Si Vis Pacem Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/32686003.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Gen Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア Boku no Hero Academia My Hero
Academia, John Wick (Movies) Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Shinsou Hitoshi,
Aizawa Shouta Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Yagi Toshinori All Might, Class 1-A & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Todoroki Shouto
Character: John Wick, Midoriya Izuku, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Aizawa Shouta Eraserhead, Yagi Toshinori All Might, Midoriya Inko, U.A. Faculty (My Hero Academia), League of Villains (My Hero Academia), Akaguro Chizome Stain, Sensei All For One, U.A.'s Big Three (My Hero Academia), Hatsume Mei, Chisaki Kai Overhaul, Eri (My Hero Academia), Original Characters, John Wick characters (mentioned), Tsukauchi Naomasa
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, John Wick is Midoriya Izuku, seatbelt your buckles kids, John Wick (Movies) References, BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Gun Wielding Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku Has a Knife, Scary Midoriya Izuku, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Aizawa Shouta Eraserhead is So Done, Parental Aizawa Shouta Eraserhead, Parental Yagi Toshinori All Might, Shinsou Hitoshi Replaces Mineta Minoru, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is a Good Friend, Adopted Shinsou Hitoshi, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku's Hair Is Fluffy Because It's Full Of Secrets, more like years of repressed trauma amiryt john??, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, watch out endeavor John!Izuku is gonna pop a glock on your ass if you don't shape up, BAMF John Wick, no beta we die like everybody in the john wick movies, Canon-Typical Violence, is this me being self-indulgent? probably
Language: English Series: Part 1 of Cras Vivere Para Bellum Collections: The Witch's Woods, Myra_Approved_Version_of_Midoriya_Izuku, The
Last Rec List, Picky, Skelebooks (The Graveyard), Identity Crisis, . Thoth's Luxury Library ., Vaguely Organized Crime Fics, Deku Has A Brain, saviors of aerois :, 100k Fav Fics Bnha , bnha fanfics that caught my attention, Home of Magnificent Fanfiction, Xovers For My Soul , fuckin a, A Collection of Beloved Inserts, CRSIAS, cauldronrings favs ( • ̀ ω • ́ ), Favorite Fics That I Hoard, fics that kept me staring at my screen all night, Prapika's absolute favorites, Down The Rabbit Hole, An Uchiha's Hoard, Crack treated seriously favourites, my heart is here, Gintoke crossover beloved, The Eternal Crack Server Fic Rec Collection, Why can't I have both?, Hero Academy, McDonald's approved transmigration reincarnation time-travel fics, BNHA/MHA, Picky Readers Fics, Alternative Universes of Fandoms I enjoy., Fics that give me life, ️My Hero Stories Worth Your Time ,️ elian's favorites 3, Jaded Discord Server Recommendations, Lady's collection of PERFECT crossovers, BNHA FICS I'm married to , Little /collections/RedsBnhaLibrary
BNHA Library , Interesting crossovers and AUs, [The Constellation 'Pineapple' recommends these works of art to you, I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you, Creative Chaos Discord Recs, A Wandering Caretaker's Shrine, CrossoversForTheSoul , All kinds: BNHA's Fics version, Reincarnation AUs worth dying and coming back to life for!, Huzzah! A Crossover of Quality!, sleep deprivation never bothered me anyway or whatever elsa said, soldemjins ultimate library of faves actually (real no clickbait), Its Called Being F*king Competent!, Tonight the music seems so loud-, The Taco Shell, Hidden_Gold, Banco Fic, Ashes' Library, THE UBIQ THE UNIQUE , Ladybird's Small Fandoms, The Crossover Misadventures Of Izuku Midoriya
Stats: Published: 2021-07-21 Updated: 2023-06-11 Words: 92,004 Chapters: 13/?
Si Vis Pacem by athenoot
Summary
Everything has a price. That's what John has always known and will forever remember, even in death.
Which is pretty ironic considering his current circumstance.
Instead of a grown, scarred, weary body belonging to a man as cruel and broken as him, he's inhabiting a younger, smaller, unblemished one belonging to a child with strangely colored hair, and is living in what seems to be a superhuman society.
