of Star Wars to see if this is going to be a consistent thing, but I also… Don’t think that’s… An entirely ethical thing to do.”

“What do you mean, he’s not following the rules of the Tolkien universe?” Asuma prompted and Izuku twitched.

“He’s just… not. The ring seduces people with the promise of power. Even in his last moments in the Return of the King, he appealed to the kind hearted Frodo’s sense of possession, not his understanding that the ring was a sentient being. He’s been with me for a month. He knows what I want. My thoughts are very clear to him. He knows he could easily sway me with the promise that… If I’m the most powerful person in the world, I won’t have anyone try to… Take advantage of my quirk. He’s not appealing to that. He’s going outside of the canonical writings and showing a different approach to persuasion. He’s showing a fear of death. He shouldn’t be able to do that, but he’s doing that, and I don’t understand how. So whether or not he’s lying, he’s also… Showing the ability to evolve. Which means it’s not… a false sentience, but a real sentience. And while his thoughts are extremely disturbing, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong in our universe yet, and never technically did anything wrong in the books, because he barely counted as sentient, he was more of an extension of Sauron’s will beyond the grave. Here, he simply doesn’t have access to Sauron’s will, so I… Even if I could put him back, which I can’t, I don’t think it’s… Right to do so.”

What was he doing right now? Was he really arguing for the right to life of a ring? From a book? Izuku’s quirk was so, so beyond his control right now. He needed help, but he also wanted to stand with his convictions.

Asuma was openly staring at him now. His lips were parted in utter shock, and Izuku was pretty sure in his uncle’s eyes, he had just grown a second head. Izuku was actually losing his mind, and the expression on Asuma’s face wasn’t helping matters in the slightest.

“...Izuku,” Asuma finally said, slowly, so slowly, “you are the only person I know that could sit there and lay out a compelling argument that actually, the One Ring of Power from Middle Earth deserves to live.”

“...Sorry?”

“...I think Inko still has whiskey in the cabinet. Excuse me.”

And then Asuma simply stood up and walked to the kitchen in a daze, leaving Izuku sitting there trying to figure out just what his life had become. The ring hung in silence around his neck, and Izuku shrunk back into the armchair, tapping his fingers together anxiously as he wondered if he made the right decision.

It just seemed wrong. The ring could not be affected by Sauron out here. Izuku knew that for a fact. He knew how his own quirk worked, thank you kindly. There was the initial programming from his first exit, but Gremlin was interacting with the world around him and learning other approaches. Did Izuku think the one ring could be reformed? No, not really. But he also understood the ring was drawing on the power of his quirk, which was nowhere near the canonical power of Sauron. And Izuku? Izuku didn’t know what that meant for him. For either of them. Jumping to just destroy the thing brought up a whole host of ethical questions, especially since the ring hadn’t done anything wrong, beyond, well. Izuku’s chest. That was objectively wrong. But that also wasn’t, like, death sentence wrong. That was six months in prison for assault wrong, and that really wouldn’t mean anything to the ring. He waited for thousands of years for his master to return. And taking into account his reasoning for his actions, the prison sentence was more like, three months.

The cabinet opened and shut and there was a glug of whiskey being poured into a glass. Oh, he really wasn’t kidding. Izuku felt like he was in trouble, or perhaps Asuma just didn’t know what to do with him in general. Both were viable options. It could even be a mix of both.

“...Am I grounded?” He asked and there was the sound of the glass being set back forcefully on the counter.

“No,” Asuma said. “That’s your mom’s job.”

“You’ve grounded me before.”

“Guess I need to specify. I don’t want to ground you. Your mom may have other ideas.”

“...Okay.”

“You were so confident three seconds ago.”

“Yeah, then I realized I said something entirely nuts, and everyone in this room, including Gremlin, is aware of that.”

“I do not think it was nuts.”

“Shush,” Izuku hissed and tuned in to the noise of Asuma taking a long, long gulp of whiskey.

“I’m glad you’re aware of that, kid. You honestly sounded just like Hisashi.”

Izuku turned around to peek over the back of the chair and watch Asuma polish off the glass before setting it forcefully down on the counter.

“Fucking waste, if you ask me,” Asuma continued, and Izuku’s brows furrowed.

“What’s a waste?”

“It’s a waste that you can’t be open about it. Be a hero, like you want,” Asuma supplied. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more suited for it. Then again, you could just take over the world, too, and I don’t think I’d complain.”

“Please don’t say that when I’ve got this thing around my neck.”

Asuma snorted and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Yeah… You are just like him, aren’t you?” He murmured and looked at Izuku with those sad, sad eyes. “I almost don’t blame Inko for never moving on.”

The unsaid went there. How could anyone be a better father to Izuku? Or just as good. Sometimes, Izuku felt like he was living with Hisashi’s ghost haunting this house.

“But, you do realize. With your quirk doing this… This weird shit, I’m gonna have to put my foot down,” Asuma continued and Izuku stiffened.

“What?”

“Based on what you’ve said, and the fact that you are not acting like the people that were corrupted in the books at all, and I would know, I’m pretty sure I’ve memorized the damn things in the past five weeks, this means your quirk is a lot more powerful than we can understand. Which means I have to fight with Inko. Again. And maybe win this time. You two need to be living with me.”

“...I don’t think a grown woman with a child wants to live with her kid brother,” Izuku said hesitantly, and Asuma wiped his hand over his face.

“I’m not thrilled either, Izuku, I actually like my bachelor life and living it up as the fun and reasonably responsible gay uncle. But, this? This isn’t going to fly. You may have the literal perfect getaway at all times, but Inko doesn’t, and you can’t be with her all the time to yank her into the meadow. Nor is that your job. You two need to be living with a pro hero.”

“...Uncle…”

“I’m serious, Izuku. Your quirk should be constrained by the rules of the books you draw from. But you pulled something sentient out, and it’s evolving. That’s dangerous. I don’t like that. I don’t know what it means. You’ve never even had quirk counseling. I’m an accredited quirk counselor, and this is going to take a while to figure out.”

“You gave me quirk counseling!” Izuku protested.

“That was before you pulled the One Ring of Power out of the fucking Hobbit because you were trying to get Sting, Izuku. That was also before something reacted to your presence before you gave it life. For all we know, you could be awakening the books you’re reaching into. I need you to give me one of the charged books to take to scan at UA.”

“But Mom…”

“They won’t know it was you. I’ll cite minor confidentiality. But we need to figure this out.”

Izuku was silent, twitching in discomfort as he looked around the apartment he’d been brought home from the hospital in. This was his home, and his uncle wanted him to move into that snazzy penthouse with all those windows and open floor plans and… lack of life? Sure, he already had a room there, and so did Mom, but…

But.

“Izuku,” Asuma said softly, and Izuku was reminded of that time his mom confidentially told him the reason Snipe wore his mask was because he had too much of an honest face. Izuku wished his face wasn’t so honest, because right now, Asuma almost looked heartbroken. “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.”

That’s what Mom said when his quirk came in, when they figured out what it was and what he could do. Other kids got to celebrate their quirks. Izuku had to hide it.

“Zu…” Asuma said again, this time carefully approaching him. Izuku didn’t want to know what his face looked like. “Zu, I really am sorry.”

“Is it really so bad?” Izuku asked quietly. He didn’t need to provide context. Uncle Asuma knew.

Was it really so bad, to have this quirk?

His uncle didn’t answer and Izuku swallowed harshly.

“I’m… Going to go get you that book,” he mumbled, and then he slipped away into his meadow.

Chapter Text

“Remember, Izuku, we’re going to the aquarium after school, so don’t go missing, okay?” Mom pressed a kiss to the crown of Izuku’s head and ruffled his curls, and Izuku looked up from his breakfast.

“I know,” he replied cheerfully as Asuma passed behind him, giving his hair a quick ruffle.

“Happy birthday, Zu,” he said as he grabbed the to-go mug of coffee Mom had brewed for him. “Thanks, Ko.”

“Doesn’t your staff meeting start in five minutes?” Mom asked as she glanced at the calendar in alarm.

“Uh, yes, but Nemuri is always late and we have to wait for her, anyways, it’s fine,” Asuma replied. “Izuku, don’t forget your key again.”

“It really doesn’t matter if I have my key or not,” Izuku pointed out diplomatically.

“I’d prefer you just remember your key instead of using your quirk to get out of the responsibility every fourteen year old has,” Asuma replied as he grabbed his motorcycle keys. “Bye, slugger. See ya, Ko.”

“He has a point, Izuku,” Mom added and dangled Izuku’s keys in front of him. “Stop leaving them.”

“Mmm,” Izuku responded and stuffed the last of his breakfast into his face. Snatching the key from his mom, he picked up his bag and gave her a wave goodbye as Asuma opened the front door.

“You’re going to be late, let me give you a ride,” Asuma said and Mom cleared her throat.

“ You’re already late, Izuku has thirty minutes before the first bell,” she cut in. “Izuku, baby, go. Shoo. And take the train. ”

Izuku managed to swallow down the last of the rice.

“Kay, Mom. See you after school.”

“Love you!” Mom called and Asuma swung the door shut with a click. Izuku fixed the bookbag so it was slung across his chest and tilted his head at Asuma, fixing him with the legendary puppy dog eyes.

“You don’t have to do that,” Asuma said with a laugh. “I’m not breaking my month long streak of being thirty minutes late on the dot. I’ll ruin my bet with Nezu. C’mon.”

“Yes,” Izuku hissed as they headed for the elevator.

“Katsuki still not talking to you?” Asuma asked.

“The filth will not look at us.”

“Yes,” Izuku said and directed a severe glance down at his chest.

“He still doesn’t like him?” Asuma asked with no small degree of amusement.

“Would you?” Izuku shot back and Asuma rolled his eyes.

“I haven’t seen the kid since he was five, how can I give an assessment?”

“Fair, but still.”

“Is he still aiming for UA?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine,” Izuku said with a shrug. “I’m just going for Gen Ed, he’s not going to even see me.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be stuck teaching him,” Asuma groused as the elevator doors dinged open. “He only got physical with you once, right?”

There was a warning tone in the question. The sort of “you’d better not lie” warning. Izuku raised his eyebrows in response as they stepped in and Asuma hit the button for the ground floor.

“If I didn’t think he had the potential to be a hero, I’d tell you,” he replied. “I hate his guts, but I’m not going to completely write off all of that… home stuff. It doesn’t help that every teacher just encourages and enables him. The only person he’s got who can possibly teach him to be nice to people is his dad, and…”

And.

The whole situation was infuriating for Asuma. There was no proof of Mitsuki getting physical, Masaru wouldn’t file a report, probably because she could destroy his career and then Katsuki really wouldn’t have anyone to support him or at least act as a buffer, and heroes could only intervene when things got physical. Emotional and mental abuse fell under child services, and child services were of the opinion that heavy hands and harsh words were necessary with volatile quirks. The whole situation was mired in bureaucracy, and it didn’t help that Mitsuki was one of the most popular supermodels in Japan.

Izuku still detested Kacchan. But he also understood that he was a wreck and had no idea what affection actually looked like beyond his dad, and to him, his dad was little more than a verbal punching bag, and Kacchan wasn’t going to get that it was his own form of sacrifice. Mom had ended her friendship with Mitsuki when the boys were six because of Mitsuki’s behavior, and because Kacchan was starting to follow in her lead when it came to Izuku. The whole situation was a mess, and Izuku was not about to go on some self sacrificing rampage to fix it.

“... If you say so, kid,” Asuma finally said, and the dubiousness of his tone was painfully clear.

“I do say so,” Izuku said firmly.

“Do not defend the filth,” Gremlin hissed, and Izuku sucked in a breath through his teeth. Two months now of this damn thing whispering in his ear, and he still hadn’t learned to mind his business.

“If you wish me to mind my business, then your business should not be so loud.”

Okay, point for Gremlin, but Izuku was still running out of patience with his constant running commentary.

“You’ve got the Gremlin face,” Asuma commented.

“Gremlin is constantly talking, so that’s going to be a regular fixture.”

“Oh, so he thinks you’re too forgiving, too.”

“I’m not too forgiving. I’m objective. You can’t just look at someone like Kacchan and judge him without judging everyone around him!” Izuku protested. “He’s a piece of shit, but so is Endeavor, and no one would say Endeavor isn’t an effective hero.”

“I’d say he’s not effective,” Asuma grumbled as the doors opened.

“Numbers say otherwise. You don’t get to number two if you aren’t effective. Didn’t say he was a good hero. He’s effective, though,” Izuku said with a shrug as Asuma waved at the doorman.

“So you think Katsuki can be an effective hero.”

“I think he’s fourteen and UA could actually help him because the teachers there wouldn’t encourage him to be an asshole,” Izuku replied with a shrug. “If he goes too far, I’ll tell you.”

“You’d better, ” Asuma said threateningly.

“I will! You act like I’m a total lost cause!” Izuku complained.

“I think you act tough but you’re a massive romantic that’s read too many books with unrealistic redemption arcs,” Asuma corrected.

“That wounds me,” Izuku said as they pushed their way out of the lobby and made their way to the garage.

“It should.”

“Books are my life, Uncle. Literally.”

“And you of all people should know how effective fiction is at implanting an idea in your brain,” Asuma pointed out, and Gremlin chuckled deep in Izuku’s subconscious.

“Okay, that was low,” Izuku sniffed.

“I’m just making an effective argument, Zu.”

“It’s my birthday. You shouldn’t be harassing me like this.”

“It’s your birthday, which means I should be imparting wisdom. ”

“This isn’t wisdom. This is harassment.”

“Ah, only a fourteen year old would say that.”

“How many times are you going to find a way to work my age into your sentences?”

“At least fourteen times.”

Izuku groaned from the bottom of his soul as they reached Asuma’s motorcycle and his uncle handed him his helmet.

“There’s more where that came from, squirt,” Asuma said as Izuku pulled on the helmet.

“I really hope not,” Izuku mumbled and Asuma laughed and swung astride the bike.

“Hop on,” Asuma said and Izuku climbed on behind him as Asuma kicked up the stand.

“Just don’t embarrass me at the aquarium, please?” Izuku begged.

“I make no promises. Did you invite any of those Twitter friends, by the way?” Asuma asked, pausing for Izuku’s reply with the key in the ignition.

“No, I told you, that’d be weird,” Izuku replied. “Most of them are nowhere near Musutafu, anyways. And we’re not really friends. We just. Talk. They don’t even know I’m Quirkless.”

“... It’ll get better, Zu,” Asuma murmured, because no matter what anyone said, Snipe was probably the softest hero out there. Izuku just sighed and pressed his helmet to Asuma’s back. His uncle waited for a reply that wouldn’t come, and then he started up the bike.

It was difficult to talk on a roaring motorcycle. The ten minute ride passed in silence, with Izuku clinging to Asuma’s waist. Despite the heavy loneliness, he still did enjoy it every time Asuma let him ride along. Had Izuku not had the ability to teleport anywhere he chose, he probably would want a motorcycle himself. Well. It wasn’t like he could use it, anyways, even if people did know about it, considering he wasn’t in the running for heroics and public quirk usage wasn’t exactly legal. Maybe when he turned eighteen he’d aim for bullying Asuma into helping him get a license.

Eventually, they pulled up to Aldera, and Izuku clung to his uncle for a second longer than necessary. He didn’t want to go in. No one remembered his birthday, not even Kacchan, so Izuku wouldn’t be targeted for that today, but that didn’t mean he wanted to deal with them today. He wanted a good birthday.

Asuma cut the engine and waited patiently for Izuku to release him.

“I can just take you to work today,” he murmured. “My coworkers want to meet you.”

Ah, yes. The Quirkless charity case, living with a Pro Hero uncle because his mother suspected the bullying was getting worse and he wouldn’t talk about it. That was the cover story, anyways. It wasn’t like they could blame it on finances. Mom was the head nurse of the pediatric unit at the hospital. She had plenty of money, and if they used that as an excuse, it would just look pitiful. The answer was clear, so they owned up to it.

“It’s okay,” Izuku murmured and let go of him, peeling off the helmet and stuffing it back in the saddlebag. “...Maybe just show up in your suit next time?”

“The cloak would slap you around, squirt,” Asuma replied with a sad smile. “But I can probably come in the rest.”

“...Thanks,” Izuku mumbled and turned to look at the tall, imposing walls. “I can handle it.”

Asuma followed his gaze and sighed quietly.

“Hostility is easier than pity, huh?”

Izuku didn’t have to reply. Asuma knew.

“I’ll see you after school,” Asuma said softly.

“Love you,” Izuku said and squared his shoulders.

“Oh, and be careful coming home,” Asuma added. “There’s some kind of freak transformation quirk guy running rampant. He can take over bodies, so make sure you stay in populated areas, alright?”

“You got it!” Izuku said with a half smile. “No back alleys for me!”

“...Good. See you.”

Izuku raised a hand to wave him off, and the motorcycle rumbled back to life. Asuma peeled off, and Izuku squared his shoulders.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Today was going to be just fine. No baiting Kacchan, no mouthing off, if the teacher called on him for once, he’d answer. His homework was all accounted for, everything was in order.

One more year of this. One more year, and then he was a shoe-in for Gen Ed, and he could leave all of this behind him.

.

.

.

.

.

“Oh, Midoriya wanted to go to UA, too, right?”

You could hear a pin drop. Izuku stared at the teacher with all the silent burning rage he had, vowing that one day, he would end this man’s career.

“Do we eat him?”

Gremlin always had the worst timing, because right now, Izuku could look at that man and see a juicy steak to rival the finest wagyu. If he was more naive, he might have conveniently forgotten, or simply not noticed that almost amused gleam in his eye as Kacchan slowly, slowly turned back to look at Izuku. If he was more meek, more quiet, perhaps the class would have erupted into laughter at the teacher’s seemingly innocuous statement. If he was anyone but himself, perhaps he wouldn’t have the look of pure, cold, burning hatred on his face.

Because that teacher knew it was his birthday. It was right there, on the sheet in front of him. Because all day, Izuku had flown under the radar, and from that single comment, everything had gone to hell, and the teacher knew it.

“Deku. Wants to go to UA,” Kacchan repeated, and Izuku turned his steely gaze on him.

“Yes. For Gen Ed,” he said calmly. “I aced all the practice exams. My uncle sent me all the material.”

Their eyes met, and Izuku didn’t flinch under that burning rage.

“You’re not going to UA,” Kacchan spat. “I’m the only kid in this school making it in.”

“The only kid in this school making it into heroics,” Izuku corrected. “No one cares about Gen Ed, remember?”

Kacchan stared at him for a long, long moment, and the teacher cleared his throat. Izuku honestly could not see straight through the rage. The whispers were breaking out all across the classroom. Cold, unfriendly Midoriya going to UA? How did his uncle get him study material? The Quirkless student aiming for a spot at the greatest school?

“You’re Quirkless, remember?” Kacchan said, like it was a taunt. Izuku just kept staring.

“We will feast on his flesh,” Gremlin promised, and Izuku privately thought he’d rather taste the bone marrow of the teacher. The ring grumbled and warmed against his chest, satiated with the level of rage, but not satisfying with how forgiving Izuku was, as if this qualified as such.

“You won’t do anything,” Gremlin whispered, and Izuku just quietly thought he wouldn’t have to. Things were going to come to this school, after Izuku was already gone. He was sure of it.

“Vengeance should be yours,” Gremlin huffed, as if he was actually offended by Izuku not burning the school to the ground himself, and while it was a nice thought, Izuku still had to have a good record to get into UA, and he couldn’t get away with the sort of things Kacchan could.

The teacher cleared his throat again and Kacchan scoffed before turning aside. Izuku kept his eyes firmly locked on the back of his neck, long enough to make him squirm, before he turned his burning gaze onto the teacher. He wasn’t intimidated, not in the slightest. Instead, he smiled at Izuku, as if he was an angry kitten yowling for milk, and Izuku just smiled back.

For a moment, just a moment, the teacher saw the same daggers Izuku felt in his mouth. Really, it was partially Gremlin’s fault that it felt so satisfying when he averted his eyes.

The class was subdued by the sudden tension in the room. All day, glances were spared towards Izuku, and he could almost feel their thoughts and worries that he was going to snap. He didn’t. He sat through class, calmly, and waited a good hour to excuse himself to go to the bathroom. Walking as fluidly as ever, he waltzed out of the room and holed himself up in the men’s room to pull out his phone and open the family group chat.

Izuku: I’d rather stay home today.

He wanted to leave, but the crushing weight of how impossible everything was kept him leaning against the stall wall, staring down at his phone as the rage began to ebb away in return for a bone aching sorrow that overtook his whole vision, forcing him to focus on nothing but waiting for three dots from someone, anyone, to answer him. To know he was there.

“You could rule them,” Gremlin whispered, like it was a promise, and Izuku really needed to break that habit of his. A soft sigh slipped out of his mouth.

“There’d be no point, Grem,” he murmured. “You know what I want.”

There was a scoff in response, deep in the back of his mind, and the ring warmed ever so slightly.

“I almost like to remind you.”

“No you don’t,” Izuku replied as the ghost of a smile twitched at his lips. “You just thought it was worth a shot.”

“I am what I am.”

“And so am I.”

Three dots. Mom was typing.

Inko: What happened?

Izuku swallowed down the pain and considered lying, if only for a moment, but instead he dropped his head and chose to prolong the inevitable.

Izuku: Can we talk about it when I get home? I’m hiding in the bathroom right now and it’s. Complicated.

Inko: I love you.

Izuku: Love you more.

Inko: Not possible.

