Midoriya curses, pied eyes blown wide with terror, his heart in his throat, burning there like acid. He can feel something wet trickling down his temple.
His head hurts.
Police sirens whine around him, ringing in his ears. He tries to swallow his fear. He chokes on it instead.
Hours Earlier:
Dinner with his mother had drained him more than he thinks it probably should have.
The words 'general education' had been on loop in his head the entire night, whispered to him over and over again like a curse. Everytime his mother had mentioned UA with those excited jade eyes of hers it had sent a spike of pain through his chest. Because yes, he was going to UA, but it was class 1-C, it was general education and general education wouldn't get him any closer to being a hero. It'd be no different from going to any other public school except that his dreams would be so
tantalizingly close and yet farther than ever before.
It was a chance for him, but it was a far cry from the chance he needed. He'd made it into the stadium but would never be allowed to play on the field.
Midoriya struggles to fall asleep that night, tossing and turning in bed, unable to rest. He finds himself an hour shy of his nightly vigilantism hours having only slept for what feels like twenty minutes. He feels so tired, but his mind won't shut up. It continuously turns over the words general education over and over, again and again.
He drags himself out of bed early, listening to see in Inko is still awake. He slips out of his room, pressing his ear to the door to her room, holding his own breath to listen for her quiet snores.
She's asleep.
Izuku slinks back to his room.
He'd been accepted into UA, but at the same time he hadn't. The need to prove himself was rising, the desire to save people suffocating. The need to push himself to go farther, faster, to overtake those running run ahead of him quickly became an all consuming one.
But, the thing about running so fast so quickly is that one often runs with blinders on.
Midoriya Izuku is no different. Albeit he's certainly more careful that your average runner his age, he's not immune to his emotions. So, his blinders go up as he adjusts Reo's burgundy utility belt around his waist, patting around the sides to check for his tonfa and his growing variety of non lethal grenades. He slips his contact in, dons his new mask and slips down their balcony. His blinders darken as he takes off, searching, searching, for people to save, more criminals to defeat. More, more, more.
It consumes him like a disease, driving him farther, past the limits he usually stops at. All of the lines he has set for himself dissolve before him and he passes over them with no hesitation.
His mind writhes.
Prove yourself.
Prove yourself.
Prove them wrong.
So he does... until he doesn't.
He strays out of his territory, he runs too far, he flies to close to the sun.
Somewhere, in a precinct nearby, a bell tinkles. Officer Tamakawa nods along grimly with Naomasa's words. The feline's ears flicker as a female officer stumbles into the breakroom they're standing in, all attention cast onto her.
She's flushed, breathing labored, eyes wide. She stares up at the detective beside him and pants out the words they'd been so desperate to hear for almost a year now. "We have Pied Piper in custody."
Neither of them move for a moment, confusion and disbelief mingling in their chests. Naomasa is the first to move, taking a small step forward as if he's unsure of what to do. Piper is in custody.
What are they supposed to do with those words?
Neither of them have an answer for that question and so Naomasa takes another step forward. His dark eyes dart towards the female officer again. "The Pied Piper?" He asks.
She nods.
Still neither of them know what to do. Pied Piper is in custody.
Pied Piper is pinned to the ground by a hero with a mutant quirk. He's a towering man with a set of extra arms sprouting from his ribcage and spikes trailing down his spine.
Midoriya squirms. His wrists are bound together with quirk suppressant cuffs and though there's no quirk to suppress they still keep him restrained, trapped. The vigilante's pulse quickens further. He feels like he can't breathe.
There's a crowd of people in a loose perimeter around them, mostly civilians, and there's a police car to his left that he can see if he strains his head. There's one officer that sits inside it, door open and eyes tracking him from the passenger seat as they call for backup. The other one attempts to keep the crowd at bay.
Midoriya slams his heels fruitlessly into the hero's back. "Stop moving," he growls.
"That's Pied Piper right?"
"I wish I could help him."
"That take down was so cool!" "Acro such an awesome hero!" "What was that dude even doing?" "Are you recording this?"
"Isn't that that one vigilante? Did he get a new mask?"
The mutterings of the crowd carries as another police cruiser arrives on scene. The hero drags him up painfully, wrenching his shoulders in their sockets.
"Stand up."
The fifteen-year-old struggles to get his feet beneath him as the hero drags him towards the first car. He keeps his head down, out of sight of any spying cameras. His identity feels like the only thing he has left.
