Chapter Text
All Might had never appreciated time management enough when he had his stomach. With his quirk, he had enough energy to keep going long past the usual restraints of human stamina. He had the same twenty-four hours as anyone else, but far less of those hours were needed for petty things like ‘sleep’ or ‘sitting down.’ At least, that was true. Now, he had three hours a day. And that number wasn’t increasing.
Now, as he ran through the sewers with less than ten minutes on the clock, he wished he’d taken a seminar or two. Maybe some enrichment training that occasionally got offered at hero conventions. It would have saved him the trouble of learning it the hard way.
Toshinori popped out of the sewer--eight minutes, he’s cutting it close today--and the slime villain was too preoccupied to notice. Toshinori bared his teeth at the display. Harming children was a special sort of low. At least this one had a quirk to protect himself.
Not that he should need to. All Might brought his fist back, quickly eyeing the height of the bridge, the breadth of the walls--and then he let loose.
“Destroit SMASH!”
Cleaning up took a few minutes of his time, but Toshinori always had time to meet fans. The boy, wide-eyed and shell-shocked, hadn’t been able to string together a sentence. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his quirk, a whipping sort of extra limb that extended from his lower spine. Shock tended to do that to kids. Toshinori knelt, conveying his most calming persona. “You’re alright, my boy.”
four minutes
Toshinori signed the kids journal. He smiled and ignored the shame that kept burning down his spine. He should be escorting him to the police. But his muscles burned, and his bones clicked in that dangerous way that meant time was up, and Toshinori ruffled the boy’s hair once more. “You were very brave,” he said, “but I am here. It’s ok now.”
And the boy nodded, still so wide-eyed and quiet. “All Might, I--”
“Farewell now!”
He didn’t have the same hours as everyone else now. He regretted it more than anything.
ooo
Izuku stood under that bridge for a solid five minutes before the enormity of what had happened hit him like a train. “I have. . . a quirk.” His eyes widened. He turned his head as if to see if anyone overheard. A short, startled laugh bubbled up from his chest. “I have a quirk!”
He turned and twisted, trying to see any sign of that strange limb that was his quirk. However, the only sign of it was his shredded shirt. That indicated a mutation quirk, but it might be invisible under most circumstances. Now that he focused, he could feel something under his skin. It bubbled and stirred with in sync with his racing pulse, but no matter how he focused, Izuku could not call it forward.
Adrenaline then? Or maybe a time-limit: Generating mass would likely require a lot of energy. That didn’t make sense, though, because he wasn’t exhausted. Izuku just felt alive. He was so close to death and now all he feels is electricity--he had a quirk and he met All Might.
And he met All Might! All Might saw his quirk and called him brave and signed his Quirk Analysis journal! That’s enough to make his head implode for a second time.
Izuku gathered his frantic thoughts around one rallying point--he needed to test this out immediately. His bedroom wouldn’t work. His new quirk left gouges in the concrete. It had cut that slime villain. A thread of guilt soured his happiness before he banished it. It hadn’t done much anyway.
Even without the flash of guilt, his frantic thoughts had calmed down with that sobering reminder. His quirk could be dangerous. He couldn’t safely try it out inside. With that in mind, he goes over the list of places where no one would think to look, where people purposefully look away. And then he sprinted there.
Izuku could have done without the piles of stinking garbage at Dagobah beach, but his first and second choices had been too populated. Izuku hopped in place, his cheer recovered by the run. It left him panting, but he was too excited to do much more than grin.
Despite the smell, this was probably the best choice. No one would care what he destroyed here.
. . .
And that ended up being entirely accurate, if only because Izuku didn’t destroy, gouge, scratch, or even move a single thing.
Frustration welling up, he flopped down into the sand. “What’s going on?” he murmured to himself. “Why won’t it work?” He refused to believe it was a fluke or a fever dream. He had felt it. He saw the evidence.
Then why wouldn’t it work?
