Spoilers up to the end of the anime 4th season/Shie Hassaikai Arc. Rated T for canon-typical violence and Kacchan's dirty mouth.

Maybe it was from watching too many hero rescue videos at too young an age, seeing all the horrible graphic tragedies that could befall your average citizen. Then again, Kacchan had watched all the same videos and he didn't have nightmares, so maybe Izuku was just a scaredy-cat with anxiety problems. Whatever the reason, he'd always been acutely aware that the universe was huge, and terrifying, and cruel, and it didn't really care whether you lived or died. Fate could decide it was your time to suffer, and there was very little you could do to stop it on your own.

Mom tried to ban him from watching the videos a few times, but it just made things worse; he dissolved into an inconsolable mess until she finally caved and let him back on the computer. The hero footage did scare him half to death, but what Mom didn't understand was that it gave him the antidote at the same time: it showed that even the worst, most hopeless situations could turn out okay.

The world was overwhelming. And maybe you couldn't stop it on your own—most people couldn't—but you didn't have to stop it on your own. Heroes would come to help you. That was how people survived this awful, unfair existence. Together, helping each other.

And All Might... All Might was the pinnacle of that. He could help anyone through anything. He practically rewrote reality. When he was there, it didn't matter what the universe decided. Fires? Tsunamis? Terrorist attacks? No matter what happened, he faced it head-on, and laughed. And suddenly, the world didn't seem as scary anymore.

Whenever Izuku saw the hero at work, he felt a breathtaking sense of reverence. At four years old, he didn't have the words to explain the enormous emotions he felt, so he settled for calling the hero "cool" as often as he could. But it was much more than cool. What All Might represented was... it was everything. It was the meaning behind it all. It was the only goal in the world worth aspiring to.

Everyone deserved help when their own strength wasn't enough. Everyone deserved to get another chance when they were sure that all their chances had run out. Izuku wanted to bring that hope to everyone: his mom, and Kacchan, and his classmates, and his teachers, and even the people he saw on the street that he didn't even know. He wanted to be a hero like All Might, to save people with a smile.

As it turned out, people didn't always get what they wanted, or what they deserved.

First, his body betrayed him. Quirkless. An awful hurdle, but people could overcome any obstacle, right? All Might taught him that.

Well... people could overcome any obstacle when they worked together. Meanwhile, Mom tearfully apologized and gave up on him. Kacchan went from indifference, to mockery, to vicious bullying. His school advised him to choose a more realistic career path. Quirkless heroes were not a thing. He had to face this challenge totally alone, and he was the weakest of the weak.

Which all led up to today. The whole class ganged up on him to laugh at his goal of applying to U.A. High. The one person he ever called a best friend told him he should jump off the school roof. And then, just to drive it all home, a villain that was apparently made out of pond slime decided he was going to be the victim of the day.

As he struggled against the sludge that wrapped around his limbs and shoved its way down his throat, a thought pinged through the raw panic: maybe the universe is handing me the clue phone. Sometimes heroes didn't save you. Sometimes you couldn't change fate even if you tried really, really hard. Sometimes you just failed nonstop for fourteen years and then quietly died on your way home from school. His childhood beliefs were just that: childish. Maybe this was his reward for clinging to them for so long.

But then, something ripped him free. And when he opened his eyes, every one of his childish beliefs were suddenly proven right.

Heroes did come. They could change fate. And not just any hero... All Might himself. All Might had rescued him from certain death. All Might was here, right in front of him. All Might was talking to him.

All Might was... leaving already!?

Hold on! I still... I need to ask you...

There wasn't time to speak his case. He scrambled forward, lunging, as if he seriously thought he could stop the strongest man in the world—

His fingers closed on rough fabric, on smooth plastic. Then a colossal shockwave bowled him over as the hero leapt. Izuku skidded and fell back, hitting the ground hard as he threw a hand up to shield his eyes.

The dust faded, and he felt the sting of rugburn on his fingers. All Might was gone, just like that. Such powerful jumps he could practically fly. Izuku was surprised he hadn't gotten a concussion from being so close. In interviews, All Might has mentioned that he has to take care not to smash the pavement when making his city-spanning leaps. The average compressive force needed to crack concrete is over 4,000 PSI—

But even reciting trivia to himself couldn't soothe the clenched feeling in his chest. He'd been saved by his hero, seen his hero face to face—spoken to his hero, one on one! But it had been so short. He never got to ask the question that burned a hole through him for so many years.