His staff is in the middle of the street where he'd been tackled and a grenade or two that had fallen out during his struggle, but both his tonfa are still strapped at his hips.
Think Izuku. Think!
He thinks he's about to throw up.
Think!
The boy stares down at his feet, eyes filled with an all encompassing terror as the hero continues shoving him forward. His eyes catch on a glint of metal and the shine of spikes.
I don't want to.
Not doing so could mean the end of everything.
I don't want to.
Hesitating will cost you your future.
Midoriya's heart thunders in his chest, sun flickering with indecision. But he's out of time to hesitate any longer.
The vigilante twists his right leg around, wrapping it awkwardly behind the hero's leg before slamming the spiked tips of his boots into the man's foreleg. There's a grunt of pain from behind him and he feels the the hero's knee buckle slightly.
"Villain." No.
"What? Do you think you're a hero?" The words bubble up like boiled tar in his cerebrum, coating every crevice in pitch. "You have to reside within the law to be a hero, boy."
Midoriya just needed to get his mind off of general education. He had followed the signs of life, searching for more and more people to save, searching for more and more ways to prove himself. He needed to prove himself. He had to prove himself.
Midoriya grimaces, dragging the spikes through the meat of the hero's leg hoping to loosen the hero's grip on his wrists, but they only tighten.
The crowd gets louder and the officer in the car he's being led to stands at the commotion. He rips the spikes out and brings his foot back towards himself before slamming his foot down, digging the spikes into the top of the hero's foot. The shoes are thin, weak on top.
Mutant types usually put too much faith in their quirks.
Another police car arrives on scene, lights flashing, sirens blaring. They hurt his ears.
The hero lets out a strangled noise, grip finally loosening. The vigilante takes his chance, throwing his head back and butting the man in the chin. He's finally able to rip his hands away before taking off. There's shouting behind him and the crowd roars and shrieks and cheers. Someone slips out of the crowd, a teenager who makes for the vigilante's staff. She picks it up and Piper's ready to sweep past her before she holds it out to him with wide eyes. She slips it between his bound hands, muttering a barely audible, "Go" before disappearing again.
He hears car doors slam and a shouted, exclamation of, "Piper!"
Midoriya's head jerks back at the familiarity of the voice, fearful eyes snapping towards none other than Tsukauchi Naomasa's. He's running towards the boy, a feline officer on his heels. The
vigilante hesitates only a moment longer before taking off again.
The crowd breaks before him, parting like ocean waters. Three officers are on his heels. He can hear Detective Tsukauchi shouting for him to stop. "We can talk this out, Piper!"
He doesn't stop.
His staff rests awkwardly in his hands, but he doesn't dare try to shift his grip. One civilian tries tripping him on his way into a nearby alley, sticking out a foot that he easily dodges, behind him it sends one of the officers stumbling.
There are cheers for Piper, and a quiet chant of his name goes up as he slips down an alley. He doesn't know this part of town well, he doesn't even know if he's headed towards home. He can't stop to check.
"I need all available units to the third district! Block 17 Eastbound going 20! We're in pursuit of vigilante Pied Piper! Send in any available heroes!"
There are more shouts.
"Piper! Stop running!"
Like that has ever stopped him before.
The fear is eating him alive, but he has to focus, he has to lose the police. He breaks out onto another street, there are less people but he can hear more sirens and knows that there's a possibility of more heroes showing up soon.
His lungs burn as he throws himself across the street, dodging a few people on the sidewalk and swerving around an incoming car whose driver blares its horn at him. His feet pound relentlessly into the asphalt, heart hammering out an erratic beat. His lungs burn, shoulders ache, legs scream.
He makes himself run faster.
Midoriya throws himself around another street corner. "Piper's changed directions! Headed North!"
He takes all of two steps around the corner before his momentum screeches to a halt, a large hand grabbing at his forearm, the sudden stop nearly wrenching his shoulder out of socket as the person jerks him around and pins him to the front of a massive chest. It only takes the sight of a gaudy caution tape belt to let Midoriya know exactly who it is he's dealing with. Leave it to the first hero he ever encountered as a vigilante to try and be his last.
There's a quiet rage building up inside him at the thought. His heart shudders, black hole tempting its own creation, calling for him, begging the boy to just give in and let gravity crush him, consume him. His anger gathers, drawing in his emotions like a magnet does metal, like a black hole does everything around it.
"Villain."
The boy snarls, the sound distorted by his mask, echoing the voices of several.
"Villain."
