Deku doesn't remember his first death.
The thing is – most people don't remember any death because they stay dead.
Deku keeps waking up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Most people don't have a second death, or a ninth, and most certainly not rattling up a good three hundred before even turning fifteen - but most people also don't spend an afternoon throwing themselves off a cliff because limits.
The ocean erases any trace of the splatter afterwards as he sits woozily on a rock with a bottle of dark soda and feeling like he'd lost something but unable to pin-point what.
He's twelve when he realises, from notes and scribbles and an unsteady conversation with the vigilante Stain who speaks with him as if they've met before, that dying picks at his brain – erasing bits and pieces of his memories like a badly-made patchwork.
At that point it's already too late – whatever he'd been before he was Deku is completely gone, erased cleanly from his mind with only a vague idea of a woman who'd meant something.
He starts keeping notebooks obsessively after that – notes on villains and heroes intermixing with memories and thoughts and detailed lists of encounters and a tally of his deaths clamouring at the back of his current one, carefully copied from notebook to notebook with a growing number at the top and tally marks beginning anew below it.
His reputation as a vigilante is a messy-one painted in clumsy blood-splatters on cars, doors, walls, floors – exploded and scattered, dripping long-trails down empty streets and he is, infamously, often sighted waking up in dumpsters and climbing out come morning to befuddled and horrified looks from civilians out during their morning routines.
Deku tilts his head as he considers the Wanted Poster of himself that had arrived with the morning newspaper – lingers on the All Might hoodie he'd been caught in while hustling a box of kittens out of a burning building coupled with the cute bunny mask he'd picked up at a carnival years ago. On his back is the metal bat that has become synonymous with his vigilante name.
There's little information other than the picture – just the word BUNNY written in lack of other identity and speculations of his healing quirk.
Healing. Deku supposes if death counts as the trigger it could be thought of that way.
As if to compensate for the fact that his body could drag itself back together from death any normal wound wouldn't heal. Even something small as a papercut. It would reach the point where it was just easier to put a gun to his mouth and bear the agony of being puzzled back together.
He tucks the wanted poster into the back of his Hero Analysis for the Future, making a note of its number before shrugging his backpack on and scaling his way down the building.
For as long as Deku can remember he's been on the streets.
It has no beginning – memories long-gone – but he's determined to make sure it has an end. It's a long and arduous task in the making. He learns how to count before he learns how to read but once he can he devours.
The whole vigilante thing – it's an accidental side-business started too early but what was he supposed to do? Ignore someone about to be shot when it was as easy as a side-step to take the bone bullet and live? And then just stand there and watch the villain take aim a second time when he had a perfectly throwable knife?
The police had been unimpressed by his reasoning and he hadn't stuck around long to hear them out.
Most of his business is small – favours in exchange for money, knowledge and food. He picks up new skills at the library and he's always been a quick study and people knows lots of interesting stuff that they don't mind sharing while he works.
He might know much about geography but he knows how to build a radio from scratch and that is infinitely handier he decides just a tad desperately.
Back on the street he shoves his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie to hide the taped fingers and hunches his neck to hide the stitches peeking up from an altercation earlier that month as he melts into the crowd. His red shoes are just a tad too scruffy and the Present Mic hoodie is made for a grown man and not an undersized fourteen-year-old but he'd scrubbed his face clean and he's got an All Might cap pulled low hiding the large white patch covering the fleshy wound on his scalp.
He looks like a nerdy delinquent but it's better than the half-zombie look he's got going for himself.
He relives a grouchy middle-age woman of a pair of rice balls when she's busy yelling at her son through her phone and a half-finished latte from a café before it could be swept away by the waitress before steering away from the busy streets.
He ends up on the edge of a low bridge, munching on the rice and sipping his latte while perusing a book on trains he'd gotten from a tiny old lady after he'd helped her clean out her garage.
"What this?" The voice is wet and gurgling and Deku looks up, meeting the enormous brown eye of a blob of slime as it peers at him. "A flesh suit?" Its voice echoes strangely. "How convenient."