Can I be a hero, even without a Quirk? Can I save people like you do?

Of all the people in the world, All Might could have answered that question once and for all. But now he was gone, and Izuku would never know for sure.

He heard a dull thunk, and looked up, startled from his thoughts. A big two-liter soda bottle, filled with swirling dark green liquid, bounced and rolled across the asphalt just ahead of him.

That...

That was the villain. The villain that just tried to kill him. The villain that All Might defeated and trapped inside the only container he had handy, a soda bottle... the bottle Izuku grabbed onto in his mad dash to try and stop the hero from leaving...

He made All Might drop the villain. He made All Might drop the villain!

His heart leapt into his throat. "Uh...! All Might!..." He scanned the empty sky, wide-eyed. "...Wait..." His voice cracked and petered out. All Might was already long gone, he knew this. The hero often travels at a "leisurely" pace of 200km/hr between jobs, to reduce risk to birds and damage when landing, but in a pinch, he can increase his speed to over—no, he had to focus. There was a deadly villain in front of him.

He crept up to the makeshift plastic prison. There had been two bottles, hadn't there? Could the villain even function without his whole body? If he could, what was the main part of him? How fast would—he had to focus, he had to focus.

Should he wait for All Might to notice the bottle was missing and come back? Should he call the police and let them handle it?

He dug out his phone from his back pocket, then did a double take. A huge spiderweb crack marred the glass. He hit the power button and the screen lit up in a scrambled mess of broken pixelated bars. When did this happen? When that slime person first engulfed him? When All Might freed him with a shockwave so strong it made the villain literally explode? When he landed hard on the pavement just now? In any case, he wouldn't be calling the police with it any time soon.

Dazed yellow eyes lolled around inside the bottle's murky contents, not seeming to notice him or anything else. When All Might hit villains hard enough to knock them out, most of them (94%) woke back up within ten minutes. There wasn't much time. All Might was fast, but who knew how long it would take the hero to realize what happened and figure out where exactly the villain fell. A large part of him wanted to wait and see if All Might would reappear (then pester him with questions), but the rest of him knew it would be really bad if the villain woke up and attacked him again—or went after someone else—while he sat around twiddling his thumbs.

There was a police station a twelve minute walk away, half that if he ran. He wanted to be a hero, right? Heroes did riskier things than this. And this was his fault. He had to make it right. Just a quick jog. Easy.

He dug around in his backpack and found a scrap of notebook paper and a pen, scribbled down a quick note, then grabbed a nearby rock and used it to pin the paper down in the middle of the road. The note would be really confusing to anyone else who happened to stumble upon it, but if All Might came back here, it would let him know what happened and where he'd gone.

Then, he turned to the villain. Was he really doing this? He gingerly reached out, touched one finger to the bottle like it was made of TNT. No response. Hands shaking, he picked it up. It was heavy, way heavier than it seemed like it should be. The thick, sludgy muck sloshed against the inside, and he froze, but it wasn't moving on its own, wasn't trying to force its way out of the container and back down his throat.

He dragged himself to his feet, made sure the cap on the bottle was closed as tight as it could go, then ran on unsteady legs down the road.

To his credit, his plan nearly worked.

He was jogging, clutching the bottle with both arms. His throat and chest still burned from the villain's earlier attack, but he was too scared to slow down and catch his breath. He turned down a quiet alleyway to cut through to the next street over, instead of going down the busy sidewalk—villain attacks grow proportionally more dangerous in denser crowds—then almost tripped over himself when he realized the corridor wasn't empty.

"What're you doing in my way, nerd?"

Izuku's heart stopped. Oh, no, no.

Katsuki Bakugo. Bane of his childhood. The one who advised him to hop off a roof just a while ago. The larger boy stared him down as he strolled through the narrow passage. Behind him, his two lackeys trailed like twin shadows. A lot of people liked to orbit Kacchan, but Nayubi and Kanda were his most dedicated sycophants.

Of course the three of them were here; they liked to hang around the train station sometimes, and this alley was a quick shortcut to get there from school. Why hadn't he thought of this? Izuku glanced back towards the entrance. If he dashed, maybe he could—

"Hey, you ignoring me?"

"Dude, what the hell is he holding," Nayubi drawled, telescoping a finger to point at him.

