Suspension wasn't fun. At least that was what the teachers told him, because he wasn't so sure. Sure his mother threw a fit and started crying like she always did and Aunt Mitsuki tried to yell at him, but he told her in no uncertain terms about how Kacchan was hurting people and how she was defending a bully who didn't care about who suffered. Oh how angry she got, but he stood his ground and didn't give an inch. After what his father did, she wasn't that scary anymore.

Daddy didn't say anything when they had to talk with the Bakugous, which was strange because when he spoke everyone listened. Instead he looked at Izuku with an unmistakable pride that made him unspeakably proud about not giving up. They tried to get them to make up, but Kacchan wouldn't so much as meet his gaze. So here he was now in his room sitting on one of the two bean bag chairs with a controller in his hand. He had gotten two weeks off and while he could make up the schoolwork, he'd rather waste more time.

He'd just started a new game with more freedom than usual since both his parents were gone at the moment. It was left at the foot of the room, right in front of the entrance wrapped up with a bow on top that was centered enough that it was impossible to tell exactly who it was for. However, Izuku knew it was meant for him. His father was rewarding him for doing the right thing so he believed a little R&R wouldn't be too out of line. However, that would soon become a pipedream.

The sound of nails on skin brought his attention away from the screen to the only other person in the room. The scrape of blood stained his nails as old scars around his neck tore open in fresh red lines that had yet to weep. Around the young man's face were limp fingers held in place by wires stitched inside the hand, their base showing through the two openings at the bottom brass plate on the wrist. Those red eyes that greeted him into the world stared at the screen in annoyance behind the cage of dead skin, one that wished nothing but to destroy.

Rolling his eyes at what was happening, Izuku got up from the chair and made his way to their closet. He pulled out the surplus sized bag of tennis balls that his family had to buy increasingly throughout the years inside and handed one to his brother, who glared daggers at him, but took the ball regardless. In seconds the object was reduced to dust and with it came more balls that crumbled into nothing as Tomura gradually stopped scratching his neck and the anger left him.

"Stupid fucking game."

"You shouldn't say that, mommy said-"

"She isn't here now, is she?"

"That doesn't change the fact it's her rules. Even Daddy never breaks her rules."

Tomura rolled his eyes in turn, shutting off their console with a rather sour expression behind his mask.

"You should have killed him."

Izuku watched his older brother tower over him, his lanky arms twitching from the minor flex of his fingers that always happened when he used his quirk to completion. Stepping to his bed the more disturbed of the pair picked at the scabs around his neck, his eyes now complacent yet slightly upset like usual. Izuku shrugged, not phazed by or really even understanding how demented what was being said was.

"I stepped on his throat like you told me to, I kept hitting him until he had a black eye and I punched him in the belly until he threw up, just like you said I should. What did I do wrong?"

Opening a slot in his nightstand, Tomura pulled out a sharpened number two pencil and gripped it in an icepick grip with the point facing downward.

"Nothing, but you could have stabbed him in the throat with one of these. Then nobody would fuck with you ever again."

"But isn't that a bad thing to do?"

Tomura scoffed at his kin, shuffling further back in his bed until he felt the wall support him.

"People will tell you that, but they're just a bunch of weak NPCs who want things to function how they want it. They just want you to stop having fun."

Izuku scrunched his eyebrows at his brother, not seeing his reasoning at all.

"But I didn't like hitting Kacchan, I just did it to make him stop like Daddy said I should."

"You're too damn soft, you know that Zuku? Pretty soon Sensei is gonna need you to do a lot more than just beat on somebody."

Green eyes squinted at the teenaged monster with curiosity muddled with childish frustration.

"Why do you always call him Sensei? He's our Daddy, so you should call him that."

The older boy sighed at his younger sibling, suddenly feeling a tad uncomfortable at having to explain it.

"Because he's your father and he's my teacher. Ms. Inko and him did it and you happened. You're related to him by blood so you're his actual son. I'm adopted so I'm not biologically related to him. That's why I can't call him what you do."

A raised hand came next.

"Tommy, what does biologically mean?"

"It means anything that has to do with living things. Didn't they teach you that at school?"

Izuku shrugged, shifting around in his beanbag and trying not to look too unwise.

"Maybe, there's a lot we haven't learned yet."

He cringed when he heard Tomura cross his arms and felt the authoritative gaze of his older sibling.

"Well if that's the case let's get you a head start then. You certainly have more than enough material to level up your wisdom stat."

The little one looked up pleadingly with his best puppy dog eyes. It was already a pointless endeavor but he still had to try to avoid the unpleasantness of schoolwork.

"Can't we play a little longer? We almost beat the fifth dungeon."

There came the predictable sound of the door being opened and his school bag rustling in those clammy, thin fingers.

"Nope, we've played long enough and you got stuff to do. Sensei might get upset if you're slacking off on purpose."

