Chapter 2: Light 'em Up

This wasn't the absolute worst case scenario. Izuku had planned what to do if he couldn't go home again. He found his way out of the sewers and picked up his bag from the park right before dawn, and then he pulled out his cell phone to call his mother.

"Izuku? It's so early, what's wrong?" Inko asked around a yawn.

He was powerwalking down the streets towards the train station. He'd go as far as the train could take him, and then he'd figure out what to do from there. "I know, I'm sorry, I just needed to warn you. Don't come home."

"What?" she was wide awake now. "Izuku, what happened?"

"Dad's a villain, he's in the black market, and he'll hurt you, please don't come home." He had enough food and cash for approximately two weeks if he was careful, which wasn't much of a buffer to figure something out.

"What do you mean he's in the black market?"

"I don't have time to explain, just please promise me you won't come home." His main issue would be avoiding his father. Dragon had eyes and ears everywhere.

"What about you, I can't just leave you there!"

"I'm safe," he said. "I've got a plan. Go to the police, please, they'll keep you safe from him."

"Izuku, this is crazy."

"I know it is, but you have to believe me. Ask the police about a drug bust last night that they did with Eraserhead, they'll explain it better, but I have to go." He was almost at the station. His father probably hadn't had time to mobilize any of his men to come after him yet, and his first priority would probably be recovering his reputation from last night.

"Wait, Izuku, don't hang up, where are you right now?"

"I'm safe," he told her again. He didn't want her finding him. As hard as it was to not go running to her arms, he needed her to be as far away as she could get. His life was about to be very dangerous, and he wouldn't put her in harm's way again.

"That's not an answer, Izuku," Inko cried. "Please tell me where you are."

"Promise me you'll go to the police and ask for protection," Izuku said instead of answering. He was outside the station, but he wouldn't go in while he was on the phone. He didn't want his mom to hear the background noise and figure it out.

"Okay, Izuku, I promise, now tell me where you are," Inko said.

Izuku closed his eyes to block the tears from falling. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too, so tell me where-"

He hung up.

He couldn't take the phone with him, so he powered it down and dropped it in a trashcan. Limbs shaking, he went into the station. He used some of his cash to buy a one way ticket and settled onto the next train that came.

It was still pretty early, and a Sunday besides, so there weren't many people. Izuku took a seat and leaned over his knees, head in his hands.

As long as his mother went to the police, she should be safe. Izuku wasn't sure he would be. For one, his father had connections everywhere. No matter where the police put him, his father would find him. That was assuming they didn't arrest him for his part in his father's business deals the last two years, which was the second reason he didn't want to go to them.

He'd still find a way to copy his notebooks to send to the police. They could do a lot with the information in them, maybe even actually catch his father. It wasn't like he could single-handedly dismantle his father's empire, no matter how much he wanted to.

He was getting ahead of himself. Those were the types of plans to be made after he had a roof over his head and a way to get food. To get food, he'd need money, and there weren't a lot of great ways for a twelve year old to do that.

He should have stolen more of his father's emergency stash.

Xx

The next two weeks were the hardest of his life, and that included the time when he was nine and trying to learn how to make spears with his fire. He'd constantly burned his hands beyond use for months until he figured it out.

This was so much worse than burned hands.

This was constantly feeling hungry, watching his meagre food stash dwindle no matter how little he ate of it. This was cold nights on the hard ground in sketchy alleyways, never getting enough sleep because he was terrified of who might find him if he let his guard down.

This was missing his mom so bad it hurt, but knowing he couldn't fix it. Knowing she was probably in even more pain, because she didn't know where he was or if he was okay.

He was lonely, and scared, and cold, and he just wanted his mom.

But he couldn't think of her without thinking of his father and hearing a gunshot.

He'd been lucky his father had missed, but he wondered if that had been on purpose or not. He'd missed a fatal shot on Eraserhead from a closer range, so Izuku had the feeling his father just couldn't aim.

His father had wanted to kill him. His own father had barely even blinked at the thought of killing him.

Maybe Hisashi had been ready for Izuku's possible betrayal the whole time. Maybe that was why he carried a gun, because it would be a lot harder to kill Izuku with flames, but a bullet was nice and fast.

He hoped Eraserhead was okay. He'd been checking the news to see if there were any articles about him, but he hadn't seen anything. Hopefully no news was good news.

He'd seen a few passing mentions of himself in the paper, the police and his mom asking desperately for help finding him. He'd stolen a cheap pair of sunglasses from a kiosk in the mall and kept his hood up after seeing them.

