Chapter Text
When the day had started and Midorya had gotten out of bed, he knew it was going to be a bad day. It was like a deep sinking feeling in his gut telling his to stay at home but alas, it was a week day and he had to go to school. He was used to bad days by now anyways.
He packed his bag, taking extra supplies of almost all his school utensils, knowing that most of them will be broken or stolen, and even packed an extra shirt in case Kacchan was in a bad mood. He wasn’t going to take any chances.
The trip to school was uneventful, a small mercy at the very least. He had rushed into the classroom just as the bell had rung, not wanting to spend any time alone with his classmates more than he already had to, not that a teacher being there would do any good. He couldn’t even count how many times a teacher had turned a blind eye when the other kids were tormenting him, or even participated themselves. He was just a quirkless nobody after all.
The school day had gone like it normally would. Kids tripping him in the hallway, taking and destroying his things and throwing his lunch, which was all fairly normal and that made him nervous. When he had a bad feeling and something worse than usual didn’t happen during the day, that meant that the end of the day would be even worse. Kacchan and his friends would probably beat him up after school again, and then he’d have to worry about hiding the burns and bruises from mom so he didn’t worry her. He never told her about the bullying, he was useless and the least he could do was prevent his mother from worrying even more.
Izuku had almost finished packing his thing at the end of the day and was about to get up and leave as quickly as he could when he saw Kacchan snatching one of his notebooks and froze. It was his quirk analysis notebook.
“Hero analysis for the future: volume 12. Would you look at that, worthless Deku still wants to be a hero.” He sneered as he came closer to Izuku. “You know a quirkless nobody like you could never amount to anything in life.”
“I-I know that I’m quirkless b-but UA allowed quirkless students to take the entrance exam a few years ago so I thought-” Midorya tried to stutter out, hands shaking as he tried to raise them in front of his face as Bakugou got closer.
“So you thought what? That a worthless piece of trash like you could ever compete with me?”
Some of Kachan’s friends cheered him on from behind. He turned to face Kacchan again only for him to explode the notebook between his hands. Throwing the notebook out the window (and into the koi pond below if the distant splash was anything to go by) he sneered at him, baring his teeth. He put his hand on Izuku’s trembling shoulder, the clothes and skin underneath sizzling as he activated his quirk.
“You know if you’re so desperate, you could always take a swan dive off the roof and hope for a quirk in your next life.” He said, voice dripping with venom.
With those words, Kacchan and his friends left him standing there, the pain in his shoulder only now catching up to him. After a minute or so of simply standing there, he decided to check on the burn. It wasn’t actually that bad, with only a few holes on his shirt and some light burns on his shoulder. He’d had worse.
By the time he came to the koi pond, his notebook was thoroughly soaked. Maybe this was the bad feeling he’d had all day? He had worked on this analysis notebook for almost two months and it had some of his best analysis like the one on Eraserhead. (He was really proud of that one.) As he flipped through the notebook, he saw that the ink had bled out all over the paper and his usually illegible writing was now unreadable. More so, the first and last few pages were so burnt that he couldn’t read anything. Great.
He was walking home, flipping through the book to see which of the pages were salvageable, when his stomach sunk. He half expected a hand to pull him into an ally on his side, but instead heard an explosion behind him followed by screams.
He whipped around only to be met by a devastating scene of ruined buildings and screaming people. He was about to ask what had happened, or simply run away like the coward he was when another explosion shook the ground, this one closer to him. Much closer.
He shielded his face as the heat of the blast knocked him down and had only a second to roll away as a piece of debris fell on where he had previously standing. He tried to stand up, only for his shaking legs to let him down and fall to the floor again.
He looked around but all he could see was destruction. There was a woman trying desperately to get a large piece of rubble off of her leg, a man crumpled on the floor, unconscious or maybe dead. There was dust and blood and smoke everywhere. The whole street was in ruins, chunks of buildings falling off and fires spreading rapidly. He looked around at the scene in a daze, only to be brought to his senses by a cry behind him.
He whirled around to see a child curled on the floor, sobbing. She thankfully didn’t look hurt except for a few scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs. With great effort, he got up and shakily walked towards the gil, almost tripping over the pieces of rubble on the floor and even though they were out in the open, he didn’t think inhaling all the dust and smoke was healthy. When he was close enough to the child, he grently knelt down before her and tried to comfort her.
“Hey, shh it’s alright.” He said in a low voice and hoped it sounded comforting.
“Are you hurt?”
That at least got the child to look at him and he managed to get a better look at her. She had dark green hair, almost like his own, and wide eyes. She looked around ten years old and also had some distinct frog-like features. If they weren’t in the situation they were in, he might have gone full on nerd mode and asked about her quirk. There was a slightly worrying cut on her temple but besides that, she didn’t look seriously injured.
“I-I want my mom!” the child sobbed out, starting to cry again.
“Was your mom here when the attack started?” he asked as calmly as he could. If he could find out where the mother was, then he could give her back the child. Sadly the news wasn’t that good.
“I-I got lost a-and walked away a-and t-then there was an explosion and I can’t find her!”
