Chapter Text
Izuku has always liked taking walks. He gets to do it often, since his mom keeps locking him out. He explores the park near his home first, then the shopping center, then all the corner stores that will let him hang out for a little longer than strictly necessary. By the time he’s eleven he knows all the places he can go for a few hours on the weekends, or all the parks he can hang out at after dark when his mom doesn’t want him in the apartment. When she isn’t home, he can be there as long as he wants and sometimes she forgets he’s there and he can do his homework in his room while she’s home. He sees his mother maybe once or twice a month when she’s making herself breakfast or dinner, or on her days off that she spends lounging around. He spends those days cleaning until she either sends him to his room or ‘out for fresh air’. That’s what she always told him, fresh air is good for growing boys.
When he was eight he believed her, he’d go play at the park, trying to trail behind Kacchan. Then when he got back, the door would be locked and no matter how much he banged on the door and cried, she never answered. None of his neighbors cared, they only opened their doors to ask him to quiet down on the best of occasions. After that, he tried to refuse. She told him he needed fresh air and he claimed to have a headache.
“Even more reason,” she had urged.
She never needed to touch him, her quirk worked just fine on hair and wrists and bones. She rarely made him sleep outside, he would show up after midnight, exhausted and dead on his feet, and the door would be unlocked. Even then, he learned all the places he could safely sleep for a night or two just in case.
Takoba beach is one of those places, with its large trash piles it’s easy to build temporary structures that blend into the junk. It’s one of his favorite places to go after school to get away from Kacchan. When he’s not chasing down hero fights, Izuku likes to sort through the trash and see what he can pawn or recycle for a few yen. That’s one of the upsides of all his ‘walks’, no one expects him home anytime soon so he can go observe heroes as much as he wants, he can do whatever he wants. He uses the few yen he gets from junk to buy notebooks and pens, learning patrol routes and schedules. He reads books in the library about memory retention, so he can store information for longer, to avoid weird looks for writing in his journals.
The librarians really only tolerate Izuku during the school year, they don’t appreciate the quirkless kid hanging around for hours on end during breaks. He tries to smush as much research into those few hours he gets as he can; local curfew laws, then quirkless law, codes to disguise his writing from Kacchan’s prying eyes. After the light in his room goes out and his mother refuses to do anything about it, Izuku learns about electrical systems. He fixes it himself, forgoing a little bit of groceries from the money she leaves for the tools. He expects it to go unnoticed, like everything else, but she stops him when he’s leaving before she can send him away one Saturday morning.
“The light in your room is back on, I saw it under the door,” she says unprompted.
“I-I fixed it,” he mutters.
“By yourself?” She asks.
He nods and she raises a brow, “Where’d you get the tools?”
“I-I didn’t eat lunch a couple times to afford them,” he admits.
“How did you learn to fix it?”
“The library computers.”
She crosses her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. Izuku tenses, biting his cheek until he tastes iron. Suddenly, her expression softens.
“I’m so glad you’re learning to do something useful. I told you you would find something. Maybe I can start getting you electrical science kits for your birthday instead of All Might,” she smiles; as if she’s gotten him a birthday gift in the last five years.
“You’re not mad?” He mutters.
“You should have told me about the money, but as long as you don’t cause a fire I think I can forgive it. You didn’t steal anything extra. The money I leave you is for you to take care of yourself, you're such a responsible boy. I know I’m busy,” she gives him an apologetic look and it makes him want to crawl into his own skin.
She isn’t busy, she just doesn’t want him around. But at least here he has a roof over his head, she leaves him money for food. Sure, he had to research how to do his own stitches after he cut his hand at the beach; at least his shitty phone that she pays for could find him a video on YouTube. The library’s computers are much faster and didn’t have his mother tracking him. Sure, the librarian could see him looking up pressure points and researching how car batteries work, but as long as it isn’t inappropriate she can’t kick him off the computer. Izuku’s mother once took his phone because he was reading an article about Midnight and Present Mic’s stance on Quirkless discrimination. She doesn’t like him researching heroes anymore, she doesn’t want him talking about them; not that she listens to him talk anyways.
