Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His first thoughts pinched at him and pried him open like the vying claws of crabs. He’d been nothing before, a nonentity content to lie dormant forever. But thinking brought himself into focus. With thoughts came the intrinsic realization that he was he, a prime mover. The thing that propelled himself, that directed these things.

After reorienting himself like this, he recognized that this was his proper position. And he needed to know more about where he was. He didn’t know why, but the urge to know, to know to know to know plagued him ceaselessly. His musings dashed around like butterflies but it always came back to I need to know.

And when it did, those butterfly wings would turn into the splicing blades of dragonflies.

Every coherent thing melted away and his brain turned into an unbecoming roiling wave of nervous energy. He had to know.

He didn’t want to know.

His thoughts, his life, pounded away in this darkness.

He didn’t care to know.

It couldn’t just be him here. There was always someone else. Out there?

He was scared to know.

The first shift was involuntary, although he knew he’d done it. The hand he made felt around, reaching out for someone. It only hit walls. No amount of banging would make them give way. He tried and tried. The vibrations tickled him and what he was made of like a wind through fire.

This was not the way it was supposed to be.

The panic welled up to a crescendo. He wanted to cry out but knew he couldn’t, because he didn’t have a body. No parts to cry with.

He stretched out, pulling whatever he was made of out, out, until it reached the end of wherever he was. He made the neck, torso and legs. His feet and toes. The other arm. He made ears so the vibrations wouldn’t have to suffice. And eyes.

His eyes opened to a room with people standing all around. There was a barrier between him and them. He banged against the glass. They stared back, their real eyes wide. A few smiled. He banged again. If they were kind, if they were kind, they’d let him out. Please, he pleaded to himself. Be kind.

Some broke off from the group and dashed away. He couldn’t follow their movements, couldn’t see if they were doing something to help. He waited.

And waited.

But there was nothing.

The number of smiles increased and the ones that didn’t keep staring at him turned to one and the other excitedly, lips mouthing words of happiness. He banged. He punched the glass again and again for as long and as loudly as he would have screamed if he could. The inky darkness of his fists flashed before his eyes and the vibrations cut through him, making his blood or whatever he had instead of blood curdle within him.

His bangs tapered off into taps and still, nothing happened. Because they were not going to let him go.

He laid back for a moment. Then he turned and placed his fingers along every edge of this tube, looking for some kind of crack or hole for ventilation. If there was, he could let go of this body for the time being, go back to being an unformed thing, and slip through. But he didn’t find anything.

He looked back up. A lady had placed her gloved hand against the top of the glass. He put his hand under hers and knocked with the other. A tinny tap tap tap sounded. He looked into her eyes, eager for communication. She just smiled, little white rectangles of bone signaling happiness. She brought her hand away and turned to a colleague. He stopped the little tap taps. Nothing else happened.

Without thinking, emotion the only thing guiding him, he raised his hand, willing a spike to grow through it. It did, with ease. He urged the point of it to be sharp, he repeated it over and over in his head, sharper, sharper, sharper, sharper, if he could speak he would have spat out the word, and it did it, it did it. It was the sharpest point he could conceive of. His mind jingling with unspoken laughter, he reared his hand back then struck out, quick as a snap of a mouse trap and the air rained crystal shards.

Hands reached for him but before they could grab he became small and cloud-like. He whizzed out, only sparing himself enough time to make one eye so he could see the door, which he slipped under and went away away away from them.

Izuku sat at his desk, as frozen and watchful as a mouse listening out for a predator in tall grass. Bakugou stared down at him. Beyond him, every other student was busy filing out of class.

Izuku met his gaze. “What?” He asked, the one syllable dripping with ire.

“I still have some things I need to settle with you,” Bakugou replied, swiping Izuku’s notebook from his desk. His red eyes narrowed as he read the title Izuku had scrawled in blocky letters several months prior.

Izuku shot up. “Give it back,” he said, voice cold and low. He made a move to snatch it. Bakugou simply pivoted away and, holding the book out in front of him, let off an explosion. The pages Izuku had spent hours filling out muffled the sound. One devilish flame licked out between them before dissipating. Bakugou tossed the remains out the open window.

The sweet scent of nitroglycerin burned Izuku’s nostrils.

“I’m going to be the only person from this school to get into UA. Nobody has denied that but you, and you don’t even have a quirk,” Bakugou said, apropos of an explanation.

Izuku fought to get his breathing under control. “I don’t care,” he said after a moment. “I don’t care about your plan. I’m going to do my best to get into UA. I don’t see why that threatens you so much. Since you’ve made it so clear you don’t think I can do it.”

“You can’t do it!” Bakugou spat, taking a step forward. “You’re a third year, yet you still can’t face the facts. A quirkless person has never gotten into a hero academy before.” He placed a smoldering hand on Izuku’s shoulder. “So tell me how you plan to do it.”

Izuku had no answer to give. He leveled Bakugou with a cold stare. “Just burn me already.”

Bakugou’s upper lip twitched in disgust. He shoved Izuku back down in the chair, made a motion to leave, then changed his mind and stooped down to Izuku’s eye level. “Saying that is just pathetic, you know. It’s not winning.”

Izuku braced himself against the truth of the words and said nothing. Dissatisfied, Bakugou left, not wanting to give any more fuel to the point the other had made. A wild flare of anger shot up in Izuku as he watched him go. It was accompanied by a desire to say something - anything - that would make it so that he could prove his determination actually counted for something, that it was useful.

But there were no words that could do that.

