Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It starts with the same kind of childish cruelty that has defined Izuku’s entire life so far.

Well, that and a game.

Or what Izuku thinks is just a game.

What was supposed to be a game.

“They say he used to be a hero,” Tesaki says in a low voice, fingers wiggling dramatically in the air in front of him.  “But the government had him put down.  Some say it was because he went crazy but others say it’s because they couldn’t control him like they do a lot of other heroes.  Either way, they had to get rid of him.”

“Doesn’t matter why they killed the fucker,” Kacchan cuts in, “only matters how.”

“Right, right,” Tesaki nods rapidly, eager as always to please Kacchan.  “Well, apparently, he didn’t go quietly.  He took a lot of the people they sent after him down too.  Just,” Tesaki makes a twisting motion with his hands, face split in a wide grin, “snapped their necks like they were nothing and took off before they could stop him.  As a matter of fact, I bet their necks sounded a lot like your leg did that one time, Deku.”

Izuku bites down a shudder at the comment.  At the automatic twinge of remembered agony it brings to his mind alongside the faded memory of the shame and helplessness he’d felt as he’d laid at the bottom of that stairwell until the janitor had found him.

“So when they finally cornered him on some abandoned rooftop,” Tesaki continues gleefully, “they didn’t want to risk sending anyone else up after him.  So they sniped him out instead.  And they were so scared of him they put a bullet through each one of his eyes just to be sure he’d stay down this time.”

“Wicked,” Kariage speaks up for the first time, eyes wide and delighted.

“But,” Tesaki’s voice drops down low again, “they say it didn’t end there.  They say that the entire task force started dying off only a few months later.  That each and every one of them was eventually found with their eyes missing.  Even now sometimes villains will show up like that too.  Their eyes just gone.  It’s like he’s still out there, still working, taking out villains just like how he was taken out.”

Kariage makes an appropriately awed sound.  Izuku just tries not to let his brain start racing to try to find actual case examples that might fit that pattern.

“And,” Tesaki continues, “people say that if you call for him, if you give him a villain’s name, then he might even show up and take them too.  But you better be careful because if he doesn’t like the name you give him then he might decide to take your eyes instead.”

There’s a moment of silence where the four of them just stare at each other, the end of Tesaki’s story lingering in the air around them.

And then, just as Izuku had known it would after years of long practice, the other three’s attention turns firmly in his direction, like young wolves scenting prey.

“Guess that means you should be careful, Deku,” Kacchan taunts, hands on his hips and eyes glinting smugly.  “Pretty sure he’d rather take your eyes than any villain you might think of.”

“Yeah,” Kariage chimes in again even as he reaches over and pulls the storage room’s door all the way open, “if he used to be a hero then getting rid of the trash should be something he’d be glad to do.”

“G-Guys,” Izuku squeaks out, shoulders rounded, “I-I don’t want to.”

“Come on Deku,” Kacchan taunts, face twisted in a tiny sneer.  “We already know you’re basically worthless, don’t tell me you’re a coward too.”

“N-No,” Izuku denies, hands twisting in the hem of his shirt and lips bitten almost raw.  “I’m not s-scared.”

But the thing is, Izuku is afraid.  He is.  He’s willing to admit that even if only to himself.

It’s just … he’s not afraid of what Kacchan and the others all think he’s afraid of.

It’s not the dark of the supply shed or the creepy, urban legend-inspired game they want him to take part in that scares Izuku.

No, Izuku has enough real and solid things to be afraid of in his life as it is.  He doesn’t have time to be afraid of harmless things like the dark or scary stories about a man who was, in Izuku’s opinion, probably horribly betrayed and hurt before he died.  If he was real at all.

So it’s real, tangible things like the lock on the shed door that scare Izuku.  That and the fact that this wouldn’t be the first time Kacchan and the others have waited until school let out to lock him inside a room somewhere no one is likely to hear him call for help.  Or even the first time they used a story like this to get him in trouble somehow.  He served a week of detention last year when they shoved him into the girl’s bathroom to try and summon Hanako-san and then immediately called a teacher on him.

One way or another, games like this never end well for Izuku.

“Then get to it,” Kacchan orders.

Before Izuku can protest again a hand slams down between his shoulder blades with enough force to send him stumbling forward and into the dark of the shed.

And then, just like Izuku had known it would, the door slams shut behind him.

He spins around and lunges for the door as soon as he regains his footing, palms slapping uselessly at the wood.

“This isn’t f-funny,” Izuku chokes out.  “Please, you g-guys, let me out.”

“We will as soon as you do it,” Kacchan calls.  “So get away from the door and stop wasting time, idiot.”

Izuku squeezes his eyes shut tightly for a moment, forces himself to take a deep breath, and then turns to face the deep darkness of the shed.  This is even worse than the last time they locked him up somewhere.

Because, unlike last time, they'd picked the one shed on school grounds without any windows.

With one arm out straight in front of him and his school bag clutched in his other hand, Izuku takes a handful of shuffling steps away from the door and towards the center of the shed.

“Hurry up!” The door rattles behind him as Kacchan no doubt kicks at it.

“O-Okay!” Izuku calls back.  “I-I’m doing it!”

Another few deep, bracing breaths.

“It’s okay,” Izuku reminds himself in a whisper.  “Just play the stupid game and then they’ll let you out.  They will.”

Determination settling around his shoulders, Izuku lowers his outstretched arm to clutch at the handle of his bag.

“E-Eraserhead,” Izuku forces his voice to be louder than he’d like it to be so that hopefully Kacchan and the others won’t pretend they didn’t hear him.  “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

A moment of silence.

“What was that?” Kacchan calls out, something mean and gleeful in his voice.  “We couldn’t hear you!”

“Eraserhead,” Izuku forces himself to practically scream it this time.  “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

There’s a burst of laughter outside the door then.

“He actually did it,” Tesaki crows.  “Holy shit, I didn’t think he had it in him.”

Izuku spins around and stumbles back towards the door.

“I-I did it,” he calls, “so, so let me out now.  You said you would.”

“Yeah,” Kacchan replies.  “I did say that, but you know what?  I’ve been thinking.”

Izuku’s stomach drops.

“Maybe you should stick around for a while,” Kacchan tells him with another bang on what Izuku knows is a locked door.  “See if Eraserhead actually shows up or not.  Maybe he’ll come around once it’s dark.  Besides, it’s not like Auntie Inko’s going to miss your worthless ass if you spend the night here.”

Izuku pushes down the twinge of hurt at the statement even though he knows it’s true.

Inko’s barely ever home, either at work or with Auntie Mitsuki, and when she is she’s either asleep or seemingly determined not to pay more attention to him than necessary.

“P-Please Kacchan,” Izuku begs.  “Don’t leave me here.”

“See you in the morning, nerd,” Kacchan calls, voice already growing distant.  “If we remember you’re here.  And if you still have your eyes.”

And then there’s nothing to be heard but mean-spirited giggles and crowing laughter drifting back towards Izuku on the wind.

Izuku calls after them anyways, begs and pleads and beats at the door for a long time even though he knows it’s useless.

Eventually, Izuku tires himself out.

Shoulders slumped and face sticky with tears, Izuku shoves a hand into his bag and fumbles around blindly until he finds his cell phone.

It’s not the best model and there’s honestly no one he can call to come let him out that won’t end up with him getting into even more trouble, but it does have two things that’ll be much more useful to him at the moment.

A mostly full battery and a flashlight.

~~~

Settled on a couple of exercise mats he’d managed to drag from the pile in the corner, Izuku stuffs the last of his homework back into his bag with a sigh.

He hesitates for a moment and then switches the flashlight off before powering down the phone as well.

He’d worked as fast as he could, intimately aware that there’d be no mercy for him if his homework wasn’t finished tomorrow, but his phone is still down to just under half the battery life already. And according to the clock and the tiny hint of light he can see at the very bottom of the shed door, it's not even dark outside yet.

So as tempting as it is to scroll on the internet or keep using the flashlight to write in his notebook or even reread his textbooks again, Izuku knows he needs to save the battery.

Which means he's sure to have a long and boring evening and night ahead of him.

He's going to make it a point to pack an actual flashlight and extra batteries in his bag from now on.  Maybe even try to get together enough yen to buy himself one of those charging packs for his phone too if he can skim enough off of the grocery budget to afford one.

Because Izuku's sure this won't be the last time something like this happens to him.

He's just not that lucky.

So if he can’t avoid it then what he can do from now on is be prepared.

~~~

Izuku ends up dozing off on the musty mats an hour or two after the silence of the shed had driven him to start going over his hero notebooks aloud from memory.

He wakes up with his neck stiff and his mouth dry what feels like an eternity later.

The little hint of light by the door has faded so it’s at least late evening by now.

His stomach growling has him fumbling for his phone again and Izuku wastes no time in powering it back up.  He only takes a quick glance at the time, grimacing when he realizes it’s almost midnight and he’d obviously slept a lot longer than he’d thought, before using the screen’s light to guide him so he can pull his battered bento from his bag.

He never really gets to finish his lunch at school anyways so he normally saves whatever’s left on the rare days it’s not completely wrecked for a snack sometime in the late afternoon.

Or as his actual dinner depending on how dedicated Inko’s been towards leaving Izuku enough money in the jar on the counter to buy groceries for the week.

He eats quickly and forces himself to only drink about half of what’s left in his water bottle.  It’s only when he’s done and has his things repacked that he finds himself right back where he started.

Sitting in the dark, wide awake and bored out of his mind.

He’d taken an accidental nap that ended up lasting for almost six hours.  Which is more sleep than he tends to get in his own room most nights.

So going back to sleep to pass time isn’t looking like something that’s going to be possible for him.

In the end, maybe that’s what drives him to do what he does next.

The boredom, the loneliness, the fact that he knows neither of those things is going to be ending any time soon.

“Eraserhead,” Izuku whispers into the still darkness that surrounds him.  “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

Silence, thick and deep enough to make Izuku’s skin itch, is his only reply.