At twelve all of this culminates in Izuku making his best find on the beach as he pulls a sheet of metal out a large pile. He has to make a run for it as things start crashing down, but there at the base now uncovered for the first time in who knows how long, the full front end of a car. He stays away from the pile for a bit, hovering nearby hidden as he looks through other piles for different things; he’s got quite the collection of old tools and things he’s found now. When it’s clear no one is going to come investigate the sounds he made, he makes his way back to the car. He carefully digs it out until he reveals exactly why it’s here. The entire back end has been crushed, completely unsalvageable. The only thing is, whoever dumped it here hadn’t gutted it. It must’ve gotten buried in trash before anyone realised it still had plenty of parts. The interior is weathered and growing some things, and a lot of stuff is covered in rust. However, the surrounding trash seems to have protected parts of it, and Izuku has found a new project.
He spends the entire night in his bed on his phone binging mechanic videos. He naps in some of his classes, the ones with the less cruel teachers, and dodges Kacchan’s attempts at harassing him for said naps. He stops by the apartment after school, just to see if he can get in. Since he can, he grabs a snack and changes out of his uniform. He grabs all of his tools and makes for the beach. He checks everything over first, it’s oil tank is empty however it’s fuel tank still has dredges. He then has to make sure it hadn't clogged anything in its stagnation. By the time the sun is down, he has a good idea what sort of things need to be done to get the engine running, and it’s surprisingly very little.
It takes two weeks, but when he hears the engine turn over he shouts with glee. It won’t go anywhere, the tires sunk deep into the sand, but it’s running. He’s never been particularly good at anything. He likes to think he’s smart, but his grades are always so much lower than he expects them to be. He likes to think his hero analyses are at least somewhat cool, but kacchan just calls them creepy. No one can deny that fixing a car at twelve is somewhat cool. Maybe his mom is right, maybe he’s finally found useful things to do with his life. Even if he can’t be a hero, he can fix things. You don’t need a quirk to fix things, there’s no danger in wires and bolts. Izuku can be good at this, he just needs to know enough about it. If there’s one thing Izuku Midoriya is good at, it’s research.
By thirteen, Izuku has managed to get a good arrangement of tools, and he’s done hours upon days upon weeks of reading into different fields of mechanics, electronics, robotics, and so forth. After fixing the car, he managed to make a washer run on seawater for a little while. He started dumpster diving deeper into the city, where any electronics he finds won’t be damaged by salty air and sea water. He refurbishes a laptop he found, stealing keys and parts from other ones he found to make his ‘frankenputer’ as he’s been calling it. With a computer that no one knew he had, so no one could monitor, he had free range of everything he could ever want. The first thing he learns is software coding of course, since he now knows how the hardware of the laptop works he wants to know how the rest works too.
He also gets to join a bunch of hero forums that his mom hated on his new laptop. He spends hours scouring through different online forums for different things until he stumbles across a very interesting conversation in the bottom of a Present Mic subtab. It was about a radio show the man had done a couple years ago on quirkless discrimination with Midnight. There’s a comment thread where someone had asked if Present Mic was a ‘true’ quirkless ally, with true in bold italics. Izuku knows that Present Mic has always been very open about the charities he works with and multiple of them focus on quirkless or quirk discrimination. Izuku would consider him a ‘true’ ally, but this person did not seem convinced until someone replied,
‘I mean, I heard his favorite color is blue so I’d say he is’.
Izuku doesn’t know what the man’s favorite color has to do with anything but the OP seems to find it intriguing.
‘He’s a stargazer?’
The commenter then sends a link, ‘Stay updated.’
Izuku clicks the link and is transported to an invite to a private server. He has to make an account before he can accept the invite. He keeps it as private as possible, not quite knowing what will be on the other side. When he accepts the invite he’s blocked from going further than the rules page stating that he has to be vetted by a moderator before being allowed in. It only takes a few seconds for him to get a message.
CoffeeQueen: How did you get this invite?
Green.Tech: I found it on a forum about Present Mic and quirkless discrimination.