Deku has died in many ways but drowning is new and he doesn't like it.
The sludge monster shoves itself through his mouth and nose and down his throat until he feels bloated and wrong and his body tries to throw-up, tries to rid of the nauseous liquid but failing as he gags and coughs and claws without use while the villain hushes him gently, says it'll soon be over, he just need to be still for a moment and it will all be over soon baby, please, you have to trust me-
He doesn't die.
Deku knows because when he comes to, vomiting all over the shoes of the country's number one hero, his scalp is still itching and something in his throat has definitely torn because coughing sucks.
All Might watches him keenly, crouched down, two bottles of scooped villain on the ground beside him, and Deku wipes at his mouth with a grimace.
"Are you alright, shounen?"
Deku stares at him – at the man he's seen on television screens and large posters but never dared to think he'd see in real life.
All Might is huge. Too tall, his body broad and muscled enough to make a regular sized man look like a child. His thigh alone is broader than Deku's entire body and that's – wow. The iconic hair makes the floppy bunny-like ears on his cap look sad and the intensity of the blue eye staring down at him makes him want to shrink away.
This is a Hero.
"I'm- I'm fine." Deku coughs, swallowing the mix of blood and sludge instead of spitting it out like he wants to. "Thank you for saving me." He very determinedly doesn't look down at the vomit on the ground and on All Might's shoes because nope.
There's a bubble of questions in his throat – an urge to reach out because All Might stands for everything that is good in the world but Deku is little more than a speck of dirt in the large picture.
He'd dreamt of being like this man and faced with the reality he feels foolish and undeserving of the hand that clasps his and the broad grin of the Symbol of Peace as he pulls him up and places him on his feet as easy as one might pick up a kitten.
"You should head to the hospital," All Might says seriously, bending closer, and Deku smiles a very fake smile and lies as he promises to do so.
He's left with a signed notebook, a belly coated in sludge and a strange ache in his chest as stares into the mouth of his gun, unable to pull it.
All Might had saved his life.
What a strange thing to do.
Deku doesn't take the train that often.
It's filed under unnecessary expanses which is a thing when you live on the streets and are starving more days than you're not.
Occasionally he gets the odd train pass as payment, often just with a week or so left, sometimes only a day or two. One memorable winter he'd gotten enough to for nearly two months from a young mother who'd been overly grateful for his assistance with her ex-husband who'd been bad.
It's an old story on the streets.
Deku isn't partial to trains one way or the other. It's nifty when he's in a hurry but he's never in a hurry so it becomes a moot point and at most he uses it to pass time or escape from the cold during winter months.
That's before he turns thirteen and he spends a sleepless night riding the train to nowhere when he stumbles inside.
Eraserhead.
Underground Pro Hero.
Always asleep – zipped up in a yellow sleeping bag that makes him look like a caterpillar. Scruffy, hair long and soft looking with a thick wrap of something Deku hesitates to call scarf because there's purpose to it and its stained red more often than not, always deliberate as if it had wrapped around someone rather than the blood splatters that might have been.
Deku knows Eraserhead by rumours but if it wasn't for the yellow googles half-hidden by the scarf around his neck he never would have picked up on it.
And –
He falls asleep, watching him under the brim of his cap.
And the next time he seeks the man out he does the same.
He tries not to make a habit of it, tries not to draw attention to it, and it helps when months pass between their meetings and both are always beyond exhausted.
Deku doesn't necessarily cultivate contacts with villains but some of them are really grateful to have a helping hand in something simple as picking up groceries and Deku –
Deku is hungry more days than he's not.
Among them Kurogiri is probably his favourite.
The man is always polite, always pays handsomely, and Deku is sure he's slowly wearing him down on the whole being a minor thing regarding the alcohol in the drinks he occasionally makes for Deku when his boss isn't about.
Kurogiri had even once made him soba.
From scratch.