Izuku bit at the inside of his cheek. The sky was turning dark overhead, a threatening sort of indigo that meant time was officially up. His mom would be worried. It was a long walk back and he no longer felt like running.
Izuku swallowed his disappointment and picked himself up off the ground. He brushed the sand from his clothes and navigated his way around piles of trash until he was back on the sea wall. The scent of rust and brine and rotting fabric clung to his clothes, the newest insult of a bad day.
He missed his chance to talk to All Might. His quirk refused to surface. He smelled like a dead fish. Izuku opened his journal as he trudged home and stared at the newest page:
My Quirk!
Everything below it was empty, and that just felt like the final indignity of a long day.
ooo
His mother hovered when he got home.
“You really need to let me know when you’re staying out so late, Izuku.” She looked over him as if to make sure everything is still in its place, and then tried to flatten down a particularly wild cowlick. “I get worried.”
Izuku ducked his head. His mom’s eyebrows had their own persona guilt-inducing quirk. “I’m sorry. I just lost track of time.”
Mom shook her head. “Text me. You’re growing up and that means you can go where you want, but let me know next time, ok?” She hugged him, and it chased away the scent of rot and salt.
Izuku opened his mouth to explain why he’d been gone so long--and then he shut it. He just hooked his chin over his mom’s shoulder and let the disappointment and frustration that had been stewing inside his chest leak out of him. Maybe he was no longer quirkless, but still useless. He was back at square one.
At least that didn’t feel like such a death sentence by the time he let go.
“I got attacked by a villain today.”
His mom stiffened in alarm, and Izuku hurried out, “I’m okay, though! All Might saved me!”
Mom pulled him over to the couch and got him water, fussing over him. It took several tries to keep her from needlessly getting the first aid kit. She sat back down eventually, and then Izuku had to digest just how scared he’d been. How helpless. How then suddenly he wasn’t. How, for a few minutes, he was nearly like everybody else.
He said a few words, because it felt worse to leave them unsaid. But for some reason, he couldn’t talk about that.
“I’m just so glad you’re safe,” His mom said, her eyes watery.
“I didn’t really talk to All Might because--” My quirk. I was too confused about my quirk. “I was in shock. I didn’t get to thank him.”
“I’m sure he knows,” Mom said soothingly. “I would want to thank him too. I’m so glad you’re home safe.” Her voice broke in the middle, but she smiled for him.
Izuku couldn’t bring himself to make things complicated. He didn’t want to answer all the inevitable questions that will come up if he fully talks about his day. So he gave his own tight smile, and said, “Me too.”
He went to bed early. Despite all his running, he wasn’t hungry.
ooo
Izuku woke up to sharp scent of brewing coffee. It filled the whole house like a blanket, comforting despite how overpowering it was. His clock let him know he was awake earlier than usual. He considered catching a few more minutes of sleep, but it was rare that he woke without feeling drowsy. He woke up to get ready, murmuring a quiet good morning to his mom as he passed her in the hall. Sometime in between showering (oh, why didn’t he do that immediately, his sheets smelled like fish now) and brushing his teeth, Izuku came to the conclusion he called it quits too soon.
“You haven’t had this quirk for ten years,” he sternly told his reflection. “You can’t expect it to work perfectly on the first try.” Nothing came easy for Izuku, and there’s no reason for that to change now. He worked in school and he spent hours researching heroes. Kacchan had his effortless brilliance, but Izuku knew better than to expect the same from himself. Wanting what you can’t have just leads to madness.
So he needed to do what he always did: put his head down and work.
He focused on remembering how he felt when he had his quirk active. He tried to draw that weight out from the base of his spine. It was unresponsive.
It stung that his body refused to work for him, but that was an old sting for Izuku. He funneled that frustration into dedication. By the end of the day, even his teachers had noticed that Izuku paid their instruction no mind. Kacchan yelled at him several times to stop muttering. One of those was during a test which Izuku barely read before turning in.
By lunch, Izuku hadn’t made any progress. The failure made his bento taste like glue, and he left it uneaten.