Whatever he was, he could fly like the wind. He didn’t know what propelled him, this body. It just moved and slunk and dashed around at his will. No bones held him together; no muscles burned. A strange feeling began to plague him. The word wrong thundered in his mind, his awareness compounding the sensation. Rapidly, his trepidation for himself and what he was turned into fear. It got so that every movement ached and cleaved his mind apart like a knife tearing through sinewy meat. But getting out of the building was his task, so he did it on a kind of autopilot. His eye saw the way, his form moved, and all the while his thoughts were dimpled with the popping static of panic.

The outside was bright and crisp; buildings shone with a sun-washed glaze, a train bulleted forth - all sleek and determined - while cars whizzed amiably past. People chattered away, their feet clicking against concrete. Trees raised their plump foliage, the green leaves simply happy to wave against the sky–the sky!–which domed the whole scene, its unbreakable blue encapsulating everything with a neat click.

He slid into a rectangle of shade an awning casted and stretched until he met and matched its contours, checking that he and it were the same shade of gray. While he lay there he sank mentally, panic fading to a thrum as he tried to think, to think. But he kept going backwards. Why had he been in that room and not out here? Was he chosen–no, he wasn’t. He’d been made. Never once had he been out here, never once had he been a person. He’d been created…for…

His mind struggled to catch up to that one. The thought seemed to leap away, like a frog when you get too close to it.

But…so…he was different from them. The people. Different enough to be unallowed to live like them. Instead, he was of such a nature that…he was the type of creature who must be locked inside somewhere. And pursued when he escaped. Locked back in. And for what…?

Was he dangerous? A gentle regret washed over him. Yes, by his nature he must be dangerous, or else they wouldn’t treat him like this.

With that, the sinking stopped. He leveled off and stayed there. It was too curious a thing to move on from. If he was dangerous, and he didn’t want to be, but he was, did that mean he should go back? Would it be wrong to leave?

Tentatively, the type of human rationalization that occurs when someone wants to do something wrong but for their own good sake took its course.

Everyone had a quirk. He knew it but didn’t know how, in the same way he’d known what trains and buildings were. Not all quirks were explicitly dangerous, but all of them could be used to harm others. In the same sense, everyone had fingers, and anyone could take their finger and use it to poke someone else’s eye out. But that didn’t mean fingers were bad, and it didn’t mean quirks were bad. If he had the means to hurt others - an innate means - that still didn’t make him bad. He could choose not to hurt anyone, just like people do. In fact, the only reason…the only reason he’d been kept in a tube was because the people who made him were afraid of it being their responsibility if he chose wrongly!

His mind buzzed with the warm feeling of making a good connection. His place right now - flattened against the concrete of a vast world - now felt slightly more justified.

That almost brought him back to the present, but an errant thought - miniscule and flying among a million other panic-streaked ones - caught his attention.

Did he have a quirk?

No, he thought. I don’t. I don’t have any special ability. What I can do is just me. I just am…

He jolted, causing the shadow to gently stir.

I am a quirk.

Now…there it was. That was something. That was a gem. If he was a quirk, now that he knew it, he could just follow the function of a quirk. And what did quirks do? They didn’t exist alone on the ground like this. They…found people. Well, they had people. But he didn’t yet –yet!– so he would have to find one. He looked up at the passerby, dizzy with newfound faith. If he got to one of those, would he disappear inside them? Would he…he would! He would have a body! An actual thing that moved correctly, bones inside of muscle inside of skin with the five senses as a constant instead of a thing that had to be installed. He wouldn’t have to be so hauntingly detached any longer.

The relief he felt was immense. His current state didn’t have to be permanent. If he did this, he would look and feel like a person. Just how it should have been all along.

Now he studied the legs as they strolled past him. A new sensation emerged while they brushed by him and whisked themselves away. It was a sort of tense connection…and at the end of it…a pull, an ebb and flow. He tuned in to this line - this livewire - and as he did so it seemed the very air roiled over itself to make room for the connection.

It was quirks.

The livewire fished out information and brought it back to him.

She had a…he could feel it…a healing quirk. Speeds up her healing, also causes hair and fingernails to grow faster. And then another person walked by. A mending quirk. Can tie broken stitches together in a piece of fabric. Then a light intelligence quirk. Another: pyrokinesis (but only for putting out small fires). Photosynthesis. Telekinesis (only works on rocks), and so on…

The farther away the legs moved, the smaller and weaker the connection got until it broke away entirely. He gazed out at these things with wonder, ceaselessly eager to learn about the next and the next. But eventually, there was a lull in the flow of pedestrians. He settled back in himself now, excited…but also anxious.

Because he’d realized that none of these people would work. They were already too full…with their own quirk. There was no room for him in any of them. He could sense it. Despair began to edge around him again, prying him to take action. So he thought about it. It made sense, really. He had to find someone without a quirk. A…he searched that odd lockbox of memories in his mind…quirkless, is what they were called.

A quirkless person.

But they were rare. He had to search his mind for that information too. Only twenty percent of the population were quirkless. It was unlikely that he’d find one by remaining here. Waiting for one of them to pass by him on this sidewalk might take hours.

There was a clamor of some sort to his left. He looked towards it. A group of people, all dressed in black formal suits, rounded the corner. They weren’t just pedestrians. They seemed united, like they walked together with a purpose.

An awkward, halting vibration reached him from a walkie talkie clipped to one of their belts. The man it belonged to reached for it and mouthed something. Apprehensive, he made a small ear.

“Subject Q was last seen in sub-basement ten. Don’t hesitate to use your anti-quirk spray if you see it or– or a shadow that is acting strangely. Go over the east side of the building more thoroughly. Do you copy?”

The man clicked a button. “Yes sir.” He began to wave the rest of the group forward, then the walkie talkie clicked again and he raised a hand for them to pause.

“And do not search beyond the perimeter. Not unless you are certain you’re on its trail.”

