The sun is heading down by the time Izuku unlocks the front door, but he's alone in the apartment. He needs to be alone right now.

Leaving his shoes at the door and his folded uniform and backpack on the couch, he sighs. And as he moves through the unnaturally cold rooms, he stops before he can open his door.

Inko's room, the door is open. She must not have closed it…

Curiosity fueled by something Izuku doesn't understand pushes him forward, and he makes up his mind.

She's always hiding things from him, doesn't he deserve some answers?

He pushes the door open, entering a room he hasn't been in for… he can't even remember. He hasn't been in here since the move.

The smell should be familiar, but it just feels cold. He looks around, trying to figure out what drew him here.

Turning around, something on the desk catches his attention.

"Paperwork" is scrawled on the manila folder in his mother's handwriting, but something about it seems off. Like it doesn't belong there. Stepping forward, he opened the folder and immediately stumbled backward.

Staring back up at him is his own photograph, back when he was just a kid. He must have been only eight in it, even though the mottled greys are all he can see, he can tell that his eyes still held color.

He still had hopes and dreams. He was normal.

Forcing himself to step back up, he turned the photograph over, only to feel like he should have stayed back when he read the next header, then a mass of legalese. But what it boiled down to was simple.

Project Bloodlines Permissions

Parent Signature:

Midoriya Hisashi

The signature looked… wrong somehow. As if it had been written too carefully, too slowly. Izuku's heart dropped when he saw the second signature and he understood what was wrong.

Parent Signature:

Midoriya Inko

The two signatures were nearly identical. One of them had to be a forgery. And since his father had left two years before the paperwork was signed...

Inko had… she had signed him into the program without letting his dad know? She had put him through this, hoping he would get a quirk, even after she had let his dreams be crushed back when he was only five? Did she care about him, or only about the possible quirk?

Had she known what they planned for him?

...did she care?

Izuku's breathing was erratic, and he broke into a cold sweat.

Had she ever cared?

Taking the folder in hand, he turned to leave, but something else caught his eye.

A box is hidden behind the desk, but the fact that it's hidden isn't what catches his attention.

It's what's inside it.

Letters. Packages. Hundreds of letters.

He set the folder back on the desk and kneeled down. And when he leans in closer, pulls back the flaps of the box, his heart all but stops in his chest.

Every single letter is addressed to him. Not to his alias, not to his po box in Hosu, but to him.

His real name, his address.

With shaking fingers, he picks up the one on top, dated only a few days ago and he tears open the envelope.

Izuku,

I know you haven't responded to any of these, but I've got to try, right?

I saw on the hero school forums that you made it into UA! I'm so proud of you! I know, an old man like me still reads hero forums? Don't remind me, hah!

I wish I could be there to congratulate you in person, but your mother…

I don't know how much she tells you about me, but I'm working at Hosu University now, teaching Quirk History.

It's a little weird having all those kids calling me 'professor,' but I'm getting used to it-

Izuku dropped the letter, his chest hurting from some suppressed feeling. He dug down in the box, finding an older envelope, and he pulls out its letter.

Hey Izuku!

It's me, your dad, duh, again.

...I know you probably don't want to hear from me, I've said the same thing so many times, but I'm sorry.

You're what, eight now? And I haven't been there for any of it…

I could have been, but it was all my own fault. I'm sorry-

Another letter, even older, this one is water-stained, the paper wrinkled and bunched in places. He touched the paper lightly, it felt crisp with age and yellowed at the edges. From the date, it's only a few days after his father had left. He can almost feel the regret embedded in the paper fibers.

Izuku.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I never should have said that to you.

I never should have thought it!

I know you probably don't want to hear from me, and that's okay.

I know I'm a bad dad, and you don't have to write back.

I'm so sorry.

You're not a burden, you're my son, and I love you!

You're not useless just because you're quirkless, you're amazing, you're brave, and you never even thought of giving up on being a hero

Izuku, I'm so sorry, you're the best thing that ever happened to me, you're the reason I pushed myself to finish college, to find a better job, I just wanted to give you a better life, and I threw it all away.

You're not a burden, Izuku. Please, never forget that.

You can remember me as a bad dad, whatever you want, but always remember that you're amazing.

You don't need a quirk to be a hero.

-- dad, Hisashi

Izuku dropped the letter into his lap, unable to move from where he was kneeling.

All this time… his father had been apologizing, had been trying to keep in contact, and Inko had just… never told him.

Those letters are more effort than Inko had ever put into mending their relationship.

His chest hurts, a pain he's never felt before. It's icy, and it's as if it's carving out his heart.