Strangely, all his food tasted awful that evening too. Awful enough that he had to spit it out when his mom wasn’t looking.
By the next day, when he still couldn’t bear to eat a bite of food, Izuku stopped thinking that his lack of appetite was psychosomatic.
Sitting in the cafeteria at school usually provoked a constant, low-grade nausea. Today was worse than that. “It’s just food. It’s pork. I like pork.” Izuku stared down at his lunch, his stomach preemptively declining the thought of cooperation. The longer he looked, the less it seemed like it was a good idea to argue. Maybe it was undercooked. The fumes wafting off the rice stung the back of his throat like he inhaled bleach. It screamed ‘bad idea.’
“. . . It’s not like I’m hungry.”
“Fucking hell, Deku, quit playing with your food,” Kaccahn snapped, shooting him a glare. Kacchan always glared whenever fate put the two of them at the same table, but it was raining, and their cafeteria was too crowded for him to sit anywhere else. “You’re making me sick.”
That made two of them, then. Izuku stared at his lunch for a moment longer before muttering an apology and throwing it away. He hated being wasteful, but if he ate any food, he was going to puke. He left for the library. If Kacchan stared at him as he left, what else was new?
ooo
Appetite suppressant quirks did exist. Usually they just were an ability to suppress painful hunger responses, and potentially to extend the amount of time required before the body would begin losing muscle mass. Neither of those ideas lined up with his initial impressions of his quirk. Creating extra mass required more energy, not less.
Izuku put a pin in that idea since there wasn’t really a way for him to prove or disprove it. As the week went by, he pretended to eat when his mom wasn’t looking. At school, he threw himself into theorizing.
Occasionally, there were plant physiology quirks that allowed people to photosynthesize their energy. Izuku spent hours looking at his skin for a faint hint of chlorophyll. He was paler than normal, but that was it. His hair took longer to disprove since it was already green, but he had managed to get access to the science class microscopes. His hair was plain keratin, the same as anyone else’s. Since purposefully avoiding sunlight didn’t affect his energy despite repeated trials, Izuku was forced to shelve that idea too.
After he got over the initial shock of not being able to enjoy his mom’s meals, it wasn’t that bad. Spending the weekend dodging his mom’s attempts to make him eat was the hardest part. He couldn’t explain that he was fine without talking about his quirk, and he had no way to prove his quirk existed.
The thought of trying to convince other people right now made him frantic. His peers already thought he was weird and hopeless. If he tried to change his quirk record without anything to show for it, then when his teachers inevitably commented on the change, he’d have to face everyone. They’d add delusional to the list of things that made Mudoriya Izuku a no-fly zone.
He didn’t need the attention.
He really didn’t need the attention.
ooo
“Hah! Read it and weep, losers,” Kacchan gloated serenely during math. He waved his 98 percent in front of his friend’s noses.
Some of them groaned, some just shrugged and congratulated him.
Izuku would congratulate him if it didn’t involve looking away from Heteromorphic Quirk Theory. As it is, he’s learning about hidden organs, and that’s really a lot more important to him than a math test.
“Midoriya-kun,” his teacher called out chidingly, for the second time. “Please come get your results.”
Izuku finished reading his sentence, and apparently that delay was long enough to spark Kacchan to grab it himself. “Ah, Kacchan, you really didn’t have to--"
“God, Deku, just trying to be fucking courteous.” He rolled his eyes, flipping through Izuku’s test idly as he walked towards him. “Oh, lotta red right there, moron--” Then Kacchan stopped dead, staring intently at the last page.
Izuku hesitantly stood and reached out. “Ah, thank you--"
“Is this some joke?”
Izuku blinked, and Kacchan’s face twisted into outrage. He slammed the paper down on Izuku’s desk, and a bloody “54%” and a smaller “please see me after school” stared up at him. “Uh?”
“Were you even fucking trying?” Kacchan glared at him, his mouth pressed into an annoyed line.