His eyes are wide, pupils dilated with terror and anger and why won't they leave him alone. The
noise startles the hero, but he doesn't loosen his grip as he crosses both arms around the vigilante's back like a bear hug that threatens to crush the air from his lungs.
"Villain!"
He can hear the others drawing closer. The vigilante can't let himself hesitate. Midoriya thinks that his actions are easier to carry out given his history with the hero. He slams the spikes of his boots into the man's shin.
Death Arm's hero uniform offers little resistance.
Midoriya slams him foot down with the move, putting his weight into the action, drawing blood and gouging flesh before Death Arms finally releases him, putting a good distance between them. He keeps his fists raised in a defensive position, grimacing in pain.
The vigilante is crouched low now. His hands are still cuffed but it does nothing to make the look in his pied eyes any less terrifying.
A police car screeches to a halt to their right and Midoriya takes off again before anyone has a chance to climb out. The hero reacts immediately, swiping out to try and stop him. His fingers brush against the metal of the boy's staff, but does no more than that. The hero pushes through the fire in his leg, pounding his fists together before wrenching a nearby street sign out of the concrete and hurtling it at the fleeing vigilante. There are shouts further down the street as the sign whizzes past his side with a screeching crash as it slides across the asphalt, throwing up sparks. The projectile corrals him away from another crowd gathering along the opposite side of the street.
The police in the car behind him jump out, immediately chasing after the boy. "He's dangerous!" Death Arms calls, taking only a moment to check his wound before following after them at a slower pace.
Midoriya dips down a narrow alley, shoulders scraping the brick walls, costum catching on the rough exteriors of the too-close buildings. But, the narrow alley slows those chasing him as well and he makes it out well before any of the others. He's running blind, but that's all he can do. The street is nearly deserted, what few people who'd been here gathering on the next street over, drawn in by the whine of police sirens and clashing heroes.
Midoriya's gaze catches on a 24 hour convenience store and makes a beeline for it. He needs to hide, needs to get out of sight. He slams into the front door, shoving it open with his shoulder, pipe clanking against the door frame as he rushes in, ducking out of sight of the windows.
He skids across the floor, slipping between one of the isles. He can hear more shouting outside, more sirens, all muffled now.
The vigilante looks up from his spot, crouched on the floor to see a cashier gapping at him, mouth open, eyes wide.
Midoriya wonders if he looks like a wild animal. "You're... You're Piper."
The vigilante freezes, waiting for the cashier to make a move, to run for the door, to reach for a phone, a weapon, his quirk. He does none of these things.
"What's your name?" Midoriya pants out quietly, testing the waters. He feels like collapsing but he can't, not until he knows the man won't pull anything that could land the vigilante back in police
custody.
"W-Wow, uh I'm... I'm Gort, uh Mr. uh P-Pied Piper sir."
The boy eyes him cautiously, heart still working overtime. Surprisingly the stranger doesn't look scared of him. He looks in awe.
"M-My brother loves you!" Gort's head turns to follow some action outside the window. "What's happening?" Midoriya asks, still positioned to run.
"Uh, some police and a hero just ran by. They looked around real quick before taking off again."
The vigilante nods before finally relaxing, slowly sinking into a seated position. "If anyone asks questions," he pants, "Tell them I threatened you. I don't need you getting in trouble for sheltering me."
The cashier turns back to him, nodding with wide eyes. "R-right."
The store descends into something near silence after that. They can still hear distant sirens and the quiet beat of some pop song playing softly from the store's speakers, but it allows Midoriya to relax.
He peaks open his eyes even though he doesn't remember closing them and is greeted by blood stains on his boots. The sight startles him, sets his settling heart back into a panic. He's hurt people before, dislocated shoulders and elbows, broken ribs and hands and arms. He's knocked teeth out and drawn blood, but it'd always been for the sake of trying protecting others. That's the only reason the boy has even been able to sleep at night.
But, the blood on his shoes feels selfish. The only person he'd been trying to protect was himself. He tries to rationalize it in his head. It only works to some extent.
There's a quiet chime that echoes through the store the signals the opening of the front door. The cashier jumps at the noise, turning wide-eyed towards the new customers.
I can't be seen by any more civilians.
"Excuse me," the voice is a recognizable one.
Midoriya scrambles to his feet quietly, creeping further into the store, heart in his throat.
"Have you seen any suspicious persons come in?" Naomasa asks, "They should have been wearing support gear and had their hands cuffed together." The man sounds winded.
Piper hides himself behind the far end of one of the aisles.