Kurogiri is awesome and his quirk is downright fascinating. It had its drawbacks, of course, looking like purple mist when you're a villain plotting… something. Deku hears the name All Might and he hears the name Shigaraki Tomura and Deku really wonders about the sanity of anyone who wants to go toe-to-toe with the Symbol of Peace himself because really.
How someone has logical as Kurogiri had gotten himself involved in the whole thing Deku didn't for the life of him understand but he wasn't about to stick his nose in the clearly suicidal mission thing they had going for them.
As far as the world is concerned the street kid Deku is quirkless and he quite prefers it that way, thank you very much.
It did mean that people tended to regard him as lesser but it also meant that people didn't think him very capable of anything, really, so he was barely spared a glance from the villains at the bar as he inched his way inside loaded with eight bags of groceries.
"Yo, Kurogiri-san!" He grinned at the handsomely dressed man behind the bar. "Want me to put them in the backroom as usual?"
"It's the middle of October, you should be wearing a jacket," Kurogiri says disapprovingly as he steps around the counter, one misty hand fishing for the key to the backroom as Deku sidles up carefully beside him.
"It's not that cold," he says noncommittally. "I got that ice cream you wanted but man, it's popular right now! It wasn't until the third store I found it." He drops the groceries to the floor and begins unpacking with easy familiarity as Kurogiri steps back into the bar at the call of his name.
Once done he folds the plastic bags the way Kurogiri likes it and places them carefully in the bottom drawer before trotting to the bar and claiming his seat as the man slides a blue bubbly thing towards him before placing down a gathering of notes that Deku carefully pockets.
"Anything new?" he asks curiously as he takes a sip, feeling the back burn of a small shot of alcohol and leaning his chin into the palm of his hand with a little grin to the man.
It's gossip, Deku admits it, but Kurogiri is always so damn well informed and occasionally he has small favours from the odd villain or vigilante that frequents his bar and he likes it.
Kurogiri is the closest thing he has to a friend and he might be a villain but he's something familiar and he makes his chest less achy and it's easier to smile the days after their meetings.
Sometimes, on days that are bad, Deku dreams of Kurogiri holding him.
It always leaves him feeling strangely empty as he scrubs sleep from his eyes.
Kurigiri's voice is smooth and Deku hangs onto his words, occasionally interjecting and perking up when the topic of quirks is brought up and they get into a feverish discussion of the Pro Hero Midnight who can produce a sleep-inducing aroma which is just fascinating.
He gets a jacket dropped onto his shoulders from a brush of mist that might have been a squeeze to his arm when he's out the door and Deku pulls it tight and breathes in the smell of brimstone when he wiggles into his sleeping bag that night.
Deku doesn't interact with other teenagers or children. He's said maybe two or three sentences in total to someone under the age of sixteen in his entire life.
Which is why he's entirely caught off guard by the tiny fist grabbing onto his shorts and the tears streaming down little cheeks and oh god what is he supposed to do with this and its crying-
"A-are you a friend of All Might?" it sniffles and oh.
Alright, so wearing All Might regalia from top to toe might have been a bit overkill but he'd found an entire abandoned bag of stuff and he hadn't been able to help himself.
He looks like a really bad cosplayer in the bunny-eared cap and the hoodie and training pants that are a copy of the man's Silver Age costume and he's got a t-shirt under it with a grinning All Might making a thumb's up (and he'll never admit it out loud but the All Might boxers are amazing).
There had even been socks.
"Uh, yeah" he says elegantly. "Did you – lose your parents?" he asks awkwardly.
It shakes its head and – more tears and a snotty inhalation that makes him twitch.
"Siblings?" he ventures.
"Nee-chan," it agrees.
It really is tiny – hair green, one loopy thing done with its hair, the other half of its hair really messy and there's sticks and leaves and scraped knees and – its familiar. Somehow. Large eyes and an early onset of a quirk, he suspects, in the shape of its features. Amphibian – maybe. Mom or dad? Both? Quirk combinations could be so interesting and-
A loud sniffle jerks him back to reality.
