Chapter Text
Izuku's parents screamed a lot.
By the ripe old age of seven, Izuku learned to burrow himself deep in his room whenever their voices got loud. He was smart for his age. Booksmart really. Then again, not many seven-year-olds were street smart. That came with time and experience.
Every screaming match went the same. Something would set one of them off, comments were made, screaming ensued, something broke, Hisashi hit Inko, sobbing began, Hisashi would walk out without saying a word, Izuku would come out of his room and hug his crying mother. Where Hisashi went, Izuku had no idea. He'd walk out for hours, but he always came back. That was really the most disappointing part in Izuku eyes: he always came back. He'd walk in at around one in the morning making enough noise to wake Izuku up. He knew better now, but when he was younger, he'd walk out and his father would reek of something foul and not be able to walk straight. He'd always get confused and ask too many questions, pissing his father off. He would walk back to bed crying, cheek stinging, and head aching.
But it was alright because Izuku knew better now. His mother taught him not to. Now, whenever they would scream and his father would leave to wherever it was he would go, Inko would sing Izuku to sleep and fall asleep on his twin-sized mattress with him. When they woke up from Hisashi loudly entering the house, they would hug each other tight and stay in bed, not making a sound.
Inko loved Izuku. She let him know every single night before she fell asleep. The good nights, the bad nights, and the ugly nights. She would always remind him how much of a blessing he was to her. She held onto him every time Hisashi would lay a hand on him, so naturally, Izuku tried to do the same after Hisashi left for the night.
But one night it was different.
He was sitting on the couch, playing with an etch-a-sketch when his mother started a conversation. She used big words that Izuku didn't understand. Hisashi was silent for a second before screaming at her, calling her names, saying he would never just take his son from him. Out of habit, he jumped off the couch with his etch-a-sketch. He kept his head low and made a beeline to his room. Fifteen minutes. That was all he had to endure. Fifteen minutes as he hummed to himself and drew a nice little clover with the dials of the monochrome screen.
Izuku had a hard time pushing the gut feeling that something was wrong with this fight. Everything about it was more hostile, angrier, more serious. Large words Izuku couldn't even comprehend, anger erupting over a small sentence. All of it was worse, all of it was wrong.
Izuku hummed a little louder, hoping to drown out Hisashi's threats and Inko's screams. His lips parted as his mother's song escaped his lips, comforting Izuku's crying ears. He focused hard on the melody, recalling the soothing sound of his mother's voice to make him feel safe. He twisted the dials ever so slightly in sync, trying to create a perfect curve to his cloverleaf.
However, the loud noise that erupted from the kitchen ruined his clover. A horrifying scream followed by a loud thud. Thuds and bangs and crashes were normal, but the silence was what scared Izuku. He listened carefully for the sobs of his mother or a scream of hatred, but there was silence.
Every ounce of Izuku's intuition was telling him to stay seated. Stay next to the bed, fix his clover, do not intervene. But Izuku was young and dumb and didn't have a great sense of self-preservation. He slowly got up and crept to the door. The telltale thud of Hisashi's footsteps paced around what Izuku could only assume was the kitchen. The door creaking seemed to be amplified as he slipped out into the hallway.
The air seemed thicker and his blood felt colder. The lights were a little dimmer than usual it seemed as he held his own hand for any kind of comfort. He watched his father's shadow dance from around the corner as he contemplated going back. But his mother was strangely silent, he hated every second of whatever the hell was happening in the Midoriya household.
He took a deep breath and walked around the corner. His father seemed to not even notice him as he quickly went through his phone and paced around with vigor. He saw the little beaded bracelet he gave his mother. A little thing he made one day in preschool that he wanted to give to her to remind her that she was the best mom in the world. The bracelet stayed hugging her wrist. The same wrist that lay on the floor.
"Mama?" Izuku softly asked. He turned the corner to see his mother laying on the ground, her eyes closed. Blood was seeping from the left side of her forehead as her chest ever so slightly rose and fell. "Mama, are you okay? You have a boo-boo."
Izuku wasn't sure what exactly to say. Whenever he got a cut or a wound, his mom would always patch it up and give him a kiss. But he didn't know how to put a bandage on this, he didn't know how to kiss this. There was so much blood, too much for him to even know where to start.
"Izuku," he heard a stern male voice say to him. Izuku felt a little relief wash over him to know he wasn't alone and Hisashi wasn't angry anymore. Izuku turned and his father got on one knee to meet him at eye level. "I need you to listen carefully. Your mother is an evil witch who wants to take you away. She's evil and she wants to hurt you and make you cry. We don't have much time, you need to pack up now."
