Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was July, less than a week after Izuku’s birthday, when Hisashi received an unexpected call from his wife. He could hear the tears in her voice, and he was half a heartbeat away from driving to the airport and booking the next flight to Japan before she explained. It was a decision she’d been hesitating on for a long time now, ever since Izuku had been diagnosed. But it was time, she told him, to move Izuku to America.

Before the end of July she and Izuku were on a plane to San Francisco, Inko with a small bag and Izuku with a few suitcases of belongings. His wife had taken all the vacation days she could to stay and help settle Izuku in with him.

With not many days of warning, Hisashi was woefully unprepared for Izuku to move in. But he tried. Even with his busy job at a startup he helped Izuku unpack and helped Inko buy furniture and helped coordinate with the school district’s ESL programs so Izuku could start school with all the other children his age. It all ran Hisashi more than a little ragged. Inko trusted him to do a fine job taking care of Izuku, though. He never would have been lucky enough for her to marry him or have Izuku with him if she had any doubt.

Inko explained that it wasn’t any one incident that cemented her decision. In their phone and video calls, Inko had tried to hide some details, soften the blow that she knew Hisashi felt about missing so much of Izuku’s life already. He didn’t need to hear the bad parts. Hisashi always tried to press her to share everything, but he wasn’t experiencing the depth and extent of the prejudice against the Quirkless in Japan first hand. He’d been here, in San Francisco, where things weren’t great but they certainly were better than what Inko told him about, those first few nights she and Izuku were here.

The mother’s meeting Inko attended when Izuku was four, where they told her that their Quirkless son had no future. The way no other children or parents came to Izuku’s birthday party this year, not so much as a call to let Inko know ahead of time, just transparent lies of invitations lost in the mail. How their son came home from preschool with little burns and bruises that he tried to hide. What it was like to hear their son’s supposed friends call him useless, a Deku, day after day after day.

The weeks of all three of them living together as a family were all too short. Inko couldn’t stay. She needed to keep her job, and with the visa system being what it was for America it was next to impossible for her to remain. Now that Izuku would be settling in here, it changed the calculus on Hisashi trying to relocate back to Japan, too. Now they needed to plan for Hisashi to stay in America as long as their son needed to. It had been hard, the last few years, living remotely from his partner in life. Now, they’d be apart indefinitely. It wasn’t pleasant to think about.

But in the end, it was all for Izuku. They moved Izuku because the treatment of Quirkless people was supposed to be better in America. Both he and Inko hoped that his dreams might hurt less, or grow towards a less dangerous path, somewhere with more people like him living as examples of other options. They hoped Izuku would really thrive here. They had to believe that for all the downsides, sending him to America had been the right call.

And it was. At least for a time.

Sometimes, Izuku finds himself wishing he could leave well enough alone. Like now, halfway through his first day at Aldera Junior High. Pretty much the entire class has already expressed their disdain for the “weird Quirkless kid” who has entered their midst, but no one is actively bothering him. Or teasing him. Or beating him up. It’s worse than his school back in America, but he wouldn’t call it bad. Compared to anxious scenarios his brain has been constantly churning out on a background thread, everything is golden .

Except, when Izuku walked in and Bakugou Katsuki was sitting there in the third row, instead of Katsuki stirring the class into a riot to make fun of him, he’d barely glanced forward at a point on the blackboard somewhere a few feet to Izuku’s side. Katsuki had been silent during all their periods so far. Now it’s lunch, and he still quiet, barely shifting in his seat to set his head on his arms. He’s not the boy Izuku grew up with, and Izuku is starting to wonder if what he heard was true, and he really has changed.

Izuku sucks in a breath, holds it, and before he can chicken out turns a chair around and sits across from Katsuki on the other side of the boy’s desk. “So,” Izuku starts, tentatively drumming his fingers on the sides of his bento. He grins a closed lipped smile, though he’s pretty sure it’s more than a little wobbly. Is he sweating? He’s probably sweating. It’s probably all over his face, how nervous he is.

