Chapter Text
One of the few constants among the chaos that is Humanity, is their innate and deep-rooted sense of curiosity. Whether this be about the world around them, the cosmos above them, the past, the future, the inner-workings of things, or even the relationships of those around them, nearly every human hungers for knowledge of some kind. It is this very hunger, at times strong enough to override all caution and common-sense, that has allowed humanity to grow and innovate to where they are today.
But it is that very willingness to ignore caution and common-sense that has led to a great many disasters, large and small, throughout humanity’s history.
Though she didn’t know it at the time, such was the case when Ochaco caught wind of a particular rumor spreading through the halls of UA. Being teenagers, finally at the age to truly begin understanding the society and world around them, giving them a hunger for knowledge of many kinds rivalling even some of the greatest scientific minds, intense gossip was commonplace, even at a school as prestigious as UA.
(Contrary to popular belief, the prestige of a school had little to no influence on the amount of gossip, merely what said gossip was about.)
When she first heard the rumor (from the Gossip Queens themselves, Mina and Toru, of course), Ochaco had found it absolutely hilarious. It was like those conspiracy theories that were just sooo dumb they had you cackling in laughter. Like the moon being made of cheese, or that birds didn’t exist and were all just robotic spy devices. Heck, it made even the wildest of Todoroki’s theories sound like a well-founded scientific theory.
No Todoroki, she and Deku were not siblings. They’re from entirely different parts of Japan, both clearly take after their mothers, and while Deku never talks about his father or shows pictures of him, he very clearly does not share any biological traits with Ochaco’s father, while she obviously does. (Come to think of it, was that just Todoroki’s odd way of teasing them and saying they should date? Did Todoroki know???? There’s no way! ... right? Ok, save that breakdown for later.)
Afterall, who could possibly believe that Deku, of all people, could secretly be a villain? Deku, the person who has, multiple times, broken himself to the point of permanent damage to save people he barely knew, and were even mean to him? The same Deku who had risked his life to save her from an at-the-time terrifying-yet-most-likely-not-actually-dangerous gigantic robot? The same Deku who would often go far out of his way just to help people with menial tasks?
The idea was gut-bustingly hilarious, and the girls table couldn’t talk about anything else for the rest of lunch without bursting into fits of laughter and tears.
But then the rumor just kind of … stuck. It didn’t go away like most rumors did. Again, at first Ochaco didn’t think much of it; people were just mean and stupid if they believed it, and it was now kind of an in-joke amongst the class, even if Deku didn’t know about it. (There were a great many things that she admired about Deku, but the fact that he was more oblivious than a deaf bat in the noon-day sun wasn’t quite one of them. Or at least, she did in more of a “I find it hilarious and intriguing how you’re so observant yet so oblivious at the same time” kind of way.)
About a week after she first heard the rumor, classes for the hero course first years were cancelled, and each student was called into the principal's office one by one. There they were interviewed by a pair of stern, borderline rude detectives (they didn’t even give their names!). Each student was in there for roughly a half hour, and though Ochaco didn’t know if the interview was the same for every student, they asked her question after question about all of her interactions with the League of Villains and anyone associated with it, particularly the Kiashi mall incident and Shie Hassaikai raid.
The detectives and teachers said it was to consolidate all the students’ knowledge and encounters. Ochaco didn’t know much about police or detective work, so she guessed it made sense. But something about the encounter still struck her as off, and she knew she wasn’t the only one in the class that felt that way. Maybe it was just how the detectives looked at them, with those cold, judgemental eyes and scowls nearly as deep as Bakugou’s.
That feeling of wrongness only increased when Deku’s turn came. Until that point, not a single interview had lasted longer than 40 minutes, but his went on for well over an entire hour, and not a single one after did either.
It was really weird, and only made Ochaco more worried. The rest of the class seemed mollified when, agreeing in a rare moment of cosmic proportions, Todoroki and Bakugou both said it was just because of the sheer amount of times Deku finds himself in trouble with villains. And while that made sense (Deku was practically a villain magnet), for some reason it didn’t make Ochaco feel any better.
