Chapter Text
There was an alarm, sounding low and loud on the inside of Izuku's head. A noise only he could hear, getting louder and louder with each step he took away from Yuuei, pulsing with the rush of his blood and overtaking every harried thought lurking near the surface of his consciousness since he'd awoken. By the time he stepped off the bus he'd taken into the city, and looked up to realize he was stood before the same mall they'd gone shopping in earlier in the summer, that alarm had dulled to a distant thumping that he realized with belated concern was merely his heartbeat, hard and heavy beneath his skin as the pain in his stomach made him stand with a hunch.
He readjusted himself and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up. It was an old, ratty thing, long faded, two slabs of grey and green fabric stitched haphazardly into something like a hoodie. He couldn't even remember where he'd gotten it. When he was younger, he wore it on his worst days, his fearful days, his days when he needed to hide from everyone else and act like he wasn't there. It swamped him even years later, smelled of the old incense he kept in his closet, from the period when he was about nine that he'd become convinced there were demons following him and he'd tried to stave them off with rituals. He'd become so convinced there were monsters stalking his footsteps that he fearfully stared out his window every night before bed, waiting for something to show itself in the shadows, and then drew the covers up over his head after Inko made him go to sleep, quaking as he waited.
Looking back, there had never been any demons. It was just easier to think that there were.
Slowly, he walked across the street and into the entrance of the mall. It was midday on a Sunday, and it wasn't too terribly busy. Still, people milled about around him, criss-crossing in and out of stores, wandering to kiosks that sold cotton candy and iced lemonade and popcorn.
There were enough people that it was easy to fall into the crowd. Gradually, Izuku encroached on the line of people waiting in front of a pretzel kiosk. They were loosely gathered, standing one right beside the other, waiting in unspoken agreement as to who'd gotten there first. When the employee taking orders looked up, his eyes briefly crested over the line, passing from one person to the next.
Easily, they glided over Izuku as if he wasn't even there, and he called out to the next person waiting, waving with his hand.
The woman at the front stepped forward. Izuku lingered there, for a bit, watching as people passed him up who'd gotten there later than him. They weren't doing it on purpose. Really, he wasn't even sure he wanted anything to eat. After some hesitation, he wandered back out of the crowd, and then away again.
Again and again and again, that same thing repeated itself.
Izuku kept wandering, lips dry, his hood pulled low enough no one could see his face or the green bangs plastered to his forehead. He didn't want to see anyone. His stomach was still aching something awful, and smell after smell from the mall was only making it worse. Or maybe it was getting worse on its own, and he was finding excuses.
He huddled further in on himself, not even flinching when a man knocked into him in the walkway. The man glanced over his shoulder, right over Izuku's head, and grumbled before taking off again.
Like this...
Like this, he really was just as he'd always been.
Invisible. He stopped, right there in the middle of the walkway, and looked around. Small. No one even spared him a glance; no one stopped to stare at him. Unimportant.
The alarm was going off in his head again, making it hard to breathe, sounding in his ears with a deafening sort of volume he couldn't describe. He took a small, wheedling breath through his mouth, but didn't gasp for air. He didn't panic, or break down, or cry. Because this was all so very familiar, like an old coat that had enveloped him in its warmth, except it was summer and made him too warm.
No matter what he did, no matter where he went, no matter who gave him their Quirk or who said they believed in him-
No matter how he deluded himself.
No matter how he tried to look and act and think different, no matter how he tried to convince himself he was a different person-
He would always come back to this, wouldn't he?
He would always be that unimportant, unnoticed, useless boy without a Quirk.
Izuku looked down at his shoes and took a long sigh.
Diagnosed. That was what it was called, when someone was Quirkless. They weren't defined or proclaimed or assigned or anything else, they were diagnosed, like it was some medical abnormality, like it was some disease, like it was a disorder that doctors were still trying to eradicate. Deep down, he knew nothing would change the core of what he was, no matter how hard he tried to make All Might proud or how hard he tried to be a good hero. He felt his stomach thrash and bile rise in his throat as he stood there, staring at his shoes, something stinging his eyes as his thoughts swirled around. He had failed his licensing test. He had disappointed everyone. He had disappointed the teachers. But the teachers- he couldn't even ask. He couldn't even think about asking any of them for...for help? What did he need to ask them for? He didn't know, but he felt bad, and it felt like he needed something, and all he knew was that he couldn't ask for it, that he wouldn't let himself ask for it.