As if to answer him, Izuku felt the soda bottle jolt in his hands. He jumped and nearly dropped it, fumbling, finally got a grip on it again, only for Nayubi to reach out his impossibly long fingers and snatch it out of his grasp.

"Whoa, it's heavy!"

"N-no! Don't!" Izuku cried. "Please!"

"What is this? Gross."

"Whatever you were trying to make, I think you messed it up!"

Don't open it! he wanted to scream, but he knew that saying the words out loud would instantly make them do it, just to get a reaction out of him. He wanted to lunge out and grab it back from them, push his way past, escape... but he was frozen, feeling stunned and dazed even though they hadn't even touched him yet. He was always helpless against Kacchan in the end. Why did he think this would go any differently?

"I-it's a villain," he mumbled, "I'm trying to take him to the police... he's dangerous..."

"Haha, what!?"

"Uh, pretty sure this is just a bad science experiment, Deku."

"I guess it would be villainy to make someone drink this..."

Kacchan was quiet as his friends exchanged their lame banter. He hefted the soda bottle, then finally looked up at Izuku with a curled lip. "You're such a loser," he said. "You think you can pretend to be a hero by pranking the police? Give it up already. You're Quirkless. You're nothing."

He tossed the bottle. It fell down, down, bounced off the ground once, twice. Still sealed. A yellow eye bobbed out of the murk, bright and alert now, looking out at them.

Izuku stood stock-still, staring at the bottle like he could hold it closed through sheer force of will. If he didn't react, didn't give them anything else to respond to, maybe the three of them would get bored and leave and he could salvage this situation. Please, please, please, please.

But then Kacchan pulled back one foot and kicked the soda bottle for good measure. Izuku watched in horrified slow motion as it ricocheted off the wall of the alley, as the bright red cap came loose and spiraled away.

Before it even hit the ground, thick tendrils of muddy-green slime shot out in all directions. Izuku stumbled back as the villain sent fountains of muck spiraling up into the air. "What the hell!?" Kacchan shouted, then sent an explosive blast from one palm as a ribbon of sludge snaked out towards him. The tendril splattered across the wall of the alleyway, only to slop back down and reform.

The villain continued to grow, filling the alley, his creepy tombstone-like teeth regenerating and slotting back into an uneven row among the shifting, swirling mass. The villain fixed its rolling eyes on Kacchan. "A good Quirk..." he gurgled. Then he surged forward, slimy tendrils shooting out. Kacchan yelled and shot off a string of explosions that lit up the alleyway as the sludge wrapped around his limbs.

Izuku crouched as a wave of blistering heat whooshed over him, an eruption of fiery detonations that sent long threads of slime spattering everywhere. The force of Kacchan's explosion Quirk flung himself and the villain backwards, and Izuku heard a chorus of cries as the two of them spilled out of the alley and into the one-lane street ahead.

For several moments, Izuku just crouched there, frozen, flinching at every sharp bang that rang out down the street. What had he done. What had he done?

Kacchan was strong, right? He could defeat that villain. He could do anything. Right?

Finally, he forced himself to his feet. Nayubi and Kanda were nowhere to be seen. Did they run? Probably for the best. He crept forward on shaking legs, and his breath caught as he peered out at the street.

In the middle of the road, Kacchan thrashed in the villain's sticky grip, sending huge explosions in every direction as he tried to blast himself free. But he could only fire explosions from his palms, and the villain could still cling to every other part of him in the meantime, so he wasn't having much success. Meanwhile, the wild detonations were destroying everything around them. Crumbled bricks and shattered glass dotted the street, and several fires were already beginning to burn out of control.

It was a disaster. It had gone as badly as it could possibly go. And it was all his fault.

Well, not completely his fault. Kacchan was the one who let the villain out, he was the one doing all the damage. But it was Izuku's fault for creating the situation at all.

"Young man!" a voice cut through his numb horror. He looked over to see a man in a red-and-yellow uniform running up towards him, a man who had two giant spigots for hands and a mask with a single orange lens set in the center. Backdraft, the firehose hero. He works for the Musutafu fire department, and can both create and manipulate water. He mainly works in a support role, reducing the collateral damage from fights—

"We need to get you to safety!" the hero said. He released a blob of water from one hand that snaked forward, weightless, and wrapped around Izuku's body. Izuku froze in abject terror—it felt way, way too similar to the slime villain's grip—but Backdraft just gently lifted him, hurrying back towards the crowd of onlookers that was forming further down the street. He deposited Izuku next to them, then twisted the blob of water in midair to make a floating barricade between the crowd and the villain. The throng of people quickly absorbed Izuku into their midst as they clamored to get a better look at the scene. Backdraft used his other hand to send a spray of water towards the nearest burning building. He didn't target the villain directly, probably waiting for a more combat-oriented hero to appear.

