Chapter Text

Izuku hit the ground below—

(And then Izuku was a kid again, in the apartment, in the kitchen. He was under the table. He was crying at his mother’s motionless shadow, stiff as the door. He’s going to kill you, mom. I don’t want you to die. Please don’t die. His mother might not hear him. But there were cracks in her skin, black as the curtains and poison she used, and he could see it, he could taste it. He was begging. Please. She hadn’t heard him, he remembered.)

—AND EVERYTHING CHANGES AND EVERYTHING MOVES AND EVERYTHING BLEEDS AND YOU BLEED TOO, YOU BLEED LIKE NO OTHER—

His bones splintered apart. Something seethed in his head foamed and yelled and left him for dead.

All over again. Again.

Again.

Peeling himself apart, layered, too many layers, but he was still here. Again. And it twisted in his chest and he tasted copper, smelled it, could feel something tangle itself in his hair. Cracked skull, buckled knees, brittle bones, split skin, and he was still here. Again.

Again—

(Mom?)

There was no reply. Izuku wasn’t sure why he was hoping for a reply. The only one around was him. Maybe Splinter, if a quirk’s cognitive and fractured state counted. Company. Death. Doom. Izuku’s blood on the ground as he prepared to try and get up again. Because he needed to go home. Because home was waiting for him. Because he missed it. Because he needed it. He fucking needed it.

And Izuku peeled his eyes open—

—YOU WAKE UP—

And it made sense, again. He breathed in. There was copper in his mouth, everywhere, and he looked at the ground and it was dark and thick with red streaks. Staining concrete. He thought about the sun. He thought about his mom, again. He thought about his father, his parents, his people. He thought about eating lamb with Milestone again. It made sense.

—GET UP.

Izuku slowly pulled himself onto his feet. His knees dug into the stains. It was his blood, he thought. Damages had to do something to someone eventually. It happened. He happened.

(Don’t you know that dead kids are worthless kids?)

The kid slowly dragged himself out of the alley.

—

Izuku didn’t mind everything. Or he did. Or he didn’t. Like quirks—sometimes he hated sentient quirks, sometimes he understood why they acted the way they did, and sometimes he just cried about them. The scavengers liked to say he was fucking carzy and fucking nuts. Gutsy. Unhinged. Strange. Obedient. Useless and worthless and completely unable to think for himself. Some of those things were true. Izuku wasn’t a total fool. But he minded the dark, right now, and the way the air stung against all the cracks and red lines on his skin. He felt like he was getting pulled apart in a bunch of directions, tugging, tugging, tugging.

The alleys were quieter than the streets, and completely silent in terms of activity. He saw no one. He saw no quirks and heard no illegal dealings taking place by any of the dumpsters.

It was just dark and cold and ugly.

He pushed past the dark again, and his lungs burned, like his eyes. He was splitting open the same way Splinter did, cracked at the eyelids and hands and palms and lips and ribs. Cracks, moving, and dry red wept freely from the corners. A good quirk, a nice one. A quirk Izuku used when he needed a way out. His right arm was completely split, right down the middle. Just a jagged mess.

Izuku walked slowly, pushed through the blurriness and grogginess and overall awfulness of his mere existence.

Walk, the kid told himself, Izuku, walk, just walk.

The alleys weren’t familiar at all.

Nothing was familiar, nothing stood out, and Izuku didn’t know how long it would take to desert this block and find another. He didn’t know what alley to take, what street sign to follow—he didn’t know any of them and couldn’t even fucking see them. His right shoulder was starting to ache, throb violently, and every time he glanced at it from the corner of his gaze he saw the dark splotch at the shoulder bone. He was splitting. Splinter’s quirk was working, as it always was, and that meant Izuku would keep cracking open until he stopped it—

But stopping it meant going powerless again, a hobbling thing, a strange child who was drowsy and exhausted and looked ill.

Was ill.

And Izuku didn’t want to be that right now.

He wanted to hurt. He wanted to live. He wanted to go home. And going home meant traveling, walking and hiding and trying to get there without getting caught again. A fucking shame—an embarrassment, a trap, a fucking usless, no-good nobody. Fucking principal. Fucking stranger. He could ache and break and be fine with it. Izuku was always fine with it. Gentleness and tenderness and kindness were obsolete. He could just keep going. Splinter apart and split and break and crack and shatter and fracture and fissure and snarl; show his teeth, show his skin, ripping himself open as he ran, push someone’s head into the ground, wrap his tongue and hands around their quirk like a mangy dog.

Splitting hurt. So did dying.

So did hospitals and swallowing food, and sentient quirks, and dreams, and men and women and children and heroes and cops and drunken people who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. Izuku could walk, he could run, he could breathe. Sucked in between his teeth, good air, fresh air, real air.

So he cracked open, left behind pieces. Scraped them under his feet, no shoes. Maybe he should have taken his shoes with him.

The thing about splitting open was that it hurt. It hurt a lot. And Izuku wasn’t anything special. He wasn’t. Sure, sometimes people said he was special, but that wasn’t accurate to what or who he was. Izuku was the kid. A kid. The one and only. He was a scavenger. He was a runner. He wasn’t anything heroic or brave or kind. He mostly just showed his teeth and cried and kept his mouth shut. Mostly. Almost.

He tried not to think about the principles of it. He tried. He often failed.

(Worthless.)

