Also cross posted on Ao3
Don't own My Hero Academia
੦
"Why do you have to be so mean, Kacchan?" Izuku trembled as he stood in front of his classmate. "Can't you see he's crying?"
Katsuki punched his hand and a small explosion went off. "You don't even have a quirk. You shouldn't go around thinking you're a hero, Deku."
Katsuki and his gang closed in, little explosions lighting his hands. Bakugo takes the first punch, and Izuku can feel pain bloom across the left side of his face. He tries to kick back, but Bakugo is already out of reach.
The boy to katsuki's right steps forward with a laugh, "Just stand there and let us beat the crap out of you!"
Izuku feels his body stiffen as what feels like chains coil around him. What's Happening? He thinks. My body won't move. His arms aren't obeying him.
The three boys come in with more punches and kicks, but Izuku is stuck standing there, taking them without doing anything. Hit after hit Izuku feels more pain.
Katsuki and his two lackies step back, starting to get tired from their barrage.
"Why won't you go down?" He asks, a scowl on his face. " Just fall down already!"
Izuku feels the chains holding him pull him to the ground.
The boys look startled. Izuku hadn't fallen down at all while they were punching him. His mind was racing, what the heck was happening to him. It was like something else had taken control of his body.
Izuku looked up at Bakugo from where he was on the ground. He could see ideas start to form behind his eyes.
"Deku," Katsuki addressed him, "Get up"
The chains pull at him, keeping him from moving of his own accord. His arms put themselves under his body to push himself up. Soon enough he's standing again and the chains fall away.
"Walk in circles." Again his body moves but he's not the one moving it.
He sees Katsukis face light up with a wicked grin.
੦
Izuku makes it home some time later, walking into his house to see his mother in the kitchen finishing up dinner.
Midoriya Inko turns around to see her only child with bruises and scrapes all over the visible parts of his body.
"Izuku, Baby! What in the world happened to you?" She asks, kneeling down in front of him to look into his tearful eyes.
"Mama…" He says in a voice that just about breaks Inko's heart, "I got my quirk..."
੦
Izuku didn't want to jinx his luck or anything, but he thought his morning was going pretty well. He's caught the tail end of a villain fight, the debut of Mount Lady, and had even gotten a command that he was happy to receive.
He put his earbuds back in his ears, having taken them out for the villain fight. The sound of his playlist blasted in his ears, drowning out the sounds of the town, while he made his way to school.
As Izuku made his way onto campus, he made sure to turn the volume up on his music, covering up the commands of his school mates. He'd learned a long time ago that if he didn't want to be made to do anything embarrassing or worse, he'd have to make sure he couldn't hear them at all.
He thought back to when his quirk first manifested. Right after Izuku had told his mother what happened, she had insisted that he wear noise cancelling head gear until they could figure out exactly how his quirk worked. Not that that actually helped around katsuki and his gang.
Izuku didn't turn off his music until he was safe inside his classroom in front of his teacher.
As he sat down at his assigned desk he pulled out his phone to browse hero news sites while he waited for homeroom to start. Mount Lady's debut was already making a big splash.
"Alright everyone, take your seats," The teacher says as the bell rings. Izuku puts away his phone as attendance starts.
"So," his teacher starts, "Now that you all are third years it's time to start thinking seriously about what you want to do with your lives. I'd pass out aptitude tests, but you're all planning to go into the hero course aren't you?"
The room explodes with noise and usage of quirks. Izuku slumps forward in his seat, trying to look as small as possible.
"Yes, yes, you all have great quirks, but using them at school is against the rules" the teacher tries to reign in his students.
"Don't lump me in with these extras, Teach!"
Bakugo Katsuki had been his best friend as a child. Right up until Kacchan got his quirk and started making fun of him. Izuku didn't get his quirk for another two years. The doctor had told him he should give up on being a hero, that a late quirk was a sign of having a weak one. If only that had been the case.
"I don't plan on making friends with people with weak quirks," Katsuki states, kicked back in his seat with his feet on the desk. Some of his classmates don't take kindly to Bakugo's input.
"What do you mean by that, Katsuki?" One kid asks, offended.
"Yea, Bakugo, you can't call us extras!" Calls another.
"Shut up, you extras!" Katsuki yells back, clearly undeterred by his classmates protests.
"Bakugo, you were planning on taking the Yuuei exam, weren't you?" the classroom breaks into whispers about how hard it is to get into Yuuei.
"Yea! And I'm gonna be the only kid from this shitty school to get in!" Bakugo is on top of his desk now as he shouts. " And then I'll even surpass All Might and be the highest ranked hero of all time!"