The crowd was noisy, chattering. Kacchan's explosions were earsplitting. The acrid smoke of burning wood and plastic stung Izuku's already painful lungs. He wanted to be anywhere but here, seeing anything but this.

Kacchan writhed like an animal caught in a trap as the villain tried to subdue him. Izuku caught a glimpse of the other boy's face. Wide, panicked eyes, that horrible slime covering most of his face. He was suffering, suffocating, the exact same way Izuku had been just a handful of minutes ago.

He needs help.

The thought sent an electric shock through his body. His eyes widened, and his mind seemed to shift gears, every single obsessive overanalytical neuron in his brain honing in to fixate on the scene in front of him instead of trying to tune it out.

He didn't know what he could do. But he could at least look and find out.

The sludge villain was huge now, easily as much mass as ten people. But he had grown all that mass in a hurry, starting from an amount small enough to fit in a soda bottle. People with regenerative Quirks often got structurally unstable or just plain exhausted after spinning up that much matter from nothing. He was probably not at his full strength right now. (And yet, Kacchan still couldn't break free...)

Izuku's eyes darted to the burning buildings around them. The sludge didn't seem to be affected by the heat, and the explosions were doing far more damage to the surroundings than to the villain. The asphalt around them was dotted with murky, green-stained puddles of water from Backdraft's efforts to contain the fires.

Wait... murky... the only way the puddles could be stained green like that was if...

He dashed forward, elbowing his way back out through the crowd towards Backdraft.

"Excuse me!" Izuku yelled. "Backdraft! Sir!"

The hero turned his head towards Izuku without stopping his streams of water. "Back up! It's not safe!"

"The villain!" Izuku cried. "He's, I think he's water-soluble! And he's probably unstable right now, he's..." Izuku forcibly stopped his own rambling, jumped ahead to the point. "If you spray water into him... dilute him... Kacchan might be able to get out!"

The hero paused, then swung his head to look at the villain. If Backdraft could free Kacchan, there wouldn't be as many fires to fight, either. After a second's deliberation, he cut off his streams of water and dashed to the side, away from the crowd and towards an already-damaged section of storefront—reducing the chance of civilians getting caught in a counterattack—then sent twin jets of water rocketing towards the sludge villain.

It worked. The blasts sheared off a huge section of gray-green slime. The villain roared and flung a thick rope of ooze towards Backdraft, who countered with a wave of water. A fountain of muddy spray shot into the sky as the two attacks connected, then fell back to the ground, splashing away harmlessly. Apparently, the villain couldn't control his own body once it got too diluted.

Backdraft continued pelting the villain in between guarding and dodging, sending chunks of muck sloughing away. It was clear that he wasn't using his full force, not with a young hostage in the middle of things, but it was still working. The villain was regenerating as fast as he could, but the water was making him more elastic, his body slopping about in a chaotic mess as he tried to keep himself together. Kacchan could probably blast away easily now.

But Kacchan wasn't blasting anymore. His explosive attacks had weakened to anemic pops. He sagged in the coating of thick sludge, layers of it smothering his nose and mouth. It was incredible that he'd held out this long, but he'd lose consciousness very soon if he didn't get a breath of air.

And then what? The villain had talked about "hijacking." Would he be able to control Kacchan's Quirk? Would Kacchan die?

Izuku glanced around, but Backdraft was still the only hero on the scene, and he had his hands full trying to counter the villain's attacks. Nobody else was there to step in, and they were completely out of time.

The villain was focused on Backdraft, preoccupied... there was a clear path to get to Kacchan, he was exposed enough to grab hold of if someone could just make it there. All Kacchan needed was the tiniest bit of extra leverage to break away. Anyone could do it. Why wasn't anyone doing it?

Izuku ducked under the arm of a bystander, barely registering what he was doing, and then he was clear of the crowd, one step away from them, two. He saw something come at him from the corner of his eye and his jittery nerves fired; he threw himself sideways to avoid whatever it was and registered a harsh shout at the same time. "Hey!"