The cashier shakes his head. "N-No, Sir."
Lie.
Midoriya curses internally, trying desperately to quiet his breathing. "Is he still in here?"
The cashier's eyes widen, only able to stutter out some incomprehensible sentence in response.
The detective reaches for his weapon, turning away from the man to carefully scan the aisles behind him. "Piper," he calls, "I know you're in here." He checks behind the counter first before moving to search the rest of the store, weapon carefully aimed at the floor.
"A rather suiting end for you," the voice hisses in his head, "Trapped like a wild animal in a cage, unable to escape without first biting the hand that only wants to protect you. Will you maim this man too?" It asks. His cerebrum shivers, wanting so desperately to rid itself of the parasite that it had been invaded by. "You'd maim him not for your survival, but for your freedom."
But it's not just his freedom on the line. It's everything he's ever worked for, everything everyone always told him he couldn't have, couldn't be. He'd done what they said he couldn't. He got into UA, he protected people, saved people, had become the best hero he could be despite everything.
All his hard work and tears and blood, all of his pain and all of his suffering would suddenly be meaningless. Everyone he knew had quirks, they had wings, and claws, and fangs that they had done nothing to earn. But Midoriya, he had to earn everything he has now. He filed his nails into claws and teeth into fangs and glued feathers to his back in hopes of achieving his dreams. But, his nails would always be nails and his teeth always teeth and he'd never grow wings of his own. But, he had earned them and if he was caught they would do more than cage him, they would cut off his wings and his claws and they would file his fangs. If he wasn't allowed to save people, to protect people then...
"Do everyone a favor and... take a swan dive off the roof!"
People who can't fly will always fall. That's the rule of gravity, it's cruel in that way. Everything was on the line.
Everything was at risk because of Tsukauchi Naomasa, the uncle and closest thing to a father figure his best friend had.
He creeps towards the front door, moving as quickly as he dares.
He knows there are probably still more heroes and police lurking nearby, but getting out of here is his only chance. He makes eye contact with the cashier one last time as he finally comes within range of the door.
"Piper, don't move."
Midoriya freezes in his steps, the detective positioned directly behind him. He stays still for a moment before slowly pulling himself out of his hunched position, straightening himself.
"I don't want to hurt you," Naomasa says, gradually sliding his weapon back into its holster. A display of good faith. A mistake.
The vigilante bows his head, slowly turning towards the detective.
This could be the end of him, the end of his hopes, his dreams. But, he's not the only person who would be affected by his downfall. This could be the end to every life he might have saved in the future. The reason he hurt people, drew blood, broke bones, all of it was because of others.
It's selfish, he thinks to himself silently, that everyone wants me to stop. They shouldn't get to decide the fate of the people they won't save. He stares the detective down with the same pied eyes he always has, red burning blue and green burning purple against the backs of the Naomasa's eyelids every time he blinks. "What's the harm in saving the people no one else will?"
The detective shakes his head sadly. "There's nothing wrong with that. That's what I'm trying to do too. I'm trying to save you."
"In saving me you'll break me," Midoriya echoes lowly. "You'll kill me. Do you realize that?"
The detective raises his hands in a manner that makes the vigilante feel as if he's trying to calm a wild animal. Maybe he is. "They have rehabilitation programs for people like you. You'll be able to save people while on the right side of the law."
"The law be damned," Midoriya spits. There's a moment of silence before the vigilante's voice drops to a murmur, "You're a good man, Detective. But, you're wrong about a lot of things. The law would see that I never become a hero. I can't let you stop me."
Naomasa recognizes the threat, and quickly reaches for the weapon at his hip as Piper charges towards him. He doesn't give the man time to grab his weapon, barreling into him with his shoulder. The detective is too unprepared to do anything but take it.
All the breath is knocked out of him and the cashier makes a choked noise as Izuku tackles the detective to the floor. Naomasa's head hits the tile with a dull crack as they land and the sound of it has the vigilante's stomach turning over.
The fifteen-year-old rolls off the man, struggling to sit himself back up. He spins around to stare at the detective, at Reo's uncle. He's clearly unconscious and Izuku wants to be able to reach around the back of his head and feel for blood, but with his hands bound he has no opportunity to do so.
His head whips towards the cashier, eyes haunted. "Call an ambulance. Tell them exactly what you saw. Make sure he's taken care of."
The man scrambles for the phone, nodding his head mutley, unable to reply directly. Izuku disappears quickly after that, guilty conscience and exhaustion weighing him down.