Izuku knew he wasn't supposed to be out that late at night. It wasn't going to stop him anytime soon, but he knew he wasn't supposed to be wandering the alleyways so long after dark. Especially since he was only 12. His mind was buzzing with all the things that could go wrong, but somehow nothing he could think of was worse than going to school in the morning, so he kept walking.
He wasn't about to tell Kacchan that he was an excellent motivator to get over his fears. His childhood friend would never forget it, would probably use it as ammunition against him.
That wasn't the point, though. He wasn't out so late for his health or to prove anything. Well, he reflected, he might be trying to prove something, but it was only to himself. He was trying to find Eraserhead.
There had been a couple of notable arrests recently, brought in by an unnamed hero. The footage Izuku had seen online had Eraserhead's signature capture scarf as the sole identifying feature in the videos. Well, that and the image of an alley across from a bar. What was more, it was an area Izuku was familiar with. Which was why he was out on the streets trying to see if Eraserhead was still in the area.
Walking around late at night was unusual. He was the only one around and his footsteps echoed around him oddly. It was like someone else was walking behind him, but no one was there when he turned to look. And yet it still wasn't as scary as facing down an angry Kacchan.
Izuku found the alleyway almost too soon. He hadn't seen many people in the streets, though a couple stumbled out of the bar across the street and wandered in the vague direction of the nearest train station. He turned down the alley and let his eyes adjust to the lower light level.
It was almost disappointing how normal the alley looked. The smell of rotting garbage, stagnant water, and old vomit cluttered the atmosphere, but that was to be expected. Alleyways weren't clean, and they weren't usually a priority to be cleaned. A few large garbage and recycling bins were pushed up against one building, but whoever was supposed to be using them didn't seem to care much because there were bits of trash scattered about. Including, oddly, something that looked like a long compression bandage.
Izuku frowned. That wasn't exactly something people just threw away. They were reusable and useful. He wandered over to pick it up.
It was a lot heavier than he was expecting it to be and it rustled when he touched it. Frowning again, Izuku pulled his hand back. Whatever this was, it wasn't a compression bandage.
Realization slowly trickled over him as he reached to pick it up again and it moved in his fingers. He was holding a capture scarf. And not just any capture scarf, Eraserhead's.
Izuku's head shot up and he looked around suddenly. He was a hero fanboy, he knew this, but to just take it was a step too far in his mind. It was like stealing, even if it had been left behind for whatever reason. Maybe it was malfunctioning? Maybe the villain Eraserhead took down had somehow managed to break it? Eraserhead didn't strike him as the sort of person to leave his main weapon behind, but it had been a couple days since the fight, and it was still here.
As wrong as the idea of taking it was, Izuku's mind raced through all the worst-case scenarios he could think of. What if a villain got their hands on it, someone who encountered Eraserhead often? They could study it, maybe learn how to neutralize it. Although Izuku didn't doubt the man would adapt, it wasn't worth taking the risk. He gathered the scarf in his arms.
Well, he tried to gather it in his arms. It was like trying to hold a bunch of writhing snakes as the loops moved under his hands like it was trying to run away from him. Maybe that was why it was still in the alley. As he tried to settle it in some form of order, he felt a sharp pinch on his upper arm. Apparently, snakes were too accurate a metaphor. Fortunately, though, the scarf settled after causing him pain.
A dry voice in the back of his mind pointed out how much it was like everything else in his life, practically impossible until it causes him enough pain to be satisfied. Izuku pushed that voice back as far as he could. He was just projecting bad feelings on an inanimate object and that wasn't fair.
He took the scarf back home and managed to sneak back into the house without his mother noticing that he'd gone missing in the first place.
By the cold light of day, Izuku looked at the scarf again where he had deposited it just inside his closet. He reached to touch it and it reached back.
He panicked, flinging himself back and away from it. Just in time, apparently, as it started thrashing around again. He wasn't touching it, but it was freaking out almost as much as he was.
He froze, and so did the scarf.
As far as he was aware, the scarf wasn't actually alive. Was it? The very idea was terrifying. And weird. And a little bit funny when it wasn't freaking him out. Most people brought home stray dogs or cats, but Izuku, he had to bring home a potentially sentient capture scarf! He wasn't even sure why he was surprised by this new level of absurdity. At least it probably didn't need to eat. Probably.