Considering that one of Izuku’s answers was a doodle of All Might, that wasn’t really a question that needed answering. Izuku fidgeted, unsure what to do. Kacchan came in two flavors when it came to tests: Thrilled or upset.
This is the first time Izuku saw him upset over winning.
“Ah, uh. . . Congratulations on your score. It-it was a hard test, yeah?” Izuku swallowed past the lump in his throat, suddenly very aware he wasn’t sure what was happening.
Kacchan’s eyes narrowed. “Oh fuck off, Deku.” He spun on his heel and stalked back to this desk.
Izuku watched him go, wide eyed. “Okay?” After another second, he sat down. He heard from snickers from the kids behind him. It buzzed in his ears, and he was hit with the uncomfortable realization that he’d been so focused on his quirk that he forgot.
Everyone found him hilarious. Midoriya Izuku was one big joke, after all.
Izuku bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t frown, and he returned to his reading. He wasn’t nearly as focused as he had been. Now he was alert, tuned into the noises around him, and he wished he wasn’t.
By the end of the day, he hadn’t finished his page.
Izuku sighed at the final bell and packed his bags. He had to talk to his teacher before he left, and now the itch of that failure was starting to hit his stomach. He ended up going against the flow of traffic, surrounded by the scent of sweat and the cloying feeling of perfume, hand sanitizer, and cleaning solution. It was a sharp enough combination to make him nauseated.
Or maybe that was just this conversation.
“Midoriya-kun,” his teacher said, eyebrows drawn up in concern. “You’re better than this. What happened?”
Izuku looked away. “It was a hard test.”
“Maybe for other students, but not for you. You’ve been scoring top marks in my class all year and you did perfectly on the preliminaries.” His teacher pinned him with a considering look. “Is there anything going on at home?”
“No.” All his problems came from outside his home. Except for the one in his body. But no teacher could help with that. They never had. “I just wasn’t prepared,” Izuku said dully.
“If you’re sure. . .”
Izuku was. His teacher tried to press, but Izuku had practice going in circles. He shrugged off suggestions for help with his studies and dodged even the idea of making an appointment with the guidance counselor. He didn’t want to help, and he didn’t want to be standing here. He just wanted to get back to his quirk because--
Just. The longer he went without seeing a sign, the more he started to think he’d made it up.
And as he bid farewell, that would have been the end of it.
“Oi, Deku!”
It would have.
Izuku jumped and whirled around. Kacchan leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, looking like he belonged wherever he wanted. What a power. To never feel out of place. Why couldn’t that be his?
“Don’t ignore me, asshole,” Kacchan snapped.
Izuku blinked, and realized he’d been staring. “Ah--I, uh, sorry.”
Kacchan rolled his eyes, a small break in the serious glint in his gaze. “Save it. Listen,” He said, expression sharpening once again. “You’re gonna go back in there and tell that dumbass you want a retake.”
“I-I am?” Izuku questioned, his voice rising in pitch.
“Yeah. Go.”
Izuku opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Ah, Kacchan, our teacher doesn’t allow--"
Kacchan scoffed, jutting his chin up. “Don’t give me that bullshit! What’s got you so high and mighty that you think you can just half-ass it when this is the only competition you can ever offer?” His palms popped and bubbled.
“Nothing!” Izuku defended. Only competition? True, the two of them were usually evenly tied in math. Sometimes, Izuku studied extra late just because he knew it made Kacchan furious to be second best. But only sometimes. And Izuku did just as well in his other classes. Even better in some.
. . . Classes which he had also been neglecting for the better part of a week.
While he was distracted, Kacchan grabbed his shoulder, and the shock of it doomed him. Kacchan steered him back towards the door despite Izuku’s frantic attempts to stall. “Then get back in there and prove it. I’m not winning on a fucking default because you were too fucking lazy!” Kacchan kicked the door open and shoved him through. He then slammed the door shut before Izuku could escape.
Izuku stared at the door handle with dread. The heavy weight of his teacher’s silence buzzed in his ears. Slowly, he turned around to find his teacher looking just as dumbfounded as him.