CoffeeQueen: Star marker?
Green.Tech: ??
CoffeeQueen: Red shoes?
Do they mean his sneakers? It’s basically a public secret that there’s only one company in multiple countries that make shoes that comfortably fit quirkless feet; not everyone knows but enough know to make the shoes a target.
Green.Tech: Do you want a picture of them?
CoffeeQueen: Yes.
Izuku shrugs and snaps a picture of his red sneakers with his phone, sending it to his laptop to copy into the chat.
CoffeeQueen: Quirk Registry?
CoffeeQueen: [Sent example attachment]
CoffeeQueen: Quirkless only, we have to be thorough.
At first, he was going to block them and ignore the server entirely at the request of his quirk registry papers, but then he realizes why. A quirkless server, for their news and safety. No wonder they have a whole vetting process. He has to sneak into the office to get his papers and another minute to edit the picture on his computer to block sensitive information before sending it. As soon as they read the message, Izuku is let into the server and is already flooded with a few notifications.
The Red Star Galaxy welcomes Green.Tech from Shizuoka Japan
Green.Tech has been given ‘protostar’ status.
Green.Tech has been relegated to the kids table.
Izuku huffs out a laugh at being ‘sent to the kids table’. He assumes that means there’s adult only spaces in the server and kids only spaces, he doesn’t mind. He wonders what ‘protostar’ means. He goes back to the rules page to finish reading them, he does his little introduction, then he clicks the server link to the ‘Welcome Center’. There are pinned threads at the top each with a category of information; ‘safe spaces by area’ ‘traditions’ and ‘resources’. He starts with ‘traditions’ because he didn’t know that quirkless people had traditions.
He learns what CoffeeQueen had meant about the star marker, there are vigils, there are rules that if broken result in you being shunned. A part of him is a little upset that he’s gone thirteen years not knowing about this, but the biggest part is excited to have a community to be a part of. He moves onto safe spaces next, scrolling until he finds Shizuoka. He gapes as he sees all the pins on the map, some even close to him. Should he go? Is it really smart to go alone? It’s not like he has any quirkless friends to take with him, he might’ve known about all of this earlier if he had. He bites his lip and makes the decision, changing into better clothes for walking around at night and heading off.
The thread says that the safe spaces are all open 24/7, so he heads towards the closest one. The weirdest part is, when he walks up to the little convenience store tucked away on a less used side street with tiny front windows, he realises he’s been here before. He looks back down at the post attached to the location link.
Haruka’s Shop
Mixed Company
Quirkless Employed
Caretaker- Kanna Ametxazurra
Mixed company must mean that it’s open to the public, so people with quirks can go inside. There’s a man at the back when he gets inside, a tail peeking out of his shirt so Izuku knows he’s currently in ‘mixed company’. The woman up at the counter smiles at him, casually stretching so Izuku can see the star on the pocket of her jeans. He sheepishly walks up to the counter.
“Hey, can I help you?” She chirps.
“Do you- Are you Kanna?” He mutters.
“I am, are you in need of something? You can head to the back, my husband is back there working right now and he can help you out.”
“Is he…”
“No, he’s a blue, are you looking for a red? Head on back there and tell him to switch out with me, he should be in our apartment.” she says, pointing towards the hall where a sign labelled bathrooms is.
He bites his lip as he hurries back to the hall, there’s more doors, two labelled employees only, but one has a red star on the bottom left corner. He pushes it open and finds yet another hallway with stairs. He huffs and goes up them, more doors, yay. Some of the doors say vacant and some just have family names. He finds the one from the server thread, tilting his head. It isn’t Japanese but he doesn’t know what it is. He knocks on the door and a kind looking man opens the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Kanna said to ask you to switch with her for a bit,” Izuku says quietly.
“Are you supposed to wait here for her?” The man asks.
Izuku nods and the man gives him a soft smile, “Head on inside and have a seat on the couch.”
Izuku knows it’s stupid, being where he is right now, in a stranger’s living room, but he’s already here. He fiddles with his hoodie sleeves as he waits, jumping a bit when the door opens again.