Izuku crossed the hall to the bathroom just to do something to distract himself. It was only when he was staring at his reflection in the mirror that he remembered the strange pinch in his arm right before the scarf settled down. Pulling up his sleeve, there was a small scratch in the same general area. One part of the scratch was deeper than the rest, almost like a puncture wound of some sort. How he would have gotten it from a scarf he didn't know, but it cemented in his mind the need for research. He needed to know everything he could find out about the capture scarf itself, be it speculation or something else.
Fortunately for Izuku, it was Sunday. He didn't think he'd be able to think about anything else other than this problem, and his distraction around Kacchan was a recipe for disaster and chemical burns, neither of which he welcomed at the best of times, least of all when he was unable to mitigate as much of the damage.
Once he was back in his room—the capture scarf rustling softly on the floor of his closet—he booted up his laptop and made his way to the underground hero pages. He knew it wouldn't be the best information and there was no guaranteeing it would be at all accurate, but he needed somewhere to start, and that was where most of the speculation about Eraserhead's capture scarf ended up.
There was a lot of speculation about it, more than he'd been expecting, and no one could quite agree what it was supposed to be. Someone suggested that Eraserhead's control of the scarf was his quirk, rather like Best Jeanist's ability to control certain fabrics. Others thought it was just a good support item, perhaps bound to the hero through some form of DNA link. One of the more obscure theories said that the scarf wasn't actually all that special at all and Eraserhead had learned to use it like a lasso. No one really believed that because the footage that could be found of some of Eraserhead's fights showed the scarf moving in ways that couldn't be replicated with rope.
All of that to say no one knew how it worked, but Izuku knew it somehow had a degree of independent movement with even a small amount of human contact. He had touched it, and suddenly it was moving. The longer he'd held it, the more it moved. Something had changed between then and now since it was reaching for him and moving or stopping when he did. Something had happened to what? Bind it to him? Was there some sort of sentience in it that decided it liked him? Did it have something to do with the scratch on his arm?
He sighed. None of his questions were going to be answered by the forums because Eraserhead wasn't about to tell people about his main weapon. Izuku had an advantage over all the theorists on the internet, though. He actually had access to a capture scarf.
It fluttered in his arms as he picked it up off the floor of his closet, less violent than the night before and he still wasn't sure why. It wrapped around his wrists like an affectionate cat twining around its owner's legs and Izuku just sighed. Whether it was sentient or not, he was probably going to have to get used to these sorts of movements. He was probably also going to start talking to it as if it were sentient, because you never know, and he wanted to be polite.
"Can you hold still please?" he asked as he set the scarf down on his desk. "I just want to look at you."
Instantly, it stilled under his fingers and Izuku put another mental check under 'possibly sentient' in his head. As gently as he could, he arranged the capture scarf in a loop so he could examine it inch by inch to figure out what had stabbed him in the arm. Now that he was paying attention to it, the strange fabric, though heavy, was softer than he was expecting it to be. It sort of glittered under the light, so it had to be reinforced in some way, and there was no doubt in his mind that some of this had to be micro technology that enabled the scarf to move on its own. But it was still soft and supple against his fingertips. It was like holding titanium lacework. For all he knew, it was actually made of titanium.
It wasn't until he reached the middle of the scarf that he found something that wasn't soft. He knew this was the part that had jabbed him because there was a little bit of blood on the fabric, but whatever jagged part had been there wasn't there anymore, leaving behind a slim, flexible capsule that looked like it was partially filled with liquid mercury. Well, he called it a capsule, but it was more like a small envelope that the scarf almost appeared to grow out of like the branches of a tree from the trunk. Though the trunk was a flat, translucent pouch of something semi-liquid. The contents flowed and swirled. Whatever was inside reacted to his touch, following his thumb as he swiped it across the surface instead of being pushed away. Then, while he was still holding it, part of the capsule distended slightly, forming a small point that jabbed his thumb. He pulled away quickly enough to watch the silvery substance disappear under his skin.
"I hope that's not poisonous," Izuku muttered, pressing a handkerchief against the small puncture wound as he looked back at the scarf. "Although, if it was, I'd probably be dead already from last night."
He couldn't completely discount the idea as it could be a safety feature to prevent someone else from using Eraserhead's scarf if they weren't him. But he didn't feel any the worse for wear and clearly whatever it had done had affected what it was able to do and how it reacted to him. Moreover, Izuku was pretty sure that if he were to try to put on the capture scarf the way Eraserhead did, the capsule would be sitting against his spine.
When he turned back to his examination, he found a small symbol printed on the capsule. It was a western-style dragon with the letters KSSI written in the open space between the body and the curve of the tail that looped around toward the head. Now that he had something of a direction, Izuku typed what he assumed was a company acronym into an online search engine to see what came up.
