Chapter Text
“Mom, can we go to the store?” Izuku asked, somewhat nervously. “It’s just there’s this new All Might figure that’s only going to be on sale for a limited time and—”
“Baby,” his mom squeezed his cheeks, smiling warmly at him as he squirmed half heartedly. “I promise we can go in a little bit, ok? I just have to send a couple of emails for work.”
“Thanks mom!” Izuku threw himself at her and wrapped his arms around her as best he could as she laughed and hugged him back. He’d always been small and puberty had hit him much later than his peers, but what he lacked in size he made up for in energy and enthusiasm.
His mom kissed him on the top of his head. “It’s ok baby,” she ruffled his messy curls as she gently unwrapped herself from his embrace. “I know how much you love him.”
“He’s just so cool!” Izuku babbled as his mom watched with an adoring look on her face. “I’m gonna be just like him one day! I’m gonna protect everyone and make everyone feel safe! Especially you!”
“I just know you’ll be an amazing hero baby,” she told him earnestly. “You may not be the strongest, or the fastest, or the most powerful, but you have a good heart and you want to help people. That’s what being a hero’s really about.”
It didn’t take long for his mom to finish her emails, which was good because by then Izuku was practically bouncing off the walls with eagerness, and they both bundled into their falling apart old car and set off for the store, Izuku happily chattering and his mom happy to listen, her warm laughter lighting up the dingy car.
“And yesterday I was listening to Present Mic’s radio show! Do you think I could have a radio show?”
His mom giggled and reached out a hand to ruffle his hair, her eyes still trained on the road. “I think that you could certainly talk enough to have your own radio show. Present Mic’s a very talkative man, but I think you just might have the edge on him there baby.”
“Thanks! And what do you—”
“Baby?” His mom asked suddenly, the worry in her voice freezing him in his seat and making his words shrivel up in his throat and die. “Do you see that?”
Izuku followed her gaze to an apartment complex they were approaching, dull and gray but with no signs of anything. Definitely nothing that could provoke this kind of reaction from his mom. “No?” he said slowly, unsure. “I don’t see anything.”
His mom looked nervous and that was really starting to freak him out but she glanced at him and put on a shaky smile. “I-I’m sure it’s nothing baby. Just forget about it.”
Izuku didn’t want to just forget about it. He didn’t know what his mom had seen that was making her this nervous. She was a timid woman by nature, generally quiet and not at all confrontational but she didn’t often spook easily. She wasn’t the type of woman to jump to conclusions over something she saw out of the corner of her eye and freak herself out over it.
But she was his mom, and he loved her, so he’d drop the subject. “Ok!”
He started talking again, albeit slightly subdued, and little by little he watched the tension in his mom's shoulders vanish until by the time they drove past the apartment complex it wasn’t even there at all as she laughed in her usual gentle, relaxed manner.
All of a sudden a devastating explosion rocked the car and a strange feeling of weightlessness engulfed Izuku as the world tilted through the windshield. He could only faintly hear over the ringing in his ears and they were filled with his mom's scream as familiar arms wrapped themselves around him protectively and suddenly their car hit the ground with a shriek of crushing metal and burning rubber.
Izuku was thrown against the windshield but a warm, soft body softened the impact as glass shattered behind it and a terrifyingly familiar voice let out a pained whimper. Her grip was like steel around his chest and a disgustingly warm fluid was seeping into his shirt.
“M-Mom,” he choked out, shaking her by her wrists. He couldn’t turn around or push her off of him, she was too heavy. She didn’t respond, didn’t move. “Mom!” he cried, desperately shaking her as tears began to blur his vision. “Please, come on. Please answer me!”
“I AM HERE!”
Steel creaked and groaned as a massive hand tore the car open and plucked Izuku and his mother out as if they weighed no more than dolls. Sunlight washed over Izuku’s tear stained face as he was brought face to face with the radiant grin of the #1 hero. “Mom,” he croaked as he felt her torn from him. He kicked and squirmed in All Might's overwhelmingly powerful grip as he saw his mom's limp body, one leg twisted at an impossible angle, her nose smashed in and blood dripping from a dozen wounds all glinting with glass. “Mom!” he screamed.
“Now now my boy,” All Might tried to reason with him as his thrashing and fighting grew more desperate. “I’m sure your mother will be fine. The paramedics will be able to patch her up.”
