Chapter Text
It was cold outside. Izuku could tell that it was going to rain, and he knew exactly where his umbrella was; in his room at his desk completely dry now and dry for the foreseeable future as Izuku was nowhere near his house to pick it up. It didn’t matter much, he was almost at his destination anyway.
This customer was lucky, he was just almost out of range of Izuku’s services. The house listed was just on the edge of Musutafu, any farther out and Izuku is sure the request would have been denied. Izuku was sure he would have denied it as well if it wasn’t for how much they were offering to pay, an amount that was completely unreasonable for two hours. He was being offered 30,000 yen, much more than his usual 1,500 hourly rates.
Izuku knew that he should probably be concerned that someone was offering so much for him to babysit their kid, but the transfer to Izuku PayPal account had already been processed, so Izuku continued on his way. He should be glad he was getting any business at all.
The website Izuku used to advertise his babysitting services required your quirk to be listed, meaning the only customers he got were people who had gotten canceled on or family friends. He was never usually the first choice for a baby sitter, actually, he was most likely the last. People were afraid he was too fragile, that their kids would have to protect him if things went wrong. It seemed like most people just stopped reading at quirkless and completely missed all of Izuku’s achievements, such as being a black belt in jiu-jitsu or his achievements in gymnastics, both of which he only did to get more babysitting jobs.
Izuku was completely capable of protecting himself and a child, but that went overlooked by most people. Of course, he had a few faithful customers who may have found him by accident but stayed by his side none the less. For example, the neighbors next door, who really needed someone to babysit but had their regular sitter cancel on him, forcing them to ask the kind Inko next door if they could borrow her son for an hour or two. Now he babysat the kid every Thursday from 4-6.
Or his favorite customers the Izumi’s, or they were his customers. Technically he still babysat for Kota, their son, but things really changed with their death. Izuku was there too, sitting on the living room floor with Kota coloring in a hero-themed coloring book when the cartoons were interrupted by breaking news. Izuku had seen the boy many times since then, but it was always harder to schedule things after they enrolled him in daycare to return some sense of normalcy into his life. Izuku loved Kota, and he was pretty sure that Kota liked him back, at least a little.
And that’s how it always was. He wouldn’t get customers unless they were desperate, but they would usually ask him to return to watch their kids again. Izuku was glad he was getting customers, he needed the extra spending cash and didn’t want his mother to have to take money out of her own pockets. She wouldn’t let him help with rent, so it really was the least he could do.
Izuku arrived at the house, his Gps proudly proclaiming he had made it to his destination. The house was pretty, a one-story house with a simplistic exterior and nice landscaping that perfectly lined up with the house next door. A regular suburban house.
Izuku was five minutes early, as usual, so he took his time to walk up the steps, admiring the scenery as he walked. This didn’t seem like the house owned by someone who would blow through so much money to hire a babysitter, but Izuku’s analysis wouldn’t help him now.
He knocked on the door, checking his watch to see the time. The door opened revealing a tall man with black hair and a calculating gaze. The man couldn’t be older than twenty, which was odd considering he already had a six-year-old. Not that there was anything wrong with teen pregnancies, his mother had him when she was only seventeen, but fourteen is very young to do that kind of stuff. But Izuku didn’t care, that was this man’s life and Izuku was only her to hang out with his kid.
Izuku let out a small smile. “Hello, I’m Izuku Midoriya,” He stuck out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir!” The man reached up with a gloved hand and shock back. Maybe his quirk was touch-activated or something like that, and- Izuku shoved the thoughts out of his head. No time for quirk analysis now, he had a job to do. “You hired me from six to eight correct?”
The man nodded. “Yes, I hope it’s not too much of a bother but I may be home later than usual so could you stay with the kid a little while longer? At least until I come home I mean, she’ll be asleep by eight.” They begin walking out of the doorway, the door shutting behind Izuku.
“I need to be home by ten, so as long as it’s not longer than an hour it will be fine, you already paid more than a three-hour rate.” The other man chuckled lightly before pointing towards the living room.
“Eri’s in the living room, she’s a little jumpy, but that’s because her parents left her, leaving her to me, giving her some trust issues.” Izuku frowned, that explained the ages at least. The man went to turn to the door “I’ll be off now, It was lovely to meet you Izuku Midoriya.”
“You too Mr. Chisaki!”
___
This whole situation was weird. Izuku couldn’t place it but it just seemed like everything in this house was wrong.