Izuku swallowed down the lump in his throat and managed a wan smile his mother couldn’t see.

He could leave. He could step into the meadow right now and go home. Damn his textbooks, damn his shoes, he could be home right now, in his messy bedroom with his piles of books, with easy access to Mom’s tea cabinet and the beat up whistling tea kettle that lived on the stove. He could curl up in the living room in his pajamas with a new book to read and forget everything about today, and maybe, just maybe, he would even feel up to his trip to the aquarium.

“You could,” Gremlin whispered, “but if you want to be a hero, why would you run away?”

“A hero could punch the villains in the face and call it a day,” Izuku whispered.

“Is it really so simple, or are you just young?” Gremlin mused, and tears pricked at Izuku’s eyes.

He wanted to be young. He wanted to be stupidly naive and full of hope and joy and wonder and believe this was just another mountain to climb. He wanted to be the star of a shounen anime, fight through with grit and sheer optimism, but at the end of the day, he was a solitary boy, ostracized by classmates and bullied by his teachers.

At the end of the day, he was too grown, and he just knew far too much. Too much hardship, too much about consequences, too much power and too much about the fall that comes to everyone eventually.

Swallowing down the pain, Izuku slipped his phone back into his pocket and pulled open the stall door. It was three hours. Three hours, and he could go home.

He walked back to class in a daze. The world was a bit hazy around him, and he wondered just why he was surprised every time. He should know better by now. If his classmates weren’t going to ruin a day, his teacher would most certainly take his birthday into account as the day to try to crush him.

But, as he neared the door, he took into account the fact that he could not live his life in a haze to escape everything. One more year. That was all he needed to escape. Asuma had already been promised to him as a homeroom teacher. Stuff like this wouldn’t happen at UA. He would have three good years, and he could look forward to those three good years before he resigned himself to a lifetime of being the Quirkless, average, underpaid, undervalued, underappreciated white collar worker. Asuma would pay for his college, and Izuku would graduate as a lawyer, struggle to find work, but eventually find a place at some civil rights firm as a diversity hire, and he’d live comfortably in obscurity, never to raise above his station, content to listen to Quirked advocates passionately preach for his rights in a space he would never be allowed in.

At least he’d always have the meadow. And, unfortunately, Gremlin.

But, for now, he’d straighten his head, set his jaw, swallow down that pervasive lump, and go to class.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Deku!”

Kacchan, always with the impeccable timing. Izuku sighed over his spilt school bag, turned out by his classmates and left in a mess on the floor. He was trying to get out of here fast, but after that announcement, he couldn’t get away with anything.

His eyes drifted up to Kacchan and his two buddies standing there. For some reason, he couldn’t be bothered to remember what their names were. They used to play together, but over the years they had turned into faceless goons, looming behind Kacchan at any given opportunity, as if that would give them flashier quirks. He wasn’t even sure if Kacchan even liked them nowadays. Maybe they just stroked his ego.

“Yes?” He asked with a sigh as he grabbed the last textbook and shoved it into his bag.

“Where do you get off, acting like you’re something, huh?” Kacchan asked as he advanced on Izuku. Izuku stood up and stared at Kacchan with dead eyes before holding up his hand.

“Before you get on your tirade, I’m first going to state that a.) it’s my birthday, not that you’d remember, and I have to get home to Mom. You know, the one woman in your life that ever acted like a decent human being to you before your mother drove her off like she’s going to drive you off eventually. B.) I’m going to need you to consider for just one moment that perhaps, if you were born with just a slightly less flashy and awesome quirk, perhaps other people would care to hear your opinion on them about as much as I do, which is about zero right now. C.) You have one reason and one reason alone to actually approach me with the intent to scare me off from my UA, and that reason is that you actually think I can get in, otherwise you wouldn’t bother with it in the slightest, so maybe you need to reexamine your bias against people parading around with the Quirkless label, preferably far away from me, so I don’t have to act as your verbal punching bag until you get a fucking therapist, because I am so far beyond caring about your opinion it isn’t even funny.”

Kacchan stared at Izuku for a long, long moment, and Izuku stared back, head tilted forward, lips slightly parted, just daring him to say something. When he determined the pause was sufficiently long enough, he looked between the two idiots behind Kacchan and tilted his head only just.

“Oh, you two. No one’s going to care who you hung out with in middle school. He’s not going to give a fuck about you once he’s in UA. He doesn’t even like you, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t either. You have the presence of two extras in a B-rated gangster movie who get gunned down outside a speakeasy in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. You should work on getting personalities before someone tries to hand you a script. I’ve had a pretty shit day, so I’m leaving now.”

Deliberately pushing past the three of them, Izuku marched for the door, but a hand caught on the strap of his book bag and yanked him back. In an instant, Izuku was face to face with Kacchan, who was staring down at him with some emotion Izuku could not read.

“You know, Izuku,” Kacchan said quietly, and Izuku’s eyebrows went up as he blinked multiple times, “it’s kind of a fucking waste you don’t give a shit about heroics.”

He released him and Izuku took a step back. For a second, the two of them stared each other down, and then Izuku deliberately turned on his heel and walked out the door.

In the dark recesses of Izuku’s mind, Gremlin laughed maniacally, and Izuku couldn’t help but agree.

.

.

.

.

.

In hindsight, it really was not Izuku’s fault he forgot his uncle’s warning. He had a rough day, and the last thing he was thinking about was one villain running about. The first thing he was thinking about was avoiding crowds, because not even Kacchan’s confusing comment could put him back in a good mood. In fact, it was only serving to put him in a worse mood.

Izuku had been telling him off for years. Ever since his quirk came in, really. They had a toxic relationship. Kacchan knew him so well back then. He knew when Izuku was lying to him, and he knew an abrupt change in personality meant more than their mothers falling out and his father going missing. In a way, Izuku almost needed him to nettle him, because Izuku could let that biting tongue simmering under the surface come up. He knew if he cowered before Kacchan the boy would only get angrier and get violent, so standing up to him and lashing out was just about the only thing that kept him from getting violent.

Except that one time. Izuku wasn’t sure what was going on with that time Gremlin burnt the hell out of him. Kacchan had stayed away, at least, but it felt wrong. And Izuku knew enough to know that was toxic. At least Kacchan actually interacted with Izuku. No one else did. Sure, there were the off bullying instances, but those were detached. People messing with his stuff, mostly, when his back was turned. It wasn’t really in person, and gods, Izuku needed actual friends, and he needed them badly. This was actually pathetic.

It really was a testament to just how tired and done with everything he was right now that even while in the clutches of a quite frankly disgusting quirk, he was thinking about this, and his general mood was simply, ‘guess I’ll die’.

Gremlin, however, did not agree with that assessment.

“Get him off, take us to meadow, what are you doing, stupid boy?”

Izuku was actually drowning, and instead of panicking, he was just mad. His body was struggling, as it should, but his brain was entirely blank as he kicked and thrashed and pulled at the gunk around his mouth.

“Yes, you will be a great meatsack, just for a little bit, I promise it won’t hurt,” the man hissed in Izuku’s ear as he tried to crawl down his throat.

“Fuc--k!” Izuku coughed through a choke, because this felt beyond violating. He was crawling up Izuku’s orifices, Gremlin was screeching that he didn’t want his favorite meatstick (and when had that happened) to be possessed by a creep, Izuku was dying, everything was chaos.

“Use me!” Gremlin hissed. “Persuade him!”

Technically, Izuku could step into the meadow, but on the off chance he survived and the sludge survived, there would be someone outside of Mom and Asuma who knew he was actually possessing a quirk, and that was simply a recipe for disaster. Gasping and clawing at the gunk in his mouth, he struggled and kicked and fought as his brain whirred for options.

‘I need to talk to persuade him, idiot’, was the only thing Izuku could think, and Gremlin just let out an ear piercing screech.

“I promised, but I am sorry,” Gremlin apologized.

Wait. Wait, no, dammit, fuck, and---

White hot, blazing heat exploding across his flesh, and the oil, sludge, tar, whatever, recoiled from his chest, giving Izuku just enough space to get some leverage to rip at the sludge crawling into his throat so he could breathe and scream at the top of his lungs, partially out of fear, primarily out of burning pain exploding across his chest, far more severe this time.

“I AM HERE!”

This was a nightmare. The manhole cover exploded, and Izuku’s eyes widened at the compromising position he was caught in. Gremlin immediately cooled, hissing apologies as the air ripped itself to shreds around Izuku, flinging him to the side and forcing him to smack into the wall, hard, his head colliding with the brick and sending stars dancing across his vision. Wet blood seeped into his curls, and he gasped, hacking out the sludge as the man screeched in pain.

Yellow. Yellow hair, rising into the sky, khaki pants, a white shirt. Izuku would know that voice anywhere. Once upon a time, he wanted to be that voice.

His head was ringing, and Gremlin wasn’t making things any easier, alternating between whispering assurances and pleading for Izuku to tear the creature that was… being scooped into soda bottles? Limb from limb. His hair soaked up the blood and he blinked, hard, his entire body on fire.

“Are you alright, young man?” All Might, it was fucking All Might, boomed, and Izuku struggled to his knees, coughing and hacking and spitting out sludge.

“I…” He rasped and hacked even harder as a massive hand patted his back in some farce of comfort.

“Don’t like him, he’s death, he’s putting death on you, get away from him,” Gremlin hissed as Izuku spat out sludge and what was possibly blood.

“Young man!” All Might repeated and Izuku held one finger up as he spat out the last of the sludge and took in a big, rattling breath. Everything hurt. His chest was on fire, and were he not covered in sludge, he would reek of burned flesh. “Young man, are you alright?”

“No,” Izuku choked out as he sat back, his head still swimming.

“I… Young man, what is wrong?”

Izuku’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets and he sat back, taking a deep breath as he stared at a genuinely lost and perplexed All Might in disbelief.

…Was the icon of his childhood a fucking himbo?

Apparently.

He… Actually had no clue what to do with this development.

“Wait,” he gasped as All Might straightened up and offered a hand, a smile plastered across his face.

“Do you need medical attention?” All Might asked, as if he was reciting from a script, and Izuku stared at him, fresh from a near drowning, bleeding from the back of his head from All Might’s smash, sludge dripping from his lips. “I must take this escaped convict to the police station!”

“You put him in soda bottles?” Izuku asked, feeling the energy of ‘never meet your heroes’ very strongly.

“Yes! It was a very messy job, but it had to do!” All Might boomed, and Izuku just kept staring at him.

“Oh…”

“Well, I am off! Be sure to call your parents, young man!”

“You know, Izuku, it’s kind of a fucking waste you don’t give a shit about heroics.”

All Might tensed, and some wild instinct prompted Izuku to lash out and grab his leg just as he took off.

In an instant, it was chaos. Gremlin was just a poor, lost, screeching entity, warning imminent demise in Izuku’s brain, Izuku was flying, All Might was panicking, shouting to him to let go, Izuku was pretty sure he replied with he would fall to his death, which was ridiculous, he could just warp away to the meadow, but it sounded right, everyone was screaming, and then they were on a rooftop.

“Young man, I understand being a fan, but this is far too mu---”

“If you couldn’t use your quirk, would you still be a hero?” Izuku gasped, panting for air as he knelt on hands and knees before All Might, All Might who was either careless or an idiot or just didn’t care, but he was All Might and he was here, and that was what mattered.

Silence passed. Izuku’s eyes were on the ground beneath him, and for a moment, he couldn’t differentiate between Gremlin’s discontented noises and a hiss of steam.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes, and there was All Might… Or, not All Might. It was…

Not him?

“I told you. He is death. He is marked,” Gremlin hissed, and Izuku stared in horror as the hero of his dreams slowly deflated before him.

Never meet your heroes.

“...You’re you,” he said, before he could stop himself, because it was the only thing that made sense. All Might was before him, and he was emaciated.

“...I was expecting you to scream,” All Might muttered, and Izuku stared at him.

“The first rule of the best,” Izuku breathed. “You sacrifice too much. You’re you.”

He was a willowy twig of a man, wizened, bent over, clearly in pain, Gremlin whispered that he was drowning in it, and Izuku suddenly understood why he was in such a hurry to get away. No one, no one could know about this.

“What was it you asked?” All Might asked, and gone was the heartening boom that filled the lonely silences when Izuku still believed. “If I couldn’t use my quirk, would I still be a hero?”

Izuku stared at him and the realization of the world crashed in on him.

“You’d use it anyways,” he said, and All Might met his eyes. A long silence passed between them, and Izuku slowly climbed to his feet to face the scarecrow.

“I would not recommend it,” All Might croaked, and he sounded so tired. Izuku stared at him. And stared. And stared. “I… Had a fight, some years ago.” And then he lifted his shirt, slowly, to show a patchwork of horrific scars, like a starburst, across his torso. “I lost a lung. Stomach. The surgeries left me as such. I only have a few hours a day as a hero before I become this. Don’t think my quirk did this to me. I did.”

There’s a moment, when you meet your heroes, or who were once your heroes. It was silent, but so loud, like waves lapping at a beach. If Izuku opened his mouth, he could taste the salt on his tongue. His face was wrinkled, sunken, haggard. His shoulders were sloped in, as if even the weight of his head was too much to carry. The bunny ears that lit up a child’s imagination were sloping, falling into decay, and even his hair lacked luster or sheen, screaming of a deficient diet.

“You were buying soda,” Izuku said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, and All Might almost laughed.

“That’s the first thing you’d think to say? Small pleasures, my boy. Small pleasures are all we have.”

It was something uniquely heartbreaking, looking at him.

“You know, Izuku, it’s kind of a waste that you don’t give a shit about heroics.”

Somehow, Izuku suddenly very much gave a shit about heroics.

“Don’t you have anyone to tell you to stop?” He asked, because his mouth was so far ahead of his brain it was in another galaxy, and All Might stared at him. His eyes were black and dull, but when Izuku looked at him, all he saw was a tragedy no one cared to stop.

“And who will be me if I do?” All Might asked by way of an answer, and Izuku swallowed.

That would be Kacchan.

“He’s not ready yet,” Izuku said, and the answer surprised him. All Might looked at him like he was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out, and Izuku realized how sad his statement sounded, the loneliness it rang with, the way Izuku said it like it was a tragedy in the making.

This was what it meant to be the best.

“This is… This is a secret,” All Might said, and Izuku swallowed hard.

“We all have our secrets,” he said quietly, and he was pretty sure the head injury had taken every ounce of common sense he had, because he couldn’t stop talking. “I do. Everyone thinks I’m Quirkless. I’m registered as Quirkless. But I’m not. Because my dad… He had to leave, and his quirk was nowhere near as powerful as mine, but it was dangerous enough. I don’t know if he’s even alive, or in the Bahamas or… Or worse. So. I get it. I won’t tell, and we’re even.”

He didn’t know why he said it. Maybe because for his whole life, there were three people that knew what he could do, and he was one of them. Not even his own father knew. Maybe because it was too much to bear for a fourteen year old. Maybe because his only real friend was a sentient ring ripped from the pages of a book.

Maybe because he needed to say it out loud, where someone could hear. Where someone couldn’t tell anyone, because he had dirt on him, because he’d trapped him, because deep down, Izuku was a terrible person, but also a child in pain on multiple levels.

“...I would remind you that that’s illegal, but I’m not much better,” All Might finally said, and his eyes were so full of pain Izuku didn’t even know what to do, because it was a dead pain. “...I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Izuku breathed, because he felt like he could cry right now.

“...I need to deliver this man to the police station,” All Might said, not unkindly. “May I know your name?”

“No,” Izuku said and swallowed hard. “It’s better if you don’t.”

“Of course.”

And then, just like waves breaking on the shore, All Might was going to the door and walking away.

And Izuku had a secret he could never tell his mother, because for once, it didn’t belong to him.

Growing up was the singularly worst experience of his life.

“We are friends?” Gremlin asked hesitantly as the door swung shut, and Izuku just stared out at the skyline.

“Guess you’re as close as it gets,” he replied, feeling like he didn’t truly exist in this world anymore.

And then, his eyes drifted down. Right to bright orange explosions.

The bottles.

Kacchan.

Shit.

Chapter Text

Using his quirk in broad daylight was a big no-no, so Izuku at least had the sense to exit out of the nearest alley, breaking into a running sprint as the explosions grew louder and louder. His breath was falling out of him in a gasp, his burnt flesh was tearing at him, his head was still bleeding, he felt like he could faint at any second, but there was no quirk like Kacchan’s.

“You know, Izuku, it’s a fucking waste that you don’t give a shit about heroics.”

Quirkless. He didn’t say ‘it’s a fucking waste that you’re Quirkless’. He said ‘don’t give a shit about heroics’. That’s what he said, and gods, Izuku was a hot mess for believing him for a one-off encounter, he was a fucking wreck, this was utterly pathetic, but the kid he’d seen in class with him every day since he was four years old was drowning and battling it out with the very thing that nearly killed Izuku, and Kacchan didn’t have the One Ring of Power to help him. Admittedly, Gremlin was more like a knockoff, and severely lacking in the power aspect of his name, but he was still the One Ring, and he managed to help without a wielder even allowing him to.

Gods, Izuku’s chest was burning.

“I’m not a knockoff.”

“You really are,” Izuku coughed out as he slid around the corner to find a crowd of people. Why were so many people crowding? Kacchan was dying.

Heroes were handling it, right? Izuku pushed through the crowd, panting heavily, and there was a TV crew, apparently live broadcasting the death of a child on national television, very sweet of them, this was why Izuku got so disillusioned with heroics to begin with.

There were heroes. Izuku didn’t recognize any of them. There was some guy with a water hose, some guy with ridiculous arms, he couldn’t see the rest of them because Kacchan was right there in the center of the Sludge Villain, screeching up a storm and letting off blast after blast as the villain tried to crawl his way into his mouth.

Izuku pulled to an abrupt stop, panting hard and watching in horror as Kacchan thrashed about wildly, trying to find purchase in its slimy grip.

“All of our quirks are useless, we have to wait for someone to come!” Someone called, Izuku didn’t even pay attention to who it was, because what did they mean, their quirks were useless? He admittedly had given up on his whole obsessive quirk studies, but the tree guy could at least pull Kacchan out from a distance, or at least clear out his airway.

And then their eyes met. Izuku watched in horror at the blanket terror on Kacchan’s face, the way his eyes flickered, because he didn’t want to die, he never wanted to die, not like this.

“Don’t save the filth,” Gremlin spat. “You promised Mother.”

“If you couldn’t use your quirk, would you still be a hero?”

Izuku had seen too much tragedy today. He saw it in All Might, and he saw it in Kacchan, and he saw it in himself. Because he knew the answer. The answer was that a hero would use it anyways, because who cares about fear when people were dying and you could stop it? Who could care?

Izuku… Izuku couldn’t. And the heroes were doing nothing.

It was a white haze. Izuku didn’t even know what he was doing, but in a second he was launching himself over the barricade as someone screamed at him to stop. He didn’t even have his bookbag. He had nothing. Nothing but himself, but as himself, he could do something.

The scent of wildflowers filled his nostrils. He needed to get in close. Focusing on where he wanted to go, he stepped into the crunch of grass and flowers, and stepped out, inches away from fiery booms as Kacchan watched with eyes glistening with hope and unadulterated rage. The scent of rampant sludge filled his nostrils, and he breathed an apology to his mother, one hand reaching out for Kacchan.

His hand, mid explosion, was the closest thing, and Izuku tore through the white hot explosion that seared the flesh of his palm, slapping down into the hand shining with nitroglycerin, and he pulled .

In an instant, both boys disappeared. Kacchan was in the meadow for less than a second, not even long enough to catch sight of the bookshelves, and then Izuku was yanking him out, far away from the Sludge Villain, on the other side of the alley as they collapsed in a heap, Kacchan retching and heaving up pitch black, oily tar as the scent of wildflowers was chased away on the wind.

“Kacchan,” Izuku gasped. “Cough it all up, you ca---”

“Detroit Smash!” All Might bellowed, just as Izuku’s phone started ringing like crazy, because of course his uncle would know immediately, and an explosion of sludge rocked the world. Strong arms swept both boys up, shielding them from the shockwave as water abruptly began to rain down, and wet blood finally made it down the back of Izuku’s neck, staining the white collar of his shirt, and he realized then that he was deeply, deeply in trouble.

His phone was still ringing and All Might gingerly released him, setting him down on the ground, and Izuku patted around in his pockets to find the vibrating phone.

“Izuku, what the fu---”

“Sorry!” Izuku said as he accepted the call from Asuma. “I’m sorry, Uncle, I pa---”

“Izuku,” Asuma cut in. “Move away from everyone else right now. ”

“Okay,” Izuku coughed and scrambled back as his heart hammered in his chest because Dad had gone away for this, he was going to lose his mom, he was going to lose his uncle, he was going to lose everyone, it was all over. “Okay, I’m sorry, I, I, panicked, I’m so sorry do I have to g--- ”

“Izuku, it’s very important that you do not speak right now, ” Asuma said. “Do you understand me? Do. Not. Speak. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you have Gremlin?”

Gremlin, silent, thrummed against his chest, and Izuku nodded, eyes wide and panicking, before he realized Asuma couldn’t see that, maybe, All Might was blocking the view of the cameras and staring down at him with intent.

“Yes. Yes, he’s here.”

Kacchan started crawling to him, red-faced and pissed, and All Might immediately reached for him, making a show of helping him up and fussing over him, and Kacchan was torn between starstruck and pissed and confused.

“Okay. We’ll talk about why the hell All Might is covering for you later, the man can’t act for shit, but right now I need you to focus on my voice. You are Quirkless. You do not speak to any pros, any reporters, until I get there. Understood?”