Izuku couldn’t even bring himself to form words properly past the lump in his throat as fear pooled in his gut and he sobbed so hard it hurt. He barely even registered All Might clearing the wreckage in a single jump, the crumpled form of a villain visible amongst the smoking wreckage, and handing his mom off to the paramedics until one bundled him into the ambulance alongside her.
The ride to the hospital was just one long, hazy mess of fear and worry and loud, frantic yelling and the incessant beeping of the machines that were helping to keep her alive. Before Izuku could bring himself to focus he was sat on a flimsy plastic chair outside of the operating room having been deemed fine by the doctors.
His mom had taken the brunt of the damage. The worst he’d gotten from the crash was some painful bruises and a black eye but that didn’t even begin to cover the damage that was done to her.
All Might was there. The #1 hero. The symbol of peace. Why couldn’t he save her? He should have been able to stop the villain attack. No one should have been hurt this badly. Especially not his mother.
Just as grief began to give way to the faintest glimmers of resentment the door of the operating room burst open to reveal a stressed looking surgeon in bloodstained scrubs. “You Midoriya?” she asked tiredly.
“Yeah!” His voice rose high in desperation. “Is she-?”
“She’s alive,” the doctor said shortly. “The damage was extensive, but she should be able to make a full physical recovery after Recovery Girls' monthly visit here. The only issue is that… she’s completely unresponsive. I’m sorry kid. She’s in a coma and we can’t say for certain when or even if she’ll come out of it. It could be a day, a month, a year.
Could be never.”
With those simple words Izuku Midoriya’s world cracked and shattered, a gaping pit opened below him and he was falling endlessly in it. The doctor's next words, asking if he had other family or friends that they could call to pick him up, fell on deaf ears.
He had no one else. No family, and definitely no friends. He hadn’t had a friend in years. He was quirkless. The weakling. The laughing stock. It was always just him and his mom.
And now it was only him.
He would have burst into tears all over again if he had any tears left to give. What was going to happen to him now? He couldn’t live by himself. He had no job, no access to his mom's bank account. When people found out he had no one to turn to they’d put him in the foster system, ship him off to some new family where he’d be shunned or neglected or abused or worse. He had no delusions of what life would be like in a home without his mother.
With a titanic effort he pushed all of those thoughts out of his mind. “Can I see her?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The doctor nodded tiredly. “Yeah, sure kid.” She made a motion with her head to follow her. “Come on. We’ve already taken her to a room.”
Izuku trailed behind her through the too white corridors of the hospital, the stench of chemicals and disinfectant heavy in his nostrils. The doctor pushed open the door to room 107 and he was through in a second but he flinched and recoiled at the unfamiliar sight of the woman on the hospital bed.
Thick green hair hung limply around her head, stained with dried blood and sweat. Her face was mottled purple and yellow with bruises, one eye was swollen shut and her nose was clearly broken. Her eyes were closed, her face was peaceful despite the damage, her breathing was even. It was as if she was only sleeping.
He bowed his head over his mothers broken form and the tears came from somewhere because his vision blurred again and the side of the flimsy mattress darkened. She was hooked up to half a dozen machines, the only things keeping her alive in this bleak, sterile place. The rest of her body was covered by a thin blanket but he had no doubt that it was just as badly damaged.
The heart monitor thudded its repetitive beeping into Izuku’s head and in a moment of vicious anger he had to stop himself from kicking at it. He had always wanted to be a hero but in the end she was the one who’d sacrificed herself for him. How could he even consider calling himself one if he couldn’t protect the person who was closest to him?
All of a sudden an instant feeling of claustrophobia washed over him. The room was too small, his heart thudded in his ears but all he could hear was that never ending beeping. An ode to his failure.
He pushed himself up from where he was resting against the bed, breath coming shaky and panicked as he brushed aside the doctor's polite but reserved questions. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t go into foster care. He couldn’t face his failure.
He couldn’t face her.
Izuku ran, drowning in the unrelenting beeping and whirring of the machines.
—————————————————————
His house was empty.
Of course he’d come here, where else could he go? There was nothing else, nobody else for him to turn to. But the lack of sound, of movement, the pure absence of anything was driving him mad.
He couldn’t just stay here. After a little while he’d run out of food, the power company would cut the electricity, the water would get turned off. He couldn’t go back to school. Just the thought made him feel sick. Even on his best days school drove his mood into the gutter and he was far from his best day right now.
