Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On the side of the road on a busy street, there used to be a playground. Kids playing superheroes would march it up and down, pretending to be their favorite heroes on patrol. At the end of the road sat something you could call an in-between of a university and training facility. A university, because young adults go there to study, to learn, to be educated. A training facility, because young adults go there to be molded into something. While you could say that about any university, or really any place of learning, U.A. Academy truly earned it. Its campus was nearly a town in itself, complete with parks, squares, city streets and ominous domes that resemble closed-off sports arenas. With the recent addition of the Heights Alliance dormitories, the students that went to U.A. Academy never had to leave. And they probably shouldn’t. The world was filled to the brim with people flaunting their power. Not in the way of venture capitalists finding loopholes, but real, actual, goddamn superpowers. The kind where any joe-schmoe could be staring down the barrel of a bank robber’s gun, not knowing whether they should be scared of the weapon, or if the guy wielding it would explode into bees.

Exploding into bees sounds like a raw deal on the superpower lottery, you might say. And you would be right. Few things worse in life than everybody in the world getting superpowers, and you’re stuck with “bee explosion”.

Of course, the only thing that would be worse would be to not have any powers at all.

The playground has been torn down. Needed to make room for another U.A. Academy facility, probably something drastic, like how to rescue people from collapsing buildings due to earthquakes. But about twelve years or so ago, two kids used to play there. It had a sandbox in the corner, behind a large installation that resembled a wooden fortress, complete with fun slides and elevated nets for would-be climbers or explorers. The fortress was the playhouse for the cooler kids. They played simple games of tag, or cops and robbers… Except, of course, they blasted their powers at each other. Parents panicked each time some kid shot fire out of their fingers and singed some other kid's hair.

The sandbox, that was for the shitty kids. Not shitty to each other, or shitty to other kids, but ones with shitty powers. What constitutes a shitty power? Anything uncool. And if you didn’t have powers, no matter how convinced you were that next year you would really, really get them? Sandbox for you. Build your own fort, so the cool kids could kick it down later.

Two kids used to play in that sandbox all the time. Or at least, close to sundown, when other kids weren’t around as much. They were about five or six years old. Old enough to know whether you got to join the ‘Cool Power Club’ or not. 

The boy recently received a diagnosis. No powers for this kid. Sure, the doctor said it happened to 20% of all people. But out of all the kids in his neighborhood that were his age, he was the only one. That stung for Izuku Midoriya. Forever powerless, or “quirkless”, as the adults called it.

The girl got a slightly better hand in the lottery, but not by much. Her powers of transformation could change her appearance into that of any other person. Voice, hair, eyes, size, everything. Sounds like a great superpower, right? Imagine being able to look like anybody in the world! Except, for little Himiko Toga, it came with a caveat. Transforming into someone required consuming the blood of whoever she wanted to become. Leering kids called her things like “mosquito” or “scabby”, and, just like Izuku, her peers exiled her from their impeccable playground fortress.

“Well, I think your power’s really cool!” The boy told her. Their small hands were patting down on a castle made of sand, slowly fortifying it. “Who cares if you need blood, there’s blood everywhere, we all have blood.” He nodded. Whatever he said made sense to him.

“You really think so, Izu?” Himiko was about a year older than Izuku, but not much smarter.

“Duh!”

“Cooler than All Might?”

“Nobody’s cooler than All Might, Himi.” The boy responded with such sincerity Himiko couldn’t help but giggle. He was All Might’s biggest fan, after all, and he took everything related to All Might extremely seriously. 

“But yours is at least… this cool!” The young boy held out his sand-covered hand, sticking out three fingers.

“Three cool?”

“Third coolest!”

Out of potentially millions of superpowers, rank three is pretty high. Not that a five and six year old can even count as high as one million.

“So, who’s cooler? Who’s number two?”

Memories. Nowadays, at nineteen years old, ex-college student Himiko Toga would’ve said the second coolest was Stain. Someone who was fed up with the status quo, fed up with a system that continued to try and mold everyone into pawns. In a world before powers, you had to be a good worker. Now, in a world with powers, you had to be a good hero. And if you didn’t fit in that mold, you’d end up being discarded. For somebody without friends, a college dropout obsessed with blood, wounds and gore, somebody whose unique gift involved hurting others? Stain’s manifesto on fake heroism appealed to her. It gave her anger a point of exit, to leak out the hatred that had been stacked on her. Parents that told her to be normal, to act right. Fellow students that told her she was creepy, that excluded her as much as they could. Teachers that reprimanded her for vandalism and cruelty perpetrated by other kids. The beatings her classmates would give her if she tried telling who was actually responsible, and the shouts she’d hear as she licked her wounds clean. 

Kids are cruel. Save for one. She had someone who believed in her, for just a brief period of time, before little Izu had to move away with his mom and dad. Somebody who thought she was cool, somebody who thought she could be a hero, that she could earnestly save others.