“I understand,” Izuku rasped.

“Good. We’re going to spin this as a stress manifestation that we knew could have happened, do you understand? You will not be in trouble for a stress manifestation. You are not clinically Quirkless. On paper, it’s invisible or latent. That is our story. Right now, you are a traumatized Quirkless child whose quirk just manifested, and your Uncle Snipe is going to come clear everything up. Are you… Izuku are you bleeding? ”

“I… I ran into him earlier, the villain, but Gremlin… I’m burned again, but it got him off for a second so I could breathe before All Might…”

“Stop talking. We’ll talk about this later. I need to leave now, you’re five minutes away, this is a stress manifestation, you are Quirkless. Got it? Do. Not. Move. I’m hanging up now.”

The line went dead, and Izuku felt his entire life crashing in on him as Kacchan looked between him and All Might wildly, trying to piece together what the hell just happened. Shaking, he drew his knees to his chin as ambulances pulled up, sirens wailing.

“Hey, kid!” It was the one with the arms, approaching him in a seemingly terrible mood. “The hell did you think you were doing?”

Izuku was shaking. His breath was coming into gasps, and Kacchan stared at him hard for a moment, brows furrowed because out of everyone, the only people that knew him better were his mom, uncle, and his fucking ring, and he knew something was wildly off. Izuku just having his quirk coming in would not be reacting like this. He saw Izuku’s face. That blatant determination, that decision to use his quirk, and the panic that only kicked in afterwards.

“Hey, why the hell are you yelling at him?” He shouted at the guy as Izuku swallowed hard. He needed to stop shaking. He’d just ruined everything. Everything his mom had fought for he had just thrown away because it had seemed like a good idea at the time. All Might had been right there, but…

All Might’s time was up. Izuku had seen him deflate right in front of him. Looking around, he suddenly realized Kacchan was making a scene, all the cameras were on him, and All Might was gone.

“He just used his quirk on purpose to fight a villain, that’s why I’m yelling at him.”

“So was I!” Kacchan protested. “Yell at me, not him! He’s never even---” He cut himself off and sent a wild, confused, angry glance at Izuku, as if he was unsure if he should expose him in his rage before he figured out what the hell was happening.

There was a roar of an engine, a very familiar engine, and Izuku shakily climbed to his feet.

“Kacchan, it’s okay, I…” He trailed off, and then Kacchan looked between him and arms before whirling on the hero.

“Can’t you see he’s fucking concussed! He’s bleeding! He needs a doc!”

“Wait, he’s bleeding?”

“Look at his neck! And his fucking hand!” Kacchan yelled, and gods, why was Asuma’s bike so loud, he was so far away. “Don’t go yelling at Snipe’s nephew like that!”

Oh, he was going all out, name dropping and everything, okay.

“What?” Now arms was looking wildly confused, and Kacchan decided to stick to what he was best at: making a loud, angry mess of everything.

“Yeah, and he’s fucking hurt!” Kacchan shouted as the paramedics rushed up, shooing arms and the heroes off so they could swarm Izuku and Kacchan and drag them to the ambulance.

The rumbling was getting closer, and Izuku was finding it easier to breathe, because he just ruined everything, but his uncle was going to fix it. Just beyond the crowd, the motorcycle pulled up, and Izuku saw the brown hat over the crowd as the paramedics asked him questions and rooted around in his hair.

“Izuku!” Asuma roared, pushing through the crowd. “Zu!”

The crowd parted like a wave at the sight of a very pissed and packing pro, and Izuku numbly let the paramedics set him down in the ambulance.

“Zu!” Asuma called again, and suddenly arms was looking very anxious as Snipe strode up to the paramedics, because Snipe was an extremely well known and beloved hero, and Izuku had never even seen that guy before.

“Hey, is that your nephew, Snipe?” A reporter asked as Asuma pulled alongside Izuku.

“He’s injured pretty badly, he needs to go to the hospital,” the paramedic said. “He’s got a nasty head injury, clearly concussed.”

“He’ll see Recovery Girl at UA,” Asuma replied immediately. “Izuku, what happened?”

“I…” Izuku trailed off, looking at Asuma with wild eyes, because what was he supposed to say?

“Listen, Izuku, you need to stay calm right now,” Asuma said, letting his voice drop to that low timber, loud enough for the paramedics and pros to hear, but not loud enough for the reporters to pick up. “You just had a stress manifestation, alright? It’s always rough on the body, but Recovery Girl is an expert in these things, the only one I’d trust, so these paramedics are going to take you right to UA; they have the proper equipment for it. Recovery Girl has been researching this stuff under Nezu for years, alright?”

Immediately, the atmosphere changed. Arms tightened up, the hose guy immediately commanded the attention of the media, the tree guy began to direct the crowd in pressing back, and Izuku looked at Asuma with wild eyes as he tried to figure out what was happening.

“Stress manifestations, especially for teleportation types, and a mutation from your parents, at that, can be very hard on the body, ” Asuma repeated, this time much more slowly. “Your body is going to be extremely volatile right now. You could blink out at any second, so I need you to focus, okay?”

“With the head injury, he can’t---” The paramedic warned, but Asuma shook his head no, slowly taking off his mask so Izuku could focus on his eyes as he slowly approached him. Arms glanced over his shoulder and immediately moved to block the view of the cameras of his uncle’s face, and Asuma nodded at Izuku slowly.

“If you feel the way you did just now, what I need you to do is focus very hard on going somewhere near that is safe, you have a head injury, we cannot have you getting lost when you’re bleeding like that, okay?” He cautioned, and Izuku slowly caught on. He was telling Izuku to ‘slip’ into the meadow until he told him where to go. “Now, these paramedics are going to take you to UA, where they’re going to run some scans to figure out how new this is to your body. Alright?”

Oh, if they scanned him now, they’d see how long he had the quirk, and Asuma needed to clear some stuff up first. Okay. He could understand this. Slowly, Izuku nodded to say he understood, he had to go to the meadow and wait for the signal, or for the text to tell him what to do, and then go to where he was directed.

Asuma met his eyes and then nodded once, and Izuku let himself fall into the meadow with a wisp of the scent of wildflowers. He heard an exclamation, a shout, and then it was just him and his river and the flowers.

Taking a deep breath, he stumbled for his library, thumbing through to find The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and there. Bookmarked, same as always. This was one of his easiest tests, something he’d done a million times, he could do this in his sleep. Reaching into the pages, he pulled out a cordial and staggered to sit in his chair and check his phone.

One text.

Take the cordial.

Fumbling for the top, Izuku took it off and let a drop fall on his tongue. Immediately, warmth spread through his body, like a weighted blanket falling across his body, and he went boneless in the chair. Flesh knit itself back together, healing without a single scar, and he let out a heavy breath as he felt his blood be replenished through his body. Tingles rolled down his spine, and he took a deep breath in, held it, and released it.

His phone buzzed again, and Izuku checked it.

Wait thirty minutes, then go to UA so we can get the paperwork fixed.

Thirty minutes. He could wait that long. Thirty minutes was nothing. A blink, when he was in the meadow.

His phone buzzed one more time, and he realized with a sinking stone in his gut that he was in a group project with Kacchan three months ago and they had to trade phone numbers.

“The filth is not so filthy,” Gremlin purred, and Izuku let out a huff of air.

“Of course you’d like him as soon as you found out he could lie,” Izuku grumbled.

“It seems to be an important trait for you.”

“I take it back. I have no friends.”

“Good.”

Izuku unlocked his phone and tapped on the push notification.

Kacchan: Your uncle is a really fucking good liar.

Kacchan: Guessing that’s a family trait.

Letting out a low, angry breath, Izuku tapped on his name and viciously changed it.

Deku changed their name to Izuku

Izuku: Normally, decent people would start with “thanks for saving my life, Izuku.”

Kacchan: Don’t think I owe you anything.

Izuku: ???? Fine. Die then.

Kacchan: I would have gotten out.

Izuku: Okay anything else to say or what

Kacchan: Why the fuck would a pro hero be so damn invested in hiding your quirk, huh?

Izuku: If a pro hero is really invested in hiding my quirk, do you think I’d be able to tell you why?

Kacchan: Teleportation is rare, but that wasn’t teleportation.

Izuku: Sure it was. We went in at one place, came out another.

Kacchan: And we had to go through that weird ass place to get there?

Izuku: As far as everyone is concerned, that’s just a mirage, and obviously it’s new, so I haven’t spent enough time to answer that question.

Kacchan: You’re there right now, aren’t you?

Izuku: I really can’t answer these questions, Kacchan.

Kacchan: Can’t answer them in text?

Izuku: Can’t answer them in general.

Kacchan: Because you don’t want to, or because your uncle told you so?

Izuku let out a hiss of air, and Gremlin let out a shriek of delight.

“Now is not the time to be encouraging teenage rebellion, we are in a fucking crisis, Gremlin,” Izuku snapped and Gremlin let out a deep purr.

“Did I encourage you, or laugh at you for being so terribly obedient?”

“You spent literal thousands of years waiting for your dead master to put you back on his finger, please tell me more about my obedience problems.”

“At least I did it in style. You’re lacking in the bite.”

Izuku growled under his breath and another text popped up.

Kacchan: So because your uncle told you so.

Izuku: The day I discuss my family life with you is the day you’re found dead in a ditch, Kacchan.

Kacchan: Don’t forget I covered for you.

Izuku: Don’t forget that I saved your life.

Kacchan: I could just not cover for you.

Izuku: By all means, put your word up against the word of a UA teacher, Pro Hero, and the plethora of legal documentation stating that a stress manifestation may be likely.

Kacchan: I saw you. You knew exactly what you were doing, where to step, where to go, and how fast to do it. You didn’t panic until AFTER you realized what you did. That was a choice.

Izuku: So I’m gonna ask you honestly.

Izuku: Does it actually matter?

Kacchan: It mattered enough to lie to everyone for ten years.

Izuku: Even if I did lie for ten years, not every reason has to include you. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Kacchan: The Quirk registry exists for a REASON, Izuku.

Izuku: The Quirk registry exists for a lot of reasons, Kacchan, and not all of them are good.

Kacchan: What the fuck does that mean

Izuku quietly swore under his breath and checked the time. Fifteen more minutes.

Objectively, he understood that Kacchan was trustworthy. But he was only trustworthy so long as he understood why he needed to keep his mouth shut. Izuku had to give him something, anything, but…

What could he give him? What could convince him to shut his mouth? Izuku stared down at his screen and thought about it, long and hard, and then his fingers started moving.

Izuku: We waited three years before declaring Dad dead. And we only did it because he told us to. He wanted Mom to move on. He’s not coming back. And it has everything to do with how much he loves us.

Izuku: Please stop asking questions. I can’t answer them. I will probably never be able to answer them. And it’s better that way. Answering questions is why I don’t have a dad.

Kacchan: What the hell does that mean? He breathed fire. That’s nothing special.

Izuku: He made a choice. Fire breathing was the choice he made, and it wasn’t good enough. That’s why my mom made the choice for me to be Quirkless. So I could have a life. A chance. And I just threw all of that away for you. All of my sacrifices, putting up with the bullying and hatred, dealing with the fucking pain of being worse than ordinary if that meant getting to live, I just gave up. For you.

Izuku: I never really hated you. Detested you, sure. Maybe even loathed you. But I always thought you could be a hero, if you got over your complexes. I just gave up everything so you can be a hero. So leave me alone.

Kacchan: You gave up everything? You gave up everything a long ass time ago. You promised me you were going to be a hero with me. You promised. I wasn’t even fucking mad you were Quirkless. I was mad that suddenly we were six and you gave up, after two years of swearing up and down that you were going to make it, you just gave up. I thought it was because you were Quirkless so I fucking hated you. Now you weren’t Quirkless the entire time and you won’t even tell me why.

Izuku: I was five. Ofc I wanted to be a hero. Every damn kid on the block swore that they were going to be heroes with you.

Kacchan: Yeah, but you could have made it. With or without a damned quirk. And you KNEW you could have made it. Even after you gave up, you still knew you could have made it. And I want to know why.

Izuku: Because I grew up and realized that no matter how much I wanted to be a hero, no matter how much I COULD, it meant nothing in the face of whether or not I SHOULD. You SHOULD be a hero. You have that choice. I don’t. Not all of us get flashy, safe quirks. Some of us get stuck with dangerous ones.

Kacchan: How the hell is a teleportation quirk dangerous.

Izuku hissed out of his teeth, and decided he had to do yet another stupid thing today, because Kacchan, as ever, was not going to give up until he understood. That was his fatal flaw. His drive to understand.

He had ten minutes.

Izuku: Where are you

Kacchan: Paramedics just released me. I’m waiting by the bodega with the strawberry sandwiches for Dad.

Izuku knew the one. Picturing the alley next to it in his mind, he slipped out of the meadow as Gremlin crowed in his mind.

“Is this rebellion?”

“It’s survival, shut up,” Izuku snapped as he stepped into the dank alleyway. Just ahead of him, he saw Kacchan slumped against the wall, staring down angrily at his phone, and without even asking for permission, Izuku walked up to him and grabbed him.

“What the fu---” Kacchan swore as they were surrounded by wildflowers and the sound of the river.

“Well, here it fucking is, Kacchan!” Izuku shouted and threw up his arms. “You like my fucking library? Here, come look, let me show you!”

“Deku, what the hell?” Kacchan demanded, but Izuku was beyond listening. Angrily, he marched over to the shelves and practically forcibly ripped out books.

“Which is your favorite, huh?” Izuku demanded. “You like the Dresden Files? Anne McCaffrey? Terry Pratchett? Or are Western fantasy novelists not your sort? Because I got plenty of Japanese titles. Or here, how about this?”

“Deku are you losing your mind?” Kacchan yelled as he ducked under a soaring copy of Good Omens.

“How about Neil Gaiman? This one’s a favorite!” Izuku declared as he flipped open a copy of Stardust. “Obsidian dagger, maybe?”

Not even taking the time to soak in the words, Izuku just plunged his hand in the book and grasped the handle of the ornate ceremonial dagger and yanked it out before lobbing the worn paperback at Kacchan’s head. It connected and he stared at Izuku in something akin to horror as he brandished the long, deadly, black dagger.

“How about the Holy Grail? Maybe you’d like a taste of immortality, Kacchan, so you have plenty of time to reflect on your pigheadedness! ”

“Izuku, are you nuts, fuck!” Kacchan shouted as Izuku wildly gesticulated with his knife.

“I have literally had the One Ring of Power speaking bullshit into my brain for the past two months, Kacchan, so, yeah, I’m feeling a little fucking stressed! ”

“I’m not that bad,” Gremlin muttered darkly as Izuku stared at Kacchan with wide, crazed eyes, twitching every so often just to drive home just how unhinged he was at the moment. Kacchan stared back before taking a deep breath, running a hand through his hair.

“You could have pulled anything out of a book right now, and you picked the huge fucking knife, Izuku,” he said, slowly, as if he was actually trying to keep his cool in front of an Izuku who had just completely flown off the handle.

“I thought it would make my point pretty fucking clearly as to why you should mind your own damn business! ”

Kacchan stared at the knife in Izuku’s hand before his eyes drifted up to look him in the eye, and Izuku deliberately stepped closer, feeling the frustration at the whole ordeal start to build.

“There’s quirks that can cure cancer. There’s quirks that can make someone immortal. There’s quirks that can make black holes, Kacchan. But tell me. If you want to do something bad, or maybe something with good intentions, would you wait for the genetic lottery and a bit of luck, maybe for decades, for the perfect quirk, or would it be easier to get yourself a writer, a novel with just one small, insignificant object that can bring you anything you want, and wait one month, and suddenly, you have everything you ever wanted? What if someone just, say, wanted to blow up the world? All it takes is one badly written novel with a nicely placed MacGuffin, one month, and me. That’s all. That’s it. That’s all it will ever take. So tell me, Kacchan. Would you trust me to be a hero that lives a life of mediocrity for the sake of everyone, or do you still expect me to chase the glory and trust me to never care about anyone, never have anything I’m unwilling to lose, never have anyone that I would put over the rest of the world? Do you still trust me? Because I already fucked up once and pulled out the fucking One Ring to Rule Them All and he won’t go back! And I am clearly barely containing the situation, because I am obviously very close to losing my shit. Do you trust me? ”

Izuku threw the obsidian knife into the ground at Kacchan’s feet and turned blazing eyes on him.

“Is your entitlement satisfied? Is your curiosity beaten down enough to stop fucking bothering me? Will you expose me? ”

Gremlin was curiously silent, but Izuku could feel the rage pounding in his veins. He knew he should care. He knew he should wonder if this was the damned ring around his neck, or if this was just the culmination of him being pulled so tightly he was ready to snap. His chest heaving, he glared at Kacchan, finding air peculiarly difficult to breathe.

“The only way I could be even more of a hero is if I dropped dead and never had any kids, because this quirk will only ever get worse,” he hissed from the pit of his belly. It felt like a snake was crawling its way up his esophagus, threatening to break free and strike Kacchan down before him.

Izuku’s entire life was imploding. One split second decision, and suddenly a lifetime of trauma of wondering what happened to Dad, why he never came back, why Izuku had to be alone and isolated and forgotten, left in plain sight, never to rise above his station, was overtaking his every nerve. He couldn’t breathe. He could only feel the hurt, the bone deep loneliness he was almost frightened to shed.

Kacchan stared at him with red eyes, brows furrowed as he took this in. He was thinking. This wasn’t a thinking situation. It was a yes or no. Did he trust him? Because Izuku sure didn’t trust Izuku. Why was he thinking?

“I wouldn’t,” Kacchan finally said, and there it was. The confirmation he would never get from his mom or his uncle. That one single confirmation Izuku had been waiting for for years, to stop caring that he had to make himself small, to stop caring about everything he’d lose so everyone could have the lives they wanted, the lives they deserved.

“I wouldn’t,” Kacchan repeated, and his tone was… Off. “Trust you to never give a fuck about someone. To be a fucking saint. Or whatever. You wouldn’t be you. But I would trust you. To be a hero. To be out there. To love openly and loudly. Because I think I’m the only person I know that’s smarter than you, and if I can figure out a way around anything that gets thrown at me, if I can always find option C, then I’m pretty fucking sure you can stop this pity party you’re having and figure out option C, too.”

It felt like Izuku had been slapped in the face. What the hell was Kacchan saying? Did he even realize what he was saying?

“I’m not smarter than my dad, Kacchan,” Izuku said before he could stop himself.

“Why the hell are you comparing yourself to some guy you haven’t seen since you were five, anyways?” Kacchan shot back. “What would a five year old know about how smart a grown adult is? You’ve got a real problem with hero worship, Izuku. You should probably fucking work on that.”

Izuku stared at him, and Kacchan stared back, and then Izuku looked at the mess of books around him, the full blown temper tantrum he’d had. Well. That was over the top. He’d definitely gone off the rails this time.

“I think he deserved the book.”

Oh, now he was talking, when it was no longer convenient to blame him.

“I don’t know if you’re losing your shit because of that One Ring shit---”

“Gremlin,” Izuku corrected and Katsuki blinked.

“You named it…”

“He. He likes he.”

“... Gremlin.”

“... Honestly, it’s kind of up in the air if he’s the genuine ring, because technically the ring is merely sentient as a result of Sauron’s will poured into it, and since there’s no real Sauron, we scanned the books, I didn’t wake up anything else… I mean. It might just be. Me. He’s a little useless without the other rings. Turns people invisible, but I can just… Pop out of existence at will, makes me more charismatic, but other than that… In this universe, he doesn’t have the same… Umf. He talks a lot more, too. And likes to. Encourage me to eat Sensei. And you. Sometimes. But you lied to the arms guy, or at least tried to cover for me, so he thinks you’re… Appropriately deceitful and slightly cleaner filth, in his eyes, now.”

Izuku was babbling, because he was now moderately embarrassed.

“... You threw a book at my head.”

“Two. I only made contact with one.”

“... You’re fucking nuts, Izuku.”

Izuku pursed his lips and looked down at the swaying wildflowers around his knees.

“Pretty sure the whole school thinks I’m nuts, so that’s nothing new.”

“... Honestly, you’ve been like… Really fucking weird for the past two months…” Kacchan pointed out and Izuku looked down at his chest.

“Wonder why.”

“... Is it the actual ring or the stress of pulling it out and not being able to put it back?”

“I’d like to see you keep it together with the literal paragon of evil screaming to murder everyone fucking with your desk and turning out your bag and stealing your lunch on a daily basis,” Izuku stated flatly. “I think I’ve been pretty fucking calm, all things considered. He wants to roast your buddy’s wings and slather them in barbecue sauce and, honestly, if he had opposable thumbs, I don’t think I’d stop him some days.”

Gremlin purred in the back of Izuku’s mind, and Izuku could have sworn he was preening.

“... Well. You could be a lot fucking worse.”

“Things are going to get a lot fucking worse. I just outed myself as having a quirk, a rare kind of quirk, on national television.”

“Then it’s a stress manifestation,” Kacchan said with a shrug and Izuku stared at him like he’d grown a third head.

“... So you’re suddenly cool with the cover up despite yelling at me for like a minute straight about a pity party.”

“... Well, you now have a quirk. What’s stopping you from being a hero with teleportation?” Kacchan asked, and Izuku blinked multiple times.

“You know your parents have to actually sign off on you joining the hero course? My mom spent a decade covering up my quirk. She’s not going to just. Sign off on that.”

Kacchan paused and looked down at the flowers.

“Then throw a fit.”