But if Todoroki and Bakugou actually agreed on something, then that must mean she was overreacting, right? Plus Deku didn’t seem too bothered by his interview. Sure he was more subdued and anxious than usual, but so were most people after the whole process. With that in mind, Ochaco did her best to put the anxiety and dread behind her, and focus on trying to cheer up Deku and the others who were still feeling down.
A few days passed, and things didn’t seem to be getting better; they actually seemed to be getting worse. It started subtly at first, but now it was obvious: the teachers were acting strange around Deku. And the normally impossible-to-read Mr. Aizawa was the most obvious out of all of them.
Now, Ochaco and the rest of the class were well acquainted with how exasperated Deku could make Mr. Aizawa (he was called “Problem Child” after all), but this seemed even beyond that. It reminded her of how the stern and grumpy teacher looked at him on the first day of class, with what seemed to be extreme scrutiny, or maybe even contempt?
But why? Deku hadn’t gotten involved in any villain attacks recently, he’d continued to excel in his classes and deliver assignments on time, and he hadn’t hurt himself at all since the Joint Training incident. That was over a month with nothing to upset Mr. Aizawa with, which was a new record for Deku! (and isn’t that kinda sad?) Plus, up until the police interviews, Deku hadn’t been acting any differently at all.
Speaking of, ever since then, Deku hadn’t calmed down in the slightest, despite her, Iida, Tsuyu, and Todoroki’s best efforts. His anxiety kept increasing, and he seemed to be really sad, but hid it behind his usual smiles. It got to the point where even Hatsume noticed. Hatsume! Yeah Ochaco didn’t like her all too much (she was just so handsy and in your face!), but she’d never call the girl uncaring. She was just extremely ignorant about social etiquette, as Iida put it, and was very bad at reading people.
On top of it all, Ocahco hadn’t seen Deku write in his analysis notebooks even once since the interview. She knew writing helped him calm down whenever he was anxious, so usually when he had anywhere near this much anxiety he’d be writing every moment he wasn’t in class! So why wasn’t he!? When she’d tried to ask he’d just give a lame excuse like “broke his last pencil”, “left it in his room” or “left it in the classroom” (it was obvious he was making it up when he used both those last excuses on the same day).
So just what was going on?!
And if things were going downhill at this point, the next Monday is where they proceeded to veer right off a cliff.
A new rumor had started circulating the school: that there was someone feeding information to the League from within UA. Though she usually didn’t take too much stock into rumors, this one spooked her. After all, just how did the League know the location of the summer camp, when that had been changed last minute, and they were only told when they arrived? Even Iida seemed unnerved by it, but put a stop to the talk as it was clearly freaking Deku out.
It was at lunch, waiting in line by herself to snag an extra piece of mochi, that Ochaco first caught wind of people combining the spy rumor with the villain Deku one. It made her absolutely furious; Deku was targeted the most out of their class, and Shigaraki personally hated Deku the most! But people were just using those points as “reasons” for it to be true, thinking that they were too over-the-top and a way to throw suspicion off him. Which was frankly stupid!
Ochaco was about ready to fight someone when Mina and Toru brought it up in the girls’ changing room. Yeah they had been joking, but still! That kind of joke could be really hurtful if Deku heard it!
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter. No, the class was very good at keeping all mentions of it away from Deku, but that in itself became the problem. Some of them were far too obvious that they were hiding something from him.
It was like watching a trainwreck happening right infront of you, in slow motion, knowing that no matter what you did, there was nothing you could do to stop it. Try as she might, Ochaco could only watch as jokes ever so slowly turned to speculation, which in turn became consideration, and from there grew into distrust.
A process that was only sped up when it was discovered the rumors originated from a Business student with a hearing quirk, who had overheard the teachers talking with the detectives.
