Warnings for this chapter: negative self-talk, the sludge villain doing sludge villain things, a man is naked but nothing pervy i promise, implied/referenced bullying and discrimination

this starts right in medias res so have fun

Izuku's fingers and hands twitch as he walks, making aborted motions towards the pocket his phone is in. He could call his mom, he could call his friends, he could call his mentor, he could call any number of people to come pick him up, he could at least talk to them so he wouldn't have to be alone with his thoughts. His thoughts, which are not nice. His thoughts, which are never nice, which are worse than usual.

"Are you so ashamed of your quirk you'd rather be quirkless!?"

No.

No, he isn't, they don't understand that it's just safer for him this way, even if he is singled out by his classmates, even if he is targeted by them for his refusal to show them his quirk.

They'd hate him even if he showed them his quirk.

Ugh. He shakes his head, the motion growing into a full-body shake, snapping him out of his thoughts. He really needs to pay attention to his surroundings, considering that he hadn't even noticed that he'd made it almost all the way to the tunnel while lost in his thoughts.

Oh, the tunnel. It always makes the back of his neck prickle, walking into it alone. It'd be the perfect place to get murdered, if Musutafu had murderers.

Well, sure, there were probably some, but it was overall a safe area to live.

That's what Izuku tells himself, anyways, as the slime monster bursts out of the sewer. He always knew he was going to get murdered in this tunnel.

"Ah, a medium-sized invisibility cloak!" The slime villain's voice is harsh and crackly, like maybe his vocal cords are made of slime? That's probable, actually. The quirk has to be either a mutation or transformation quirk—Izuku has to hope for the transformation option here, since there's not much he can do with mutations—

He doesn't have time to consider it any further as said slime villain is on him and in him, trying to pour its way in through his mouth and nostrils. Whelp. Time to hope for the best, he thinks, as he raises his right hand and digs all five fingers into the slime.

Well, something had to go right, as streaks of red energy shoot out from where Izuku's fingers made contact with the slime, snaking their way through the gunk and turning it to dust until all that's left is a man, naked and pale-skinned, standing in front of him.

"Wha-? What? I? What the fuck?" The naked man is plain-looking, with short brown hair and dark eyes that are filled with fury and surprise. "Did you? My quirk!? My quirk is gone!"

"Uh…" Izuku says, holding his hands up on either side of his head. "No, no, it's temporary!" He takes one step backwards, and then another, moving slowly but still moving.

"What do you mean, temporary," the villain snarls, taking a step towards Izuku. "You took my quirk!"

"No! I negated it!" Izuku corrects. See, this is why his classmates would hate him even if he showed them his quirk.

And, of course, that's the moment that All Might bursts out of the sewer.

"Never fear, for I AM HERE!" Oh, it's like looking at the sun. There's a solid moment where All Might's striking his pose before he notices the naked man who's screaming that this middle schooler stole his quirk. Oh boy.

"Excuse me," All Might says, looking at Izuku, "was this man previously made of slime?"

"Yes," Izuku replies. He was made out of stinky slime, too, even worse, since there's still some on Izuku, in his nose, in his throat, oh, he shudders just thinking about it.

"Ah! And did your quirk… do this?"

The blood in Izuku's veins turns to ice at that question. "…Yes?" he replies, staring at his shoes. There's a moment, where he feels All Might looking between him and the man who's, smartly, shut up.

"It's not permanent, I hope?"

"No!" Izuku's reply this time is almost immediate as he takes a panicked step forwards, towards All Might, with his hands held up, semi-placatingly. "No it's not! It's called Negation, it'll wear off in about half an hour to an hour, I think, based on how long I was in contact for. I was just lucky it was a transformation quirk rather than a mutation quirk because I think he might've killed me…" He trails off, noticing All Might looking at him, a sort of… unreadable expression on his face. So Izuku steps back, feeling his shoulders hunch, feeling as he starts to curl in on himself.

He catches himself, forces his shoulders straight, because this is All Might and he doesn't want to be some sort of… wilting daisy in front of him.

"That's… quite the quirk there, young man! It's very unique!"

And, honestly, Izuku doesn't know what possesses him as the next words come out of his mouth. "Yeah, it's, uh, I'm related to Eraserhead!"

That seems to be the ticket, though, because All Might's expression seems to lighten. "Ah! Yes! I see! Well then! If you're okay, then I'll be taking this villain off your hands!"

"Please get him some pants," is all Izuku can say in reply, prompting All Might to laugh.

"I'll take care of all that, don't you worry!" He grabs the villain by his forearm and walks out of the tunnel before leaping into the air, leaving Izuku to watch.

Oh, no, now he has to tell Aizawa that he told the Number One Hero that they were related. Hopefully he'll be more amused than anything?

His mother is not amused. Not about the thing where Izuku told the Number One Hero he's related to Aizawa, no, she's not amused when he comes home covered in gunk.

"Please tell me you didn't fall in a ditch," she says, looking him up and down, her arms crossed. "Or get pushed in?"

"There weren't any ditches involved!" Izuku replies, holding his hands up. "Promise!"