Izuku recovered his ability to speak first. It didn’t mean that he was eloquent with it. “So, uh, is there, uh, any chance I could--uh, try again? But please feel free to decline! I know your policies and I, ah. . .”
His teacher blinked in disbelief. He nodded. “Yes. That’s what I was trying to offer earlier, Midoriya-kun.”
Oh.
ooo
Kacchan stole his returned test the next day, and Izuku observed the way the sharp anticipation in his red eyes transformed into hot irritation after seeing the cheerful 98% decorating his page.
He always hated a tie even more than losing.
ooo
My Quirk!
Name:
Abilities: Heightened senses, particularly smell.
Izuku added at least one thing to his journal by the end of the week. He could only sit though so many classes mouth-breathing before he realized that no one else could smell bleach and mold and something really, really good quite like he could. But after he figured it out, it made his walk home a bit brighter. He could smell coffee from a mile away. He could also smell rotting things and blood, but Izuku tended to focus on the coffee since it was more common if he avoided the scenic route.
And his ears were better than ever. While it was a lot more useful for potential hero work, Izuku didn’t appreciate it quite the same. It distracted him until all he could focus on a jumble of heartbeats and breathing. Or worse, it made him hear people when they said his name, and then it was impossible not to listen.
Still, progress was progress, and repeated trials showed that Izuku’s sense of smell was more powerful. The proof was a lifesaver. He’d been so obsessive that he’d neglected everything else in his life. Now that he knew and could prove that something had happened, it made it a little easier to de-stress.
“You’ll be back by 9:30? You have your phone?”
Izuku nodded, reassuring his mom. “The announcement and merch drop at eight, but I’ll be first in line.”
Kamui Woods was finally getting his official merchandise debut. The agency had tried to keep it a surprise, but a few leaks to the deeper hero forums meant that Izuku knew exactly when and where to go. Hero Markets were temporary spectacles, but they always drew the most dedicated fans. The showcase would only last a few hours before disappearing. Everything there was bound to be limited edition, and Izuku was thrilled.
His mom smiled, warm and relieved. “I’m glad that you’re feeling better. I was getting worried.”
Izuku was getting worried too. He still hadn’t eaten, despite occasionally getting up to look in the fridge. But he’d gotten good at pretending he had. It hurt that he couldn’t eat meals with his mom, but he was researching quirks that required alternative diets, and it seemed to match his symptoms pretty well. Now all that was left to do would be find what he could eat. He would have to do it soon, because he was--
In all honesty, he was a bit freaked out.
But he definitely was feeling better, and he had an event to go to, so he smiled in return. “Yeah! I’ll check in like usual.” Izuku checked his pockets and the time, satisfied with the former and horrified with the latter. “Ahh, I have to go! Bye!”
He ran in order to catch his train, but it was a close call. It was also too crowded for him to find a seat, and Izuku ended up squished between several people. Even the roar of the bullet train couldn’t drown out the overlapping beat of several dozen heartbeats. Halfway through his stomach began twisting in anticipation, and Izuku had to pull up some reading on his phone to avoid jumping in place.
The debate he’d been following on the Rising Star forum was picking up speed. Usually the mods were good about keeping things factual, but some footage analysis over the recent UA Sports Festival had people up in arms and out for blood. Izuku observed the match in question with interest, watching one student shoot and extend tentacles from his arms. He’d avoided watching the event this year. The older he got, the less likely it seemed that he would ever compete.
Izuku twitched, hope washing over him. Now he had a chance. Now, he had much more of a chance than he did before.
ooo
Now, Izuku clutched at his bags and his posters and his phone as sirens wailed and people screamed. Smoke and fear saturated the air, and dozens of bodies pressed up tight against him. People flooded towards the street, away from the fire and the fighting and the alarms, and Izuku got batted around in the current.
His pulse thundered in his ears and his gut twisted in an electric panic.
