Chapter Text
Izuku knew only one person who truly hated him. His own brother. Whatever bond may have laid dormant underneath them both—the only emotion Izuku ever brought up in his brother was pure, unbridled hatred. How to translate that anger into hundreds of people who were mindlessly loving him online, he didn’t know.
People liked Fox. Ochaco’s blog had soared in followers, and articles talking about his mistakes were flooded with vitriol and hatred so intense they had to get taken down. Izuku felt awful, but he didn’t know how to get them to stop. He didn’t know how he had tricked so many people — gotten so many to actually like him.
The easiest answer was that none of them knew him. Nobody knew Izuku, and the only person they liked was Fox. Shinsou may not fully know Izuku, but he knew far more than anyone else—that must’ve been why it hurt so much to lose him. His phone blew up with messages that he couldn’t get it from within himself to open by a boy he wished he had never even met.
It had been three days since he had woken up and six days since the nomu attack. Almost a week and Shinsou had sent him over a hundred messages asking where he was and if he was okay. Izuku didn’t know why he was keeping up the image of caring about him, but he wasn’t going to let it get to him. He had lied to Shinsou. The only boy who actually knew his identity. If he really wanted to, he could go online and tell everyone how much of an arsehole Izuku was, and he couldn’t even deny it. He held a knife up to his throat, for God's sake!
He had made a mistake. Good thing he was known for making mistakes.
The only way to make it right that he could think of was to get Shinsou to shut up. To not tell anybody about his screw ups and to just forget about him. Easier said than done, but Izuku was ready to be pushy. He just had to get rid of the only surface-level friend he had made in years. Let the boy scream at him and tell him how useless he was for a few hours, then pray he didn’t go squeal.
If he did squeal, Izuku still had plans. Not getting his face onto the police database for his father to find was number one priority—so he would have to hide out in his apartment for a few weeks. Then he’d take a train down to Hosu and sneak on a totally legal flight over to any country he could lie low in. Not Canada—it snows too much up there.
Izuku had plans ready for any and all situations. It was the only way his legs didn’t give out from worry underneath him as he jumped across rooftops toward Dagoba beach.
He was wearing his new—not burned to a crisp—Fox getup with his mask tucked into the back of his tool belt. Just like it was when all this mess started. The wind was light as the sun set in the distance. He had decided to wear his sunglasses to cover up his eyes instead of his blindfold—something he regretted as soon as he locked eyes on Shinsou. He looked exactly as he had a week ago when he had last seen him. Izuku didn’t know why that shocked him so much.
It had only been a week, and yet Izuku felt like everything had been flipped upside down so heavily that nothing could be the same anymore. People had started acting weirdly around Fox, Shinsou knew one of his many secrets, Endeavour was no longer a hero. Izuku didn’t get how people could just be the exact same even when his life had been completely changed.
Yet there stood Shinsou, his hair the same length and his eyes with the same glow they always had whenever Izuku saw him. The sunset framed him like a piece of art that not even the rubbish surrounding him could ruin. Like a piece of gold amongst the stone. The only thing that looked any different was the deeper eye bags. Izuku couldn’t help but feel like he was partly at fault for that.
He truly didn’t know what to say. His throat tightened whenever he tried to get words out, and his brain just didn’t want to work as he got closer to the other boy. They didn’t keep eye contact very long, but the one moment they did was almost burned into his retinas with how much it made his mind go blank. Even just for a moment—not even his fear could get through to his head. No matter how short it lasted, Shinsou always had the ability to just make Izuku feel okay.
He didn’t want to lose that.
But if he stayed with Shinsou, then he would inadvertently ruin his life eventually.
He took a few steps closer to him.
Shinsou was supposed to stay on the outskirts of his being. Far away from anything that could hurt him. He wasn’t meant to know anything about him. This was supposed to stay surface-level.
His breath hitched when they make eye-contact again, and his hand itched for a blindfold that he didn’t have. Whatever he could get his hands on to cover his eyes. To stop seeing Shinsou. To stop seeing those eyes that dragged him out of his thoughts. A drop of his head, and Shinsou was locked into the darkened sides of his eyes.
Izuku had failed to keep any of his relationships surface level, hadn’t he? He’s been to Eraser’s house and gone to a fucking cat cafe with Shinsou. None of his attempts at keeping people safe by keeping them away from him had even worked. Nothing he did worked.
A part of him was happy it didn’t work.
A hypocritical, selfish, and destructive part of him was overjoyed at the thought of having people actually close to him. People who he could point to and say they had his back. He was going to drag them down with him into the rotting, and he wanted to stay with them, anyway.
