Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when he finally decided to end it all.
The everpreseaent drone of nothingness in his head had grown to a deafening roar that blocked out most of the rest of the world. His thoughts were no execption. It was easier that way. To stay numb to everything. He'd realized that if he never had any skin in the game in the first place, there was little more he could lose.
It was a means of existance that had settled itself deep in his bones as the years progressed. Subtly at first, then desperately near the end. He couldn’t find it in himself to care what happened to him, when he'd realized nothing would change.
The day of his death had been exceedingly average-sunny and cloudless-until, of course it wasn’t. In the morning, the villain fight he’d passed on his usual route to school elicited nothing other than slight annoyance as he detoured through a back alleyway to get to class on time. The usual jeers of null and useless followed his unhurried steps as he navigated to homeroom. They’d long since lost their edge, though he wasn't completely sure when. Izuku hadn’t cared to backtrack his memories to find out.
He maneuvered over an outstretched leg without so much as blinking as he turned the hallway to Ōta-sensei’s homeroom.
A robotic dip of the head to the man did nothing to stop him from marking Izuku as tardy, despite the two minutes until the start of class. It did, however, allow Izuku to avoid the swat to the head accompanied by a comment about respecting elders, to which he was somewhat grateful for.
The spiderlillies on his desk, the vulgar threats spelled out in ink were familiar enough that he simply sighed before sitting at his desk. They too had lost their biting edge, more a hindrance than anything at this point. He’d learned early on that he’d be blamed for any stray petals left behind, so he simply unzipped his tattered yellow backpack, placed the flowers inside and laid his head on his table. If anything, his classmates' tenacity to pull the same thing every morning was impressive. Where exactly they procured the money to continue supplying their spider lily stash was one of the great mysteries of Aldera Middle School.
His bland reaction must've been nothing worth noting, as his classmates acted as if he was invisible for the rest of homeroom.
And then the day continued on as it always did: random marks to his record from teachers, the near constant snide comments and the occasional quirk filled shove, hit or kick from any classmate that deemed him important enough to harass today. Which, of course, was most of them, but that was a moot point.
The comforting drone in his head remained steady, constant, as it usually did, not quite loud enough to drown out everything around him, but enough to maintain the distance between reality and the comforting numb in his mind.It was almost surprising how long it’d taken him to slip into the embrace of nothingness, to succumb to the pleasant hum of a consistency that would never cast judgement on him.
It was funny how much could change in a decade. It'd been almost exactly a decade since he’d been diagnosed quirkless and the world had deemed him unworthy of any form of care.
His attachment to his physical body had been the first to go. What better way to practice saving people if he was the one to hurt instead of them? So he took beatings, after beatings for kids, and adults he barely knew. It'd been thrilling to feel like he was protecting others, even if more often than not, it was from his supposed childhood friend's mood swings. He'd repeated his resolve over and over, until even that had grown thin. As time went on, he'd simply concluded that it's quite difficult to save people if they too turned on him the second they knew about his quirk status. So, he settled for suriving, rather than jumping headlong into physical fights he could never win. Seperating mind and body was easy once he'd realized how much it could block the pain.
The next had been his attachment to his mother. His poor, overworked mother who’d realized she was unequipped to deal with a quirkless child. Especially when he'd been hell bent on breaking his body in the name of becoming a hero. Medical bills went from rarities to weekly occurances, triple the price of any quirked kid's visit. It became clear that hiding his injuries were a necesisty to maintain her dwindling desire to care for him. But even then, between her increased insistence on overnight shifts and the decreasing returns to their cramped apartment at all, Izuku couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to her. Let alone seen her face.
Despite everything though, he hadn’t quite let go of his dream of heroics. He clawed with all his might to retain that one, stupidly naive, but incredibly precious dream in his heart. It was the one thing that motivated him to continue school, to continue until graduation.
Izuku was determined to be a hero.