“Alright, lately Amane has been mentoring the new kids, but I can help out. What do you know?”
He goes over everything he’s learned from the server and she nods along.
“So, you had no idea?” She asks, frowning when he shakes his head. “Alright, I should have extras, I’ll be right back.”
Kanna disappears into a door and Izuku stares down at the rug awkwardly. When she returns, she’s clutching something in her fist.
“Here, you can pin it to anything.”
It’s a simple enamel pin of a four pointed red star. He pins it to the strap of his backpack for now.
“Do you need anything? Are you reaching out for help?” She asks.
“Uh…no, ma’am. I skimmed the resources on the server and it seemed helpful. I bookmarked some of the linked forums on my walk here. I just, is there anything I’m missing? I want to know as much as I can.”
“Head over to the library and ask Reo to teach you Alter-tongue. It’s a sign language someone made decades ago that’s a mix of ASL and JSL. He’s more well versed and has more time to teach you. My husband’s main job is sales so he has to be back here while I run the shop. Head back up front and grab yourself a snack and a water on the house,” she says.
“No, no I couldn’t,” he tries.
“I insist. I’m sorry I can’t be more of a help but I’m glad you’ve got yourself a star now. Feel free to make your own if you want more. Make sure to check those resources and the local calendar,” she urges as she takes him back towards the door.
Izuku stands on the sidewalk with cold water and a bag of trailmix, and tons of questions. He hurriedly checks the server for the library’s location before heading off.
The library is just a nice apartment where someone has filled the entire living room with books, bookshelves, and comfy seating. The kitchen door is attached to the genkan with a sign stating ‘If door is closed, kitchen is closed’. He slips his shoes off, continuing into the living room. A man is sitting in an armchair, reading.
“Uh…hi? Are you Reo?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I was told to ask you to teach me Alter-tongue by Kanna?”
The man puts his book down and Izuku gets a better look at his scarred face. There’s a jagged scar across the bridge of his nose and a chunk of skin missing out of his chin. His hair is choppy and jagged, hanging over his forehead to hide most of another scar that threatens to poke out on his brow.
“Have a seat, do you know sign language?”
“I took a few months of JSL when I was eleven, on the library computers.”
He had tried to bring it up with Katsuki, because he had noticed the boy wincing because of his own explosions. If the sound bothered him, it’s likely that it could cause him to go deaf if he continues down the hero path. He didn’t want Katsuki to be isolated if he went deaf, he takes a few lessons here and there when he’s running low on hyper fixations. He runs through things pretty quickly, so he spends a week on JSL once every like three months.
“Awesome, let’s just dive in, you can find a book about the history in a book somewhere in here,” he gestures around. Izuku wants to read them, he really does, but he’s got so many projects going right now, he’ll have to come back to that later.
In between school, dumpster diving, pawning his finds, tinkering, researching for said tinkering, Izuku manages to fit in lessons with Reo. He picks it up pretty quickly, the man seems impressed and Izuku leaves each lesson feeling a small flutter of pride. He’s so sick of everyone calling him stupid, especially when he knows they’re wrong, he knows what he’s capable of. Reo never calls him stupid, in fact Reo has on more than one occasion told Izuku that he seems very smart and keeps bringing up a friend that would like him; Izuku just takes the compliment with a grin.
One night, Izuku is digging through a dumpster behind what he considers a gold mine; A large workshop in the center of the city with a bit ‘HT’ on the front. The dumpster has the same logo displaying ‘Hatsume Tech’ and their dumpsters tend to have good junk for Izuku’s purposes. Though he's done his research and while the company is usually good at recycling things, sometimes technicians and engineers get lazy and throw something in the wrong bin. He’s looking over what seems to be a failed alarm of some sort when someone clears their throat.
“You do know this is considered stealing,” a curious voice chirps
Izuku touches the black medical mask on the bridge of his nose, just to make sure it’s still there as he turns his head. His hood is still up and it’s dark, he’s just a shadowy blob in a dumpster; so whoever this is, watched him hop in here and let him root around long enough to fill half his bag.