“HELLO LISTENERS!” Present Mic roared from his position on stage, grappling hand to hand with a tall woman with spikes of granite poking though her skin. He howled wordlessly, sending her skidding back a few meters, far enough for Kamui Woods to bind her to the columns dotting the improvised stage. “PLEASE HEAD CALMLY TO THE ENTRAN--” The hero cut himself off, whipping around to scream at another attacker.
Izuku’s hands whipped up to cover his ears, but it wasn’t enough. An explosion from the temporary market shattered any attempt to move carefully, and people slammed into him until he began to stumble with the rest of the crowd.
His heart tried to crawl up into his throat, and over all the smoke, Izuku smelled something that stabbed him with hunger. Something that made him feel so hollow he could die. Blue and red sirens flashed at the mouth of the park, and police directed civilians across the road, away from the fighting. Paramedics bustled in an impromptu screening station, pulling aside the injured.
Izuku ended up on front of one. She shined a light in his eyes. “Shock,” she called out, checking him over for other wounds. She wrapped a tin blanket around his shoulders, and then suddenly pushed him into the waiting arms of a volunteer. “Burns! Second to third degree, I need--”
And Izuku tuned her out somehow, because more than he could hear, suddenly he could smell--hot and warm, something like butter and comfort. His mouth watered, and despite the insistent hand on his shoulders, he looked back. Under the care of the paramedic was a man with blood streaming down his side, his shirt and skin charred black and blistered. His eyes were glassy and fluttering in the flashing light, soot smudged over his clammy skin.
Izuku stopped dead, his eyes fixed on the blood, on the muscle exposed to the open air. Horror hit him like a sledgehammer. But before that, before he knew anything so human as fear, he knew want. He knew how his teeth would sink into skin and how bone would rend under his hands. Then the world slipped out from under him, and the volunteer steered him forcefully to a resting area.
“Don’t look at it,” She said, her voice wavering. “You’re safe now. Do you have parents or friends?”
His mouth was still watering. He could feel a pulse though the hand on his shoulder, rabbit-quick. The warm air was soaked with that savory aroma, and Izuku thoughtlessly gripped the hand on his shoulder and turned around.
“Anyone with you? Do you have anyone you can call?” She was taller than him, with sharp horns poking up though her dark hair and wide, concerned eyes. Scrapes on her arms and knees were soaked with disinfectant, a sharp, caustic thing in his throat. Suddenly, she leaned down, bringing herself to eye level with him. “Please don’t cry. You’re safe now.”
Izuku blinked, and the only thing that jarred him out of taking a step closer and sinking his teeth into her shoulder was the idle, casual thought that passed through his mind:
You’re not.
Izuku shrieked and jerked away, releasing his grip like he’d been burned. He stumbled back unsteadily, his brain buzzing with static.
“Wait, no--”
Izuku fled, tearing down the side walk and darting into an alley with a death grip on his bag. Pounding feet and sharp breathing followed him, but Izuku had a livewire coursing through him, and he sprinted away, dodging though the unfamiliar back passages. He vaulted a fence, the chainlink top tearing though his jeans, and he didn’t stop until he left the shaky police barricade, and the crowds creeping up on the edge of it, far behind.
He crouched next to a dumpster, as isolated a place he could find with the city on red-alert, huffing the rank and putrid air to chase the hollow, hollow want from his throat. He scrubbed at his eyes, and they came away wet with salt, and that just sparked more sobs.
He heard the footsteps. He just tried so hard not to.
“See, dude? Told you it would be free pickings.”
Izuku kept his head low, but he knew exactly how close they were, and it was too close. His gut twisted, and yet he was rooted to the spot. “Please,” He whispered, “please, leave me alone.”
“Have fun at the big show?” A man asked conversationally, moving closer. Too close. Close enough to smell alcohol and the savory aroma of sweat. “Lotta expensive stuff out there. That’s all my friend and I want.”
“Dude,” The other boy said, hesitant. “Should we really--”
“Wallet and bag. Toss ‘em this way.”