“Eraserhead,” Izuku calls just a bit louder, just a bit more steady. “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

But, just like Izuku had expected, nothing happens.  No one answers him.

“Eraserhead! ” Izuku half shouts, some strange kind of boldness welling up inside of him out of nowhere. “ Answer me!”

But, again, nothing happens.  Which is probably fair.  Most everyone ignores Izuku anyways so it’s not like he was really expecting anything different from some sort of cliche scary story.

Still, he can’t help but feel a bit …

“Stupid,” Izuku whispers as he abruptly deflates, slumping back down onto the mats.  “He’s not real.  If he was then Kacchan and the others are probably right and he’d hate me too.”

Izuku lays there for a few moments, arms outstretched and eyes fixed upwards into the unforgiving darkness.

“But,” Izuku finds himself saying as his eyes drift closed again, voice clear like it only ever is when he’s feeling comfortable in his own skin, “if you were real, then I bet you were a really good hero, probably really strong and smart too and that’s why they went after you so hard.  And I’m sorry about what happened to you.  Bet it was really scary, dying like that.  Being hunted by people you used to work with, maybe even your friends.  It’s not the same but I know a lot about being hunted too so …”

Izuku trails off with a huff and then just stays like that for a while, eyes closed as he thinks about what he can do to help him pass the time besides sleep.

Something rustles the ends of his hair and ghosts across his forehead, drawing him out of his thoughts.  Izuku shudders, pushing the thoughts of mice or bugs forcefully away.

He opens his eyes again.

Twin red lights stare back down at him from the darkness just above.

Izuku’s breath hitches, his heart skips a beat.

He opens his mouth to scream but the sound gets trapped somewhere in his chest.

Those lights, those eyes, just stare down at him unblinkingly.

For a moment Izuku’s sure that he feels hands on him.  Is sure that he feels fingertips sliding over the arch of his cheeks and the press of a claw against the swell of his bottom lip.  He feels a small stinging pain like he’s bitten through the skin again.

He’s sure that he even feels those same unseen hands move down to settle against the line of his neck, thumbs brushing almost soothingly across the hollow of his throat.

“P-Please,” Izuku finally manages to whimper, unsure who or what he’s begging now.

Above and all around him the darkness seems to laugh, a raspy sound that almost seems to twine its way around Izuku’s spine and jerk.

His heart’s pounding so hard that he’s sure it’s going to break through his ribs any moment now.

For a split second Izuku is sure this is it.  This is how he’s going to die.  Locked in the dark with someone’s hands around his neck.  Alone and unwanted, soon to be nothing but a body for Kacchan and his friends to poke at if they even remember to come let him out in the morning.

It’s not fair.

But all Izuku can do is stare back, eyes surprisingly dry, and wait.

And then the door to the shed slides open.

Izuku’s moving without really thinking about it in the next second, one hand automatically snatching up his bag as he rolls to his feet and takes off towards the door in a scrambling sprint.

He bursts into the late-night air at a dead run.

The school grounds are empty around him but Izuku doesn’t care.

Instead, he just runs, years of being chased out of various stores and down Musutafu’s numerous alleyways and side streets finally coming in handy.

Izuku feels eyes on him the entire time.

~~~

Izuku doesn’t stop running until he makes it back home.

Panting, chest heaving, and shirt soaked through with sweat, Izuku slams the door closed behind him and fumbles with the locks before he slumps against the door and tries his best to just breathe.

He ends up staying there, collapsed in the entryway of his dark, empty apartment, sobbing into his hands, for the longest time.

~~~

It’s only later, once he’s finally calmed down enough that he’s no longer shaking, that Izuku manages to get up and drag himself to the bathroom.

By that point, he has himself half-convinced that what he saw was a dream.  That it was just his own overactive imagination getting the best of him.  That there was nothing there in that shed with him, that there were no staring red eyes and no claw-tipped hands touching him in the dark.

He still turns every single light in the apartment on as he goes through.

Despite the nap he’d had earlier, Izuku realizes that he’s exhausted.  On top of that, he’s also filthy from those long hours trapped in that grimy shed and his mad, panic-fueled dash back home.

He wants a shower and then to crawl into his bed and sleep until next year at least.

Izuku finds himself frozen in front of the bathroom mirror instead.

Because his bottom lip is actually split, a perfect, somehow bloodless, razor-thin line running right through the center.

But what really captures his attention are the two bruise-dark handprints that are standing out starkly against the pale of his skin.

They’re settled there, just where he’d felt those hands in the shed, practically framing the lines of his throat.

Like a warning.

Or, some small part of Izuku’s brain whispers, like a brand.

~~~

Izuku sits up in his bedroom for the rest of the night, stays curled up in a ball of blankets on his bed with his lights on.

He only falls asleep again sometime after the sun finally comes up.

He sleeps right through his school alarm for the first time in years.

He doesn’t wake up even when his cell phone starts ringing and doesn’t stop for a solid ten minutes.

~~~

It’s Inko slamming the apartment door open and screeching his name that finally jolts Izuku out of his sleep.

He doesn’t even have time to untangle himself from his blankets before she’s bursting into his room with so much force he’s surprised the doorknob doesn’t lodge itself into the actual wall.

“Izuku! ” Inko wails as she practically throws herself at him, collapsing onto his bed to slam her tear-streaked face against his blanket-covered shoulder.

“M-Mom?”  Izuku feels as if he’s been blindsided, feels like he’s missed something obviously important.

Inko hasn’t latched onto him like this in years now and there’s no reason he can think of for her to do it now.

“Y-You didn’t show up to school,” Inko sobs even as she pulls back, her hands coming up to grip his shoulders hard enough for him to wince.  “And I called and called and no one picked up and I was so scared.”

“I-I’m sorry?” It comes out more as a question than anything.  He’s been responsible for getting himself back and forth from school since first grade and Inko’s never really bothered to check on little things like his attendance or his grades before.  As long as he doesn’t fail and she doesn’t get called into the school she’s never cared.  “I guess I s-slept through my alarm and I d-didn’t hear the phone?”

“It’s okay,” Inko babbles the words out as she pulls him close again, gripping him to her chest almost desperately.  “It’s okay, baby.  I’m just so glad you’re safe.”

“Did something happen?” Izuku manages to get the question out clearly.

Inko sobs loudly again, her grip retightening harshly for a moment, before she finally pulls back enough to look him in the face again.

“Oh Izuku,” she warbles, breath hitching on fresh sobs, “it’s terrible, just h-horrible.”

“What?” Izuku asks, more impatient than he wants to admit.

“Oh baby,” Inko manages to say, “it’s Katsuki. He’s been murdered.”

Just like that, with one sentence, Izuku’s entire world comes crashing down around him.

~~~

The next few hours pass Izuku by in a haze as Inko spills out, in bits and sob-filled pieces, what had happened.

Apparently, despite being a notorious stickler for routine, Kacchan hadn’t come down for breakfast this morning.  So, after repeatedly calling for him but getting no answer, Auntie Mitsuki had gone upstairs to get him herself.

Only what she’d found instead …

Well.

It had, according to Inko, been enough to send both the fiery Mitsuki and even-keeled Masaru into outright hysterics.

In the end, Inko had been the one to call the police.  Had been the one to plead for them to send someone, anyone, to the house over the sound of Mitsuki’s screaming and Masaru’s desperate begging.

Then, once they'd arrived, once everyone had been questioned, the house sealed, and Kat-the body was taken away, she'd apparently thought to check in on Izuku as well only to get no answer.  So she had, of course, rushed back to the apartment.

Which is what led to Izuku being where he is now, wrapped up in Inko’s arms for what feels like the first time in years, trying to process everything he’s just heard.

~~~

Only, as horrific as that is on its own, the story apparently doesn’t end there.

Instead, it gets much, much worse.

~~~

School, which had already been dismissed as soon as word spread about what happened, ends up being canceled for the next week at least because, as Izuku finds out as soon as he can get to his phone and pull up his local emergency news app, it wasn’t just Kacchan who’d died.

Who’d been murdered.

No.

As Izuku soon finds out, Tesaki and Kariage are both gone too.  Their bodies were also discovered in their beds by their parents when they never came down for school.

It’s a fact that sends a slicing sort of chill tracing down Izuku’s spine.  He has to make sure he keeps his back towards Inko while he’s at the stove making them both a late lunch so she doesn’t see the way his hands shake.

But then, given the way she’s clutching her teacup in one hand and her phone in the other, that’s probably not going to be an issue anyways.

Honestly, at this point, some part of Izuku is just surprised she’s stayed this long.

~~~

The neighborhood and the police are all in a collective tizzy.  As a day and then two pass it doesn’t seem to be calming down all that much either.

Murder isn’t all that rare in a city like Musutafu, but so many in one night?  All of them school-age kids from the same school too?  The same class and friend group even?

It’s practically unheard of.

It has everyone deeply unsettled, has everyone whispering behind their hands and keeping their loved ones close at hand.

A few people even stop Izuku when he’s walking home from the grocery store, arms loaded down with the bags of stuff from the list Inko had shoved at him earlier, to scold him for being out on his own and to tell him to get home quickly.

It’s honestly some of the friendliest interactions Izuku’s had out in public in a very long time.

Still, for how upset and uneasy everyone else in the city seems to be, for Izuku everything that’s happened means something else entirely.

Because Kacchan’s death, as tragic and world-shattering as it is, could have been a coincidence.

But this?

Tesaki and Kariage being killed as well?  All of it happening on the same morning after what they’d all just done to Izuku?

It just feels like too much of a coincidence even if he knows it’s probably just him being anxious and ridiculous again.

Izuku pushes the memory of those red eyes away, forcefully shoves any thoughts about the handprints on his neck and his split lip forcefully out of his mind.

He’d been trapped in the dark and probably still half asleep so the eyes were, more than likely, just a trick of the light or something.  Besides, no one else has said anything about the marks, even with Izuku not bothering to even try and cover them up.

And while this wouldn’t be the first time people have ignored his obvious injuries, Izuku has to admit that this time it feels different somehow.