He wanted to listen to that part of himself so badly. The part of him that was done being alone. The part of him that thought he could protect them. He would have to protect them. If he couldn’t keep them safe at arm’s length, then he would need to drag them down to the middle of the eye of his rotting soul and bear the storm himself.
Izuku couldn’t see anything around him—his vision issues made Shinsou the centre of all he could see. A tunnel straight to the boy’s face. He followed it until he was a few steps away from the boy. Shinsou’s eyes bore into his head. Studying him. His head tilted to the side like a cat, and the silence bore on.
“I’m sorry for threatening you with a knife!” Izuku shouted at the same time Shinsou sighed, “I’m so sorry.”
He blinked up at the other boy before water began to crawl up to his eyes. A hand wrapped around his lungs and pushed out sounds up his throat that he couldn’t stop. He burst into laughter. Laughter he was completely alone in as Shinsou stood silently.
“Why are you sorry?” Izuku got out between his giggles, his hand covering his mouth to stop the sound as he took a breath to calm himself down. He found the absurdity of that unnecessarily funny.
When he finally got his laughter under control, Shinsou actually began to explain. “Because you have a lot going on with being a vigilante and all, and I stressed you out more by getting in the way.” Shinsou’s hands fidgeted over his stomach. Izuku had to look up to get a glimpse of his face, which was filled with remorse. Shinsou felt bad for getting in his way? Sure, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that wasn’t his fault. None of it was his fault. Izuku was the one who overreacted—it was his fault.
“You weren’t in the way, I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Besides, I’m the one who put a knife to your throat.” Izuku pointed out and watched as Shinsou brought his hand up to wrap around his own neck.
“It was fine.”
“I still shouldn’t have done it!”
Sure, he was stressed, and okay, he didn’t know what else to do, nevertheless, having Shinsou scared of him in any capacity wasn’t something he ever wanted. It was something that horrified him. He wanted to protect Shinsou after all. He needed to protect him.
Shinsou’s hand ran up his arm to squeeze his shoulder. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
“I am now. I was passed out for three days at a friend’s place.” Izuku placed his own hand on top of his.
“What friend?”
“Just a friend.” Izuku smiled up at Shinsou. “He doesn’t know my identity, if that makes you feel better.”
“It does actually.” Shinsou squeezed his shoulder before taking his hand away. The sleeve of his jumper caught on Izuku’s tool belt for a second. It was a cute jumper — a lilac colour with a cartoon image of a cat on the front. They should get a cat. Shinsou smelled of cats and coconut.
Izuku brought his gaze down to the tin cans scattered around at his feet.
“So you do all this blind?”
“Peripherally blind, but yes. I wear a blindfold so it’s easier on my quirk.”
“Which is?” Shinsou’s head tilted to the side again like he was listening out for something. Shinsou knew that he was blind—it would only make sense that he had super senses. It would make sense! At least for once he hadn’t shoved himself into a corner.
“Super senses. Basically, I have a certain amount of points that can be distributed across my different senses. If I turn one up, then the others get worse. Since my sight is mostly fucked, my other senses are much better.” When he first got his super senses quirk, he was ten. His brother had used his stupid video game logic to explain this specific quirk away, and for some reason his words could never really leave his memory. He guessed it was because it was one of the few nice memories they had. “I wear a blindfold as Fox just so my hearing can be better and the little bits of light soaking through the mask don’t disorient me.”
“That’s really cool.” Shinsou had a small smile on his face—the best that could be expected from him—and Izuku held back a grin in response to it.
“You wont…” Izuku mumbled. “You won’t tell people… right?”
“Never,” Shinsou said almost immediately.
Izuku wasn’t going to push him away, was he? Nothing he did was going to work. He almost didn’t want it to work.
“Besides, I don’t even know your last name,” he laughed.
“Midoriya,” Izuku said it before he could stop himself. Pulling Shinsou further into his chaos of a life.
“I swear I’ve heard that before.”
“Don’t Google me,” Izuku knee-jerk responded as soon as he heard him speak. From the look Shinsou gave him, he guessed he was screwed.
“Why not?”
“Dont freak out!”
Shinsou nodded in response, and Izuku swallowed before opening his mouth again.
“I’m sort of—legally dead.”
“What.” Shinsou’s face dropped even more than he thought possible.
“Surprise!” Izuku exclaimed as he watched Shinsou drop to sit on the floor in one of their safe spots that didn’t have rubbish cluttering it. His hair looked even more fluffy from above.
“Oh, what have I gotten myself into?” Izuku heard him mumble as he joined him sitting on the floor.