Izuku looked to his sleeping mother and back to his father. "But we can't leave Mama," Izuku said. Hisashi's face turned to a scowl.
"You're not listening to me. That woman is evil. She's terrible and she wants to rip this family apart. Get. Packed. Now," Hisashi said. Izuku glanced back to his mother before silently heading to his room. He got his backpack for school and looked at the markers and folders inside. After careful consideration, he kept the markers, pencils, pens, and a single folder with his homework and spare paper. The rest was dumped out on the floor.
Izuku quickly thought about what he was supposed to bring. He folded and brought all the clothes he could. He grabbed his stuffed bunny and a couple of pieces of candy he had. He grabbed his piggy bank and took every cent he had with him. He grabbed his water bottle and an oversized hoodie.
His backpack felt heavy as he put it on his shoulders. He grabbed his coat and made his way into the living room. His father was shoving money and kitchen knives into the suitcase on the counter as he locked eyes with Izuku. He pulled a pocket knife out of his pocket, handing it to his child. "Just in case someone takes away my knives. Don't you dare lose it."
Izuku put the knife in his bag as he grabbed some fruit snacks from the pantry, taking as many snacks as the room he had left. Once his father was done, they were on their way. They quickly walked down the stairs of the complex as Hisashi dragged his only son by the hand. Izuku's family wasn't fortunate enough to own a car. They always took the train to places. Inko said there was no need for once since they had such easy transportation right in front of them.
But Izuku could only assume his father had bought a car without Inko's knowing because, after a bit of fumbling with a wire, he opened a car door and ordered Izuku into the passenger seat. The car took a while to turn on as Hisashi swore and messed with something under the steering wheel, but the rumble of the engine Izuku rarely experienced started up. Before Izuku could have a second thought, they were pulling out of the parking garage.
Izuku couldn't see too well outside the window too well. It was high and the dashboard loomed over his field of vision. Izuku had no idea how long they had been driving. But he was bored, he was tired, he just wanted to see his mother again.
"When will we get to see Mama again?" Izuku asked.
"Never," Hisashi replied simply.
"Why not?"
"She's a wicked bitch. She wants to take you away from me."
"Mama isn't mean. She's not a b-word."
"Izuku you better listen to me right now!" Hisashi snapped. Izuku shut his mouth and cowered down in the seat. "That woman is an evil bitch! You can never, never, go back to her. If you do she will kill you, you understand? She wants you dead! If you ever go back to her, you will die! She's a crazy psycho! She's deranged! Never go back to your psycho mother, she doesn't love you!"
Izuku sniffed and nodded his head. He wiped the tears that formed in his eyes. His chest felt heavy as sadness swallowed him whole. He missed his mother already. It killed him to think she didn't miss him at all. In fact, she wanted him dead. He pulled his bunny out of his backpack and clung to it. He decided it was best to fall asleep for now.
When Izuku woke up, the car door was being slammed shut. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the noise. He saw his father on the outside of the car messing with a gas pump and looking mildly stressed out. Izuku didn't blame him for looking so stressed. Everything about this vacation or whatever it was was stressful. He didn't like being away from his mother, not that she would care if he were gone forever anyway. He didn't like the way his father acted, he didn't like how unprepared he felt, he didn't like how suddenly this had happened.
Soon, Hisashi walked away from the car and into the gas station. Izuku sat patiently in the car, waiting for his father to come back. Sometimes, when he was really upset, Izuku wished his father had never come back. A picture-perfect life with only him, Inko, and a little kitty cat they would get to replace Hisashi. That was the life Izuku dreamed of, not the one he was having right now.
But as he sat and spun the dials of his etch-a-sketch, he knew that he would never get that life. He would live with his father, not his mother. If Inko ever saw him again, she would kill him. Izuku had no idea why she had the sudden change of heart, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Just sit tight, zip it, and be thankful he wasn't hurt.
Hisashi walked out of the gas station building with quite a bit. The first thing Izuku noticed was the six-pack of beer he was holding. Izuku never saw him come home from the grocery store without one. Izuku hated beer, it always made his father hit his mother later in the night. He had a couple of other bags with him filled with things Izuku couldn't see from where he was sitting.
Hisashi didn't notice the woman, but Izuku did. A woman at the other pump stood utterly shocked as she pulled out her phone. Izuku watched as the woman tried to sneak in photos of the car, the license plate, and Izuku. Izuku waved to her, making her expression change to even more sorrowful than it already had been. She put the phone to her ear, secretly talking to someone.
Hisashi got in the car and tossed a pack of hello panda cookies to Izuku. "What are you staring at?" Hisashi asked. Izuku pointed to the woman on the phone.