“I’m not throwing a fit at my mom.”

“I don’t know, you seem to be able to do it pretty well.”

Gremlin actually cackled at that, and Izuku pursed his lips.

“Your dad is coming for you, and I’m supposed to meet my uncle at UA. Don’t tell anyone about this.”

“You need Percy Jackson,” Kacchan suddenly said, and then looked aside. “... If you don’t have it already. You can get from places, but you can’t sneak around. And I don’t think you want to use … Gremlin for that, but there’s a cap in there that turns you invisible.”

“... Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward pause ensued before Kacchan coughed.

“I can’t believe you named him Gremlin.”

“I wasn’t going to call him precious.”

“... Yeah.”

“... I’m going to drop you off at the bodega now.”

“... He’s not actually coming. I just said that. Mom told me to walk home.”

Izuku blinked at him several times.

“She told you to walk?”

“... Yeah. So don’t be surprised when you drop me and he’s not waiting. She told him to not get me.”

“... You just got attacked.”

“Yeah, and?”

Izuku studied him for a second before stepping forward and grabbing his arm. With a breath of the scent of wildflowers, the two were behind the tree in Kacchan’s backyard, hidden from view.

“... See you at school, if Mom doesn’t…”

“Pull you out or kill you?”

“... Yeah.”

“... We’re not friends,” Kacchan said suddenly, and Izuku blinked at him.

“Obviously. You can just stop being a dick, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“So long as you know,” Kacchan said.

“... Yeah, sure,” Izuku said and stepped back into the meadow.

At least he could now get out of awkward conversations with Kacchan faster.

… Awkward conversations with Katsuki.

That felt better.

“You still have to see the elf.”

“Stop calling him that.”

“He shoots things very well. He’s an elf.”

“ Please stop calling him that.”

Chapter Text

“How the hell did you get in here?” Someone asked and Izuku shrunk back awkwardly at the sight of the dead eyed man in black coveralls. Jesus, when was the last time he brushed his hair?

“Uhm… I’m trying to find my uncle?” He asked awkwardly and the man stared at him for a long, long moment.

“...And who’s your uncle?”

“...Hazutashi Asuma?”

The man squinted at him for a second and Izuku squinted back at him. Did Uncle Asuma only tell his coworkers of the past several years his hero name?

“...Or Snipe?”

“I know who Hazutashi is,” the man said gruffly. “That doesn’t explain how you’re in here without a badge and the alarms aren’t going off… Or why there’s blood all over you.”

Izuku awkwardly tugged at the white collar coated in blood just peeking out of the black collar of his jacket. He had to look like hell right now.

“Uhm… There was a villain attack?” He said, and the man blinked at him.

“So, you’re injured.”

“...Not at the moment?”

“So you’ve seen Recovery Girl and she set you to roam the halls?”

“...No?”

“Where is your uncle?”

“...I don’t know, it’s kind of huge in here, and I just showed up…”

“If you haven’t seen Recovery Girl, then you’re injured, and you need to go to the infirmary.”

“I’m not injured.”

“I know the blood patterns of a head injury, problem child. You need to go to the infirmary. Also, again, how did you get in here?”

“...My uncle told me not to talk to anyone,” Izuku blurted, because he was entirely lost on how to talk his way out of this.

“This is pathetic, just use me.”

Izuku was going to ignore that.

“I’m your uncle’s coworker and a pro. Here, look,” the man said in exasperation and pulled a card out of his pocket, waving a license in front of Izuku’s face. Eraserhead. “There. You can talk to me now.”

“I really can’t. Can I just call Uncle Asuma and… Where are we?”

“You’re outside the second year heroics course,” the man snapped and Izuku internally cringed, because, yes, there was a huge door right next to him with 2-A printed on it. Thank gods school was out already, because he was about to die of embarrassment.

“...Right. Uh. Thanks.”

“...You’re Izuku, right?”

“...Yes.”

“You look like him. Wasn’t it your birthday today?”

Gremlin vibrated in the weirdest way as a strange emotion took over Izuku’s body. For a second, he couldn’t place it, and then he realized what it was.

It was the first time Izuku’s birthday had been acknowledged by someone other than his mother and uncle in years, and for some reason the simple statement made a lump crawl up in his throat and tears start to prick at his eyes. His mouth opened and shut, at a loss for words, and the man kept staring at him in silence.

“...What?”

“No, I just… He told everyone it was my birthday?” Izuku asked, and gods, he was entirely healed, but his voice was still beyond raspy.

“...Yeah. He talks about you a lot.”

“...I haven’t actually heard anyone say it’s…” Izuku trailed off, because today was entirely too much for him right now, and instead flushed bright red as there was a flicker of understanding in the man’s dark eyes. Swallowing harshly, Izuku dug into his pocket for his almost dead phone and started unlocking it.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I’ll just. Call Uncle Asuma and ask where he… Where he’s at.”

“...You look like you need to sit down.”

“No, I’m… I’m fine,” Izuku babbled as he got his contact list open. “It’s just been a really weird day. Just a really weird day. I mean, my teacher like… He… It’s complicated, and then there was All Might, and then there wasn’t All Might and my… I mean, the thing happened, and then something even worse happened, and I kind of ruined everything, I wasn’t supposed to… I mean if I didn’t… He would have… But… My mom’s going to be really upset and…”

“Izuku!” Uncle Asuma’s voice cut through and Izuku spun on his heel, blanket relief washing over his face at the sight of his uncle standing there. The cowboy strode towards him, and Izuku swallowed hard as the phone slipped out of his grasp and hit the ground.

“Asuma, I…”

“Sorry, Eraserhead,” Asuma apologized as he grabbed Izuku’s arm and pulled him close to check him over. “He’s had a bad day. He’ll get out of your hair now.”

“He wasn’t supposed to do what?” Eraserhead asked, and Izuku froze, staring with blanket terror at his uncle’s mask.

“...He had a stress manifestation. Teleportation quirk. We need to talk to Nezu about it,” Asuma said, the lie falling out as easy as breathing, and Izuku ducked his head down and stared at the ground.

“...Then I need to be there,” Eraserhead said, as if it was fact, and Izuku stiffened up. Asuma’s hands tightened on Izuku’s arms and Izuku trained his eyes on the ground. This looked bad. This looked really bad.

“It’s alright, Eraserhead, you have to go on patrol, anyways,” Asuma said immediately.

“You can’t put quirk suppressant cuffs on a traumatized kid, but I’ll know when he’s about to activate. He’s going to be unstable for twenty four hours. The patrol can wait,” Eraserhead replied, his voice gruff and straightforward. “I’ll go with you.”

“Eraserhead, it’s fine,” Asuma insisted, the slightest edge creeping into his voice as Izuku kept his back deliberately placed to Eraserhead.

“...Okay, with as much as you talk about the kid, I know you love him to pieces, and you know as well as I do that out of the few instances of documented teleportation quirks stress manifesting, a good chunk of them just disappeared and never showed up again. What is actually going on here?” Eraserhead asked flatly, and Izuku could just see Asuma’s lips pursing under that mask.

“...Fine,” Asuma finally said. “He’s going to UA year after next, anyways, someone else should at least know to keep an eye on him. Izuku, let’s go.”

Eraserhead bent down and picked up Izuku’s fallen phone, and Izuku swallowed hard and turned to take it back with trembling hands.

“Do we like him, or will we eat him?”

He was never going to get off the cannibalism thing, was he?

“Thanks,” Izuku mumbled, and Asuma took off his cloak to swing around his shoulders, like he did when Izuku was little. On instinct, Izuku’s fingers grasped at the cloak and pulled it around his body, trying to burrow down in the material as he kept his head down. Asuma slung an arm over his shoulders and pulled him in close, casting a glance over at Eraserhead that, from the tilt of his head, could only be interpreted as a warning glance.

“...This is only because I trust you,” Asuma said shortly.

“...Yeah,” Eraserhead grunted and Izuku pulled the cloak even more tightly around his shoulders.

Asuma led Izuku off, Eraserhead lurking at their footsteps, and Izuku kept his eyes trained on the linoleum. He thought UA was too classy for linoleum floors. How had he never been here, anyways?

“You despised the heroes looking at you with pity,” Gremlin hissed, entirely unhelpful, as usual, and Izuku sunk down even more. He had never even heard of Eraserhead, which could either mean Izuku wasn’t paying attention, or he was underground. It was a toss up of the two. Which coworker was he, anyways? Not Yamada, Izuku knew Yamada was Present Mic. Maybe he was… Aizawa? Asuma didn’t talk about work often, but he mentioned Aizawa a lot. He sounded like a sloth, and Asuma had a soft spot for him. The guy certainly looked tired enough to fit the profile.

…Wasn’t Aizawa the one that expelled an entire class?

Izuku shivered and pulled the cloak even closer.

Asuma was mad. Izuku could feel it all over him, and he was dreading going home. The silence between the three of them was tense, and Izuku found himself fighting back tears.

“He is not mad at you,” Gremlin crooned, as if Izuku would believe anything he said.

He was absolutely mad at Izuku.

Izuku scarcely even noticed the massive halls as they passed through them, but every step had him clutching the cloak tighter and tighter around his body. He still had to tell Asuma he had to tell Katsuki to get him to keep his mouth shut. That definitely wasn’t going to go over well. And All Might knew something was up, but…

But.

He couldn’t tell Asuma about that. It wasn’t his secret. He was going to have to make All Might look really bad, but he could work his way around that. Had he ever lied to Asuma? Could he lie to Asuma? Or would Asuma understand that whatever Izuku couldn’t tell him was important that he didn’t know? He didn’t lie to his family. He’d never lied to his family.

“We’re here,” Asuma said as they reached a pair of double doors. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Izuku and placed his hands on his shoulders. “I need you to understand that I’m not mad at you, okay, squirt?”

“Told you,” Gremlin hissed, sounding utterly self-satisfied, but Izuku didn’t lift his head, only nodded once. Asuma’s hands tightened on Izuku’s shoulders, and he took a breath, as if he was going to say something, before he let it out in a frustrated sigh and gave up. And then he knocked.

“Come in!” A pleasant voice called, and Asuma pushed the door open.

Izuku had seen Nezu on zoom meeting calls before, on the off occasion when Asuma just did not want to go in on his day off to the meetings. He certainly hadn’t expected him to be so small, sitting on a plush couch with comically large sneakers set up on the cushion because he couldn’t reach far enough to let them dangle. Or, well, he could, but it didn’t let him prop up his back. The rat chimera was holding a steaming cup of tea, sipping at it passively, and Izuku caught the telltale hint of jasmine.

His favorite.

“Come in,” Nezu said cheerfully, and the three of them moved inside. Asuma nudged Izuku to a plush loveseat and took a seat next to him and Izuku swallowed hard.

“Hi,” he mumbled, because what else was he going to say in this situation?

“Hello, Izuku,” Nezu replied politely. “May I ask why you brought Aizawa, Hazutashi?”

“I brought him because he’s too fucking smart and it’ll be better if at least one more pro knows about this, as a safeguard,” Asuma answered honestly. “He’s probably the best one to know in this situation.”

“Mmm. So. You asked me to forge medical documents for the Quirk registry,” Nezu said, and Eraserhead coughed before sending a slightly incredulous look at Asuma.

“Hazutashi, what the hell, ” he swore and Asuma let out an incredibly awkward laugh.

“Well, when you put it like that, Nezu…”

“I assume this has to do with that book you smuggled in to scan in Power Loader’s private lab?” Nezu continued, and Izuku sent a look overflowing with ‘what the hell’ energy at Asuma.

“You said…”

“Yes, it has to do with the book,” Asuma replied honestly and Izuku shrank down in his seat. “It would be better if Izuku just showed you all, honestly.”

Izuku’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, because the meadow was… Well, he hadn’t cleaned up the knife or any of the books he was throwing everywhere. Oh, gods, this was an actual nightmare.

“Uh, should we wait for Mom, because…” He really needed to clean up the signs of his temper fit.

“I already talked to her,” Asuma replied. “She told me to go ahead with full disclosure. She opted not to come, because…”

“Is she… Mad at me?” Izuku asked softly, and Asuma looked over at him.

“No. She’s handling other things right now.”

What other things could she possibly be handling? Just how bad was the situation that she couldn’t even be here right now?

“... Okay,” Izuku mumbled.

“She’s… She’s just getting in contact with one of your dad’s old friends, but she’s hard to reach, so Inko may be gone for a day or two,” Asuma explained, and Izuku’s brows furrowed as he tried to work out what the hell Dad’s old friends had to do with anything, and…

Oh.

Oh, she was already setting up an escape plan for Izuku.

He really had messed everything up.

“Did you really?” Gremlin hissed. “Would it be as bad if you had teleportation from the start?”

Izuku was going to ignore that.

“...Will she be okay?”

“I trust the woman she’s meeting. She’ll be fine,” Asuma promised and Izuku focused back on the carpet.

“Okay.”

“So,” Nezu said and sipped at his tea. “You scanned a book, and it had a peculiar energy attached to it, and then I never saw the book again, and you never brought it up again. And now your nephew is here, and you want to forge medical documents for registration. Is that correct?”

“... Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well, then let’s see it,” Nezu prompted and Izuku sunk further down in his seat.

“It’s kind of a mess right now,” Izuku mumbled, and Asuma’s head tilted in a very, very slow manner.

“Why is it a mess?” He asked, perhaps too smoothly.

“... Katsuki knew something was up and wouldn’t leave it, so I had to…”

“Izuku, what the hell,” Asuma said immediately and Izuku pursed his lips.

“...I hit him in the head with Stardust and tried to hit him with Good Omens.”

“ That’s what you went with?”

“... I also pulled the obsidian dagger out as… proof?”

“You went with a knife? ”

“It was that or the Holy Grail, and I wanted the knife for the collection anyways. ”

“You pulled a knife on Katsuki?”

“I didn’t point it at him! I just… waved it around!”

“Is there anything else you did today that I should know about?” Asuma asked, and Izuku sunk down further in the seat.

“...I met All Might?”

“Yeah, actually, why the hell was he trying to cover for you?”

“...Also, Gremlin burned the sludge guy…”

“ When did Gremlin burn the sludge guy?”

“...Right before All Might saved me from him? And gave me a concussion?”

“All Might gave you a concu--- ”

Nezu politely cleared his throat and the two of them looked up in unison, where Aizawa was staring at them like he was watching a train wreck in slow motion, and Nezu looked like… Izuku did not trust those eyes, and he especially didn’t like that Gremlin was stirring in interest in his presence.

“He is smart,” Gremlin purred and Izuku sent a screaming variation of an internal ‘no’ at the damned ring.

“...It seems like you’ve had a hectic day, Izuku,” Nezu commented, and Izuku had a flashback to daydreaming about turning his homeroom teacher into a steak.

“...It was…”

“Clearly something we need to talk about later, ” Asuma said and Izuku blew out his cheeks.

“...Yeah,” Izuku muttered.

“Anyways. The quirk?” Nezu prompted and Izuku sighed.

“I’m really sorry about the mess,” he apologized again, and then looked at the three of them. “I’ve never done it with three people…”

“You should be able to manage it, two isn’t a problem for you,” Asuma said, and Izuku let out a low sigh, nodding several times.

“Okay,” he said and latched onto Asuma’s wrist. “If you two could just… Grab me, please?”

Aizawa was really a silent sort of guy, like he was processing everything and mulling it over before he spoke. Without a word, he pushed himself off the doorframe and went to lay a hand on Izuku’s shoulder as Nezu slipped off of his couch to join them. A paw was laid on Izuku’s knee, and the waft of wildflowers filled the room as the four of them slipped into Izuku’s world.

The sun was shining. Izuku tilted his head back to look at the puffy clouds before focusing back on his little sanctuary, which had never seen so many people before.

“This is the meadow,” he said as Aizawa released his shoulder and looked around in silence. Nezu blinked at the towering bookcases and Izuku surreptitiously kicked the obsidian blade laying on the ground to the side. Asuma’s eyes burned into him and Izuku winced slightly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place with books not on the shelves,” Asuma stated flatly, and Izuku rushed to pick up the books laying all over the ground.

“It’s been a long day, okay?” Izuku muttered as he stacked the tossed books up and teetered over to the bookshelves.

“Did you manifest all these books yourself?” Nezu asked as Izuku juggled the stack of books to put them back into their places.

“No,” he replied. “They’re all from outside… Asuma bought most of them. I hit a lot of used bookstores and clearance sales.”

“...It doesn’t rain in here?” Eraserhead… Or Aizawa, asked, and Izuku shook his head.

“Flowers just change colors sometimes,” he replied as he slid Time Quake back into place. “Mostly with the seasons outside.”

“So it’s a pocket dimension,” Nezu supplied.

“I think so,” Izuku replied as he put a Pern novel back into its spot with the rest of them. “I can exit anywhere I want, so long as I have a vague idea of where I’m going, but I can get more accurate with how much I’ve been to a location. That’s… How I ended up in UA, without tripping the alarm. You should probably fix that.”

“And you can pull objects out of these books?” Nezu prompted, and Izuku frowned, flicking through a copy of the novelization of the Black Pearl.

“So long as they fit in the pages,” Izuku replied. “I can’t pull out living organisms.”

“But he can pull out sentient things,” Asuma grumbled, and Izuku internally winced.

“...Yeah, that’s been a problem,” he admitted, and then pushed through the pages with one hand, the ink staining his fingertips as he rooted around for the compass. “Here.”

Pulling the compass free, he tossed it up and caught it.

“Jack Sparrow’s compass,” he said. “It’s fully functional, works according to the rules of the universe. It’ll point you in the direction of the thing you most desire. Probably won’t work in here, but it’ll work outside.”

“You couldn’t have pulled anything else out?” Asuma deadpanned.

“Would you like me to pull out more swords? I think I’m running out of room in my bedroom,” Izuku retorted.

“So you have the power to pull out virtually anything from the pages of a book, and you’re using it on compasses and swords,” Aizawa stated, possibly too dryly.

“If you were fourteen and read nothing but fantasy and sci-fi, you’d want a lot of swords, too,” Izuku grumbled as he snapped the book shut and slipped it back into the shelf.

“I would rather he keep pulling out swords, considering he accidentally pulled out the One Ring of Power from the Hobbit and named him Gremlin,” Asuma said flatly, and Izuku winced.

“That was a one time thing, and he’s pretty well behaved!” Izuku protested.

“No, I’m not,” Gremlin hissed.

“You have the One Ring of Power? ” Aizawa asked.

“...Yes and no,” Izuku replied and blew out a breath. “I do have the One Ring of Power, but he’s not quite the One Ring. He’s… Well, I wouldn’t call him a knock off.”

“He evolved,” Asuma supplied. “It’s literally the weirdest thing and he’s banned from pulling out anything else that’s sentient until we figure out what’s going on. The ring doesn’t have Sauron’s power to pull on, because Sauron doesn’t exist, so he seems to purely exist on Izuku’s power, and doesn’t follow the same laws of Middle Earth.”

“So, to be clear, Snipe, you knew there was a thirteen year old child, perceived as Quirkless by his peers, likely being bullied, running around with a powerful weapon like the Ring of Power, with a quirk like this, and you didn’t say anything?” Aizawa clarified and Gremlin grumbled in the back of Izuku’s mind.

“It was a family matter,” Asuma shot back. “Izuku can control himself. He has done nothing but control himself until today. We’ve never had a single incident, and the only time he’s acted out was because a kid he used to take baths with was dying in front of him by the same man that presumably tried to kill him. It was under control.”

“This is not the sort of thing you handle on your own,” Aizawa said.

“I didn’t handle it on my own. I had Inko.”

“The registry exists for a reason, Hazutashi.”

“And with one dedicated hacker, it’s a risk. It takes one leak. Not to mention there are so many government officials with access to it that would look at a quirk like Libriomancer’s Library and…” Asuma trailed off and Izuku felt his eyes on him.

“My dad is legally dead,” Izuku said quietly. “Because someone found out about his quirk and he had to flee the country. It can’t be registered.”

“And so, it has to be registered as a teleportation quirk,” Nezu said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. It probably was to him. “It wouldn’t be the first time a powerful quirk was misregistered for the purposes of secrecy. However, if his father had a similar quirk, it would beg the question of if people were waiting for Izuku to manifest a quirk.”

“That’s why Inko is gone at the moment,” Asuma said. “We have an exit strategy in case things go south, but if we cut and ran now, it wouldn’t be fair to Izuku, and would only look more suspicious. Especially if he manifested a quirk and didn’t register it. That’s a felony, and we have to have a limited amount of people breathing down his neck.”

“So were you going to tell us about this before or after we admitted him into Gen Ed? You said he aced every practice exam,” Aizawa asked, and Izuku internally cringed, because that was just a polite way of saying Asuma wouldn’t shut up about him.

“I wasn’t going to tell you at all,” Asuma stated flatly. “He was going to live his whole life as Quirkless. It was safer that way, and it wasn’t going to factor into anything.”

“He would have brought the One Ring of Power into UA. ”

“And? It hasn’t been a problem at Aldera, except for… Well, one instance, but it was more of Aldera was the problem.”

Asuma glanced at Izuku’s chest, where the scar still existed, and Izuku looked down at the flowers swaying at his knees.

“You don’t need me for this conversation,” Izuku said and kicked his shoes off.

“It is a conversation about your future,” Gremlin warned, but Izuku had had enough today, and was mentally checking out. His socks were peeled off, and then he was heading for the river.

“Izuku, wait…” Asuma started to say, but Izuku was just tired.