Well. May it never be said that John isn't a strategist. He can live with this. Maybe.
(Somewhere out there in the universe, he's certain he could hear the laughter of his enemies from beyond the grave.)
-
Or: John Wick is reincarnated as Midoriya Izuku. The world should probably watch its back.
-
Spotify Playlist! https/open./playlist/7lbf14W7JLhpO6W4wpZnW6?si=ce853a2c11174e37
TV TROPES PAGE!!! /pmwiki/pmwiki./users/athenoot/pseuds/athenoot
I rewatch the John Wick movies one time and then this happens. Oh well :D
Welcome to whatever the heck I just created with my own bare hands. Also, spoilers for all John Wick movies if you haven't seen 'em yet! (fair warning, it's pretty gruesome, kinda, but it's hella good)
I'll also be putting content warnings at the beginning of each chapter just to be safe
Hope you guys enjoy it!
(PS The chapter titles are bits of Latin phrases roughly translated, so...yeah :D and if John seems OOC, blame it on my incapability to grasp the complexities and simplicities of this character lmao)
blank slate
Chapter Summary
John wakes up in a new body, in a new world, in a new life.
To his credit, he handles it surprisingly well.
Chapter Notes
How John dies is really up to y'all's imagination ;)
John Wick is hardly a religious man by nature, much less inclined to believe in the concept of rebirth.
He doesn't think he deserves it, anyway.
Rebirth.
The idea of being reborn into a new life, a life so far away from your previous one that it almost feels like cheating. Like starting clean again, an empty sheet of paper in front of you, no stains of black ink to give life to a different facet of you, or blood to bind your soul to another, or ashes for you to spread as a warning.
It's all a blank, sinless, bloodless slate when you're reborn, and John very much knows he's undeserving of it. How could he be after years and years of deadly service, of painting every place he went to a nauseous shade of red—the remnants of people he was ordered to kill? People he killed out of raw, agonizing fury for what they did to what was left of the only few good things in his life?
His hands were filthy with the blood of too many people, his conscience no less haunted by their ghosts despite him blocking them out. It was his job, but that didn't make his missions and killings any less unforgivable. It was his job, but that didn't mean John Wick was free of any retribution. He was only one mortal man, after all.
Because of this, he doesn't believe in the concept of rebirth, or getting second chances at life, or living a different existence from your own. He couldn't.
So why is it that, after breathing his last breath and letting the darkness finally take him away from his beaten, battered, and exhausted body to someplace quieter, his beliefs get rattled, and he wakes up in a body so small, less burdened with scars and old wounds, and so, so young?
~
The first thing John sees clearly after opening his eyes is a woman.
A woman who isn't Helen, nor the Director, nor Sofia. Instead, it's a woman with oddly green- colored hair and matching eyes, looking down at him with this softness that he only ever saw his wife direct at him.
This woman isn't Helen, though. Helen has gone to a place he thought he could take a glimpse of before dropping into hell, and John had all but allowed for her memory to be put to rest.
Still, even though this woman isn't Helen, there's something about her that tells him he could trust her, that he could allow himself to release the tension in his shoulders, that he could finally stop running. That he could feel like his demons aren't going to reach him.
The woman smiles at him. It's a nice smile, John thinks. Helen used to smile at him like that, but this one is different. He doesn't know what it is, but it's...a good different, he supposed. It's far from the many vicious grins and the cold-blooded stares he'd receive from the people who went for the bounty on his head.
"Good morning, my baby Izuku," the woman says gently, and- oh, so this woman is his mother then. And John's name in this life is Izuku. And apparently, he's in Japan and can understand Japanese.
Well. Alright, then.
The woman—his mother in this life...she's so incredibly different from the Director. Sure, the Director gave him a home when he was left orphaned, gave him food to eat, and training to keep him from getting killed, but there was always this yawning gap between them, an unspoken line drawn in the sand.
(That yawning gap turned into a deep chasm when he returned to the Ruska Roma, thinking his ticket could get her to help him because he had forgotten how his old home was bound to the High Table like a dog to its master. The phantom burn of the branding iron could still be felt.)