Somehow he ends up with the tiny girl on a park bench, carefully cleaning and bandaging up a knee and then a palm before placing a dinosaur patterned band aid on the small scratch on her forehead and then he's carrying her on his shoulders because she said it was the correct way to look for someone and by All Might if he drops her he'll never forgive himself –
She says her name is Satsuki and her family are basically frogs which is awesome and her sister could do what now?
He buys her ice cream and there's definitively melted pink goo on his shoulder but he's rather more worried by the fact that it's getting dark and he's clearly doing something wrong because there's no sister in sight and he's getting just a bit panicked about it when he nearly walks smack dab into Mt. Lady which - lucky!
The woman is out of her hero costume, wearing a neat white button-up shirt and black slacks with a bag of groceries in her arms, hair tied up in a loose ponytail, and she's surprised to be recognised by him and then delighted.
"So you saw my debut, hm?" Her smile is just a tad too wide and just a bit smug but her eyes are studying the features of the sleeping girl he's got awkwardly cradled in his arms after she'd nearly tipped off his shoulders when dropping into a dead-sleep from exhaustion.
He'd managed to get his hoodie over her head and she's stopped shivering but it's nearly nine and he feels strangely responsible for the tiny creature who'd asked for his help.
It's weird to see Hero's out of costume, he decides, as Mt. Lady tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "We don't know for how long she was missing before she found you and that was two hours ago you said?" He nods, shifting her lax body.
Mt. Lady tells him to go to the police.
He has no idea where that is.
She tells him to use his phone.
He awkwardly admits he doesn't have one.
"What teenager doesn't own a phone?" she asks in disbelief as she takes the lead and yeah. He doesn't really know how to answer that and awkwardly laughs it off.
They end up discussing her quirk because information directly from the source and whoa -
His fingers are itching to write it all down - confirmations and potentials and what-ifs and could-dos and she's laughing as he nearly stumbles over himself in his eagerness.
"I didn't know I had such a big fan!"
And – Deku likes all Hero's.
He studies them obsessively, turning their quirks inside and out, rewinding and watching footage until it practically loops through his brain and Gigantification is awesome because it works well as both a disaster relief and offensively against villains as long as she has space and had she ever considered using a weapon for close combat in buildings –
"SATSUKI!"
Deku nearly trips at the shout and Mt. Lady jerks in surprise as they both turn to look towards the police station where there is two frog-like parents and what are the odds of that and –
There's a girl who is – his age? – and the girl in his arms is awake and there's tears and he did not sign up for this-
The girl gets swept up and it feels strange – the loss of her weight from his arms.
He lingers awkwardly by Mt. Lady who'd looped her arms through his when he'd tried to escape and it's so weird to watch the… family reunion… thing when he wants nothing more than to dodge away because this is so not his area.
They're a cute gathering of quirks, he decides, feeling something at the feel of Mt. Lady's arm against his arm – her warmth and the smell of something flowery by her neck and ears. They all have the same frog-like characteristics but still, differently, somehow.
"You did good," Mt. Lady tells him quietly. "Very Hero like," she winks at him and haha yeah not this is not his thing and who is he trying to kid-?
"Thank you." It's the sister and he blinks at her in surprise. "There was a villain attack and we were separated and I couldn't find her afterwards, kero."
Deku dies a bit on the inside because by All Might that's adorable.
It makes him think of the Chief of Police who ends his sentences with wan because he's a dog and he occasionally sees a cat in the ranks under the truth detector detective and he desperately wants to know if he nyans because the cuteness might end him.
Deku doesn't particularly like humans or get along with them all that much but he loves animals and mutant quirks are his favourite quirks hands down.
Gang Orca is a damn Killer Whale and he loves it.
What he wouldn't have done for, like, a bunny quirk.
Although, he'd probably be dead considering he's ranked up a good three hundred something deaths by now but he'd die adorably because bunny.
