He was just a kid and kids were supposed to have childhoods, friends, and freedom. Kids were supposed to be carefree, smiling, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life. Kids weren't supposed to be scrounging for food and huddling behind dumpsters, just trying to stay warm and out of trouble. But, true to his luck, Izuku Midoriya wasn't like other kids. He was quirkless (a rarity), and living on the streets after the death of his mother. Facing bullies during school hours was one thing, but facing would-be villains on the streets was another. All that would change, though, when he meets All Might.

Though, acquiring a quirk and attending a prestigious school doesn't entirely erase his problems. In fact, it might make them worse.

Prologue:

"Ah, young Midoriya, so good of you to join us at last."

Izuku's blood froze at the voice, a jolt of pain lacing through his senses at the familiarity of the the deep, mocking tone.

He knew that voice.

And he wish he didn't.

Still though…

Izuku lifted his chin and narrowed his gaze towards the man who stood, arms crossed, languidly leaning against a tree, peering down his nose at the young before him.

His dark eyes glittered dangerously as he smirked at Midoriya.

"Ah such a brave fellow, brava," he retorted with a snort, "Standing tall and proud as a hero ought. Yes, indeed you are a worthy successor to him, aren't you? One for All is in good hands I see."

Until that point, Izuku hadn't made a sound, hadn't given away just how shaken he was by the voice, the familiarity of the man's face and the memories attached to it.

But now?

He knew…

He knew about…

The man laughed lightly at the obvious surprise that flitted across Midoriya's face.

"Oh come now!" he crowed, snapping his fingers. There was a rustling in the trees above him as a solid form dropped from the branches.

Midoriya blanched at the image of his mentor, and predecessor before him, bound and gagged, a large gash running down the side of his cheek.

Oh no.

"Toshinori isn't so clever as to distract me from the truth, Izuku Midoriya" the man continued. "He was foolish to think he could have protected you from me. I know all about you Midoriya...Deku," He amended with a small laugh, "I've always known about you. It was only a matter of time before we'd meet. And you should know, I always get what I want."

The man gave a small, precise kick into Toshis' side, the very spot where Izuku knew the wound that had cost Toshinori is power lay.

Yagi Toshinori gave a strangled, muffled grunt of pain as he tried, vainly to shift out of the bonds that held him fast. He caught Midoriya's eyes with a gaze that whirled with both fear and anger and Izuku's mind whirred with the stark reality of the situation before him as the man flexed his fingers and took a step towards the boy.

They both knew that he was going to die.

Chapter 1: Origins of Sorrow

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

He didn't want to be brave. Not now. Not with this.

But Izuku Midoriya didn't have much of a choice. Wrapping his fingers around the thin straps of his backpack, he watched-with a sense of detachment-as movers bustled around the apartment hastily removing box after box and memory after memory.

The first to go had been the sofa and the table at the center of the room. The larger lamps and television followed before they removed the computer and larger chairs and beds. Best to get the bigger items, they'd said. Best to get the larger pieces out of the way.

Then came the smaller items, clothing and shoes and knick knacks, bits and bobs...the photos that he had no hope of taking with him.

They'd have to be sold. He couldn't afford a storage unit.

And he certainly afford the apartment any longer.

Losing one's mother did that to you.

Izuku blinked a few times to push back the tears, willing them not to fall yet. Not here in this place where everything felt familiar and foreign at the same time.

It'd been so short a time after his mother's death and yet it felt like a lifetime had passed.

Really it'd only been about three weeks. And yet, in that time his whole world had turned on its head.

He'd lost the one person who cared for him. His father, long gone overseas, wasn't reachable after his mom got sick and had to be transferred to the hospital. And his father hadn't been reachable when the diagnosis his father hadn't been reachable when...when…

Izuku hastily slammed a lid on the thoughts as quickly as they'd erupted and focused on the reality of his situation.

He could grieve later. He didn't have time for that now. And he knew that if he did begin to fret over her, his mother wouldn't have been very happy. She'd always been the one to fret, always been the one to brush off her own needs in favor of others.

And now...

After his mother died, after her affairs had been settled, the reality of his situation took hold. Izuku Midoriya couldn't stay in his home any longer. He couldn't afford the place, couldn't keep the bills paid. He was only a child after all, barely thirteen.

And that's what the lawyer had told him, when the landlord came to collect the last month's rent and provide Izuku with an order to vacate the premises. Though, to his credit (Izuku supposed) the small, balding man did offer to oversee the removal and sale of all property Izuku couldn't afford to take with him.

This of course meant that he had to give up everything he couldn't shove into his backpack because, let's face it, where was he to go with boxes of things he couldn't carry?