Despair.

His shoulders heave with dry sobs, and he clamps a hand over his mouth as he blinks rapidly, the phantom pain of tears carving down his cheeks.

The agony of what could have been.

Izuku knows he shouldn't be on the streets this late, but he can't sleep, and the coffee in his hands isn't helping.

After what he found, he needs... something, he just doesn't know what.

Answers. He needs answers to any question.

His world has been flipped off of its axis and revolves around a new sun, he just needs something to make sense again!

Ducking his head as the streetlights click on, he crosses the street, stopping outside the gate of the house across from the apartment complex. Keeping a wary eye on his surroundings, Izuku pushed open the gate and headed to the front door.

The person inside was still awake, their surface thoughts on an odd language randomly interrupted by Japanese. He caught a few words, yakuza, conspiracy, town full of villains, and a troubling cat, between what was sounding more and more like Russian.

This was irrational and frankly, stupid, but he had to know the answer to the mystery of the cat. Something needed to be explained.

With a glance behind him, Izuku knocked on the door, trying his best to not dent the metal. Okay, who has a metal door and is doing good things? Was this man a mobster? A Russian gangster?

"Zdravstvuyte?" A dark shadowed eclipsed all light from the house, a massive man with an impassive face looking down at Izuku. The man answering the door blinks, correcting himself, "oh. Hello?" Ty che blyad?

Izuku stared up at the man, marveling slightly at their sheer size before he cleared his throat. "What's the deal with your cat?"

Koshka? Taking a moment to process Izuku's question, the man froze. "Oh, Behemoth?" The man laughs, a knowing look in his eyes. "I've been expecting you to come ask about him." The man stepped aside, letting the massive cat step past him and out the door. "He's been watching you for a while," he said, and Izuku didn't know who he was talking to, and if he was talking about the cat, or about him. The man closed the door once the cat was inside, and his thoughts moved away from the door, deeper into the house.

They really didn't care what the two would do while he was gone.

The cat, far too large and with familiar black eyes, climbed onto the high wall and stared down at him. A voice reverberated through Izuku's mind, shaking him to the core.

Ah, the human spawnling.

Izuku whipped his head around, searching for the source of the thoughts. "Wh, wha, was that you?" The thoughts had obviously been directed to him, but he hadn't read them, they had passed through him.

It can hear me. Intriguing.

"You can understand Japanese," Izuku asked, his mind racing. An animal with a Quirk! Just what kind of quirk was it? Was it intelligence enhancing?

But the cat's animalistic mind was almost impossible to search through, and Izuku just gave up, unable to make heads or tails of the nonsense.

I can understand many things. Your human language is far too easy. The cat yawned widely, showing off too many razor-sharp teeth to be natural.

"What's your name?"

What is the point of a name? Once they called me Subject Zeta, that human calls me Behemoth, and I call myself nothing. I simply AM. The Cat narrowed its eyes, fixing Izuku with a quizzical expression. And what of you?

"They called me… Subject Fifteen." Izuku bit his lip, "I call myself Izuku."

Izuku? The Cat gestured with a paw out to the city, then to the apartment complex behind them. And what do they call you?

"They… they call me freak." His eyes slid shut when he thought about all the layers of lies. "And she… calls me monster."

But you are no monster. You and I, we know monsters. The Cat seemed to sigh, and Izuku understood.

JumpStart. Project Bloodlines.

Nedzu, the Cat, himself.

It still affected all of them.

The Cat's tail swished, and it settled back on its haunches. Humans call us things because they fear us. The Cat narrowed its black eyes, you fear me, yes?

"I did… still do?" The Cat was terrifying. It's mind singular, different than a human, different than Nedzu, different than any other he had felt.

Expansive and unnatural. Like gazing into the abyss as it gazed into you.

Fear is natural. Healthy. But don't lose yourself to it. The Cat stood, tapping Izuku's forehead with one massive paw. Your mother returns soon. We will speak again, Izuku.

Izuku watched as the Cat, something much less terrifying than he had once thought, silently dropped down from the wall and sauntered back to the front door of the house, leaning on it until it popped open. The door closed behind it, and Izuku could tell that the cat had simply kicked it closed with a back paw.

An animal with a quirk had been living right under his nose, and he hadn't even noticed it!

Part of him wanted to ask the Cat if it wanted to meet Nedzu, but the thought of a giant cat meeting a giant rat… probably not the best idea.

He turned to leave, remembering what the Cat had said.

His mother would be home soon, and they had a lot to talk about.

Izuku was settled on the couch long before Inko opened the front door. There was only one thing on his mind now. The letters.