Kaplan-Stark Support Industries. The logo appeared on his screen next to the list of search results, all of which offered to take him to specific pages on the official site or waxed poetic about the sort of things they were capable of. The first thing that caught Izuku's attention was the fact that, unlike what he'd been expecting, Kaplan-Stark didn't typically make hero gear. They were better known for prosthesis, the best available on the market due to their innovative use of nanotechnology.
Of course, they wouldn't advertise that they were the company to make Eraserhead's capture scarf, as that could easily compromise the hero in the field. But now Izuku had the scarf and he knew they were responsible for it. The pieces made sense. The scarf was laced with nanotechnology, the capsule was probably full of a saline slurry full of nanobots, and some connection between that and him had been made.
Izuku scrolled down and selected one of the videos that claimed to explain what their nanotechnology did.
A mildly informative three hours later had Izuku sitting back in his chair, looking at the scarf with awe and more than a little trepidation. The videos described the use of nanobots in the average prosthetic as bridging the gap between the mechanical arm and the central nervous system. The nanobots were self-replicating to a certain point, using trace amounts of minerals and nutrients already found in the blood to create more bots to keep the system running. There was a threshold the nanobots weren't allowed to surpass, and the defunct bots were recycled by the body.
The difference between the normal prosthetic and the capture scarf, however, was that a prosthetic replaced a missing body part while the scarf was not technically part of the body at all. The videos didn't expound upon this as it wasn't something they advertised as a commercial product. It did explain that the prosthetic was not sentient regardless of whatever strange movements people had observed whether or not it was attached, as this was the brain trying to assimilate new or renewed input from the missing limb. The nanobots operated on a closed network with one another, and so contact was not required for them to receive signals for movement.
Privately, Izuku was still sure there was something about the scarf that wasn't exactly the same, so he would probably still talk to it like a person. It couldn't hurt his reputation more than it was already damaged by being quirkless. Having 20 meters worth of capture scarf that he talked to sometimes wasn't going to be any weirder than that.
It wasn't until that moment he realized he didn't intend to return it. While he didn't have a way of getting in contact with Eraserhead, it wasn't that hard to find someone who knew him or could get in contact with him. But no part of Izuku's plans had him tracking the man down to return the scarf.
This was probably exactly why people called him a creepy stalker. He had gone out actively looking for Eraserhead, had found his capture scarf instead, and decided to keep it instead of returning it like a normal person. Shame burned in his gut, but it wasn't enough to change his mind, especially as the scarf wound itself around him like a hug. He wanted to learn to use it, to train his brain to wield it like an extra limb the way Eraserhead used his. The man clearly had another one if he wasn't too concerned about losing it in the alleyway. It had been cast aside like him, and even if it didn't have feelings, he couldn't stop himself from drawing the connections between it and himself.
Besides, Eraserhead used his capture scarf as an equalizer against more physically powerful quirks. That was exactly what Izuku needed. He just hoped the hero wouldn't begrudge him taking the chance while it was in front of him.
Izuku tried to wear the scarf the same way as Eraserhead at first, but he quickly realized that he would either be written off as an idiot for wearing a scarf as big as it was when he didn't need one or someone would recognize it and get it taken away. Leaving it at home wasn't an option in his mind, so he managed to find a way to twine the scarf around his torso and arms under his gakuran so he would always have it.
After a couple months of practice with it, he managed to make wrapping it around him in the mornings second nature. He was constantly warm for the extra layer it offered, but he would sacrifice his physical comfort for the protection it offered. It was resistant to a lot of the damage Bakugou and others tended to do to him and Izuku started having less injuries to deal with after school.
He had begun exercising as well, realizing that if he wanted to get into UA on his own merits, he probably had to have some physical skills to back up the capture scarf and his analysis. He was already pretty quick on his feet, which was necessary if he wanted to escape bullies at the end of the day, or during lunch. He hadn't really found a reliable way to work on strength, but he was attending as many free self-defense classes as he could.
Working with the scarf itself was slow going as he needed to train himself to use it like another limb and he had no idea how to do that without focusing on every movement he needed it to make. His best idea was to use it as often as possible for little things as well as bigger things. More delicate movements were harder to do, and he spent a good portion of the first few months trying to pick up a pencil from the cup of writing utensils on his desk without knocking it over.