“Understood.” The walkie talkie gave a final click of static. He shoved it back in his belt. The group began its movements once more, about half of them going back around the corner to search the other side of the building, spray cans at the ready. The other half marched towards the shadow quirk, their eyes alert.

Knowing he didn’t have much time, he leapt into the first shadow to cross his own. It was just a regular pedestrian’s. Once in, he kept up with it, struggling to maintain the right form and shade while also keeping his eye on the security guards. As soon as he was close enough, he hopped into the still shade of a tree. He glanced back. He was several feet farther from the building and had yet to be seen.

He ground down on his jumping nerves and set his mind to figuring out a path away. Staying wasn’t an option anymore; he had no clue if that anti-quirk spray would have any effect on him or not, and he didn’t feel like waiting to find out. Leaving, no matter the fact that he didn’t know where to go besides away, and that every movement sent jagged shocks of panic through him, was the best he could do.

The livewire of quirks buzzing all around him was his only solace. He’d look out for a person who emitted none of the telltale energy as he made his way through the world.

Izuku grit his teeth, the waterlogged weight of his half finished notebook a glaring break of normalcy in his walk home. He wanted it out of his hand. The pages were ruined; although Bakugou’s explosion hadn’t singed all of them, the middle pages were now stuck together in a gummy little cake. He’d tried to thumb through them, thinking he’d dry it out in the sun if the writing hadn’t smeared together yet, but the pages softly ripped instead. The front and back cover had sloughed off when he raised it from the water. That was fish food now; the koi who lived in the small pond it landed in were more than happy to gobble it up.

He could throw it away in Bakugou’s garbage can. It was Thursday, so it might still be down by the street. And the odds were solid that Bakugou would see Izuku do it from his bedroom window. His desk was in front of it and the window had a perfect view of the street. Izuku grinned a little, and it remained there for exactly one heartbeat before his face fell again. Bakugou’s dad might see him and try to stop him for a chat. The man was always out fiddling with the garden, turning over the soil, pulling up weeds, pruning the bushes.

He heard a small pattering of water and looked down. His fist had clenched around his notebook, wringing the thing. Rivulets of gray water ran down his knuckles. He switched the notebook over to his other hand and found that clumps of white clung to his palm and fingers. Disgusted, he tossed the notebook through the gap of a public garbage can’s hood and picked the reluctant remains off himself. It was slow work.

When he’d pinched it all off and wiped his clammy hand against his pant leg he turned to go, thoughts of meek revenge snuffed out yet fading anger continued to weigh fat and heavy in him like smoldering coals. It made him feel bad and ugly but he held onto it. The coals were more blunt and useful than a tissue would be if he stopped to think beyond the facts and wonder why his friend, Bakugou had turned out this way.

Like turning a knob on a radio to reach a different station, he tuned his thoughts towards what he would be doing tonight, feeling a bit of pride at finally being able to do it well after all these years. He would have to do homework, of course, but first he’d check with his mom to see if he needed to pick anything up from the store for dinner. While he was there, he could pick up a new notebook - one that would not be accompanying him to school. Some notes had to be taken on a fight he’d seen earlier - but that could be done after homework…

As he mused his expression smoothed out; brows that had creased his glabella moments earlier now relaxed, his lips gained color again after being folded into a thin line for so long, and his hands hung limply at his sides, all tension drained from them. Even his walk had some bounce now. He looked calm, and in fact he thought he felt it, confusing emotional exhaustion with a worn satisfaction at being able to move on from the bad things other people did and face the future.

When a villain with a sludge quirk saw Izuku, he was excited. Not only was the boy puny, but he also seemed complacent. And he was headed right for the tunnel, right where he was, in the dark, shielded from the eyes of onlookers. If he could cover his mouth before the boy screamed, it would be too easy to knock him out and take control of his body. Simple strangulation would have to do. The police wouldn’t recognize him; he could get all the way to the airport before he’d have to switch out.

Perched on the ceiling, he tried to keep his sludge from dripping down as Izuku entered the mouth of the tunnel. When the moment was right, he leapt down.

Izuku hardly had time to flinch.

He’d only seen the flash of two eyeballs mounted atop a pile of sludge before the thing fell down on him. Then he was enveloped in it, head to toe, with a wall of sludge at least two feet deep on all sides keeping him from air. Izuku gasped, already out of breath, and flailed his arms, trying to breach the sludge and at least feel the existence of air on his fingertips. But as soon as he opened his mouth the viscous liquid entered, flooding the back of his throat. He gagged, trying to expel it, and when that hardly worked, vomited violently out of pure determination. The sludge parted away from him and he fell on his butt, greedily taking in air. From whatever set of vocal cords the villain had hidden away he said “Ew,” and sounded truly disgusted.

Izuku scrambled up on legs that felt more like wooden pegs than anything else, but was scooped up before he could dash more than a foot away. The sludge surrounded him once more and wound its way back into his mouth. This time it tightened sharply around his neck, constricting his airflow. He kicked and clawed, fighting to pry his way out, working off a dying energy. Having never suffocated before, he was surprised to realize he was slinking off into sleep, which gave him a second wind. I cannot fall asleep, he thought desperately, reaching up. I will not be taken. When his hand touched what he wanted, he closed his fist around it and squeezed.

Those anonymous vocal cords sounded again, this time emitting a squall of horror. The sludge villain swayed and weakened his grip. Izuku lurched forward; torso, arms, and head now outside, but his waist and legs were still being held back. But the sludge was loose, now resembling slime more than anything else. Knowing he should be able to break free of it, Izuku, still heaving and choking a little, tried his best. But all he managed was a wobbly shuffle forward. Still wavering between sludge and freedom, he looked to the mouth of the tunnel, desperate to reach the pinpoint of light there.

“My eye, my eye, oh, my eye…” the villain cooed to himself.