In all this time, he'd barely spoken to anyone. He was too terrified they'd recognize him and send him back to his father. The loneliness was starting to get to him. He missed training with Katsuki, and analyzing the latest hero fight with him. He missed his classmates.

And his mother, god he missed his mom.

He spent his time wandering the city, hood up and sunglasses on. He found the more dangerous parts of the city, where the buildings were one good fight away from collapsing and graffiti was the only source of color left. It was the kind of neighborhood normal people avoided after dark. Residents wouldn't ask questions or prod into other people's business, because they didn't want their business scrutinized.

He picked a house with boarded up windows and a heavy padlock over the door. Something had been taped to the door a long time ago, an eviction notice probably, but all that remained were a few scraps of paper under the tape.

A window in the back was open, the board in splinters over the floor inside. Izuku wasn't the first guest here, but he was the only one there that night. He scouted around the house in case, making sure no one was going to sneak up on him. Then he picked a corner in an upstairs bedroom and lay curled up around his backpack.

This would work for tonight, but he couldn't expect to squat in an abandoned house forever. He needed a longterm solution, preferably one that reunited him with his mom.

The only way that would happen was if his father was arrested.

Izuku tightened his hold around his backpack.

His father had built an empire in the black market. He'd been avoiding police for well over a decade. Even with what Izuku knew, bringing him down wouldn't be easy.

But it was the only way he'd see his mom again.

So he would do it. He would conquer his father's empire, slay the Dragon.

He didn't exactly know how, yet, but he'd figure it out.

The first step was consolidating all his notes from the last two years into something more concise and comprehensible for the police. He spent the next day in the old house doing that, and while copying down the things his father usually sold, he had his next epiphany.

His father did everything for cash. His clients always had to show up and prove they had the cash to pay for whatever Dragon had promised them before Dragon would even show what he had.

Izuku longed for one of those briefcases now. The amount of money in one of those could last him a long time. He might even be able to bribe someone to rent him a room and not ask questions. He wouldn't even feel bad taking the money from people like his father's clients, because these people were only spending the money on things to hurt other people.

His hand paused over the page.

That wasn't a terrible idea. He could arrange fake meetings with people in the black market, stay hidden until they arrived, and then steal the money from them. They'd have less money to do crimes, he'd have money for food and stuff, it was a win-win.

He'd have to do a lot of planning, figure out which people in the black market would be the lowest risk for him to go up against, not to mention when and where to meet… Oh, and he'd have to make sure he was well disguised. The last thing he wanted was for someone to recognize him as Dragon's son. He'd have to be careful about his quirk, too. His father would put the pieces together in an instant.

He tapped the notebook idly while his mind raced. At least his father would be busy covering his tracks once the police got this.

Was he being naïve thinking this could actually work? He was one twelve year old trying to go up against seasoned criminals.

It was a terrible idea. Logically, he knew that.

So why wasn't he able to talk himself out of it?

Xx

He took another two weeks to plan and get ready. He'd dropped the notebook off with the police already, but he hadn't seen any obvious signs of them acting on the info yet. It wasn't surprising, but he was curious if they were doing anything with it or not.

Setting up a meeting with the least dangerous client of his father's wasn't nearly as hard as he'd thought it would be. He sent an email pretending to be his father, and he had a meeting set up for four days from now. The change in location wasn't even seen as weird since Dragon's last spot had been raided.

There wasn't much he could do in terms of disguise, so black jeans and his all black hoodie would have to do. Maybe if he found a beanie somewhere he could grab it.

While preparing, he'd even scoped out a place to rent. An old lady was renting out her basement apartment, and she'd bought his lie about wanting to be closer to school when he was asking about it. He still needed to come up with the money, of course, but things were looking promising right now.

That was why he wasn't surprised to almost die the night before his meeting.

He'd been scoping out the surrounding side streets, memorizing his various escape routes and places he could hide if need be, when he heard a commotion around the corner. He didn't think twice about investigating.

A man pressed a woman against the wall. She kicked out with a leg, knocking against a trash bag. His hand roamed over her side, through tears in her dress, while his mouth silenced any of her own cries.

Izuku's first instinct was to cover his eyes. He did not need to see this progress further, thank you very much.

But the woman's gaze met his, and she was crying.

His feet moved before his mind caught up with the program. He grabbed fistfuls of the man's jacket and yanked him off the woman, throwing him against the other wall. Or tried to throw him, at least. The man was heavy, and Izuku was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet.

"Are you okay?" he asked the woman.

She hiccupped and wrapped her arms around herself. "He-he grabbed me on the street, dragged me back here…"

Izuku nodded. "You're safe now." I am here was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit them back. Someone like him didn't deserve to mimic a hero like All Might.