“It’s trash,” he mutters.
“What’re you taking?” They ask, peering down into the dumpster and reaching to move some stuff around.
“Are you gonna turn me in?” They appear to be about his age, bright pink hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“No, I saw you on the cameras and came to warn you. I don’t want you to get in trouble. I like to dumpster dive too, Takoba beach is good for scraps,” they say, climbing into the dumpster next to him.
He glances around nervously, “I uh…I like Takoba too.”
“Awesome, can I see what you got?” They ask.
He clutches his bag close to him protectively. They frown then stick their hand out with a polite smile.
“I’m Hatsume Mei, my mom runs Hatsume Tech and if you’re taking our trash cause you’re using the parts to build stuff I think that’s really cool and that means we can be friends and you don’t have to take our trash cause I can just help you get parts,” she rambles, shaking her hand in the air between them, urging him to take it.
Izuku bites his lip behind his mask before slowly reaching out a hand, “Izuku.”
“We are now officially friends, it’s really late though and you should probably get out of our dumpster. I’ll give you my phone number and we can talk about babies sometime.”
“What?!” Izuku exclaims.
“It’s what I call my inventions, they’re my babies I am their creator,” she says, oddly serious.
“A-alright…I guess that’s cool. I don’t have a lot of friends.”
“Neither do I, even more reason for us to be friends,” she declares.
Izuku leaves the alley behind Hatsume Tech filled with confusion and his bag heavy with scrap parts and wires, but his heart is light. A friend, how long has it been since he’s really had one of those?
He meets Hatsume after school the next day at Takoba beach, as they had discussed during lunch while he was hiding from Kacchan. She grins at him as he walks up, goggles already pulled down on her face. He brought some of his completed projects; his laptop, a camcorder that he found behind a pawn shop and fixed, and the tools to hotwire the car to show that he fixed it up. Except he apparently hasn’t checked on it in a while and when he gets to where it is, he finds nothing beneath the hood.
“Oh, I gutted that. Was it yours?”
He slumps a bit, “I mean, I got it running.”
“That was you?! Awesome! I was wondering why a car that ran seemingly fine was stuck under all this junk!” She grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Well…half of it is crushed,” Izuku points out.
They spend hours on the beach, sharing gadgets and jokes, Mei showing him one of her blueprints and even teaching him more about them and how to design them. They dig around the beach for a solid few hours, her telling him all the different things he can use different parts for. Izuku takes everything in with a smile.
“So, it was really no surprise I took after mom. I’m aiming for UA though, she just went to a local support school,” Hatsume rambles.
“UA?” Izuku instinctually looks up before turning back down to the fire alarm he was pulling apart.
“Best school there is, why? You wanna enroll with me?” She leans forward, grinning.
Izuku clenches his teeth, “I can’t.”
“Why not? I’ve only known you for a day and I know you’re hella smart. I bet you could pass the exams, no sweat.”
“I can’t,” he repeats bitterly.
“I’ll even help you study, we can work on our babies together!” She offers.
Izuku clenches his eyes shut, not wanting to see her, he almost wants to cover his ears.
“I can’t, UA would never let a quirkless kid in.”
Mei pauses, tilting her head, “I thought they got rid of that rule?”
“Th-they did…but that doesn’t mean they’d actually admit me,” he retorts before biting his tongue. “Is that your only issue?”
“With what? The quirkless thing? I don’t care, doesn’t matter. I think it’s cool actually cause you can test any baby you want on yourself cause you don’t have a quirk that could counteract it. Also, did you know they’ve done studies that show you might have a naturally higher pain tolerance?” It didn’t take long for Izuku to realize that Mei just says whatever she wants whenever she wants.
“Do further research,” he mutters, “those were awful studies with biased medical results. It’s an old tactic to make an ‘inferior’ group seem less than human, the Americans used to do that during segregation and slavery.”
Mei frowns, “I didn’t think about that.”
“It’s fine,” he shrugs.
“So, you don’t have a higher pain tolerance?” She tries.