He turned, finally processing what he'd dodged. A tall, lanky man with scraggly blond hair stood at the front of the crowd, stretching his long arms out to physically stop curious onlookers from advancing any further now that Backdraft's barricade wasn't there to hold them back. He had tried to reach out and grab Izuku, had been just a hair out of reach.

The man locked eyes with him. Bright eyes, sharp as a hawk's, vibrant blue burning out of deep shadowed sockets. "Kid! It's dangerous. You need to get back."

Izuku almost obeyed that commanding tone. Almost meekly slunk back to observe like the nobody he was. Like everyone else was doing. Just watching, gawping, like this was a spectacle, like it was a show. All these people, sitting around with their mouths hanging open while his childhood friend suffocated to death.

A cold fury suddenly ran through him, more anger than he realized he was even capable of feeling. So many times, people just sat around and watched. Let it happen. Reassured themselves that there was nothing they could do.

Who was he really angry at? Them? Or himself? Because he'd done it too, a hundred times, a thousand times. He was doing it right now.

He wanted to be a hero, right? Someone needed saving. Why was he making excuses? He didn't need permission. Not from his mom, not from his classmates, not from this man, not even from All Might.

"I need," he shot back, "to help!" And he spun on his heel, fixed Kacchan in his sights, and surged forward.

It took an eternity to cross the open space, like the street had suddenly stretched to the length of a soccer field. By the time he made it across, his determination had evaporated into muted panic. What was he doing? This was crazy! He was crazy! But it was too late to turn back.

A jaundiced eye glanced towards him, and the villain swung a wave of sludge his way. He braced, leaned forward as he ran, ready to be sent flying, but instead he splashed right through the watered-down muck—it had been a feint, the villain was barely holding himself together under Backdraft's onslaught—and then he was through, he was there, Kacchan was right in front of him.

He lunged forward, grabbed at Kacchan's shirt, tried to get a grip through the slippery, slimy mess. Kacchan's face was barely visible through the layers of sludge. "Kacchan, if you can, send your explosions behind you!" he cried. This was crazy. This was completely insane. He was going to die.

He finally got a solid hold, braced his legs, and heaved backwards with all his strength. He wasn't sure if Kacchan had heard him, if he was even still conscious, but a second later he felt the muffled thump of an explosion and the slime gave way, stretching like taffy.

He pulled, yanked with everything he had, felt the burst of another explosion, and then they were suddenly free, stumbling backwards. He slipped on the slick asphalt and fell; Kacchan collapsed on top of him along with several dozen kilos of waterlogged sludge. He dully felt his elbow strike the ground, but didn't feel any pain. Kacchan jerked and choked, gasping for air.

Above them, the villain turned, his warped face twisted even further in rage. He swelled, rose like a wave about to crash down. He was going to completely engulf them, they had to move, they had to get away—

Then a huge, bony hand grabbed Kacchan's upper arm, reaching all the way around it. Izuku felt another hand grip the back of his shirt collar, and with a tremendous yank, they were pulled back, out of reach. The villain slammed to the ground where they'd been a moment ago, splashing in all directions. He lashed out towards them, but Backdraft shot a jet of water and intercepted the attack, turning it into a harmless froth of green-gray that drenched them but didn't hurt them.

Izuku tripped, but the grip on his collar kept him upright. He looked up and saw wild blond hair and piercing blue eyes. The man from before! The stranger looked down at Izuku with a stare that could cut glass. "You," he said in a low voice, "need to learn to do as you're told."

The man didn't let go of the two of them until they made it back to the safety of the crowd. He marched them through the gaggle of onlookers and back to where an ambulance had showed up, then deposited them in the hands of the paramedics. The medics immediately descended on Kacchan, who immediately started protesting and complaining, which was a very good sign. Izuku accepted a blanket and was quickly ignored after he assured them he wasn't hurt.

Their rescuer dismissively waved the medics away from himself; he was soaked in muddy water but otherwise seemed okay. Well, maybe "okay" was an overstatement. Now that Izuku had more than a split second to stop and look at the man, it was clear that lanky was not even close to what he was seeing. Gaunt was a much better word. The stranger was practically skin and bones. He couldn't possibly be healthy. Yet there had been a superhuman amount of strength in those thin arms when he wrenched the two of them to safety.