"Damn brat, should mind your own business," the man slurred, struggling to his feet.

Izuku planted himself in front of the woman. "You should go," he told her.

Still sobbing, she didn't need to be told twice.

The man lunged for Izuku, but he was so slow his attempt was laughable. Izuku had trained against Katsuki Bakugou for most of his life. This here was nothing. A step to the side, a chop carefully placed on the back of the man's neck, and he was down.

It would have been nice if he'd stayed down, but Izuku was learning not to expect that much out of life.

The arm stretching out and wrapping around his ankle like a tentacle caught him off guard, and Izuku didn't have enough time to react before his feet were pulled out from under him. He landed hard on his back, and then hands were on his neck, squeezing.

"You think you're some kind of hero?" the man growled. "This is what you get for butting in where you aren't wanted!"

Izuku couldn't breathe, but he wasn't as terrified as when he'd fought his father. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the lighter he always had on him.

Once the flame was lit, he pulled it free with his quirk. The longer he kept the lighter on, the more fire he could pull. He didn't need much for this though. Burning the man's hands was enough to make him let go, and holding the flame in front of the man's face made him back up.

Izuku took his time getting to his feet, rubbing his neck. The man hadn't been strangling him long, the bruises probably wouldn't even be that bad.

His main concern was figuring out what to do now. If he just left the guy here, he'd probably go on to attack someone else, and saving that woman earlier wouldn't mean anything if someone else got hurt in her place. He didn't have anything to tie the man up with, and he made a mental note in the back of his mind to come up with something for tomorrow just in case. For now, he'd just have to knock the man out and hope he could point the police in this direction before he woke up.

Thankfully, the woman had already called. She fidgeted with her phone just around the corner, brightening when he walked into view and thanking him again. "I called the cops, they're on their way."

"Oh, good, thank you," Izuku said, smiling. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "He scared me, but you stopped him before he could do anything."

"I'm glad." Police sirens wailed in the distance, steadily growing closer. Fear gripped at Izuku. Growing up, his father had always ducked out of sight when police were nearby. He'd told Izuku police couldn't be trusted, they had their own agendas and they'd arrest innocent people to make themselves look good.

It made sense now, knowing what he did about his father.

But he was still a runaway who should really not have a lot to do with the police if he didn't want them to send him home yet.

Shit.

"Uh, can you wait for the police? I need to go…do…something…"

The woman tilted her head in confusion, but he sprinted away before she could ask questions.

He made it back to the new house he'd been squatting in for the last few days. He'd abandoned the first one after overhearing some people checking it out. The new one wasn't much different, but it did still have running water and sticking his head under a faucet had been heavenly. He never thought he'd miss bathing so much.

It was late by the time he arrived, and he was too keyed up to sleep yet. He ended up brainstorming ways to capture people, or at least tie them up. He'd never be able to get handcuffs, and he wasn't even sure he could get enough rope.

"It needs to be small like handcuffs, and durable, but what kind of material would be strong enough to hold them?" He muttered to his ceiling until sleep finally claimed him at dawn.

Xx

His legs were starting to cramp from the crouch he'd been in for the last hour. The top floor of the parking garage had been his chosen meeting place, half of the lights busted and no cameras to speak of. These may or may not have been recent developments for the garage.

He'd climbed into the rafters over one of the dead lights, his black ensemble helping him melt into the shadows. At least, he hoped he blended in. He'd gotten here an hour early to make sure he arrived first, and he wasn't disappointed.

The agonizing part was the waiting. His anxiety kept skyrocketing when he thought about what he was doing, about how dumb this whole plan was. No matter how dumb, though, it still felt like his best option. He didn't trust the police with his own safety, both because he doubted their ability and because he knew his father.

Without going to the police, he didn't have a lot of options. This was the best one in a shitty situation.

To calm himself down, he imagined Katsuki berating him. It was so easy to picture his best friend, and maybe a little too easy to imagine his best friend hurling insults at him. "Oi, you stupid Deku, you made a plan, stick to it! Don't back out now like some fucking coward!"

It had been a terrible day for Katsuki's vocabulary when his mother gave up on correcting his language. To be fair, Katsuki had learned most of the words from her, anyway.

If Katsuki was here now, he'd be focused on the mission and yelling at Izuku to keep his head in the game. Even though he wasn't physically there, thinking about him helped.

"Thanks, Kacchan," Izuku whispered, much calmer than he was before.

Just in time, too, because he heard a car pulling up to the floor. The headlights were off, but the black SUV was hard to miss.

It chose a spot to stop and cut the engine, but no one came out of the car yet.