Almost as if …

Well, it’s almost like he’s the only one who can see them.

~~~

Inko finally leaves again on day three, packing a large duffle bag full of her clothes and slapping a freshly minted debit card with Izuku’s name on it on the counter behind her as she goes.

Mitsuki and Masaru have finally been allowed to return to their house and they need her right now, she tells him.

As for Izuku?

Well, she’s leaving him the card so he can pay for everything but beyond that Izuku will be just fine on his own.

Like always.

~~~

In the days that follow, everyone from the entire school, students and staff included, gets interviewed by the police.

Even Izuku.

The detective who comes by the apartment is stern-faced and seems to be taking the investigation seriously.

But he also takes one look at Izuku’s I.D. and barely even stays in the apartment for five minutes before making his excuses.  He leaves without even bothering to ask Izuku any actual probing questions about Kacchan and the others.  Or about why Izuku, unlike every other student in the school, had done his interview without a parent present.

It’s almost insulting really.

Or at least it would be if Izuku wasn’t used to this kind of thing by now.

~~~

Given how so many people have been and still are being interviewed, it isn’t long before whispers and rumors reach Izuku's ears.

Even as isolated from everyone as he normally is and as close as the police seem to be trying to keep the finer details of this entire thing, Izuku still starts finding things out.

Details still get leaked onto the internet and everyone Izuku passes every time he leaves the apartment all seem to be talking about the same thing anyways.

Izuku hears “locked doors” hears “closed windows” hears “no blood”.

And every single detail just makes that feeling from before, that ice down his spine sort of tingle, sharpen.

~~~

But it’s not until Izuku’s sitting in Auntie Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru’s living room on the seventh day for the first of the private mourning ceremonies, that things really sink in for him.

Maybe it’s how haggard Uncle Masaru looks and the way Izuku sees him tip sake into his teacup more than once.  Maybe it’s the way that Inko looks so at home in the kitchen of this house that’s not technically her home.  The way she flutters about the other guests like it’s her right, her place.

Or maybe it’s how shattered Auntie Mitsuki appears and the way her voice catches when she wails and rages about how “ I know he could be mean, I know he had my temper but some sick bastard took my baby’s eyes, Inks” before collapsing, weeping, into a cousin’s arms.

The words hit Izuku with the force of a blow and he shoves himself to his feet, mumbles something about the bathroom when Masaru sends him a blank-eyed look, and practically runs from the room.

Hands shaking, Izuku flips the lock on the bathroom door behind him and practically lunges towards the sink.

Breath coming in shallow, panting gasps, Izuku hunches over the sink and tries his best to bite back the half-hysterical little giggles that keep trying to force themselves up and out of his mouth.

Because Kacchan’s eyes were taken.

Izuku would be willing to bet that Tesaki and Kariage’s were too.

And that?

That cannot be a coincidence.

~~~

A part of Izuku knows he should come forward.

Knows that he should say something.

Should go down to the nearest police station or find the detective who’d interviewed him and explain exactly what had happened that afternoon at school no matter how unbelievable it sounds.

It’d be the good thing to do, the heroic path to take.

But that first week passes and Izuku just … doesn’t.

And then the second week slips by.

Then the third.

Izuku gets summoned to the Bakugō house by Inko’s text every seventh day to make the journey to Kacchan’s new grave for the entire forty-nine-day mourning period.

And yet …

And yet he says nothing.

Can’t bring himself to.

~~~

At first, during the second or so week of everything, Izuku thinks that maybe he keeps quiet because he’s still in some kind of shock.

The entire experience still has a sort of hazy but oddly vivid cast to it in his mind.  He has a hard time believing it’s real even without the physical evidence it left behind.  His split lip has healed over but the handprints haven’t faded.  If anything they seem to have settled somehow, gone pitch black instead of the dark purplish bruise-like color they’d had before.

They’re also slightly colder than the rest of Izuku’s skin.

But no one says anything, no one else even seems to see them.

So yeah, a very small part of Izuku still isn’t really sure it was real at all and that everything that’s happened isn’t some sort of grand coincidence.

~~~

On the heels of that sort of reasoning comes the more blunt, analytical type of thoughts that Izuku has always been more inclined to.

Because the harsh reality is that Izuku has no actual solid proof that the game he’d been forced to play that day might somehow be responsible for their deaths.

Plus, Izuku is smart enough, aware enough, to know that if he turns up at the police station and starts going on and on about an urban legend killing Kacchan and the others?

Well, it won’t end well for him.

Because that kind of talk coming from someone like him?

Izuku’s heard stories of people being remanded into state custody and put away in psych facilities for less outrageous claims.  Especially people like him.

And it’s not like Inko would fight to keep him in her custody.

So keeping quiet is really only logical at this point.

Right?

~~~

The truth, as it so often does, falls somewhere in the middle of every excuse Izuku’s been trying and failing to feed himself.

~~~

By the time Izuku realizes the mourning period is over and it’s been an entire week since he’s been summoned to make the trip to the grave, he’s finally ready to admit to one more reason why he hasn’t said anything.

Is finally ready to think about the thing that’s really been causing him so much guilt.

Because those deaths are horrible, terrible things that should have never happened, but the truth is …

Izuku is grateful.

Just thinking that is enough to make him feel sick to his stomach, enough to make his palms sweat and his eyes burn.

Kacchan might have been rough-tempered and heavy-handed and sometimes outright cruel but he was Izuku’s friend even if Izuku wasn’t his.  The same with Tesaki and Kariage.

But as sick and wrong as Izuku knows it is to be grateful about something like murder …

It’s still true.

Because …

Because …

Because Inko might have stopped coming home altogether now given how she’s basically moved into the Bakugō’s house, but she’s left him a card to pay all the bills and doesn’t seem interested in changing that anytime soon.  He’s able to buy actual groceries and even a few luxuries here and there like an extra notebook or a few snacks he hasn’t had in years on a regular basis now.

There’s no one mocking him in class anymore, the other students all seemingly no longer interested in tormenting him without Kacchan there to provide the extra entertainment.  Izuku’s grades are up to his own standards again for the first time in years because there’s no one to get mad at him for doing well.

He’s not getting tripped in the halls or shoved into bathrooms or locked in supply sheds anymore.  He gets to go home at a decent time after school and he hasn’t had detention in weeks.

Izuku gets to eat his bento every single day.

Now that Kacchan and his two closest followers are gone Izuku’s life is better than he can remember it being in … ever really.

And it’s horrible and wrong of Izuku to think that way but …

~~~

“Eraserhead,” Izuku whispers into the darkness of his bedroom, arms curled tight around his pillow as he stares up into the blackness.  “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

Unlike that first time in the shed, the silence this time feels full.

“I-I know it’s wrong,” Izuku manages to breathe the words out, voice barely above a whisper.  “B-But I just … I wanted to say …”

Izuku squeezes his eyes closed.

“Thank you.”

The silence seems to almost thicken.

And then …

Something ruffles the edges of Izuku’s hair.

There’s a familiar stinging pain on his bottom lip.

Claw-tipped thumbs brush almost soothingly against the hollow of his throat.

When Izuku opens his eyes, heart pounding and mouth dry, familiar twin red lights are shining down on him.

Chapter Text

Izuku doesn’t actually remember falling asleep.

One minute he was lying there staring up into those eyes again, and then it was as if he blinked and his morning alarm was jolting him awake.

Izuku’s honestly not sure what he’s expecting after that but opening his eyes to his perfectly normal bedroom isn’t it.

He takes a second to glance around his room but everything looks the exact same.  The weak morning light filters in through his window like it always does and his curtains are the same faded blue they’ve been since he was small.  His desk with its uneven leg that he’d propped up with an old coaster years ago, his handful of posters, all faded with age but otherwise immaculate, and his small sagging bookshelf practically bursting with cheap but well-loved notebooks.

Everything is the same.

There’s no looming figure in the shadowed corner of his room, no red eyes staring at him from the crack of his closet door, no cliché writhing mass pressed against the corner of his ceiling.

Nothing at all is out of place and the sameness of it all, the normalcy, is enough to take Izuku’s breath away. 

It makes the night before seem unreal somehow, waking up to everything looking and feeling just the same as it has for years and years.  Makes it all feel hazy and unfocused even though Izuku knows he’d been clear-headed and present the entire time.

He’d called out to Eraserhead and something had answered him.

Izuku knows that.

And yet …

And yet here he is, waking up just like always.

Alone again, just like always.

It hurts for some reason that Izuku can’t quite put his finger on.  Makes him feel lonely in a way he thought he’d come to terms with years ago even though he knows it shouldn’t.  Even though he knows that’s a stupid and irrational reaction to have.

He lays there for a long moment anyway, ignoring the blaring of his alarm, trying to gather his courage and organize his thoughts.

Trying to decide if it all being a dream, being nothing more than some strange fantasy he made up or latched onto in order to cope with everything that’s happened, would somehow be better or worse.

Eventually, Izuku knows he can’t keep wallowing.

He has to get up, has to go to school, has to go grocery shopping afterward.

Has to keep doing his best to move forward even if there’s nobody there with him as he goes.

~~~

Except when Izuku finally leaves his room, when he makes his way to the bathroom through an apartment that feels heavier somehow, his quick glance in the mirror makes him pause, breath catching in his throat.

Because there, running perfectly down the center of his bottom lip, is another thin and bloodless cut.

Izuku knows it shouldn’t make him smile.

Shouldn’t make some part of him light up in a half-giddy, half-frightened sort of awe when he should still be feeling shaky and guilty.

But it does.

~~~

Izuku goes to school that day with a spring in his step.

