Chapter Text
Izuku woke up late.
It was already past 9:00 when he stumbled out of bed, setting his newly-scaled feet down on the floor. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes (taking care not to claw himself), he happened to glance back at his bed…
…and saw the state his bedsheets were in. Frankly, they were in tatters, having obviously been torn up by his hands, or feet, or maybe even his wings while he slept. Mourning the loss of his All Might-themed bedsheets, Izuku left his room to go eat something, banging a wing on the doorframe in the process.
His mom was out in the front room quietly watching a TV program. When she noticed Izuku she turned towards him with a relieved smile on her face. She also had fairly prominent eyebags - it seemed she hadn’t slept much after bringing him home.
“Good morning, Izuku,” she said softly, pausing her program. “I sewed up some clothes for you to wear today. Please try them on when you can.” Izuku just nodded. Had… she done that last night instead of going back to sleep? “We can go out later to buy you some more specialty clothes,” she continued.
Before going to get breakfast, Izuku went over to hug his mom, who accepted it delightedly. “Oh! Also, Izuku - the detective in charge of your case will be coming over today, to ask you a few questions. I hope that’s alright?” He nodded hesitantly. She beamed at him, then reached up and caressed his cheek. Her smile softened as she rubbed her fingers over the scattered scales over his cheekbones and around his eyes. “Oh Izuku,” she muttered quietly, eyes wide open and staring into his own. “I was so, so, scared that I'd lost you forever. That the actions of that irresponsible-” suddenly she halted her speech, wincing. “Nevermind. Breakfast is ready, so why don't you go pour yourself a bowl?”
Not sure what his mom had been about to say, but happy to get some food in him, Izuku went and poured himself some miso soup, which his mom had already made. She did the same, sitting across from him.
As he ate, Izuku found himself slightly dissatisfied. Not that the food was bad - he always loved having his mom’s miso soup for breakfast! It was nice and homely. But he was suddenly wishing that it could have more meat. Could this be one of the mutation quirks at play? He wondered. It was known that many animalistic mutations gave people some of the corresponding instincts as well.
It was a sobering reminder that, thanks to that villain, All for One, Izuku would never be the same again…
“Izuku, what's wrong?” his mom asked him from across the table. It seemed she'd noticed him stopping to think. He winced at the thought that he'd made her worry (yet again). “It's nothing, mom, just something stupid,” he tried to reassure her. She just nodded slowly, eyes glued on him like they’d been all morning.
Izuku managed to finish his breakfast just fine, then went and grabbed one of the shirts draped over the side of the couch. It was his “ALL M” shirt that his mom had gotten for him a couple of birthdays ago. He turned to his mom, who had followed him over, and cleared his throat. “Um, I might try to get a shower first,” he told her. He hadn’t gotten the chance to clean up in quite a while, and he was looking forward to the opportunity to.
His mom nodded back at him, looking a little apprehensive. “Alright, sweetie, just… be careful, alright? With your new additions…”
He made an awkward chuckle. “Yeah, I’ll try my best.”
It worked out alright, somehow. Too many times to count, he’d knocked over his shampoo and his mom’s enigmatic products (what were they even for? There were so many of them) with the new tail & wings he had, but he did manage to give himself a nice wash.
Putting on the shirt took a bit of finagling, and he had to go out to get his mom to help him out. It had holes for wings cut into the back, with slits underneath them to allow the wings in. The issue was, she’d also sewed buttons by the slits to close them up, and Izuku couldn’t really close the buttons when he couldn’t see them.
His mom seemed pleased at how the shirt fit him, patting him on the sides and giving him a teary smile.
He spent the rest of the morning relaxing with his mom, who didn’t seem to want to leave his side. If he sat on the couch, she sat on the couch. If he got up to grab a snack, she got up too. If he went into his room to grab his notebook, she hovered outside the room while waiting for him. Normally, it’d be a bit much, but he’d missed her just as much as she’d missed him, so the constant presence was alright for the moment.
(He didn’t move around that much anyway, since that meant he’d be reminded of that tail dragging behind him and those wings that he couldn’t seem to keep folded in.)
Soon after a noontime lunch of some absolutely delicious chicken karaage, there was a knock on the door. “That must be the detective,” his mom told him. “Please answer him truthfully, okay? You don’t have to say anything that makes you uncomfortable, but I know he’s been working very hard this past week.” Izuku just nodded back at her.
After going to open the door, she walked back in with a plain-looking man in a tan trenchcoat. “Hello, I’m Detective Tsukauchi from the West Korisato Police Department. You’re Midoriya Izuku, correct?”
Izuku nodded. “Uh- yes.”
“Good. Let’s get started with the interview, then. Please start by describing your account of events, starting from the day of your kidnapping.”
Izuku cleared his throat. He’d somehow have to give the detective a good account without mentioning One for All, which might be difficult. “Um, well, I went to the UA entrance exam, and everything was pretty normal, I guess, but on my way back, I? Fell? And I was in a completely different place.” Tsukauchi nodded, writing on a pad of paper, which prompted Izuku to continue. “There was a villain there - tall, and with a metal helmet on? He looked kind of like Darth Vader, if you know, uh… anyway.” Izuku took a deep breath. “He called himself All for One and said he wanted my quirk.”