It was an iron wall that separates Jardani and his adoptive mother because they are John Wick and the Director above all else, a relationship he couldn't bother trying to figure out because he's learned to keep a good distance away from things like that. He knows she barely had enough tolerance for those who didn't meet her standards, much less those who broke the rules.
Yet John couldn't help but wonder why the Director (reluctantly) agreed to help him get to Casablanca, in the end, despite his ex-communication, despite the repercussions of helping someone like him. Whether it was out of the little kindness left in her heart, or a sense of responsibility and honor, he would never know. She was always hard to read—a trick he picked up that, more often than not, saved him the trouble of dealing with analytical assassins.
(Some part of him, that young orphaned boy, hoped that her punishment didn't lead to her head rolling on the floor.)
Either way, this current life's mother is a completely new specimen to him, yet he feels a sense of connection with her that surpasses the kind he had with the Director. Something not weighed by debt and emotional indifference, or burdened by rules and old traditions.
John never quite remembered what his birth mother looked like, nor knew the kind of relationship they had before he was found by the Director and the Ruska Roma, but as he stares at the woman
still smiling at him, he thinks maybe that this could be what having a mom is supposed to be like.
~
John discovers eventually that his identity in this current life is Izuku Midoriya, a Japanese boy whose mother is named Inko Midoriya.
He also discovers that navigating the world as a baby is incredibly difficult than he initially thought. But at least he has all of his fingers, even if they're tiny and too weak to lift a gun. Small mercies, he ruminates.
He doesn't let this become a setback. He could use the time to gather information about this world, see what's changed. Knowing the gist of how reincarnation works (from the stories his past adoptive brothers and sisters would whisper to him on rare nights when they would interact normally), he's either a hundred years in the future, a thousand years in the past, or just in a different dimension entirely.
Any of those could be a possibility, but John will make sure to be prepared for all of them.
Although, he can't say that he isn't at least confused at the first mention of quirks after hearing the word from his new mother as she's chatting with another woman with blonde hair and unusually red eyes, lounging in what he figures is a living room.
"Knowing you, Inko, I bet the little bugger will have a pretty insane quirk once he grows up," the blonde woman says, and there it is again.
Quirks.
What did they mean? Quirks, as in, a peculiarity? A characteristic? Judging from her tone as well as the latter words, perhaps a "quirk" is something akin to a unique ability, a - dare he says it - superpower.
It couldn't be possible, but given his circumstance, perhaps anything could be.
"I could say the same about Katsuki-kun," his mother responds with a gentle smile in her voice. Gentle. His mother is rather gentle. So, so different from the Director. "He'd be one firecracker, I bet."
"He has me for a mom, of course, he'd be a firecracker!" The blonde laughs softly, and John notices the stroller parked near her by the armchair before she pulls it closer.
Is the other baby in that stroller this Katsuki boy his mother mentioned? Possibly. But there are other matters that he feels more inclined to pay attention to. Like what quirks actually are in this life. Surely it's not anything too complicated, but even if it was, John could adapt.
He always does.
~
Being a baby is such a bizarre experience that it could probably rival his encounter with Zero. To be fair, he's never even had this kind of experience at all until now, so he could excuse himself attempting to get out of his crib but end up falling back into it headfirst with a thump, earning a worried mother fretting around him for his little stunt.
In conclusion, he should wait a little while longer before attempting another escape, when his baby muscles are a little stronger and a bit more coordinated.
That's fine. John is, above all else, patient. Among all the lessons the Ruska Roma ever taught him, it's perseverance that wins against mindless power.
So he'll wait.
(And it's not because he feels out of his element when his mother continues to worry over him even after his first venture out of the crib.)
~
John gets to learn more about "quirks" the same day he learns how to walk without tripping on his ass again.
His mother is surprised but happy for his milestone (such a weird thing to hear as a grown man in a toddler's body) and she repeatedly asks him to walk to her any chance she got, something John knew he should go along with lest he wants to concern her even more than he already does.