His feet stamped against the floor as he shot up from the chair with indignation already in his eyes at the idea.

"I'm not a bum!"

A mocking grin nested behind that dead hand and the youngest boy knew, which only served to infuriate him more when the taunt came next.

"Oh yeah? Then prove it by getting this shit done tonight, do that and I might apologize."

Anger vanished into horror as Izuku stared at the bag set to burst with papers.

"I can't finish all that in one night! That's impossible!"

The slyness settled an unmistakable fondness behind the dead hand, earning the little one a heavy ruffling of his hair.

"Then it's a good thing I'm here. Come on, we'll get the worst out of the way first and start with math."

Pencils scribbled across parchment that night with Izuku being none too gently tutored by his old brother, who to his surprise, was actually quite wise in regards to what he needed to do. Granted, he still had to do all the work himself since Daddy would be upset otherwise, but somehow after a few hours, it was done. All the work he dreaded was complete and Tomura told him it was correct, meaning he had a whole week left of free time.

However there wasn't much to do, not with the TV getting hogged and Tomura not being in as cheery a mood as he was earlier, it meant he was left without things to do and for some reason in his boredom, he found himself staring at the room at end of the main hallway. That was his parents' room and it was the one place in their home he had never seen.

Sure he imagined it couldn't be any different from anywhere else in the small apartment, but a part of him that was older, more primitive told him to go explore since there was little else to do. So stealing a gaze back at the glow of the Television, finding that his brother had at least engrossed himself enough that he could slip away, Izuku walked up to the door, twisting the knob as slowly as he dared until a crack just large enough for him to slip through appeared.

Upon entering the room, he scrabbled for a lightswitch to erase the darkness around him. In the light he found...nothing of much interest. Everything was neatly ordered without a speck of dust anywhere and aside from a few paintings and photos on the wall it was just a room. Looking around proved nothing and for all his rebellious streak he wasn't about to go tearing through his parents' things. Instead he made his way to the closet to find row upon row of the same black suit, maintained to perfection along with ten pairs of black horn top shoes that shined in the low light.

For a moment he imagined his father wearing the very things before him, towering over everyone and radiating strength. It made him feel strange, like how he would always pump his fist up in the air after watching an All Might video by himself. A part of him knew he'd be punished, but at the moment he didn't care. Carefully he moved a box from one corner of the room to act as a step stool while he plucked a suit off the wire, making extra sure not to damage anything. Then once that was set aside he grabbed a pair of shoes, yet as he leaned forward into the closet his eyes focused on a small square section of the wall no bigger than a man's head behind the clothes that was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the structure, save for a tiny outline around it.

His fingers twitched at the imagined mystery that lay on the other side of the wall. Gently he moved a hand towards the square and to his intense surprise, felt pressure push back against his attempt until after applying more force, he managed to make it move back with a click.

The piece of drywall was automatically withdrawn into a slot within a metal grate to the right and at the same moment, a light flickered on, revealing the interior of the compartment. It was barely large enough for him to reach into with his arm, the whole of the place was overlaid with metal and only two things resided inside, which happened to be just an old book and a suitcase that both had aged brown leather as covers.

The things felt heavy in his hands and still Izuku removed them without complaint. He inspected the book first, seeing as that was the easiest thing to open. The pages were lined with pictures of his father, some in black and white where he stood next to a man looking proud as he ever had been, others with a pretty looking woman. However the most common ones were of his father standing alone in front of some buildings as if he had been unspeakably upset. That changed near the end of the album where he was photographed standing with Mommy and Tomura, then at the last couple of pages were also pictures of him.

For some reason he didn't like the way his father smiled in these, it scared him because he saw the same look in the older man's eyes when he found out about Kacchan hitting him.

Setting the book aside he moved on to the suitcase and began to fiddle with the built-in locks, flipping the brass dials over and over again in a half hearted attempt to figure out what was inside before simply playing with it. After what felt like hours however there came the sound of the button sliding down and unhooking the sides of the case. What was inside made his heart stop.

No light shined off the onyx black coat of the thing, the very light itself seeming to be absorbed by the sheer void that was it's being. Hollow eye sockets greeted him with a silence heavier than a corpse, devoid of even the inanimate nothing of an item and instead sent a sensation of proxy life into his soul. Like he was staring at something living yet not. The sensation lingered long in the air as if damned spirits were tethered to it, forever made to whisper in the back of his head to run.

The thing was sleek, devoid of any truly sharp angles aside from the jagged pictures of what might have been the face. It was in likeness to a skull, long ago flayed and burnt into obsidian. Izuku flinched at the fetish, feeling, knowing that thing was a marker of death in some unspoken primal way he knew in his core death was connected to the mask. Every instinct told him to shut the suitcase and return this marker of suffering back to where it slumbered.