He thinks about it for a moment, he has had a lot of injuries, but he’s gotten hurt a lot since he was a little kid. Was any pain tolerance he had due to consistent damage and his body getting used to the pain or could it be natural?
“Inconclusive,” he decides.
“Experiment for another day,” she returns to her own tinkering and Izuku stares at her for a long moment.
“Do not torture me for science,” he says sternly.
“I won’t!” She says instantly. “There are ways to test it on a smaller scale and make assumptions based on that. Not sound conclusions but…conclusions.”
“Hatsume!” His shriek is broken by laughs as she just smiles devilishly at him. He can tell she’s joking, even if others wouldn’t be, even if most would take the chance to torture him to prove a point.
“You really don’t care?” He asks as they calm back down.
Mei raises a brow, “You thought I would care? You’re dumber than I thought Izuku.”
“Hey!” He shoves her playfully and laughter rings through the trash piles.
She makes him share his location when he goes dumpster diving and they spend most of their free time texting. They don’t just talk about inventions and UA, they talk about Mei’s favorite TV shows and podcasts to binge while she works, she sends links to everything. Izuku has to download a streaming service on his laptop because Mei refuses to let him reject her password sharing. They have movie nights when his mom is at work, and just like Inko, Mei never questions why Izuku doesn’t go home.
Izuku repeats the motion and Reo nods with a small smile.
“Alright, that’s really about all of it, kid. It’s not a full language, it’s pretty choppy. I can set you free of the nest now. Have you looked into any other of the available classes?” Reo asks.
“I saw that there’s self-defense classes on Fridays?” Izuku bites his lip.
“Yup, my cousin teaches it and sometimes their sister subs,” the man says, writing something down.
Izuku takes the slip of paper and pockets it, “Thanks, this was really cool.”
Reo’s been talking about all the traditions with Izuku, all the ins and outs so Izuku won’t look like such an outsider. Izuku has absorbed as much as he could. He’ll eventually fit the time for defense classes between all his hangouts with Mei. Speaking of which, he’s supposed to meet her at the beach after his lesson with Reo, which has been framed as ‘tutoring with his cousin’ as everyone in the quirkless community treats each other as family. Izuku doesn’t really know if Reo’s cousin is truly his blood or just a quirkless friend because it seems the two are synonymous with their community.
Izuku is staring down at his laptop, hidden in a little corner behind the school when a door slams open. He shrinks back into his little hidey hole but it’s no use, a familiar head of blond spikes comes around the corner. At least he’s alone.
“Is this where you fucking hide then, Deku?” Kacchan snarls.
Izuku just bites his tongue, pressing the button on his laptop that will lock it and store everything on his personal cloud. If Kacchan breaks his laptop, he doesn’t want to lose any of his files, especially not since he started typing up his journals into encrypted files, keeping their original secret code just for kicks.
“The fuck’s been up with you? Fallin’ asleep in class, you’re not as annoying as usual, you don’t even eat lunch anymore.”
“I didn’t know you cared, kacchan,” he mutters bitterly before he can stop himself. Izuku slaps a hand over his mouth as Katsuki snarls; Mei has been a bad influence.
“I don’t fucking care, it’s just fucking weird. You’ve been up my ass since we were in diapers and all of a sudden you’re nowhere to be found. So,” Kacchan takes a step forward, brandishing a clenched hand like a weapon because it is one, “what the fuck is up with you?”
“You always told me you didn’t want me around, so I stopped hanging around. I have other things to do now, hobbies, friends,” well, one friend but still.
Katsuki grits his teeth, “Who the hell is hanging out with your ass?”
“Someone who doesn’t go here, so you don’t have to worry about it. I won’t bother you anymore, I won’t be your problem.”
Katsuki grabs Izuku by the uniform, hauling him to his feet. Izuku’s eyes go wide when he hears his laptop clatter to the ground, clenching his fists. If Kacchan breaks it, Izuku might actually hit him. He worked hard to get that laptop working, it’s how he hones his new skills and learns more, it’s evidence of his new abilities. Mei had complimented his work, she admitted to not knowing much about software just yet, so they plan to learn more together. He needs this laptop to do that.