He couldn't. They wouldn't help him. They couldn't help him. He was just a failure, and eventually, the world of heroes would know it. Every hero he met or tried to work with would see it on his face- written into his being- they would just look at him and know, that oh, this person isn't one of us. This boy isn't meant to be here with us. He isn't a hero. Even if Izuku had a Quirk, he would never stop being Quirkless. He's just a Quirkless useless piece of trash.
He broke out of his thoughts, dark as they were, with a gasp as something rattled him. A vague voice from nowhere inside his head, seeming to rattle around inside his brain as it said Stop it. He was back in the mall, in his ratty old tennis shoes, staring at the floor, and he didn't like it. Izuku didn't like this feeling. Feeling sick to his stomach, he looked up, and started walking.
He wandered around for a long time. No matter where he went, he didn't feel better.
Eventually, he stepped shakily onto one of the escalators in the building and rode it up to the second floor. He bypassed the fast food court, the clothing and jewelry stores Kyouka liked, the shoe store on a corner that Katsuki liked to frequent. By the time he'd been in the mall for nearly an hour, he was in front of the arcade.
Izuku stood there for a moment, staring at the darker area inside, and sighed.
He stepped inside and began to lurk. Most of the time, when he was a kid, lurking was all he did. The few times he managed to scrape up enough coins to play on the machines, older kids stole them or kicked him off the games he liked best. God forbid they recognized him while they did so, or else they yelled and jeered at him until he left.
Thankfully, there weren't that many people inside right now. Near the entrance, a group of high schoolers were gathered around a racing game, loudly laughing and pointing at the screen occasionally. Further in, down an aisle, he saw a few people hunched in front of individual machines. Around another corner...
Izuku stopped.
He wasn't sure what stood out to him, not at first. When he first spotted the figure sitting at the end of the aisle, it looked like any other. A tall but thin person in a too-big hoodie hunched over in front of a game. But something...something about it seemed familiar. Something, when he looked closer...
Perhaps it was the hands.
The man was holding his controller in a peculiar way, keeping his pinkies in the air. He was animated as he played, grumbling under his breath when he lost a life, muttering the occasional swear at his computer-generated opponent. He seemed absorbed in it, and certainly, he had to be, if he didn't notice Izuku's blatant staring. Peeking out from beneath his hood were a few strands of grayish hair, and that was really the final nail in the coffin.
Izuku almost wanted to laugh. Or cry. He wasn't sure which. I'm staring at Shigaraki, he thought, hysterical. His hands twitched in his pockets yet he did nothing. He was staring right at Shigaraki, in a mall, in an arcade, right there. And where were the heroes? Walking around, eating cotton candy, patrolling the street and signing autographs? A laugh almost bubbled out of him.
Shigaraki was sitting right here, and no one knew.
Class, Aizawa had addressed them, after the exam, grim and serious and intently focused on trying to see right through each one of them down to their souls. One of the students from Shiketsu was found after the test. We believe, right now, that someone with a transformation type Quirk replaced her in the exam for the purpose of infiltration. Did any of you interact with this girl?
He'd tapped her picture on the whiteboard, and Izuku's lips had felt dry.
He wanted to shake, as he sat there in class. He wanted to cry. He wanted to hyperventilate and bury his head in his arms and forget everything else existed. Yet, in that moment, his face had been completely blank. He'd simply sat there and sat nothing. His lips hadn't moved, even once, to divulge what he'd seen. You should have realized sooner, a tiny, hurt part of him said. That same part wondered, what would happen if he told the teachers about what he'd seen? Nothing. Nothing would happen. Or, or they would get angry at him for not telling them sooner. That- that was very likely. He would get in trouble. He would be held back. He would be penalized. They already had to take a course with the Shiketsu students who failed, just to catch up. The same student that hated Shouto's guts and had tried to hurt him. They had to work with him. Bitter, and angry, and hating himself, Izuku had said nothing.
He could turn around and walk out of the arcade right now, and tell someone, and nothing would happen. So what was the point? What was the point of it all?
