Chapter Text
Izuku’s tired. It’s the type of bone-deep weariness you’re supposed to see in 90-year-olds or war vets, not teenagers, but that doesn’t stop his limbs from feeling heavy, or his smile from straining under the pressure. The pressure of insecurities, responsibilities, expectations.
The pressure of feeling like a fake. A liar.
A villain.
Who are you to take a spot in the hero course? A voice in his head whispers before he falls asleep.
Who are you to play hero with a quirk that you stole ? It asks while he eats lunch with his friends.
They’re right, you know. It screams when he hears his hero name. You’re useless. A problem. You aren’t good enough. Not for your friends, or for Aizawa-sensei, or for Nighteye. Not for All Might, or your Mom.
He’s tired, but when a little girl runs up to him crying, begging for help? He takes her and he runs, ignoring Mirio’s yells for him to stop.
+++
Nighteye’s on a full-blown rant, and it reminds him of Katsuki.
He knows how Katsuki’s rants end.
-burningpainhurtspleasestopnowhywhatdididokacchanplease-
He’s hoping Nighteye will be different, but he’s learned not to rely on hope.
“-must return her.”
He registers the girl’s - Eri’s - whimper before he registers Nighteye’s words, but when he does his arms tighten around her and he takes a step back, angling his body to shield her further.
The word comes out even though his entire being is screaming for him to keep his head down, to nod and agree, to take the slightly less painful route of self-preservation; “No.”
It makes Nighteye freeze. “What?” The single word promises a world of hurt, and Izuku represses a shudder.
Eri doesn’t, though, and it hardens his resolve.
“I said ‘no’.” His voice leaves no room for argument, and if he weren’t a kid, weren’t uselessquirklessdeku (except he’s not but he can’t shake the feeling that he always will be) , if he weren’t holding a child who he kidnapped , then maybe it would’ve worked.
Unfortunately, he is a kid, and a deku, and holding a child-who-he-kidnapped.
“This isn’t up for debate. You will return her. This is your last chance.”
Izuku feels his muscles twitching to obey. He knows that tone: it’s the tone his teachers used to adopt right before they would blame him for a bloody nose he was given or a twisted ankle he got from being tripped. He knows that if he doesn’t obey that his internship is over, and quite possibly his entire hero career as well. His anxiety yearns to listen, to follow orders, to be a good little soldier.
The tears staining his hero costume and the little hands linked around his neck keep him rooted to the spot.
“I’m not letting you give an abused child back to the person who hurt her.”
His answer makes Nighteye growl under his breath, but Izuku’s thrown himself into this, like hell is he backing down now.
“You don’t know that she’s abused,” Nighteye grinds out, and it makes Izuku laugh disbelievingly.
“Are you stupid or selectively blind?” He shoots out, edging backwards, waiting for the moment he needs to bolt.
“How dare you. As your superior I deserve your respect, you are a child-”
“You’ll get my respect when you deserve it, Sir. Either you aren’t nearly as intelligent as I’ve been led to believe, or you’re more like All Might then I thought.” All Might, who left him on that roof. All Might, who gave him muscle mass, a quirk, and nothing else. All Might, who never notices how he flinches at loud noises or an unexpected touch.
There’s a long moment of silence. “You have ten minutes to talk to her while I contact Aizawa and Tsukauchi.”
He doesn’t speak again until Izuku’s almost out of the room. “And for the record, Midoriya? I may respect Toshinori, but I do not endeavor to be like him.”
Izuku doesn’t answer.
+++
He takes her into an empty room with chairs and a couch. He sits on the couch - one that's facing the door, he will not be caught off guard - with Eri in his lap.
“Alright Eri,” he starts, voice soft and smile softer. “Here’s the deal: I’m gonna ask you some questions, okay, but you don’t have to answer any of them. And another man - he has a super cool quirk! - might ask you the same questions later, but you don’t have to answer those, either. Does that sound okay?”
Eri chews on her lip for a moment before looking up at him. “I- I don’ t have to answer if I don’t want to?”
“Nope! And I won’t get mad, either.”
She glances down, then looks back up. “Promise?”
Izuku gives her his most reassuring, real smile. “Promise. I’ll even pinky promise!” He holds out his little finger.
She blinks at him. “What’s a pinky promise?”
Izuku can feel his heart break a little, but he just leans in close and whispers like he’s telling her a secret. “It’s a special promise. You can’t break it, no matter what!”