“Making sure you know your damn place is always my problem, Deku,” Kacchan snarls, throwing Izuku back against the wall.
Izuku grunts as he hits the concrete, sliding to the dirt. He lifts his head, ready to take another hit, only for his blood to run cold as Kacchan scoops up his laptop.
“Kacchan!” He tries, reaching out and scrambling to his feet.
Katsuki lifts the laptop into the air, clutched tight in his sweaty fingers.
“No more nerdy journals, huh? How’d you get this then? It looks like it was found in a dumpster.”
“Exactly, it’s worthless, so just hand it over. Kacchan, please,” Izuku begs. It’s been a long time since he’s begged Katsuki for anything and after the last time he told himself it would never happen again.
He sees the smoke before anything else and Izuku thinks he might’ve actually blacked out. He lunges for Katsuki, grappling him around the middle as his quirk goes off, breaking open the case and burning the internal hardware. Izuku shrieks as Katsuki roars, tossing the laptop aside. Izuku doesn’t listen to the logical side of his brain telling him to just roll over like always, he’s never fought back like this before, it can only make things worse. He doesn’t care, that was his fucking laptop, his hardwork, laying in pieces in the dirt. Izuku grabs at Katsuki’s uniform, his hair, clawing at him with his jagged, bitten nails. He ignores the burn of Katsuki’s quirk as he clenches his fists, slamming them into his childhood best friend's sternum. Katsuki manages to throw Izuku aside, scrambling to his feet as people start coming over to see the commotion. Izuku gets to his knees, glaring at Katsuki through his bangs as the blonde stares back at him with frantic eyes, clutching a hand to his chest.
“Did Deku attack Bakugo?” Someone whispers.
“No way, he’s always just been a punching bag,” another student says.
Izuku ignores them, he slowly gets to his feet, never taking his eyes off Katsuki. When it doesn’t seem like the blond is going to move, Izuku warily steps over to his broken laptop, gathering the pieces.
“Bakugo! Midoriya! What is going on over here?!” A teacher stomps over, crossing her arms when she sees the two scraped up kids.
“Midoriya attacked Bakugo! He’s totally feral!” One student claims.
“Bakugo was just trying to look at his laptop, Midoriya threw it aside and tackled him,” another pipes up.
“Bakugo, is this true?” The teacher asks.
Katsuki finally takes his eyes off Izuku, who casts his gaze back to the ground, picking up a piece of the plastic case.
“I took his laptop,” Katsuki mutters.
Izuku snaps his head up, narrowing his eyes at Katsuki as everyone starts whispering.
“Detention, both of you. Midoriya, you’ll be suspended for the next three days for fighting,” the teacher says.
Izuku just nods, still staring at Katsuki as everyone is dismissed. Izuku shoves his broken laptop into his backpack as the teacher drags them up to the principal’s office. Neither speak,even as they’re being scolded. They don’t talk later in detention either, the first one on Katsuki’s perfect record.
Why on earth hadn’t he went with the lie? He let himself get in trouble for no reason. Of course, Izuku got in more trouble but that’s not surprising. It’s not Izuku’s first detention and he’s certain it won’t be his last. His mom is going to be pissed when she has to sign the detention slip. As he leaves the school he decides that she never has to get mad, because she won’t have to see the slip. When he prints out a fake permission slip for a free field trip with the school to tour a highschool. His mom is home, watching TV in the living room. She hadn’t locked him out, but she hadn’t looked at him when he entered either; which at least means she doesn’t notice the evidence of fighting.
“Hey…mom?” he says quietly. “There’s a field trip with the school-”
“Not this time, Izuku,” she says immediately.
“There’s no cover fee, the school is paying for it all,” he keeps trying.
She turns her eyes onto him, but not her full attention, “Bring me the slip.”
