It was a cold Monday evening, around five minutes to midnight, and everyone was lying safe in their warm bed. No one thought to look out their window, because at this hour, nothing interesting was ever out there. However, this time was not like other times.
Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.
The sound of footsteps on the abandoned road would have made anyone shiver in fear. The jagged rhythm of flesh on gravel told a tale that a voice simply couldn't. This rhythm belonged to Midoriya Izuku. He had just escaped from his own personal hell.
He still didn't know how he did it. One moment he was going through what most people would call 'an episode', and the next minute black fire welled up from his body and burned the building he was kept in to ash. Hell, even the ash was burnt away. All that was left after that explosion was a crater that held Izuku in it.
Well, Izuku wasted no time staying in the forsaken place, and had scrambled out of that hole and away from that place as fast as he could go. He ignored his nude and bloody broken body and had used the last scrap of his energy running a good way away.
Izuku had fallen, not even five minutes after, and had made the rest of his way in an unhurried, broken pace. And now he was just walking. His feet became raw and his body numb with cold, but he kept searching for a place. A place he knew he would be safe.
Turning down yet another abandoned street, he finally saw it. His old house. His house. The one with the empty memory of a happy woman and a determined boy. Izuku finally let the sob that he had held in all night free at the sight, a sob filled with relief and fear and pain. He ignored the tears that blurred his vision and scrambled for the house.
He stumbled and scraped his knees in his hurry, but once again ignored it for the sight of the house. He was sobbing freely by the time he reached the door, whining out in pain; both mental and physical. When he entered his home, he took a huge, calming breath and shut the door.
"I'm home," he whispered into the emptiness. He wiped his tears and stood up straight, looking at the place with determination.
He had to calm down and think this through.
One; at least one of those people knew where his home was. As soon as they found the remains of the building he had been kept in, at least one of them would come after him, and this would be the first place they checked.
Two; he would not let himself be taken again. He would rather slit his own throat than endure that ever again. He would fight for his freedom, using whatever weapons he could find. He distantly remembered some rather sharp knives in the kitchen and a sturdy-looking baseball bat in the hall closet.
Three; something had come out if him when he had escaped. A black fire, almost as if it had been made of shadows. Izuku tried to ignore the hope welling in his chest as a voice in the back of his mind that whispered, you found your quirk. Hope never helped him before; instead, he would fill the empty space in his heart with cold determination. He wouldn't stand around waiting for his dream to come true, he'd make it come true.
But first, he'd take a shower.
After Izuku had used up all the hot water scrubbing his body free of phantom touches, he put on a pair of sweatpants and a large shirt from his room upstairs. His face twisted in pain at the realization that even with the clothes and shower, he still felt violated. He knew the ghosts of his time in that basement would forever haunt him, but he had hoped that they wouldn't. Once again, he was reminded of the helplessness of hoping.
He took a deep breath and eased down the stairs, stopping before the mirror in the hall and rubbing his bare throat. As soon as this business was over with, he would burn that stupid choker. In an abrupt movement, he opened the closet door next to him and brought out the bat, laying right where he remembered it.
He dragged it behind him awkwardly as he made his way to the kitchen, rifling through the drawers and taking out all the knives. He hid the knives all over the house and kept the sharpest one in his left hand. His mind raced as he came up with a plan.
First, he would turn out all the lights so that he would be used to the darkness but that intruders coming in wouldn't. Before they had time to, he would hit them as hard as he could with the bat. Second, he would hide the bat and try to seriously maim with his knife. (Let's be honest, when he says seriously maim, he means go in for the kill. The Izuku from before the attack wouldn't have ever thought about that, but the Izuku now was different. Very different.)
Izuku went around the house, turning off the lights, and settled down in the hallway to wait. While he waited, he tried to get the shadow-like fire to appear. He focused and focused for what seemed like hours, willing it to erupt, ooze out, appear out of thin air, even. Anything, even a whisper of that weird shadow fire would be good enough.
Izuku sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. 3:52 am.
Just then, Izuku heard a crash outside. He bolted upright, listening intently at the whispers on the other side of the door.
"Quiet, you imbecile," hissed a familiar voice that caused Izuku to tense up in fear. It was the one who held him down while other raped his mother. The one who had been the first to rape him. Izuku gagged and almost threw up, but clamped his mouth shut in favor of listening to the rest of the conversation.