The rest of the crowd was still oohing and aahing over the battle. Backdraft was now using his full force against the villain, dousing him in unrelenting torrents of water, blasting him apart faster than he could put himself back together. Another hero—Death Arms—had arrived and was gruffly chaperoning the ever-growing pack of onlookers.

The tall man glowered as he looked back at the scene. He was so odd looking, striking, with his ragged mane of golden-yellow hair and baggy clothes that made him look even thinner than he already was.

"He'll probably seep into the sewers and get away again, unless Backdraft can stun him..." he muttered, sounding immensely frustrated. He glanced down at Izuku with that hawk's glare, and Izuku suddenly felt very small. "...but at least you two are safe."

"Y-yeah..." Izuku murmured. He turned away, remembering with a pang that this entire mess had been his fault. That villain would be tucked away in the police station right now if he hadn't interfered.

Watching the paramedics fuss over Kacchan didn't really help him feel less anxious. Kacchan was shooting him increasingly volcanic stares as he sat on the back edge of the ambulance. He would probably just toss Izuku off the roof himself once all this was over. But at least he was alive, he was conscious, he looked like he was going to be okay.

Izuku fidgeted in place, then finally screwed up his courage and turned back towards the stranger. He couldn't not thank their rescuer just because he was embarrassed for causing the man so much trouble. That was even more reason to thank him, and beg for forgiveness too.

But the stranger wasn't next to him anymore. He had completely vanished.

Wait, how!? The guy was way too tall to just disappear in a crowd! Izuku scanned the street in slightly outraged confusion before he finally spotted the man some distance away, just before he disappeared down a narrow side alley. Izuku took one last glance at Kacchan, then set down his now-wet blanket and hurried after their rescuer.

It didn't take long to catch up. "Hey!" he called. The man turned at his shout, and that very focused, very serious stare fell on Izuku again, and he quailed despite himself. The man had a gaze that seemed way too intense for his tired-looking face and bony frame, as if all the lifeforce in the rest of his body had been sucked out and concentrated into those two brilliant pinpoints of blue that were staring Izuku down and silently asking him what he was doing here.

What was he doing here? Nothing about the stranger looked like he had any desire to stop and chitchat with an annoying little kid. Izuku felt a sudden overwhelming urge to turn around and scurry off again. But he'd chased the stranger down for a reason, right?

"You're leaving already?" he blurted out. Wait, no, that wasn't what he came here to say at all.

The stranger squinted at him. "Yes," he said, flatly, then a thin smile cracked through his harsh expression. "I'm not in the mood for reporters."

"Oh," Izuku said, like an idiot. Oh, he hadn't even thought about reporters. Oh, god, he'd have a nervous breakdown if some news station tried to interview him about all this. He did not want to tell the world why he had been running around with a soda bottle full of Diet Dr. Villain. This guy had the right idea.

Apparently the horror was showing on his face, because the tall man chuckled, then winced and brought up an arm as he let out a rattling cough. Izuku's eyes widened as he saw a dark stain drip down the back of the man's hand.

"A-are you okay?" he half-asked, half-yelped. "Are you bleeding?"

The stranger wiped his mouth. "There's no need to worry. This isn't from the villain."

"That doesn't matter!?" Izuku's voice cracked a little. "Oh my god, you are bleeding! We have to get the paramedics!"

The man tilted his head with a sedate little grin. "You certainly don't hold anything back when you think someone needs help, don't you?"

Izuku felt his ears go hot. He was overreacting, wasn't he? Like he always did. Even though this seemed like it very much deserved an overreaction. He was being a nuisance to this guy he didn't even know, who he'd already deeply inconvenienced, who probably just wanted to get away from him so he could go home and cough blood in peace.

"I, um," he mumbled. "...I just wanted to say thank you. For saving us."

The man didn't reply right away, just looked at him, brows drawing together. Izuku couldn't meet those piercing eyes for more than a few seconds. He dropped his gaze to the ground, feeling dissected.

"I spoke harshly back there..." the man finally said, "...but you did the right thing. You stepped in to help that boy when nobody else would. Not even me."

It took Izuku a second to process the words. He glanced up again, out of shock more than anything. The stranger still looked very tired of the world and everything in it... but that's all it was, tiredness and gentle concern. He wasn't angry. A warm sensation blossomed in Izuku's chest and he let out a tiny smile as he looked down at the ground again. "Um, thanks..."