He barely even notices the way that a good five feet of space tends to clear out around him wherever he goes.

~~~

Time passes.

The days slip by in that effortless quick-slow rhythm his life has somehow fallen into now that panic and pain aren’t the two emotions ruling his every waking moment.

Inko stays gone, money stays coming into the account attached to the card she’d given him, and he’s … content for the most part.

Izuku’s lip heals faster than it had the first time, the cut sealing up in only a few days.

Only …

Unlike last time, when his lip had healed smoothly and cleanly, this time that isn’t the case.

This time there’s something left behind.

Izuku finds himself in the bathroom staring at it frequently, the thin-lined, hollow crimson stripe that’d appeared on his lip basically the second the cut had finished healing.

It looks, in Izuku’s opinion and with an entire night of research to back him up, more like a birthmark than a tattoo.  Looks like something he was born with instead of something laid down later on.

Looks, some small part of Izuku’s mind can’t help but think, like something that was always meant to be there.

Either way this new mark, much like the pitch-black hand prints that still frame his throat, also goes unnoticed by everyone else.

~~~

Izuku very quickly develops the habit of biting his bottom lip or bringing a hand up to thumb at it whenever he’s anxious or even just thinking too deeply.

A self-soothing sort of motion that reminds him that, no matter what, he wasn’t imagining things.

~~~

But the mark isn’t the only new thing in Izuku’s life.

Isn’t the only change, the only way things have shifted.

Because now, much like he had that very first night back when all of this had started and he’d run gasping and panicking through the city until he collapsed inside his apartment, Izuku feels as if he’s being watched.

At home, on the street, in class.

All of the time and everywhere he goes Izuku feels as if there are eyes on him, studying him, cataloging his every move, his every breath.

He can practically feel it on him like a physical weight pressing down between his shoulders.

It should make him skittish, the feeling of being constantly observed.

It would have before, Izuku knows.

Would have made him a nervous wreck to feel so seen when attention had never really been something that ended well for him.

But now, now that there seems to be an ever-widening circle of dead space between Izuku and anyone who might come close to him, now that the indifference from his classmates and teachers has turned into a somehow even more pleasant sort of outright avoidance?

Well.

People have never paid attention to him except as an excuse to find a way to hurt or dismiss him.

This feels … different.

Feels predatory by nature but not in action in a way that should not be but somehow still is almost soothing to Izuku.

It feels a lot like what he’d imagine sharing space with a great cat feels like.

Being observed by something that could easily devour you whole but is, for some reason, actively choosing not to.

In the privacy and safety of his own thoughts where no one can judge him, Izuku is free to admit that he … kind of likes it.

~~~

It’s not a conscious decision to start talking aloud whenever he’s home.

It just sort of … happens.

For all that Izuku’s always had a habit of mumbling to himself it has rarely crossed over into anything more than that.

Just him mumbling his thoughts to himself, mouth most often half hidden by a hand, as he processes new information or writes in one of his notebooks.

Despite what everyone else used to say, or how often he got in trouble for it at school, Izuku’s never actually been all that loud or disruptive with it, his volume normally hanging at just above a whisper at most.

But that changes one afternoon when he’s at home, settled on the worn couch in the living room with the news on for once instead of tucked away in his bedroom.

He’d gotten an alert on his phone earlier about an ongoing fight not too long before the final bell had rung.

A fight that was, much to his surprise and horror, still going on by the time he made it home.

Villain fights are, as a rule, hard and fast with a tendency to be done and over one way or another within the first fifteen to twenty minutes.

The ones that last longer?

The ones that hit the half-hour mark and then keep going?

Those tend to be … bad.

“This isn’t right,” Izuku finds himself saying, a threadbare throw pillow clutched to his chest as he watches the Water Hose duo scramble desperately to both contain the rapidly spreading fire and keep the large, blond, muscular villain contained and distracted from the crowd that refused to disperse.  “They need help.”

Izuku watches, white-knuckled, as Spigot, the female half of the duo, summons a swell of water that Nozzle, her male partner, takes control of and directs towards the villain, desperation clear in both of their moves as they redouble their efforts to drive him back further from the crowding civilians.

“Where is everyone else?” Izuku finds himself asking over the hyped-up commentary of the news correspondent on the scene.  “Water Hose are rescue heroes, they specialize in fighting forest fires not combat and capture.  If the cameras are there then why hasn’t backup arrived yet?  That’s more important than ratings.”

Just like that Izuku feels those eyes, that cloud of attention that’s been hovering over him, abruptly sharpen.

But he doesn’t, can’t, focus on that at the moment.

Instead, Izuku keeps rambling, eyes riveted to the screen.  He talks about Water Hose’s stats, their long history of rescue work, and the commendations they’d earned during the Takayama Fires three years ago.  He talks about their moves, the ways he thinks they could improve, his theories that they have a kid since Spigot had undergone a back-to-back costume change and then a brief break from duty a few years back.

Then he turns his attention to the villain, rambles on about his possible abilities, what Izuku thinks he could do just from what’s being shown on screen, and the best ways Water Hose might take him down.  About who’d be the best matchup against him out of the local heroes Izuku remembers operating in that prefecture and then the ones stationed further afield.

Izuku talks and talks and talks, hands clutching his pillow and shoulders tight.

Even after the news abruptly cuts coverage in a move that has Izuku’s heart skipping a beat out of horrified resignation, he keeps talking.

And, for what might be the first time in his entire life, Izuku feels as if something, someone, is actually listening.

~~~

Izuku gets confirmation the next afternoon during lunch.

Water Hose is dead.

Officially killed in action.

The villain, Muscular, is reportedly wounded but still on the loose.

Izuku manages to wait until he’s home to cry, upset in a way he can’t name, grieving for those two heroes who died together and yet so alone.

~~~

For some reason it haunts Izuku’s mind, Water Hose’s death.  It lingers with him, a sore and hurtful sort of thing that he can’t help but poke at like a broken tooth.

Water Hose is dead, two good, kind heroes who, according to all reports he’s been able to find online, legitimately only ever wanted to help.  Two people, two parents Izuku is almost positive, who went above and beyond as heroes.  Who did their jobs but stayed genuinely kind about it.  Heroes who had, in an increasingly rare move these days, passed up profitable marketing deals to stay in a poorer region prone to forest and farmland fires and instead did things like volunteer at soup kitchens on the weekend and donate to various charities regularly.

And yet Muscular, someone who seemingly attacked that village for no reason other than to hurt, is running around free and alive.

This isn’t the first time Izuku’s heard of heroes dying on the job for one reason or another and he’s not nearly as naive about the realities of the industry as most people have always seemed to think he is but …

It’s just not fair.

It feels childish to even think that but Izuku can’t get it out of his head.

Water Hose is dead, Muscular is alive and loose, and it’s just not fair.

It hurts that there’s really nothing Izuku can do about either of those facts.

~~~

Except …

~~~

“Eraserhead,” Izuku whispers into the darkness of his bedroom, arms at his sides and fingers curled tightly in his sheets as he stares up into the blackness.  “Eraserhead. Eraserhead.”

This time the silence feels full and heavy.

This time Izuku knows for certain that something, someone, is listening.

This time an actual weight settles on top of Izuku before he can say anything else.  Something almost solid settles into place between his thighs even as his lip stings and the feeling of hands once again press against the vulnerable line of his throat.

Izuku sucks in a shuddery breath, stares up into twin red lights that are suddenly so much closer than they have ever been before, and tries to focus.

“H-Hi,” Izuku finally manages to say, the greeting coming out gossamer thin and breathy.

The hands around his throat squeeze, claws scratching almost delicately at his skin in a move that has Izuku arching his head back, instinctively pressing up just a bit into the hold.

There’s a distinctly amused sort of air to the weight above and on top of him.

“I-I don’t know, exactly, how this all works,” Izuku says, half almost ashamed and half apologetic, “and I’m sorry if I’m bothering you b-but I h-have a n-name for you?”

There’s a ripple of anticipation in the air then.

“I know it’s wrong,” Izuku admits anxiously, “I sh-shouldn’t want to, to hurt anyone but …”

Izuku pauses.

Forces himself to breathe.

Gathers his courage.

“There’s a villain,” Izuku practically breathes the words out.  “He killed the Water Hose duo.  They were good heroes, kind.  I-I think they had a kid too.  They didn’t deserve what he did to them.”

The ripple of anticipation becomes a swelling tide.

“I can’t do anything about it,” Izuku says, “but you're a hero so you can.”

There’s a pause, the hands around Izuku’s throat flex, and the air in the room is practically drowned in something that feels almost like a smug sort of triumph.

“They call him Muscular,” Izuku whispers, voice low like a secret.  “His name is Imasuji Gōto and he deserves to die.”

~~~

Izuku doesn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment he was offering up a name to Eraserhead and the next he’s waking up to the familiar sound of his alarm.

This time Izuku doesn’t feel disappointed or lonely or anything even remotely close to how he’d felt the last time he’d woken up like this.

Instead …

“Good morning,” Izuku whispers once he’s untangled himself from his blankets and sat up.

In the darkest corner of his bedroom ceiling a great black mass twists and writhes.

~~~

This time when Izuku makes his way to the bathroom he heads immediately for the mirror, curiosity riding him hard.

Sure enough, his lip is split just like it had been the two times before, a deep but bloodless cut placed perfectly inside of the hollow crimson stripe the second cut had left behind.

But even as Izuku watches the cut stitches itself closed, the hollow stripe filling in with color as the cut heals until he ends up with a solid crimson mark placed directly down the center of his bottom lip.

Izuku stares at his reflection for a long moment.

He’s never been one to pay too much attention to his own appearance but Izuku can’t help but think that he looks different than he remembers looking only a few months ago or, if he’s being honest, even the day before.

It goes beyond the mark on his lip or the pitch-black shadow hands that are wrapped around his throat.

He looks paler than usual, his freckles standing out starkly against his new complexion.  And if he squints Izuku’s almost sure that his hair looks a bit lighter too, a half shade lighter than the forest sort of green it’s always been.

He looks washed out somehow, not sickly exactly but as if his pigment is slowly being leached out of him instead.

It’s … odd.

