Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dark red blood soiled his small, shaky hands. It trailed up pale arms and stained his white shirt with its color. Fresh, warm tears rolled down his face, his body too frozen to wipe away the sting of the salt. He could still hear their screams in his head. The sound of the couple in agony, trying desperately to plead for their lives. He could still feel what it was like to tear into their flesh, to rip them limb from limb. His mouth tasted metallic. He didn't understand why it happened. He couldn't understand why he killed them. Why he had eaten them.

The door opened. A voice could be heard but he couldn't understand them. Was it Kacchan? Did... Had he come home to this? To him, kneeling on the floor over his deceased parents, with blood dripping from his chin? Would Kacchan hate him? Would he call the police? He couldn't move from his spot. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Mitsuki's decapitated head, she'd suffered the most.

"...Izuchan?" 

He couldn't look away. He couldn't break eye contact with her cold, dead eyes. He could hear the horror in Kacchan's voice when he spoke. He could hear the panic in every breath he took. Warm hands grabbed his shoulders. Tears spilled faster at the contact. He didn't hurt him? He could hear Kacchan trying to calm him down. Why wasn't he hurting him? He killed his parents. He ate them. Why was Kacchan being kind?

"Izuku, can you hear me?" Kacchan's voice called out, small. His hands cupped his face and red eyes met green. 

"Izuchan, we gotta go, o-okay? nod if you can understand me." Kacchan looked scared. He didn't seem to hate him, he was worried. It took a moment but Izuku nodded. "Good, good. We need to... we need to pack, right? Right. That's what they do in movies, isn't it?" 

"Kacchan?" His voice was weak, nothing more than a broken whisper. Kacchan looked at him. "Y-You... Are you mad?" 

Kacchan shook his head. "No, No, I'm not... I'm not mad. T-This is your quirk, right? They were... bad. If you didn't do it, then it might've been me. It," he paused to take a deep breath. His hands balled up into fists by his side. "It had to be done." 

His quirk? He hadn't thought of that. He hadn't thought of much of anything. Not when the screaming rang in his head and their blood clung so tightly to his skin it could've seeped into his bones. "My quirk. R-Right, this is my quirk. It's not my fault." Izuku stood on shaky legs. 

"I-I think i know a place where we can... hide. It's a big building nobody ever uses," Kacchan said, his eyes squeezed closed as tight as they could. He didn't want to look. "You gotta c-clean up first."

Izuku stumbled off in the direction of the bathroom, nearly slipping on a small pool of blood. Crimson footprints trailed behind him.

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚

Katsuki took a deep breath and covered his mouth, trying not to gag at the smell. He needed to get to their room. He needed to avoid the viscera decorating the floor. He opened his eyes and ran as quickly as he could out of the area. He needed to be like the guys in those action movies. He had to be brave. They never threw up or cried, they kept calm and packed up the things they needed to. What did they pack? Clothes? How much? 

He looked for a suitcase in his parents room, he thought he remembered them going on vacations. He never went with them. Aunty Inko always babysat him and brought Izuchan to play. Aunty Inko... She would've known how to help. Maybe this never would've happened if she were still here. He pulled a big black suitcase out of the closet. It was heavy.

When he unzipped it, a smaller bag tucked into it caught his attention. He opened the bag and peeked in. The bag was stuffed to the brim with yen notes. Far too much for him to count. Where did all of this money come from? He didn't have the time to think about it. He secured the bag tightly and moved it over to make space for clothes. 

Katsuki rushed to the room he shared with Izuchan. There wasn't a lot to it. It was mostly decorated with Izuchan's hero merchandise. He loved heroes. They both did. He thought about waiting for a hero to arrive, someone that could save them.

Katsuki didn't think a hero would be able to save them from this, though. 

He opened up the closet and grabbed as much as he could carry in one trip and shuffled back to the open suitcase. He stuffed everything into the suitcase and closed it up tight.

Police sirens echoed in the distance.

Katsuki's heartbeat pounded in his ears. 

He struggled and dragged the suitcase out to the hallway. He rushed to the bathroom. A desperate knock on the door. "Izuchan? We gotta go!" 

Izuchan opened the door, swamped in a black hoodie that was far too big for him. He stared at Katsuki with big, round eyes and Katsuki grabbed his hand and rushed him over to their room to finish getting dressed.

Thankfully, Izuchan understood and dressed himself in clean clothes as well as the hoodie. He recognized it as Aunty Inko's.

As soon as he finished, Katsuki grabbed his hand to direct him over to the suitcase. "It's heavy, help me carry it." 

Izuchan grabbed one end of the suitcase and tried to lift it up. Both boys stared in shock when it lifted off the ground with ease. Izuchan steadied his hold on it and followed Katsuki's voice as he guided him throughout the carnage in the living room. The police sirens grew louder.

They slipped out the back door, closing and locking it behind them. 

Together they snuck around to the front of the house, trying to avoid being spotted by anyone, much less the police. Katuski had never been more focused in his life. Leading Izuchan to safety was his biggest priority right now.

After a few minutes, he told Izuchan that he could use the wheels on the suitcase to drag it behind them. Once he complied, Katsuki held his hand while they walked. 

“Didn't mean to,” Izuchan’s voice came out as a whisper. It would've been swallowed up with the sound of the wheels rolling on the sidewalk if Katsuki hadn't been so hyper vigilant.

Katsuki squeezed his hand a little as he lead them off of the sidewalk and into the small, worn down desire path into the forest. “I know, Izuchan… Let's forget about it for now, okay? We'll figure out your quirk soon.” He tried to smile but it felt weak. He still remembered looking into the cold, dead eyes of his mother. He remembered the sick feeling in his stomach. He remembered the relief that rushed through his veins, knowing that the monster couldn't hurt him. She couldn't hurt Izuchan. 