Stop it, that same voice urged from deep inside. Izuku shook his head and bit into his lips. You stop it, he thought, choosing a stool to sit down on. He stared at the blank screen ahead of him.
Shiggy? Trust Shiggy? Of course I do!
If even villains could trust each other, it must be nice, he thought bitterly.
Eventually, he pulled a coin out of his pocket and inserted it into the machine. The screen lit up with a too-colorful display. He was in control of a cheerful little character with a sword and magic spells, going deeper and deeper into a tower with five hundred levels. On the left side of the screen, a top score list was featured. When Izuku pressed start, he was relieved to delve into a mindless task-completing game.
Over and over, he threw his character at each level, dying in quick succession but eventually thinning out until he'd reached level two hundred and eighty-five.
When a voice spoke from somewhere on his right, it startled him, but he didn't jump. "Didn't you just start at this game?" the voice asked, sounding vaguely disgusted. "How the hell are you at two eighty-five already?"
The sounds of the arcade were still there. Near the entrance, those high schoolers were still making a racket. Two aisles over, Izuku could still hear one of the players on the machines. Everything was the same. And Shigaraki Tomura was standing right beside him, making conversation about a video game.
What the hell was wrong with him?
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. How long had it been since he spoke today? "It's all just patterns and numbers when you get used to it," he rasped, staring at the screen. His cursor blinked at him, right beside his immobile character while a slew of words passed overhead; Congratulations! Congratulations! Proceed to level 286!
Shigaraki snorted. "What, are you a mathematician or something? One of those pretentious shits that thinks every game is basically the same?"
Izuku shrugged, slowly. "I got a D in algebra last week," he noted, for some reason. Quietly. Mutedly. He didn't know why he said it. It wasn't even relevant. That hadn't been a serious question Shigaraki was asking, it was just a barb. In fact, he really should have felt insulted. Shigaraki's words did sound insulting in their tone, and yet...it almost did something to build a rapport between them. If they were just two regular people, two strangers, he would have said even more.
Even villains could just be regular people, making small talk, playing games in an arcade. Not planning anything nefarious. Just playing a video game.
And heroes...
Izuku's hand started to shake on the controller, his mouth wobbling. What am I even doing? he thought, ignoring that space in the inside of his head where that voice had come from. He didn't like that space. He didn't like feeling like something else was there besides himself. He wanted to just be miserable and left to his lonesome, not followed around by some...some...thing. How can I be sure I know anything? How can I say I want to be a hero if I don't even know what I'm doing anymore? Even Shigaraki knows what he's doing.
"Yeah, whatever," Shigaraki retorted, uncaring. He, ironically, probably thought Izuku was the weirdo right now. "Hey, come over here and get on this one. I want a real fucking person to play against."
He stomped off, and Izuku got up from his stool, quietly following. Shigaraki didn't pay him much more attention as Izuku took the stool next to him and logged onto the game he'd been playing. Apparently, he'd successfully passed under the man's radar. He thought Izuku was some weird, quiet high schooler, not a hero in training.
...if I can even call myself that.
Shigaraki continued to mutter while they played, but it didn't seem directed at him. He was too wrapped up in trying to wallop Izuku's character on-screen to pay him any mind. Izuku was sitting here, playing games, with Shigaraki.
Was anything in this world the way Izuku had thought it was?
Someone had wandered over to watch them. Another arcade-goer, a boy a little older than Izuku, who hovered behind him watching their characters fight on-screen. "Damn," he said, half appreciatively, half in consternation. "I didn't know you could access that move set with that character. I thought it was restricted to the female models."
Shigaraki made a dismissive noise. "There's no reason you can't."
"Maybe it's a new update."
"Maybe you're an idiot."
The newcomer didn't take much offense, just leaning back on his heels to continue watching. It was just banter, Izuku realized. No one was about to be obliterated.
The thought had him running on autopilot. Even villains could just walk around like anyone else, he thought. Go into convenience stores and pick up newspapers and play games at arcades. Trade sarcastic banter with other people, insult them, buy an overpriced mall pretzel and lemonade if they wanted. And if Izuku went home and told someone about this regular, normal thing, well...wouldn't he just be punished? Was there any point, at all, to anything?
He wasn't sure anymore.
