Chapter Text
Izuku didn’t think of himself as anything special, if anything, he was rather boring. He didn’t really do anything outside of school other than study. He loves looking up the things he had been learning in school recently, he studies everything. He has spent hours researching the human body, and even more learning about quirks. However, no one really cares what he has to say because he’s quirkless.
Because of this, Izuku has been following a carefully crafted schedule he made when he was four.
Wake up and get ready, but be careful not to disturb Inko. He refuses to call her mom, I mean, she stopped acting like one year ago. If he’s lucky, then she leaves for work before he wakes up. Afterall, being a nurse has some pretty chaotic hours. If he’s unlucky then she is already awake. If it’s the latter, then he sneaks out his window. If it's the first option, then he's usually able to grab a granola bar before leaving for school.
Once he gets to school, however, he follows a strict set of rules, which are necessary if he wants to graduate middle school. Starting with number one, don’t speak unless spoken to. His teachers don't like him, so they like hearing him talk even less, to fix this he just simply says as little as possible, only talking when addressed directly.
Number two, don’t answer any questions, ever. Answering any questions in class, unless he is specifically called on, can only end in one of two ways. The first is that he answers the question correctly. In that case his teachers usually accuse him of cheating and send him to the principal's office. The second, getting the question wrong usually ends up with him getting made fun of for being ‘dumb’ and ‘stupid’ whether he got the question wrong deliberately or not.
Number three, don’t fight back. This is one of the first rules that he learned, fighting back only makes it worse. If they were already physically hurting him, then he usually ends up with much worse injuries than what he was probably going to get away with before. If they hadn't gotten physical yet , then he also ends up with pretty bad injuries.
Number four, don't do good on any assignments. Just like in rule two, if he does good on anything, whether it be a test or a worksheet, they just accuse him of cheating and send him to the principal. Although, he has learned that if he gets a D, then he can usually get away with a passing grade and not get accused of cheating.
Those are the main rules that Izuku follows, and if he follows all of them perfectly, then he has a much higher chance of making it home with no new injuries. This seems to be one of those days. He had managed to get away from the school unharmed, although he can’t say the same for his notebook. Katsuki had thrown it out the window, and it had landed in a koi pond. Izuku knew that he and Katsuki weren’t friends anymore. He let go of that childish dream a couple years ago, I mean, friends don’t beat each other up. But, Izuku is smart enough to know that calling him anything other than Kachan to his face would be a bad idea.
He tried it once. Let’s just say that Izuku went home with a black eye that day. Only god knows why, but Izuku never made that mistake again.
He stuffed his notebook into his old backpack. Honestly, he should get a new one, but where would he get the money? He barely has enough for food and his library card, a new backpack would mean no eating for a month.
While Izuku was thinking about stitching up his backpack when he got home, his thoughts trailed back to the advice Katsuki had given him not even 15 minutes earlier. He couldn’t say that he was surprised, he was quirkless for heaven's sake, he’s been suicide baited hundereds of times. In fact, it’s got to be on the daily by now. Really, he has to come up with better insults, that one was pretty unoriginal.
Izuku, now muttering his thoughts aloud, didn’t hear his notebook hit the ground behind him. He would come to regret not sewing up his backpack sooner. When he got lost in thought it was as if he genuinely were lost and couldn’t find his way back to reality. Unfortunately, this meant that Izuku did not notice the sewer grate rattling in front of him, and walked directly into danger.
What seemed to pull him back to reality was the sewer grate flying past his head at a lethal speed. That is definitely not normal. Any normal person would have probably gone running if something came flying at them in a shady alleyway, but Izuku Midoriya is definitely not a normal person.
Before he could do anything other than look down to see the source of the flying man hole cover, Izuku was forcefully grabbed from where he was standing. He was so busy panicking that he hadn’t even realized he could no longer breathe until he felt the sludge try to make its way down his throat.
Izuku clawed at the sticky slime that seemed to encompass his entire body. In his panic he completely missed what the mucilaginous villain had to say.
It felt like hours of clawing and tearing at the goo that was withholding his freedom. He could feel himself getting weaker every second. Izuku started losing hope. He stopped fighting back, just accepting what he thought was his fate.
Izuku’s lungs burned as fresh air rushed in.
The force of All Might’s punch basically sent Izuku flying.
The last thing he remembered was his head colliding with the wall.
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Izuku’s consciousness came and went multiple times. Each time, becoming more and more aware of the soreness in his throat, the pain in his chest, and how every time he tried to breathe it felt like swallowing sandpaper. He laid there for awhile, waiting to see if the pain would go away. After what could have been either minutes or hours, Izuku didn’t know, he opened his eyes.
Luckily it was still light out, but it definitely seemed like it would be getting dark soon. After a brief moment of panic, Izuku noted that there was no longer a sludge monster anywhere near him. He sat there for a bit, trying to make sense of what happened. He went over it in his head, walking home, thinking, and then there was something trying to kill him. Turns out today wasn’t going as well as Izuku had hoped. Now both he and his notebook were broken. God, his brain felt like it had been scrambled and then run over by a truck.
Izuku slowly pushed himself up. Briefly stopping halfway when his brain felt like it was going to explode out of his head.. Although, if the bullying was good for one thing, he had an insane pain tolerance, but Izuku could think about that later. It was starting to get dark, and he knew how dangerous it was to be out after dark, injured, nonetheless.
He grabbed his backpack from where it had apparently been propped up next to him against the wall, and started making his way home. His pace was pretty slow, but if he kept it up he might be able to make it home before it was pitch black outside.
At that thought he paused. Home. He didn’t know if Inko was working tonight or not, and he definitely couldn’t climb the fire escape like this, hell, he was barely able to walk. But, he had no other choice, he would have to risk using the front door. He knew the risks. If she caught him, then he would definitely be punished, and being punished on top of being injured would end very badly.
Apparently if his thoughts were good for one thing, it was distracting him, as he soon found himself standing in front of the apartment.
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Maybe in a different universe things went differently. Maybe All Might was closer to his limit causing his punch to be less powerful, stopping Izuku from passing out. Maybe he wouldn’t have shown up at all, adding one death to the news.
Maybe somewhere his mom helped him fix the holes in his backpack, stopping his notebook from falling out of his backpack. He could have gotten All Might's signature.
One can spend hours thinking about what could or could not have happened, but at the end of the day, they never did, but even the smallest of things can change what happens next.