The box had been carried into the living room, and he had read a few more of them before the overwhelming regret swept through him. He couldn't keep doing this, it was breaking him.

Hisashi, his father, had been pouring his heart out on the page each and every time, and Izuku couldn't even remember the last time Inko had told him she loved him. Couldn't remember the last time she had thought it.

When the door popped open, Izuku stared ahead of himself, unable to focus on a single point. "Inko, why don't you sit down, we need to talk." He gestured to the other end of the couch, hand trembling.

"Huh, give me a minute," Inko passed him, heading into the kitchen with a bag full of groceries. Enough for a week, and that's it. She never bought more than that.

Izuku didn't wait for Inko to sit before he asked, "...when were you going to tell me that dad was writing?"

"Oh." Inko exited the kitchen stiffly, sitting on the opposite end of the couch, hands clasped in her lap as she looked everywhere but at her son. "You found the letters."

"I found everything," Izuku hissed, slamming his hand onto the folder on the table, splintering the wood underneath the lies. "How did you keep this from me?"

"I thought if you knew… you would tell him," she said quietly, reaching for Izuku's hand, stroking her thumb over the layers of scars on his knuckles.

"Tell him what?"

"About your…" Inko looked away, pulling her hand back and biting her lip. I was trying to protect you!

"Who were you trying to protect, really?" Slowly, he turned to watch Inko from behind his dark lenses. "Me? Or yourself," he asked as if he didn't already know the answer to that question.

She did all of this for herself.

He used to think he understood his mother. Inko was different. She still couldn't bring herself to care about the unnatural thing that wore her son's skin and used his voice like a toy.

"I don't know who you are anymore," Inko began, wringing her hands.

"Did you ever," Izuku spat back, glaring from behind black lenses. His shoulders shook, not with sobs, but with rage.

His fingernails dug into the palm of his hand until thick grey blood began to ooze between his fingers.

You're being careless, Izuku. Inko sighed, her gaze flitting away from her son's hands and landing on his face. She looked away again. Her fingers twisted in the hem of her shirt, worrying the fabric as she continued. "You need to be more careful, okay? If you keep getting hurt like this, someones going to find out and talk about your," Inko lowered her voice, all but whispering now. "Your condition."

"Do you really care," Izuku asked flatly, unable to hide the cringe at Inko's word choice. It wasn't a condition, there was nothing wrong with him. He just wished Inko could see that instead of just feeling sorry for him.

She was the one who let this happen to him! She was the one who signed the paperwork and made him into a monster!

Izuku's hands contracted into fists, his entire body shaking with withheld wrath.

Inko looked at Izuku with a shocked expression undercut with guilt. Her fingers twisted her shirt faster as she looked away from Izuku once again. "Of course I care, you're my son!"

Izuku lowered his head, his hands clawing into the fabric of his pants. The words began spilling out of him, things he had been thinking about ever since the two of them had started to try and repair their relationship. "For the last two years, you just didn't care, I know things are changing, but I don't need you to try and control every bit of my life."

The words, 'I don't need you to help me,' went unsaid, but not unheard, and they hung there, like heavy smoke in the air. Acrid and cloying. He kept his gaze on his knees, shoulders shaking as his throat felt as if he had swallowed a sharp, hot stone, and it was gouging its way down his throat.

"What, Izuku, no." Inko gently took ahold of Izuku's hand once again, but this time Izuku shook her hand off of his own. "Please, just give me a chance to try and help! I don't want you to not trust me to be there for you."

"But do you really want to be there?" Izuku's hands were clenched into tight, shaking fists, and he stood, knees weak and threatening to let him drop to the floor. "You never cared before when I was coming home with a black eye nearly every week." He shook his head, his hair falling over his face as he did. He swallowed, the action painful as he tried to swallow his anguish and anger back down and failed. "You never cared when my nightmares kept me awake every night."

He couldn't stop himself, his bottled resentment finally bubbling over now that the pressure was too much to contain.

"You never cared when I was clawing at my own skin, trying to dig out the monster in me!" Izuku slapped his hand over his heart, memories of blood dripping down his arm and fingertips, skin wedged under his fingernails. "You even got a second job, so you wouldn't have to spend time with me!" His fingers twisted in the material of his shirt, and he swore he could feel the heat of his frustration boiling under his skin. "Why should you care now?!"

Izuku growled, his voice twisting as words he had longed to say flowed out like venom. "Is it because it's public? Is it because villains might have been involved? Tell me, damnit!"