Izuku did what was asked of him. Smoke and glass and booze and debts that needed to be repaid. Blood or other. Bring me his head. You can do that, can’t you? And Izuku did what he had to. Because doing what he had to was how he won. It was how he made everything work out. Surviving. Not dying. Knowing what he was doing no matter how odd it was, because oddities weren’t mainstream and no one quite liked a strange kid. So, Izuku had to blend in. Obedience. Camouflage. Loyalty.

The streets weren’t home—but they were familiar.

The dark shadows and creeping smells and sounds. The shapes that moved in his vision, always unappealing, always normal to spot when he was tired or otherwise harmed.

And using Splinter’s quirk always hurt, always devoured it fed off him and he fed off it. His quirk wept. His quirk searched. Izuku squeezed his eyes shut and stuck to the alleys, tried not to peek out against the trash and broken glass. A few people passed by, but it was late at night. Izuku was unsuspecting and so was everyone in the area. He didn’t know if the heroes knew where he was, but that was—well. Expected. Izuku hoped. Wanted. Really, really, really wanted.

“Okay,” He said, to the shadows, to his brain. “I’m okay, they’re okay, we’re okay.”

And he walked and walked and walked and walked. He scratched at the cracks and broken porcelain mimicry that was plastering all over to him. He pulled at the edges of his skin, twisted his nails into the thin pinkish-red layer under the fleshy bits. He gagged. He winced. He opened his eyes and tracked the motions of light and dumb birds that cawed even though it wasn’t even sunrise yet.

(When they come looking for you, you run, a man had told him in the night, angry and bitter after he got woken up from Izuku vomiting and shivering in the kitchen. You take nothin’ with you, and you fuckin’ run. Don’t come back ‘til they’re gone.)

Trekked in the dark, shivering and splintering. Something telling him to just keep going. Egging him on, always and always. Izuku never knew how to say no—

(Liar. Hisashi whispered, sharply.)

He turned the corner.

The darkness quelled him, but only a little. His stomach growled and his thoughts bounced around the walls of his skull like he was some kind of trampoline house. Maybe he was. All the information and knowledge and desperation lived deep in his ribs, rotting out his chest and heart and lungs. And his brain—pieces of him. Maybe all of him. Milestone would know how far Izuku was gone if he were here, if Milestone was here—but no. Not yet. Not now.

He led himself in circles a few times, checking the polluted sky and all of its dappled stars. Black, navy blue, a deep purple. Triangles and buzzes and flicks of color, blinking lights and tiny green flashes. Planes, or something, soaring above? Hundreds of people on board.

He wasn’t sure if he ever flew before. He couldn’t remember.

Maybe. Probably not.

In a singular alley, he ended up sitting down by a dark green dumpster. Or he assumed it was dark green, the color blended into the walls and the dark. The streetlight didn’t work in this one section, hence why the alley was dark. No light to cast in. His heart thundered. He thought about chewing on his thumb, tearing at the hangnail that was on the left side of the skin. He stared at it, in the dark, with all the static and fuzz in his eyes.

And there was this terrible feeling that boiled over in his mouth. He turned to his side, pressed his knees into the ground and vomited black and pale yellow into the pile of trash bags, which weren’t in the dumpster like they were supposed to be.

He gagged, heaved again. His eyes burned. He wanted to go home. The kid just wanted to go home. He sat down on the ground, kneeled, rocked a little. Home was far away. Home was cities away, kilometers and kilometers and kilometers. There wasn’t any way to get there quickly—he would just have to walk. He didn’t have long with Splinter’s quirk. He only had—

(A little—less than four hours.)

Izuku pressed his hands to his face, dragged them down and up a few times. His cheeks burned. His eyes stinged. He tasted bile and spit and acid. Ew, gross, god, yuck, fuck, oh, gross. He blinked fast, tried to dispel tears. So stupid.

“A mess,” Izuku exhaled, at the feet of the dumpster within the dark alley, “Such a mess.”

And his heart jackhammered in his chest, and his mouth watered, and he was thinking about bashing his head in and splintering apart in a hundred ways so he could come home and at least look wronged, look weird, look awful. The way he was supposed to. Because he wasn’t supposed to get caught. They always warned him not to get caught. They always warned him, over and over and over and over—

“Christ, kid,” Someone said, and Izuku jolted.

He crawled away, scattered, breathed in through his mouth. His teeth started hurting and suddenly all he could see was smoke and ash again, taste the char that came from cigarettes. He stumbled onto his feet, practically clawed at the thick plastic of the dumpster as he stood up. His head throbbed. “What?” He asked, fast, and glanced around in the dark. “What?”

“What’s wrong with you?” The stranger asked, now, brows raised. “Never been out here before?”

He had been out here plenty. Parts and pieces of him, too, fractioned and snared and trapped and never forgiven. Izuku was a wildcard. He was a fucking—

(—animal; fucking animal; fucking worthless prick; worthless kid; fucking animal; goddamn, usless thing; a stupid boy.)

“I’ll kill you,” Izuku said, faster, and he tipped his head forwards and pressed his body against the side of the dumpster. “I’ll kill you.” And it resonated with him, like all threats did. His heart was beating too fast. He was scared. But he was close to home, he wasn’t completely lost, he wasn’t stuck.

“That’s quick,” The person said, flatly, and their eyes glinted in the dark. “Shouldn’t you be at home with your Mom and Dad?”

They were leaning against the building wall, though, and Izuku could see their arms like this. Dark, covered by sleeves—but silver staples stuck out, and Izuku wasn’t stupid enough to think it was a cosplay or fake ass costume. This wasn’t that kind of area. This wasn’t that kind of place. Fight rings, trafficking places, awful people. Heroes swarming all the wrong warehouses. Gamblers, the debt-havers. Izuku wasn’t stupid. He was just crazy. And dumb. And worthless. And only good if he was a scavenger.