So, when their last teacher of the day let slip that Izuku had written U.A as his school of choice, he expected Kachaan’s anger. He expected the stubborn boy he once called his friend to make a big stink about how he was the only one from their school that was allowed to go to U.A. Izuku didn’t say anything, his tired gaze boring into the blonde's own fiery red eyes as he ranted. It was more the same.Maybe at one point he would have protested, would have tripped over himself to fan Kachaan’s ego, but not anymore. He was so tired of it all. Tired of every damned person deciding what was best for him, so he let it wash over him.
And perhaps that was his mistake: Not caring. Perhaps his unblinking, half lidded gaze stirred up something animalistic in the other boy. Not that he would ever know of course, he'd never been one to read his mind.
Usually, Kachaan’s anger was predictable. He’d start monologuing, maybe set off his quirk for dramatic effect, then have his cronies rough up Izuku as he made his point. Or, on days when he was especially mad, for whatever reason, he’d personally engrave his quirk into Izuku’s skin as a reminder not to cross his path again. That was the usual. It had become a habit to separate mind and body as they went through that familiar song and dance.
What Izuku didn’t expect was something he’d never thought his ex-friend would stoop as low as to say,
“Take a swan dive off the roof and hope for a quirk in your next life” The blonde sneered, quirk popping, before exiting with his gang. Izuku had hardly noticed that school had long since ended, too stuck in his frozen state of silence.
Izuku sat on the floor for a long while, staring blankly at the door the other boy had left through. It was hard to describe the feeling washing over him. It was so raw and foreign, and- it was only as he noticed the wet droplets falling on his palm that he belatedly realized he was crying.
Oh. I’m upset.
Perhaps something deep inside him never thought Kachaan would stoop as low as telling him to kill himself. The boy had refrained for ten years-always willing to push the limits, but never willing to cross that line.
Until today.
Until now.
Until Izuku’s threadbare desire to become a hero threatened him on a level that he couldn’t accept.
The roar in his ear droned on, encroaching on the bitter betrayal that slipped into his head unbidden. It swept over every inch of his body as he broke out in a cold sweat. He didn't even bother to wipe his tears, letting them fall until they dried up. Eventually, he pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed his backpack and settled into the numbness in his mind. Perhaps a bit further back than usual. The distance between reality and his mind only grew, the gap only widening as he reiterated his resolve. Clinging to it. He just had to graduate middle school. Then he was free from the tides desperate to pull him under, and, with any luck, he’d be on his way to becoming a hero.
It was with that thought that he began his walk back home. He’d thought that’d be it-that would be the last of it before he could return to his dark apartment, wallow and pass out before starting the routine anew tomorrow-if not a little more resigned than he'd been today.
But of course his luck would never be that good.
In one moment he was trudging slowly beneath an underpass and the next he was encased in some kind of green slime. The man-slime(?) being began muttering something about skin suits, which was gross, but mostly incomprehensible with his ears plugged with the man’s aforementioned slimy insides.
Probably a villain, he thought quietly.
Izku’s survival instincts briefly kicked in as soon as he realized he couldn’t breathe, and he began clawing for a way out of the sludge. However, just as quickly, he wondered if it would be so bad to die like this. It was no swan dive, as Kachaan had so elegantly put it, but the sensation was almost pleasant, mirroring the safe emptiness in his mind. It soothed his burns, settling the gaping rawness in his body. And just as quickly as the thought crossed his mind, his struggles dissipated as he embraced the encroaching black spots in his vision.
Drowning was quite peaceful he decided, as he closed his eyes for what he thought would be the last time.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it wasn’t Izuku’s time to die quite yet. A sudden blast of air threw him from the sludge as he landed on the concrete with an ungraceful smack. This time, he truly did pass out as his head bounced off the sidewalk.
He awoke from the darkness to a slapping sensation and, more pressingly, a throbbing headache that rivaled that of the singular hangover experience he’d had in his life-that is to say: it hurt like a motherfucker. Grimacing, he sat up, wheezing for air, only to be blinded by the whitest smile he’d ever had the privilege of encountering in his short life.