Grief and anger coursed through him in equal portions. At himself, at All Might, and most of all at the villain. People as selfish as that didn’t deserve anything. All they did was take and take and now they’d taken his mother from him.
Resentment burned in his veins as his anger only grew and grew with each passing second, with each poisonous, evil thought until it reached a wailing crescendo and just as suddenly faded into the background.
He moved like a sleepwalker and drew the largest, sharpest knife they owned out of the knife rack in the kitchen. The sight of the gleaming steel in his fist hardened and sharpened his anger into action.
He wanted to hurt them. The villains. He wanted to make them hurt like he hurt. For their blood to ooze from their wounds as they watched in horror. For their bones to crack and shatter as all they could do was scream. It was only fair. After all the hurt that they’d cause and would cause.
A ghost prowled the streets of Musutafu that night. A ghost wearing the shape of a 14 year old boy with tear tracks down his cheeks, knuckles white on the hilt of a knife and piercing green eyes that almost seemed to glow in the darkness.
A distant scream made Izuku halt and turn his head toward the source of the sound. He’d wandered into a rougher area, one where alleys weren’t safe at this time of night, especially for children. The best case scenario for him would be a beat down.
Either way he clutched his knife tighter and made his way through the gloomy alleys towards the noise. A faint trickle of hope stirred somewhere in him, that maybe he could help someone before he died out here tonight. That he could spare someone innocent from meeting his mothers fate. His own safety was something long since abandoned. As it was he could barely feel the chill of the wind his body was so numb.
He stepped into the mouth of an alley, bathed in moonlight and eyes alight with a feral anger at the sight of three grown men standing over the frightened form of a young woman. A red, hand shaped mark stood clear on her cheek.
They looked over and did a double take at the kid approaching them. “What the fuck?” the tallest one sneered. He had cat-like eyes and claws for hands and held himself with an easy arrogance. “Isn’t it a bit past your bedtime kid? Fuck off and we won’t have to lay you out. This doesn’t concern you and it doesn’t need to either.”
“Let her go,” Izuku said flatly. All of the men’s gazes fell onto the knife in his hand and as one they all burst into laughter, shaking each other by the shoulders as the green haired boy just stood there.
Then suddenly he moved, years of bullying having made him quick at least, and before the mirth had drained from their faces he slid the knife home into the side of a blonde man. He stumbled back, a look of shock on his face as he clawed at his side in a vain attempt to keep the blood in before collapsing.
No one was aware of the woman scrambling to her feet and fleeing but Izuku as the two remaining men glared daggers at him. “You little shit!” the cat-like man roared as he lunged forward, claws aimed to tear into Izuku’s face.
Izuku ducked under the clumsy swipe and slashed at his exposed stomach with his knife, sending the mutant reeling. The hilt was becoming slippery with blood and his sleeve and jacket were already coated in the crimson liquid as he kicked at the man’s leg.
Izuku felt someone slap his right arm and all of a sudden it hung limp and useless as a fist rammed into his stomach, sending him sprawling and making him gasp for air. The third man was standing over him, looking furious as his boot raised and slammed into Izuku’s face, sending spurts of blood from his nose everywhere. The green haired boy snarled and twisted, trying to dodge and get up but another slap rendered his leg useless too, and all he could do was thrash as the boot lifted up again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cat-like man stagger to his feet, one hand pressed against his wound as fear washed over his face at something Izuku couldn’t see.
Then, a flash of metal was visible for instant before the man with the paralyzing quirk stumbled backwards, face contorted in pain as a throwing knife embedded itself in his shoulder. The cat-like man tried to yell but steel flashed again and a red shape leapt from the rooftops, ramming the hilt of a sword into his windpipe as another blade went through his thigh. The man collapsed to the ground, wheezing before losing consciousness moments later.
“W-Who the hell do you think you are!” The remaining man yelled, trying to sound tough but visibly shaking as the red garbed figure approached him menacingly. Now that he was closer Izuku could see the plethora of blades strapped to him, the blood red bandana, the bandages around his arms. A vigilante.
“W-Well then?!” The man yelled again as the red garbed figure sheathed his swords. “Answer me!”
“You’re not worth my blades,” the vigilante said in disgust as one punch knocked the man unconscious.
Izuku felt feeling slowly trickle back to his dead arm and leg, but before he could move he felt a boot on his chest and looked up into eyes as red as the blood splattered on the blade of his knife.
“Well,” the vigilante smirked. “What have we here?”