Izuku shuffled again just as the sludge started to churn and solidify. His window of opportunity was closing. He looked about, black dots of suffocation assaulting his eyesight. Then one of them began to move. A black dot…coming towards him, growing bigger. It wasn’t just a blemish of his vision. He looked at it with bleary eyes. It was cloud-like…not an animal, and not a person…although the villain didn’t look like a person either.

His eyes widened. He tried to ask for help but his burning throat wouldn’t make the words. He reached out instead, hand shaking, a rush of blood going to his head at the simple movement. The black cloud slammed against his outstretched palm, curling around his fingers from the force of the collision. It stayed there hugging him for a moment before disappearing.

A shiver went through his spine. Panting, he raised his hand to his face and examined it. There was nothing there. Maybe I did imagine it, he thought, crestfallen.

The sludge rose up to his stomach and continued to rise. The wall was reforming. “You, you you you,” the villain was saying. “How about I make you stab your eye out before I let you go, huh?” As he bit out the threat the sludge wrapped around Izuku’s arms so tightly he felt like they were getting crushed between four walls. Putting aside his anger for now, the sludge villain loosened his grip. He reached for Izuku’s neck once more.

Like the snip of scissors, a thought seared through his mind, cutting away every horrible sensation - he really was about to get taken.

But just as the sludge pooled over his lower lip and into his mouth, he felt a kind of stirring behind him. He knew it only by the way his head tingled, like a cool hand had pressed against it, causing the surrounding nerves to pinch into goosebumps. The something behind him was also behind the sludge villain - he could feel its distance in the same way he could know the position of his hands without looking.

Izuku went very still, and when the villain uttered some taunt about giving up he paid no attention to it. The thing was now taller than him and still gaining mass.

When it wrapped around the villain and in one violent twist Izuku was shucked free from the sludge, he wasn’t surprised. Somehow he had known it was there to save him. He tumbled across the floor a few times before he caught himself, skinning the palm of his hands against the concrete. Laying on his side, he looked back. The thing was a darkness; an uncanny void that moved and slunk around solid objects in a way it had no right to, seeing as how it gave the strong appearance of liquid. It coiled around the villain, who lurched and growled, trying to heave as much of his sludge through the gaps of its grip as he could. As soon as his fumbling movements somehow began to give him the upper hand, the darkness shifted, loosening its grip and turning parts of itself into a kind of scythe. It swung itself, separating layers of sludge like they were pieces of cake and sending them flying away from each other to splat against the walls of the tunnel.

Izuku only inched away, but when the sludge villain uttered an unintelligible roar of fear, he scrambled to his feet and sprinted. “He’s killing him,” Izuku heard his own broken voice mutter. He passed by his yellow backpack, slumped innocently against the brick wall. He ignored it, determined to leave the tunnel.

A hand wrapped around his bicep and jerked him backwards so hard his feet fell out from under him. He landed on his back, sprawled at the feet of the person above him. He barely spared them a glance before he tried and failed to sit up, his burning lungs protesting all the while. Then the hands came back again, grabbing his upper arms and jerking him to his feet. Izuku wheezed and tried to turn and get a good look at them; see if this was friend or foe, but they continued to hold him close. They shoved their arms under his until the inner part of their elbows rested against his armpits. They began to shuffle backwards, slowly at first then rapidly, dragging Izuku with them.

He flailed and struck out at them, planning to dig his nails into their flesh until they released him, but his hands merely bumped against skin that was as solid as stone. It was then that he noticed their arms and body were made of that same darkness the thing attacking the sludge villain was. He gasped for breath, trying to ask questions, to ask why they were taking him back there, to plead with them, but all his words came out as wheezes. He tried to kick, hoping to gain friction against the ground, but his heart gave a horrible jolt like he’d never felt before, warning him that falling unconscious still wasn’t out of the question.

The figure placed him on the ground - a sludge covered ground, he realized as his forehead pressed against something disgusting - and he shot them what he hoped was a mirthful glare.

The fact that they had hair, big curling locks that framed their round face, was the first thing Izuku’s fading presence of mind noticed. Then it was the school uniform, the stiff shoulders and shirt collar matching a form Izuku knew well–the gakuran. Then he was back to their head. Their face…their face was a chilling anomaly. He could hardly see their mouth or their eyes - not even their nose when looked at straight on. All expression was lost in the darkness that comprised everything they were made of.

The most appalling thing hit him last, and when it did he gasped and went limp, coming the closest yet to fainting. The figure looked exactly like him. They were himself, without color or expression. Everything was the same. Right down to the clothes and shoes.

As they leaned down, gently touching his face, Izuku felt rather than saw it - his unblinking eyes had reached full capacity for what new information they could take in.

A shiver went through his spine.

A watery gurgle rose up from the muck behind Izuku. It coughed a cough you only ever heard from the sick, their throats raw and swollen with sores. The sludge villain was trying to gather himself up. He’d given up on the idea of possessing a body today. A night of laying low in the sewers was preferable to being killed out here, right now. As he collected the bits of himself that had been splayed everywhere, a trickle inched over Izuku’s wrist, knocking him out of his stupor.

“Help!” Izuku shrieked, looking between the quaking muck that had strangled him and the vast space of the tunnel, searching for the figure or their wall of darkness. Neither were to be found. He scrambled away until his back hit the wall opposite the sludge villain. He brought his hands up to cover his mouth and nose. “Oh, help,” he mumbled into his fingers. Why did that person bring me back here to him? He thought miserably. They were helping me just a moment ago.

“Because I can’t keep fighting him if you make us run away!” A voice rushed to reply. “But it’s okay, it’s okay now. He doesn’t have much fight left in him. Right?”

Izuku tried to think for one moment, then two, three, four, but his mind offered him nothing coherent. “...Huh?”