Izuku was frozen through, his heart clawing its way up out his throat. “I--”
“Not that hard. Shouldn’t take three seconds. I’ll even count it for you.” The man snapped his fingers, and orange flame coated his hand. Izuku couldn’t tear his eyes away. The man was older than him, but not by much. Maybe still in high school. But his eyes were even and glinting and promising in a way that sent ice down Izuku's spine.
“Tanaka, chill the fuck out.”
The man ignored him. “One.” He clenched his fist and stepped forward. Izuku pressed further into the wall, his limbs shaking and shaking like he was about to fly apart at the seams. “Two.”
Izuku flinched, dropping his bag and patting frantically at his pockets. “W-wait,” he stuttered.
The other boy scrubbed a hand through his hair, cursing under his breath, but did nothing more.
The guy laughed shortly. “Three.” Then he kicked Izuku’s shoulder-bag and sent it skidding down the alleyway, hauling Izuku by the hoodie with flickering hand. Izuku yelped in alarm, heat washing over his face, only to be shoved back against the wall. “Oh, calm down.”
He reached for Izuku’s pockets. Panic surged through his skull.
With all the propriety of a joint cracking into place, something spilled out from his spine. It propelled Izuku a step forward, before it lashed forward and slammed into his attacker. He flew back, alarm causing the fire in his fist to flicker out.
Now what illuminated the alley was the shining, shifting scarlet-cyan emanating from Izuku’s quirk. The sight of it knocked the breath out of him. It twitched and flailed when he tries to shift it, throwing off his balance despite how thin it is--whip-like and flat and fluid and beautiful.
A second later, someone sprinted away. The next, the orange flare of fire returned with a vengeance.
Izuku snappws back to reality.
Blood ran down the man’s face, and his eyes burned with anger as flames begin creeping up his arms. “If that’s how you want to try.” He raised his hand and heat jetted towards Izuku, singing his hair and clothes before he could throw himself out of the way. The weight tied to his spine threw him off his balance, and he careened into the concrete. He barely noticed.
“Wait,” Izuku croaked, pushing himself back to his feet with the help of the wall. He just wanted to leave. Money wasn't worth this. “You can have it, just wait.” He fumbled with the zipper to his jacket. His wallet was in the inner pocket. It wasn’t worth this.
It wasn’t worth the grip on his neck that wanted him to leap forward, sink down, and bite.
His attacker seemed to disagree, because he drop-kicked Izuku in the chest hard enough for him to go flying back.
Izuku yelped, his brain buzzing. He needed to get away. But the walls of the alley were close enough to suffocate, and his attacker stood between him and the closest exit.
The man slammed a kick into his side. It barely registered.
Izuku reared his foot back and smashed it into his attacker’s knee.
He cursed and jerked back, and Izuku took advantage of the space. He scrambled to his feet--the other person had left this way, but Izuku would have to take his chances. He tore himself away from the fight, shambling away. Away from the heat and tang of blood that burrowed into his skull. A pang of hunger shredded through his gut. Izuku flinched and stifled his sob by biting into his hand. The twitching limb of his quirk curled up and inward before it suddenly gave out.
The loss felt like a missing tooth.
The loss made him fall against the wall, his limbs leaden and his head dazed.
Searing hands grabbed him by his jacket, hauling him up and pinning him to the damp brick. The man cursed suddenly, and the fire licking at his arms died out, leaving his skin a steaming, livid red. He bared his teeth, wickedly satisfied. “Looks like you’re out of steam too.” He pulled back his fist.
The scent of Izuku’s charred jacket couldn’t hide the desire that spiked in his throat.
Like he’d done it a dozen times, Izuku gripped the wrist still pinning him to the wall, leaned forward on his tip-toes, and sank his teeth into the meat of the man’s arm.
If he tried to compare it to anything, he’d find words wanting. But in that moment, his brain rushes and rushes and rushes like blood-pulse and cicada-scream and livewire-hum and he wasn’t thinking in words. He was chasing and diving, his mouth singing like he bit into tinfoil, and when his prey shied back and cried out--
he surged forward.