Inko's hands flew up to cover her face, stray tears leaking over her fingers. She couldn't say anything. She couldn't say anything because she knew that Izuku was right. For two years, she had barely cared about her son, only leaving him enough money to keep a stocked kitchen and first aid kit.

She hadn't told him that she loved him for over two years. Maybe it was too late to even try.

Maybe I don't love him anymore.

"Why didn't you care," Izuku repeated, voice quiet and brittle as a dead leaf in the winter. He just wanted an answer to a question he had wanted to ask for two years.

"Izuku, I-" He's right. You've been a terrible mother. Your own son hates you, and he's right to do so.

"...I don't hate you," he whispered, immediately regretting every damn word he had let out of the locked box in the back of his mind. Even if they were all the truth, he regretted it. Izuku took a panicked step back, breath erratic, and his hands pulled at his curly hair. His heart hammered in his chest, and his cheeks burned with shame. "I, I, I'm sor-

Izuku fell silent, unable to force the meaningless apology from his lips. Turning and running down the hallway, he slammed his bedroom door behind him, rattling the doorframe and the walls around it. His back to the door, he slid down it to the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest and pressing his hands over his eyes until they stung with sharp dry pain.

He tried to block it out, but his mother's thoughts still rang in his mind, clear as a bell.

I'm so sorry, Izuku. I'm so sorry.

I wish I could love you the way you deserve. I wish I had loved you in the first place.

He didn't sleep that night.

How could he, after what he had said, screamed, those words at his mother? He wished he hadn't meant it, the words had just come pouring out after being locked away for so long. But instead of trying to apologize, he had run away like a damn coward.

And Inko… she had just gone to bed without a word, her thoughts full of bitter regret as she fell asleep while blaming herself for Izuku's outburst. But Izuku only blamed himself, he had let his emotions fester for far too long.

Sure, Inko wasn't actually trying to fix things, Izuku couldn't help but feel like but was somehow his fault.

As if he wasn't putting in enough effort from his end. Maybe he didn't really want to fix things. Maybe it wasn't something that could be fixed.

He just wished this wasn't as good as it was going to get. Wished he didn't already know what he had to do next.

Izuku stared up through the ceiling, not even able to see the stars with his damned eyes. His covers were pulled up to his chin, but he still felt icy cold down to his bones. With a shiver, he sat up, looking through the wall and watching his mother sleep, breaths even, her dreaming mind free from the worries Izuku had loaded on her less than eight hours ago.

She let herself forget, or maybe she just didn't care enough to remember.

He closed his eyes, hoping he could block out the image that kept replaying over in his mind. His mother's face and her expression of devastated guilt. Izuku wasn't sure he would ever be able to scrub that memory from his mind, no matter how hard he tried.

Couldn't forget how she didn't love him.

Moving from the center of his bed where he sat, he slung his legs over the side, socked feet touching on hardwood flooring, the cold of the concrete and rebar beneath soaking through the wood and into his skin. Stepping forward, he stumbled, his toes catching on the ankle of his other foot, and he caught himself with the corner his desk before he could crash onto the floor and wake Inko from her rest.

He took the blanket from his bed and wrapped it around himself, hoping the thickness of the blanket would maybe keep him warm against his own icy armor.

He would go to the garden, but it doesn't feel right to use it as an escape from this.

Inko doesn't love him. And from the way she thought, she never had.

In the kitchen, Izuku brought a pot of water to a boil, knowing coffee wouldn't give him what he needed right now. He didn't need to sleep.

He just needed to focus. Needed to make a plan. He obviously couldn't live here anymore, but where would he go?

Mindlessly, he went through the motions of making tea, the action driven by muscle memory more than intent.

He settled down on the couch, the springs creaking in protest to his weight. Izuku set the warm metal thermos on the cracked table in front of the couch, small drops of tea running down the surface and staining the cracks. Usually, he would be waking up right about now, but he hadn't even managed to fall asleep in the first place.

Guilt has a way of eating at you.

Leaning back into the couch's overly soft cushions, Izuku tried to clear his head. He had gotten used to falling asleep with fear. Fear was familiar to him, it was sharp against his nerves, a prickling staticky sensation that was uncomfortably warm with spikes of searing heat. But guilt was different; it had a weight to it; it merely pressed down, cold and unrelenting, a smooth surface like glass as it reflected your sins.

Based on how his stomach churned, filled with acid, it really does eat at you.

Izuku gritted his teeth and sat back up straight, standing and taking his tea back to his room. He sat at his desk and picked up a pen and paper.

Dear dad.

Father.

Hisashi.

It's been a long time, hasn't it?