And sure, most of the class were very careful not to mention any serious suspicions around her or the rest of Deku’s close friends, but she still overheard some. Particularly when they’d offhandedly make comments about Deku’s habits, like calling his muttering creepy or the fact that no one really knew what was in his notebooks.
Yeah Ochaco could be airheaded sometimes, but she wasn’t stupid! She understood what they were implying: that Deku wasn’t trustworthy, that his closed-offness about his habits and training and home life and past made him suspicious. Which was frankly ridiculous! Deku was one of the most trustworthy in the whole class. Just because he was shy about his personal life didn’t mean he was doing something wrong; everyone was entitled to privacy!
But try as Ochaco might, by the end of the next week, most of the class was avoiding Deku, and the rest were barely interacting with him. Even Tsuyu, while she never voiced any suspicions, would occasionally glance at him warily! Sure she was still just as friendly with Deku as before, but the fact that Ochaco would sometimes see suspicion in her observant eyes hurt.
As Deku sank farther and farther back into his behavior at the start of the year, Ochaco could only hope that All Might’s return on Wednesday would help brighten his spirits, and the hero could help alleviate at least some of the class's misgivings.
Turns out, he would already be too late.
He should have seen this coming, should have known the past eight months were too good to be true. But if there was one thing Izuku was good at, it was never losing hope. So despite seeing all the signs, he’d dared to hope that he was just reading things wrong, that it was just his anxiety getting the better of him, or that there was a happy reason for it all. He had a quirk now after all, and no one but Kacchan knew otherwise, so surely this would blow over.
But as the days went by, and the signs continued to pile up with no other explanation in sight, Izuku had to resign himself to the truth.
It hurt, more than he thought it would. Apparently he’d already started to forget just how painful being avoided was. Being excluded, being looked at with dismissal, being whispered about behind his back. Teachers ignoring or watching him as though he was cheating.
Sure he was used to it all, more than probably any other person in the school besides Shinso, but he’d dared to hope that it was all behind him. That now he had a quirk things would be different.
Though, he supposed it still was different, at least a little bit. He’d never had friends before that stuck around when things started to turn. This time, despite the students and teachers turning on him like they always did, he still had Uraraka, Todoroki, and Iida. It felt … really nice, to not be entirely alone.
All the help that did though, was countered by the fact that he couldn’t use his main coping mechanism. His analysis notebooks had always helped him relieve stress and, more importantly, anxiety. But now they were gone.
The detectives had taken them, saying that the most recent ones might have info on the League or at least perspectives on incidents with them, that he had written amongst the analyses. And that made at least a little sense, he had talked about some combo moves inspired by the training camp incident for example. But they also took all the rest of his notebooks, even the ones from when he was little! Apparently the detectives believed that the notebooks could be dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands, and took them to determine if it was safe for him to keep them.
That … well, that hurt. The idea that the very thing that had kept him hopeful, kept him sane, kept him alive all these years, could be dangerous was a very mixed feeling. On the one hand, it validated his hope and dream that his analysis could help him be a hero, but on the other, they seemed to think they could be harmful. And thus had taken them away from him.
He imagined it would be like if Hatsume had spent years working on an innovative “baby”, have higher ups praise the end result, and then take it away from her without any benefit to show from it.
So now not only did he feel sad over the loss of all his hard work, but also extremely guilty over any harm he could have ended up causing. And sure, he could start a new one, but that only brought the feeling of guilt crashing to the forefront, and made him wonder if he was doing something wrong. Was he endangering his friends by writing so much about them?
And to top it all off, he couldn’t even find solace in All Might’s company. His mentor was in I-Island for three weeks, undergoing experimental treatment to hopefully help lesson his chronic pain and make his life easier. Izuku couldn’t wait for him to return, for even if his hero couldn’t make things go back to the way before, at least then Izuku would have one teacher who still treated him like normal.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Izuku, All Might wouldn’t arrive in time.