For one, the house looked nice, but not like a kid was living in it. Izuku babysat for many people, meaning he had seen many different types of houses. At any other babysitting gig, Izuku would have known that a kid was living in their house as soon as he walked through the door. Whether it was framed crayon drawings or marker on the walls, there was always something that gave away the presence of a child. But walking through this house he noticed nothing. No out of place drawings or dirty shoes by the doorway. The house, while being filled with furniture and paintings, was cold and empty, disguising the fact that there was a kid in the living room.
That was the other thing, the kid, Eri. She was kind but as Chisaki had mentioned, she was very jumpy. But she wasn’t just ‘a little jumpy’ like her father had put it, no, she was absolutely terrified of every movement Izuku made. It took her half an hour to, as he had put it, help him finish all the difficult coloring pages. She seemed to always be on alert, and Izuku was starting to think that maybe her parents had done more than drop her into Chisaki’s hands. But looking at her, she had no scars or bruised or anything that would elude to a physically abusive relationship.
When Izuku was told of her parents, he was expecting to see a kid in a similar state as Kota had been after his parents had died; Confused, scarred, and not willing to trust. While their situations are not similar in the slightest, Izuku couldn’t help but think that Eri would share similar grief over the disappearance of her own parents. But no, she did most of the things Izuku had asked and was quietly resigned to watching Izuku out of the corner of her eyes when he moved.
That and the fact that he felt like he was being watched didn’t help with the weird mood either.
By an hour though, Eri had started her own coloring page. She still wasn’t talking, but they were making progress. She was coloring in a picture of Hawks while Izuku continued working on the All Might picture Eri had helped him with. Izuku had a lot of heroes themed coloring pages, they were easy and most kids didn’t really care what they were coloring in.
It was almost eight, meaning Chisaki would be back soon, maybe a little late if what he said earlier was true. Eri was now quietly leaning into Izuku’s side watching some sort of cartoon on the television, her hawks drawing on the floor having been finished with Eri’s own artistic touch with purple wings and black hair. Chisaki had said that Eri should go to sleep around this time, so it made sense that she was beginning to doze off next to Izuku. Chisaki had never mentioned where her bedroom was, their interaction had been short, and Izuku wasn’t willing to wake up Eri to ask her, so he just draped the throw blanket that was over the couch onto the both of them. He continued to watch the screen until he heard the click of the door unlocking.
Izuku slowly shifted Eri off of him, trying desperately not to wake her up. He stood and grabbed his babysitting bag, which was really just a glorified purse full of supplies like coloring books and his phone charger. He walked towards the door to meet Chisaki, but he never quite made it there.
A sharp prick was felt on his neck, and before he knew it he was in an unconscious heap on the floor.
___
Izuku groggily woke up in a white bare-bones room that gave off the aura of a prison cell.
The walls were white as well as the bedsheets and tile floor. There was a small desk towards the wall that was also white that had a clock on top of it displaying the time. It was five pm.
This was impossible, It was just eight-thirty, even if he had fallen asleep at Chisaki’s house and been placed in a guest room it didn’t explain how time suddenly went backward. Izuku looked around the room more finding absolutely nothing else in the room. Izuku had the odd feeling that he wasn’t in that house anymore. He didn’t really remember anything after he had moved towards the couch with Eri.
This was wrong, this was all wrong. He felt more unsafe than he felt when Kacchan and his idiot parade yelled insults at him or shoved him into a wall. He felt real fear.
He was in a room he didn’t recognize in a place he didn’t know and it seemed to be the next day.
Izuku wanted to scream but he settled for crying.
___
Izuku’s head rose as he heard the door he had tried so desperately to open an hour and thirty-two minutes ago open.
He rose immediately as a man he didn’t recognize walked through the door. He was wearing a white coat, a lab coat. He was flanked by two other men in matching attire. They didn’t seem to portray any outward emotions about seeing a tear-stained thirteen-year-old boy, but they didn’t seem like the kind of people who particularly cared for anything.
Ther presence didn’t lighten up the room like Izuku would have assumed three other warm-blooded creatures would, if anything their overall deminer seemed to make the room colder. “Up,” The one in front motioned for the two others to grab Izuku. “The boss wants to see you.
The next few moments were weird. If not for the fact he was about to meet some sort of mysterious boss, he probably would have called it a low rent spa day. He was scrubbed from head to tow with harsh exfoliants and lathered up in what could only be described as moisturizing hand sanitizer. He smelled like a hospital.