“You said you wouldn’t freak out, Shinsou!”
“Hitoshi.” Shinsou—Hitoshi cut him off. Hitoshi. His first name. That’s what people he actually cared about him called him. Izuku had somehow tricked him into liking him that much, and the joy of it almost outweighed the guilt. “Call me Hitoshi. I’ve been calling you by your given name all this time.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you my last name.” Izuku laughed as the obnoxiously enormous smile on his face only grew.
“Well, yeah, it is on a tombstone.” Hitoshi deadpanned.
“You joke about that, but it actually is.”
“Oh, my God.”
Hitoshi started to laugh, and Izuku joined in. They were laughing together, and suddenly it felt like Izuku was lighter than air. That all of his problems were easier to break than glass. They could cut him as much as they liked, but Izuku would be fine because he was right there—laughing with Hitoshi.
“Do you have, like, a fake name or something?”
“Shirakumo, Izuku.” He ignored the pang in his heart when he said it.
Hitoshi raised his eyebrows and stared at him for a few moments before he spoke. “You didn’t even have the energy to make a fake given name.”
“I was panicking! Leave me alone.” Izuku pushed him away when he started to laugh again, a faux grumpy expression on his face. However, he joined in the laughing eventually.
“So you’re fully a vigilante?”
“You don’t have to keep hanging around me if you don’t want. I’d get it. You want to get into UA after all.” One last shot. One last reminder for him to run as far away as he could from him.
Hitoshi bumped his shoulder against Izuku’s. “I couldn’t leave my surface-level friend in the dumps. Actually, we should graduate to real friends one of these days.”
Now he really wanted to get a cat with him. Friends get cats together, right? Real friends. They were real friends. Izuku Midoriya somehow got a friend. His best friend—and only one. Hitoshi knew far too much about him, and somehow Izuku had still tricked him.
“I only wanted to be surface level, so you didn’t get caught in this mess.” He pointed at himself to emphasise the said mess.
“I thought you were going to hate me.” Izuku mumbled.
“You’re doing good, Izuku. What kind of wannabe hero would I be to leave my friend behind for doing good?” Hitoshi wrapped his arm around Izuku’s shoulder, and he felt as if fireworks went off in his stomach. Was this what people actually caring about him felt like?
“You are a very strange exception.” He dropped his head onto Hitoshi’s shoulder.
“You’re a stranger exception.”
Hitoshi’s shoulder was warm—all of him was warm. It was like he was walking out of a freezing cold tundra right onto a star. He didn’t want anything else but to sit there for hours and listen to his friends (he had friends!) heartbeat.
However, that want only paved an easier path for guilt to get through. Hitoshi didn’t fully know what he was getting into. He wouldn’t know until he got hurt, and Izuku was determined to not let that happen. Izuku didn’t deserve this. His selfishness wanted to take it anyway.
“I have a lot of baggage. I'm basically cursed.” Izuku lamented on Hitoshi’s shoulder.
“Cursed?”
He painfully extracted himself from the other boy’s arm to look at him. “Whenever I get close to someone, they get hurt.” Izuku took his friend’s hand into his own. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t—if you tell me what’s going on.” Hitoshi squeezed his hand.
“You know more than anyone else in my life right now.” Izuku didn’t have very many people in his life—but Hitoshi didn’t need to know that.
“You cut your hair.” Hitoshi moved his other hand to run through the ends of his much shorter hair. It had been a few days, and he still didn’t like it. He would go to pull on the ends whenever he got stressed and would grasp onto nothing before he remembered to reach up higher.
“It got burned off when I was saving people.” Izuku explained.
“I think it’s nice.” Hitoshi hummed before taking his hand back.
“Izuku, I need you to promise me something.” He looked up at his friend and nodded. He heard Hitoshi before he talked again. “I’ve been left by a lot of people in my life—I’m guessing you have too.” He unclasped their hands to hold up his pinky towards Izuku. “Just promise me that no matter what, we stay together.”
Izuku smiled before wrapping his own pinky around Hitoshi’s
“And don’t die.” Hitoshi added on.
“No promises.” Izuku snorted. Then, when Hitoshi glared at him, he added, “Listen, last time I promised not to get stabbed I got stabbed the same day—I’ve sworn off promises about things I can’t control.”
Then they laughed again. He didn’t know which one of them had started it, but he truly didn’t care. They were laughing. Hitoshi knew all of this and was still laughing with him. When the laughing stopped and they decided to just sit there in comfortable silence—he also didn’t know. It just faded in and out like it was always supposed to be there.
He needed to go out as Fox soon. However, he wanted to just sit there with his friend forever.