“I’ve had a very bad day today, and you’ve been making all of my decisions for me until now, you can make a few more,” Izuku snapped as he marched through the grass.

Anger again. Honestly, he didn’t know if it was Gremlin, or if the presence of Gremlin was just teaching him that he was allowed to be angry.

Izuku reached the smooth stone bordering the bank of the water and bent down to roll up his pant legs so he could sit down, legs submerged halfway up his shins. Taking a deep, calming breath, he tilted his head back and let the sun beat down on him. A breeze ruffled his hair and he took a moment to just breathe in the reality of his situation.

He wished he had a friend to talk to about this. Anyone, really, he would take. But the only person his age that knew about this was Katsuki, and Katsuki was… Katsuki. Izuku wasn’t sure they could ever be friends. They could tolerate each other, maybe even respect each other, but they couldn’t be friends. Not after everything that happened. Katsuki never really had a right to be angry with him to begin with, but he’d never admit that.

“Have you considered that you might be too willing to let adults make decisions for the rest of your life?” Gremlin asked, and Izuku shushed him.

“Have you considered that you can make your own choices?” Gremlin whispered.

“Honestly, I hate you sometimes,” Izuku said, and Gremlin stirred in discontent.

“Do you hate me for being right, or because I’m all you have?”

“Both,” Izuku breathed. “I hate you for both.”

Chapter Text

Izuku had turned himself into a nest. Quarantined away onto the couch, he was piled under mounds of blankets with the AC on full blast as Asuma ordered food for dinner.

Mom was gone. He’d been bullied by his teacher in front of the entire class, found out probably one of the most guarded secrets in the world, been attacked by a villain, almost died, saved Katsuki, of all the people, outed himself as having a quirk on live television, told not one, but three people the secret of his quirk, and he turned fourteen.

And he didn’t go to the aquarium.

Asuma had been quiet since they got home. He just told Izuku the scent of blood would only make him feel worse and sent him to take a shower. Nezu had said something to him, and both Izuku and Gremlin were sure of it.

Izuku hadn’t even told him what happened at school. In hindsight, it was an innocuous comment by his sensei, and it would look that way to just about anyone. That was how they did it. A small comment here and there, calling attention to how Izuku dreamed above his station. That was how it always happened. And the students would take it as permission to torment him when his back was turned. And Izuku couldn’t do anything.

So, now, he was dealing with it by being on his phone. It was still charging, and he knew social media was not a healthy way to deal with problems, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t bring himself to touch a book right now.

Trending topics in your area. Izuku was really not dealing with this.

“Lmfao it’s mean but I guess bullying DOES work. Poor Midoriya lmaooo”

“Midoriya was lying to everyone??”

“Lol someone called it a stress manifestation how can Midoriya be stressed?? It was BAKUGOU lmfao Bakugou’s like?? The worst?? To him?? What is Midoriya in love with him or something??”

“If I thought Midoriya had any rights before, I definitely don’t now lmfao. Either the bitch was lying or he fucking jumpstarted his genes to save BAKUGOU of all fucking people like who tf does that he’s a fucking doormat. Nooooo self respect.”

“Y’all are really bullying Midoriya on All Might’s internet fhdskfhdskjfhdksf”

“Midoriya doesn’t even have a twitter bully away.”

“Can everyone stop doxxing Midoriya like damn”

“I guess Bakugou’s short fuse is infectious lol Midoriya’s quirk really EXPLODED on out there didn’t it?”

“One day. One day you will understand the validity of murder,” Gremlin whispered and Izuku swallowed hard before setting his account to private. He wasn’t going to out himself as having a Twitter right now. The only selfies of him that made it online were in the Discord servers and in private messages.

“Izuku, are you okay?” Asuma called from the other room. “You’re really quiet there, buddy.”

“...I’m fine,” Izuku replied and Asuma walked into the room, holding his phone and staring down at Izuku.

“...You’re on Twitter,” he said and Izuku shrunk down in the blankets.

“...Yeah.”

Asuma sighed and sat down next to him.

“You shouldn’t read stuff like that, Zu.”

“Why not?” Izuku asked softly. “I can pretend they’re not saying anything, but I’ll still know they were saying it.”

“But what does reading it do? You can know and not read.”

“Reading means I can look them in their eyes at school and know what they said about me.”

“It’s not even certain that you are going back to school.”

“Why not? Going to another one doesn’t solve anything. It was on TV. And now it’s all over Twitter. I can’t run from it.”

“You can at least go to a school that doesn't have a history of bullying. Or homeschool. Fresh starts aren’t a bad thing.”

“What, are you asking me for my opinion now?” Izuku asked, and he hated that he sounded bitter.

“ Yes, I’m asking for your opinion. I know we… We didn’t give you a choice with a lot of things, but you do have choices.”

“I want to be a hero. Would I have a choice there?” Izuku asked, and then he froze at the words that came out of his mouth.

Did he actually say that?

“...If your mom says yes, I wouldn’t say no,” Asuma replied carefully and Izuku looked at him with blatant confusion.

“Seriously?”

“It would be a surprisingly good cover, and if anything happens, when you’re older, you would have access to so much support and have interpersonal relationships beyond me. So, yeah. I think it’s a good idea.”

Izuku stared at Asuma with bug eyes. Asuma stared back at him, and a stunned silence ensued, only broken by the cold rumble of the AC.

“...Did you just say that?” Izuku clarified.

“...Yeah. I did. And at the very least, if you go to UA, they won’t be looking at you as someone who’s a liability and has only trained with your quirk for a year. We’d make sure you were in 1-A with Aizawa. That’s partially why I let him know what was going on.”

“...You were thinking about this?”

“It would be… Different if you were really Quirkless. Not because I don’t think you could have done it, if you were Quirkless. If you were just Quirkless and wanted to be a hero, I would have been training you from day one. Put you in martial arts, maybe got you on support items, whatever. But… There’s going to be moments when you’re Quirked that your body will naturally want to rely on your quirk, like today. If you took a few seconds to think today, you would have figured out a way to get Katsuki out of there, but your brain shut off. You decided to move, because the kid you used to take baths with was dying in front of you. A brain with a quirk and a brain without are two different beasts. It was too much of a risk.”

“...But what about the other half of my quirk?” Izuku asked quietly and Asuma hummed.

“Been thinking about that. If we get Power Loader in on our shit, we can say you make support items. And… You may not have a choice about being a hero, if I’m being honest.”

“...What?” Izuku asked and looked at Asuma in something akin to alarm.

“...Nezu will only forge the documents if you agree to take the entrance exam.”

“...Uh.”

“And if Inko agrees to let you,” Asuma added in a grumble. “And you can’t half ass it, either. He’ll know.”

“What?”

Gremlin was cackling again, but Izuku didn’t think this was very funny.

“If you’re a hero, you’re subject to higher scrutiny, primarily from him, and you’ve got that… Well. You have Gremlin. Basically, this is Nezu’s way of putting you on a watchlist, and he wants you in 1-A, because I am ‘related and therefore not subjective’.”

“...Uhm.”

“He will actually fuck with your scores if you don’t do this, Izuku.”

“And you’re okay with your boss blackmailing you?” Izuku clarified and Asuma sighed and rubbed at his eyes.

“Well, no, but I would rather have you on Nezu’s watchlist than you on the Hero Commission’s watchlist. And he does have a point. On an ethical standpoint, I can’t be subjective. I changed your diapers. You’re practically my kid. I helped raise you. Your personality has changed a bit, and to me, some of it is… an improvement.”

“What do you mean, improvement?” Izuku demanded and Asuma looked at him with sad eyes.

“The Izuku of two months ago would have never risked himself like that. He thought of his mom too much. It’s like… It’s like you… I don’t know. It’s like you’re more willing to put who you are as a person first now. You… You always let us make your decisions for you. And I think we messed up, somewhere. You’re… We wanted you to have a life, but I think… You don’t really have one, and when you’re grown, I don’t think that will change. And I want that to change. So, Nezu aside. My points on hiding in plain sight aside. What do you want to do?”

Izuku was silent for a moment, thinking about it desperately.

“I… I wish I wasn’t blackmailed, honestly, because… If I had the choice, I would want to get in just on my own power,” he admitted, and Asuma let out a long breath.

“Then ace the test. With just teleportation. No support items allowed,” he said and stood up. “...I’m sorry. I wanted your birthday to be better than this.”

Izuku looked down at the phone in his hands, the evidence of how much he was despised right in front of him.

“It would have been the same as ever,” he replied with a sigh. “At least something happened.”

“Do you want to go back to Aldera?” Asuma asked and Izuku blew out his cheeks as he stared at the feed.

“...I don’t know.”

“Well, you’re officially on medical leave. And… If you’re going with heroics, we have to plan out what your quirk will be. It’s known now that you can use it on other people, so we may have to call it a pocket dimension. Try to find cloaking tech for your bookshelves. There’s plenty of books with that sort of thing. We want to keep people’s perception of you as far from that as possible, okay?”

“All of my support equipment will be from books,” Izuku pointed out.

“Yeah, well, if you’re detaining villains in your meadow, you don’t want to leave your entire arsenal exposed. It won’t make sense if you keep your hobby in the place where you may have to leave someone.”

“We don’t even know if I can leave someone,” Izuku pointed out.

“Then catch a spider and leave it in a jar in there,” Asuma replied dryly. “It’ll be fine.”

“If it kills it, that’s inhumane. There are no animals there. I don’t even have birds. Or fish. I’ve never even seen an ant. It’s just flowers.”

“It’s a spider, Izuku, I saw you try to go after one with a blaster before I could tell you no. You just don’t want to catch it.”

Izuku stared at Asuma for a second and then looked at the scorch mark on the wall.

“...It looked poisonous.”

“You could have just used a slipper.”

“...But the blaster was right there.”

“The slipper was on your foot.”

“Would you rather kill a spider with a slipper or a blaster?”

“I would rather my ridiculously overpowered nephew not destroy my apartment.”

“It’s my birthday, I can’t take criticism right now.”

Asuma snorted and leaned over to ruffle Izuku’s hair.

“I need to take a shower. The food will be here soon. Listen for the door, yeah?”

“I will,” Izuku promised.

“Thanks,” Asuma said and stood up. “...Your mom really wanted to be here.”

“I know,” Izuku murmured. “...She couldn’t text?”

“...The woman is… Weird about phones. She left it with me.”

“...Okay,” Izuku mumbled and stared down at his phone.

“...Do I need your phone, too?”

“No.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, please,” Izuku murmured and Asuma let out a low breath from his nostrils.

“Okay. I’ll stop apologizing.”

And then his uncle was off, leaving Izuku with his comments.

“If you keep reading these, you will make things very easy for me,” Gremlin said and Izuku pursed his lips.

“Is that a fair warning, or you telling me to stop?”

“I don’t like them. I don’t like this Twitter.”

“You and everyone else on Twitter, buddy,” Izuku muttered as he kept scrolling.

“I like the Discord. The word is nice. And the me-mes are fun.”

“It’s meme,” Izuku corrected, for perhaps the millionth time.

“The meeemes,” Gremlin hissed, and Izuku hissed back from between his teeth.

“Compost bin,” he warned. “The neighbor below us has one.”

“I will devour your soul.”

“Yeah, okay,” Izuku muttered and flicked through the feed.

“It’s gonna be real funny when Midoriya comes in like he’s hot shit. Can’t wait for him to find out he didn’t get a beating bc it’s not cool to beat on Quirkless peeps.”

“Midoriya is free real estate now, buddies.”

How were they even tweeting these things with their whole chests? It wasn’t cool to beat on Quirkless kids, but stealing their homework was fine? Dumping out their bags? Breaking all their pencils? Pouring bleach in their desks?

“We will eat them.”

“We really won’t.”

“We will. ”

“Can we stop with the cannibalism thing? How many times are we going to talk about this?”

“I stopped everything else.”

“You really didn’t.”

“You like it.”

“I don’t.”

“Is good practice.”

“ What’s good practice?”

“You saying no.”

“I think I have that down to a science.”

“Do you?”

Izuku wished the damn thing had a mute button sometimes. All he did was try to antagonize Izuku. It was exhausting.

A DM notification popped up and he sighed before swapping over to see who it was.

Tosh.

A long breath escaped Izuku’s lips and he opened the message.

Tosh: uh

Tosh: wasn’t your last name Midoriya?

Zuzu: yeah.

Tosh: …this you?

There was an image attached of Izuku’s hand slapping into Katsuki’s from a profile view, pushing through the explosion to reach him, and Izuku had to admit, it was a pretty good picture. He looked half decent.

Tosh: the news said it was you

Tosh: you didn’t tell me you had a quirk like… that.

So the news wasn’t reporting on a stress manifestation. It was only going around the school. And all of Musutafu, apparently. It was probably illegal or something for them to discuss it, or it had to be from a verified source.

Izuku wasn’t sure he could talk to Tosh about this. Tosh was one of his friends who was cagey about discussing his quirk, which was why they bonded in the first place. Izuku would never talk about his quirk, would simply ghost the conversation, and if you asked Tosh about his, he’d straight up shut it down. If Izuku was willing to bet, Tosh had some kind of quirk that branded him a villain. It was a specific behavior, one Izuku was familiar with from his earlier days on forums he shouldn’t have been on when he was ten.

Zuzu: so I’m not trending in Tokyo yet

Tosh: ….No?

Zuzu: you should search my surname.

The doorbell rang and Izuku locked his phone, setting it aside so he could get up and get the food. He probably looked like trash right now. The eyebags were out there, his hair was barely moisturized, he didn’t even do a twist out, and he was in Snipe pajama bottoms and a space cat shirt, which probably clashed horribly.

And the delivery guy probably saw him on the news, so there was that.

Dragging himself to the front door, he answered it, and the delivery guy startled at his appearance.

Yeah. He’d seen the news.

Izuku stared at him for a second, blinking slowly and steadily.

“Hi,” he said, and wow, his voice sounded hollow.

“Hi,” the delivery guy finally said, after an awkward pause, and held out the bag of food to Izuku. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Izuku said dully and took it. The guy handed it over and took a deep breath, staring at Izuku for a second, and Izuku stared at him.

What were manners, again?

“Hope your day gets better,” the delivery guy finally said, and Izuku slowly, ever so slowly, nodded once.

“You, too.”

…Why did he say that?

“...Bye,” the delivery guy said after an awkward pause.

“...Bye,” Izuku replied and just… swung the door shut.

That had to be the most humiliating experience of his life.

With a sigh that was far too old for his fourteen year old body, Izuku carried the bag into the kitchen and started to pull out the containers of food. Asuma ordered way too much for two people. Was he trying to feed an army or something? Izuku didn’t think they needed this much food. Asuma knew he didn’t eat that much.

Container after container, and Izuku found himself frowning. Was Asuma expecting company? He didn’t tell Izuku anything. Oh, well. Izuku had to get everything ready, all the same. Setting out the plates, he arranged the containers on the table and rifled around for their chopsticks.

The shower in the other room shut off and Izuku stuck his head down the hallway.

“Hey, uncle?” He called.

“Yeah?” Asuma shouted from the bathroom.

“Why’s there so much food?”

“...I didn’t tell you?” Asuma popped his head out of the bedroom, dripping wet and blinking. “...Aizawa is swinging by for dinner, since I felt bad he had to cancel his patrol for this.”

“...What?”

“He’s bringing his husband so…” Asuma’s eyes swept up and down Izuku’s appearance. “...You might want to change. Also, your hair is frizzy. Go put in more conditioner.”

“He managed to get married?” Gremlin asked, and Izuku winced at the undercurrent of judgment. “What? I would sooner marry the elf.”

“Now is not the time for me to find out you have preferences, Gremlin,” Izuku hissed.

“He looks like he rolled out of a compost bin.”

“Gremlin,” Izuku hissed in warning, and Asuma blinked at him.

“Now is not the time for Gremlin to go cannibalistic,” he said and Izuku’s eye twitched. “Not when I have two pros in my house. I need him to behave.”

“I’d rather him be a cannibal,” Izuku replied and turned on his heel to go set out two more plates and some guest chopsticks. “This better not be a ploy to make him like me, Asuma! I’ll make him hate me, I promise! ”

“He needs to start his evaluation now, not in a year, Izuku!” Asuma called and shut the bedroom door. Izuku hissed under his breath as he banged around in the kitchen to get out two more plates and locate the guest chopsticks. Asuma’s bedroom door opened again. “And please go change! My nephew wearing my merch just makes me look egotistical!”

“You are egotistical!” Izuku shot back. It wasn’t his choice to put up Snipe posters, after all.

“They don’t need to know that!” The door slammed shut and Izuku slid into his bedroom to hunt down some jeans to wear. The space cat shirt was fine.

Wait. Two pros? Which pro was he married to?

The doorbell rang as Izuku struggled to pull his skinny jeans over his heels before he fell over. Did Asuma really have to do this today? Of all the days? It couldn’t have waited until tomorrow? And why did Aizawa’s husband have to be here? Why did he even have to know Gremlin would pick his uncle over Aizawa, for that matter?

“I thought it was an innocent observation,” Gremlin muttered petulantly.

“It really wasn’t,” Izuku gritted out.

“Zu, get the door, please!” Asuma called, and what was he even doing that was taking so long?

“I’m getting it!” Izuku shouted and just stepped in and out of the meadow to get to the front door, because he was officially going to be lazy until he dropped dead, and unlocked it before swinging it open.

Aizawa was standing there, looking surprisingly less like a mess, in jeans and a long sleeved black shirt, and next to him was…

“...Preppy Nazgul?”

Okay, life officially made no sense.

Chapter Text

“So, little listener, that was one hell of a birthday, huh?” Present Mic asked as the four of them sat around the table.

Asuma didn’t have people over often. Izuku knew that before they moved in he definitely lived fast and loose, with a rotating cast of men coming through his apartment, but since they moved in, he hadn’t seen Asuma bring a single man home. Mom didn’t really have any friends beyond work friends, because having a Quirkless son had really made everyone uncomfortable, and Asuma didn’t really hang out with other pros. It had been pretty quiet in their home. The occasional sidekick would drop by, but that was more for work than anything else. Asuma had strictly professional relationships with everyone, so this whole dinner party thing was entirely unheard of.

And Present Mic was right there, valiantly trying to carry the conversation and include Izuku in everything, even center him, and Izuku wasn’t sure if that was because he was just used to being around kids, or because he knew it was almost always the three of them in their non traditional family unit, and Izuku was used to being around adults more than anyone else, and not used to being excluded from conversations.

Izuku liked him, either way. Gremlin did not agree.

“Yeah,” he said as he stuffed a piece of broccoli into his mouth and shot a look at Asuma. “It was definitely weird.”

“I’d say congrats on the new quirk, but gods, I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling right now,” Present Mic continued, and Izuku blinked a few times.

He certainly didn’t expect that from someone with such a stupidly powerful quirk. Or someone with a quirk at all.

“It’s… Weird,” Izuku admitted.

“I’m just glad Shouta could clear his schedule. You’ve got to be feeling funny right now. Hazutashi said the scans came back as pretty stable, but accidentally teleporting out of a crime scene had to be pretty damn terrifying.”

“I don’t like him,” Gremlin hissed. “Too bright. Bright, bright, bright.”

“I think it was even weirder to find myself in the middle of… Actually, I’m not sure where it was. Nezu said it was a pocket dimension, but I don’t even know what that means,” Izuku replied and Aizawa squinted at him for a second.

Being a pro in a relationship had to be weird. Here Aizawa was, at dinner, lying to his husband’s face, and the weirdest thing was that if Present Mic ever found out, he probably wouldn’t even be mad. Because it was part of being a hero.

Granted, Asuma had never lied to Izuku’s face, but Asuma had the luxury of just saying, “you don’t need to know”. Aizawa definitely did not have that luxury right now.

“A pocket dimension, huh? That had to be weird. What was it like?” Present Mic prompted, with a sort of sincerity that said he was genuinely interested in whatever Izuku had to say.

“It was like this field of wildflowers, with a river. I didn’t go too far in it, but there were no birds or insects or anything. It was just a field,” Izuku explained, remembering that he had to cloak and perhaps shield the bookshelf.

“Wow. You’ve lived in a city your whole life, right? That had to be weirdly quiet.”

“...Yeah, it actually was really weird,” Izuku admitted. Sometimes, when outside got too loud and he entered the meadow, it felt like getting smacked in the face with utter silence. “I am kind of excited to go back…”

Preferably as soon as this meal was over and these men were out of his damn house.

“Aizawa, is everything okay?” Asuma asked. “You’re not eating.”

Aizawa wasn’t looking at Izuku, but it definitely felt like he was looking at Izuku. Was Izuku lying too well? He really shouldn’t judge Izuku off whether or not he could lie. Izuku had been lying to everyone long before Gremlin came about.

“And yet you still are terrible at it,” Gremlin complained. “Preppy Nazgul is too gullible.”

“Yeah, it’s just been a long day,” Aizawa replied. “Had to expel a kid today I really had high hopes for.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, but uh…” Asuma looked at Izuku awkwardly, and Izuku scrunched up his nose as he stabbed the rice with his chopsticks.

“I happened,” he supplied.

“It’s not every day a Quirkless kid manifests a teleportation or pocket dimension quirk or whatever it is, little listener,” Present Mic said, not unkindly. “That’s the sort of thing that worries everyone.”

“I only slipped out once,” Izuku complained.

“What did it feel like?” Present Mic asked and Izuku paused.

What had it felt like the first time it came in?

“I ask because I was born with mine,” Present Mic added. “Most people have vague memories of their quirk coming in, but mine was just… There. I don’t even remember learning how to control it!”