Bakugou slowly sits up. He focuses his eyes on Izuku from across the desk. As soon as his eyes meet Izuku’s, Izuku shuts his own and holds them closed. There should be some kind of explosion, Izuku just doesn’t know if it will be verbal or physical. But the seconds pass and the silence stretches, and eventually he squints his eyes open and takes a look at the still inert Bakugou.

“Is there something you need?” Bakugou says in a grunt. He brings his left arm up and leans his head into his hand.

“Ah, no, well, no not in particular?” Izuku swallows and forces his fingers to still where he’s placed his lunch on the desk. “I had heard, or more I had thought, that is-”

“Get to the point or get out of my sight.” For the harshness of the words, Bakugou’s delivery of them is quite flat, coming out in basically a monotone.

“Fresh start!” Izuku flinches. He said that much louder than necessary, and he is now realizing that all of his new classmates who were spending their lunch break in the classroom have paused their own conversations to listen in. “I was thinking we could try to have a fresh start,” he says, almost mumbling in his attempt to course correct his volume.

A minute passes without Bakugou responding. Other conversations slowly start up again across the class, though Izuku notices a pair of boys keeping an eye on him and Bakugou. He thinks the two of them are Bakugou’s friends, or at least Izuku recognizes them as people he has seen spending time with Bakugou in the past. Bakugou continues to stare silently at Izuku.

Izuku has never dealt well with silence. When he’s on his own, it’s never silent. Either he’s thinking aloud, or he’s in the middle of specifically listening to something. In the presence of other people, pretty much the only comfortable silence he’s really experienced has been with his dad. The silence now is, unsurprisingly, not comfortable.

And Bakugou still hasn’t responded. Izuku coughs into his fist and looks down at the desk. “You, um, you know. I’m actually back, now. For permanent, er, permanently? At least probably. A-and it’s been a while since...” Since a lot of things. The years since they were friends? The months since they last saw each other? “...since I gave you another chance.”

Izuku forces himself to look back at Bakugou. He’s still staring flatly at Izuku, his red eyes unmoving. “I heard your mom. Talking to mine, a couple weeks ago,” Izuku says. “She said you’re actually trying to act better now, or at least she sounded like she thinks you are.” Izuku leaves enough space for Bakugou to respond, but all he does is slide his gaze back to the window and tilt his head ever so slightly away from Izuku. “I’m trying...I want to help?”

Eventually Bakugou lets a breath out that buzzes his lips against each other. “Tch. What does she know?” Outside, the sun moves behind a cloud and the shadow crosses over Bakugou’s face.

Izuku’s hands are shaking slightly, and he pushes them flat on his knees to still them. Katsuki hasn’t threatened to tear his face off yet. That means this is going well, right? “Do you rem-, ah, I told you a couple of summers ago, that I was going to be an analytics type hero, remember? And you t-told, you said I couldn’t do it. Basically.” Inside his shoes, Izuku clenches and unclenches his toes. Katsuki doesn’t seem to have noticed the crack in his voice, good. Izuku gives himself a count of three to psyche himself up, and then pulls a card out of his pocket and holds it over the table between his thumb and fingers. “Here,” he squeaks quietly.

“...What the hell is that supposed to be?”

Izuku blushes. “It’s, well, I didn’t, my dad, um. It’s kind of a business card. My dad gave them to me, and they’re kind of embarrassing but I guess it’s useful right now even though really I don’t have much use for them.” Izuku coughs to try to fight his stutter. “For my Instasnap, my blog, where I’ve been practicing my analysis. I figured...you could look at it and you’ll see you’re, or, well, it shows you what I can do? A-a lot of, it’s, I’ve been practicing.”

