Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end, Izuku doesn’t even bother trying to get into the hero course. He’d heard rumours that All Might might start teaching there on the hero forums, and as the number one hero he’s must have a pretty hefty say as to who gets in and who doesn’t, and he’s made his opinion quite clear. Besides, it might be for the better after all, since he doesn’t think he wants to be a hero anymore anyway. Keeping the hope alive despite everything was exhausting for the one week following the incident. Then he couldn’t help it anymore and gave it up.

Not that he’s going to be useless anymore either! He doesn’t know what exactly he wants to be but continuing as he is is unacceptable! Grappling against that sludge villain has taught him what Bakugou has known all along - he’s weak. And he’s had 10 months to fix it. Going to the gym, morning runs and finding martial arts lessons on YouTube. Last time his classmates tried cornering him, he instinctively round-house kicked one and their momentary shock allowed him to run away unharmed. They haven’t bothered him since, and hopefully he won’t have to go through any of that again. Not in the General course.

He would’ve been as excited as everyone else to being taught by real heroes last year, but no he feels as unenthused as the purple haired kid - Shinsou, he thinks - is pretending to be. Even so he unwillingly feels a little bit of excitement, but he attributes it to Present Mic’s loudness forcing him to pay attention.

“Why don’t we go around the class and introduce ourselves and our quirks, yeah?!”

Damn it.

...

Well, that was a shit-show and a half, but it gave him the chance to see who’s going to be outright hostile and who’s going to treat him like glass. Only maybe two people didn’t care about it at all.

“Midoriya, stay after class.” Great.

“I don’t like playing the bad guy, and you seem like a nice kid, but your old school emailed us about some of your... disruptive tendencies. So you don’t have the same strike system as everyone else, if you get into a single fight you’ll be suspended at best.” At least he looked guilty saying it, even if he was obviously trying to act all serious and authoritative.

“I understand.”

“That’s great! Good luck with your lessons, little listener!”

This is fine. He’ll just have to figure out UA’s escape routes and hidden cloves faster than anticipated, but he’s been expecting it, really.

And it worked, for a while. He even managed to completely avoid Bakugou and build and awkward, silent partnership with Shinsou where they just agree to partner up in all the lessons if they have to, and usually end up sparring together in P.E.

The peace was temporary. Villains broke into UA. Somehow, there were no casualties and All Might saved the day (even though he had no time left, the news was going off about him all day, which is suspicious in and of itself now that he thinks about it. All Might had a lesson planned that day, he shouldn’t have been on duty for three entire hours unless villains literally kept popping up in his path. And isn’t that a thought? That would mean those who planned the attack knew about the time limit somehow, it would mean they’re smart, which is a dying trait in villains, he’d found.)

It’s been weeks and no one’s done anything. The villains are quiet, the police have no leads and the heroes have doubled down on the security for the hero course, which, of course left the other courses less protected but who cares about the future non-heroes of the world? They’re all useless and Nedzu has made that clear.

The Bakugous have been more annoying than usual though. He still managed to evade Katsuki, but his parents kept coming over to vent about how worried they were to mum. When they left she’d come to his room and hold him and tell him how grateful she was that he gave up on heroics and he died a little bit inside each time.

So Izuku’s going to do something about it. First thing first, track down the villains.

He narrowed their location down to a bar in Kamino within the week. Maybe if the police was haunted by Masaru’s wailing they’d be just as motivated to find it quickly. Either case, he’d have to check it out just in case he was wrong - he has enough warnings from all the false alarms he’s called in before. He thought he was being inconspicuous with his fake moustache and everything but they must’ve known something was up because a portal opened up beneath him and spat him out right in front of the hands guy.

“What do we have here?”

Fuck.

Chapter Text

“Hi. Um, where am I?”

“You know exactly where you are, drop the act. Who are you?” The man scratched at his neck.

“Izuku Midoriya.” Said the speakers. “I’d like to speak with him, Tomura, would you bring him in?” Tomura grinned.
“Yes, Sensei.”

‘Sensei’ is terrifying. And half-dead.

“A little far from home, aren’t you, Izuku?”

“How do you know who I am?”

“Why are you here, child?”

“The portal guy decided it’s the best place for me to be.” Sensei inclined his head and the hands guy grabbed Izuku by his throat, only keeping one finger away.

“And if you think a little harder on your answer?” So Izuku did. What would be the harm in telling them the truth, other than the calling police plan?

“I was... curious. You managed to break into UA. Put one of the best heroes out of commission for the moment. You know All Might’s secret and had a vast enough control of the underworld to mess with his day without any of the crimes being in any way obviously connected to one another. I found it inspiring.”

“So you stalked us?”

“Now, Tomura, don’t be so harsh. Izuku could be a valuable asset. And we need those, since you lost everyone else on the UA attack.”

‘Tomura’ let him go and he had to fight his insects not to rub his neck and show weakness now.

“Is there something in particular you need? I’d love to help you out!” Yeah, and the sic the police and the heroes on you once I’m back in the relative safety of my room.

“Perhaps not today. It’s a good thing you found us on a Friday, you can sleep in Tomura’s room. I’ll make sure Kurogiri brings you a sleeping bag and all the essentials.”

“But-“

“You will call your mother and say you’re staying over with friends. It is true, after all. And over this weekend we can explore just how useful you can be to our cause. That will be all, for now.”

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, Katsuki Bakugou:

It’s weird, not seeing Deku every day anymore. Katsuki knows he’s in UA too, but for all the extras he’s seen by now, not one of them even vaguely resembled him. Deku should be stalking the Hero Course, he should be compiling notes and getting ready for the sport festival to try sneak into the hero course.

But the nerd’s been acting strange for a while now. After the sludge villain, Katsuki hasn’t seen a single glimpse of the notebooks. Nor did he seem to care when the new All Might merch was announced, not that Katsuki was paying him close enough attention to really notice, but he was pretty sure Deku would’ve at least been excited if nothing else.

It all came to a head when his parents forced him to come with them to the nerd’s birthday party. It should’ve been the same as every other year - a shrine to All Might.

There were no decorations this year. And when he smiled, greeting his parents, Katsuki suddenly realised he hasn’t seen Deku smile in....months.

At some point the two were sent away to ‘have fun playing video games’ or whatever in Izuku’s room. Which was most definitely not Izuku’s room, because there was no merchandise anywhere. The whole room was devoid of any personality, even the all might curtains are gone and they haven’t been replaced with anything else yet.

Deku’s smile evaporated the moment they were alone, and he flopped on his bed. A bed with normal fucking bed sheets.

“What do you want to do, Bakuguo?” Katsuki jolted.

“Hah?”

“Well, we could play video games or board games or card games or just sit in silence and stare at the ceiling.”

“Where’s all your hero stuff?” Deku pointed vaguely at the corner of the room, where there were three giant boxes.

“I was thinking of selling them online, and anything that isn’t sold in a year I’ll give away. Why? Do you want them? I don’t care if you do, in fact it’d be great if you took them - anything to get them out of my room faster.”

So he left with three giant boxes that day. Not because he wanted them do anything, but because Deku’s going to snap out of it someday and he’s gonna regret ever wanting to give his treasures away. This way, he can at least keep the merch for a while until Deku’s back to normal.

It’s not until he’s back home and opens up the boxes that he finds out Deku’s notebooks were being given away and he got I mad scared. Because those notebooks had info on him too, he knows, and whatever fucker would’ve bought those would know all Katsuki’s strategies. He doesn’t know whether Deku planned to give away his info or just forgot about it. He didn’t know which was worse.