“Really?” Her voice is so small, and Izuku doesn’t care what happens to him, he will never regret helping her.
“Really,” he says, and he hooks their pinkies together and shakes them up and down a bit. Eri doesn’t smile, but she looks happy.
+++
“Hello, my name is Tsukauchi Naomasa. My quirk allows me to tell if someone is lying or not.”
Eri shrinks back at the hand she’s offered, and the detective withdraws it without a word.
“I just have a few questions to ask you. Is that okay?”
Eri hesitates, and Izuku takes her hand. She nods hesitantly.
Tsukauchi smiles. “Wonderful. And if you get uncomfortable, you’re free to not answer something.”
Eri squeezes Izuku’s hand, and he squeezes back.
“Alright! What’s your name?”
“Eri,” it’s barely a whisper.
“How old are you?”
“Five,” she holds up all of the fingers on the hand that isn’t holding Izuku’s.
“Why were you running?”
Eri stills and glances at Izuku. All he can do is smile and keep holding her hand.
“He, um. He was hurting me.”
Tsukauchi hums sympathetically. “How was he hurting you?”
“He was- was taking me apart and putting me back together.”
Izuku’s teeth clench but he pushes the anger away. It’s for later. For the man who did this.
“Do you know why he was doing that?”
“To take my blood. Because I have a curse, and he needs to fix it.”
If Izuku could, he would hunt that motherfucker down and end his life after toppling his dreams while he had to sit and watch. But he can’t, so he settles for imagining it.
Vividly.
Because Eri said that with such quiet confidence, like it was never something that she had even thought to question. Like it’s obvious. And Izuku knows what her “curse” is. He knows because he lived the opposite: he lived without one.
“What curse?”
“My quirk.”
+++
Izuku would like to preface this with the fact that he has zero regrets, but he may have taken a child from the Shie Hassaikai, and everyone involved with the case is pissed.
Eri’s currently at a hospital being looked after by Katsuki. It took Izuku a while to decide if that was a good idea - who in their right mind leaves an abused kid with a past abuser? But he thought that if anyone would understand what not to do then it would be someone who’s done those things. And, despite everything, Izuku still trusts Katsuki. Maybe it’s misplaced, and harmful, and downright idiotic, but he’s still Kacchan. Still the person Izuku looked up to the most, besides All Might.
Also, if someone tries to take Eri, Katsuki won’t think about bullshit like legal repurcussions before beating their ass, unlike these selfish, stuck-up, assholes.
“They have reasonable grounds to walk right in here now!” Rock Lock’s saying. “They could take us to court over this!”
Last I checked, child abuse is illegal, so I highly doubt they’d win that one.
“And you-” the hero whirls on Izuku, who internally recoils and externally raises an uncaring eyebrow. “You’ve set back our plan for months! Do you know how long-”
Izuku sits forward, elbows on the table and eyes boring into Rock Lock’s. “If your plan requires a child to stay with her abuser, then I don’t give a good god damn about it. It’s shit. And if you’re okay with that? Then you’re shit too.”
His outburst has quieted everyone in the room.
Aizawa tries to interject. “Midoriya, she wouldn’t be there long - just long enough to-”
Izuku turns his burning gaze on his teacher. “No. Honestly? Fuck no. Make a better plan. I bet I could give you the groundwork of three if you gave me 15 minutes, and I’m still in school. So either a bunch of pro-heroes are dumber than a teenager, or all you care about is taking the easy way out, regardless of who you hurt.”
A hero Izuku knows he knows the name of speaks up. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices-”
“This is not the trolley dilemma or some hypothetical! You're talking about a child.” Izuku throws his hands in the air. “You know what? I’ll be back in an hour.”
He leaves, and he doesn’t look back.
+++
It takes him four minutes to find the alley that Eri ran out of.
He walks in, lightning crackling over his skin, ink-black tendrils curling out of his arms, and floating just above the ground like a goddamn avenging angel.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
+++
Body’s crack against the cement, screams echo in his ears, and the earth is moving around him.
He continues forward.
+++
“You can’t beat me,” he said.
“I’m unstoppable,” he said.
His screams were the loudest and the most satisfying.
+++
Izuku walks into the meeting room with blood on his costume and a dangerous glint in his eyes.
“All taken care of!” He says in his best peppy tone. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the showers are calling my name.”