He shuts his mouth with a click and ducks his head. This would be enough to make his face red even without the added element of fearing Katsuki’s reaction. Hope for the best, expect the worst, right? He hopes that Bakugou’s mom is right. It’s too much to hope, he thinks, that they’ll become friends again anytime soon if at all. But peers, coworkers, that seems achievable. He hopes that Katsuki will take the card, see that Izuku isn’t useless, eventually maybe even apologize for the past. And then, it’s not the worst case, but Izuku expects, honestly, that Katsuki will do something like-

Katsuki stands up, interrupting Izuku’s train of thought with its screech against the linoleum floor. With his head still facing the window he snatches the card from Izuku’s hand. He then sets off explosions in his fist and blackens the card. Wordlessly and still not looking at Izuku, he stuffs his hands into his pockets and stalks over to the classroom door. A kick, and he’s gone.

The chatter in the class stalls and starts again. “Bad move, pissing him off so soon.” “Quirkless and stupid.” “Chose the wrong kind of guy to provoke, oof.”

Izuku nods to himself. He expected something closer to that. It’s nice that Katsuki didn’t explode him too. It’s enough of a difference that Izuku decides it’s worth holding on to a little of that hope.

The next morning, Katsuki and his two lackeys corner Izuku on his way to school. They aren’t far from the school building, just a few blocks away next to a playground with a chain link fence. Izuku is pretty sure he used to play there, before he moved away.

He’s jolted back to the present when Katsuki pushes him. The fence clatters until Izuku catches his balance. He tightens his grip on his backpack, knees bent.

“Listen here, Deku ,” Katsuki sneers. Lips curled, looming, sparks coming out of his right hand. He’s backlit, putting his whole face in shadow, but Izuku can still see his red eyes glaring. Still, his posture is somehow tired. Izuku sees bags under his eyes, an uneven slouch in his shoulders. “I don’t know where you get off, thinking someone like you knows anything about Quirks. But you’re gonna cut that shit out, got it?”

Izuku swallows. He tries to step to the side to get around Katsuki, but one of his lackies moves to block his exit. “Hm, well, no, see, I don’t think I can do that…”

The explosions grow louder. “Did I say I was finished? Didn’t think so.” The sneer changes slightly, a patronizing smile slipping into his expression. “With a Quirk like mine, it’s only a matter of time before I go pro, and end up as number one. You are Quirkless. You can’t compete with me. You aren’t gonna be a hero, and if you keep trying you’re just gonna get in my way.” He punches into his own palm. Izuku can’t stop his shivering. “You’re gonna quit it with your shitty writing and your shitty delusions of being anything close to how strong I am.”

Izuku breathes in and forces himself to stand straight. There’s no right move. If he lies and agrees with Katsuki, he’ll take it as permission to continue beating down Izuku’s dream and standing in the way of his goals. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time he tries to intimidate Izuku. “No,” he says.

Izuku feels a hand on each of his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees both of Katsuki’s companions move to block all paths of possible escape. He has nowhere to go when Katsuki’s fist drives into his gut.

“Want to rethink that answer?”

“N-no,” Izuku says, voice shaking. The hands have moved to his arms, and now he’s only upright because they are holding him there. “This isn’t going to stop me! Are you really gonna risk a mark on your record for this?”

Katsuki makes a show of cracking his knuckles. “Just try it, Deku. If you get in my way, or do anything that’d get in the way of me making it to U.A., I’ll make you regret it.”

He winds up his arm again, this time aiming for Izuku’s face. Izuku closes his eyes and strains against the hold on his arms, desperate, trying to put up a guard, make the blow glancing, something!

He opens them at the sound of laughter, after the punch doesn’t hit. Katsuki’s friends drop his arms, shoving him down to the ground against the fence. They walk off to join Katsuki, already turned and walking away. One of them slaps a hand on his back. “Good to see you acting like yourself again, bro.”