What really throws him off though was that every time he reached her, she'd scoop him up in her arms with a little twirl, a delighted sound escaping her lips. He doesn't think he's ever been subjected to this sort of reaction to whatever achievement he had made during his days at the Ruska Roma, most of the time getting a nod of approval from the Director and his trainers, so he's completely unprepared for the reactions of Inko Midoriya.
That's not to say they're...unwelcomed. But he should probably get accustomed to the open, motherly affection he's receiving now because this world is exceedingly unlike the one he was living in before.
(Somewhere in his mind, he knows this isn't much different from the affection Helen used to give him, but it's different when it's a parent. A parent that doesn't begin training him to be a ruthless killer at the age of seven.)
She's currently fast asleep on the couch, her phone, by chance, open and ready to be used on the table. A mother's exhaustion is certainly a problematic thing, but for now, he's somewhat grateful for it. At least he doesn't have to plan on how he could get the phone without her notice.
Carefully, as to not awaken his mother, John scoops up the phone (a touchscreen phone, thankfully) and gets to work on the search engine.
Suffice to say, he's enlightened, if a little perplexed.
From what he had read, Quirks are metahuman abilities of unknown origin (although people theorized that it was radioactive rats that spurred on the biological evolution within humans) that occupy 80% of the world's population while the rest do not, the remaining statistic being labeled
"Quirkless".
The first-ever recording of this ability came from China, a baby with glowing—legitimately glowing—skin, and the rest was apparently history.
The world has undoubtedly made drastic changes following the emergence of Quirks. The technology is far more advanced in this life—to match and accommodate the growing powers of every individual, he figures—and there are separate studies about Quirks as well. If he's lucky, maybe he could get some reading material about them.
What catches his attention the most though was one particular profession that came into existence in this superpowered era and that is Professional Heroics.
Truthfully, John doesn't have much of an opinion about professional heroes and the ins and outs of the job because it's what it is; a job.
A job where, apparently, you can freely use your Quirks as mandated by Quirk laws for the safety and protection of civilians, and the arrest and detainment of the polar opposite of heroes; villains.
It's different, to be sure, from the profession of hitmen and assassins where you are trained to kill instead of saving. In this world, law enforcement is involved in your job and you could be stripped of it at a moment's notice if you somehow failed enough times to become an issue.
(Did Jimmy ever want to arrest him after knowing?)
His mother begins to stir, making John return the phone to its rightful place on the coffee table before he just as quietly goes back to his bedroom, thoughts of heroes and supernatural abilities buzzing in his mind.
This life is getting more and more unfathomable each day, making him second guess everything, but what else can he do but go along with it?
~
His first word happens to be half a Latin phrase that he subconsciously remembered and translated to Japanese, and frankly, he could only blame Winston for it.
One day he's sitting beside his mother on the couch as the news show captured footage of a fiery disaster, screams, and multiple bodies occupying it. A villain attack, the news anchor called it. It sure looks like it, with all the flames and cries of civilians happening in the video.
It doesn't necessarily bother John, really, having been used to the sounds and the sights of fallen bodies for decades, but this is different, he knows. He didn't kill mindlessly, didn't involve people who weren't of concern because he was only focused on the task at hand, his sole target. What's happening on the news, however, was senseless destruction.
But then someone big and obnoxiously colorful cuts through the fire and the terror with a booming, ambitious laugh, and John sees blond hair styled to a V, blue and red spandex, and a pearly white smile that aches his own cheeks.
"Everything is fine! Why? Because I am here!"
All Might had been that towering man's name. Fitting.
Japan's Symbol of Peace has come to the rescue, the news anchor said. Symbol of peace, huh?
"If you wish for peace," John whispers absently, remembering the phrase from a time he left behind when he wanted peace more than anything, and he had to fight tooth and nail to get it. (And that was his mistake, thinking he would ever have it in the end.)
And then his mother gasps at what he just said and he's reminded again how emotional she can be over the small things.
~
"Mitsuki! My baby said his first words!" His mother cries happily over the phone. "I don't know what it means, but they're his first words, Mitsuki! My baby is so smart!"