Izuku hands it over to her and she barely looks at it before signing it. He takes it with a bow and a muttered thanks before scurrying away. It’s easy enough to trace the signature and he stores the paper away for any future use he might need. He’ll just leave for school like normal and his mom won’t really notice the difference. He sits on his bed with all of his parts and supplies scattered around him, Mei in one headphone as he solders two wires onto a circuit board.
“How about a sleepover weekend?” She offers.
“A sleepover?” He nearly drops his soldering iron, built from spare parts and nearly made Mei feint at how risky its wiring is.
“Yeah! But, my mom will need to talk to yours.”
Izuku blanches, “She’s really busy.”
“A phone call will work for now,” she suggests.
Izuku swipes the call as she just continues to talk about the sleepover plans, since she’s never had one. Izuku downloads one of those apps that lets you have a second phone number and figures that since Mei has never met his mom, he might be able to do a good enough voice. He downloads a quick voice changing software on his computer and quickly switches his screen over.
“Ok, I’ll give you her number and your mom can call her tonight. But I’ve gotta go finish up some homework,” he says.
“Boo, send me a pic of the finished circuits when you’re done,” she demands before hanging up.
Izuku doesn’t have to wait long for Mei’s mother to call his fake number. He answers through his laptop, turning on the voice changing software and making sure it’s on for his mic.
“Hello?” He asks, the computer changing his voice to just a feminine version of his own.
“Hi, this is Hatsume Naoki, our kids are friends.”
“Yes, Izuku has told me about Mei, such a sweet girl. Is there a problem?” He asks.
“No no, my girl is just wanting a sleepover this weekend and I needed a stamp of approval. She says you’re a busy woman,” Naoki chuckles.
“Yes, I’m a nurse. A sleepover is fine, Izuku can take public transit. I work odd hours, you see, hard to do playdates and such,” he giggles, trying to play the part as best he can.
“That’s alright, it’s no problem. I’ll keep you updated.”
“I’m so glad Izuku has found a good friend,” he says earnestly.
“Trust me, I understand that. Mei wouldn’t shut up about your boy when she first met him, she’s very excited to have a tech buddy to work with. I should say, I’m excited to meet the boy who lets her ramble on and on. He’s quirkless, right?”
Izuku’s blood runs cold, “He is.”
“I’m sorry, that must be difficult these days. Everything’s built against them and as a parent you just want to see your kid succeed.”
Izuku bites his lip as Naoki sighs a bit, “Sorry I get a bit worked up about stuff. We’ll pick Izuku up from school on Friday if that’s alright with you. Mei is homeschooled so we can be there as soon as he’s let out.”
“That would be great. You are so sweet. I have to get going though, I’m being called for,” he apologizes.
“Apologies for keeping you…Mrs. Midoriya.”
“Good evening,” he says quickly, hanging up.
He shuts all the softwares off with a sigh. Maybe he really should look into homeschooling. His first year of junior high is coming to an end, now would be a good time to switch. Maybe his mom won’t notice, he has her signature now, he might even be able to just rig the paperwork with fake emails, he can make it look pretty real if anyone were to really dig into it.
Private Messages Between AbbeyRoad and GreenTech
AbbeyRoad: Hey! Greenie!
AbbeyRoad: @GreenTech
AbbeyRoad: Movie night! We’re streaming Howl’s Moving Castle!
GreenTech: I’m coming, thanks for reminding me Abbey.
AbbeyRoad: Are you going to come to class this week?
GreenTech: Mei invited me to stay the weekend.
AbbeyRoad: She knows, right?
GreenTech: That I’m quirkless, but that’s it.
AbbeyRoad: She seems cool.
AbbeyRoad: Log into movie night already.
Izuku sets his phone aside, turning it off. Abbey had responded to a hero meme Izuku had shared in the server a while ago and they started messaging. She goes to the defense classes, but that’s really the only time she leaves her house. She has issues being outside, but she lives close to the dojo and her mom lets her go to classes for exposure therapy. Sometimes she walks a bit further, but after a while she gets anxiety attacks. Izuku likes talking with her and he’s been dropping little mentions of her to Mei, but he can never really tell if she’s listening. He never calls her out on it, scared of upsetting his only real friend.