“Right?” The voice repeated. It was coming from inside Izuku’s head. Like it was nudged in there along with all his other thoughts. Except unlike them, he wasn’t in control of it. “Do you think so?”

Izuku said nothing, stuck in a kind of abject terror.

“Can you look at him, please?” A concerning silence continued to spread between them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I’d be able to talk to you.” The voice tried, grappling for words to console him.

No reply.

“Please look.”

Izuku finally raised his head. The sludge villain was shivering, slowly moving across the floor and walls of the tunnel like a slug, collecting all his pieces. He must have felt Izuku’s stare, because he turned around. His lidless gaze sent a jolt of fear through Izuku, but it also gave him his first thought in over a minute.

“You’re disgusting,” he pointed out.

“You’re still here?” The villain breathed. “You’re still here.” His eye roved the area of the tunnel. “Uh, don’t go anywhere. D-don’t go running off until I leave. Or I’ll…or I will hurt you.” He continued to look wildly about.

“He’s not sure if I’m still here, or if you actually have a quirk that can hurt him, or what. He’s afraid…if he hurts you I’ll stop him again.”

“Okay,” Izuku said.

The sludge villain looked visibly relieved at Izuku’s assent. With one more glance over his shoulder, he continued his work. Izuku watched him for a moment, then got to his feet and began to walk away.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.”

“He’ll hurt us,” the voice fretted.

“Then stop him,” he replied.

“I told you not to do that,” the villain cried. A line of sludge shot out from the villain’s decimated form and wrapped around Izuku’s ankle, jerking him down. He cringed as he fell on his butt once again.

Izuku’s head gave a preliminary tingle. A sharp tendril of darkness emerged from the cracked brick wall and slammed down, lopping off the villain’s slimy limb.

“So it’s shadow?” Izuku muttered.

“...Yes.”

“You bastard,” the villain bit out, eyeing Izuku’s cool expression. He didn’t know Izuku was in shock, and was seething at this child whom he thought, in his small mind, tricked him. “You smug little bastard,” he roared, rearing up to attack, all previous caution thrown away.

There was a stamping sound behind Izuku, like feet being firmly planted in soil. A gust of wind burst towards him, causing an eerie whistle to sound throughout the tunnel. By the time it and its reverberations faded, rapid footfalls had taken their place. Izuku, whose mind and bones were filled with cotton balls, didn’t even glance up as a hulking figure slid into his peripheral. He only noticed the villain’s expression - like a kid getting caught telling a bad lie, or a wide-eyed dog right before he’s beaten - and the next gust of wind, this one the kind that turned your hair into a whip hellbent on scratching your eye.

He hid his face in the crook of his elbow and lay down on his left shoulder, hiding from the hurricane. He didn’t notice the tunnel’s whistling had turned to screams until it was gone. Even after he processed the cloying silence as a sign the fight was over, it took true effort to convince himself to get up and face this new confrontation. So much so that when he finally got to his feet neither the sight of All Might or the grating crick in his neck seemed worthy of attention or care.

“Young man, are you injured?” All Might asked gently. He was searching for something amidst the sludge that now pasted the walls and floor. As he did so he walked sideways, like a crab, so as not to turn his back on Izuku.

“Nuh,” Izuku slurred. He swallowed back some saliva and tried again. “No.”

“Is that true?”

“Can you tell me what happened here?” All Might asked, voice still light, still gentle. He leaned down and picked something up. Izuku watched, unnerved. Seeing the number one hero in person instead of on TV for the first time was a bit like watching an animatronic move. It was dizzying.

“Yes,” he started. He blinked sleepily. There was something he had to tell the hero, now that the man was here. He struggled with his thoughts for a moment, then remembered. “That’s a villain,” he explained, pointing vaguely. All Might nodded encouragingly and gave him a warm smile. Izuku fidgeted for several seconds before realizing there was more to explain. “Uh, he has a quirk that lets him possess other people’s bodies.” Like that other guy, an errant thought whispered. The one that’s still here.

Izuku sniffed, distracted. There was something to that…something to be dealt with. But he didn’t know what or how. He shook his head. “That’s what he tried to do to me.”

A cawing voice cried out. “He gouged my eye out! Squeezed it ‘till it popped! He ain’t innocent, he-” the villain was cut off as All Might finished shoving him in a liter-sized soda bottle. Just as the cap was screwed on, an angry, lidless eye appeared below the plastic label and glared at Izuku, sclera flashing. Izuku took a few preventative steps away before All Might caught onto this and casually moved to hold the bottle behind his thigh.

“I’m sorry son, I have to ask. Is that true?”

“Yeah,” he answered quickly.

“And did you use your quirk to do that?”

Izuku blinked. “Oh, no sir. I’m quirkless.”

All Might smiled at that, obviously relieved. Legally, civilians were only allowed to use their quirks in self defense. Criminals who had been caught often exploited this, claiming victims who fought back had been the ones to initiate the fight. These disagreements could make it to court, where they would be dragged out for a while, each side laying claim to a different set of facts warped by bias and the heat of the moment. All Might didn’t want this moment to be dragged out that long for the boy. Especially since it was such a cut and dry crime. A search warrant had been out for the villain since midmorning; the man had obviously wanted to hide under the cover of an innocent face until he could truly flee.

“I see. I do have to get this villain to a police station soon. This obviously isn’t the proper containment for him.” He raised the bottle but brought it back down behind him when the boy pointedly looked away. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Midoriya Izuku.”

“And address? In case we need to contact you?”

Izuku recited it, tone listless and droning. All Might stepped closer to him when he finished, taking a better look at him.

“Are you sure you’re uninjured? I can contact a nearby cop or hero to come over here and check you out. Walk you home, maybe.” He really didn’t have the time for it, not if he didn’t want the villain to witness him transform.