Izuku blinks, breathes, and then he turns, picks up his toothbrush, and starts getting ready for the day.

~~~

The television is on in the living room when Izuku gets back from school that afternoon.

He knows it wasn’t on when he left this morning.

But that doesn’t matter.

All that matters is what’s being reported.

All that matters is the picture of a familiar blond man that’s taking up the screen and the scrolling banner beneath it reporting “Infamous villain Muscular found dead”.

“Oh,” Izuku breathes, something warm blossoming to life inside of his chest.

The air in the apartment feels heavy.

The darkest corner of the living room looks full.

Izuku steps towards it without much thought.

“Thank you so much,” Izuku says earnestly as a now familiar hand settles against the curve of his cheek, “Eraserhead. ”

~~~

When Izuku falls asleep that night his dreams are some strange mix of shadows and heat, something nebulous but powerful that presses in on him from all directions, overwhelming all of his senses with ease.

He wakes up relaxed and rested.

When Izuku puts his feet down on the floor the shadows from underneath his bed writhe and twist as they tangle around his ankles.

~~~

The television is on again when Izuku gets home that afternoon.

Even though he knows it shouldn’t be.

Izuku settles down on the couch to watch the hero fight that’s being covered.

He starts analyzing aloud without really thinking about it, picking out all of the details he can see from both sides.

But, unlike when he’s always done this sort of thing in the past, Izuku finds himself coming back to focus on the villain instead of the hero.

And around Izuku the shadows of the apartment all press closer.

Chapter Text

Once the high of Muscular being brought to justice has finally worn off a bit, the first thing Izuku does is decide that he needs to give himself rules.

Because he’s self-aware enough to know that this, him giving Eraserhead names so that villains can be brought to a permanent stop, is not going to be a one-off type of thing.

No, as long as Eraserhead leaves him alive and is willing to answer his calls, Izuku is going to take the opportunity to do some good in the world.

Just like he’s always wanted to.

And if he can save even a few more people then whatever ends up happening to him will be well worth it.

But if he’s going to do this, really and truly commit to this in full, then Izuku needs rules.  He needs boundaries, needs guidelines by which he can navigate this new … relationship he has somehow found himself in.

Granted, as far as Izuku knows, there is nothing he can do to contain or control Eraserhead, but that isn’t what he has in mind anyways.

No, Izuku is only interested in being certain that he can contain and control himself.

While it’s true that Izuku’s never been one to enjoy hurting others, he’s also not willing to take the chance that he could change, that all of this could change him, and not have some kind of structure in place.

He’s had it beaten into him long and hard enough over the years that the things he puts in his notebook aren’t … normal.  Most people, apparently, don’t notice the types of things that Izuku does.  Don’t think the kinds of things that he does.

It’s always been normal to Izuku, has always just been the way his mind works, but if his analysis was good enough that even Eraserhead paid attention to it …

Well.

Izuku shudders to think what could happen, the level of damage that could be done, if he ever went off the rails with Eraserhead at his side.

However, no matter what he is now, Eraserhead is also a hero.

So maybe he’ll willingly handle the situation if Izuku ever … steps over the line.

Granted, given how they’d met, Izuku plans to go forward operating under the assumption that Eraserhead’s lines are drawn in vastly different places than Izuku wants his own to be.

Either way, Izuku just wants to be held accountable.

To either himself or by Eraserhead.

It honestly doesn’t matter which it ends up being, just as long as Izuku’s not running around unchecked, growing arrogant and uncaring.

That, Izuku can’t help but think now with time and distance on his side, had been where things had gone so wrong with Katsuki.

Katsuki had always been blunt and stubborn when they were small, all little boy callousness and a temper quick to ignite.  He’d been charismatic though, bold and brash in a way that had drawn Izuku in like a moth to flame.

In the end, Izuku had burned for it too.  Over and over again, for years.

Izuku had loved Katsuki anyway, had considered him a friend even if he had stopped being Katsuki’s the moment the entire world decided that Izuku was lesser.

Izuku had been willing to overlook or work around any and all of it even when they were small.  Had dealt with the little hurts and the tiny humiliations over and over again with a smile, all the while hoping it would one day be better.

But …

With no one willing or bothering to reign him in, Katsuki had spiraled quick and hard as they’d grown older.  His bluntness had become purposeful cruelty and disregard, and his stubbornness had morphed into an unrelenting, unforgiving sort of pride.

All of which he’d used to make Izuku miserable at every given opportunity.

Until, of course, Eraserhead had changed all of that.

Had changed everything for Izuku.

The cruelest sort of kindness Izuku has ever seen.

So the last thing Izuku wants to do is repay all that Eraserhead has done for him by becoming anything like that.

Eraserhead was a hero, still is despite everything else as far as Izuku is concerned.

Izuku intends to do his best to live up to those standards for as long as he has left.

It’s the least Izuku can do.

~~~

In the face of his new reality, Izuku does what comes naturally to him.

He gathers up a notebook and a fresh pen and then starts researching.

Izuku reads up on everything from Judeo-Christian demons of yore to things that hit closer to home such as onryō and other various types of yūrei.

Demons, devils, yōkai, and vengeful ghosts.

Sitting at his rickety desk with the thick shadows of the apartment twining their way between his ankles, Izuku spends an entire day researching all of them and more.

He fills up roughly half of the notebook with short-handed notes before he’s satisfied with what he’s cobbled together.

Then, once that is done, Izuku abruptly switches tracks.

He moves from the supernatural and the spiritual on to a mix of business and law.

The other half of his notebook fills up quickly as the broad strokes of his plan begin to fill out with details and finer points.

He goes to bed  that night mentally exhausted, his head swimming with facts and thick shadows pressing in on him from every corner of his dark room.

His sleep is deep and sweet and filled with things he’ll only half remember in the morning.

~~~

It’s early when Izuku wakes up, the morning sun filtering in bright and cheerful through his threadbare curtains.

Luckily enough it’s also Sunday, so Izuku has an entire free day to finish what he’s started.

“Morning,” Izuku murmurs to the shadows underneath his bed as they writhe and twist their way around his ankles as soon as his feet touch the floor.

Not bothering with breakfast, Izuku shuffles his way to the bathroom and then back, heading directly toward his closet as soon as he’s fully awake and aware.

Once he’s dressed and ready, Izuku crosses his room to kneel down on the floor beside his bed.

“I need to go out,” Izuku announces, stretching out flat so he can slide one hand across the floor until it is wrist-deep in the too-black darkness beneath his bed.

He knows that Eraserhead isn’t trapped in the apartment or anything of course, but it feels less rude somehow to acknowledge him like this instead of just leaving.

Izuku knows what it feels like to have someone leave without bothering to say anything, to turn around only to be met with an empty apartment and echoing silence.

To be faced, day in and day out, with loneliness and lack.

Izuku can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, Eraserhead has known that kind of hurt too.

So, Izuku would rather not add to it now even in such a small way.

A hand clamps down around Izuku’s wrist.

Izuku has a split second to blink and then he’s being dragged forward across the floor.

Startled, Izuku doesn’t even think of fighting it.  Instead, he just lets Eraserhead pull him until he’s head and shoulders deep beneath the bed.

“Hi,” Izuku manages to get out as he stares at the twin red lights shining back at him

The darkness feels amused once more, that same almost indulgent feeling from before heavy in the air.

The hand clamped around Izuku’s wrist loosens its grip and then moves.

Eraserhead’s hand feels wide-palmed and long-fingered as it slides slowly up the length of Izuku’s arm, over his shoulder, and then further upward until it is buried in the thick of his hair.

Izuku can feel the prick of claws against his scalp.

“I won’t be gone long,” Izuku says, breath hitching just a bit as the hand in his hair tightens.

Again, he doesn’t fight Eraserhead’s hold on him, doesn’t really want to.

There’s no real point to it.

Even if Izuku wanted to get away, what could he actually do against the kind of strength and abilities Eraserhead so obviously has?

Could he ever run far or fast enough for it to even matter before Eraserhead inevitably caught him?  Besides, it’s not like he has anywhere to go but here or anyone to go to besides Eraserhead himself.

Plus, what kind of a struggle could he ever mount against someone who took down Muscular?  Took down Katsuki?

Izuku knows the answer but instead of the visceral, soul-crippling terror it might have once invoked in him, he finds a strange kind of comfort in that certainty now.

In the beautiful horror of what Eraserhead is capable of.

Izuku is pulled forward a few more inches, absently thankful that he’s always kept the underneath of his bed empty, the shadows lapping at his waist even as a second and then third hand wrap themselves around his throat.

Pinned against the hardwood floor with too many hands on him and those red lights shining in the cool blackness, Izuku does what feels right.

He goes limp.

“I’ll stay,” Izuku offers softly, easily.  “If you want me to.  I don’t mind.”

Izuku is serious.  His plans can always be adjusted or pushed back for a bit.  He doesn’t have a curfew of any kind and never actually has, not with the way Inko has so rarely been around or actually bothered to pay attention over the years.  So, if pull turns to shadowy hold, he can always go later tonight or tomorrow after school if necessary.

Izuku wants to get things done and settled, and doesn’t generally like to put things off once his mind is set on them, but this is different.  This isn’t about his own schedule or his preferred order of doing things.

This is about so much more.

So, in the end, it all comes down to whatever Eraserhead wants.

Besides, it’s honestly kind of nice, the idea that Eraserhead doesn’t want him to leave.  That he would rather Izuku stay here in the apartment with him and his grasping hands and comforting darkness.

No one has ever felt that way about Izuku before.

No one has ever wanted him around, not really, and not for long.

“We can watch the news again?” Izuku offers, willing to accommodate but at a bit of a loss as to how.  He’s not used to entertaining even under normal circumstances.  “Or a-a movie or something if you want?”

Izuku hopes Eraserhead doesn’t like comedies.  It’s Izuku’s least favorite genre because while he normally understands the mechanics of the jokes, they’re very rarely ever actually funny to him.

That indulgent sort of feel in the air grows thicker.

Something warm and wet traces its way up the side of Izuku’s face in a long, smooth glide.

“Eraser!” Izuku squeaks, instantly flushing with what feels like his entire body as he registers the fact that he’s just been licked.

By a very long and seemingly pointed tongue.

The darkness, Eraserhead, just vibrates with a pleased sort of laughter.

The hands release him then, the oddly comfortable and comforting pressure that’s been pinning him in place easing, as Eraserhead pulls back and away from him.  There’s a slight scraping of claws left in Eraserhead’s wake that causes Izuku’s skin to pebble in response.

The withdrawal doesn’t feel like rejection though.

Instead, it somehow feels like permission.

Still, Izuku waits a few more moments before he moves.

Just in case.

When Eraserhead doesn’t seem interested in stopping him, seems content to simply writhe and twist in the heart of the cocoon-like shadows, Izuku finally pushes himself back across the floor and out from under the bed.

“I’ll be quick,” Izuku feels compelled to say once he’s made it to his feet.

Izuku makes quick work of gathering his keys, the old but high-quality leather wallet he’d found shoved in the back of a kitchen cabinet that he thinks used to belong to his dad but had quickly become his own, and his phone.

He’s out of the apartment and on the way to his first stop in only a handful of minutes.

Eager to get things done and then get back home and truly put the other half of his plans into action.

Eager, a part of Izuku can’t help but whisper like a secret, to return to the one person who seems to actually be interested in him.