"She was looking at me," he simply said. "I waved to her."
Hisashi looked at the woman, who now looked like she had seen a ghost. Hisashi turned on the car as fast as he could and floored it out of the gas station. He watched his father stare with tunnel vision as he sped to the nearest highway. As soon as they were on it, he swore and hit Izuku's shoulder from the driver seat.
"You stupid fucking kid," Hisashi snapped. Izuku cowered down as he gripped onto his Hello Panda box. "If anyone ever looks at you, turn away, don't answer them. They're trying to take you back to your mom to die. From now on, you only trust me and anyone I say you can trust, got it? Everyone else wants you dead."
Izuku's stomach dropped. He nodded his head profusely as he tried hard to suppress the tears that formed in his eyes. Izuku ate the rest of his cookies in silence as Hisashi swore and glanced at the statewide emergency notification on his phone.
Izuku stopped counting the minutes after he had reached 150 minutes. That was so long ago and now the sun had set once again. Izuku made sure he was silent the entire time while Hisashi occasionally tuned into the radio. Izuku would glance at his father whenever he heard his or Hisashi's name on the radio followed by a phone number. Hisashi never returned Izuku's glances, he only gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and looked straight ahead at the lonely road.
Izuku couldn't sleep anymore. He was too anxious and had already slept way too much to pass the time. The stars were beginning to show, one after another. His father couldn't seem to bear to listen to the radio anymore. It had been shut off for hours. Izuku was too afraid to hum to himself to bring himself joy. He feared the second a note escaped him he'd get smacked on the back of the head.
He peered up through the windshield with his little seven-year-old eyes, trying to count the stars. That one was the big dipper. He learned that when he went to the planetarium with his class last year. That was the same day Katsuki stole his cosmic brownie and ate it in front of him. Izuku would rather re-live the pain Katsuki's stunt caused than the pain he was feeling now. He pulled his coat closer to him as his father downed some beer and refused to turn on the heat.
Izuku couldn't see the lines created with his etch-a-sketch anymore. The lights by the road were scarce and the night sky had swallowed them whole. But luckily for him, some new red and blue lights lit up the car from behind, allowing him to see the screen once more. Hisashi, however, did not seem nearly as relieved as Izuku.
"Shit," Hisashi growled. "Izuku, I'm gonna speed up. If a man tries to tell you to go with him, do not. The police will bring you back to your mother and you will die, you got it?"
"Okay," Izuku said.
"No matter what, you do not go with them. They hate you and want you dead just like your mother," Hisashi stressed.
"Okay."
"If I can't have you, neither can that witch."
Izuku's back pressed into the seat as the car zoomed forward. He felt his gut drop as the car flew down a hill and didn't stop. The lights grew distant as his father picked up the speed. Sirens began to wail as Hisashi cursed under his breath. Izuku put his etch-a-sketch back in his bag to avoid it flying out of his hands. He clutched the bag close to him as the ride suddenly became more violent.
After a few minutes of speeding down streets, cars honking, almost crashing, more sirens sang out, the colors got brighter. Hisashi couldn't stop swearing under his breath as the road ahead now lit up with red and blue lights. Izuku watched as his father grabbed something Izuku couldn't quite make out from the glove box. His father braced himself as they got closer to the lights. Izuku shielded his face with his hands as the left side of the car slammed into a cop car and started spinning counterclockwise. The child didn't scream. He physically couldn't. Years and years of training himself not to scream when he got hurt was paying off as he shielded himself from nothing and everything.
"Stay here," Hisashi demanded. "Don't let them touch you." Hisashi shoved the airbag away from him as he grabbed the object and kicked the door open. Izuku jumped out of his skin as he heard yelling and gunshots from both sides. Fumbling with the seatbelt, he decided for the first time to go against his father's wishes. There was no way he could stay in this car. The police would find him and he would die. Izuku pushed the car door open and slammed onto the grass below. He put his backpack on his shoulders and sprinted through the tall grass. The gunshots rang out for what seemed like hours.
As he slipped into the woods and huddled inside a bush, the gunshots ceased. Radio chatter ensued as they started talking about him.
"There's no child in the car," he barely heard. "The door looks like it was opened manually. Get a search party for a 20-kilometer radius and paramedics. Two officers down."
Izuku heard a whirr to his right. The bullet train that led to Hosu City. By no means was he the smartest kid on the planet, but he knew there was nothing for him about a hundred meters from a crime scene. If he lingered for too long, he'd be sure to get caught. Once he heard the sirens of the ambulances, he zipped up his jacket and began the walk to the city.