Tsukauchi startled at that, looking up from his notepad. “All for One? You’re sure that’s what he’s called?” Izuku nodded vigorously, causing the detective to grimace. “Alright, so I need to clear up a discrepancy here. You said he wanted your quirk?”
“Um, yes, uh, that was his quirk? He can give and take quirks.”
Tsukauchi just nodded casually at Izuku’s statement, as if that was just common knowledge or something. “Though, Midoriya, your records say you’re quirkless. Can you tell me when you obtained your quirk?”
So that was what he wanted to know!
“It was, er, during the entrance exam, actually,” Izuku told him.
Tsukauchi cocked his head. “The UA entrance exam?” Izuku nodded in affirmation. “Alright, that clears that up. Please continue with your account.”
“He couldn’t take it without my permission,” Izuku said, “so he tried to convince me to give it to him by giving me quirks. And-! Before you ask!” Izuku interrupted the detective’s inevitable questioning of that statement. “He told me people go braindead if they have too many quirks.”
“So he was threatening to kill you, essentially,” Tsukauchi exclaimed.
“That’s right,” Izuku answered. “He would give me one a day, to stretch out the terror, I think.”
“Alright. So, I see it didn’t work,” Tsukauchi pondered. “Unless…”
“No, I didn’t give him my quirk!” Izuku yelled out before the detective could ask him if he gave the quirk to All for One. “And… I don’t know why I’m not braindead. All for One was puzzled on that too.” His mom, who was sitting near him, reached over and squeezed his wrist (was that for his sake or for her own?)
“You know which quirks he gave you?” Tsukauchi asked, flipping to a new page.
“Um, yeah,” Izuku affirmed. “The first is one I’m just calling Cat. It gave me these ears,” he pointed to the cat ears on the upper sides of his head, “and some fur and claws and stuff on my hands and feet. Oh, and a cat tail, too…”
Seeing Tsukauchi writing in his notepad, Izuku continued on. “The next one, I could call… maybe… Horned Lizard? It’s just a bunch of assorted reptilian stuff. Horns, a bigger tail, scales.”
“The third one is pretty simple. It’s just, uh,” he pointed to the wings on his back and flared one for emphasis, accidentally smacking his mom in the face. “Oh, sorry mom. It’s the wings. I guess I could call this quirk Dragon Wings?”
“And then the last one he gave me, it’s not a mutation quirk like the others. It’s, well, Fire Breathing.” That caught his mom’s attention, who looked over at him curiously but didn’t say anything.
Tsukauchi continued writing for around ten more seconds before looking back up at Izuku. “And he told you this?”
“Well, no, I figured it out on my own. It’s how I escaped…”
Then Izuku went into detail on his escape, the Noumu, and Takashiro. (None of that had anything to do with One for All, so he was free to be as detailed as possible there.)
Eventually, Izuku finished up and the detective left, giving Izuku and his mom his well-wishes on his way out.
“Izuku, baby,” his mom started to say, looking worried. “I didn’t know it was so…”
“Yeah, mom it was bad.” Izuku didn’t really know what to say. What could he say? Sorry for getting kidnapped?
She enveloped him in a hug. “But I am so proud of you, for sticking to your principles, and, and for showing up that horrible villain! And… I’m sure All Might will be proud of you as well.”
Izuku hoped he would be as well-
Wait.
“M-mom, um, um, what are you talking about? I don’t know All Might!!” He tried to pull damage control, hoping he hadn’t accidentally disclosed to his mom that he knew All Might. Was it his phone? Had she seen his contact labeled “ALL MIGHT!!!” in his phone?
“Izuku…” She looked faintly amused, but then took on a more serious tone. “Izuku, you went missing. Of course All Might would come to me and tell me how he knew you.
“What he gave you.”
Izuku froze. Was she implying-
“And hearing your story, I’m glad he did. What was that man thinking, going and giving you the strongest quirk in the country without even telling anyone?!”
She was. She knew about One for All.
“Or telling you about the immortal supervillain it came shackled with? Honestly, Izuku-”
She looked up at Izuku, who was still kind of shellshocked. “It’s okay, sweetie. Yes, I know about it. All Might will be coming over tomorrow to see you. I know, he’s made some big mistakes, but seeing how distraught he was over your disappearance, I could see you mean a lot to him, more than as just the person who’s got his quirk. So I can’t be all that mad at him.”
Izuku couldn’t help the tears that fell, as his mom grabbed his hands in her own and just held them there as she let him cry for the next few minutes.
Finishing up, Izuku grabbed his hands away and started looking around awkwardly. “So, um…”
“Do you want to go relax a bit, Izuku? Maybe we could put a program on?”
Shaking his head, Izuku shuffled a bit in place. “Actually, I’m feeling a bit antsy? Like I want to go out and do something.”
“Oh?” His mom inquired. “You’re usually fine staying in…”
“I dunno, I just really feel like going outside and maybe doing something physical? Running or something?” He was puzzled as to why he felt like this, but then a thought came to him. “Maybe it’s because of the cat quirk…”
His mom tilted her head and put a finger on her chin. “Oh, you think so? That would make sense! Do you want to head out to the park, Izuku? Are you feeling brave enough?”
Izuku thought about it. Walking outside, where the neighbors might see him and notice the change. Going to the park, where he knew Kacchan and his minions sometimes hung out.
No thank you.
Grimacing, Izuku shook his head. “I guess I’ll just stay in.”
“That’s fine too. I’ll go put on a program.”