“I’m alright, sir.” He replied, and there was something firm in his voice, like he was emerging from his stupor. All Might felt a bit better about leaving, but then the boy inhaled sharply and his head snapped to the right, like he’d just heard something.

“Are you-”

“Um, I’m sorry for holding you back,” he blurted, green eyes wide. “A-all Might.”

All Might waited for him to go on, giving him time to say something else if he needed to, but the boy just stood there gawking. Apparently he finally processed who he was talking to. That was All Might’s cue to leave. He bid him farewell, encouraged him to reach out to the local law enforcement if he needed help or had questions, then left just before the boy’s increasingly excited stare reached its peak.

Just in time.

Izuku snatched up his backpack without stopping, ignoring the way his body jerked and slumped when his shoulder skidded against the wall. “Who are you?” He asked, addressing the voice-person. “Why are you still in my head? What– were you hiding from All Might?” His mind raced with all the sordid possibilities. “Is that why you’re still here?” He shrieked. “To hide? You’re…hiding in my head. What does that even do to me?”

“I’m not hurting you!” The voice-person shrieked back. The rising panic in his voice gave Izuku pause. “I’m not sure if I should be hiding from All Might. Should I? Never mind, you wouldn’t know. I’m sorry. Where are we going?”

Izuku blinked. The setting sun had ducked under a building, casting his side of the world in a dim gray sheen. The light had just touched him when he emerged from the mouth of the tunnel, and he stopped there, dropping his bag on the ground. “I need to see you,” he said tonelessly. “I need to see what I’m dealing with.”

“If I leave we can’t talk,” the voice shot back, all nerves.

“Then I can’t…why not?”

“I’m made of shadow. Shadows don’t talk.”

“Shadows don’t shapeshift of their own independent will. You can talk,” he bit out, the words gritty and final. A silence hung between them. A silence strung across the chasm of two conscious entities. Or maybe it wasn’t a chasm at all, maybe they were nudged right up next to each other in Izuku’s brain. The thought was maddening. “If you can copy me, my self, then you can copy-”

“Your phonatory system,” the voice-person breathed. “I will try. I will focus and try, and try not to forget. But I might not be able to remember for long. It’s tricky to copy. Being in here helps-”

Izuku shuddered and in one sudden movement punched himself in the chest to get the voice to shut up, to not continue speaking like that. Then he froze, hunched over and breathing heavily while his eyes seared the ground.

A few minutes passed.

“Are you almost-” Izuku started, voice shaky.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Leave,” he commanded. He raised his palm to his face, studying it closely.

“Please look around first. Nobody should see me.”

Izuku bit down on the protestations he desperately wanted to air. This would go easier if he gave a little to get a little, he’d realized. He looked around himself in a slow semicircle, dutifully surveying the bushes, weeds, the crumbling road he’d walked on to get here, and all the accumulations of grit and trash leading up to the mouth of the tunnel. Not a person in sight.

“Alright, I’m leaving now.”

Izuku glowered down at his hand. Although he hadn’t been sure the voice-person would leave through this particular exit, it turned out that he was right. A tendril rose up from the heel of his palm and wavered slightly - just like steam, except for the fact that it was black. More and more of it came from Izuku. It circled the ground in front of him, feeling it out, maybe. Then it gained speed, taking up the space directly in front of him. The black blob convulsed; parts of it seemed to tighten and snap in while others dashed around itself, filling in needful places until they too snapped taught. The whole procedure was so fluid it was like the shadow person had been there all along, concealed by the smoky wisps.

He let out a muffled gurgle, breaking Izuku out of his frigid stare. The shadowed figure hunched over and coughed. Then, straightening up, uttered a few low hums.

“Can you speak?” Izuku asked, voice barely above a whisper.

He tilted his head. “...Yes,” he tried. The pronunciation was a bit too soft, somehow. “Yes,” he repeated, getting better with each iteration. “Yes, yes, yes…yes.” He nodded. “I’ve got it.”

Izuku shifted a little. He was already mollified, and uncertain of what to start with now that the surety of his indignation had deserted him. “Why do you still look like me?”

“Because…you’re the easiest to copy,” he spoke in a tone that implied Izuku should have already figured that out. “What else would I look like? Who?”

“Yourself,” Izuku shot back. A wariness washed over him.

“I don’t have…I don’t look like anything. I’ve made limbs for myself before, but not the whole…thing. Nothing this detailed. Looking like an actual person is more practical, so I’m going to do it now that I know how.”

Izuku winced. His explanation, his language, was all wrong. “You talk like…” He cut himself off, licked his lips, and tried again. “Is this new for you? How long have you had this quirk? Did it just awaken?”

The shadow person leveled him with a long stare. “What?”

Izuku sighed and stamped his foot down, fighting to keep his thoughts from turning into a runny miasma again. “How old are you?”

This seemed to shake him a little. It was imperceptible, his discomfort, but something about him seemed to waver before he spoke, like how one might blink or look to the left before they lie. “Well, that’s…I…I guess I’d need to…I want to know, how old are you?”

There. That was completely wrong. “Fifteen,” Izuku supplied.

“Then that’s how old I am. Must be. Because-”

“No,” Izuku protested, shaking his head. “That’s not how that works. If I’m fifteen, that doesn’t make you fifteen. Even if-”

“I look like you! The age of the body is the same, so-”

Izuku forced back a scoff. “That’s not even true. You just made that body.”

“No, I meant that since we share– o-or we did share, and if we continued to share - then we’d be the same age.”

Izuku stomped forwards. “Why would we keep sharing?” He half-shouted. "And that still doesn’t make sense. I meant mental age, not physical.” He took a deep breath. “What year were you born?”