“Number two… That’s gonna be me!” Young Izu told her. “And then, we’ll team up together, and we’ll hang out with All Might, and we’ll save everybody that needs our help!”

Genuine, innocent, and more than a bit childish. The ideal of heroism that Stain wanted. That Himiko wanted to be.

In the present day, right now, that ideal was flying overhead, holding on tight to a bunch of other young folk. They had skated and launched themselves off a huge ramp made of ice, just so they could reach for the hand of the person they were out to save: a U.A. Academy student that the League of Villains had kidnapped in an effort to lure All Might into a fight with their own leader, All for One.

The plan and night were both, to put it mildly, convoluted.

It wasn’t the first time Himiko and Izuku had seen each other after they were separated during their childhood. In fact, the League of Villains she had joined had been something of a stalker group, targeting U.A. Academy’s freshmen. Invading their homebase, attacking them during training expeditions, making attempts to recruit the would-be heroes. Their goal was to strike a blow at the world’s greatest hero, by hitting him where it would hurt the most: his weak little students, his “child soldiers in-training” as the League’s leader put it. During one of the students’ expeditions, Himiko met two students of the academy. At the time, she did not put together that one of those students was her childhood friend. After all, her friend didn’t have superpowers, and the student she met did.

But now, she recognized him. Flying, carrying a bundle of ice-skating weirdos, desperately going overhead and taking the kidnapped student with them.

Remembering her old promise to her childhood friend, Himiko snuck away. She turned her back on her new comrades at the League of Villains, not knowing if they would be able to get away. Turns out, when you try to get the attention of a bonafide Superman, you get it. The League’s base lay in shambles, with their leader slammed to the ground. In Himiko’s mind, the League was done. She jumped a fence, then disappeared into a crowd of onlookers that had swarmed around the fight of the century.

It wasn’t until later that she found out her old crew had escaped mostly intact. All for One was taken into custody, him being the only “casualty” of the fight against the world’s mightiest hero. But in return, that same hero lost his almighty powers. Both sides of the chessboard had lost their queens. The League of Villains was alive and well, and U.A. Academy took that threat extremely seriously. The campus at the top of the road, that same road where Himiko and Izuku’s old playground used to be, was turned into a veritable fortress. But, we know all about that, don’t we?

Dormitory life had suited Izuku. It didn’t take long for him to get used to living by himself, or, mostly by himself. Heights Alliance consisted of three concrete, blocky buildings: one for each year of high schoolers. The freshmen of U.A. Academy were split into two classes, 1-A and 1-B. 1-A took the west wing, and 1-B the east. The ground floor of the building had a communal living room for each wing, with the second to fifth floors used for the students’ bedrooms. Each floor of the dormitories was split into two halves: one for the boys, and one for the girls (ne’er shall the two meet). The neatness and orderliness of the building gave it the vibe of a hotel, but with all tenants and no staff. Cooking was taken care of on weekdays, but on weekends, the teenagers had to use the communal kitchen to cook for themselves. They would often get together to cook meals for the whole class.

For the first time in a long time, Izuku had friends. His classmates smiled when they saw him, they talked openly about silly things like heroics, movies, or even just what they would be making in the kitchen next weekend. He had people he could trust, like the froggy and frank Tsuyu Asui, or the overly serious Tenya Ida. He built up a friendly rivalry with the quiet Shoto Todoroki. And for once, he was able to make conversation with a girl he liked, the bubbly and caring Ochaco Uraraka, without being made fun of.

Long since had he forgotten about his very first friend. The blonde girl from the playground, the only one he could talk with about becoming heroes. At least, without somebody picking on him.

That said, the other “friend” from his childhood was also part of his class. Katsuki Bakugo, his high school’s coolest kid. With his brash nature and explosive power (literally), everybody knew he was a shoe-in for U.A. Academy. Of course, everybody said that, not knowing how he treated the quirkless Izuku. Stealing his belongings, destroying Izuku’s hero notebook, writing taunting messages on Izuku’s desk and locker, and enough physical violence to count as assault. Katsuki treated Izuku like shit, and why wouldn’t he? You don’t get to be at the top without stepping on others, especially when the adults just let you. It’s amazing what good grades could do for an awful kid’s rep.

But at U.A. Academy, Katsuki was no longer the top dog. Sure, his quirk was still plenty strong, and he had both brawn and brain to keep up at the prestigious university. But this time around, the smartasses he would usually bully into submission had athletic skills and powerful quirks to match him. Hell, to jump circles around him. That’s how Katsuki felt, at least, especially after seeing the reborn Izuku in action. The quirkless kid that he had known since elementary school had somehow developed a quirk: unmatched strength that could shatter the user’s own bones. And while Izuku was, frankly, too much of a goody two-shoes to take out his years of frustration on his high school bully, Katsuki remained wary and distant.

An orderly and sometimes strict environment, coupled with friends and rivals, working hard so he could belong in a field that Izuku had only dreamt of… He was having a ball, even if his “outside excursions” got him in trouble from time to time.

