Chapter Text
Of all the wonders of the world, the most merciful gift and equally most terrible hindrance is the inability of the human mind to comprehend. Confined to the insides of our own skull, unable to exhume our biases and predispositions, we lack the capacity to truly understand what lays beyond our grasp. Our brains, complex as they are, cannot appreciate the things it does not wish to acknowledge. For some people, like Bakugo Katsuki, it’s others' experiences and how his actions in life effects theirs.
For Izuku Midoriya, it’s the tendrils of death slithering over his vision and into his lungs in the form of artificial darkness. Sludge oozing its way up his nostrils, globs squishing between his teeth.
“Don't worry. I'm just hijacking your body. Calm down. It'll only hurt for about 45 seconds... then it'll be all over.”
The sludge villain engulfing Izuku’s person growled, the sound coming from every direction at once. But his words did nothing to calm the panicking boy, who continued to thrash, trying to claw his way to the surface. He couldn’t go like this – where were the heroes? Surely someone has to have called them by now, right?
But as his vision started to fade, a motionless Katsuki blurring into darkness, so did his hope. In a world where eighty percent of the population was gifted some form of quirk, nobody was going to save him. His thoughts wandered to his mother. What would she do without him? Dad had already walked out, and he had no siblings. Who would take care of her? What would she do? No, someone would take care of her.
Midoriya’s train of thought was derailed suddenly as he felt a set of fingers wrap with bruising force around his leg and pull, dragging him out from the pressure bearing down on his chest. The taste of sweat, sludge, and bile coated his tongue as he heaved, body ejecting everything at once to clear his esophagus as quickly as possible. He could hear the muffled sounds of a fight ensuing, but between emptying the contents of his stomach onto the pavement and the sludge, his oxygen-deprived brain couldn’t focus. Instead, after managing to take his first solid breath in what felt like a lifetime, the green-haired kid fell flat, and everything went black.
“Hey, kid, are you alright?”
The first thing to hit him was the headache. A throbbing, bone splitting kind that had the fluffy haired kid curling in on himself, only to straighten back out at the stabbing feeling in his chest.
“Oh, sorry. I’ll get the curtain. Get over it, you wimp!”
As the brightness beyond his eyelids disappeared, Izuku let his eyes flutter open. He was laying in a bed, facing into what looked like a dingy, one room apartment. Tilting his head slightly, a figure slid into his line of sight. A tall, lean man from the sound of it, but the paper bag over his face made it hard to tell.
Sitting up was a herculean task. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest at being forced to move, and the sharp pain in his chest hadn’t gone away, but Midoriya forced himself into a sitting position, propping himself up against the wall. Splotches of sludge still clung to his skin, and he resisted the urge to wipe them off on the bed sheets.
“Hey, this was on the ground next to you when I went to help you up. I figured you’d probably want it.”
One of his notebooks was thrust into his face, which he took gratefully, dismayed to find a large stain on the cover.
“I, uh. Thanks!”
“Not a problem. Clean up your own shit next time. I read a little bit of it. It’s really detailed, I’m impressed. I hope you don’t mind. I don’t care what you think.”
Midoriya blinked. “Do you always do that?”
The man, a paper bag covering his face, took a step back as if embarrassed.
“I know, I didn’t mean to pry, it’s just I had nothing else to do, and it looked really interesting, so-“
“No, not that. Not that you should make a habit of going through other people’s things.” He murmured the latter to himself before continuing. “I meant why do you keep doing the whole-I don’t know- back and forth thing?”
“Oh!” Jin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “That’s my quirk. It’s none of your damn business! I call it ‘Double’. You see, if I don’t cover my face,” He gestured to the paper bag. “Then I split into multiple copies of myself. Which I don't really want to do. Personal reasons.”
He grimaced but didn’t delve any deeper into the subject.
“But it still manifests itself in other ways. Sorry if it’s off-putting.”
“No, no, that’s really cool actually!”
The older man’s gaze shot back to the green-haired boy, who’s eyes were glimmering excitedly as he flipped open his notebook and started scribbling away.
Wait, where had he gotten that pen from?
“Never mind that, he thinks we’re cool!”
“You really think so?”
“Well, not the whole having to wear a paper bag over your face part, but overall, yeah!” He didn’t even look up from his scribbling as he hurried to jot down all the details before he forgot. “You said that you can produce clones of yourself?”