“I don’t think he did,” Gremlin whined. “His voice is loud.”

‘Some people are just like that,’ Izuku corrected petulantly, because Gremlin needed to stop picking on him.

“I…” Izuku started to answer as he tried to remember. He was six. What was it like? “You know, you’ll have to let it settle in, because I’m not sure.”

“That’s fair. It was a traumatic event, after all. Memory issues are common,” Present Mic soothed. “Sorry for asking.”

“It’s okay!” Izuku replied immediately and hummed, sticking the end of his chopsticks in his mouth to suck on them. What was it like when his quirk came in? He was old enough to remember… Had he just blanked it out?

“Anyways, thanks for coming over,” Asuma cut in and reached over with the back end of his chopsticks to smack Izuku’s down. “Told you to stop doing that. You already wore out two sets.”

“Sorry,” Izuku grumbled and reached back in for the rice. “This is kinda weird. Asuma never has coworkers over.”

“Deadshot came over last week,” Asuma replied, giving Izuku a ‘don’t make me look uncool’ look.

“For work. ” Izuku was absolutely going to make him look uncool. He couldn’t even wait a day. Even if Present Mic was pretty damn cool.

“Simp.”

Where did he even learn that word?

“You.”

Izuku wasn’t sure he fully grasped the connotations of the term.

“Hazutashi definitely has the lone ranger role down pat,” Present Mic joked. “I can’t even remember the last time we went out for drinks.”

“We can never go out for drinks during the school year,” Asuma pointed out. “Too busy.”

“Well, summer break’s coming up,” Present Mic said cheerfully. “We’ll have to drag you out. You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen your apartment. I didn’t even know where you lived.”

“The scorch mark on the wall is a nice touch,” Aizawa drawled. “Really adds to the classy element.”

“Shouta, don’t be mean,” Present Mic said, but his eyes fell on the blaster bolt scorch all the same. “...Didn’t even know you had guns that could do that.”

“...Ah. Yeah. Uh. I got a new one to test from the support department, but it malfunctioned,” Asuma lied through his teeth. “I’m never bringing up Star Wars again to them, honestly. You mention you like any science fiction to those nerds and they go nuts.”

“Oh, don’t lie, uncle,” Izuku chided. “You saw a spider and decided never to use the gun again because I wouldn’t stop teasing you about it.”

Asuma kicked him under the table and sent him a warning glance, and Aizawa glanced between the two of them as he tried to piece who actually shot the spider and why Asuma was letting Izuku pull guns out of books. Present Mic, meanwhile, choked on his chicken, fully believing Izuku’s story, and Gremlin purred in amusement. Whether it was over Izuku blatantly lying or Present Mic choking was up in the air, but he sure was happy.

This was going well. If Izuku had to lie, he was going to have so much fun with it, because what was Asuma going to do? Call him on it?

“Hazutashi’s scared of spiders?” Present Mic asked, and Izuku grinned down at his bowl of rice.

“...It looked poisonous,” Asuma said and Izuku sucked his lower lip into his mouth, struggling to keep it together.

“You have no room to judge, Zash. You’ve screamed spiders to death,” Aizawa pointed out, and Izuku belatedly realized heroes other than Asuma and no-names like Eraserhead had real names.

“I was protecting you,” Present Mic shot back.

“He does not seem like he could protect an empty paper bag.”

“I wasn’t even home. You wrecked the living room.”

“If it got away, it could have killed you,” Present Mic whined and Aizawa tilted his head at him.

“A spider could have killed me?”

“I do not believe a spider could kill him. Unless there is Shelob and her spawn here?”

“I swear it had a quirk.”

“Would Shelob being Shelob count as a quirk?”

“...Then my quirk would have been better to deal with it.”

“Can we not have a domestic in front of Hazutashi?”

“ Could there be a Shelob here? Might we find her?”

That was a hard no.

“No, no, I want to hear more about your theories on why a common spider was somehow a quirked animal hellbent on assassinating a lone Underground Pro.”

“Oh, sure, mock me, but you could have died, and I saved your life. ”

“He could not even save his dignity.”

“Did you really?”

“I did. ”

“...If Sauron ever chose him to be a Nazgul, I would have thrown my own damn self into Mount Doom and saved Tolkien the trouble,” Gremlin said, and Izuku couldn’t tell if it was a tone of awe or derision. But, either way, Izuku found himself choking on his chicken.

“Excuse me,” he whispered and stood up as Asuma shot him a wildly concerned glance. Without another word, Izuku made directly for the bathroom and shut the door extremely firmly before stepping into the meadow so he could bend over and start laughing. Hard. Enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“Please,” he hissed. “ Please, stay quiet, or I won’t make it through dinner.”

“You shouldn’t like him. Preppy Nazguls are not… How do you say it? ‘Valid’.”

“Please stop learning modern slang, while you’re at being quiet. Present Mic is not supposed to know about you or my quirk, so let’s just focus on making me seem like I am a sane human being so he isn’t wildly freaked out when I join the hero course.”

“I am not here to help you.”

“Well, you aren’t here to do much else, so you might as well cooperate. ”

“I will not silence myself in the presence of such a disgrace to the name of the Nazgul.”

“He’s not a Nazgul, he doesn’t even know Black Speech, and---”

“Which is disgraceful, by the way.”

“ And, this is not Middle Earth, and compost bin. You will go in the bin.”

“I’ll put you in the bin.”

“I’d love to see you try, but please behave. I’m asking nicely. ”

“You threatened the bin. That’s not nicely.”

“...You behave, and I will give you two passes on the bin.”

“...Three.”

“Two and a half, the half can be negotiated.”

“...Deal.”

Izuku straightened up and took a deep breath, smoothing down the cat shirt before he stepped out of the meadow and back into the bathroom. Plastering a carefully neutral look on his face, he opened the door and made his way back to the dining room.

“Sorry,” he said smoothly as he took his seat. Asuma gave him a ‘what the fuck’ look and Izuku just picked up his chopsticks to go back to his food.

“You good? It sounded like you choked,” Asuma said carefully.

“Hm? Oh, no, I’m fine,” Izuku replied cheerfully and jammed a piece of broccoli into his mouth.

“...Great,” Asuma said dryly and glanced down at his chest, as if he was staring Gremlin back into submission before he reached for the veggies to dump more into his bowl.

“Sorry about that, little listener,” Present Mic said with an easy laugh. “Anyways, what are you planning on doing with the medical leave?”

“Well, I have to go to a quirk counselor once I ‘stabilize’, and then I have to get a lot of stuff registered, so I think I’ll be stuck busy with that and homework,” Izuku replied as he shoveled more rice into his mouth.

“Did the scans come back okay for you to be on your own for the rest of the night…?” Present Mic asked in concern.

“Recovery Girl said I’d be fine by nine pm!” Izuku answered with a bright smile. “Give or take.”

“Guess we’ll be hanging out for a bit, then!” Present Mic said cheerfully. “So. Are you into any heroes? Hazutashi said you weren’t a huge fan.”

“Oh, uh…” Izuku trailed off awkwardly before shrugging. “I used to be, but…”

Growing up with a hero you loved dearly was always a... complex matter. Before Asuma got hired on at UA, he was constantly coming around with bandages, pulled muscles, black eyes and heavy smiles. He played it off as the dangers of the job, always treated it as a fact of life, but it was never something that was easy to watch. One time, he got sliced down the back, nearly nicked his spine, and Izuku remembered watching from the door of the bathroom as Mom changed his bandages again and again, day after day as he healed. There had been a loud and long argument, and within a week, Asuma had applied to UA, because staff at UA had Recovery Girl in their benefits.

“It’s not fair to Izuku!” That’s what Mom said. Asuma had to step up when Dad left, fill in that hole, so his sister didn’t have to live as a single mother of a Quirkless child. He did it selflessly, because that was what family did, and their parents were dead, anyways.

They were all they had, the three of them. Mom had lost her parents, lost her husband, and always lived in fear of losing her son, too. They had extended family, of course. Great Aunt Kotone. Cousin Tsukiko. Great Uncle Ryuu. But only Asuma knew the truth of Dad’s quirk, and the truth of Izuku. It created a sort of family dynamic that was very isolated and alone. Their aunts and uncles and cousins were great, of course. How could they not be? They accepted Izuku for his Quirklessness, but the majority of them lived in Western Japan. They saw each other twice a year, kept in contact, but…

It wasn’t the same.

And growing up being perceived as Quirkless didn’t exactly instill any form of confidence in heroes, either. Asuma had tried to get Aldera investigated, but it just… Didn’t work. People didn’t care. Middle school discriminating against a Quirkless kid? If they investigated every Quirkless kid being bullied, they wouldn’t have the manpower to investigate bullying incidents of the kids that actually mattered.

If he couldn’t even be confident in his own uncle, one of the best people he knew, being able to stop something, how could he be confident in heroes as a whole? They just upheld the same concepts everyone else did: quirks were everything.

And now Izuku was going to be one of those people, by sheer virtue of having a quirk people could see now.

“Oh,” Present Mic said quietly, and Aizawa frowned at Izuku.

“I like books, though!” Izuku added brightly, refusing to let this dinner take a nosedive. “I like books a lot.”

“He’s probably got thousands,” Asuma added. “I think he’s drained my bank account twice with trips to used bookstores.”

“It’s not thousands. ” It was thousands. At last count, it was 5,127. The bookshelves currently fit around 4,800 or so, and Izuku had plenty outside of the meadow, but as far as Present Mic knew, it was only the three hundred he had in the apartment that were already charged and moved inside.

Thank gods his uncle was rich.

“Nothing wrong with spending money on books!” Present Mic said. “What kind of books do you go for?”

“Oh, anything with lots of imagination,” Izuku replied, probably too slyly. Gremlin trembled in amusement, apparently not appropriately cowed by the threat of compost bins, or lack thereof, but Izuku was willing to forgive it. He was funny.

“Science fiction and fantasy, mostly,” Asuma translated. “I’m pretty sure he’s got an encyclopedia of ideas for support items in his head.”

Izuku did, in fact. He also had multiple journals in the meadow detailing what items in each book he should take out, what pages they were on, what they did, and the rules of each item. After all, he couldn’t remember that many books. Gods, his uncle’s bank statements had to look ridiculous. They dropped at least 32,000 yen on books every month.

“Are you into support items?” Present Mic asked, and Izuku slowly came to understand why he was married to Aizawa. Someone had to carry a conversation, after all.

“I like to mess around with them,” Izuku replied. “I mean, my uncle is Snipe. His quirk works best with support items.”

“And here I thought you were going into Gen Ed,” Present Mic teased. “Hazutashi’s been talking about it for the past six months.”

“I mean… The course I pick is still up in the air,” Izuku said carefully. It wasn’t, really, but he couldn’t very well get a quirk and declare himself a hero hopeful in twenty-four hours. “I still have a year to decide.”

“Not a lot of time to get ready for UA, though,” Present Mic said thoughtfully. “Most support students already have their first draft of their blueprints ready for their test by now.”

“Oh, I’ve got that,” Izuku said immediately. “And I’ve aced all the practiced tests for the written exam for all the courses. It’s just a matter of picking the blueprints, because I have a couple backups.”

“Oh, yeah? Which ones?” Present Mic asked, and a smile flickered around Izuku’s mouth.

“I figured out how to make a lightsaber! And blasters, from Star Wars. It only blew up a few times, too! The lightsaber, I mean.”

Present Mic blinked a few times, apparently flabbergasted by that statement, and Izuku grinned at him. Technically, he just pulled out the blueprint of Dooku’s saber out of an old, out of print Star Wars novel he found on Ebay, and got the blueprints of Jango Fett’s blasters from a worn copy of one of Boba’s adventures during the rise of the Empire. It would take a little doctoring, since kyber crystals didn’t actually exist, but he did have the blueprints. He liked collecting them. He’d sewn several of them into a book when he was messing around with bookbinding, since his walls were overtaken with posters of his uncle and All Might, and the book of blueprints was easily one of his most prized possessions.

“...And you thought he was going to Gen Ed?” He asked Asuma directly, and Asuma just smiled and shrugged before shoveling the last of his rice into his mouth.

“Izuku’s got a lot of passions. He could very well go on to become a librarian,” he replied and Aizawa finally snorted.

“Sounds like a dangerous career field,” Aizawa said, and Izuku choked as Gremlin vibrated in amusement.

“Books are the best weapon in the world,” Izuku replied sweetly. “Who knows? I might even become a novelist. I bet I could do a lot.”

If Asuma had anything in his mouth, it would have been his turn to choke again, but, thankfully, all he could do was cough and kick Izuku under the table while Aizawa stared at Izuku with eyes that were far too sharp.

“And what would you write about?” He asked, and Izuku paused, stabbing his rice with his chopsticks.

“...I think I’d write about people that were just allowed to be happy,” he finally said. “I don’t think it’d sell too well, though. No one wants to read about someone that’s happy.”

“What do you mean by that?” Present Mic asked as Aizawa’s eyes burned into Izuku’s head, like he was trying to figure him out.

“I mean… If the art of happiness sold, Fleetwood Mac would have been… Nothing, really,” he said and then shrugged. “Pain is something that’s guaranteed. Happiness? Not so much. And people, by and large, want something that’s guaranteed. Art is nothing but a lot of promises, and no one likes a broken promise.”

“You sound way too old, kid,” Present Mic said, and then tilted his head. “Then why write about happiness?”

Izuku’s lips twitched slightly, and then he shrugged.

“Someone’s bound to be happy. And writing is just wish fulfillment, after all.”

“Izuku, we talked about…” Asuma trailed off and frowned at Izuku, who looked down at his rice.

“Thank you for coming by,” he said quietly. “I… Haven’t had a birthday dinner with anyone but Mom and Asuma for a long time. Sorry I’m not… That into heroes.”

“Don’t apologize for something like that,” Present Mic said immediately. “You’re really fine, kid. I think you’re pretty cool, myself. No need to thank us for swinging by. We barely get to see Hazutashi outside of work, anyways. We should be thanking you for hanging out with us on your birthday.”

Izuku’s lips quirked into a half smile, and, despite Gremlin’s unconditional detest, he couldn’t help but feel like Present Mic was the best hero he’d ever met.

“Thanks,” he said and ignored the way Gremlin vibrated weirdly against his chest. “...You’re an English teacher, right?”

“That I am!”

“...Can you help me with some idioms, since you guys are going to be here for another hour? I’m not understanding all the ways ‘beef’ works at all, and a lot of more modern English books I have use it way differently than the older ones.”

“Oh, yeah, beef can have several-ish meanings,” Present Mic said, and then launched into a lengthy diatribe about beefing, beef up, beef, which led to ‘get your goat’ actually being tied into horse racing, and then that led to him actually looking up how ‘cold turkey’ even happened.

It was probably the first time Izuku had ever relaxed around another adult in his entire life.

It was kind of nice.

.

.

.

.

.

“Hey, he was a pretty weird kid, wasn’t he?” Hizashi asked as the two of them braved the humidity of a mid July night. Shouta hummed, thinking back on how the problem child had saved his apparent bully’s life not even twelve hours ago and then immediately gone on to kidnap him and threaten him with a knife.

“... Seems pretty normal to me,” Shouta finally replied with a light shrug, and Hizashi let out a laugh.

“Never in my life had I met a fifteen year old that gave a shit about English idioms, but okay, babe.”

They bumped shoulders, and Shouta tucked his hands in his jeans, running his thumb along the pro license there.

There was no doubt the kid could get that very license. Not a shadow of doubt existed in Shouta’s mind. And it wasn’t because of his power. No, it was because he understood what pain was. He got it. He could lie like a trickster god, easy as breathing. He clearly had a bit of a petty streak. He was incredibly unstable. His thoughts definitely wandered into dark places.

But… But he had potential. Shouta couldn’t quite explain it. Maybe it was because his eyes were sharp and playful when he told a lie. But, maybe, just maybe, it was because they were sad when he was honest.

Not angry.

Sad.

If he was going to snap, he would have done it by now. Powerful kids snapped when they were angry. He’d seen it plenty of times. Not many of them held out long enough to hit the point where they were just… Sad.

The kid was a damn martyr, and it was high time someone told him he could be happy. But, one thing was for sure: he couldn’t go into Snipe’s class. He needed to be around adults he could trust, yes. But he needed to be where he trusted someone more than Snipe and his mom. That was the first test, and from the way the kid looked at him, he didn’t trust him at all.

But he trusted Hizashi.

And… Thinking about lying…

“Hizashi,” he said suddenly, and then stopped himself. They’d made this promise before. He didn’t have to bring it up again.

“I don’t want to know,” Hizashi replied, and Shouta let out a low sigh. Hizashi slung an arm over his shoulder, pulled him in close, and kissed him on the cheek. “If he’s a good liar, he’s a damned good one. But you and Hazutashi suck. Just don’t tell me.”

“I’m a fantastic liar. You just live with me,” Shouta said and pushed him away, but Hizashi just laughed and grabbed his hand to pull him close and kiss him under the dark of the abandoned street.

“And I’m lucky,” he murmured against his lips before pressing another kiss to his lips. “But, seriously, babe. Don’t tell me. Whatever’s going on, doesn’t matter. He’s a kid that needs help. That’s all I gotta know. Okay?”

“Okay,” Shouta whispered and stood there for a moment, memorizing the heat of Hizashi’s body burning through the damp of Musutafu in the summer, before he reluctantly pulled away. “And knock that off. Phone cameras are nuts nowadays.”

“Then I’ll just have to give you all the kisses when we get home,” Hizashi said sweetly, and Shouta rolled his eyes at how borderline juvenile he sounded.

Yeah. He was lucky. Even if Nezu was making his life hell all over again.

Chapter Text

Tosh: Oh fuck

Tosh: Zu, they’re literally threatening to beat the fuck out of you

Tosh: I’ve never reported so much shit in my life

Tosh: I have screenshots.

Tosh: Uh. You there?

Tosh: Zu??

Tosh: I really hope you just set your phone down

Tosh: Zu. Where tf are you?

Tosh: Did you seriously just tell me to look at that and then dipped

Tosh: Zu?????

Tosh: Are you okay??

Tosh: You’re not okay.

Tosh: Are they running tests or something

Tosh: ….DM when you can

Tosh: don’t listen to that bullshit.

Tosh: why didn’t you tell me

Izuku had entirely forgotten he told Tosh to look. In his defense, it had been a very long day for him, and his brain was completely fried. It was beyond fried. He had lost any sense of… anything, actually. He’d actually forgotten he left his phone in the living room. He’d just gone immediately after Present Mic and Aizawa left to collapse facedown in his bed. And then he’d laid there for a good ten minutes before he remembered his phone wasn’t actually with him.

Staring at Tosh’s texts, Izuku felt something weird overtake him. He and Tosh talked about… Admittedly, they talked about a lot, but they also talked about nothing really personal. Tosh didn’t know who his uncle was. He didn’t know his mother was a nurse. He didn’t know Izuku lived in a penthouse apartment, or that he had no friends at school, or that he was bullied relentlessly.

Izuku didn’t really know anything about Tosh, either. They both knew each other’s names. They knew their addresses, from a one-off occasion where they found some unknown book the other was searching for and sent it to them. Izuku had picked up things from used bookstores for him, and Tosh commonly returned the favor. They talked about books, movies, mangaka, memes, social issues, things like that.

But they didn’t know each other. Honestly, part of the reason they were so ‘close’ was because they didn’t talk about their lives. Tosh was barely a thirty minute train ride away, in Tokyo. Izuku could go to school with him, if he wanted. No one really wanted to go to school in Musutafu, anyways. But…

But.

There was an unspoken understanding. They both had shit lives. They didn’t have to say it out loud, acknowledge it. They both just wanted to pretend everything else wasn’t happening. So, with each other, this was what they did. Share everything but what was important.

And now a hole had been blown in that ship. Because Izuku had to move.

Zuzu: I don’t think sorry can cover a two hour ghost, but also, sorry.

Zuzu: Like, really. I am fucking up a lot of things today, apparently.

Zuzu: Sorry.

Zuzu: It’s my birthday, and my uncle had some of his coworkers swing by to try to cheer me up, and they stuck around for a bit because I’m apparently unstable on a molecular level and one of them could help with that.

Zuzu: Wait. That sounds bad.

Zuzu: I am no longer molecularly unstable. My molecules. Are stable.

Zuzu: And don’t worry about the tweets. It’s normal.

Tosh: Okay, what the hell.

Tosh: What the ACTUAL hell

Tosh: I thought you had like a fucked up quirk, not like… I didn’t know it was THAT bad

Zuzu: ????

Tosh: Not like that. I mean. Sorry.

Tosh: Not that it’s like. Bad. To be Quirkless. I mean like. Everything ELSe is bad.

Tosh: Gods, what are words, I sound like a fucking ???

Zuzu: You mean like 70% suicide rate bad?

It was probably a cruel thing to say, but it was also about as honest as Izuku was going to get. It was an insanely high suicide rate. Most of Quirkless individuals were in the older generations, and in his own generation, there was maybe a 4% birth rate. He’d never even met another actually Quirkless person his age. A lot of them didn’t even make it to fourteen. Murder, abuse, sex trafficking, kidnapping, it was all rampant with Quirkless children, and suicides started to escalate around eleven or twelve years old. It rarely even made it onto the news. Soon, there would be no more Quirkless people.

Facts were cruel.

Tosh: …yeah. Like that.

Tosh: What even happened

Izuku took a deep breath as he stared at his phone in the darkness of his room. How did he even begin to answer Tosh’s questions? He didn’t know. It was beyond him.