John is currently being held hostage in her tight hug and he thinks to himself how odd his mom is. A good kind of odd, but odd nonetheless.
~
He'll have to get used to referring to himself as his new identity, as his current life now that his previous one is, technically, no longer alive.
It's not so different from changing his birth name to the anglicized version of it, so really, what's there to cause a fuss about?
Logically, he knows he should already get used to being addressed as Izuku (or Midoriya, because of Japanese customs) because, on legal documents and his mother's emotional spirit, he is not John Wick nor Jardani Jovonovich nor Baba Yaga.
He is Izuku Midoriya, three years old, and has no history of bloodshed and betrayal and revenge plots on his tiny conscience.
Yeah.
This will take a while.
"I'm Izuku Midoriya," he says to his mirror self in the bathroom, face as passive and emotionless as ever. Green eyes stare back.
"I'm Midoriya Izuku," he corrects, remembering how Japan addresses names.
He repeats the introduction for a long time while his mother is busy preparing dinner, trying to get his mind into accepting his new name through the method.
It doesn't stick completely by the dozenth try, and John wants to rewrite the contents of his brain starting with what his name is. Patience, he reminds himself.
He repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
It doesn't stick by the eighteenth attempt, but maybe he's going about this wrongly. Maybe he doesn't need to keep recycling the name over and over until it's become a Pavlovian response. Maybe he just needs to think about how Midoriya Izuku could be John Wick the way John Wick was to Jardani Jovonovich.
A mask over the real thing. Fake it till you make it, as the saying goes. In any case, he had been John Wick longer than he had been Jardani Jovonovich, so perhaps Midoriya Izuku could have the same effect.
Here's to hoping.
~
So, preschool.
John hardly has any memories of attending preschool. He had been homeschooled all his life, all things considered, but he can honestly say now that he doesn't like it.
At all. And he's saying this as a grown man existing as a child.
But he can't complain about it now. His mother had been excited for him and his first day of school, so he'll just have to grit his teeth and bear it.
And bear it he did, because the children are...too much. Too loud, actually. And John had been to plenty of raves, and concerts, and nightclubs before. But in his defense, he only ever showed up in those kinds of places for business, never returning a second time unless he had to.
Now, though, he has to return to this noisy chaos of a classroom every single school day for the next dozen months and counting. Fun.
And then he feels a finger poking his arm quite aggressively.
"Oi, are you Auntie's kid?"
John smothers that muffled, ingrained instinct to pull-break-dislocate and turns his head to see red eyes and spiky sand blond hair. Unusual, but he's seen weirder (like that one plump kid with literal dragon wings, for instance).
He must've been quiet for too long when the same blond boy pokes him harder to get his attention. "Hey, are you deaf or something?"
"No."
The other boy scoffs.
"Then why didn't you answer me?"
Oh, right, that.
"I don't know who your aunt is," John says truthfully and straight to the point.
The blond frowns at him, and John distantly remembers another kid from a faraway past in Ruska Roma with the same temperament as this one. Except that kid had been less confrontational. "Auntie Inko! Are you her kid or what? My old hag said you'd be here."
Ah, so this must be...
"Yeah, I am. Are you Katsuki?" John is certain this boy is that Katsuki baby from three years ago when John first opened his eyes and realized his situation.
"Damn right I am. I'm Bakugou Katsuki," the blond, Katsuki, affirms and John is also certain that children his age shouldn't have a vocabulary like that, but to each his own, he guesses. "What's your name, extra?"
Hm. A self-confident, domineering personality, a colorful vocab, and calling people "extras". This would likely develop into a problem in the future, but it's not John's job to deal with it at the moment.
"Midoriya Izuku," he returns. It's been getting a little easier to respond to his new name lately. Maybe those midnight sessions of whispering his new name while the world was asleep were helpful after all.
Katsuki crosses his arms as he looks to be assessing him. "So, wanna play or some crap?"
He doesn't. He'd rather do anything else but play with other kids that don't know the meaning of personal space. Although...