Izuchan stayed quiet as they wormed their way throughout the trees, climbed over fallen logs and tried not to trip over rocks. The sun sank further and further into the ground. 

Sunset was almost over by the time they reached a small, slightly run-down cabin a few yards away from a stream. It was abandoned and Katsuki had found it a few months prior when they were playing heroes and villains. He made it his ‘super secret evil lair’ since it was his turn to be the villain. He had been unstoppable.

Katsuki snuck into the cabin through a back window and opened the front door for Izuchan to come in with the suitcase.

Chapter Text

Aizawa Shōta sat on the edge of a rooftop, staring down at the empty street illuminated with flickering street lamps. The patrol had been a simple one so far, a few kids out creating graffiti, a drunk guy or two, a few stray cats getting into fights. Nothing he couldn't handle with his eyes closed.

It seemed he had spoken far too soon, though.

A loud scream sounded on his left. A man's voice questioning someone else. Aizawa got up and shot over as quickly as he could but he was already too late.

All that remained of the man was a messy puddle of blood and a miscellaneous assortment of limbs. He looked away from the pile to catch a glimpse of... *something*. It was large, black, and sleek. It... Reminded him of the Bakugous.

Recently, He had been assigned to a case. The police couldn't figure it out if they tried, which they obviously didn't.

-

"What's the situation?" Aizawa had asked Detective Tsukauchi when he arrived on the scene.

"Bakugou Mituski and Masaru, Ages thirty-two and thirty-six respectively, were found dead and... quite brutally dismembered in their home after their neighbors reported hearing screams. The two children in their care, Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku are missing." The Detective explained.

"Alright, thanks," Aizawa nodded and walked into the house cautiously.

The sight he was greeted with was definitely not for those with weak stomachs. Not much remained of the Bakugous but Mitsuki's head and Masaru's legs. Their blood painted the walls so chaotically it was like they were ripped to shreds rather than chopped up. It was a horrible sight.

He closed his eyes to calm himself and continued into the house, trying not to disturb the officers and their evidence marking. Something that caught his attention, though, were the small footprints leading into a room down the hall. He followed them into a bathroom where traces of blood were a little more minimal. He assumed those footprints belonged to one of the children and they had perhaps showered some of the blood off of them.

There were still small droplets of water on the wooden floor that lead over to a small room down the hall. When he opened the door, it was a mess. There wasn't much in the room itself aside from a lot of All Might merchandise, but shoes were tossed about and warm-weather clothes littered the floor. There were no coats or jackets, much less pants. He figured this was the kids' room.

Before drawing any conclusions, he checked the final room in the hallway, which appeared to be the adults' room. The closet door was open and it looked tampered with but he couldn't tell what was taken, if anything.

He stepped out of the room and continued to avoid the mess as he made his way back over to Tsukauchi. "I can't tell for sure what happened here but I think the kids know. Do we have anything on the Bakugous? Any reports of crying coming from the apartment or injuries on the children?"

"You think they were abusive?" Tsukauchi asked.

"I'd like to rule it out, if possible. If it turns out they were, I fear that gives the kids a motive. They would then be suspects as well as missing children." Aizawa sighed, massaging his temple to ease the building headache. 

Tsukauchi nodded. "I'll look into it. For now, I think you're good to go until we finish up our report here."

"Great, keep me updated."

-

Aizawa sighed and fished his phone out of the sea of fabric that was his pocket and dialed 110. This man was already dead and gone and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. Maybe if he had been quicker or even more vigilant, this wouldn't have happened at all.

Before he could press the call button, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and instinctively, he turned around with his quirk activated. If he hadn't been a professional as long as he was, what he saw would've made him falter. 

There stood a figure almost the same height as him with twice as much muscle. It seemed like it was covered in a tar-like substance. An unknown amount of teeth grinned while what he could only assume were its eyes stared at him. He took a step back, instinctively but continued to hold his quirk active. Not that it seemed to do anything. 

“Your quirk does not work on us. It is better to stop now.” It said. Or rather, they?

He had no reason to think the figure was telling the truth and kept it active. At any point, They could attack and he would rather be prepared. “What do you want?” Aizawa asked. 

“You are Eraserhead, yes?” They asked in return. 

“You have yet to answer my question,” Aizawa insisted. 

The figure's eyes seemed to narrow at his insistence on the subject. “Your question is irrelevant.” 

“It won't be irrelevant when you're in cuffs.” 

“You think you could catch us? With your useless power? The thought is laughable.” They… taunted? Despite the deep growl of their voice, it was somehow playful.

“Why are you here?” Aizawa glared. 

“I'm the distraction,” They said, their grin sharpening as Aizawa noticed the sound of the police sirens. 

He looked past the mass just in time to see an explosion about a block down the street. He just barely caught the silhouette of what seemed to be a child running past with a bag slung over their shoulder. He must've made a move to go after the kid because the figure finally attacked him. 

They forced Aizawa to the ground with one powerful move. One moment he was upright and the next, he was staring death in the mouth, frozen. 

The figure snapped their mouth shut swiftly and shoved him away. He stumbled with the force of it. 

“We are Venom.” The figure said through gritted teeth, as they stepped back and melted into the shadows. 

Aizawa raced towards the alleyway to follow Venom, as they called themselves. Despite how large they were, they were just… gone. No amount of searching (high or low) gave him any indication of where they might have disappeared to.

He groaned in frustration.