“Dead,” Izuku said, slowly, sharply. His heart thundered in his chest. The awful feeling of his quirk pulling at the seams started to come back, and he bit his lip hard. He looked the stranger up and down, came to a conclusion, “Why?”

(Bite your tongue, boy, Machi would tell him. She always did. If you talk too loudly you’ll get killed.)

“Don’t ask me,” The guy cackled, getting away from the wall and walking. “I’d have killed mine, too.” He didn’t even come close to brushing shoulders with Izuku, but the kid ducked behind the side of the dumpster anyway.

The kid stared with wide eyes, watching the guy traverse the ground and travel further into the dark.

“I didn’t!” Izuku blurted, and he stuttered after the stranger even though everything told him not to. His quirk started crying. He wanted to cry, too. He followed the man’s shadow. “I didn’t kill them,” he said, pleadingly, and he didn’t know why he was pleading with a stranger. “I wouldn’t have.”

He wouldn’t have.

(Him looking at his mom right before she blew out a candle. He had said, “I know that dad is trying to kill you, mom.”)

“Don’t care,” The guy said, and turned a corner.

Izuku followed him around the corner, irrationally, unreasonably. His heart kept pounding, and he couldn’t think—something was wrong with him. Always wrong with me, always, always, always. “Care,” the boy gawked, emphasized, and fear started eating at him, and a part of his back dislodged and slipped off his skin, the fabric scratched at the rawness, and new tears swelled up in his eyes. “I don’t—”

(“Why would I care?” Izuku had asked, and it had been too fast and too high-pitched. “I don’t care.”)

Talking, useless, but maybe not.

“Go home,” The guy said again. “No point in following me.” Then he laughed, like it was a joke, “But it’s expected, isn’t it?” He smelled like fire. He looked like he was in one. He looked like a victim and a killer and a useless piece of shit who had debts to owe, looked and acted wrong—street thug, murder, mister runner.

Maybe a lot, then, okay, but still better than talking with the heroes and their stupid fucking clipboards and stupid fucking smiles and plates of food that never touched and useless things, useless and worthless and tasteless and awful. Killer man, killer. Run boy, run, run boy! The stranger smelled like smoke and walked like he had a place to be. Scabbards, then. Or a bull running at the red cape. Machi laughing, the ringleader cheering Izuku on. Destruction, aching; someone singing a lullaby in his ear once he laid down on broken glass, crying. Terrible, then, scarred and obvious and not part of a group. Mister Burning Lone Wolf. Izuku wasn’t like that at all. The longer he stared at the man the more his quirk whined, over and over. It reminded him of Mikumo’s fire. It reminded him of burning alive.

(Was that what this was?)

“I know who you are,” The guy said, humored, “That lady talks loud for someone without her dog.” He walked. “Name’s Dabi.”

Tongue to the scarred roof of his mouth, musing about violence, remembering the rules.Don’t tell them who you are. Never tell them. Never let them know. Don’t tell them. Never. Izuku didn’t say anything. He just followed, limply, and stared at the dark spikes on the guy’s head.

—

They were walking. Izuku didn’t know why. Didn’t.

Izuku saw things. Or some things. Not everything—he didn’t see that far, anyway, unless he looked into your eyes and counted the marks and said hello to your quirk—because he was a dumb kid with fuzzy vision and a useless tongue that needed to be cut out. Violence taught him things. He taught violence things. Always yelling: break! break! break! break! break! break!

It wasn’t personal.

Unless it was, then it was. That felt obvious. Maybe it fell off his tongue wrong, stained his lips blue. Maybe it was colder than winter. December.

Maybe it was worse than your circulation being cut off and the wind howling and the sounds of a gun being loaded and shot off. Maybe, or not—Izuku wandered. He wandered and cried and begged and sat down on concrete floors to bleed out. It was what he was good for. Teething like a baby, begging for something he couldn’t have. Only if he won.

(Didn’t this count as winning?)

Winning meant eating, and eating meant bleeding in the ring. Or doing the job. Or amounting to something beyond his skin and his bones and his obedience. Because those things didn’t gurantee anything. The scavengers weren’t pleased with the basics, with standard cash, with a placating hand.

The kid had to mean something. He had to win and do and be the best at it. Like his father said—number one. He had to be something strong something fast, something deadly, even of it was worthless to try. His world blurred at the edges, a million things coming too close together. Teeth too sharp. Don’t come home until they’re gone. Heart on his sleeve, then his cheek, then right in his hands as he gave it to whoever asked. The room spun. He recalled running, chasing after a feeling of illusion that wasn’t real enough to keep, to ever actually have. Did they follow you here?

He wasn’t supposed to be anything more than what the scavengers told him to be. Shut up and do it. Don’t talk loudly. Don’t talk at all. It was worthless. Don’t talk, no one will listen, no one will ever want to listen.

The streets were cold. Izuku was staring at the backside of a stranger.

He often ended up in these situations, didn’t he? Following Milestone to the ends of the earth, crying into Machi’s hip, letting Teru wrench him up by his hair. The scavengers were home. They were good. They were good. It wasn’t anything more than that—except the ring haunted him, the rubble and the broken ceiling and the screams of his mother and the words of the bloodman and the devil that lived in the dark corners—cut slack, aren’t you—but Izuku was here. He stared into the spines and sunken cavities of men all the time. And women. And children. Split open, red, not human once you were dead in the underground.