But the next bit of trouble, he wouldn’t even need to leave his room for.

Chapter Text

Izuku awoke to a scratching noise at his window. It was a constant and rhythmic sound. A sound odd enough that it couldn’t be ascribed to a bird, or perhaps a bug. He stood up from his bed and reached over to his desk to turn on a small lamp. Then, he turned to the curtains of his room and opened them. At first, Izuku only saw the dark of night covering the glass window. He needed some time for his own eyes to adjust, before he saw someone else’s stare back at him. Yellow, slanted, cat-like eyes, just off to the side.

Without thinking, he unlocked the window and swung it open. Someone standing in the courtyard wouldn’t have been too strange, albeit a bit creepy. But someone was at his window. His second story window. He poked his head out and saw a silhouette hanging from the drainpipe that ran down the building.

Before Izuku could see who it was, or ask what they were doing there, the silhouette heaved itself into the open window. Two shoes kicked Izuku square in the chest. He stumbled back, landing on his ass. He would have dodged were he not so bewildered, a helpless buck eyeing down an apex predator. A weight landed on his chest. Then the blade came out, poised with its tip aimed at his neck.

“Shhh.”

He forced his eyes open, not realizing he had closed them. Above him, those yellow eyes stared back. A girl’s eyes. She had one finger pressed to her lips, like they were playing a game of hide and seek.

Izuku had seen her during his training excursion: a blonde girl, about his age, her hair wrapped up in two wild buns on each side of her head. She was part of the group that had kidnapped Katsuki, and she even attacked two of his friends with a knife. The very same one that was now positioned right at his throat.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked. Her eyes were fixated on his.

“I do recognize-!” Izuku replied a little too loud for Himiko’s liking, and she pressed the blade forward, hitting skin, but careful not to slice.

“Not so loud.” She shushed him, again holding a finger up to her lips.

“I saw you in the forest, our excursion. You’re that girl from the League of Villains… You tried to kill us.” Izuku spoke in a hushed tone, unsure why he obliged.

“Did I? Maybe I did want to hurt you. Just a little bit.”

“Are you here to finish what you started? I’m not going to let you or your League near Katsuki again.”

“Katsu-who? Sorry, not interested.”

The callous reply surprised Izuku. The girl pulled her knife back slightly, still precariously close to his chin and neck. Her other hand dipped into the pocket of her beige cardigan. Combat training raced through Izuku’s mind, though most of it had been solely about controlling his absurd strength, not about complex maneuvers like disarming an armed villain. Still, given her relatively low weight, overpowering her shouldn’t be a challenge.

Himiko’s hand came out of her pocket, and she dangled an iron ring around her finger. A keychain. Attached to it, a point of recognition for Izuku. I mean, duh. The stark red-and-blue coloration of the suit, the blonde spikes of hair pointing upwards mimicking a ferocious hare’s, and that iconic grin. It was a little figure of All Might, shaped like an adorably fat chess pawn.

He knew what it was. I mean, obviously: his entire room was decked out in All Might merchandise and memorabilia. But it was more than that. He knew what it was. Gently placing his scarred hand on it, he lifted it slightly to look at the underside. Faded pencil scribbles, a kid’s handwriting: IM / HT.

At five years old, his parents decided to move. Same prefecture, same city, just on the other side of it. The playground he used to visit with his mom was now kilometres away. He was going to miss the other kid. Somebody who wasn’t in his class, but nevertheless someone he had bonded with. Their parents had even talked with each other, although only to explain the inevitable. Izuku would be forced to leave his only friend behind.

When they saw each other for the final time, he tried hard not to cry. Boys don’t cry, especially not heroes. Himiko and Izuku played together one last time, defending a sandcastle against villains they had made up, such as the Master of Evilness and, of course, the dreaded Manhorse. When dusk came, both sets of parents came to pick up their children. Himiko seemed out of it, staring at the ground for most of their goodbye. She was sad, of course, but people leaving her was the outcome she had come to accept. Her tears didn’t show until Izuku’s did. His cheeks completely wet from crying, he approached Himiko, holding up his hand. In it, a keychain, clumsily inscribed on the bottom by a sad young boy.

“Izuku Midoriya. Himiko Toga.” Modern day Himiko said.

It pulled Izuku back from his moment of recollection, a memory from childhood resurfaced. It was a moment that, he realized, left him completely vulnerable, trapped. Actually, trapped wasn’t the right word. Cornered, then? No. Ambushed? Also no. All of these words implied a sense of danger. One that, even with sharp blade nearing his throat, had completely subsided.

Eloquent as ever, Izuku whispered the words: “Holy shit.”

Himiko lit up,  a smile like the Cheshire cat appearing on her face.

“I’m so happy to see you again, Izu.” She said before getting up from his chest. She straightened out her skirt, dusted herself off, then reached out to help Izuku off the floor.

“So… Do you still think I can be a hero?”