He indulged his selfishness a bit longer.
When he finally did go out as Fox—he did with a smile and a pep in his step. He was going to find Eraser that day. Normally, Eraser had some magic way of finding him when he least expected it, but on his second day of patrolling since he had woken, Fox decided he had to find him.
He was hungry, bored, and his interaction with his friend (FRIEND!) had given him a newfound confidence that maybe Eraser wouldn’t hate him.
Eraser had been tricked a while ago. His soft spot for children, mixed with the guilt of the time he had almost gotten him killed, had made him more endeared to Fox’s shitty personality. He also thought his jokes weren’t half bad.
Fox had caught onto the hero’s heartbeat a few blocks back. Then he got distracted saving a woman who then stole his Post-it note and made him write a new one for the police. After that, when he finally did latch onto Eraser’s heartbeat again—it was when he was in the middle of a fight. There were two heartbeats going at him in the alleyway, which he could easily fight off.
Who would Fox be if he didn’t shove himself into situations he didn’t need to be in?
The rooftop he was on seemed quite bare. He contemplated just jumping down directly onto one villain before his hand grasped a pipe. After he had prayed the pipe wasn’t needed for anything—Fox lined up his hands and dropped it directly onto the villain behind Eraser’s head. Then he snorted as Eraser whipped his head around when the villain crumpled to the ground.
What Eraser looked like when he laid his eyes on his Fox mask—he would never know—but he did hear the man’s heart rate decrease for a few moments before he remembered he was fighting someone. He counts that as a win.
Fox sat on the edge of the roof and waited as Eraser gave the two villains off to a police car. His legs swung over the edge as the wind blew past his face. It hit against his bare neck and made the ends of his hair fly up. He didn’t mind his hair being shorter anymore. Even if he had to move his hand up a little higher to tug on the ends.
It was a warm night—spring was coming in, and soon he wouldn’t even need his coat anymore. Eraser’s arms around him the second the hero got up onto the rooftop were even warmer. He didn’t even have to say anything. One moment he was listening in on Eraser’s footsteps as he climbed up the ladder, and the next he was being grabbed into a hug. He didn’t even mind it. Eraser smelled like coffee, cats and how the morning after it rains all night smells. The calm after the storm. Izuku dipped his head into the man’s shoulder and let him hug him without a tense bone in his body. He couldn’t will his arms to hug the hero back—but he let the interaction go on. He didn’t run away. Baby steps.
“I told you not to fight Endeavour.”
“Actually, you told me not to fight either of the nomus.” Fox argued with a laugh at the bottom of his throat.
“It was implied, and you know it.” He squeezed Fox’s shoulders before letting him out of his grip. Izuku fought every urge in his body to beg him to not let go and brought a smile to his face.
“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Izuku got asked for the second time that day.
“I’ve had worse.” He assured Eraser. He guessed this did very little to actually alleviate his stress as his heartrate only increased.
“You shouldn’t have.” Eraser argued as his feet scuffed on the floor before he got to the edge of the roof. Fox quickly joined him in sitting on the edge when he handed him a jelly packet. Just like nothing had changed at all.
Except a few things had changed. There was someone in Izuku’s life who he had actually shown one of his rough edges. Actively opened up a door in one of his walls to let him in. The labyrinth of Izuku’s being was one that could take years for him to traverse, but he’s closer to it. The only reason he did anything with Shinsou was because of Eraser. At the base of all of his baby steps, Eraser was standing there with jelly and a head pat.
“Are you okay?” Izuku asked—returning the favour.
Eraser laughed before ruffling his hair—almost on cue. “I’m a hero, kid. This is my job.”
“I’m a vigilante—I made it my job.”
“Unpaid labour.” Eraser mumbled.
“I don’t want to get paid. I don’t deserve it.” Fox’s legs swayed in the wind again. Moved against his control. He was Fox to make up for the years he spent doing nothing. The years he spent idle. “I don’t even really want popularity—I just want to do good. People like me now, and it’s weird.”
“Yes, well, you did make the number two temporarily lose his job.” Eraser pointed out.
“Is it bad I don’t feel bad about that?” He asked. No matter what he did or how many posts he read of people defending Endeavour—he just couldn’t get himself to feel a hint of remorse. Endeavour made his own bed after all—he could lie in it.
“No, that man has been needing someone to bring him back down to earth for years.”
Fox focused his hearing. Listening in on the patting of the hero’s heart. Listening to how he was going to react. “Is he going to get his license back?”