"You're welcome," he responds awkwardly. "I'm glad she's, uh, home." He rubs at his arm, determinedly looking anywhere but at her and – she cranes her head into his field of vision and her eyes are strangely intense in their consideration.
"My name is Asui Tsuyu, kero"
"… Deku," he mumbles and – they're both staring at him, Hero and girl, and he feels his face darkening because he knows his name means useless but it's the best he got and it's the one thing he can't get himself to lie about.
The name Deku is all he has from Before.
"You can call me Tsu, Midori-chan."
Deku sleeps where he can, moving often to avoid drawing attention to himself.
He's fourteen and his quirk is only good to bringing him back from the dead which means that he has to die for it to be of any use. There's no super strength or hardy skin or flames shooting out of his hands.
There's just him and there's a vulnerability in that that he's well familiar with.
And, occasionally, there are men and women who don't want to kill but who wants to hurt.
He's sobbing long before the man forces himself into him and he's guided between spread legs with manicured nails digging into his scalp.
Dying doesn't hurt.
It's waking up that does.
No one ever expects a corpse to come back to life and Deku is screaming long before the metal bat shatters teeth and bones, pleading falling to deaf ears.
The patch on his head healed up so there's that.
Having a hand-print sized fleshy hole had become a bit bothersome with the cold, admittedly.
Deku shaves hair short to make sure it grows out properly and steals himself a Thirteen themed space beanie because it's cold.
He makes the same excuse for the gloves and the scarf.
He sits hunched in his down jacket on the roof of a school, simply watching the stars above him, hands in his pocket, legs dangling.
He can't sleep.
The feeling of wrong won't go away and he's scratched his arms raw and bloody during a bout of mania that had ended with him having to bolt from a plump woman who'd looked far too panicked at the sight of him and –
He can't sleep.
His mind keeps circulating, fixating, repeating the bad until he forgets what's good.
The hamburger he'd gotten out of the trash two days ago had spoiled and he's still shaking from vomiting and sweating the night through.
He stares at the stars.
Bright again the dark sky, untouched by humanity.
And –
Something is wrapping around his arms and torso and –
He looks down at something that is familiar yet unfamiliar because it doesn't make sense for it to loop around his body because he isn't Bunny he's Deku and Deku is just a quirkless nobody-
The Hero takes a seat beside him, mirroring his position, head tilting just enough to watch the stars while being able to keep an eye on him from the corner of his eyes.
"What's your name?"
Deku stares at him, something helpless in his chest.
"I don't know what brought you up here," the Underground Hero says when he doesn't respond, "but it can't be worth your life."
Deku wonders if throwing himself off the roof enough times might make him forget it.
Wonders if dying isn't worth it if he can get rid of the phantom feel of hands and lips and pain where there isn't supposed to be pain and –
"Hey."
Deku twitches at the hand that covers his, loosening the hold of angry nails digging deep into the skin of his already ruined wrists and –
Oh, he must look miserable, he thinks and –
He feels. Ashamed. And. He's tired.
So
So
Tired.
It's a physical ache. A stone in his chest, a crawling in his skin, a tenseness in his jaw that won't relax.
"I can't sleep," he tells the Pro Hero, voice empty and eyes dark and a twist of his lips that lacks humour. "I can't-" but he can't tell because he'd killed them and he hunches his shoulders forward, as best as he can in the weapon wrapped snuggly around his body. "I can't sleep," he repeats, staring at his red sneakers and the ground beneath him.
"Would it help if I stayed?"
Deku jerks, eyes wide on the Pro Hero who meets his eyes with steadiness, the bags beneath his eyes nearly as dark as Deku's own.
And – the man must know he's homeless, he realises, heart pounding and abject fear twisting inside of him.
"You won't turn me in?" The words tumbles from his mouth, muscles bunching against the capture weapon and he'd rather diethanevergobackthereagain-
"No," Eraserhead says simply, face never changing.