~~~

It’s as if Muscular’s death has wiped away any lingering doubts and guilt Izuku might have had tucked away inside of him.

Like he’d excised it out completely by offering up Muscular’s name and having Eraserhead so eagerly take it from him.

It all feels so … distant now.  Like thin, faded scar tissue is all that remains where the small, bitter bits of rot used to live inside of him.

Izuku isn’t sure what that says about him as a person.

He does know that it’s not going to stop him.

But then again, maybe that says everything that actually matters.

~~~

The whispers that had slowly started to die down after Katsuki’s death are running rampant again.

From what Izuku hears as he moves from one store to another, one of the local aunties has a son who works with the police.

Even with the distance between Mustutafu and where Muscular’s body had been found all the way in Shizuoka, news had managed to reach the local precinct that Muscular was found without his eyes.

Which is too big of a coincidence as far as everyone else is concerned.

Way too big of a coincidence for it not to have sparked fresh tension and debates.

Murderer, Izuku hears whispered from behind more than one upheld hand.  Only a villain who got what he deserved.

Serial killer.  Vigilante. Izuku hears being debated down one aisle and then another.

Monster. Izuku hears being hissed by the daikon and the tofu.  Child killer.

No, Izuku thinks as he gathers what he needs and heads toward the checkout with the clerk who used to sneer and sometimes refuse him service but now won’t look him in the eyes, he’s a hero.

He can’t help the way he smiles just a bit the entire way home.

~~~

Izuku wonders how long it will take before people begin to ask deeper questions about the entire situation.

Before they look at Muscular, as every name Izuku might give to Eraserhead if things go well, and then at Tesaki and Kariage.

Before they look at Katsuki.

Before they look at the villains versus the children and begin to wonder.

Izuku would feel bad for Auntie Mitsuki, who was always fiery but kind, and Uncle Masaru, with his even-keeled sweetness, for what he knows will inevitably turn their way but …

Well.

They have Inko now to help them out, to comfort and console them, to help them pick up the pieces of their family.

And they’re still young.

Maybe they can try again.

Maybe without Izuku around, and with all that has happened with Katsuki, things will work out better a second time around.

For all three of them.

~~~

Izuku rambles his way through changing his old curtains out for the new blackout curtains he’d bought, being sure to tell Eraserhead everything he’d heard on his trip out as he goes.

His little shopping spree had taken a small chunk out of the savings he has been attempting to build up out of the money Inko puts into the account, leery with remembered hunger of the day she might actually stop.  But once they’re up and drawn closed, Izuku knows that the curtains were well worth it.  They turn his bedroom close to pitch black despite the way the sun is now out in full force.

Guided by the light of his phone, Izuku snaps on his desk lamp, the soft warm glow lighting the room up just enough to be comfortable for him to move around and work in.

“Hope that’s better,” Izuku says as he settles down at his desk, his other purchases spread out across the cluttered but organized surface.

He doesn’t think Eraserhead is completely restricted to shadows but he does seem more comfortable there.

And Izuku wants him to be as comfortable as possible here in the heart of Izuku’s own home for as long as he wants to stay.

Hands slide up the line of Izuku’s stomach and chest to settle into place around Izuku’s throat.

They squeeze.

Firm but somehow approving, claws scraping gently against the vulnerable skin.

Izuku smiles, feeling more relaxed and pleased with himself than before, and then turns back towards the main reason he’d gone out.

~~~

Izuku spends the rest of the day hunched over his desk, pen practically flying over paper as he writes and writes.

The only time he pauses is when he has to double-check a reference on his phone or in the notebook he’d used for research the day before.

He doesn’t actually stop until late, rapidly approaching the time he normally goes to bed.

But that’s fine.

Because when he finally puts his pen down and stretches out his cramping hand, Izuku is actually finished.

It’s as he’s sitting there, staring at the slim but high-quality black leather journal he’d bought and filled up today, that a very important fact dawns on him.

He’d done all of that research, had gone out and bought supplies, and then even taken the time to write everything out as neatly as possible.

But, caught up as he’d been in his own head, Izuku had forgotten the arguably most important step of all.

Actually asking Eraserhead.

Since Izuku isn’t willing to do anything else until this particular issue is solved, he does the obvious thing.

He scoops the journal up, clicks his lamp off, and blindly makes his way to his bed.

Once he’s laid down, journal resting on his chest and arms down by his side, Izuku stares up into the darkness.

“Eraserhead,” Izuku calls to the blackness that surrounds him. “Eraserhead.  Eraserhead.”

Izuku doesn’t think the repeated call is necessary, not anymore, not for him, and not given how they’ve been interacting lately, but it feels right somehow to be formal about this.

The lazy sort of thrumming awareness that’s blanketed his bedroom all day abruptly sharpens.

Like a great cat waking up from a doze.

Just like when he’d called upon the hero to give him Muscular’s name, something solid seems to settle over Izuku, a weight dropping into place between his thighs.

But this time, even as now familiar hands once again press against the vulnerable line of his throat, Izuku’s lip doesn’t sting.

“Hi,” Izuku says to the twin red lights even as he tilts his head back into his pillow, pressing his neck up into that almost comforting hold Eraserhead has on him.

That amused sort of feel is back even as the hands squeeze just a bit as is Eraserhead’s habit.

“I-I wanted to talk to you,” Izuku says, nervous now in the face of possible rejection, “a-about where we go from here.”

The darkness hums and flexes around him.

“It’s just,” Izuku forces himself to pause, to take a slow, even breath, and then to talk slowly, to not blurt everything out in one manic sort of push, “you stayed, after Muscular.  You stayed.  You could have left or, or you could have killed me too for-for what I did, what I asked you to do, but you didn’t.  You stayed and you listened to me, to my analysis.  No one does that. So I thought, maybe you wanted me to give you more?”

There’s the impression of laughter again for some reason but not rejection so Izuku presses on.

“I know it’s wrong,” Izuku echoes what he’d said only a few short days ago, “I shouldn’t want to hurt anyone.  But what you did to Muscular was justice.  You saved so many people by stopping him and that’s-that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.  So while you’re here I just … I want to help you do it again.  For as long as you’ll have me.”

There’s a swell of triumph in the dark that Izuku takes as approval, as acceptance.

“So i-if we’re going to do that,” Izuku says, “if we’re going to stick together, then I-I need rules.”

The hands around his neck tighten sharply and the air is abruptly heavy.

“For me,” Izuku blurts out breathlessly through the still-tightening grip.  “I-I need rules for me.”

The hands pause.

“I don’t want to forget,” Izuku tries to put his worries into words.  “I don’t want to change, to become like them, the people whose names I’ll give you.  I want to be as close to a hero as I can be.  Like you are.  And I-I need something to make sure that happens.”

Earserhead seems to consider him again, the air still heavy, before the hands loosen and those claw-tipped thumbs shift to brush soothingly against the hollow of his throat.

“S-So I wrote a guidebook,” Izuku continues.  “O-Or maybe a contract I guess?  For both of us technically but m-mostly, mainly, for me.  I’ll give you more names, actual villain names who need to be brought to justice like Muscular, and all I’m asking you to do is just … if I change, if I … go wrong, then you … handle me too.  But only if you want, of course.  I know I can’t really make you do anything.  If you don’t then I’ll … figure it out if it happens.”

Izuku can’t help but wince a bit at his own fumbling explanation but, for some reason, he can’t bring himself to be as blunt and concise about it as he knows he probably should be.

Still, he hopes that Eraserhead understands or will, at the very least, read the journal to get a clearer idea of what Izuku is trying to do here.

Or maybe he’ll let Izuku read the journal to him if necessary since he’s not really sure how all of this works …

Izuku feels the journal on his chest shift just a bit but he doesn’t look down.

Instead, he keeps his eyes focused on those red lights.

Keeps his attention locked, moth-like, on those fiery beacons in the darkness instead of attempting to look down at the unfathomable shadows he knows he’ll find if he looks away.

“I don’t want to die,” Izuku blurts out once the silence has sat heavy and full between them for a few long minutes, a semi-buried secret unearthing itself inside of him as he speaks.  “N-Not anymore.  You … what you did changed things for me and I just … I’m grateful, like I said before.  But I also don’t … really have anything else, anyone else, but you.  So … yeah …”

Izuku trails off awkwardly, afraid if he keeps talking he’ll somehow accidentally convince Eraserhead to go with the worst-case scenario of leaving Izuku behind altogether.

If that happens …

Well.

Izuku’s not sure what he’ll do in the aftermath if he’s left alone again without even that familiar sort of cruelty that had defined his life for so long to fall back on.

The feeling in the air shifts then, moving from that heaviness of before back to something that can again only be described as smug.

The hands around Izuku’s throat do not disappear and yet he still feels it when something wet and warm, that long, pointed tongue from before some part of Izuku’s mind gibbers hysterically, slides itself across the now ever-cool skin of his throat.

It traces its way across where the handprints are tattoed into his skin with slow, deliberate strokes.