Now that all the the raw panic was ebbing away, all sorts of sensations were starting to blossom. He'd been running on heart-pounding fear for quite a while now, and he was finally starting to crash. He could feel the painful burning in his throat again. His hands and legs were trembling. His elbow ached. He was cold and wet and his socks squelched in his shoes.

He felt tears start to pool in his eyes. Oh, and of course he was going to start crying too, he always did this whenever the slightest thing upset him, because he was the most immature baby in the entire world. He took a half-step back, wrapped his arms around himself in a futile attempt to hold himself together until he could find somewhere else to let this happen. He did not want to start bawling like a stupid toddler in front of a stranger.

The man perked up. "Are you hurt?" An ironic question coming from someone who had just been hacking up blood.

"N-no," he said. "It's just... been a long day..." He swallowed. "I, I should probably go..."

The man regarded him with a frown. "You look like the adrenaline is wearing off. Are you getting lightheaded?"

He was, actually. He felt exhausted and sick. He gave a clipped little nod, not trusting that he'd be able to talk anymore without his voice shaking. "Sit down, then," the stranger said, voice soft. "Put your head between your knees for a while. It's okay. Nobody will see you here."

You'll see me, he wanted to say, but he just quietly slid down the wall, hugging his knees to his chest. He knew from experience that there was no stopping these little meltdowns once they got started. He hated them, he hated how he had no control, how he just had to go along with the ride and wait for his body to get over itself. "S-sorry," he choked, then his throat closed up completely and the tears finally started rolling down.

The man sat down next to him. "Was today the first time you faced a villain?"

Izuku couldn't really speak at that point, so he just nodded again. The stranger let out a contemplative hum.

"Well, then, you're in luck." Izuku shot him a confused look. The man's thin face was completely deadpan aside from a warm twinkle in his eyes. "Everyone gets a free pass to be a crybaby their first time. But only once! So you need to make it count."

Izuku tried to let out a weak laugh, but it came out sounding like a hiccup.

"Violent situations always take a toll, even if you aren't harmed," the man continued. His voice was soothing, distracting. It made Izuku feel like he was listening to an old friend. Or at least, what he imagined that might feel like, if he had any friends besides his online ones. "It's normal. It takes practice to handle the way your body reacts. The media shows heroes laughing and joking after they defeat a villain, but they don't show how hard it is to process everything later."

That did make sense. Adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine... having that all dumped into your body had real physical effects. He could probably get out a textbook and chart out all the symptoms of this rollercoaster he was feeling.

But it was more than just chemicals and hormones. He'd almost died. It felt like a part of him had been dying for a long time, very slowly, painfully. But today was like he'd gulped a breath of fresh air for the first time in years. Back there, against that villain, he made a difference. Not a big one, barely any difference at all, but he didn't just sit back and let the universe have its way.

That meant something, right? It had to mean something. He did the right thing.

It was all overwhelming. It was overwhelming in a good way, but still overwhelming, and he really only knew one way to deal with overwhelming things.

The man didn't say anything else, just sat quietly as he cried and shuddered and eventually broke into a hoarse, retching string of coughs. His throat was still so sore from the villain's attack.

"Are you sure you're not hurt?" the man finally asked, after the second bout of coughing.

"N-no," Izuku sniffed. "I'm okay. Sorry." The unbearable tightness in his chest was looser now, not as overpowering. "I'm... I'm good now." Aside from wanting to crawl away and die of shame. He'd completely lost it in front of a total stranger. But the man seemed unfazed, like he didn't just say that stuff before to be polite, like he really wasn't going to think less of Izuku for falling apart.

He tried to wipe his eyes and grimaced as the fabric of his sleeve clung to his face. His clothes were all gummy. He was filthy; they were both hilariously filthy from being drenched in sludge water. At least his school uniform was all black, so he just looked kind of grimy. The stranger, on the other hand, was wearing a t-shirt that was no longer white and might not ever be again.

"We-we're going to need to do some laundry..." Izuku murmured with a shaky smile, and the stranger let out a bark of laughter.

"And some showering!" the stranger added. "I sincerely hope your hair was already that shade of green before today."

Izuku sputtered and his hands flew up to touch his wet curls. "Yh-yes! Um, yes, it's supposed to be this way!"

The man gave a sly, toothy smile. "Where were you going before all this?" he asked. "Do you need to call anyone?"