“Year?” He asked meekly. He looked at the ground for several seconds, considering, then raised his head and eyed his surroundings, like he’d figure it out from a clue in the background. “I don’t know,” he said after a few moments of this. “Look, why don’t I explain it to you?”

Izuku forced back all his stress and anger. He ignored the hurts in his body and the droning buzz of exhaustion. Either this person was a bad person - as well as a bad liar with a bad grasp on their sanity to boot - or they were a good person, who was mixed up in something bad. If it was the latter, then Izuku was certain that the situation would go beyond just not good. It would be horrible. People didn’t turn out like this - confused and relying only on the instincts of their quirk - unless life had really dragged them through the mud. So he calmed down.

“Yes, please tell me.” He grabbed an overturned bucket and placed it so the lid touched the ground. He sat down with a sigh. “But let’s get one thing straight. We’re not going to be sharing a body. That’s out of the question. Okay?”

The question was met with an inscrutably sharp look and nothing more.

“Okay?” He repeated.

The shadow boy remained silent. But the silence wasn’t an indignant silence, which Izuku would have rebutted. It was a quiet, pregnant silence, like the kind someone undergoes when they’ve been hurt by what their conversator thought was a casual remark. It set Izuku on edge.

“That’s what I’m here for,” the boy broke in. He said it strongly, steadily. Like Izuku could either take it or leave it.

“...That’s why you saved me,” Izuku stated blandly.

The shadow boy shot him what might have been an earnest look. “Sort of. I wouldn’t have been able to save you if I hadn’t gone in your body. I can only control other shadows - the ones that aren’t me - if I have a body. I only just found that out.” He paused, perhaps letting himself register the fact for the first time. “And…anyways, I couldn’t have gone in your body if you weren’t quirkless. It was just a chance thing, that I was able to help you.”

“But if you didn’t know you could control other shadows until you…you joined me,” he sighed, genuinely perplexed. “Then why did you risk it in the first place? Why did you hop in a dying body? Quirkless people aren’t that rare.”

“Because you reached out to me,” was the simple reply.

Izuku nodded. “Alright. Oh-kay…” his breath hitched when he finally processed what had just been said to him. He looked at the ground, away from the shadow boy. His shoulders tensed and cried out in soreness as he brought them up to his ears. For some reason, his chest, or his lungs - something - was now sore too. No, it was pained - actively. He let out a few slow breaths and ran a hand through the tangles in his hair. His brow was furrowed in extreme worry. Although he wasn’t sure that was what he actually felt.

He had a realization. It was more a feeling - a sensation - of something real, something grounding. He marveled at it. Then an errant thought told him what it was. I don’t have to hide from this moment.

The shadow watched Izuku, who kept running his hand through his hair. He’d refused to meet his gaze again, and why? The shadow boy didn’t know. Nonetheless, he gave Izuku a few minutes until he said what had to be said next.

“I can’t stay here, and I really shouldn’t talk to you, if sharing a body is ‘out of the question.’”

Izuku looked up. “Why?”

“I know some people are looking for me,” he said, head down, almost like he was ashamed. “Though it didn’t seem like they were going to search very far, they do know what I look like. That I’m a shadow. And while it’s easy to hide as a shadow, it’s not…” He grappled for the right words. “...right. It’s scary.” He whispered, “I’m meant to be a person.”

Izuku stood up. “But you are…?”

He shook his head vehemently. “No.”

Izuku’s mouth twisted like he’d tasted something sour. “I’m not sure what to do with that. But…” his mouth worked for the right words, the gentle ones. Finding none, he settled. “If you give me enough information - enough so that I’m comfortable, I mean - I think I can consider sharing a body. But more importantly, I can try to come up with a solution that’s better than that.”

“...Okay.” He ambled over to Izuku, stopping a foot away. He looked down at his legs for a moment, then shook his head and plopped down on the ground, legs splayed in front of himself. He examined them once more, then awkwardly brought his knees to his chest.

Izuku took that as his cue to sit down as well. But, disliking the height difference the bucket afforded him, he brushed it away and sat criss-cross in front of the shadow boy instead. He stared at him expectantly.

“If you send me away after I tell, you have to promise not to let the people who are after me know you saw me,” he said plainly. “If you do know them. You might not.”

Izuku almost grinned. “I probably don’t.”

The story was harrowing. By the time the boy had finished speaking, the back of Izuku’s neck and his arms were pinched in gooseflesh. His eyes were taught and his vision was blurry at the edges from the strain of staring at one subject for so long.

At first he’d interrupted to ask questions, careful to keep his voice from becoming brash.

“So you woke up in a…container. This glass tube.”

“No, it wasn’t waking up. I’ve been careful not to use that phrase.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“It was like…being aware for the first time. My whole life came to me and I had to realize it.”

But the questions, which came in bright as a bulb, fizzled out as new information was tossed on top of them. When the boy finished Izuku continued to stare. His eyes were locked in yet bright. His previous shock had yet to return.

Slowly, he stood and turned in a half-circle. He pointlessly stared at a cluster of bushes across the road. He had to wet his dry lips before he spoke. “I bet I can find the building on a map.”

“Okay…” The shadow boy was wary, not of what Izuku said, but his reaction. “We can find out what the building’s for. And who made it,” he nodded along, voicing the rest of what he figured Izuku was thinking. “Then we can guess at why they made me.”

Izuku was rigid, his black school uniform making his figure look like a stern line in the foreground. He held his breath, all the conflicting intensions preventing him from thinking clearly. I can’t hold myself back like this, he thought. Just find what you want to say and say it. It only gets easier if you’re honest. He loosened his shoulders and exhaled in a long breath. As soon as the last of the stale air left his lungs, he turned sharply back towards the shadow boy. “What’s your name?” He asked.