"Then why are you covered in nasty sludge?"

"Well, there was this villain," he says, reaching back to tug on the hair at the back of his neck. "This guy made of slime. Luckily it was just a transformation quirk, though! He was quite surprised. And quite naked…" he mutters the last part, shuddering.

"A villain?" his mother asks, her voice dropping. "Do you think-?"

"No," Izuku shakes his head. "I think he was trying to, like, hide in me to get away or something."

"He what," and at that tone of voice, Izuku finally looks over to his mother, who looks like she might just go find this villain and murder him herself. "How was he doing that?"

"Uh…"

At his non-answer, his mother sighs and reaches up to rub her temple. "Alright," she says. "Anything else I should know?"

"Well, uh, All Might was involved, but he only got there after I negated the sludge guy's quirk," Izuku replies. "And I… I may have told him I'm related to Mr. Aizawa when he asked me about my quirk." That last sentence comes out in a tumble of words, ejected from his mouth as fast as possible.

His mother, well-versed in translating Izuku's lightspeed speech, pauses a moment to process, and then bursts out laughing.

Izuku stares at her, eyes wide, fingers twisted in his hair as she laughs. It takes her several tries to regain her sense, breathing hard.

"I'm sorry, Izuku," she says. "That just… caught me off-guard. The thought of asking him if we can do that has crossed my mind, before, but…"

But how do you ask your child's mentor if he'd be down to pretend to be family just to explain why Izuku's quirk is the way it is without telling him exactly why they want that cover?

"We'll have to talk to him about it, then," his mother says. "We can't leave him to be blindsided by that. Go get cleaned up and I'll invite him and Hizashi over for dinner." Disregarding the muck, she reaches up to run a hand through his hair before giving him a gentle shove back towards his room.

One hot shower later and Izuku's feeling slightly more human as he puts on a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt (that appropriately has t-shirt printed on it, in English. Hisashi had brought it for his thirteenth birthday, along with several others that had it printed in Greek, Italian, and Russian that he'd picked up when he was doing a lot of work in Europe, in particular).

(It's kind of funny, how many languages t-shirt is just… t-shirt in.)

Cleaned up and now wearing comfortable clothes, Izuku carries his backpack (he'd wiped it down before showering. He is capable of thinking ahead, occasionally) into the dining room, where he sets it down and pulls his homework out, spreading his papers and books across the table. It's mostly math, because his math teacher is cruel and decided they all needed a week's worth of homework at once.

(He jests, really, but it's seriously a lot of homework and with the sludge villain interruption and the addition of having Aizawa and Yamada over for dinner and then training at the dojo with Mashirao and his moms… Izuku has a full schedule today that really didn't need a villain attack in it.)

He's somehow, miraculously, almost done with his math when Yamada throws the door open.

"Midoriyaaas!" he greets. His hair's still wet, the gel all freshly washed out. Aizawa follows behind him, slouching in with his hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie and looking like he just woke up. Maybe he did—the man's sleep schedule is a mess.

"Hello, Hizashi," Inko calls from the kitchen as Aizawa closes the door behind them. Izuku smiles and waves before turning back to his homework, and Inko continues speaking. "How were the students today?"

"Shouta expelled one of mine!" Yamada replies, heading into the kitchen to talk to Inko while Aizawa walks over to the kitchen table and sits down.

He doesn't say anything, and neither does Izuku. It had taken him some time to learn to be comfortable with the empty space that tends to occur around Aizawa, but now he finds it simple to just keep working on his math and exist in the same space without small talk.

Yamada's still going strong talking about the circumstances that led to Aizawa expelling one of his students as he helps Inko carry the dishes to the table. Izuku quickly jots down the last answer and clears his papers and books off the table back into his backpack, just in time, and he jumps up to help carry the food out.

There are a couple minutes where the four of them are just eating before Inko speaks.

"So," she says, setting down her chopsticks and folding her hands. "Izuku had a personal encounter with a villain today."

There's a choking noise as Yamada almost inhales his food, and Aizawa's the first of the two to reply. "And you didn't lead with this?"

She doesn't deign to respond to that. "Izuku, why don't you tell them what happened?"

Izuku drops his chopsticks and buries his face in his hands. He can feel the rush of blood to his face. Oh, his mom is the worst, don't let her sweet mom façade fool you, she's just throwing him to the wolves like this…

"Well?" Yamada prompts, voice a little rough.

"So," Izuku begins, lifting his face from his hands so that they stand a chance of understanding him. "I was walking home from school and I went through the tunnel, the one I've known that I'm definitely gonna get murdered in, and this guy made of slime comes out of the sewer and says something about… invisibility cloaks and getting out of town, I don't know, I was trying to figure out his quirk—transformation or mutation, you know? And luckily it was transformation so Negation worked on him and he was naked and then All Might shows up." Izuku has to take a breath here, but the three adults wait. "And so there's this naked guy here screaming about me stealing his quirk and All Might's like what's up and I'm like this slime guy attacked me and he's like did your quirk do that and I'm like yeah so he's like," Izuku breathes again, "is it permanent, and I'm like, no, of course not, and he's like, oh, that's a unique quirk!, and then I," Izuku's words quit, full stop, as he covers his face again. He mumbles, "I told him I'm related to Eraserhead," but it's mumbled directly into the palms of his hands so it's probably completely unintelligible.