Zuzu: I wouldn’t know where to start.

Zuzu: I don’t even know what’s going on right now.

Tosh: …Yeah. Must be a shock.

Tosh: Teleportation?

Zuzu: Sort of. Pocket dimension that lets me “teleport”, I guess.

Zuzu: Idk. I don’t know what’s going on.

Zuzu: We always knew a stress manifestation was possible. I was never clinically Quirkless. All the tests came up with me having the gene. They even did the pinky bone test, like it was useful. So we knew it was just. Sitting around. Not wanting to wake up. I was never Quirkless-Quirkless. Like. Socially Quirkless, not medically. That was me.

Zuzu: Didn’t expect it to be *this*, but here we are.

Tosh: …sorry.

Zuzu: nothing to apologize for.

Tosh: the tweets were fucked up.

Zuzu: I know. I might just… Not go there anymore. It’s up to me.

Tosh: …Uh. I can… Talk to my mom? She might be able to help…

Zuzu: what, you think I’m poor or something? Lol

Tosh: No. I mean. My mom knows like… Lots of people? And can help you get into a better school. Somewhere that’s not there.

Zuzu: It’s fine lol.

Tosh: …Uhm. Zu?

Zuzu: …Yeah?

Tosh: … Bro. The news is… Wait. Now that I’m not panicking. Is that Snipe?

Zuzu: That is Snipe, yes.

Tosh: …Did that kid just yell that you’re his nephew?

Zuzu: …Yes?

Tosh: are you fucking serious

Tosh: the uncle you live with?

Zuzu: Yes??

In hindsight, there was a lot he probably should have told Tosh. Like, a lot. There was so much. Now it was all out there.

Tosh: He works with my mom.

…Or there was a lot Tosh should have told him.

The children and relatives of heroes had it drilled in them from a young age that they were not to just casually discuss things like parents and heroes with others. There was a reason only Katsuki knew Izuku was Snipe’s nephew, and that reason was that it was unavoidable in the early days. They were supposed to grow up together. Mom and Mitsuki had been friends in high school. Mitsuki had watched Asuma graduate from UA. But as far as anyone else went? It was on a need to know basis. A best friend might find out, but Izuku wasn’t going to go blabbing it around at school. After all, it being widely known that Snipe had a Quirkless, and therefore vulnerable, beloved nephew, was going to be salivating material not only for the media, but for any villain wanting to get back at him. And Izuku could definitely do without that kind of attention on him.

But… Okay, there were two women Toshi could be related to.

Zuzu: …Is this seriously why we never talked about family?

Tosh: I mean, there were a few other reasons.

Zuzu: Who’s your mom?

Tosh: …Miss Joke.

Zuzu: Ah.

Tosh: …Is this why Mom was on her phone all night?

Zuzu: Maybe?? Idk. Asuma never talks about her. I only saw Nezu, Recovery Girl, Eraserhead, and Present Mic.

Zuzu: Then again, Asuma barely even mentions Eraserhead, and he liked him enough to invite him to dinner.

Tosh: …The staff gc must be nuts right now.

Zuzu: I saw Eraserhead take one look at it and shut his phone off, so probably.

Tosh: …so it’s your choice to switch schools?

Zuzu: Probably won’t be the second Asuma actually looks my name up on Twitter instead of peek over my shoulder, but yeah, it’s my choice right now. Mom is just going to lose her shit when she sees it.

Tosh: …It’s a thirty minute commute to Tokyo.

Zuzu: Bold of you to assume I’d get up early enough to not break the law.

Tosh: You just got your quirk and you’re already… You know what, nvm, I’d be the same if I had a fucking pocket dimension.

Zuzu: I’ve got one and a half years of school left, I’ll probably just switch to homeschooling.

Zuzu: Been teaching myself for years, anyways.

Tosh: So what will you name it?

Izuku paused. And then he thought about it some more.

What had it been like when he didn’t know what he could do? If only he could remember…

Zuzu: I nearly died twice today, got a concussion, burned the hell out of my hand, almost drowned, had a quirk come in, ate dinner with fucking Present Mic, and accidentally broke into UA. I am so beyond quirk names right now.

Tosh: …This only brings up more questions.

Zuzu: As it should. I’m on medical leave and going to bed. I’ll explain tomorrow.

Closing out the app, he locked his phone and rolled over in bed.

Homeschooling was probably the only option, now. But, at the very least, maybe he could meet Tosh now.  Maybe. It was debatable if he actually would. But… They could bond about some things.

Izuku just hated to lie. He solved one problem, in a roundabout way, but now it was just opening him up to more.

Was he ever going to have a really fulfilling relationship in his life, or was it just going to be like this? He supposed one day he’d tell a spouse the truth. One day. But, right now, six people knew the truth, and All Might at least knew something was up. So was it even a secret anymore? He didn’t even know Aizawa, and Katsuki was trustworthy only to a certain point. He did bully Izuku for years, and while they wouldn’t be around each other any longer, could he even trust him to hold the truth close to his chest when he wasn’t there to monitor him?

With the amount of people that knew the truth, could Izuku even allow even one more person to know the truth? Or was he just… Going to be lonely for the rest of his life?

It was a sobering thought. An incredibly sobering thought. He wasn’t even sure he could enter a relationship with someone without telling them the reality of what they were signing up for. That didn’t even seem fair.

Nothing about life was fair, at least. That was about the only thing he could put his faith in anymore. Perhaps it was the only thing he had ever placed his faith in.

…Well.

He could at least put his faith in All Might. Somehow, knowing the truth of the tragedy that had befallen him just made him… More to Izuku.

Green eyes found a faded poster of a smiling face and a big thumbs up in the darkness, and Izuku’s fingers curled around his phone just a little bit more.

Izuku didn’t want to be more. Not like that. But… But with the kind of power he had, eclipsing All Might’s in every sense of the word… Did he have a choice?

Chapter Text

Izuku’s eyes were shut tight as echoing whispers played over the earbuds.

“I was born with lightning in my heels, set a spur onto my ankle, bit a horse under the steel. And I lost hope when I was so young…”

Two weeks. Two weeks since he’d exposed himself, and he was still processing. All of his homework was turned in. He’d come in after school was closed to take his final exams, passed them with flying colors, and now his mom was finishing up all of the paperwork to start his homeschooling.

“Had an angel on my shoulder, but the devil always won. And, oh, I lost it all when I got high, and I can feel you even now, breaking horses in the sky. I can taste you in my rage, and in the sweat upon my brow.”

“I think you’re really painting me into something I’m not,” Gremlin whispered and Izuku took a deep breath in, held it, and exhaled.

“And I went home, chasing twisters in the canyon, my cathedral is the badlands. Dust and devils on my conscience, come back to me, darling.”

“Then what are you?” Izuku asked softly.

He didn’t feel like he wasn’t himself nowadays, and that was perhaps the scariest part. He shouldn’t be himself. He should feel off, like a latex glove that was just a bit too loose on the hand, wrinkling at the fingertips and pulling at the joint between the thumb and index finger.

“So kiss me now, this whiskey on my breath. Feel the lives that I have taken, what little soul that I have left. And oh, my God, I’ll take you to the grave, the only love I’ve ever known, the soul I ever saved.”

“You haven’t killed anyone,” Gremlin pointed out diplomatically.

“There’s lots of ways to take a life,” Izuku replied.

“And I went home, chasing twisters in the canyon, my cathedral is the badlands, dust and devils on my conscience. Come back to me, darling.”

“I cannot tell if your response is deep and philosophical or foolish.”

“Isn’t all philosophy foolish?” Izuku shot back.

“And I’ve been waiting for so long now. I can feel you in the hollow, and every cloud on the horizon. Come back to me, darling…”

“Look, you made it to all the oh’s, can we stop the drama and get back to what we were working on?”

“You don’t know the first thing about forging blueprints,” Izuku shot back, but opened his eyes nonetheless and focused on the computer screen in front of him.

“I do know the first thing about building things,” Gremlin pointed out and Izuku pursed his lips in irritation as he grabbed his tablet.

“This is extremely different from blacksmithing, Grem. There’s actual electrical wiring.”

“I have been paying attention,” Gremlin sniffed. “Enough to know you put a 14 gauge wire where a 12 gauge should be, and if you submit that, even the stupidest of novices would know you flipped your hot and neutral wires and you’re going to blow the whole thing up with that charge. Where did you even get the idea to swap out a kyber crystal for an arc reactor?”

“Insanity, probably. I’m just thankful they made a novelization of Iron Man 2,” Izuku replied with a shrug as he relabeled the wiring. “Now I just need to figure out how to downsize it and recreate it in this world.”

“And lock a solid beam of radiated photons in place,” Gremlin added smugly, reminding Izuku of just why he’d been putting this off. Summer break was going to be a nightmare.

“Don’t remind me,” Izuku replied with a groan and slammed his head onto the desk. “I think I’m approaching this all wrong. The arc reactor only works in Marvel because the Tesseract exists in Marvel, but it doesn’t exist here, so if I just made a new element, it would probably not even work here, but I need this lightsaber to make sense, and a mystical crystal is going to make less sense than a new element capable of turning the entire planet to clean energy created by a fifteen year old child who miraculously does not want to go to college for bettering the planet.”

“Have you considered simply googling a theoretical lightsaber and how it would be powered?” Gremlin asked, rather patronizingly, but all Izuku could do was stare blankly at the laptop screen, because he was right.

“... But I want to make an arc reactor,” he said, before he could stop himself, and Gremlin let out a hiss of irritation.

“I don’t think irradiated photons are going to work. You’d just poison yourself. Look up theoretical lightsabers.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“I am the only common sense you have.”

With a sigh, Izuku pulled up Chrome and let out a full blown pout as he navigated to the search bar and looked it up.

“...Huh. Actually possible.”

“Theoretically possible, but we don’t have the means of powering it yet.”

“...Plasma and magnetic fields?”

“That is what it says, yes.”

“...20 fucking megawatts?”

“You’d better figure out how to make an arc reactor.”

With a strangled cry, Izuku slammed his face into the keyboard and let out a quiet screech, little more than a dog whistle of a noise as Mom poked her head into the living room.

“What is it, baby?”

“I have to discover the new element from Iron Man 2 for aesthetics,” Izuku complained.

“Have you considered worrying about the aesthetics of dirty laundry all over your room before the aesthetics of a Nobel Peace Prize next to your week old socks?”

“Mom, please, I’m in a crisis. ”

“You have been in a crisis over this thing for two weeks, you can stand to go clean your room,” Mom sniffed, and Gremlin snickered. “Gremlin agrees with me.”

“You don’t even know what he’s saying!” Izuku protested. “And the One Ring of Power should not be the person you want to agree with you!”

“Sure he should be,” Mom replied airily. “He’s got more self preservation than you. You have to go meet that teacher in an hour. Go get your laundry picked up, please.”

“But how would I protect myself from the heat?” Izuku muttered under his breath as he scrolled through the page.

“Izuku.” Oh, Mom had a mad voice.

“I’m going!” Izuku shut the laptop and climbed to his feet so he could dart into the bedroom and start picking up his laundry.

“Daja Kisubo,” Gremlin hummed, and Izuku groaned.

“That’s magic, I can’t recreate that.”

“You can study it. Isn’t magic just science we don’t understand yet?”

“If that was true, I would have figured you out by now,” Izuku grumbled as he viciously picked up the dirty clothes all over his floor and tossed them into the hamper. “...Is this shirt clean?”

“Smell it. And just because my magic doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean other magic can’t make sense. The rules of Pierce are not the rules of Tolkien, are they?”

“The magic of living metal would entirely subsist off whatever energy dictates my quirk, and we have no idea what is going on with my quirk,” Izuku pointed out. “Objectively, my quirk has no basis in science whatsoever, not even theoretical, and it will continue to not make sense for many years to come. So studying something made directly out of magic is just not going to work. At least the arc reactor has some scientific basis.”

“I told you to smell the shirt.”

“It’s dirty,” Izuku said, without even a whiff, and tossed it into the hamper.

“And it wouldn’t hurt to try. If you can recreate Daja’s metal, the uses would be numerous.”

“ Or I could go with a force field.”

“That would affect the grip.”

“...Listen, if I wanted you to argue with me all the damn time, I would have named you Katsuki.”

“Do you have any other options?”

“I can argue with Mom.”

“You can try. ”

“You don’t have to make it sound so ominous.”

“I would rather attempt a dragon sickness intervention for the entire line of Thror at once than argue with your mother.”

“You need to stop being funny. It’s not cute.”

“Good.”

“You’re obnoxious,” Izuku said with a sigh and tossed the last dirty sock into the hamper. “Why do I even have to train with this guy, anyways?”

“Because you are a risk to not only Japan, but the entire world, and you have me.”

“I’m more of a risk to the lifespan of a washing machine,” Izuku muttered darkly.

“Also, your uncle is a long range fighter, with limited close combat skills, but this man is all about close combat, which you’re going to be relying on excessively.”

“I just really don’t like the idea of having to prove myself to anyone. Is that so bad?”

“You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.”

“Yeah, you would say that.” Izuku collapsed facedown on the bed and let a muffled scream get swallowed up by his pillow.

“We could just eat h---”

“No,” Izuku hissed.

“You didn’t let us eat the other teacher. I will take this one as an apology.”

“You don’t even eat. ”

“It’s about the satisfaction.”

“Can’t you just ask to eat Jeff Bezos like a normal person? ”

“Who is that?”

“Oh, you’ll pay attention to voltage and circuitry but not politics.”

“What use do you have for politics?”

“You’d be surprised at how much they’re needed for heroics.”

“Morality was always a political issue. I’m not surprised.”

Izuku paused as he mulled over that thought. It was a moral duty, wasn’t it? But… Morals were different for everyone, weren’t they? What did morals even look like for Gremlin?

“Do for others what they will not do for you.”

“...There are so many layers to that that I do not want to unpack right now,” Izuku said and dropped to his knees to reach into his bed and pull out a pastel pink backpack, sporting an impressive set of bunny ears and “BUNNY” printed across the zippered pocket in big, bold, English letters. “We need to get going.”

“Oh, you will actually use the bag of holding now?”

“Aizawa knows, so why not?” Izuku retorted with a shrug as he unzipped the bag and made his way to the desk to scoop the lightsaber that was already made and the blasters into the formless black hole. “What should we take?”

“The boom.”

“I’m not making a habit of using a thermal detonator. We need the stuff I actually need in combat.”

“I vote for explosions.”

“The day you get opposable thumbs is the day this becomes a democracy.” Lucy’s cordial, Jack Sparrow’s compass, the time turner, (you never know when you need to ruin the space time continuum), the Dresden bracelet belonged on his wrist, you couldn’t go wrong with a Swiss army knife…

Izuku’s eyes fell on the line of swords on the wall opposite his bed.

Well…

“Excalibur…”

“It’s huge; wait until I get a little more muscle.”

“The Sword of Truth is just asking for trouble.”

“Well, obviously. ”

“Scalpel?”

“Rapier isn’t my style.”

“Is stabbing people even what you want to be doing?”

“My uncle literally shoots people with live ammunition. I’m just keeping on the family tradition.”

“Needle is small and doesn’t have any curses attached to it.”

“That entire book series is a curse.”

“Arya survived, did she not?”

“That’s not reassuring. She’s got anxiety. I think.”

“Coinspinner.”

Izuku paused, his hand brushing over the white dice engraved into the hilt of the blade.

“It’s a risk. It could just leave and not come back.”

“It’s fickle enough to like a master such as you.”

“Was that a drag or a compliment?”

“Heads a drag, tails a compliment.”

“Hilarious,” Izuku deadpanned as his hand danced over the hilt.

“You shouldn’t have brought the thing out, really. It could disappear at any time and cause some real damage.”

“Same thing could be said about you. ”

“If I could wander off at will, the books would have ended before they even began.”

“You know what I mean,” Izuku shot back as he memorized the dice set deep into the hilt. It looked like an ordinary sword, but it certainly had a mind of its own.

“I think you like it when things have minds of their own,” Gremlin teased and Izuku hummed, not even bothering with a comeback for that one.

“If you want to claim him, claim him. Just understand he is what he is.”

“You certainly aren’t what you are,” Izuku replied as his fingers brushed over the leather bindings and trailed up to trace over the curve of the pommel.

“It is certainly interesting you chose the Coinspinner to bring out.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Have I ever elaborated?”

“No.”

What had even possessed Izuku to bring a sword of power out? Did he have some kind of fascination with harbingers of the doom of man? Granted, it wasn’t Coinspinner’s duty to bring about the apocalypse. Not like Gremlin. His primary function in life was to simply cause problems, and gods, Izuku liked the whole concept of it.

“Just take the sword, Izuku. This is painful to watch.”

“Oh, shut up,” Izuku snapped, but he grasped the sheathed sword all the same and tucked it into his bag.

To be fair, the sword hadn’t left yet. Technically, Izuku had been its master for a month now, though…

If he really was the damned thing’s master, how the hell had his life just imploded?

This felt like a fae deal more than anything. Technically, Izuku was insanely lucky. Guaranteed a spot in one of the most prestigious hero courses in the world, taken out of a school where he was routinely bullied and harassed, given an underground pro as a personal trainer, somehow got Katsuki to keep his mouth shut after trauma dumping on him, of all people, but this sure as hell was a roundabout way to bring him luck. A really roundabout way.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Izuku,” Gremlin said in a singsong voice, and Izuku hissed down at him.

“I’d rather the luck look a little more cinematic than this.”

“Just make sure you keep track of all the eldritch entities ruining your life.”

“Very funny, Grem,” Izuku muttered and zipped the gaping hole into nothing shut. “I’m not even going to use him. I have a lightsaber.”

“As a blade, he has little use anyways. As a magic item? The uses go farther than you could ever begin to understand with your little human brain.”

“That’s great, Grem. Ready to go?”

“We have one hour.”

“Yeah, but I want to go now. ”

“Are you avoiding the lightsaber?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

Izuku just rolled his eyes and slung the backpack over his shoulder before stepping into the meadow and out into the abandoned warehouse. Really, Aizawa had issues. This seemed like the worst place to train. Where were the mats? It was dusty as hell.

“You should have told Mother you left.”

“I don’t even call her Mother, can you stop that?” Izuku pulled out his phone all the same and shot her a text.

There was something peculiar about existing in an abandoned warehouse. The air was hot and muggy, Tokyo in the summer, and you could just sit and watch the dust dance in the shafts of sunlight that peered in through the broken window panes. It was uniquely still, in a way that seemed almost wrong, because while you could still hear the bustle of the city outside, it felt like you were in your own little bubble, existing independently of the chaos.

“You did not bring water.”

“I have an hour; I can go get a bottle.”

“Snacks.”

“I don’t need snacks. Mom’s cooking.”

“You need snacks.”

“You’re such a pain,” Izuku said with a sigh and tightened the backpack straps before stepping out into the open air.

It was a quick trip to the corner store, with his baseball cap pulled low over his face to hide his identity as he drifted through the aisles to pick up a cold bottle of water, an equally cold bottle of green tea, and a pack of pocky, just for good measure. The cashier was a bored high school girl, chewing on some gum and popping it obnoxiously as she twirled her hair around one finger. She didn’t even bother to meet Izuku’s eyes, and for that, he was grateful. He’d had enough attention with this whole debacle to last a lifetime. The Quirkless stress manifestation was now known across the nation, and everyone knew what his face looked like. He’d been “saved” by All Might, though in Izuku’s opinion, he’d done most of the saving. All Might had just shown up and flexed for the cameras a bit.

The knowledge of All Might’s secret was still weighing on him. What was he even doing in Musutafu to begin with? It was all very questionable, as far as Izuku was concerned. Of all the places to pick, here was where he went? Izuku couldn’t quantify that. He was still sticking around, too, and that was making Izuku nervous.

As he shuffled his way back to the warehouse, his phone pinged with another text. With a sigh, Izuku pulled it out and checked it.

Tosh: What are you doing today

Izuku pursed his lips thoughtfully as he thought about his reply.

Zuzu: Uncle is sending me to work on my quirk with someone.

Tosh: Mom’s got like three straight days of meetings at UA for planning the next semester and asked if I want to come.

Zuzu: owo

Tosh: I’ll be in Musutafu… If ya wanna like. Meet. Or something.

Izuku thought about it for a second as his feet left marks in the dust on the warehouse floor. On one hand, internet friends were internet friends, and he never met up with them if he could help it. On the other hand, it was Tosh . He wasn’t just an internet friend. He was Tosh . So perhaps…

Well. His mom was friends with his surrogate father. It was a little unavoidable, wasn’t it? They’d bump into each other sooner or later.

Zuzu: I can ask my uncle if I can tag along with him to UA. He’s got the meetings, too.

Tosh: Cool.

Zuzu: Cool.

Zuzu: Did you read Ranger’s Apprentice yet?

Tosh: Yeah I started it. Kinda surprising, actually.

Zuzu: What’s surprising?

Tosh: There’s zero magic or cool shit. You only ever care about a book if it gives you ideas for support gear.

Izuku paused for a second as he thought about that. Was that true? Wow, he really was predictable. That was almost embarrassing.

Zuzu: It’s the attention to detail, though. You can tell Flanagan put a Lot Of Thought into the whole thing.

Zuzu: I can appreciate attention to detail. Right down to the fighting styles with dual knives and physics that goes into it, and the making of a recurve bow. Idk. I like that sort of thing.

Tosh: Lol don’t you ever just enjoy the story

Zuzu: If I didn’t enjoy the story, I would be far more forgiving for bad prose exchanged for intricate world building.