Dabi entered the convenience store, calmly and without issue. Izuku stared at the wide glass doors and the cheap neon sign. Bright lettering that said OPEN in blue and red. Izuku squinted, his eyes watering, and then slowly stepped to the doors. He pushed one open, slipped inside after Dabi’s shadow.

The guy didn’t wander the aisles. Izuku was almost grateful, almost nervous. He looked around at the layers of colors, the items and trinkets and packages containing food. Winced, at the bright light of the ceiling bulbs. Kept his eyes on the ground, following the smothering feeling of Dabi’s quirk.

Stranger! His brain cried. What’s stranger!

Izuku scratched at his arms again, nails raking, and the skin tugged and tenderized. His eyes watered. He screwed them shut for good measure waited at the corner of the aisle. “This,” he heard Dabi say, then quiet muttering from the cashier.

Pointedly, and uselessly, Izuku smelled smoke again. Flashes of ash and char and blood and copper.

The kid awkwardly slid onto the ground, squatting, wrapping his arms around his knees as he kept his balance. He looked at the floor. His blurry reflection, the faint outlines of green and stark white in his hair. The lights were so bright and the smells were terrible. He heard—coins, maybe—rattle against the counter. A beep, a metallic sound. Someone was whistling, tapping their foot. Awful noises, Izuku realized, and he dug his nails into his knees and wondered if it was worth walking around without shoes. This wasn’t the first time—but he preferred his shoes. They had been good shoes. He didn’t even have a good coat. Splinter’s coat was with the scavengers, wasn’t it?

“Why are you on the floor?” The guy asked, and Izuku looked up out of instinct, and his eyes were so goddamn blue Izuku flinched and hit his head on the rack behind him. It throbbed, and his quirk screamed and cried and—

(Do you need new eyes, Izuku?)

—BURNING ALIVE AREN’T YOU?

He bit his lip hard, blinking fast. Dabi looked at him, towering above. Purple skin all over, charred like fire. Damage. Rejection. Pain. The things Izuku knew very well, the images of Mikumo dying in that damned alley, the images of Hisashi breathing fire onto candle wicks and showing Izuku false pictures of the sky and all its starly inhabitants. Blood on the ground, snow sneaking all around, packing you in.

Dabi was not young. He was not a child. His name might not even be Dabi, it could be fake—the scavnegers always talked about never giving an alias to anyone else. Never a real name. Never what you were.

But this was different, this was a quirk, and it screamed.

(Come to the hill, a kid was saying, so excited, and there was this whiplash feeling as the flames soared higher and higher. When tears burned and skin charred and the entire forest and entire goddamn hill burned up. Why aren’t you here? Why isn’t he here? Why? Red to blue, all-consuming, a devouring force. A quirk roaring to lie, snapping at skin and demanding to be let go. Burning alive, in pictures in flames, in your own quirk. Izuku saw the flashes. Birds’ eye. Witnessing it, third-person, then first-person, combining the factors like a mass of nerves and collective consciousness—a million words, pleas, and cries. Izuku saw the image: his quirk latched onto it, saw eyes and said we can see it all. The quirk wailed like a siren, a warning, and the signs all came crashing down and spinning off their metal podiums. In that vision, a sight made by a quirk, Izuku saw his own reflection in the boy’s eyes. Blue flames consumed the entire goddamned mountain and Izuku felt wronged.)

He panicked, ripped his arms away from his knees and gnawed on his tongue, choking. He smacked his palms over his eyelids, terrible.

“Who,” Izuku breathed, sharp, and he clawed at his ears and then dragged his hands across his face. Blood was caked under his nails, barely there, but his arms were reddened and parts of him were raw.

Pieces and pieces and pieces, so many—

Dabi stared at him, point-blank, ignoring the startled question from the cashier. “C’mon,” he said, lightly. He dangled a pack of cigarettes between his fingers. Izuku only recognized it due to the red tip of the carton, the good thing in the center of dusty white. Scavengers smoked and drank and gambled and did all kinds of shit. Izuku knew cigarette cartons when he saw them. Milestone smoked the same brand.

Izuku swallowed the bile.

(Kade looking down at him, her eyes glinting. You bite, I take your teeth. Deal?)

“They did say you were worthless,” Dabi said, like it was a general observation and not a gun to Izuku’s temple. “I didn’t think they meant scared, though.” He smiled, and the staples pulled. Izuku sid not make the mistake of looking at his eyes again.

“I’m,” Izuku stuttered, and fear consumed that awful jackrabbit in his heart.

“Worthless, sure,” Dabi shrugged, and grabbed Izuku by his arm. “I know.” Wrenched him back onto his bare feet, soles rocking, eyes too wide. “You are.”

Dragged him out of the store, pocketing the cigarettes, taking Izuku to the streets again. The door chimed. The neon sign flickered. Izuku panicked, ripped away from Dabi. Stumbled a few feet into the nearby alley, by the trash cans, heaved and heaved and heaved.

“Wow,” The guy said, flat. “Did you eat something when I wasn’t looking?”

Izuku screwed his eyes shut. The fires climbed, Dabi’s eyes haunted. Izuku wasn’t that insane. He wasn’t insane. He wasn’t.

(Wasn’t?)

Dabi stood there and waited. “My job isn’t to fix you,” he said, conversationally. “Just to take you from the alley to the next city. Be glad it wasn’t the girl who got assigned the job.”