"What was that?" Yamada asks. Yep, unintelligible, so Izuku lifts his head out of his hands and tries again.

"I told him I'm related to Eraserhead," he says, but halfway through his courage petered out so the last three words were just mush, and Yamada looks confused, Aizawa is as deadpan as always, and his mother looks way too amused at his misfortune.

"I still didn't catch that," Yamada says, and Izuku throws his head back, groaning.

"I told him I'm related to Eraserhead! I panicked!"

A moment.

"Huh," Aizawa says.

"Huh?" Izuku asks, whipping his head around to look at his mentor. "What do you mean, huh?"

Aizawa shrugs. "It definitely makes sense, on the surface. Our quirks are very similar."

"And your hair!" Yamada pipes up, gesturing wildly between Izuku and Aizawa's heads. "You have similar hair!"

"His hair is green," Aizawa says, looking over at his husband from the corners of his eyes.

"Dark green, and it's really messy!"

"Because it's curly and he's always messing with it."

"Just like you!"

Aizawa sighs and rolls his eyes. "So. You told All Might that we're related. Why?"

"I panicked!" Izuku replies. Hopefully they'll leave it at that?

"So you said," Aizawa agrees, but there's a look in his eyes that Izuku knows. He's not getting out of this without explaining something.

There is, apparently, some goodness in his mother as she intervenes. "It has to do with his father. His biological father, not Hisashi," she says. She pauses, biting at her lip. "It's… probably better for people to think that we're related to you, in all honesty, than to… have that question mark of where Izuku's quirk came from."

The room goes quiet for a few moments, as Aizawa and Yamada both think. Izuku sits there, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, until Aizawa shrugs and speaks.

"Alright," he says. "What do you suggest?"

Izuku still can't read his expression, not really, but something's… softened in it, he thinks.

"I should… ask you," Inko replies. "After all, I don't know your family history. I don't know how we'd fit into it."

Aizawa doesn't reply immediately. "Well. I have a giant question mark of my own. My biological family is completely unknown."

"You could be her secret younger brother," Izuku says, leaning forward with his forearms on the table, framing his plate.

"That…" Inko frowns. "That stands a chance of working. My mother was young when she had me, so having another child ten or fifteen years later wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility, and neither of my parents were very faithful to each other."

"So I'm a bastard, then," Aizawa says, drawing a round of chuckles from around the table.

"You come by it honestly," Inko replies. "You could have been born on one of the many trips my mother took for… business."

"Sure," Aizawa replies. "So I'm your younger half-brother, the result of your, I'm sorry, our mother's affair, and…" He frowns. "How do we find out?"

"She left some files behind that I recently found which explained what happened as well as pointed me in your direction," Inko says. "And, if you're worried about her disputing this, both of my parents are dead, so you don't need to."

That provokes an eyebrow raise from Aizawa, but other than that, he takes it in stride.

"And, naturally, she doesn't leave any hint who the biological father is," he adds.

"That all seems pretty tight!" Yamada says. His eyes are bright as he looks over the group, his hands laced together with his chin resting on them and his elbows on the table.

"It should hold up to preliminary questioning," Aizawa agrees.

And that's the end of it, for now, since Izuku needs to finish eating so that he gets to the dojo in time.

If asked what martial art he studies, Izuku wouldn't be able to give any single answer. His teachers all come from an eclectic background, ergo he has an eclectic education. Out of all of them, Ojiro Kazue came the closest to having a traditional background, whereas Isozaki Sami had synthesized a style all her own from a variety of sources.

Isozaki's the one leading the class tonight, standing at the entrance of the building and talking with parents dropping their kids off. While not the same social butterfly her wife is, she's made good friends with the parents of this particular class over the years.

This particular class referring to the class for hero hopefuls, like Izuku, like Isozaki's own son, Mashirao, who's standing at the back of the dojo, a wide smile on his face as the other students assemble.

There's no particular dress code for this class, especially not when Isozaki's in charge, so there's everything from Mashirao in his traditional Gi to Izuku with his sweats and T-shirt to Nakano, who's wearing her volleyball uniform. As long as they're wearing clothes they can move freely and safely in, they're allowed to wear anything.

There's six students in total in this class: Izuku and Mashirao, of course, and then Nakano Wakana, Shibayama Ichihei, Roka Aomi, and Koizumi Hiraku, every single one determined to become a hero.

Mashirao greets Izuku with a wave and a warm smile. Izuku smiles and waves, back, joining Mashirao and Nakano in waiting for the other three students.

"You will not believe what happened to me," he says.

"Oh, what?" Mashirao asks, and Izuku's smile sharpens, a little bit.

"Well, you need to wait so I can tell Ichihei, Aomi, and Koizumi, too," he replies.

Mashirao groans. "You can't just do this to me!"

Izuku laughs, feeling some of the stress lift away with his friends.

x-posted on ao3, username Orkestrations