But this time it leaves pinpricks of hot pain in its wake.

Izuku bites sharply at his lower lip and presses his head back into the pillow in response.

And, as always, he lets Eraserhead do as he will.

Then, from the darkness, all rough and low and rumbling, comes a voice.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Izuku wakes up, neck aching and brain feeling foggy, to no sign of the journal anywhere in bed with him.

Once he drags himself out of bed he does a quick but thorough search of his room only to still come up empty handed in the end.  Izuku only lets himself focus on its loss for a short while though.  Instead he finally decides to believe its absence has something to do with Eraserhead deciding to take the time to actually read through it.

He has other things to think about at the moment.

Like the fact that the shadows in his bedroom feel wrong.

Heart pounding and hands shaking, Izuku tears out of his room and makes a mad dash through the rest of the apartment.  But in every room and every corner, in every cabinet and dark space he can find, the shadows are all the same.

Still.

Empty.

For the first time in months, the shadows are just shadows again.

Eraserhead is gone.

Izuku can’t quite stamp down on the tangled ball of unease and displeasure that writhes inside of him at the realization.

He’s grown so used to Eraserhead’s presence, to the heavy, full feeling of the shadows when he’s near and the way that the weight of them has become so comforting.

To have it, him, suddenly go missing?

To find himself so suddenly and achingly alone again?

Izuku barely makes it to the bathroom before his stomach rebels, sending him gagging and heaving up burning bile into the sink.

When his stomach finally calms down again Izuku forces himself to rinse the sink out, his throat and back aching, and his face screwing up from the taste that lingers in his mouth.  The thought of brushing his teeth, of the cheap mint taste of his toothpaste, makes his stomach want to heave again.  So Izuku settles on swishing a few handfuls of cool water around in his mouth to try and rinse it out a bit instead.

It’ll have to do for now.

Because all Izuku has the strength left to do at the moment is fold himself down into a ball on the bathroom tile and do his best not to shake apart at the seams.

Some distant foggy part of Izuku knows that he’s overreacting.

Eraserhead had heard him out the night before, had listened to Izuku’s rambling explanation and had seemed both pleased and accepting of what he’d had to say.  He had wrapped his big, claw-tipped hands around Izuku’s throat in that way he seems to enjoy and Izuku has quickly grown accustomed to, and had even licked him again.

Most importantly of all, Eraserhead had even spoken to Izuku for the first time.  Had rasped out a dark and smoky “Deal” that had left Izuku winded and warm.

So wherever and whyever Eraserhead has gone, has left him behind, Izuku knows that logically it more than likely won’t be forever.

Izuku has no right or reason to be like this, to feel like this.

But that doesn’t stop the roaring, cutting panic from tearing him up inside.

“Please,” Izuku keens into the dampness of his own palms, “please come back.  D-Don’t leave me, Eraserhead.”

~~~

School passes in a haze for Izuku.

The possibility of the faculty acting massively out of character and actually calling Inko if he doesn’t show up is the only thing that allows Izuku to gather enough strength to go in the first place.  He hasn’t seen or heard from Inko in months now but money keeps coming into the account so Izuku is reluctant to draw any more of her attention back to him and possibly rock that particular boat.

Izuku is sure that he looks just as bad as he feels by the time he drags himself to his desk, but he can’t bring himself to actually care.

Once, before Eraserhead, arriving at school so obviously unwell, and thus extra vulnerable, would have been like ringing the dinner bell for the staff and students alike.  Things were always worse when Izuku showed up to school noticeably sick or already looking more miserable than normal.  Like his pre-existing pain was a signal for everyone else to heap even more on him than normal.

But now?

Now no one even bothers to look twice at Izuku.

Instead Izuku is free to sit at his desk, head down and so obviously not paying attention, through every one of his classes without anyone coming within five feet of him or bothering to get his attention.

It’s the kind of bubble of space, of implied safety, that Izuku would have longed for the year before.

But now, with Eraserhead’s absence weighing on every single part of him?

It’s just a reminder of how empty Izuku’s life is.

Of just how much Eraserhead has given him.

And how easily it could simply go away again.

Death, Izuku knows, would be a blessing.

~~~

Still dazed, Izuku makes it home on autopilot, barely registering the walk.

It’s only when he’s unlocking the door, automatically calling out “I’m home” as he steps inside, that Izuku really comes back to himself.

Because there, just past the genkan, in the shadows of the dark apartment, is a familiar writhing shape.

Izuku doesn’t think.

Instead he just moves.

Keys and bag dropped to the floor and the door slamming shut behind him, Izuku throws himself across the space between him and the shadows with a sob.

Eraserhead catches him a few steps in, his shadows enveloping Izuku as familiar large claw-tipped hands slide over his face and shoulders, even as more hands burrow into his hair and squeeze at his waist.

“Y-You’re back,” Izuku sobs into the cool press of the palm cradling his face, mouth moving against the claw that rests against his lips.  “Please, don’t leave me.”

There’s a pause.

Then that familiar feeling of amusement, of an almost smug sort of indulgence, presses in on Izuku from all corners.

Hands wrap around his throat, fingers tug at his hair until his head tilts back.

Izuku, tears still streaming from the corners of his eyes, leans into the hold eagerly.  

The hands in Izuku’s hair clench tighter in response, pulling Izuku up onto his toes and his spine back into a harsher arch.  Another set of hands pull Izuku’s arms up and over his head, pressing his wrists together and then holding them there.

Izuku can’t help the way he whines just a bit, low in his throat, even as his body goes along with it easily, happy to let Eraserhead move him as he wills.

Because it’s proof.

Proof that Eraserhead is here with him.

Proof that Izuku is not alone again.

Just … proof.

That aura of smugness deepens.

Izuku hangs there in Eraserhead’s hold until his tears have finally run their course, until the anxiety that’s been plaguing him all day finally burns itself out and then drifts away.

He stays there, body pulled in an arch, toes barely touching the floor, until everything else drifts away from him too.

~~~

Izuku comes back to himself again, more fully this time, sitting at his desk in his bedroom.

The blackout curtains are still drawn but his desk lamp has been flipped on.

When his eyes are able to really focus again, Izuku realizes that the journal is lying open on the desk in front of him.

And there, on the last page where Izuku had added spaces for signatures and even the date, placed neatly on the available line and glimmering like liquid starry-night in the low light, is a single black thumb print.

It looks so much more meaningful somehow than the carefully neat scrawl of his own name and the red ink he’d used when, in an effort to be as official as possible, he’d stamped it with the cheap hanko he’s had for years now.

Even as Izuku stares at it the fingerprint seems to move, the lines almost flexing beneath his stare and the color shifting from deepest black flecked with starry silver to something almost a fiery sort of golden around the edges.

Eraserhead’s mark, Izuku realizes breathlessly.

“You signed,” Izuku whispers, something like a relieved sort of joy surging through him.

The hands settled around his throat squeeze lightly and Izuku gets the impression that Eraserhead is behind him, pressed against his spine despite the chair he’s sitting in, and hovering just over his shoulder.

A tendril of shadow slinks, ink-like, down the line of Izuku’s right arm, until he can feel the press of fingers around his wrist.  His hand is guided until his own thumb is pressing down over Eraserhead’s mark.

Then his hand is lifted and his thumb is pressed over the space where he’d signed his own name.

Izuku makes the obvious connection easily enough.

His way of signing their agreement isn’t enough.

But then, of course it isn’t.

Izuku should have known it wouldn’t be.

Eraserhead, Izuku knows, might be a hero but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s also something else.

Something more.

And this Eraserhead deals in blood.

Which means that, from now on, or really from the moment they met and Eraserhead chose to let him live, Izuku does too.

“Okay,” Izuku agrees, left hand already reaching for his desk drawer and the old penknife, another possible relic from his dad, that he keeps there.

Eraserhead’s hold on Izuku’s right arm doesn’t retreat but it does loosen enough for Izuku to pass the penknife over.

Knowing better than to do something like cut into his palm, Izuku sets the blade against the inside of his left wrist.

The skin splits easily, with barely any pressure necessary and with a pinch so light it doesn’t even register as pain to Izuku.  Not when he’d learned deeper, heavier kinds of pain so fast and early in his life.

Blood wells up eagerly against the paleness of his wrist and Izuku doesn’t hesitate to put the penknife down and to reach over to dip his thumb in it.

Once it’s wet enough, Izuku shifts and presses his bloody thumb down over the already faded red lines of his stamp.

There’s a flash of bright gold light, a small burning sensation, and then nothing.

When Izuku pulls his hand back after a long moment his thumb print, similar to Eraserhead’s own mark, has settled into a shifting sort of crimson color that glimmers golden around the edges.

Triumph swells in the air.

The hands around Izuku’s throat tighten again, the shadows around him swell.

Izuku jumps just a bit when that long, pointed tongue somehow licks across the marks on his throat and then trails upward.  It laps at his chin, his cheek, and then traces its way across the seam of his mouth.

Izuku’s breath hitches.

His mouth drops open.

Eraserhead’s tongue presses inside.

It’s less of a-a kiss and more of a tasting.  Eraserhead’s tongue presses in deep, sliding against and around Izuku’s own, shifting to tickle at the backs of his teeth and the roof of his mouth, pressing so far down his throat Izuku’s sure he should want to gag but doesn’t actually feel the need to.

Instead Izuku hangs there, lets Eraserhead press deeper and deeper even as drool escapes the corners of his mouth and his head goes hazy and his body grows warmer, goes hot and tight around the edges and in the depths of his stomach.

When Eraserhead finally pulls back he leaves Izuku gasping and trembling in his wake.

“Mine.” That rough, low, rumbling rasp from before declares.

“Yours,” Izuku has enough presence of mind to slur in agreement.

Because it’s true.

He is.

Because he wants to be.

~~~

Izuku spends the next longest while entangled with Eraserhead.

He ends up splayed out on his bed, the shadows pressing in on him from all sides, as hands roam lightly over his skin and claws scratch teasingly through his hair like Eraserhead is learning him, is committing him to memory.