Something was fucking wrong with this guy. Fucking wrong. He wasn’t like the heroes or cops or scavengers. Aizawa’s quirk was dangerously quiet. Nedzu’s quirk was dangerously smart, too aware. But Dabi’s was all-consuming, made of this… other thing. There was something innately wrong with his quirk, shooting down, eating itself. Izuku’s quirk didn’t do that. It didn’t cannibalize itself, its host, its body, its floor. But the guy was crazy. He was smoking and smothering and lunging and his dull teeth weren’t as dull as everyone else’s. Not sharper than Izuku’s, but close—imaginary, not in reality.

“Girl?” Izuku choked, again, because the only girls he knew were women. Or very old girls—seventeen, eighteen, pushing nineteen. Scavengers. Or dead. Or not at all, just street kids.

“Get up,” Blistering Death Man said, shrugging one shoulder, rolling the other.

In the dark, his eyes must glow like fire. Blue, crystal, terrible. They must take and consume. Could he see? Was his vision as bad as Izuku’s? Fires did that to you. It happened to Izuku’s mother. The house burning down, Hisashi watching them drive away. Oh, god. He clawed at his stomach, gagged again. Fear, panic, water, poison, metal, barbed wires, smoke, lamb, blood—money, make the deal, make it work. He chewed at his tongue, coughing, throbbing. A bad wound. An infected wound.

He looked at the man’s general direction, heart thundering in his chest. Dabi looked at him, too, then walked past him further into the dark. Izuku wanted to cry. Something told him not to. Something told him to follow. Go.

He followed.

—

“Did you know,” The guy looked at him, and Izuku pointedly did not meet his gaze. “That your little den of thieves and broken men—women, whores, children—were all just foaming at the bit, waiting for you to leave captivity?”

And his heart stopped and that awful, loud, unbearable noise came back again.

“What?” Izuku asked, to the ground.

Dabi laughed, musing, “Look at you, a prime suspect. I bet you’ll be on the news.”

“No,” Izuku said, horrified, and he squeezed his hands together and trembled like he was scared. Maybe he was scared. He was always scared, but this was new, this was terrible and new. Being scared out here was a bad idea—he was wounded and splintered and sharpened and broken off in little pieces. He couldn’t risk this.

“Yeah, definitely,” Came the reply, humored, very amused. Dabi waved his hand for a second, and Izuku knew it for what it was: a dismissal. “You should go home now. You’re out.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

Izuku watched, now, saw the motion and stiffened.

“The scavengers don’t wait,” He whispered, and his throat closed up. He swallowed the thickness, the rising bile. Fear, terror, the urge to bash his head open and gouge out his eyes or cut out his tongue. “They don’t send backup.” His ,puts watered. Dabi hummed, looked at him. Smiled with teeth. Izuku heard his heart thunder, heard Dabi’s quirk whisper like threads of smoke. “What would you know?”

Dabi started to laugh again, a trickling faucet. Blue fire crackled to life in one hand, free of the cheap cigarette, and he burned the edge before sticking it into his mouth. Warm embers fell loose.

“That you’re weak, worthless, and bitchy—and yet! And yet,” He listed off, cackling. “That woman wants you back. Calling your name, basically puttin’ up lost posters for you.”

Izuku stared.

(Bite your tongue, boy, Machi would tell him. She always did. If you talk too loudly you’ll get killed.)

He wanted to look at Dabi’s eyes. He wanted to open his mouth and take the guy’s quirk, gouge it with his hands, sink his teeth in. Part of him craved it. Talking about the scavengers like they were low-lives, talking big, talking smoke—Izuku wanted fire. It would do his alias some good, make the ghost of that alley boy quake. Izuku wanted to see it, he wanted to see it. What do you know about Machi? Begging, screaming, seething. What do you know about any of them? About me? He swallowed bile again.

“It’s quick cash,” The man continued, losing that humor, offering a smile. Izuku kept his eyes on the lower part of the man’s face. He didn’t look at the stranger’s eyes. His quirk sobbed, begged, but he didn’t. “You’re just a reward. I get you home, you fuck off.” Dabi took a drag from his cigarette. “It works out.”

“Machi?” The boy asked, tightly, winded.

“Sure,” Dabi said, disinterested. It was like he didn’t even—

Oh.

The kid winced, fast, felt the electric sting of Splinter’s quirk crack down on him like a belt and a buckle. He scrambled, near panicking. “Where are you going?”

“Around,” Dabi said, easily. “Places.” And he kept walking. And Izuku—against every instinct ever-—kept following. Dabi was not a scavenger. If he was, he was doing a terribly good job at hiding it. Which made Izuku feel sick, all over, everywhere, painfully. It wasn’t likely. Machi didn’t take in newcomers—not old ones. She just used them until they ran dry. This wasn’t like that. This was just money, wasn’t it? Dabi looked over his shoulder, colder, more amused, “Shouldn’t you go be with Mommy?”

(Dad is going to kill you. I know. I see it in my dreams. I see it.)

His mother was dead.

Izuku didn’t have a mom anymore. She was dead. There wasn’t any changing or fixing that. He didn’t have a father, either—everyone got crushed in rubble. It was bloody and awful and dark and long and painful. He saw flashes of it, heard the screams, heard the echoes of his mother and then the faint and fading whispers of her quirk once she died.

“She’s—dead,” Izuku said, shakily, and he scratched at his firearm and bit his lip. The splinter started cracking again. “Stop talking about my mom.”

“Oh, well,” The guy said, flatly. “You know how it goes.”

Izuku did know.