Tosh: You’re so weird, dude.

Zuzu: Guilty as charged.

Zuzu: I’d rather a writer describe the things from their imagination with as much love and care as they describe the scar under a character’s eye. It’s just not as interesting or real when they are just using writing as a vehicle for a dnd campaign with a control freak DM.

Tosh: Guess so. Have you figured out the arc reactor problem yet?

Zuzu: never mention that again

Tosh: That bad?

Zuzu: My initial hypothesis was wrong. I would need 20 megawatts at minimum powering not only PLASMA but also a strong enough magnetic field to hold IN the plasma AND a forcefield or some kind of metal that wouldn’t burn the hell out of my hand, and that kind of metal does not exist.

Tosh: Sounds like you are in way over your head.

Zuzu: I WILL have a lightsaber.

Tosh: It’s very you to create the future of clean energy so you can have a toy.

Zuzu: Please stop making fun of me. I’m very serious. Lightsabers are gonna be the new wave.

Tosh: And you only have to make an entirely new element pulled straight through the pages of a comic book to do it.

Zuzu: If Jules Vern can create a submarine and advance naval and eventual nuclear warfare for the next several hundred years because he wanted to write about a fucking squid, I can change the future of clean energy in the name of having a damned lightsaber.

Tosh: Whatever you say, lol.

Tosh: Just don’t let it blow up in your face.

In hindsight, Izuku was going to have to talk Asuma into letting him tell Power Loader his secret. The living metal and arc reactor would be so much easier to recreate if he had access to his lab and didn’t have to deal with an excess of questions. And, didn’t every hero need a support hero in the background? Izuku could have Power Loader. He deserved Power Loader, since he was bereft of David Shield.

Zuzu: It’s not going to blow up.

Tosh: You’re making plasma. It’s going to blow up.

Zuzu: shhhhhh

Locking his phone and slipping it back into his pocket, Izuku hauled himself onto a crate and took a long sip of cold green tea. Aizawa should be here soon, and Izuku was not looking forward to the whole ordeal.

Like clockwork, there was a scuff, and Izuku looked up as Aizawa entered the warehouse, hands stuck in the pockets of his coveralls and shoulders presumably hunched under that voluminous scarf.

“Hey,” Izuku called and screwed the cap back on before he slipped off the crate.

Aizawa simply grunted and looked around the derelict mess. One foot nudged aside a broken piece of wood and he twisted his lips to the left as he seemed to consider the options of the warehouse.

“...I’m here?” Izuku said awkwardly.

“Noticed,” Aizawa replied curtly. “First thing’s first. What did you bring?”

Izuku shrugged off the backpack and unzipped it before spilling everything onto the floor.

“Uhm… Okay, so there’s Jango Fett’s blasters, they sound cool and look smooth, Count Dooku’s lightsaber, since it looks classy, Jack Sparrow’s compass, because you never know when you need something like that, Lucy’s cordial, that’s a no-brainer, Hermione’s time-turner, I went with the one from the novels, not The Cursed Child or whatever it was, just because the lack of limitations is just asking for trouble, and then there’s Coinspinner, gives you unbelievable luck, it’s probably never going to leave the bag of holding…”

“It gives you luck?” Aizawa interrupted, and Izuku sighed.

“Yes. It was designed to start wars, but…”

“Don’t you have enough items designed to start wars?”

“It’s not going to start a war here; it’s removed from its purpose. The only real problem is it’s super fickle and might leave when it feels like it.”

“And you don’t see how that can cause a problem?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku shrugged.

“No one’s going to start a war over a sword. This is the 22nd century.”

“I can think of a few people willing to go to war over a sword.”

“It’s really not an issue. Gremlin hasn’t been a problem, has he?”

“That remains to be seen,” Aizawa replied cryptically as he surveyed Izuku with a level of dubiousness Izuku had never seen on a single other human being before.

“I’m actually fine,” he assured him.

“I’m sure,” Aizawa responded, and then came an awkward silence as Izuku struggled to find what to say. How did you even tell a hero that actually it was fine that a fourteen year old child was running around with the One Ring of Power and calling him Gremlin and making friends with him?

“You don’t,” Gremlin hissed, and Izuku tsked at him in irritation, because that was not helping the situation.

“You don’t trust me,” Izuku finally said, and Aizawa leaned up against the wall, arms crossed as he studied Izuku.

“Would you trust you? Because from where I’m standing, you’re freshly fourteen, a middle schooler that’s been abused and bullied by your peers, who’s been hiding the fact that you were technically Quirkless online just so you could make some friends, with world ending powers, and the One Ring of Power hanging around your neck.”

Izuku’s hand pressed into the scar on his chest he never bothered to heal. It was ugly raised skin, still pink and a perfect imprint of his own hubris. Even if Gremlin one day left him, Izuku would always have this scar to remind himself of the very real consequences of his power. He wasn’t going to forget it.

“You did a background check on me?” He asked.

“Yeah. All your social media, your Dark Web dives, forum posts from when you were ten.”

“...Oh.”

That was beyond creepy. Had Izuku ever been cancel-worthy? He couldn’t recall.

“When you were thirteen years old, you made a hashtag,” Aizawa continued. “Do you remember it?”

Izuku’s brain whirred, trying to remember just what shit he was up to at thirteen years old. What hashtag?

“Stay with me tonight,” Aizawa added when he saw the confusion on Izuku’s face. “Legislation was passed stripping legal protections for Quirkless students. It was no longer classed as quirk discrimination for them to be bullied at school, but rather fell under other bullying, which had far less harsh restrictions on punishment for the school itself and instead diverted those punishments to the individual students, which was dealt with by the individual schools, not the law. It closed the options of investigating schools.”

Oh. Izuku’s other anonymous burner account. He forgot about that.

“It didn’t take off,” he said quietly. “Just trended for a minute and then they forgot about it because there was no face behind it to take credit.”

“All the accounts were anonymous, weren’t they?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku shrugged.

“Most Quirkless people are anonymous online if they’re going to admit to being Quirkless. It’s bad enough outside. No one wants to get doxxed.”

He missed that account. It got suspended eventually. He was in a fight on a daily basis. Apparently, calling someone a “quirk” was a slur, and he got locked out ages ago, never bothered to come back. He’d been pretty popular, too. It felt like a lie, now. Back then, though… Being Quirkless was largely a social descriptor. There was nothing more to it. It felt like he was Quirkless. Living day in and day out, hiding who he was, surrendering to the constant vitriol and hatred and pain.

But he wasn’t really Quirkless. He could back out at any time. Real Quirkless people couldn’t do that. Sure, Izuku would then have to submit to all manners of horrors, lose everything, join his father in a disappearing person, but… But he could back out. Real Quirkless people didn’t have that luxury, and he couldn’t help but feel awful.

Even if in every sense of the word, he was Quirkless.

“Stay with me tonight was a call to stop suicide,” Aizawa said, and Izuku shrunk down in on himself.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t sure where they were getting with this conversation.

“Do you know the success rates of a real stress manifestation?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku swallowed.

“There’s a seventy percent chance the subject will survive.” He’d looked it up, after everything was said and done. There was almost no information on the phenomenon, just a single study done ten years ago. It was incredibly weird.

“Do you want to know why there’s that thirty percent error window?” Aizawa continued, and Izuku looked at the ground.

“Stats didn’t say what happens. I assume the quirk is too much for a body that was never supposed to manifest one.”

“No. You should never trust statistics. They always leave something out. The thirty percent is the people whose bodies can’t take the stress any longer, and the manifestation pushes them over the edge. It’s not illegal. Everything designed to pull out the quirk is illegal, but the act in and of itself is not. Much like lynching in America was tried as a murder, not a hate crime.”

“...Why didn’t I find that?” Izuku asked, and Aizawa pursed his lips.

“Because the world operates based on what’s reported. And if major media outlets, even smaller publications don’t report, and it’s not discussed on social media, what are search engines going to show you?”

“...Why are you telling me this?”

“I get why your family made you pretend to be Quirkless. You have a power that’s not something that should be present in a vulnerable six year old. But you’re going to need to remember. If what happened hadn't happened, very often stress manifestations are caused by parents or peers. That’s why they aren’t really discussed. I’m not sure you would have made it through school without someone giving it a shot. So if you’re going to keep playing this as ‘Quirkless kid had a stress manifestation’, you need to know what that generally entails.”

“...Is that why Asuma never explained what…” Come to think of it, Asuma hadn’t talked about it, had he? Izuku had only ever known about late blooming as a potential option for him, once he could more easily defend himself, or if he accidentally exposed himself in front of someone. Stress manifestations had never even been brought up.

“That’s not the kind of thing you discuss with a child, Midoriya.”

Gremlin was silent. Izuku kind of wished he’d say something.

“...Why were you talking about the hashtag?” Izuku asked after a long pause, and Aizawa pursed his lips.

“To see your face.”

Izuku’s brows furrowed in confusion and he tilted his head at Aizawa.

“What?”

“Some people can write very well about things they will never experience. Some people write even better about things they know about intimately. I need to know what kind of writer you are.”

Izuku’s eyes dropped and he had a brief flashback to what he said to Katsuki in his meadow.

“I don’t think you need to know about that,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

“Your entire well being is my job on more levels than one, problem child. I do, actually, need to know about that.”

“It’s not actually suicidal ideations it’s just…”

“Logic?” Aizawa challenged, and Izuku realized how incredibly hollow and lifeless that sounded. For all his love of books and creation and dreams given life, logic was a very, very poor excuse.

“I think we should just start training,” Izuku finally said, and Aizawa arched a brow.

“Avoidance is noted and respected. Have you tested whether or not you can leave a living being alone in the meadow?”

“Yes. A spider did fine, so it doesn’t just stop existing when I leave.”

“Have you ever tested how fast you can move?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku shook his head no. “How many times you can jump before you get exhausted? Distance limitations?”

“Beyond distance, nothing, and distance is pretty immaterial. I can go anywhere I can see, I’m pretty sure. I once sent myself to New York from a picture on a postcard when I was ten.”

That had been a bad day. Mom had nearly killed him, and Asuma was ready to help her hide the body.

“You went to… Okay. So if you have access to Google street view, you can just go anywhere. This is fine.” Aizawa turned aside and rubbed a hand over his face, and Izuku got the impression that absolutely nothing was fine.

“Do you have cloaking for your library?”

“No, I just made a second pocket dimension,” Izuku replied cheerfully, and Aizawa stared at him for a moment before blinking hard and rubbing his eyes.

“That’s great. How are your books going to charge if they’re not in the pocket dimension?”

“They’re still in the pocket dimension. Just. Really in the pocket dimension. Like, deep in there. They actually charge in two weeks now! Wild, huh?”

“And you’re absolutely sure that won’t rip the fabric of reality?” Aizawa asked dryly, and Izuku shrugged.

“Funny thing about reality ripping is you wouldn’t really be able to tell, anyways. Depending on which book you’re reading, of course, and there were no specific rules that the pocket couldn’t be put in another pocket from the book I took it out of.”

Aizawa stared at Izuku, and Izuku blinked at him innocently.

“Do you want to quit yet?” Izuku asked bluntly.

“No,” Aizawa grit out.

“Wait.”

“You really don’t want to be here, do you?”

“I just don’t like being treated like a criminal when I’ve really done nothing wrong.”

“You went full blown vigilante on live television.”

“Beyond that.”

“And if you were a criminal, I wouldn’t be teaching you. If you’re going to be a problem child, be a problem child that actually uses some brain power, because I know you have it.”

“Technically speaking, the first heroes were criminals serving out their probations in America. We just gentrified it,” Izuku corrected with a sniff.

“And that was one hundred and fifty years ago. This is now. You couldn’t be a hero if you so much as got detained by police.”

“And that’s bullshit,” Izuku muttered. “Statistically, ‘scarier’ mutation quirks are---”

“Disproportionately detained by police, yes, I know. The world’s fucked up, you’re mad, you don’t even want to be a hero, you’re young and full of ideals, I get it. So I genuinely cannot figure out why you didn’t just reach into a Men In Black novel and just…” Aizawa trailed off, and Izuku arched an eyebrow.

“Erased yours and Nezu’s memory and implanted a new one? As if that would stop Nezu. He’d figure out the discrepancies. I can’t do everything. I still have to exist here.”

“And if you had to wipe someone’s memory?” Aizawa challenged.

“I wouldn’t talk to you about it.”

“Heroes are the checks for police, anyways,” Aizawa pointed out. “Japan has a low case of mutation discrimination. We’re not America.”

“I’m aware,” Izuku drawled.

“Why are you actually doing this?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku’s eyes drifted down to his own chest.

“There’s nothing more conforming to the status quo than being a hero, Eraserhead. Checks. Balances. Control. Oversight committees. Orders. When you’re a hero, your job is to hold up the status quo. That’s probably the perfect place for someone like me to hide. Other people can rock the boat, but I’d just end up blowing it up, and then everyone’s drowning.”

The words sounded hollow to Izuku. That wasn’t what he really wanted to say. But the reality of the thing was that that was the logical choice, the logical reasoning. It was what made sense, for what he was and what he was doing.

“Would you believe me if I told you you’ve made me hate liars?” Gremlin asked, and Izuku swallowed harshly.

“Is that the answer you’re sticking with?” Aizawa asked, and Izuku scoffed before looking aside.

“Dreams are for the people who could never know what the stars look like, Eraserhead. That’s the whole point of dreaming. Can we start training now?"

“...Fine,” Aizawa said and began to stalk towards Izuku. “I’m going to very clearly line out what we’re doing here. You can rely on pre selected support items you can pass off as collectibles or things you made. You cannot rely on books. Ever. So we are going to rewire your brain to forget the primary function of your quirk. You will jump. And jump. And jump. Containment is going to be your best friend. You will be a support combat type hero. And a speed type. You are going to be fast. Understood?”

“Understood,” Izuku said. “But…”

“But what? ”

“...I need one more support item. One second.” And before Aizawa could even stop him, Izuku was whisking through the meadow to grab his newest charged book and whisking out right behind Aizawa, flipping through the book to the marked page.

“Midoriya, what are you doi---”

“I said one second,” Izuku replied as he pulled off the magnetic bookmark and tucked it in his back pocket. Reaching up again, he ran his index finger across the lines of text to find the sentence he needed. “Ah. There we go.”

His hand reached in as he circled around and the ink melted against his skin, the cool pages enveloping him as his fingers closed against the cold, squirming metal. Without another word, he pulled out, leaving the pages completely intact as the ink dried on his fingertips, brandishing a wriggling, massive robotic scorpion.

“Midoriya, what are you doing?” Aizawa demanded as Izuku tilted his head back and opened his mouth. His free hand snapped the book shut as Gremlin started to cackle. Aizawa’s scarves flew at him, but it was far too late.

The scorpion was dropping into his mouth and Izuku let it crawl down his throat, scarcely resisting the urge to choke on the thing. Aizawa seized the book from him and flipped it back and forth as Izuku swallowed harshly. Pain erupted at the base of his skull as the scorpion stung him, and he winced once, only once.

“Izuku, what did you just do? ”

“Made myself a martial arts god,” Izuku replied casually as the rush of information overtook him. “Should we test it?”

“...No?”

And all Gremlin could do was cackle.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you want to tag along?” Asuma asked for the hundredth time as Izuku tied his shoes and rolled his shoulders.

“I told you. Tosh is going to be there,” Izuku replied and cracked his neck. “Besides, I never get to ride the motorcycle with you. And I haven’t tried out the new guest pass yet!”

“Nezu is probably going to launch you into the workshop at subsonic speeds,” Asuma said dubiously. “I think he’s already working on what your schedule will look like.”

“I’m not sure how he expects me to manage a dual heroics and support schedule,” Izuku complained, as if he wasn’t the primary person pushing that, and Asuma handed him his helmet.

“You have a time turner,” Asuma pointed out.

“For emergencies. I think it’s going to be pretty obvious really fast when I keep showing up in two places at once. It’s going to be a hot mess, uncle.”

“At least you have Power Loader confirmed,” Asuma pointed out. “Give him a few hours and he’ll figure out that arc reactor problem for you.”

“The problem is the arc reactor has to be compressed, ” Izuku said. “With the same power output. It’s going to be a nightmare.”

“I’m sure. Let’s get going. You have an actual, real friend to meet.”

“Have you ever met Tosh?” Izuku asked, deliberately ignoring the tone of Asuma’s voice as his uncle pushed open the front door.

“No. Ms. Joke talks about him, but from what I’ve heard, he’s a pretty reserved kid. Not sure how that happened, but I’m told he gets good grades and does well in school. Bit of a loner, though.”

“Yeah, that’s why we get along,” Izuku muttered as he slung the helmet over his shoulder. “I like him.”

“You know, I think this might be the first time you’ve actually met one of those internet friends,” Asuma commented.

“I might meet up with my dnd group eventually,” Izuku replied with a shrug. “We’ve been talking about it.”

“Yeah? How’s the campaign going, anyways?”

“Kiyoko still has favoritism issues,” Izuku complained as the elevator doors dinged shut on them. “Honestly, she needs to stop that. It’s so annoying.”

“Well, have you talked to her about it?”

“Yeah. She fixes it for a week and then goes right back to it,” Izuku muttered darkly.

“You could just take your druid and leave. ”

“I could do that,” Izuku said, in a tone that said he was not going to be doing that.

“Does Gremlin still want to play?”

“Yes,” Gremlin hissed.

“No,” Izuku lied, like he wasn’t preparing the damned thing a chaotic evil barbarian so he could gratuitously live out his fantasies of carnage and mayhem in the event Izuku’s druid dropped dead.

“Oh, you’re grown enough to lie now?” Asuma teased as the doors slid open. “I could see you twitching last time you played. You haven’t come off push to talk for a month.”

“He backseat plays,” Izuku complained. “It’s annoying.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do,” Izuku muttered as Asuma led him out into the garage.

“Why don’t you just make a character and pretend you’re playing it?” Asuma asked. “I bet he’d be a riot in a dnd campaign.”

“Or he’d cause a riot.” He would definitely cause a riot.

“He’d be the best of the… what did you call them? Murder hobos?”

“Please stop trying to sound cool, uncle.”

“There is literally nothing cool about you talking to your uncle about the One Ring of Power trying to take over your dnd campaign because you have no one else to talk to about it.”

“Please stop dragging me,” Izuku muttered as color rose in his cheeks. Asuma just laughed and swung onto the motorcycle.

“Hop on, squirt.”

Grumbling English curses under his breath, Izuku clambered on behind Asuma and jammed on his helmet.

“Fair warning, I think Aizawa hates me now,” he said offhandedly.

“I’m well aware,” Asuma replied as he turned on the bike. “You should feel special. Kids labeled ‘problem child’ are always the ones that make it to graduation.”

“I don’t believe that,” Izuku said flatly.

“Grab me,” Asuma ordered and Izuku wrapped his arms around his waist with a sigh. Asuma kicked the bike into gear and steadily peeled out onto the road, and Izuku preoccupied himself with burying the helmet into Asuma’s back.

Really, Aizawa had been a brutal trainer. Izuku had never jumped so much in his life. The teacher didn’t lay a hand on him after Izuku ate a scorpion robot in front of him, which was---

“Which was fair. I wouldn’t touch you, either.”

Izuku was going to ignore that.

In any case, Izuku was annoyed with the whole ordeal. Aizawa seemed purely focused on improving Izuku’s quirk, perhaps to make a point, and talking very sparingly. Izuku had no idea if he was a good teacher at this point, but he was certainly a hardass. He might make progress under his tutelage, or he might rage quit. If Aizawa didn’t rage quit first, that is. And if Izuku had anything to say about it, he’d be the first to tap out.

It wasn’t that Aizawa was a bad guy, Izuku reminisced as Asuma cut through the hot Musutafu streets on his way to UA. On the contrary, Aizawa was a pretty decent guy. It was just the principle of the thing. The idea that as soon as Izuku was found out he had to be put on a list and watched like a ticking time bomb and removed from the society every fourteen year old was used to to protect society.

Surely Aizawa could understand why the teen was pissed. Surely he could understand how colossally unfair Izuku’s entire life had been and would continue to be. Surely he could fathom that just because Izuku thought he could do something didn’t mean he would do it.

Izuku just could not believe he had the audacity to ask why he was letting this happen. Didn’t he fucking get it? Didn’t he understand?

Izuku could do a lot. He could do so much. He could be anyone he wanted to. Hell, it wouldn’t take much for him to get creative and just leave the world he lived in. He could reach right into the pages of Narnia and grow his own tree from the pages of the Magician’s Rings and make his own wardrobe to escape into. It wouldn’t take very much effort at all. He could just leave. Go live out a world of fantastical adventures and utterly divorce himself from the reality he subsided within.

He could do it. He was a rook on a chessboard, but he was also the one that could just pick himself up and take himself off the board entirely.

But the fact remained that so long as he chose to stay, so long as he chose to endure, the consequences of his choices would always be there. Waiting. Watching. Lurking in the shadows. And so he had to make the right choices. He had to do the right things.

Right things like not bringing out the ring of power and not becoming a hero and not revealing himself as having a quirk on live television and not telling the full truth of everything to Bakugou fucking Katsuki , of all the fucking people, and not lying to his mother and uncle for once in his life about what he told an old soul lost on a rooftop, and not dropping out of school, because that was only more suspicious, and not trying to make friends with someone who hadn’t done anything to him, and yet he was going to lie to him all the same and bring him into his home so he could meet his family so they could lie to his face with sickly sweet smiles just like they lied to Present Mic because Dad was gone and never coming back and---