A faint tremor running through the floor made him look down. Shigaraki's character beheaded his, and the man let out a harsh-sounding laugh, like he wasn't used to laughing so loud. Izuku turned and looked at the entryway to the arcade, feeling a second tremor.
A louder sound, not quite an explosion, convinced him that something else was going on in the mall. So he got up to go look, wandering out onto the second level and towards the railings that overlooked the first-floor food court. He fluttered around the edge of the crowd gathered there, avoiding the bulk of them, and approached a portion of the railing that was mostly empty. There, he could see down into the court, where there was a slight crater in the ground and a set of overturned tables. Civilians gathered around, kept back by mall security, trying to see over each other's heads. In the center of the crater was a large man, a villain of some sort, probably, and a hero on duty stood over him, talking to a security officer.
Izuku buried his hands into his pockets and slouched down. It wasn't anything after all, he thought. The hero had already handled it. But how many villains were in this mall while he huffed and puffed downstairs, convinced he'd gotten rid of the danger? It was enough to make anyone's head spin.
"Christ," a raspy voice said, to his left, and he did jump, this time. "Could he have chosen a costume with physically tighter pants? He looks ridiculous. Heroes these days."
Izuku looked, mostly at Shigaraki's feet, feeling incredulous. He supposed the man must have followed him from the arcade...even so, he didn't know why. Izuku had always been able to depend on being invisible. On being the person no one noticed; the weird little kid that no one cared about. Even if he was the only person in a room, someone would look right over him, because no one cared. No one cared about little invisible people that didn't matter and didn't have any use. Why could Shigaraki notice him, see him, actually deign to speak with him, when no one else in the world ever bothered? When all the 'good' people in society didn't bother? When heroes didn't bother? Why was Shigaraki a person that could do that, when no one else did?
Nothing made sense anymore. Izuku was tired.
"Yeah..." he muttered, looking back into the food court. "Honestly, it's pretty-"
He'd been going to say it was a pretty inconvenient costume, when one really looked at it. That it didn't have many practical uses, and was mostly for show. That it didn't even have much good armor, so it was pretty silly. That was what he'd been going to say.
But right now- right now, all he could see was the police officer that had come up behind the hero downstairs. Not a mall security officer- a member of the police squadron that had just arrived, pushing the crowd even further back. A familiar-looking man with short-cut brown hair and a hard face, mouth twisted in an ugly frown as he approached the villain on the floor, saying something to the hero on duty. Despite the fact they were still indoors, the officer took a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket, took one out, and simply blew on it to ignite it.
A police officer. If only they knew how he spent his time.
Or really, would they even care? Would anyone care? No one would care. No one would help him. No one.
Izuku was unaware of how still his body had become, of how his shoulders were shaking, of the low, strangled sound emanating from his throat. The alarm was back in his head, that space carved out as specifically other was rearing back up to try and counteract it, and he hated it. He needed to leave. He couldn't take this.
"Hey, kid, what the hell is up with you-"
He turned and he ran away. That vast, empty space inside his heart that had been aching since the exam opened up wide and swallowed him whole. Izuku ran, and ran, and ran, legs pumping and muscles burning, knocking into a few people and not even noticing, rounding a corner and running until he could see an escape. Glass shattered around his skin, and then he was jumping, and then he was in the open air, and he was out, free. Away from that horrible man, from the fire. He slammed into the roof of a car and hardly even noticed. His Quirk didn't activate, he couldn't even think to reach for it, and he scrambled and clawed at the car until he was off of it and his feet had hit the pavement and he ran some more, ignoring the pain lacing up and down his body. His hands curled into his old, faded hoodie, holding onto it like his only lifeline.
Hardly anyone had noticed his mad dash from the mall. Even panicked, and running, and in distress, an invisible little Quirkless boy would only ever be that, to most people. A boy that was not used to asking anyone for help, not used to anyone looking to help, would look for no help, would not try to make anyone look in the first place, and their eyes glanced easily off his retreating form. Even so, Shigaraki perched himself at the edge of the upper level, leaning halfway out of the broken window, and watched the hooded boy take off down the street with squinted eyes.
Shit, the hell's up with him?
Shaking his head, the young man decided it wasn't his problem or his concern, and headed back towards the arcade he'd earlier vacated.