“Whatever.” Izuku can just barely hear Katsuki’s response before all of them walk around a corner. Izuku spends the next ten minutes wiping the stress tears from the corner of his eyes and trying to make it look like he wasn’t crying until class started. He’s about as successful at that as he is at convincing himself that his defiance of Katsuki means anything. The hope bleeds away.

Izuku doesn’t want his parents to worry, but he can’t quite convince his parents that everything is fine. It’s always been hard to hide things from them. And well, his mom saw him come home after the second day of school. He doesn’t know how much she believed his story that he just walked into the corner of a table.

“You know, your last post has me worried Zuzu,” his dad says over the video call. It’s late back where he is, and Izuku can see sleepiness dragging at his eyelids. His dad yawns and scratches at his fluffy black hair.

“Yeah, I know dad, but it’s not really that much worse than back home with you, I promise.” Izuku shrugs. “The only real problem is Kacchan.”

“Ah,” his father hums. “Kacchan again.” He leans back a little bit and frowns, his eyebrows drawing in a bit. It makes his square framed glasses slide down his nose, and he absently pushes them up. “I was hoping that he’d matured a little.”

“Heh, yeah, me too.”

Eventually, his dad speaks up again. “Well, on a happier note, got any plans now that the weekend is here? I hope you don’t have any big homework projects or anything.”

“Well actually-”

A knock interrupts him. “Izuku, honey,” his mom calls as she opens the door and steps into his room. She’s holding his latest homework assignment, a ranking of high schools he intends to apply to and her eyes are fixed on it. “You’re applying to the UA heroics course?” She finally looks up and sees Izuku’s screen. “Hisashi! It’s almost 2am for you, you should be asleep!”

Izuku sits up from where he’d been slouching over his keyboard, frowning, while his dad laughs over five thousand miles away. “That was always the plan, mom.”

“But, does it have to be your first choice?”

Izuku bites back a sigh. His mom’s face is too full of worry, and it reminds him of when he was young. He fidgets in his chair, wincing only slightly as the bruise on his side twinges in protest. His mom, perceptive as always, notices. She shakes her head, but to his relief she doesn’t push tonight. Instead she leans over and pulls Izuku into a one armed hug from where he’s sitting at his desk.

“It’s just so violent and dangerous! And do you really need to go into the heroics course if you’re just going to be backing up other heroes?”

“Mom, we talked about this. Applying to heroics courses was the whole point of why I came back here.” Izuku chews on his lip. His dad stays quiet. “And, and I know it’s going to be hard as I am but I have to learn how to fight too. Even rescue heroes take down villains, too.”

His mom titters. “You know I’m so happy to have you home, right?” Izuku nods against her. “I just want you to be happy. We both do.” His dad hums in agreement. She pulls back slightly, leaving Izuku to sit under his own power again. “You could always go back and live with your father again, wait a few more years. That’s all I’m saying. Are you sure this is what you want? What if they don’t let you in?” She waves the form in her hand a bit as she talks.

Izuku hears the unsaid because you don’t have a Quirk , that she only voices when she’s talking to his dad and they think he can’t hear them. He averts his eyes. He can’t look at his mom right now. He doesn’t want to see the pity in her eyes.

His dad speaks up. “Well Inko honey, he can always apply and if he doesn’t make it, we can figure something out. Besides, it’s just the first week, we have to give it time, right?”

His mom ruffles his hair and makes a hum that doesn’t quite sound agreeing. “I suppose so.” She presses a kiss to the top of Izuku’s head. The kiss she gives his father is the same one he’s always seen them sign off their calls with. It’s almost like blowing a kiss, hand to lips and waved out, but they reach out and linger their fingers against the video picture of each other after. Tonight, his mom puckers her lips and gives another muah before stepping out. “I’m going to start cooking supper.” She gently pulls the door closed behind her.

The silence she leaves isn’t as comfortable as the atmosphere before she walked in, and even his dad gently asking him with questions about the draft for his Best Jeanist post before he hangs up doesn’t clear the cloud of doubt that’s settled around Izuku’s heart.