His father…

No. Izuku immediately squashed that thought, a frown marring his lips.

He hadn't heard from nor seen his father in almost a decade.

He wasn't coming. Nor was his family. He'd never met them to begin with. Didn't have any records on them or names and numbers to go off of. His mother never spoke of them either. She hardly even spoke of Izuku's father really.

And mom had been the last surviving member on her side of the family-the only daughter of parents who passed in a car accident before Izuku was born.

He had no one to call upon and this meant he'd have to scrounge for himself or attempt to find lodging in the children's home-the counselor working on his case even offered to do so-but Midoriya knew how crowded those places were. Plus, given his age, it wasn't likely he'd find a family to take him in (and he wasn't sure he'd want to find one either). He'd rather the younger children have a safe place to live and a hope that someone would pay them some mind. He was at the age (technically) where he could provide for himself, and make his own way in the world.

At least that's what the case worker has said to him, with a dispassionate tone and her gaze firmly fixed to her cell. He was old enough to slip through the cracks and out of the system. Having no obvious connections to caring relatives or any other adult figure also ensured that he was going to be overlooked and forgotten.

The case worker had made that abundantly clear.

He was expected to take care of himself, it seemed.

But in order to do that, it meant leaving middle school and getting a job. He'd have to forego high school altogether. But…

He couldn't give up on that yet. He just couldn't.

Even though his mother had left a somewhat decent pension behind for him to have access to, he was limited in the amount of funds he could take out each week. That meant that bills like water and electricity and a home in general just weren't in her cards right now.

But he could make that work, right? He could still go to school and save as much as possible, making it stretch for as long as possible.

He needed to focus on other things like food. Food was vastly more important than a roof over his head. Right?

The young teenager tried to rationalize the plausibility of his success at navigating this new future, in this new situation, with these new parameters and dangers. He tried to rationalize and think...happily...of the prospect of independence and freedom from having to get a job to pay for his home because, afterall, he had a lot of studying to do and a hero examination to take in the next year.

And yet…

When they say that nothing prepares you for the loss of normalcy and the loss of someone you love it can do one of two things to you: you either fall into despair, or you rise to meet the new challenges you face.

And right now, with the wellspring of emotions bubbling beneath the surface, Izuku Midoriya wasn't quite sure if he believed his own optimism. Because, if he were being honest, how would he hope to get into UA without a quirk? How could he hope to be a hero without a quirk? And more importantly, how could he make a better future for himself, the one he promised his mom that he'd make, if he couldn't even make it to the next step because his weak and useless body was holding him back? He could study and research all he wanted, but without the power behind it, what good was he?

Was it even a smart idea to apply?

"Alright Mr. Midoriya, I think we're ready to lock up here." The voice jostled Izuku from his spiraling thoughts and he peered into the face of the landlord who smiled kindly (and a little sympathetically) in return. "I'll lead you out."

And with that, Izuku Midoriya cast one last glance around his home that he'd shared with his mother since he was a child.

Shouldering his large backpack and tightening his hold on it, he cast his eyes down to his red shoes and hastily stepped through the threshold and into the unknown.

There was a hasty jangling of keys, as the landlord locked the deadbolt. Izuku begrudgingly handed over the only other copy of the house key-with the promise from the landlord that the locks would be changed in due course (a sign that he wasn't meant to loiter or attempt to reenter the premises). Kind and sympathetic the man may have been to Izuku's plight, but this home was no longer his and the landlord seemed determined to reinforce that.

'Was it even smart to apply?' he thought again fleetingly, a heavy weight settling in his stomach as he slowly moved down the street and away from the building that had been his home for so long. He vaguely registered the soft 'goodbye' from the landlord before he turned down the street and towards the market district.

He filed away the emotions that threatened to surface again, shoving them down as far as he was able as his feet dragged along the sidewalk.

He focused on the one thought coursing through him, keeping him grounded after everything else had turned his world upside down.

'Was it even a good idea to apply?'

The question would linger with him in the following months as he weighed his options and tested his mettle.

It turned out that Midoriya had been right about vacancies as the children's home. There just wasn't space for him. And given his age, he wasn't a high priority case.

He didn't end up wasting much time with them.

Instead, the young man had attempted to develop a new routine where he could find a place to sleep around the city while still going to school.

It'd been a steep learning curve.

Initially, he'd assumed that he could simply find a relatively empty alleyway to tuck away into. Of course, this never worked because he usually found himself on the receiving end of one drunk man or another, pushing him around and stealing the meager money allowance that he'd afforded himself that week.

The first time it happened, he was pulled roughly from sleep with a swift fist to the mouth and the stench of alcohol surrounding him. What followed were several kicks to the stomach and the breathy laughter of the drunk who towered overhead: a balding man with glassy brown eyes and an ugly sneer who jeered at his stupidity for leaving himself out in the open like that.