He always knew. It was hard not to know, to understand, to catalogue and remember and plead and fight and scream and cry and bleed. Following orders. Making money. Winning fights. Doing everything he could to make it work, to make the scavengers see value in him. He was worthless but loyal and bashful and sharp and angry and obedient and quiet—he could be quiet and he could be loud and he could win. And winning meant food, and food meant surviving. He survived in the ring. He survived outside it. He survived with or without eyes—

(Do you need new eyes, Izuku?)

“We don’t last long alone,” Izuku said, and his throat was scratchy. “We never do.” He raked his nails up and down both his arms, now, repeatedly. The skin started to feel fickle, irritated and painful. Izuku was smart. He swore he was—if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have made it this far. “Is that why you’re alone?” The kid asked, blankly, to the man he was following. “To not last long?”

There was a long pause. Dabi stood still. His coat swished in the breeze, and the corner street light flickered. Izuku saw the motions, even in the dark, mostly because Dabi’s entire body glowed with his quirk. It was almost visible. It was almost real.

“We don’t last long alone, huh?” He echoed, smiling, teeth glinting. His teeth were human. Very normal.

Izuku ran his tongue over his teeth, the sharp edges, the cutting bites he could create. He had a strong jaw. Still did. He was meant to bite, designed for it—that was his thing. He bit down on his lip again, hard. Shook his head, “No.”

“No?” Dabi hummed, mocking it. He breathed the smoke again, held the cigarette as it puffed listlessly.

“No,” Izuku muttered. “We don’t.”

“Well,” Dabi laughed, crackling like it was New Year’s Eve. The staples on his face glinted in the light, and he grinned. “That’s why you’re a lost dog, and I’m alone. You have a master, so go do what you do best.” He took a breath, dragged, and then blew smoke. Smiled, showed his teeth. “Go bark, bite, pee on some fire hydrants.”

(Mister Burning Lone Wolf, that should be his name.)

“I don’t do that,” Izuku denied, frowning. “That’s foul.” He tugged at his hands, popped his knuckles and picked at the scabs that were forming. The guy muttered something with a chuckle under his breath, flicked the embers of his cigarette, and then waved his hand.

“Then vomit on some,” Dabi suggested, still laughing. His laugh was nothing like the scavengers’ laughs at all. Nothing like it. “You do that just fine.”

“What,” Izuku said, and then shook himself off. He stuttered closer, glancing at the sky and the tall buildings and then back at Dabi’s jacket, his charred neck. Purplish, kinda, but Izuku didn’t know colors as well as he knew quirks. He inched closer. Reached out with his hand, tried curling his numb fingers around Dabi’s sleeve. “What?”

(What are you good for if you can’t run, Izuku? What are you good for, then?)

Dabi leaned away, shaking his head like it was funny. “Go on,” he said, seemingly patient for a murderer, “Time for you to move along.” He reached out, smothered the open cigarette into Izuku’s neck—

The kid didn’t even flinch.

—

“Izuku,” The voice came. It was gentle, it was easy, it was rightly made for the boy being held. “This is for you.”

(For you.)

The trees creaked. Izuku heard a thousand quirks but didn’t see any of them. He bit his lip, pulled his face away from the man’s neck—the skin there was cold, it was very cold—and looked at the orange being held to him. Izuku swallowed, slowly untangled one arm to offer his hand. Careful, cautious, “For me?”

There was a slow pause, and the man’s thumb smoothed over the skin of the orange. His chest moved, he rumbled; it was a long breath. Izuku heard thirteen quirks buzz, heard one-hundred-twelve more settle and seethe.

A deep breath, “For you.”

—

“Voici un oranger,” The bloodman said gently, quietly; and it was solid as the smile grew and blurred out like static television. He tipped his head down to let Izuku see, and the blur vanished, the world shrieked, Izuku heard—

—THE GUN, THE MAN, THE ANIMAL, THE SOUND OF YOUR HEART TEARING OPEN—

Izuku screamed. The world returned to its normal fixation.

—

(Come to the hill—)

Izuku heard the screaming, couldn’t stop hearing it.

—

“Liar,” Hisashi seethed, and it was bitter.

His face was directed to the woman, her figure lithe and scrawny—there was blood on her hands already, but there was more blood on Hisashi’s own and the noises were so loud. Izuku couldn’t see anything besides his parents. He couldn’t see anything else. He didn’t want to see anything else.

He smelled like smoke. His head hurt. He didn’t know the difference.

(Liar.)

Izuku couldn’t look away. The man he knew was a blurry face, sharp eyes that were lost to time, to the fuzziness at his skull. Blood slipped down his face, and his mom shoved him into the car, buckled him.

When the man came close, Inko reared around and slammed the door. She hit him in the nose; knuckles cracking into cartilage. It made an awful sound—he could almost hear it from where he was now struggling to sit up straight. The car was running. He still smelled smoke. There was glass in his white and green hair. Izuku couldn’t look away.

“You lied first!” She snapped, and maybe it was a wonder no one had come outside to witness this. Their family, their mess, Inko’s mistakes as a woman. Not as a mother.

The house was burning. Izuku couldn’t look away.

Hisashi stepped away, his hair a mixture of red and yellow; black around the edges. Izuku wondered if he had dyed it last night and failed. He wondered if the black hair was always a failure, like he was, like how his mom said. He wondered.

His mom seethed, yelled other things—her quirk buzzed and rang like the landline. Hisashi looked away from her and looked right into the window, staring at the mess that was his son in the backseat. No car seat, improper and twisted seatbelt. He looked angry. He looked lost. He looked desperate.