Izuku crawled silently through the rafters to get closer. Most of his plan hinged on everyone being out of the car. He hadn't expected them to wait inside for Dragon to show up.

Frowning, he ran over the options in his head. Could he cause a diversion and make someone go investigate? Or would that make them too anxious for the rest of his mission to work? He chewed on his lip while he thought.

After ten minutes, the driver's door opened and a bald man in a suit stepped out, peering out around the garage.

What should he do? Should he jump in, like Katsuki would? He didn't know any of their quirks down there, and if he was trying to keep his father from figuring out it was him, he shouldn't use his own quirk unless he really had to.

Should he just let them go and figure out something else?

The door to the backseat opened, and the client stepped out. He was known as the Locksmith. His quirk morphed his fingers into any shape he wanted, including keys, so he'd turned to thievery at a young age and built up his reputation from there. The quirk wasn't that powerful, but the Locksmith was smart. Choosing him was a bit of a gamble on Izuku's part, because on the one hand, morphing fingers weren't very dangerous combat-wise. On the other, Locksmith was probably smart enough to put two and two together and realize who Izuku was if he wasn't careful.

But there, on the backseat. A familiar metal briefcase. That would be what Izuku wanted.

He just had to be fast enough to take it. And he was used to dodging literal explosions on a daily basis, how bad could this be?

He dropped from the rafters directly behind Locksmith and smashed his head against the open door before the man could even turn around. The case was in his hand by the time the driver was shouting, and whoever sat in the passenger seat cursed and stumbled out into the garage.

"Were we fucking set up?" the driver demanded.

Izuku stepped around the door and smashed the briefcase against the driver's head. He went down, swearing up a storm. Not unconscious, then, but definitely dazed. It would have to do.

The last man vaulted over the hood of the car to get to him. He had some kind of monkey mutation, landing in a crouch in front of Izuku and shrieking, revealing lots of sharp teeth. He lunged. Izuku used the briefcase like a shield.

It was barely a fight. Thirty seconds later, the briefcase made a nice solid thump against the man's head, and he too slumped to the ground. The driver was struggling to his feet, bubbles spewing from his mouth. Izuku didn't have time to wonder what his quirk was and why a concussion would have that effect on him. He gave him another solid whack and finally allowed himself the chance to breathe.

"Holy shit that was terrifying," he muttered, a hand over his heart.

He spared twenty seconds to double check that there was actually money in this briefcase, and then he ran off, taking a circuitous route through the back streets just in case someone had eyes on him.

Only when he felt truly alone did he allow himself to go back to the house he was squatting in.

He couldn't believe that had actually worked. He hadn't died. And now he had five hundred thousand yen.

For the first time in three weeks, life didn't seem completely terrible.

He took the apartment the old lady, Mrs. Ishiyama, had available, carefully coordinating everything so she wasn't suspicious about never actually meeting his parents. She was more suspicious about his few belongings, but he smiled and said he'd be bringing more in slowly and he hoped he wasn't a bother.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"If you need any help around the house, let me know! I'd be glad to help out wherever I can, it's the least I can do to thank you."

"You're paying for the apartment, you don't need to thank me," she said, but her anxieties were eased with his politeness.

The studio apartment was sparsely furnished, but as long as there was a futon and one chair and table, it was enough for Izuku. And running water. He was tired of smelling so bad all the time.

Once he'd settled in, he made it a point to avoid Mrs. Ishiyama as much as possible. She invited him to dinner the first few nights, and he focused the conversations on her life and her family, revealing very little about himself. Like most older people he knew, she was only too happy to talk and keep on talking.

But after the first week, he'd more or less figured out how to avoid her. There was a door to the basement apartment separate from the rest of the house, so he didn't need to see her when he came and went, and he made sure to always be out around dinner time. He was out most of the time, actually, too restless to sit still in the apartment by himself. He had to be during the day to go along with his school student ruse.

He used that time to look into his father and all his associates, learning everything he could about the black market and what was going on. He learned a lot more about his father and Dragon's reputation, too, which made him sick to his stomach.

More than a few times, after dark, he found himself in the cramped side streets. He beat up quite a few thugs, saved several women and one lanky guy a few years older than Izuku from men who couldn't keep their hands to themselves, and stopped a horrifying amount of muggers.

He understood. He was desperate for money, too, and what he did have wasn't exactly honest money, but he wasn't shaking down poor people to get it.

He hadn't even realized he was intentionally staying out that late on purpose until he saw a newspaper headline saying "Possible New Vigilante?"

And yeah, that was exactly what he was doing, wasn't it?

He'd accidentally become a vigilante.

Whoops.