“O-h,” the boy wavered. He said softly, in remembrance, “It’s…oh, yes, it’s Mikumo.”

Izuku nodded. “Someone messed up with you,” he said, not unkindly.

“What? How do you mean?”

“You told me that you’re a quirk,” he said, smiling dazedly at a few pebbles on the ground.

“Yes?”

“But you thought you were a person. You felt like a person, at least. Like you should have real human parts, real skin, all of that.”

“I still do,” Mikumo replied, defensive.

“That couldn’t have been their intention. Er, the intention of those doctors or scientists or whatever they were. They couldn’t have wanted you to think you were supposed to be human, couldn’t have wanted you to panic after waking up and realizing you weren’t. But I bet that they did want you to know basic things. Like language, what things are…how people work.” He met Mikumo’s gaze. “They botched it. Gave you too much info, or at least too much information about the wrong thing. Just enough to cause you to think like a…a real person. Instead of just knowing about one.”

Mikumo was quiet, a small, dark form on the ground. A blotch. “Yeah…” he mumbled. “But how did they even do that?”

The hurt in his voice softened Izuku. “I don’t know,” he said, and he was sorry for it.

“Okay. Then why?”

“Why did they do it?” Mikumo nodded. “To…” he let the time draw out between that word and his next sentence. He wanted to sink into it, plunge in like a penny into a fountain. “To use you,” he forced out. “I think it was to use you for…well it’s like you said.” He looked away, brow furrowed. “You, as a quirk, can only work inside quirkless people. So maybe-”

“They made me to give quirkless people quirks.”

Izuku nodded, relieved Mikumo was following. To suggest something like that only for it to be met with disbelief would have been exhausting.

“I guess it worked,” Mikumo breathed.

Izuku’s frown deepened at the bitter air between them. “We haven’t even talked about that.” He sniffed. “I want to help you.” The overture was genuine. “But if we…the arrangement would be practical but…not ideal for me.”

Mikumo stood, wiping dirt off himself. The motion of his hands against his legs sounded like a stone skidding across concrete. “You would have a quirk-” he started, straightening up.

Izuku held up a hand to him. “I don’t want that to be the reason I choose.”

“It should be part of the consideration. Because it’s the reality of the situation. You would have a quirk.”

He stiffened. “I don’t want to agree just so I can use you-”

“I won’t let you use me,” Mikumo bit back. “Just like you won’t let me use you.”

While his mouth worked to deny, the words rang clear and true in his head. Finally he gave up on the effort. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling like he’d breached a moral.

“It’s okay. I just want you to think clearly about this. And I don’t want you thinking of me like that.” He looked away, obviously discomforted.

“Sorry,” Izuku repeated. “I know where you’re coming from.” And although he couldn’t put it to words, just like Mikumo couldn’t, it was true. “What exactly would the terms of this agreement be?”

“I get a body, you get a quirk. I get protection, and…”

“I get to help you.”

Mikumo’s expression shifted. Izuku interpreted it as a questioning glance. “I want to,” he explained. “Now that I know, I…” He sighed and shook his head. “Well, it’s not that I feel obligated to help. It’s that I can’t imagine myself doing anything different.” He frowned, realizing how cryptic that was. “I hope that makes sense.”

“It does,” Mikumo replied. He almost sounded awed. “I can help you too. If you get attacked again…” he trailed off, overtaken by odd wet coughs and that gurgling from earlier.

Izuku stepped forward. “Are you okay?”

Mikumo cleared his throat. “Yes. We’ve been talking for a long time.” He nodded towards the spot where the sun was hidden behind a skyscraper. Izuku looked, noticing for the first time that the streaks of sunlight had turned golden orange. “It’s hard to keep this up,” Mikumo pointed towards his chest.

“Oh, yeah.” Izuku peered into his face, searching for those inimitable eyes. He hoped they were warm. “Well…I guess I only really want to know if…if, um, you can hear my thoughts. In here.”

“Yes,” Mikumo replied. “But probably not all of them. That would be a mess.”

“Oh, sure,” Izuku started, wary. “It seems like you can choose when to talk to me in there. I also can’t hear all your thoughts.”

Mikumo nodded.

“So how do I do that?”

“Oh! I think it has to do with…with intention. You have to think something with the intention of wanting someone else to hear it.”

A frown pinched at the corners of Izuku’s mouth. “We’ll have to practice on the walk home - that’s where we’re going by the way. And when we get there let’s have some time apart, okay? Just so we can talk face to face again for a bit.” There was more to say, but he decided to save it until Mikumo was in his head again.

“Okay,” Mikumo replied, easily enough. He looked down at Izuku’s hand.

Izuku raised it, palm up. Mikumo placed his on top, inky fingers a perfect match to Izuku’s own. “Is this okay?”

Izuku nodded, subconsciously squeezing his fingers around Mikumo’s. I’ll see how it feels, he assured himself. And if it’s bad and awful then we’ll figure something else out.

Mikumo bowed slightly, then dissipated back into that thick black steam. Whatever he was now, whatever he was made of, curled up and around until it had retreated entirely into Izuku’s skin. Izuku watched quietly. No hole opened up in his palm, no pore widened. The shadow just swept back into him like his flesh was porous.

“Are you okay?” Mikumo asked. He was there again, right in Izuku’s mind. There was no tension, no way to feel out the solidity of his person - his consciousness - he was just there.

“I’m okay,” Izuku replied, more out of a desire to pacify himself as well as Mikumo than any regard for truth. Then he remembered something, and focused on the words. I’m okay.

“Did you hear-”

“Yes! That was good.”

“Alright,” he whispered. Let me know if you lose me.

“I bet I won’t. It’s not so difficult, is it?”

No, not really, actually. He swiped up his backpack.