He didn't say much more than that, only continuing to mumble incoherently as he landed another blow the boy before he could slowly scramble to his feet and out of the alley.

He'd nearly lost his backpack and belongings that night.

After the third encounter and loss of his weekly food allowance, Midoriya found himself unable to sleep for fear that someone would jostle him awake with a swift kick to the stomach or a fist to the jaw.

And, that wasn't going to work, he'd concluded finally after nearly two weeks of little sleep and constant walking in order to avoid being targeted. He'd nearly stepped into oncoming traffic in his drowsy haze.

No, he decided. No, he needed a better plan. He needed a more permanent base.

So, he started to search the city for a small haven, a reprieve.

And in the meantime, he focused his attention on his future. In terms of his schooling, the teachers didn't bat an eye in his direction when he'd informed them that his mother had passed. They seemed even less enthused by his presence when he'd declared that he was still attending classes and hoped to finalize his application to UA.

He'd said those things to keep up appearances while he tried to figure out his true motivations and true path forward. But, having a tentative plan in place was better than nothing, so Midoriya stayed true to his word, studying harder and researching heroes more in depth than he had before.

It kept his focus on something other than the growing anxiety and grief that threatened to overwhelm him in the weeks following the loss of his mom.

And, as it turned out, it was remarkably easier when one was on the street to research said heroes and their techniques. While he spent his evenings wandering around some of the safer locales of the city, he came in contact with more than one hero. He learned how to scale the fire city's escapes more efficiently (having to learn it while outrunning some of his less than savory assailants), as well as found himself learning how to hop from one rooftop to the next (at least the short distanced ones-ones he was sure he wouldn't fall off of) in order to get a better angle of observation. This afforded him more data than he'd previously gained through only stumbling upon the hero activity later on in his web searches or by freak accident on his walks home from school. This, in turn, helped him to fill out his notebooks in greater detail, with more specific analyses and even more detailed drawings of hero-wear and purposes.

That's not to say, though, that it was easier to deal with these heroes and their antics while wandering the streets. In fact, it was far more dangerous to do so. Turns out, the more you frequent the streets, the more you're noticed, by prowling thieves and heroes alike. He'd received both threats and scoldings depending on where he was at the time and who had focused their attention on him.

'You shouldn't be out this late, young man. Hurry up home' the heroes would say, their smiles a stark contrast to their incredulous glares at his presence in the middle of the night fights they seemed to frequent.

To avoid such rampages and interacting more than he'd like, Izuku kept moving, darting away with his notebooks and his knowledge, his yellow backpack lightly jingling with each step as he hoisted himself above the city, or over rooftops, or down among the brazen crowds in the market district.

And the more he moved through the city, racking up dozens of miles of walking-exploring rooftops and alleyways and darkened parks and bright city streets-the more he focused his attention on the outside world and his ability to make his way through it, and the less he thought about how hard things felt and how stressed and anxious his body seemed all of the time.

Or at least he tried to.

It was only in the stillness of the later parts of the night, past the witching hour when streets and shops would close down, that Izuku was left with the crushing weight of his thoughts. And it was always worse when he hadn't been careful and had gotten hurt or injured in some stupid way (and there were still plenty of those days).

And he didn't like those moments and the vulnerable feeling that ultimately started eating at him, nagging at his senses, distracting him.

So, it was at this time of night when he'd find a vacant stairwell he'd head to a rooftop nearest to his current location and hunker down for some light dozing and a lot of pondering as he stared out at the cityscape before him. Sometimes he'd write in his notebook, scrutinizing his assessments of the different heroes he'd observed, their quirks and capabilities, and the enemies they'd fought. He'd often do a matchup analysis of quirks against quirks and superior fighting styles in specific scenarios. Or, if it'd been a particularly trying day at school, he'd hurriedly finish the stray bits of homework that still nagged at his mind, planning his schedule for the next day-plotting his route and the cost of the food he'd eat as well as where he planned to walk that day after school.

He'd never let his thoughts stray too far into the pressure he felt and the anxiety that constantly loomed overhead, as he mulled over how or if he'd make it into UA...or what his mom must have thought of his situation either. It always left a sour taste in his mouth and an uncomfortable ache in his chest so he tried to minimize those thoughts and concerns.

Of course, while rooftops didn't often provide a lot of protection from wind or other natural elements, they did seem to provide him with some semblance of security and isolation. This was a blessing considering his circumstances and his mental anguish. It appeared that not many would-be robbers or criminals would willingly go up that high, which made it easier for him to take a break and breathe.

And it was good to do that every once in a while.