His mouth moved and through the fog Izuku thought he said sorry. Inko got into the car, already running, locked the doors. She was crying. She turned on the headlights. The house was still burning. Everything was still wrong. There was still glass in his hair. There was blood on everyone’s hands and Izuku knew it was his.

“It’s going to be okay,” His mom said, and into the buzz of the car Izuku wanted to hear his father’s quirk, see through eyes he couldn’t meet. His mom was crying. “It’s okay, Izuku, it’s okay.”

(Liar.)

Izuku couldn’t look away from the shape of Hisashi’s face; the smoke pushing past. He looked at the window and watched the man fade, grow small.

They drove.

—

He found his way to a corner store. And an alley, right next to it. Not a building or another neighboring shop with bright colors and treats inside. No. An alley, the same alley Izuku often traversed in.

Izuku heard the whispers of quirks all around him, felt it snag against his teeth, felt his quirk circle around in his head. He swallowed thickly, felt weak. He still didn’t have any shoes. There might be glass in one foot—he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t paying attention right now. What he heard in the distance, calling out, echoing like a mother in search of a lamb, was a familiar sound. Such a familiar presence.

And he was following it, trekking in the early morning light—

The kid entered the alley, blank-faced, eyes wet. The alley was a commonplace. Sometimes he saw it in dreams. Specifically, the dreams of quirks. And almost every time he saw the alley, he saw Milestone in it. Like right now. It was immediate how the dread left him, how the exhaustion transformed into energy.

His eyes widened and he saw Milestone leaning against a wall, facing his direction. He barely got a noise out, stumbling closer.

His friend, the healer, the guy who couldn’t run anymore looked at him, too. Met him, lifted off the wall and came closer. “Izuku!” He said, not quite as loud as a yell, not quite as gentle as a whisper. His hands came fast, grabbing Izuku by the biceps, dragging him into Milestone’s space. “I knew you’d come here,” he said, fast, “I knew you’d be brought here.”

Izuku blinked, sluggish. Milestone didn’t smell like smoke or blood, this time. He almost smelled clean. New. Odd. The words escaped him before he thought to shut them up—

“Who’s Dabi?” Izuku whispered, into the collarbone of Milestone.

And Milestone paused, very slowly, almost incomprehensibly. Because between two ghosts, a runner and a failed attempt of an escapee, Milestone was not nearly as cruel as to keep this kind of secret.

(It’s why you’re the favorite child of the family.)

Milestone pulled away from him, abruptly jagged and tired. His hands climbed to Izuku’s shoulders, brittle and cut-up, shredded ribbons or fractured glass. Splinter’s quirk did wonders. To fracture, splinter, over and over and over and over until nothing was left of you. But Miletsone—a healer—looked at him with a blank face. The scent of antiseptic clung to him, and he had a grey film over his skin. Normally he wasn’t so badly colored.

“You look sick,” Izuku said, for lack of better questions. It melted to the background, wrong, so wrong. “What’s with your—eyes?”

The burn mark on Izuku’s neck was red and angry,and was the red dots in Milestone’s irises.

“Izuku,” Milestone said, and he sounded cold. “Listen to me.” He pulled Izuku closer, lowered his head and tipped down, pressed a kiss to Izuku’s forehead like a parent would to their kindergartener. An apology. A declaration. Something.

He swallowed. “Okay.”

Izuku was a good listener. He could be. Even if he hated it. He could be a good listener. He was a good listener. He tried so hard to listen, even if it was uncomfortable and awful.

“You can’t be here right now,” The scavenger said. His voice didn’t crack but it came close. Izuku could hear it, could almost understand it. Milestone wasn’t like everyone else. He was a healer. He had to mend things and people and all their broken pieces. He was a broken piece. He couldn’t escape. He wasn’t allowed. A deep breath, “This isn’t how you’re supposed to come home.”

“I had to hurry,” Izuku shook his head, “Machi told me—”

Milestone shushed him. Gripped his shoulders hard. “You can’t,” he said, very harshly. “I’m the reason you can’t come home yet. Don’t.” He breathed and breathed and breathed. “In simple terms, I did something bad.” Milestone held him too tightly. His breath smelled like mint, not smoke. It wasn’t the right smell. He was too pale, too odd, too kind. “It’s not a good thing, Izuku. You know what bad things do to us. You know better than anyone.”

The barbed wire, the bad days, the spilt bottles of Tylenol, the amount of blood dropped to the floor or drained in a bathtub. The bags of blood—maybe cow, maybe pig, maybe human—stored in the freezer. The forgotten whispers of the boys in the slacks, the sugar-sweet venom of the wives as they told Izuku all kinds of things.

Yes, Izuku knew. He knew innately. He knew very well.

Milestone held onto him, now, and it was punishing and mean and not Milestone. It wasn’t the same. Sharp and angry and awful. “Dabi isn’t one of us,” Milestone said, “Don’t trust him.”

“Why’d Machi send him?” Izuku choked out. He grasped Milestone’s button-down shirt, held on. “She said I had to hurry home. She said.”

Milestone leaned down, antiseptic and mint, and said, “She didn’t send him, Izuku.”

Milestone was Izuku’s friend. He was the one to heal everyone. He had thick coats, a good memory, a skilled hand. He had a good quirk. He looked at Izuku’s eyes and didn’t revolt immediately, didn’t turn away as quick as others might. He wiped blood and vomit off Izuku’s face a lot of the time. He smelled of rot and smoke and copper, maybe a bit of jasmine from one of the near-expired perfume bottles that the wives had inside the house. Maybe Jill. Maybe not. He made the moon look weak in comparison, a faint glow that didn’t match Milestone’s pale and shiny skin, like a wild card, like white silver. The glow, the dirt, the ash, the burns, the meaningless tango that came with everything that the scavengers didn’t like to deal with—cops, heroes, the government, the people; everyone else.