Deku doesn't remember it, not really, but the idea fills him with such terror that he doesn't want to know.
"I know your kind," Eraserhead says with wryness. "I turn you in and you'll be back on the streets before the end of the week."
Deku finds himself in a yellow sleeping bag that smells of iron and brimstone and something human and unfamiliar.
He falls asleep to the sight of the Pro Hero's back.
He gets to keep the sleeping bag.
The knife tears through the globe of his eye as he dodges down, spinning as his grip on the bat tightens and he swings it violently upwards where it collides hard with the man's jaw and someone is screaming and the oldest child is dead and the mother is dying and the man is laughing.
Deku spends nearly an hour on the bin outside, the howl of the youngest girl ringing through his ears and the sound of sirens a distant thing in the distance.
Humanity is an ugly thing, he thinks.
He's folded over a book on amphibians at the shopping mall where it's warm and not snowing when a hand on his shoulder nearly startles him right out of his skin and he wrenches out of its hold while twisting around and –
"Hello, Midori-chan."
"Asui-san." He feels his cheeks heat up at the tilt of her head and the little crease of her brow. "You startled me."
Instead of leaving, like any normal person would do at the sight of a homeless teen in severe need of a bath, she slides into the spot beside him which what.
He stares at her, feeling rather self-conscious about the odd stains on his Present Mic hoodie and the large patch over his left eye and he reeks (because washing in a frozen pond is not fun) but she doesn't say anything as he cranes her head to look at the book he's reading and –
Deku makes a noise as he slams a palm over the grinning frog on the front of it.
"I'm – I'm just, I got it and it's interesting." He flushes. "What are you doing here?"
She croaks, a noise that sounds suspiciously tinged with amused, "I'm buying Christmas presents for my siblings, kero."
He blinks at her.
She's wearing a school uniform with a thick winter coat open over it, a scarf wrapped twice around her neck despite being inside and loosened just enough to hang loose over her chest. The hat on her head has a little frog on it and a green fuzzy ball at the top that tilts with her head.
She considers him as he shifts nervously.
"Would you like to join me?"
Normally he gets chased out of stores pretty quickly – well recognised by the guards who are fine with him as long as he's keeping his nose away from anything expensive.
The anxiousness slowly fades as he follows at the heel of Asui (call me Tsu), unable to help himself from stroking a finger over the gleaming toy trains and cars and squeaking at the sight of the Hero shelf.
"Look! Look! It's Mt. Lady!" He makes an excited noise as he grabs for the small figurine, wide-eyed. "These are really well made," he murmurs, turning it so and so.
"She's the one who helped you with Suki-chan," Asui observes over his shoulder. "I didn't recognise her at first outside her Hero uniform, kero."
"Yeah." He reverently puts it back. "I'm glad I ran into her – I was getting rather panicked." He laughs nervously, scratching at the growing scruff at his neck.
"Suki-chan said you were very kind and that you bought her ice cream, kero." Asui picks a dinosaur from the shelf below. "I'm glad she ran into you."
Deku lets his hand fall because –
He understands.
The streets are bad, humans are ugly and it could have gone very differently had he been someone else.
Villains were getting more and more common these days and Stain was eradicating Hero's with a terrifying efficiency, the drawback being that those that remained hesitated to patrol the shoddier districts which was not good.
If it wasn't for Underground Hero's like Eraserhead –
A hand prevents him from scratching at the bandages around his wrist and her eyes are. Somehow. Understanding.
She buys him hot chocolate with fluffy little cloud like things and when she prepares to leave she pushes a small package into his hands and wishes him a Merry Christmas.
Inside is a small Mt. Lady keyring.
He hangs it on his backpack.
Kurogiri sends a man out for him a week before Christmas and there's something off about the whole thing but Deku doesn't dare to say anything, grinning and drinking his drink as usual after dropping off the groceries and trying desperately to ignore the creepy dude with a hand over his face just sitting there.
Like it was normal.