However the longer he stared at the skull faced thing there came a second urge. This was his father's, the man he admired and idolized owned this. Hesitantly he reached out a hand to touch it in spite of his spirit railing against the idea and felt the smoothly cold surface of the helmet, it's metallic skin draining the warmth from his palms. The eyes gazed back almost meaningfully with their empty sockets. This was his, he realized. This shade of life, teller of pain, was his by right.

He wanted this.

Briefly he turned to a tall dressing mirror seeing himself in all his inadequacies even at such a young age. He was thin, short and scrawny without a single thing to link him to the power or strength of his father...or All Might he added almost as a hazy after thought. Following the urge, he scooped up the clothes and clumsily put on the suit and shoes that were far too large for him as the sleeves dangled down past his ankles and his feet couldn't even touch the whole interior of the foot wear.

Then came the mask, weighty in his hands and still filling him with a strange mixture of want and dread, he slipped it over his head. Everything went dark as the size was again too large, going past his eyes and covering them in what may have been the forehead. Still the boy lifted up enough of the thing so that he could see out the eyeholes and to his deep surprise, he liked how he looked.

He was scary(or as horrifying as a child could think themselves to be) and now there was a certainty about his emotions. He was strong, he could drag fear into the hearts of anyone and now he could actually command respect like his father.

Then as he admired himself in the mirror, Izuku suddenly was met with a mischievous thought. Tommy was scary with his mask and how big he was, but now he was the scarier one. He made an innocent, evil smile that grew when he imagined how much he'd laugh when his brother jumped back in fright. Yes, that'd be wonderful.

With a youthful quickness he turned, eager to scare his sibling when something else greeted him as faced the exit. Standing directly in front of the door with his massive stature completely blocking it was his father. Izuku froze at the sight before him, utterly horrified at the man's almost supernatural appearance from nowhere while becoming even more scared at the prospect of how upset his father would be.

Yet there was not a single hint of anger in those emerald green eyes, only a warm kindness that burned with pride.

"Well, you certainly have been busy."

The younger Midoriya relaxed at his father's tone, glad that he wouldn't see the disappointment he despised witnessing in the man who raised him.

"I-I'm sorry papa I just bored and-and...I got all my homework done."

Hisashi nodded happily at his child, the joy starting to border near the uncanny. He knelt down to examine the scene before him, the size differences becoming more acute the closer he got.

"That's good, laziness never helps anything. Tell me, how does it feel?"

The question was almost rhetorical with the man's voice being completely flat, yet his eyes shined even brighter at the sight savoring the moment as Izuku stumbled around his words, the helmet muffling some of his words.

"It-it feels...good. The shirt is soft and the-the shoes look fancy."

His hands traveled to the mask, lifting it up and allowing his eyes to shift from the titan to the hollow sockets as the fear drained from him.

"Daddy, what's this?"

The smile grew when he heard that, not daring to remove it from his son's grasp. Inside his more maniacal self he couldn't help but relish every second of such a precious moment.

"That's my mask, I wear it when I have to work."

Izuku didn't respond immediately, only silence answered back as he continued to hold the mask, mesmerized by the sensation of power it gave from the dead exterior. Then after who knew how long he clasped it to his chest.

"I'm keeping it. This is mine now since I found it."

Hisashi allowed a mock show of dismay to flash across his face for a second before dropping it. He never needed to hide from his family, least of all his youngest.

"But then what am I going to do without? I need that to make money."

Izuku turned away curtly, holding the obsidian totem against himself possessively and not letting his concern show as best he could.

"That's your problem daddy so you'll have to find another one because I'm not giving this back."

The older man laughed humorously at his kin, tapping his finger across his lip in a parody of thought. After a few seconds he snapped his fingers in a eureka moment.

"How about this, you give that back and I'll help you make your own. Something one of a kind just like my mask. What do you say?"

Meekly he turned to his forebear with shame in his soul and a hint of greed. Not quite releasing the mask, but lowering his guard of it.

"Can it be like Tommy's?"

Again Hisashi chuckled, finding the admiration in Izuku's voice beyond heartwarming. Softly he took the helm from the boy's arms and studied the piece of armor himself. The things he did in this, if only it could talk.

"We'll see, for now just help me clean up."

The child said nothing as they went about repairing the miniscule mess, putting the shirt back into place and reshining the shoes. It was a silent save for his father's joyful humming which made the whole thing a little better. Around the end Izuku looked at his father with a burning curiosity nestled in his heart.

"Am I ever going to be like you or Tommy? Big and strong enough to wear things like you wear and help people like you do?"

A hand rested on his shoulder, causing him to feel every ounce of reverence the man put into each word, reassuring in a way that had the opposite effect from how sure he sounded.

"My son, one day you will become even greater than I am and you and your brother will do great things in time, I swear it."