"Oh yea, Midoriya wants to get into Yuuei too, right?" His teacher said, thoughtlessly, not aware of the wrath of Bakugo Katsuki that he'd just brought down on Izuku.
The classroom goes quiet for a second as every student turns to look at him before it erupts into laughter and jeers.
An explosion goes off right in front of him as Katsuki closes in. Izuku is flung out of his seat by the power of the blast aimed at his desk.
"Deku!" He has backtrack towards the back wall of the classroom to keep away from Bakugo's explosions.
"You don't even have a useful quirk, so why are you putting yourself on the same level as me?"
"Huh?" Izuku asks as he gets pushed further back into the wall, "No Kacchan, I'm not trying to compete with you at all. It's just been my dream ever since I was little, and even though I don't have a useful quirk, I can still try, can't I?" His words tumble out of his mouth in his nervousness.
Katsuki gives him a glare and a sneer. "What are you capable of anyway?"
Izuku stands there for another second to regain his composure. The teacher is already regaining order as he walks back to his seat and rights his desk.
੦
I can't wait to get home so I can write down all the stuff that happened this morning. His hero analysis notebooks had been the only constant outlet for his thoughts for a very long time now.
Izuku listened to the mindless chatter of his classmates as they grabbed their stuff, getting ready to leave for the day. He himself already had his backpack on and was just about to pick up his notebook when it was snatched off his desk. He looked up and sure enough, it was Bakugo.
"I'm not finished with you, Deku," Katsuki told Izuku as his gang started to circle around the smaller boy.
"What is that, Katsuki?"
"Pffft! 'For the future', Midoriya? Seriously?"
"Give it back!" Izuku crys.
Bakugo blasts the notebook between his hands, a scowl on his face.
"That's cruel, Kacchan…" He mumbles out as Katsuki throws the notebook out the window.
"You know, most top heroes have stories about them from their younger days. Most people look at them and know they are destined for greatness," Bakugo carries on, "When I'm the only kid from this shit school to get into Yuuei, people will start talking about me like that."
Bakugo walks up to him and places a steaming hand on Izuku's shoulder. He shudders and prays he won't have to tell his mother how he got another burn.
"You should just forget about passing the Yuuei exam, you useless nerd," Katsuki tells him with a nasty smile on his face.
"You should at least try to make a comeback," One of the other boys calls as Bakugo's gang starts walking to the door.
"Don't say that. He's pathetic, he can't even face reality," The other says.
Izuku can feel anger and shame rushing into his system as they continue to make fun of him while walking towards the door.
Katsuki stops at the threshold of the classroom and looks back at him and Izuku can feel dread well up inside of him. What more could he possibly have to say to make me feel worse. Izuku thinks.
"You know," Katsuki started. "There might be a way for you to be a hero after all."
No Kacchan… Don't say it… He thought, feeling the sting of tears start to enter his eyes.
"Go take a swan dive off the roof and hope for a better quirk in your next life."
Izuku feels those familiar chains wrap around him, taking his free will. He starts to walk out of the classroom, past Katsuki and his gang. He feels the tears he was holding back fall from his eyes and down his face.
The chains that bind him are impossible to break, but Izuku tries anyway. I don't want to die. His mind starts firing similar thoughts at almost light speed as his feet start to climb the stairs that he knows lead to the roof. Kacchan… I know you didn't mean it…
੦
Katsuki can hear his pulse pounding in his head. He knows his anger got away from him.
Shitty deku, he thinks to himself, believing he can be a hero. I'm gonna be the only hero from this school.
The conversation plays itself back in his head as he makes his way out of the classroom. The look on Deku's face as he passed by them stuck in his mind.
Go take a swan dive off the roof… It's stuck in his head.
Go take a swan dive off the roof…
Katsuki's eyes go wide. He forgets all about the boys next to him and starts running up the stairs to the roof, taking them two at a time.
He bursts through the door to the roof just in time to see Deku climbing onto the edge with his arms out, parallel to the ground he's standing on.
He starts to tip forward and Katsuki knows there's no way that he will get to Izuku in time
"Izuku! Stop!" He howls.
Izuku's body has already tipped forward past the point of no return, his toes still barely attached to the edge of the roof. But he stops. He looks like he's being suspended in the air.
Katsuki doesn't know what's just happened, but he sags in relief, as Deku starts to cry out in front of him. Tears that he won't admit to run down his face.
"Oh my god! What's happening?" He hears Izuku exclaim.
Katsuki walks over to where Deku is just hanging over the roof and pulls him back over solid ground into his arms.
He can feel Izuku's tears wet his shoulder, but can't care enough to stop him at the moment.
"I'm so sorry…" Katsuki tells him, tears still flowing from his eyes.