Larger things, however, were simple enough if he managed to get a grip. One of the first things he realized was that, barring his ability to focus on the action, there were few physical limits on what the scarf could lift. It wasn't an actual limb, so it wasn't gated by his physical strength. Moreover, he could use them to pull his body around, climbing trees and buildings with ease. The only physical limit he had encountered was whether he could brace himself well enough to leverage whatever he was trying to lift up. It was honestly easier to pull himself along until he had the strength to stand his ground.
No one at school had noticed Izuku's new accessory. It wasn't exactly surprising since he was actively trying to hide it and people only paid attention to him when they wanted to hurt or belittle him. He was glad his classmates didn't know him well enough to tell that he was hiding something. At one point in time, Kacchan might have been able to tell, but they hadn't been that close in years. Izuku knew him, but Kacchan didn't see enough of Izuku to be able to read his reactions and emotions anymore.
It was a bit harder to hide it from his mother, but he was managing. When he wore short sleeves, he explained that the bandages on his arms were for the training he was doing. It wasn't even a lie and she didn't question it, seeing how serious he had become about training recently. She had even offered to pay for lessons in something he wanted to learn to help out. Once he stopped crying about the unconditional show of support, he mentioned his shortlist of desired skills: parkour, martial arts, and gymnastics. All of them could help him as a hero in the future.
Parkour was for navigating through a city at speed, avoiding obstacles and minimizing injuries from a fall. Martial arts were something he was already pursuing, the need to be physically capable of fighting back against people regardless of their quirk at the forefront of his mind. Gymnastics was also in the vein of learning to tumble and fall, but he also wanted to be able to maneuver in the air, which was necessary with how he used the capture scarf to get around.
In the end, he elected to go with gymnastics. It was a sport with strength, speed, and agility as the main requirements, and he needed to learn to be more instinctual with his body and with the scarf. And since most gyms weren't equipped for quirk use, the focus wouldn't be on what people could do with them. Hopefully, the fact he was quirkless wouldn't come up at all.
Izuku had been practicing for almost three years with the capture scarf. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being Eraserhead's and started being his, though he couldn't be sure when that happened. He didn't have the right words to explain how comforting it was to have it sitting against his skin every day, but the knowledge that it was there was rooted deep enough in his soul to make even the bad days just a little brighter.
Which was a good thing because this was turning out to be one of the worst. Their homeroom teacher had career forms he was meant to pass out, but he threw them up in the air and said everyone obviously wanted to be heroes. Which wasn't wrong, but it seemed weird for him to come out and say that, ignoring what he was supposed to be doing in favor of indulging a class full of teenage egos.
Kacchan, of course, stated his intention to attend UA and become the best hero, better even than All Might. This led to the teacher revealing that Izuku had stated an interest in attending UA as well.
That was the moment Izuku knew the end of the day wasn't going to be pleasant for him. The entire room turned and laughed at him for his impossible dream. It hurt to see all their mocking faces even though he knew they would never believe in him. The look of murder in Kacchan's eyes cut deeper than any of the rest of it. Even though he knew they weren't friends anymore, nothing cemented it more in his mind than the clear and present danger radiating off Kacchan. Unseen by those around him, the capture scarf tightened around his rib cage in a sort of hug. He knew he was the one controlling it, but it was still nice to have something tactile to ground him.
In full view of the teacher and the rest of the class, Kacchan blasted his desk, the force of which threw him into the wall at the back of the classroom.
"You think you can get into UA? You're totally quirkless!" Kacchan laughed as though it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. So did the rest of the class.
"I just want to try," Izuku mumbled. "What's so wrong about that?"
"Try what? Try the entrance exam?" Kacchan barked another laugh. "What can you even do?"
Izuku stayed silent while the class hovered over him. He wouldn't provide them with more ammunition than they already had. They were already certain of the outcome, so sure that he was going to fail. Anything else he could have said was just another reason to mock him.
Izuku tried to leave quickly after class. He reached for his analysis notebook to put it away, only to have it ripped out of his hands.
"We aren't finished here, Deku," Kacchan purred, the dark tone sending a shiver down his spine. He glanced down at Izuku's notebook and scoffed. "'For My Future'? Are you for real?"
"Give it back." Izuku reached to grab it, only for Kacchan to put the notebook between his palms and set off an explosion.
He moved to the window to throw it out, where it would probably land in the koi pond below, damaging it more. It was instinct when the end of the capture scarf shot out of his sleeve to grab the book before it fell too far.
Silence stretched in the room as Kacchan and his friends stared at him. So much for keeping that a secret, Izuku thought.