"Shigaraki Tomura." Deku has known Kurogiri long enough to pick up on the respect in his voice. "This is Deku – the boy I have been telling you about."
Deku forgets how to breathe because what.
Kurogiri looks at him and maybe he's trying to be comforting or maybe it's just wishful thinking but he thinks the fog brushes against his hands for just a moment when the man reaches out to refill his drink.
"Oh?" And – Deku doesn't want to be there, wants out, and he feels the hair on his arms rise when a single red eye glances towards him. "The boy who does Quirk Analyses."
He swallows, forcing his hand not to tremble as he raises his glass to his mouth for a big gulp and the alcohol burns.
He doesn't look at Kurogiri as he swallows another desperately.
"It's just a hobby," he aims for something light, isn't sure he manages as he shifts - trying to shrink on himself without making it obvious. "Guesswork."
Shigaraki stares at him, far longer than is polite, and Deku swallows more and more of the alcohol in a desperate attempt to stave off the wretched gnawing in his stomach because the man is smiling and –
There is a gun pointing between his eyes and –
He's dead. And then he's not. And there's a hand tugging the bandage away from his newly healed eye and a red eye far too close and rabbit panic beating his heart.
"Oh don't worry Bunny-chan," Shigaraki Tomura says gently. "We'll find some use for you."
Deku decides he doesn't like Kurogiri anymore.
It's a decision made somewhere around his ninth death on a Monday morning, Shigaraki Tomura grinning far too widely as his dusted body builds itself together from heart to bones to flesh to skin and mind such a mess that he hardly remembers who he's supposed to be.
Deku?
Bunny.
Deku?
Bunny.
Izuku…?
Bunny.
Bunny stares blankly down at the man – words spoken as through water, the world filtering strangely through his mind as he twists the arm until it breaks and he must have died because nothing is making sense and –
The man is Eraserhead.
He thinks of trains.
It makes him smile as his head droops down, mask pressing into the shoulder blades of the man as he giggles, muscles bunching beneath him.
And then All Might is there.
And Shigaraki is reallyreallyangryandBunnydoesn'twanttoplayanymore.
All Might is even angrier.
It feels wrong.
"Why isn't he smiling?" he asks Eraserhead helplessly. "He's supposed to be smiling. He always smiles. Why isn't he-"
"Because children have been hurt," Eraserhead tells him heavily and Bunny doesn't understand.
He stares at the black fabric, at the soft looking scarf, sees yellow where there is only dirt and the rattle of moving carriages where there is only violence.
"You look like a caterpillar when you sleep," he tells the Hero, vision hollowing strangely around him. "A caterpillar taking the train-"
Eraserhead's eyes widen and –
There's a shout –
But Bunny isn't there anymore, he's being shot and it tears through his arms and legs and he lands hard on his back, mask cracking from a bullet in the middle of his forehead and eyes large and empty when Kurogiri glances back, for just a second, before pulling Shigaraki Tomura through the Warp Gate and closing it behind him with finality.
.
.
.
.
.
Welcome to this fun train ride!
Am I capable of writing happy stuff? I'll have to get back to you on that.
Self-indulgent as fuck, as usual. It's meant to be focused on Izuku and adults first and classmates second because I have needs.
But Asui sorta slipped in there like the agile ninja frog that she is so it'll probably end up fairly evenly, knowing me.
I smell cuddles in the future
Since ffnet lack the AO3 tagging system I'll say this: Izuku is trans and bisexual. I also have an uncanny way of looking at intimacy but if you've read other things from me you'll know what to expect. I tend to handle heavy topics and this is no different.
As usual, comments are free-reign, I'm open for all sorts of discussions and thought and... stuff. All feedback is fun feedback and if you catch any mistakes or such or have questions don't hesitate to let me know!
ALSO: Midori means green in Japanese, hence Asui's nick for Midoriya, to clarify. I promise she wasn't going psychic all of a sudden. Added it to the top notes to clarify.
This is crossposted on AO3, you'll find me under the same username and all.
Cheers!