“And others. And they can think for themselves so I don't have to control 'em, but the durability goes down with every split, so having too many isn’t very practical-“
“That sounds more like a Mutant-Type Quirk than an Emitter or Transformation. Mostly because of the sentient nature of the clones, but also the withdrawal of having to cover the face is a negative manifestation, which are most commonly seen in Mutant-Types, in which uncontrollable side effects are significantly less likely to occur-“
Jin sat silently, observing as Midoriya’s incessant muttering faded into background noise. When was the last time he had ever interacted with another person for this length of time? He couldn’t remember. But despite the strange circumstances, the being attacked by a villain, and the obvious state of disrepair his apartment was in, the boy in front of him hadn’t batted an eye.
Not to mention his obvious obsession with documenting quirks. Maybe that was an extension of his own. An information-based quirk, or maybe one where he could copy others if he knew how they worked?
“Hey, kid.”
“Huh?” Midoriya startled. “Oh, sorry.”
“No, no, it’s all good. I was just wondering what’s up with that hobby of yours. Do you need that for your Quirk to function, or is it just something you do for fun?”
The kid’s face fell. Shit, had he said something wrong?
“I actually don’t have a quirk.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry. Good riddance.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” A lock of green hair flopped over his face, and he pushed it back into place before continuing to nibble at the end of his pen idly, staring down at the paper in front of him. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t. It’s Jin, but I go by Twice.”
“Like a hero name?”
“Not exactly, but kind of I guess.”
Twice didn’t want to get into all of that with some kid. Somethings were better left alone. No child needed to have their idolized view of the world tainted at such a young age. Although, having no quirk in this society? Having a strange quirk was bad enough. He couldn’t begin to imagine how tough life was without one at all.
“What about you?”
“Izuku Midoriya. But my friends, well friend, calls me Deku.”
“As in the insult? Doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me.”
“He’s a little aggressive, but I know he doesn’t mean it! He’s just..like that. But we’ve been friends practically all our lives, so I know he cares about me deep down, even when he tells me to jump off the roof!”
“He does what?” Twice stared at the kid in a mix of horror and pity. What kind of kid was telling others to kill themselves at such a young age? “Kid, that isn’t how friends are supposed to treat you. That’s awful. That’s worse than being a villain!”
“What? No, Kacchan is going to be an amazing hero one day! He has a super cool quirk, I even have it written down!” Midoriya started flipping excitedly. “And he’s going to go to UA and join the hero course! I want to go to, but I don’t think I can get in without a quirk even with really good test scores, and Kacchan told me I shouldn’t even apply anyway so I’ve been thinking that maybe I should just-“
“Kid.”
Twice placed a hand on Izuku’s head.
“No true friend would ever say any of that to you. And besides, who is he to judge whether or not you can be a hero, okay? If you ask me, he’s just the kind of hero we have too many of. People who join for fame and glory instead of genuinely wanting to help people. In fact, you’ve probably got more hero in you than 90% of the pros out there right now.”
“You really think so?” Midoriya sniffed, wiping his face on his sleeve. Damn, poor kid.
“I know so. Just give up. You’re going to apply for that school, and you’re going to become a hero and show all those other chumps who’s boss, you hear me?”
“But what if I-“ The younger boy began.
“No. No what if. I’ll help you if I have to. But you’re going to make it into that school if it kills both of us. “
Twice didn’t know what he was saying, but it sounded good and it seemed to be cheering the kid up, so screw it. Him, a wanted thief, encouraging some random child he picked up off the street to become a pro hero? Hell, if the kid knew what he was, he’d probably turn him in right away.
But he recognized that look in the kid’s eyes. The feeling of being outcast, of being hopeless. Of realizing that, no matter what you do, you’ll never fit in. Nobody deserved to feel that way, especially due to something they couldn’t control. And it was obvious how good of a kid the child was. He didn’t deserve any of this. The bullying, the quirk-lessness, the being attacked. So, despite all of this, Twice did the only thing he could think to do. And promised him the almost impossible dream he was grasping at. If for no other reason than so he could show the green-haired boy what a real friend was and he didn’t have to go through all of the disappointment alone.
And part of it may have been Jin’s own selfish desire to finally have someone to talk to, but he didn’t want to think about that right now.
Then he was being hugged, a sobbing Midoriya pouring a torrent of thank you’s into the older man’s chest like water through a burst dam. And maybe in a way it was. Maybe a real friend was exactly what the kid needed. A mentor of sorts, perhaps. Someone to hold his hand through this rough and tumble shitshow called life.
Maybe that’s what Twice needed too.