But he felt clean, far cleaner than he felt after a long shower in his home.
But the invasive nature of the cleaning was something Izuku didn’t particularly care for. It felt wrong and was incredibly uncomfortable. The whole time he was getting clean others were doing it for him, but they clearly didn’t care for Izuku’s comfort as they harshly rubbed him raw. They also drew his blood and checked his vitals as if they were his general practitioner.
He was then handed an outfit to change into. It was a bland cool grey t-shirt with a matching pair of drawstring shorts. He changed and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and puffy, but so was the rest of his body at this point. The outfit was bland, as expected by all grey attire, but it was cut oddly. It looked more like short-sleeved hospital scrubs than an everyday outfit.
Izuku was then escorted to yet another empty room. This one however was not all white like all other rooms he had entered thus far. It was a grey-purple. That color seemed to stain everything in the room, from the couch to the walls. The men who had escorted him were standing by the door, so Izuku didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He was sure if he was truly alone without the guards he would have another good old crying session, but with them trained on his every move, the idea was becoming less appealing. They just watched him and didn’t talk to him, not like Izuku would want to talk to them, but the last time he talked to someone was when someone had asked him if his regular blood pressure was 110/70, which Izuku wasn’t quite sure of in the first place.
“Hello, Izuku.”
Izuku jumped as the meek voice erupted from behind him. It was familiar, something he had heard recently but differently. It was definitely the voice of Chisaki Kai, the man who was introduced as Eri’s father. But it was different.
His voice was laced with something different then it had been before in the house, it was something that Izuku couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t anger, he’s felt that before, but it also wasn’t irritation, the things he would expect someone to feel towards a quirkless kid.
Chisaki had to know he was quirkless, he had hired him after all. The website displayed his quirklessness for all to see. Izuku turned, his suspicions confirmed when he saw the man, but he was dressed differently. Before in the house, he had been sporting a business suit, an outfit that would make sense if he were leaving for a business meeting. He was now wearing an odd coat, purple and lined with fur, as well as a plague doctor mask.
“W-what am I doing here?”
Chisaki chuckled as if there was something Izuku didn’t know. “Follow me.” Chisaki motioned towards the couch, griping Izuku’s hand with his own gloved one. He sat on the couch tugging on Izuku’s arm so he would sit as well. It was silent for a moment, Izuku feared what would happen if the man opened his mouth.
Chisaki broke through the silence “You know, Izuku,” He shifted to see Izuku, who was creating distance between the two by sitting on the other end of the couch. “Your, very lucky.”
Izuku’s face contorted into one of confusion. He had expected Chisaki to say many things, but not that. “What?”
“Your lucky,” He began to smile slightly. “You’re not tainted by those awful quirks. You’re pure.”
Izuku stared at him. Was this man real? Izuku had been getting bullied for years because he didn’t have a quirk, and this man came in saying that it was a blessing, invalidating nearly everything he had gone through. He had so many things he wanted to say at that moment. He so desperately wanted to curse out this man, yell and scream until his throat became raw. But he didn’t.
He was scared.
Chisaki continued. “Our world is so focussed on quirks, it’s disgusting. We have people galavanting about wearing colored spandex displaying their disgusting mutations, and they’re getting praised for it. Don’t you see Izuku,” He took in a sharp breath. “The world is falling apart. And I intend to fix it.”
Izuku continued his silence. This man was crazy. He was kidnapped by a crazy man. Did he kidnap Eri too? Were there more people like him here?
“From now on the only orders you will take will be from me. Any orders from anyone else should be ignored unless they are carrying a message from me, understand?” Izuku nodded, refusing to make eye contact. “Good. Every day you will be escorted to Eri’s room where you will watch over her until someone comes and takes her or you away. You will be dismissed by me if she is taken away from the room you are to stay until dismissed.” Chisaki grabbed a bag from the table, Izuku’s babysitting bag. “We saw your notebooks so you will also be doing analysis work, Understand?” Izuku nodded again. “Good, you’ll be meeting with Eri in five minutes, so get ready.” He shoved the bag towards Izuku.
And with that, he left. Leaving Izuku with the two guards.
Izuku wanted to cry again, but he decided against it. It was pretty obvious that Eri was in a similar situation and Izuku was sure fresh tears would make her feel worse.
Izuku reached into his babysitting bag to see what he had left, he knew they had probably searched through it to find his phone. He found everything in a similar state to how it had been before he left his house, with one exception;
All the hero coloring books were gone.