He didn't bother to wait around for the moment of shock to wear off. He had his backpack, he had his notebook, and he had his capture scarf vibrating against his skin. He needed to get out of there and the window was right there. With a running leap, he shot out of the window, snagging the railing with his capture scarf on the way down. Using the excess momentum, he flung himself into a nearby tree and then slid carefully to the ground.
"DEKU!" Kacchan yelled out the window behind him, but Izuku didn't bother to look. He just ran.
Some things weren't worth sticking around to find out how bad they could be.
When he was far enough away he didn't think Kacchan would catch up to him, Izuku slowed down to catch his breath. His dreams had changed a bit over the years. Izuku had come to terms with the fact he couldn't be a hero like All Might, but he thought being like Eraserhead was mostly attainable.
Something large and heavy landed on his back and he pitched forward, flailing wildly. Whatever it was, it was slimy, and it moved, trying to dive down this throat.
"I'm just hijacking your body. Calm down," a watery voice murmured. "It'll be over in 45 seconds."
Izuku thrashed in the grasp of the slime villain, clawing at the junk pouring itself down his throat.
"No point in trying that," the slime chuckled, moving one eye to stare down at him. "I'm fluid, you see!"
Your eyes aren't. The capture scarf emerged from under his gakuran and wrapped around the eye he could see before pulling sharply. Suddenly the slime villain was thrashing too. He hadn't stopped trying to pour himself down Izuku's throat, but the pressure on one of his eyes was causing enough pain that Izuku was able to get a quick breath every now and then.
He was too preoccupied to hear the approach of someone else, so his only warning that he wasn't alone anymore was an eerily familiar voice shouting, "Texas Smash!"
A blast of wind knocked the slime villain away, and Izuku choked on the slime still in his throat, vomiting it up as best he could. All in all, not the best way to meet one of his heroes.
"Sorry you had to get caught up in that," All Might said. "I am a bit new to the area."
Izuku nodded, suddenly unable to find any words. He wanted to ask the hero if he could be a hero too, but the jeering voices of his classmates echoed in his mind.
"You seemed to be doing well yourself," the hero continued. "That's an excellent quirk you have."
Izuku jolted, but before he could correct him about the capture scarf, the man was gone. He looked down at his hands. The scarf had retreated back under his sleeves again as it usually did. It hadn't occurred to him that people would look at his use of the capture scarf and assume it was a quirk. But most people didn't know about Eraserhead, and for good reason. The more people knew about him, the less effective he could be.
Izuku hadn't intended to lie to the Number One Hero about having a quirk, but apparently that's what he had inadvertently done by failing to correct the misconception. Was that what Kacchan thought too? Was that why he and his friends had gone so silent when Izuku retrieved his notebook?
He started making his way home, trying to decide if he should pass off the capture weapon as a quirk. He could call it scarves, or something like that. If people assumed it was a quirk rather than a support item, would that change how they treated him? If he managed to convince them, he needed to prevent anyone from finding out anything different about it. He had learned through trial and error how to fix it. And through a lot of study. It was fortunate that the nanobots were largely self-replicating. Because of that, minor damage to the scarf was self-repairing, and he'd only needed to worry about a couple of times Kacchan had practically burned through a layer.
He had a theory that if he managed to remove some of the nanobots from the capsule and placed them with enough raw materials that he'd be able to let them replicate another scarf. The whole weapon seemed to grow out of the capsule, after all, and the nanobots were self-replicating provided enough material. What he had gleaned from the KSSI videos told him that their prostheses could repair themselves to their proper functionality in time if they were severely damaged. It only made sense that they would do the same for a capture weapon made for a hero. And would Eraserhead have left the scarf behind if he didn't have another one? Probably not. Whether he could get another one from the company or he managed to replicate one the way Izuku was planning didn't matter as much as the fact that it was possible.
There were ten months until the UA entrance exam, and he was going to see if he could manage to grow another scarf in that time. If he could, maybe he would try to pass off the capture weapon as his quirk. If not, well, he would figure that out if it came to that.
So, my little sister found out about this story and demanded I post it. Which I did on AO3 on Wednesday. I fully intended to upload it here as well and got utterly sidetracked by something. I don't even remember what right now. Whatever the case, here you go, and it's her fault I'm posting this now. That being said, I did write over 2k words on it between midnight and 2am today, so progress is being made. We'll see how long my muse decides to hyperfocus on this story.
This was inspired by a post from Terrible My Hero Academia AUs on tumblr, so go check them out if you want to see the original idea or if you're looking for an interesting and probably crack-y prompt. They've spawned a few ideas, and this is only the first I've posted.