“I AM HERE” The man bellowed.
It took a painful few seconds of silence before Izuku’s brain caught up to what he was seeing and by then, the man-All Might he realized with a start-was already preparing to leave. Ignoring the stinging realization that he was still alive, he forced himself to remain grounded in reality. That dying spark of heroism in his heart spluttered to life as he gazed at his childhood idol in front of him.
“Wait-” He croaked, reaching a hand out to get the man's attention. His fingers latched onto his pants as he attempted to form a coherent sentence.
He did not plan for the man to leap into the air at that moment, but he found himself suddenly flapping in the wind like a sad, slightly terrified, kite in the wind. It took All Might a few moments to realize what had happened and after reiterating that he absolutely would not let go, it seemed the man finally got the hint. Within another minute, they landed, rather ungracefully, on the rooftop of a tall building.
Izuku fell to his knees, head spinning from the sudden turn of events as he blinked spots from his vision for the second time that day. Ignoring the protest in his joints, he whirled to All Might, cutting him off mid-lecture and asking the question that had been burning on his tongue since he was four years old.
“Without a quirk, can I become a hero like you?”
He waited with bated breath, feeling more alive than he had in years to hear the man’s answer. So what if it was some stupid PR approved ‘anyone can be a hero’ bullshit, he just needed to hear the words from this man-his childhood hero-and he could hold on a bit longer. A bit of hope to keep him-
“No.”
He nodded automatically, his mouth moving before his brain,
“Of course, thank you so much, I so-” He cut himself off as he processed the response.
No?
The static in his head, abated since he’d realized who’d saved him, came crashing down in one fell swoop. Izuku felt the blanket of emptiness he’d found comfort in pulling him in so tight it was suffocating. The roar in his ears drowned out the rest of All Might’s ramblings, as that one word repeated in his head.
No.
No.
No he couldn’t be a hero.
Right.
Of course he couldn’t, who had he been fooling all this time? It’d been drilled into him day in and day out, but he’d stubbornly clung onto that impossible dream to keep him going. No hero school would accept a quirkless student, and even if they did, it would only be a repeat of Aldera. How could he have been so stupid, so naive. If All Might, the number one hero in the world, knew he couldn't be a hero, then who was he to try to prove that wrong? He'd never been special enough to become the first quirkless hero, that much was clear. Especially now, as his idol began to ramble about doctors and police officers. The bitter truth hit him all at once.
He would never be a hero.
The static in his mind spread quickly, coating his entire body in a tingling sensation. He could no longer feel the slime coating throat, nor the throbbing behind his eyes. Izuku didn’t even notice as All Might, seemingly content with his lecture, took off again.
No, he only felt the despair of his reality crashing into him. He took a step forward. Then another. Then another after that until he was toe to toe with the ledge of the roof.
It would be so easy to slip into the darkness. He couldn't survive a fall from this height, so he'd never have to worry about living with the consequences of his actions should he fail. There was no one that would mourn him. His mother wouldn't notice for some time, his teachers would only breathe a sigh of relief should he unburden them with his existence.
Yeah. Izuku thought. This was the only way it was supposed to be.
With that thought he finally, after fourteen years of stubborn resolution, let go of his dreams of heroism as he tipped forward. There was nothing holding him back now. He could finally be free.A quick, painless death-a moment much kinder than everything else in his life as he hit the ground. He was finally at peace, the numbness swallowing him whole as he slipped into permanent sleep.
And Izuku? Izuku wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when he finally decided to end it all.
The same, however, cannot be said for what happened next. Because Izuku was thinking all too much when he was abruptly awoken once more, a bloodcurdling scream ripping from his throat.The quiet of death escaped him, forcing him back into consciousness with all the gentleness of a drill sargent with violent intent.
And with it, something in him permanently fractured, barring him from the escape he so desperately desired.