Well that was bad and Izuku was starting to freak out. Where were the heroes and the paramedics? They were supposed to be here by now and he knew at least a dozen heroes that patrolled this area. Why were none of them there! Then again it had always been up to him to save himself. The heroes were never there for him anyways.
He gingerly picked up the child that was still sobbing and held her close to him. He was about to get up when he heard a rumble behind him. In less than a heartbeat, he had turned around and encased the child as much as his small body could, before a third explosion went off and all he knew was black
“Midoriya! Are those charges ready?” Came a yell from in front of him as they ran through a maze of tunnels, dimly lit by the glow of their guns and gear. In the distance they could hear the yells and stomps of the enemy getting closer and closer to them.
“Aye aye captain! Just not sure about the remote detonator!” He yelled back between pants as he carefully carried the explosives he had put together on the run. In one hand were the explosives and the remote that should have been able to detonate the explosives, but some parts of it were banged up in the fight so he wasn’t a hundred percent sure it would work. With the other hand he gripped his side tightly as a bullet had grazed him only moments prior.
The plan was that since they couldn’t shake off the damn guards, they were gonna set the explosives, run for their lives and detonate it, bringing a majority of the tunnel down and hopefully shaking off the guards.
“What the hell do you mean you’re not sure about the remote detonator!” Alex yelled beside him, watching him worryingly as they ran. He could see the others glancing at him too.
“I mean it may not work as well as I want it to! Or at all.” The last part was barely a whisper but Lizzy (damn her great hearing) heard it.
“And what do we do if the detonator doesn’t work? We can’t outrun them; they’ll catch up eventually and shoot us all down or capture us.” Her voice was fragile, barely loud enough for everyone to hear. The group had been in situations like this before, just not this bad.
Even though they were skilled and fast, they were out of ammo and needed to wait for the laser guns to recharge. Lizzie’s mechanic prosthetic had broken down in the fight, Collin had been shot in the arm and their hover bikes had been destroyed. They were all tired and out of energy and if they didn’t find a way to shake off the guards now, they would die.
The thought terrified Izuku. He loved the group and they had become kind of like the family he never had over the last nine years of working with them. He had grown to love each and every one of them and the thought of losing them made him sick. The worst thing was how their death would impact all the people they have and haven’t helped yet. Since they had started to rob transports going to and from the underground megacities and give the resources to the people above ground a lot of people had started to have better lives. He didn’t want to see all their progress go to waste and the people start to suffer again.
They ran in silence for another few minutes, trying to think of a way for all of them to come out of this alive, to come up with a plan. The thing was, Izuku had a plan. He had had a plan since the moment he noticed that the remote detonator was damaged, and it was a good plan, a great plan. Except not all of them would make it out alive.
After he was sure that no one would think of anything else, he fought past the thick feeling in his throat and said, “I’m going to detonate the explosives manually.”
The responses were mixed. Annie, Lizzie and Alex yelled at him, telling him that he was stupid and trying to change his mind. Lenny and Collin, who knew what he was going to do from the start, simply looked down as tears streamed down their faces. Tony looked torn, like he wanted him to change his mind, yell at him, scream, but knew that he couldn’t do anything about it.
Lizzie grabbed Izuku’s shoulder and forced him to look at her. Her face was covered in tears and her short, pink hair was a mess.
“Listen up Mido. I’m not letting you do that. I don’t care what you think, I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for us.” Her voice was thick with emotion and had a slight tremble to it.
“You know there’s no other way. I’m the only one who knows how to activate the explosives manually and besides, I’d never let any of you die for me. Let me be the hero for once”
He knew his voice was shaky but he couldn’t cry. Not now. He had to do this for them. He had to do this one last thing for them. Before anyone could say anything, the sound of boots on the ground and gruff voices came closer. They didn’t have much time left.
“I love you, all of you.” He said, pulling Lizzie into a hug along with the others. He didn’t have anything to give them or confess, all of their feelings had been out in the open for years now, so he simply raised his fist and forced a smile on his face.
“Forever a Hood.”
The other echoed him, trying to put as much courage and bravery into the chant as they could, and that was the only thing they could give him. Their hearts.
With that, the turned around and ran with new resolve. They didn’t want to do this and he felt terrible for having to put them in this position, but he did this so that they could live on and continue to help people.
He got to work, setting up the explosives and rigging them up, but his mind never strayed from his family. It was like all the joyefull moments they had had together, all the heartbreaking ones and frightening ones, were replaying in his head. He supposed that was his way of saying goodbye.
When the guards came, they were met with a young man, dressed in a slim, black, armoured suit with a green hood covering his face. His weapons were nowhere to be found. He looked at the captain who stood in the middle and smiled, his grin sending shivers down the backs of the soldiers.
“Always a Hood.” He said with the courage of seven people and raised his fist, flipping the switch on the modified detonator. The smile never fell off of his face as the tunnel came crashing down.
When he woke up, Izuku- well he didn’t think he’d ever wake up. The blast was supposed to kill everyone near it, including him. If the blast didn’t kill him, then that means something went wrong. Maybe the soldiers survived and caught the group!
His eyes snapped open and he lurched up, ready for a fight, when he saw that he was… on a beach? He looked around to see the gentle waves of the sea lapping against the shore and the sky full of bright stars. Wait- the sky?