"Sorry, boss. It's not easy creepin' around right now, though. I can't see a thing." Another, less quiet voice replied. Izuku heard a sharp smack before the first voice hissed again.
"I said be quiet! We need to hurry and get this bitch outta here. We can't let him get away, he brought in too much money to allow that to happen. And we need to make the bitch pay for destroying our fucking hideout and all the whores within it." Izuku's brows rose in surprise. There had been other... people in that place? Izuku refused to let that bother him; they either deserved it or they were better off with it. Slowly, very, very slowly, he hiked the bat over his shoulder in preparation, slinking further into the shadows.
The was a few more whispers that he couldn't decipher, before the front door opened, and two men stepped in. As soon as the door closed, Izuku struck. The crack of the bat as it hit the men had Izuku feeling a deep satisfaction. He hit them one more time before he dashed into the living room, rolling the bat under the couch and turning to the hallway.
He heard both men curse loudly before steps resounded through the hallway. He jumped from the couch onto the first man that appeared, stabbing him in his abdomen. He shrieked and threw Izuku off him. Before Izuku could react, a body was on his, holding his hand down and grabbing the knife from him.
"Bitch," The man cursed, and Izuku screamed as he harshly grabbed his hair and slammed his head into the floor. He grabbed between Izuku's legs and grinned. "Gonna make you pay, you stupid little cunt."
Izuku felt himself grow numb, right before the shadowfire from before raced out of Izuku and consumed the man. Izuku watched in fascination as the man was burned right before his eyes; the shadowfire once again left not even a smudge of ash behind.
He blinked when he heard a low curse and looked over at the man he had stabbed before. The man who had held him down such a long, long time ago. Izuku tilted his head in consideration, watching with an apathetic expression as he used the couch to help him up. Should he take revenge and kill him...? Should he let it be...?
Izuku raised a hand and concentrated, and his shadowfire (which he now realized wasn't inside of him mentally, but rather physically, in his blood, beneath his skin) encased it. Smiling slightly, (though it looked more like a grimace) Izuku looked at the man. Screw forgiving, this man deserved to hurt.
That was the thought running through his mind as he hurled his shadowfire at the man's back.
Izuku, after killing that stupid villain, had walked up the stairs and taken a long, hot shower. After that relaxing shower, he had gone to bed. There, he had slept for a restless nine hours. After spending so long chained to a stone wall and sleeping on a stone floor, his soft bed just didn't help.
He groaned as he woke up, stretching his sore body. With tears in his eyes from a powerful yawn, he blearily looked at the clock. 12:57 pm.
Izuku padded to the computer in his room, powering it on to look at the date. May 23rd. (AN: this is the day that my school ends, so let's just pretends it's the same for his school. Which means it's the day of the sludge incident, right? Yeah.) His face screwed up; he had been in that hellhole for five months.
He stumbled back over to the bed, putting his face in his hands. Taking a deep breath, Izuku mumbled to himself:
"Can't stay here how am I gonna explain to people about this they probably think I'm dead wow I'm so hungry I need food haven't eaten good food in so long who am I gonna go to anyway it's not like mom really trusted anyone other than the Bakugou's but Kacchan doesn't like me so I would be a burden to him, but maybe he's changed after all it's been five months and I've changed I'm not the innocent kid I was before so he might be the same maybe I should find him and talk to him it would be nice to see him again his quirk was so powerful before I can't wait to see how cool it is now he would be able to protect me with a quirk like his especially if it's better than it was before which no doubt it is good lord I'm hungry I should eat something then find him."
Taking another deep breath, Izuku nodded in determination before bounding down the steps and going through the cabinets. The only thing safe to eat was an instant ramen cup, but Izuku wasn't picky, not with his stomach screaming at him to get some food. He poured some water into the cup and set it in the microwave, setting the timer.
When the food was done, Izuku snatched it out of the microwave and ravenously gobbled it down. Even though it was such a little amount, Izuku's small stomach (which had shrunk in the past few months) felt too full. He rubbed it placatingly and bounded up the stairs to take another shower, brush his teeth, and put some fresh clothes on.