“Most likely.” No jump in his heart. So he wasn’t lying then. A frown came to his face despite his willing to keep it away. The logical solution was that, of course he would get his license back. Endeavour was the number two hero—for every person slandering him to the high heavens there would always be another defending them with everything they had. Nothing he did to the man would make his expulsion last forever. Endeavour knows how to follow the rules to the right people’s faces.
“Then did I really do anything?” He lamented.
“You’ve done more than anyone else.” Eraser jabbed Fox’s chest with his finger—emphasising his words as he spoke. “You got it onto people’s radar—you got him to answer for his own actions. No matter how little time he spends doing that. What you did matters, Fox.”
“I’d love someone like you in my class.” Eraser added almost like an afterthought.
“Too bad I’m a criminal.” Fox mumbled. Eraser wouldn’t really want him in his class if he found out that Izuku was one of the nomu. A monster. A brainless killing machine.
“There is the commission president’s offer.” Izuku’s breath hitched in his throat. Of course, Eraser would bring that up—why on earth did he think he wouldn’t bring it up? He’s a hero who just found out the vigilante he was mildly fond of could become a legal hero. Eraser didn’t know how much trouble everyone around him would be in if his identity got out. If Izuku Midoriya was no longer considered dead. His dad would come after people like Eraser first. People who could put up a fight in defending him. Then he’d make him watch as they failed over and over again and he could do nothing to stop them.
Since he couldn’t tell Eraser all of that—Fox took a breath before he said, “I can’t turn myself in.”
“UA is willing to take you in as a ward.” Eraser argued. “The commission just wants you off the streets so people stop idolising a vigilante, but we can protect you.”
“Protect me?” Izuku spat out with the most ungrateful tone he could muster. No one could protect him. He had to protect others at his own expense—he didn’t need protecting. He couldn’t even die.
“From your parents, from whoever you’ve made friends with in the underground.”
“I don’t have any friends in the underground.” Izuku got out through gritted teeth.
“Acquaintances, people you’ve stolen for.” Eraser corrected himself. Fox bit the inside of his cheek and felt it regrow a few times before he spoke again. He knew what the hero was talking about—he just didn’t want to think about it.
“You know about Giran?” Fox asked with all the guilt of a cold-hearted criminal.
Eraser only sighed. “Sneaking into the Shie Hassaki is dangerous, problem child. Everything you do is dangerous.”
“I was fine.”
“Yes, because of your miraculous healing quirk—but can it get you back from anything, Fox?” Yes! He held himself back from screaming that yes—his healing could get him back from anything and everything. From getting his limbs ripped off and burned off from an explosion he himself set to stabbing himself in the heart over and over—nothing could kill him. Nothing that’s done to him could affect him for more than a few minutes. None of his pain counts because it’s only for a few moments. Izuku Midoriya couldn’t kill himself if he wanted to.
He didn’t say that, however. He didn’t do anything to raise anymore questions. Just turns his head away from him with a frown, dead set on the space below his mask.
“I can’t turn myself in.” Fox grasped the hero’s hand to stop him from placing it on his shoulder. One step forward, two steps back. “Not yet.” He dropped the man’s hand to his side.
“I get that.” Eraser sighed before his joints clicked as he stood up. “The offer is always open.”
“Just be careful with people like Giran.” He missed Eraser’s hand the first time but eventually could catch it and use it to help him stand up. “You’re a kid, I don’t want people taking advantage of that.”
Izuku nodded before jumping off the rooftop. Fox was needed—loved or loathed, he saved people. That was what he was made for. Not to be a hero or a shining virtue of goodness. He’s someone who did whatever he could to save people while he stole to keep on breathing. Something he didn’t even want to do in the first place.
He took another breath and waited for Eraser to catch up. These days, Izuku didn’t even know if he would let himself die if he could. No time to dwell on impossibilities—after all, he made a promise.
Eraser and he plunged back into a rhythm. Find someone—save them—Eraser deals with the police as Fox tries to find someone else or mills about. It’s something they’ve done hundreds of times since Fox started this months ago. He’s gone from unknown to hated to almost admired, and it still felt like his first night sometimes. Like he still thought Eraserhead was going to come around the corner and turn off his quirk until he was a screaming pile of nothing. Then, Eraser would put his hand on Fox’s shoulder and ask if he was alright while his body made all of his injuries gone in a snap.
No matter what Eraser didn’t know and no matter how much he pushed Fox to do the right thing and go legal—Izuku still cared about him. That was one of the first mistakes he had made. Let himself get caught in some kind of mentor relationship. Now Eraser was on Izuku’s keep close enough to protect list. He just had to wish that if the day ever came he did have to protect him—Eraser would take Shinsou and run as far as he could in the opposite direction.