All the while that warm, wet tongue alternates between pressing itself in and out of Izuku’s mouth and down his throat and pulling back to lave wetly across the marks on his neck.

Somewhere in the middle of it all the journal disappears again but this time Izuku doesn’t bother to worry about it.

Its purpose has been fulfilled.

Plus Izuku is sure that Eraserhead has it tucked away somehow anyway.

~~~

That night, body tingling and somehow absolutely exhausted, Izuku dreams of heat.

Dreams of warm wet mouths and a thousand hands that all belong to the same person touching every hidden inch of him inside and out.

Izuku wakes to damp sheets, Eraserhead’s name trembling on the tip of his tongue, and the shadows wrapped around him like a writhing cocoon.

And from above, twin red lights shine down on him like stars.

~~~

When Izuku staggers into the bathroom the next morning he finds himself blinking, more than a bit taken aback, into the mirror once again.

The crimson stripe on his bottom lip is the same but the marks around his throat …

Gone are the night-dark hand prints he’d long since grown used to seeing.

Instead, in their place and still pressed into his skin more like a birthmark than a tattoo, is a thick black band that wraps all the way around his neck like a choker.

Or a collar, some helplessly intrigued part of Izuku whispers.

The changes don’t end there though.  Because instead of the solid darkness of before, the band is laced with golden swoops and swirls that, much like Eraserhead’s mark in the journal, seem to shift the longer Izuku looks at them.

Beautiful, Izuku can’t help but think as he watches the golden designs flex and move, ebbing and flowing across and around the band like living things.

It takes him a bit to blink out of the daze he’s fallen into but when he does Izuku discovers that he’s noticeably paler too.  Both his skin and his hair seem to have lightened another half-shade at least since the last time he really looked at himself.

Izuku shrugs the changes off after a moment and reaches for his toothbrush.

It’s not like he’s ever really cared about his appearance beyond a hygiene point of view.  He’s never had too much of an attachment to his hair color or his skin tone or anything vanity related like that.  There’s never really been a point.

Besides, this, whatever it is that’s happening to him, is probably some kind of side effect from being so close to Eraserhead for so long now.  A reaction to their agreement and the fact that Eraserhead has decided not to kill him yet.

And that?

Well.

Eraserhead said it the night before didn’t he?

Izuku belongs to him now.

Izuku finally belongs.

As far as Izuku is concerned, that's all that matters.

Everything else is just … details.

~~~

In contrast to the day before, Izuku practically floats his way to school.

He feels energized, revitalized, and down right cheerful.

The school day passes quickly. Izuku takes notes on the very rare occasion when it’s necessary and gets a head start on his homework in the classes when it’s not.  It’s his normal routine these days since now he doesn’t have to worry about guarding his desk from Katsuki or the other students.  Izuku doesn’t even have to worry about being called out by any of the teachers these days.

Which might be why it takes him by surprise when Ohta-sensei, his homeroom teacher who has a subtle cat-eye mutation and used to delight in allowing Katsuki free reign both in class and on Izuku, calls for him to stay back.

Izuku’s not had to stay after class for months and months now.  He’s not even on the cleaning duty roster anymore when before the responsibility had fallen to him alone more often than not.

So, curious, Izuku stays in his chair after the bell rings, packing his things up slowly as the classroom empties out around him.

Finally, once his bag has been packed and everyone else has left, Izuku stands and makes his way to where Ohta-sensei is cleaning off his own desk.

Izuku doesn’t bother to say anything.  He might be being left alone these days but Izuku had also spent years being taught the lesson that none of his teachers liked him to speak unless directly spoken to.  Especially Ohta-sensei.

So instead he just stands there, bag in hand, and waits for Ohta-sensei to look up.

The yelp the man gives when he finally does is unexpected though, as is the way his flailing hands send his stack of paperwork flying.

Izuku automatically steps forward to help.

“N-No!” Ohta-sensei half shouts, one hand coming up as if to ward Izuku off.  “T-That’s alright, Midoriya, I’ll get it. Just, stay there.”

Izuku blinks.

Steps back.

Watches in a puzzled sort of fascination as Ohta-sensei relaxes just a bit at the extra step of distance between them.

Odd.

“You,” Ohta-sensei pauses, takes a deep breath, reaches a hand up to readjust his tie, “you’re a … a smart kid, Midoriya.”

Izuku blinks, resists the urge to pinch himself.

That’s probably the nicest thing an adult outside of Inko has said to him in years.

“It’s obvious that you’re bored in your classes,” Ohta-sensei continues.  “I-we, your other sensei and I that is, would like to know if you’d be interested in graduating early.”

“Yes,” Izuku says instantly, not even having to stop and think about it.

“Good, good,” Ohta-sensei nods, a flash of relief crossing his expression.  “That’s … good.  I took the liberty of setting up the testing already.  It’ll be tomorrow, during your regular class hours.  If you pass you’ll be a graduate and you can just … leave.  Sound good?”

“Of course, sensei,” Izuku agrees despite the shockingly short notice of it all.

Because it does.

A chance to graduate early, to no longer have to show up to Aldera every day and waste his time in classes filled with material he’s already taught himself around people who will never care about him?

It sounds perfect.

Almost too good to be true really.

“Well,” Ohta-sensei waves a hand in his direction, “run along then.”

Izuku does, not even bothering to bow politely before he spins on his heel and heads for the door.

~~~

The television is on when Izuku gets back to the apartment but Izuku is too happy, too hopeful, to focus on it.

Eraserhead meets him with welcoming hands and cocooning shadows either way.

~~~

Izuku shows up to school the next morning only to be met at his homeroom door by Ohta-sensei and ushered down the hall and into an unused classroom where he’s handed a thick packet of papers and promptly left alone.

Izuku’s more than aware that this is very much not correct testing procedure but, well, if they’re not going to raise a fuss about it then neither is he.

So Izuku sits down in one of the empty desks, gets out a pencil, tucks his bag between his ankles out of habit, and gets to work.

Six hours later he walks out with his tests done and with assurances from Ohta-sensei that he doesn’t need to show up to class the next day.  He’s ushered out of the school altogether with more reassurances that his results will be emailed to him as soon as his grades are determined.

Izuku’s actually confident that he did well on everything but he also gets the impression that it doesn’t actually matter.

Three hours later, settled in front of the television with his notebook in hand and Eraserhead’s hands wrapped around his throat, Izuku’s phone chimes.

He’s quick to open the email and read through it.

He blinks.

“I graduated,” Izuku announces.

It doesn’t feel real but, like with so many things in his life now, Izuku isn’t going to argue with a turn of good luck.

Instead he turns his attention back to the news.

He can deal with his graduation and what it all will and will not change in his life later.  Will take the time to plot and plan his next steps later.

For now Izuku has more important things to do.

He needs to live up to his side of the bargain after all.

Izuku owes Eraserhead a name.

~~~

It takes Izuku a few more hours of hunched over, phone based research and rapid note taking before he finally settles on a name.

Before he finds a villain who both meets his own personal checklist and has enough information readily available on them for Izuku to be able to double check the facts.

Izuku doesn’t want to make any mistakes in that area, doesn’t want to be taken in by bigotry or propaganda or anything else but the truth.  Izuku will do his research instead, and will take however long he has to in order to keep from doing something as horrible as giving Eraserhead the name of someone who isn’t actually a villain.

So Izuku, finally satisfied with his work, pushes himself up onto his feet and makes his way to his bed, newly titled and encoded villain notebook in hand.

Izuku’s legs spread when he lays down, automatically making room for the weight that settles between his thighs as soon as his back hits the mattress.

Again he’s sure that it’s not necessary, the formality of it all, not with how Eraserhead has already come to him like this.  But it still feels right to Izuku to keep on observing the little ritual they’ve developed between them.

“Eraserhead,” Izuku whispers into the dark of his room, head tilting back as he presses up into the hands around his throat.

“Eraserhead.”  That triumphantly smug and anticipatory feeling is back in the air, settling around Izuku as thick and heavy as the shadows themselves. 

“Eraserhead,” Izuku manages to get out around the claw-tipped thumb that’s pressing against his lips.

Twin red lights shine down on him like stars as a dozen hands roam across his body.

“I have a name for you,” Izuku offers up, feeling almost shy for some reason.

The shadows writhe around him.

“He’s killed a lot of people,” Izuku continues.  “And the things he did to them, the ways he hurt them and then the things he did to their bodies after he killed them … he needs a hero like you to stop him.”

“Name,” Eraserhead’s voice rumbles, a low and smoky sort of purr, against the shell of Izuku’s ear.

Izuku shudders.

“They call him Moonfish,” Izuku breathes the villain's name out.  “But his real name is Kiga Arata and he deserves to die.”

Izuku’s mouth opens to the press of Eraserhead’s tongue in what’s quickly becoming second nature to him.

~~~

When Izuku looks in the mirror the next morning he sees that the very roots of his hair have begun to turn white.

His teeth ache.

When Izuku turns his head just right he swears that he can see the smallest glint of red hiding in the depths of his eyes.

~~~

“The notorious villain Moonfish has been found dead,” the newscaster reports, flashing a picture of the villain in question up onto the screen.  “Oishi Wattan, the Gifu prefecture chief of police has declined to make a statement at this time.”

Izuku can’t help the surge of both relief and joy that washes over him.

Moonfish is dead.

He will never hurt anyone ever again.

Eraserhead, and through him Izuku in his own way, has saved so many people.

It’s a heady sort of feeling, a breathless sort of realization that makes Izuku want to cry.

He wonders if he’ll feel like this each time, after every name he gives Eraserhead.

A part of Izuku honestly hopes so.

“Thank you, Eraserhead,” Izuku leans back into the shadowy hands that are buried in his hair.  “You really are a hero.”

Eraserhead licks a wet, warm line up the side of Izuku’s face.

Izuku smiles.

There’s a flicker of shadow and Izuku’s notebook opens itself up to a fresh page.

Well then.

Guess it’s time to begin again.