Izuku watched. He knew. He was one stray kid, and this damn city had plenty of stray kids. Strays, runners, flight risks. Kids who starved themselves. Kids who cut into their flesh and hated themselves. Kids who were involved in the wrong crowds. Kids who killed themselves. Izuku might be one of those kids, he might be all of those kids. He just knew that you had to blend in with your group and stick to your crowd and never leave it, never run from it if you couldn’t run the full mile.

That was why Milestone had the name he did—he ran, so far, the farthest any scrap ahd ever gotten. He got dragged back despite it all, ripped open, gouged. That was why he liked Izuku. That was why he hid the kid, why the kid liked him back. Milestone cared. Milestone’s eyes didn’t burn like fire, like vomit and cut fingers.

Just the brambles, the guts in the sink, the body on the table.

Just the fact that he told Izuku not to run and when to dare, when to leave and when to say.

Just the fact that Milestone was a thick-skinned fucker with teeth to match and guts right where they should be—always right where they should be—all with an excess of give a damn in his dirty, quirk-modified genetics.

(Shit, kid, you’re a runner. It’s in your blood to do it. To test waters and run. It’s why we keep you the way you are, it’s why you’ll get killed.)

He looked at Milestone, now. Saw the ripples in the man’s chest, the way he breathed. Young, not naive. Not a child. He smelled of death and copper and addiction, demise, doom. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t a bad person. Izuku would die before he called Milestone such a thing. He would rather die. He would rather tear himself apart, burn alive, starve to death

“What?” Izuku asked, hushed, and he pulled away from Milestone at the admission. A pale cast of light, and then the scent of antiseptic came back to Izuku—

“She didn’t send him for you,” Milestone looked at him, head-on, cold. “You need to go.”

(The labs will take you.)

Oh.

Can’t run, he’d say to Izuku in the dark, whenever they shared a room in the night, I can’t run anymore, not like you can. He always sounded whimsical, reminiscent of something Izuku was not privy to.

“I’m home!” Izuku cried, now, sharply, and he didn’t care if he sounded whiny. Milestone didn’t flinch. Izuku looked everywhere but his eyes, everywhere. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” He felt awful, now. “It’s code! You don’t send help. No one does! I was going to come home!” He jabbed Milestone in the chest, Duarte, weak, eyes foaming and colors blending together in poor constellations. He was going to drown. Milestone wouldn’t let him. He was going to try. “I’m home. Why are you—Milestone!” Spit and vomit, now, clung to his mouth. “Why are you sending me away?”

(You wish you’d died, don’t you?)

“You need to go,” Milestone said, all over again, and he grabbed Izuku’s wrist and dug his nails int the red tendons, the exposed flesh that was cracking open like bad porcelain. With one thrash of Milestone’s quirk, returning to this world, Izuku’s skin started peeling back together and unwinding from its previous position.

The kid flinched and rattled, unexpected, and pulled his arm away. Heard Milestone’s quirk seethe and spit, foaming, the flash of power that people love. To heal others. To fix people. Izuku’s body shook and trembled, and the skin was perfect again, and the vomit clinging to Izuku’s lips and tongue was no longer from the sickening force of ending to hurl.

“What the hell,” he wobbled, and Milestone tugged Izuku’s sleeve down and fronwed at him, judgmental, harsh.

“Don’t come home,” He said, “Keep running.”

Izuku felt like yelling. He felt like screaming. But he was a good listener. He was a good listener. He wasn’t supposed to talk so much. He wasn’t supposed to complain or cry out or fight the scavengers if it wasn’t for the bet. The money. The gamble. The thrill. This wasn’t any of these things.

He shook his head, clutched his arms and wrapped them around his weak stomach. “Why?”

“You’re a runner,” He hissed, like he was righteous and good and true. Like this wasn’t a betrayal and a sound off and a failed warning. “And the heroes are going to find you.” Milestone stared at him, and Izuku finally met his eyes. “Don’t you know how bad it’s be if they followed you?”

Izuku—

—

—SAID YES.

—

Day one.

The sun gleamed down from the parted clouds. Izuku kicked his feet back and forth like a little kid. He was a little kid, yes, but not that little. He hadn’t been little since his mom died. And that had been years ago.

(Listen to your—)

The kid kicked his feet anyway. Over and over, as the sun shined on his skin and the blood dried between the creases of his hands and elbows and ribs and shoulders and neck and teeth. Tried not to let it bother him. It wasn’t supposed to bother him. Izuku didn’t hum or sing, or even cry. He didn’t let it get to him. He didn’t let any of this get to him. He let the sun drape over him in golden curtains, energized. He didn’t want to ruin this yet. It was too delicate to mess up so soon, only a few hours in.

Ate the lamb, nibbling along the bone. He already ate the majority. Izuku was greedy—couldn’t not be greedy. He wasn’t going to win like this ever again. He needed to eat. No food meant no gain, and that would be bad. That was how it used to be, at least, and Izuku was holding onto it. Because it mattered. Because he was a stray and strays had to have something to connect to.

(You need to go, you need to leave, you need to—)

His eyes were pinpricks.

It was a new day. It was not 11:39pm anymore. It was not the sixteenth day of captivity, mingling with heroes and strange authorities. It was day one. He was starting over.

Izuku was going to go home.