Stopping in front of the door, he took a deep breath, steadying himself. He was doing this so he could see Kacchan; Izuku really missed him. He may have forgotten him when the drugs and the abuse became too much, but he remembered him now and now that he did, he could feel an ache in his heart.
Squaring his shoulders, Izuku stepped out of the house; he held a notebook and a pencil in one hand and shut the door with the other. He started walking to his former high school; he muttered and furiously wrote as he walked. (Anyone paying attention to him was amazed that he could so effortlessly navigate himself when he was obviously not paying attention.)
"Knowing Kacchan, he'll probably make some huge spectacle about being the only one to go to UA from his high school, and he'll most definitely call everyone else a loser. I do hope his ego has shrunk just a tiny bit; it might be hard to think with it taking up all his headspace. Of course, his insults won't deter anyone from hanging out with him, and he'll want a biiiig confidence booster from them, so he'll hang out a bit with them after school before going home to do whatever it is Kacchan does on the weekend. I'll have to make a list of the places he's been to before, starting from the most likely to have him to the least likely." Izuku scribbled down some places his former friend had frequented, tilted his head, and wrote down a few more.
"Now, then! School should be ending in a few hours, and though I could probably wait until school ends and then follow him, that's just a bit creepier than I like. But then again so is trying to determine where he'll go after school and staging an 'accidental' reunion..." Izuku shook his head, patting his cheeks violently. "It doesn't matter! What matters is the fact that I'm going to see Kacchan again."
Smiling slightly (though again, it looked like a grimace more than a smile), he strolled into the first place on his list and settled down to wait.
When the time Kacchan should have arrived came and went, Izuku felt himself deflate. He'd been so sure Kacchan would've come here, as it was his favorite place last time he checked. Of course, stupid, Izuku chided, it's been five months since you last saw him, he could be a completely different person now.
Izuku refused to let this bring him down, though, and just got up to go to the next place on his list. On his way there, though, his attention was grabbed by a commotion in the street. He heard people whispering about a villain and before he could even think about it, he was turning to a blank page and excitedly writing down information as he got closer.
He was just in the middle of writing down the names (or descriptions if they were new) of all the heroes on the scene when he looked up to see the hostage of the sludge villain and froze.
The guy had ash blond hair, spiked up as though designed that way though izuku knew it was natural. Red eyes looked at him in a mixture of disbelief and shock (and if he was being honest, fear. The guy was scared), as if he couldn't believe Izuku was standing in front of him. He knew that that was exactly what he was thinking, because Izuku knew him.
This guy was Kacchan.
A big thank you is due to the people that decided to read, follow, favorite or review this book; I really appreciate it. I'm gonna try to get longer and longer with the chapters, so, while chapter one had 1k+ words; this chapter has 2.5k+. Since I'm a beginner writer obviously I'm not gonna do really well at first but, I like to think of this fanfiction as like, a warm up. Like, I love the idea and all but really I'm only using it to write it out: It's not one of my most serious projects. Of course, just because it's not one of my most serious works doesn't mean I'm not at all serious about it.
Also, I just want to state that it may seem like a bakudeku fic at times (because let's admit it, even in canon their relationship is strong, even if it's not really healthy at times, so why shouldn't it be in this one?) but it's not. At this point and time I don't really have a ship in mind because:
1) sexual abuse can really fuck someone up. It's not like deku will just be able to shrug it off and form a healthy romantic and/or sexual relationship right off the bat. There's therapy he'll have to go through, not to mention he'll have to have a HUGE amount of trust in someone before he'll even think about touching someone or being touched.
2) I'm just really not good at romantic writing. I suck at it. The idea of love and romanticism got fucked up early in life for me and now I just can't portray it without writing it wrong. (I've tried it before, and let my sister read it. She told me I had a really fucked up veiw on love and I'm best sticking with the drama and angst.) Of course, if I change my mind, I'll try, because eventually I'm gonna expand my categories to include more than just sad shit and shitty action.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to stress is deku kinda jut latches on to bakugou because he's got a powerful quirk and because he was such a big part in his life in the past. Is it healthy? Most people would say no but I think to myself: If it helps someone recover how could it be unhealthy?
Sorry for rambling on and on.
-weweremadetobe