Oh, right. Real life still existed. Izuku got up, feeling a little wobbly. "Just, um, heading home after school..." It really had been just an ordinary day before now, hadn't it? It all seemed like a lifetime ago. "...Do you think this would be on the news already?"

"It would be wise to let your guardians know you're okay, just in case." Good point. Izuku fished his phone out of his pocket, then remembered the broken screen. He tried the power button again, but now it didn't seem to turn on at all. Well... he was only about twenty minutes from home anyway, assuming no more insane shenanigans happened on the way.

The man was looking at his own phone. He gave a few taps on the screen and let out a displeased huff. "...I was right, he escaped..." That would explain why the noise from the street had died down over the last few minutes. He got to his feet as well. "Hopefully the villain will lay low for a while, but I can come with you if you're worried about walking home alone."

Izuku's heart thumped. He hadn't even thought of that. The villain was probably nursing a grudge towards him now. "I-I-I don't want to make you go out of your way..." he stuttered. But he also really did not want to go for round three with the slime monster. And what if Kacchan escaped the paramedics and caught him alone? Izuku couldn't even begin to process how angry Kacchan was going to be about all this.

The man waved a hand. "It's up to you, but I'm not doing much right now, really. I'd rather know you got back safely."

So they walked together, heading back towards Izuku's apartment, earning quite a few confused stares as they walked down the street looking like the losers of a mud wrestling competition. Which... wasn't far off from what actually happened. As they went, Izuku meekly explained how All Might rescued him (All Might himself! In their city!), and how he accidentally made All Might drop the villain, and how he tried to do something about it but got waylaid by his classmates ("Is that what happened?" the stranger said, sounding bemused).

They agreed it would have been safer just to run to the police without the bottle and tell them where it was, or to wait (the man seemed convinced that All Might would've returned within a few minutes, though Izuku wasn't so sure; if All Might really came back, why didn't he follow Izuku's note to the very loud and obvious villain fight? The man gave him an oddly wounded look in response, but didn't argue the point). But it was in the past now, and besides, his plan probably would have worked just fine if he hadn't run into Kacchan.

The stranger was... actually really, really easy to talk to, something Izuku never would have expected considering how severe and reserved he looked. It usually wasn't this easy to talk to people; he had a tendency to gracelessly fumble conversations off the edge of a cliff after a few sentences. But when he did that here, the stranger just calmly tossed another topic towards him without missing a beat, like it was no big deal, like it didn't even matter if Izuku stumbled over his words or went off on stupid rambling tangents. It seemed effortless, though it probably took a lot of finesse on his part.

"You said you're a third-year?" the man asked. "Do you have plans after you graduate?"

Ah. This topic wasn't effortless. "I, um," Izuku fidgeted. "I want to apply to U.A.'s hero course." He braced himself for the question that always came next: "Oh? What's your Quirk?" After which he would get to play the painful game of explaining that yes, I know they've never accepted a Quirkless person before and there's no harm in trying, right? while doing his best not to look at the poorly-disguised pity in the other person's eyes.

But that question never came. Instead, the man just nodded. "I hope they accept you," he said. "You found a weakness that a pro overlooked, and you risked your life to save someone who needed help. I have no doubt you'd make a fine hero."

And that was it. No ifs, no buts, no Quirks. Izuku's breath caught in his throat.

He wouldn't be saying that if he knew you were Quirkless, his inner voice said. But that was okay. He could pretend. He could take those words and wrap them up carefully and cherish them for the rest of his life.

He still felt like he was walking on air even after he got home and had to explain everything to Mom while she lost her mind with alarm. The words still echoed through his head even after he laid out his textbooks to dry, and shampooed his hair three times trying to get the musty smell out of it, and spent a good fifteen minutes coughing after he lay down to go to sleep. He couldn't help but break out into a stupid grin every time he remembered them.

I have no doubt you'd make a fine hero.

He made it halfway through the next day before realizing he never asked the man's name.

Notes:

1) Nayubi and Kanda aren't OCs; they're the two kids that canonically accompanied Katsuki during the sludge villain event. This story does have OCs, but they exist to pad out the world, not to steal the spotlight from canon characters. All similarities to other people's OCs are pure coincidence.

Thank you so much for reading! It's been about 10 years since I found any new series that I've liked enough to want to make fanworks for. For some reason, My Hero Academia was the show that finally stole my heart. It's been a long time since I've written fic so I'm a bit nervous. If you have any input, positive or negative, I would love to hear it.