Chapter Text
He only had a split second to register what was about to happen before it was too late.
After the shit day he was already having, he just wanted to go home. All it took was a split second for that simple walk home to go to absolute shit as he was surrounded, suffocated, by sludge. His brain is barely able to register what was happening at first. He thinks the sludge guy says something about a ‘disguise’ and a ‘hero’, but he can’t be sure. What he does know is that he can’t breathe.
And then what’s happening finally registers as his brain kicks it into gear. He’s being attacked, there’s sludge— what he assumes is the villain’s body— going down his throat, and he’s dying .
Now his brain has caught up, and his hands desperately try to pull at the liquid entering his airways. Every part of his chest and throat begin to burn from the lack of oxygen. As black spots enter his vision, he can’t help but feel like all the other shit in his life has led up to this moment. From the day he turned four— no, from the day he was born— he was a person waiting to die. That’s what everyone has been beating into him, isn’t it? That death would be a welcome mercy for someone like him. And no matter how badly he wanted it to change, now he knows it never would. Because, right now, Izuku Midoriya was choking, suffocating, dying.
His strength in his arms leaves him as the oxygen deprivation really starts to set in, everything is fuzzy but, for whatever reason, he strains to keep his eyes open. He needs to focus on something, anything, because he doesn’t quite feel like dying yet. There’s something yellow shimmering just barely in the corner of his vision. That… That wasn’t there before. Was it? With one last moment of control, he reaches up, desperate for this to be over and for him to just be able to breath, and pulls.
Something inside him tingles, but he assumes that his limbs are simply starting to go numb at this point. But then the sludge surrounding him recoils. He can feel it like a thick, wet shiver against his own skin. Then he’s dropped to the concrete, knees landing first, and he can barely even feel the jarring pain from that impact. What he does feel is sweet, lovely air flowing back into his lungs as he takes gaping breaths. Izuku doubles over, heaving in more air— more, more, it’s not enough, not enough — and tries to twist his head so that he can look behind him and see what the hell actually happened. It’s in the same moment that he cranes his neck to look and sees a pile of sludge on the ground, barely moving, that he feels the ground under him shake slightly from some impact, and a booming voice shouts.
“Have no fear, citizen! Now that I am here!”
There’s a pause. And he’s finally caught his breath enough to turn around fully, taking in the scene in front of him. That sludge thing , man , whatever is on the ground a few feet away from him, not quite moving but not completely still so he assumes it’s alive. There’s a storm drain that appears to have been blown off rattling to the ground. And then there’s All Might. He looks just as shocked as Izuku feels, standing a few meters past the sludge villain, just staring.
It’s Izuku who breaks the moment first by speaking. He blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “A- All Might?” Immediately followed by a series of coughs, chunks of sludge dislodging from his mouth and throat. Ew.
This intellectual response seems to break the stupor that the hero was in, as he starts moving again, taking a look over the villain before moving over to Izuku.
“Young man, are you alright? I was chasing this villain through the sewers when I thought I had lost him.” His ever-present smile was shining as he spoke, but Izuku noticed the hint of strain and confusion in it.
“I- uh, yeah, I’m fine I think.” Before he even finished speaking, All Might turned back to the villain and pulled out.. plastic bottles? Izuku watched as he collected the sludge in the containers and couldn’t help but think it was a weird choice for securing a villain. He thought he noticed two yellow strips of numbers floating around in the air, but he was so focused on All Might, the actual fucking number one hero, being in front of him that he barely took stock of it. Another round of coughs erupted from his lungs before he could contemplate anything further.
“I’m glad you are safe, young man! Looks like this villain must have reached his limits before I arrived. Now, I really must get going!”
“W-wait!” He tried to stop him. All Might was always his favorite hero, the best, someone who inspired him. He needed to say something more than shocked, stuttered responses. Ask for an autograph, or ask the most important question he knows. But All Might was already bending at the knees and preparing to take off as if he hadn’t heard Izuku. So he lurched forward and grabbed on.
The next second they were in the air. There was panic, from both Izuku and All Might, and he felt something hit his ankle. Then, they finally landed on a nearby roof. The hero began to lecture him about how dangerous that was, but Izuku couldn’t focus on that. He had something important to ask.
“I- I’m sorry for interrupting, and grabbing onto you. But I have something I want to ask! Can someone like me, someone quirkless… Can I be a hero too?”
Before he could get a response, there was a poof of smoke filling the air near where All Might stood. When it cleared, he could only gape at the emaciated form of a man standing in front of him. That’s when he really noticed the string of yellow numbers floating above the hero's head, some part of his brain wondered what that was, but then the man started talking. He was so shocked that he only half-heard the thin man explain that he really was All Might, then something about an injury and time limit. He finally focused to catch the tail-end of what the hero said. The answer to his question.
“... that’s why, my answer has to be no, young man. Hero work is just too dangerous. It’s better to be realistic. Maybe there are other ways you can help, but hero work is not cut out for someone who cannot protect themself.”
Those words shook him to his core, then settled heavily in his chest like a weight attempting to topple him over. Simply standing up felt hard once he heard his answer, but he just continued to stand there as the man walked past him to the roof entrance and left down the stairs. It wasn’t until after he heard the soft click of the door shutting that the first tears fell from his eyes.
He almost wanted to laugh. What rotten luck or unforgiving god decided to hand him the absolute load of shit that served as the events of today? First the hell that was his mere existence at school, his burnt shoulder and Kacchan’s searing words, nearly suffocating to death by sludge, and now that soul-crushing response from the number one hero. All the worst things that could happen to him, all piled up on one fantastic day. It actually seemed par for the course when he thought about it. And now here he was, crying alone like some idiot, for getting an honest response to the stupid question he decided to ask, on some roof… the roof.
“If you want to be a hero that badly, there might be another way. Just pray for a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building.”
How… fitting, that this is where he was dropped off and left alone. Without thinking much about it, his feet took steps closer toward the edge. He felt the wind push his curls away from his face as he peered over the side to the ground below. Less than an hour earlier, he had been fighting desperately against being killed, but now those words played on loop in his head. It didn’t sound so bad really. Everything seemed to be leading up to this anyways. ‘Be realistic’ . Isn’t this realistic for quirkless kids? Most people should know the mortality rates of those born quirkless nowadays. Maybe… maybe this was what he meant. He’s useless just like everyone-
All those thoughts stopped at the loud sound of an explosion merely a block and a half away.
Izuku snapped his head up, stumbling back from the ledge. He heard distant shouting, followed by more explosions. Then he was racing through the doors and down the stairs faster than he could think about what he was doing. There was most likely another villain attack, and old habits die hard. He wanted to see what heroes were there this time.
—
When he got to the scene of the explosions, he had to push his way through the crowd. He noticed that all those people seemed to also have that strange yellow string of numbers above their heads, but he was too focused on seeing what was going on to concentrate on what it was. A head of green curls whipped around trying to focus on the details of the fight. The first thing he noticed was the sludge, and his skin began to crawl with the phantom touch of that all-encompassing oozing liquid. But the second thing he noticed were red eyes and spiky ash-blonde hair. His breath felt like it was sucked out of his lungs.
Kacchan.