John glances at the cluster of children laughing and shoving and coloring together while the teachers watch. There aren't any lessons happening right now since it's just the first day, which gives everyone free time to know each other, and so far no one has come to interact with him except Katsuki.
Hm. His mother did tell him to have a good day, and to tell her what he did at school...
John looks back at the impatient face of Katsuki. "Okay."
That later became his first mistake out of many.
~
"Bakugou Katsuki, you're in big trouble, young man!"
"Izuku, baby, did you actually bite Katsuki-kun's arm?!"
"How could you beat up little Izu like that?!"
"Please don't tell me you gave him a black eye too!"
"I thought I told you not to start any fights, you brat!"
"Izuku, I didn't raise you to be this violent!"
"It's only the first day, Katsuki, and you broke his nose!"
"When we get home, I'm limiting your TV time!"
"You are so damn grounded, mister!"
John and Katsuki glance at each other, their faces dirtied and bruised as they stand side by side across their respective mothers, and John would like to think they have some form of mutual understanding and connection if Katsuki's subtle but feral grin is any indication.
John just looks away.
~
John definitely has this whole reincarnation situation under control, even if he gets confused with the science behind Quirks, and the function behind normal relationships.
And if he somehow messes up and garners unwanted attention? Well... That's a problem to tackle for another time. Now, his new mission is to live the life he wished for, fought for, killed for, and more. It'll be a challenge for sure, but he has it handled.
Yeah.
dare to know
Chapter Summary
John and the woes of being in the same vicinity as Bakugou Katsuki.
Oh, and he finds out that having no Quirk in this new life is a death sentence. But whatever.
Chapter Notes
aka John being so done with Bakugou's bullshit but he can't ignore Inko's request for him to be his friend.
Friendship had been a tenuous thing at best and a critical weakness at worst during his active years.
John barely made close friends, even back when he had been young, yet Marcus just couldn't take John ignoring him as an answer the first time they met on a rainy day, both aiming to kill their targets who happened to be siblings.
They became close somewhere down the road, with Marcus being his first and genuine friend, but what did they end up becoming? One with bullets lodged in his body all in the name of friendship and the other reborn as a three-year-old boy in a superhuman society.
John didn't make any more friends after Marcus, the nature of their work serving to remind him that friendship couldn't coincide with the job, and he thought that would be the end of it.
Still, that darkness didn't seem to reach him when Katsuki practically drags him outside to go exploring in the nearby forest of their neighborhood, a catching net resting on his tiny shoulder.
John doesn't complain, but he wants to since Katsuki interrupted his studying and Mom supported the other boy's idea of "getting some fresh air".
"Why are we here?" He asks as he stares at the tall chain link fence with the obvious signs clipped on them, giant characters telling outsiders to keep out. For a self-proclaimed genius, Katsuki sure doesn't know how to read.
"To catch a bunch of bugs, duh!" Katsuki answers with an eager grin. Were children really ever this excited to be trespassing private property? John will never know. "We can show 'em to the old hag and Auntie once we're done."
"You'll be in trouble for breaking the rules." He should know. He had broken so many before he came here.
"No, I won't! Now shut up and get moving."
He'd rather not, but Katsuki has already started to drag him by the wrist against his will and
stomping happily on the grass with his chest out and head raised high like a boy on a mission. John simply sighs and just goes along with it.
Later, they venture deeper into the forest, a few straggling beetles in the tiny glass jars Katsuki had on him.
"My birthday's coming up next week," the blond mentions casually, but there's a tinge of child-like anticipation too.
John hums to let him know he's listening.
"That means I'm gonna get my Quirk soon!" He raises a fist in the air.
"Do you know what you'll get?" According to the Wiki articles he had read when Mom wasn't looking, the child's Quirk is usually a combination or a variant of both or one of the parents' Quirks. There are exceptions too but they're rare and come few and far in between, and are labeled mutations. An odd way to name an entirely different Quirk from your parents' but hey, John isn't a biology expert.
Katsuki hops over a large tree root with John following close behind. "Dunno. But I bet it's gonna be damn awesome!"
"Hm."
Katsuki looks back at him, his feral grin still plastered on his young face, "Maybe you'll get a cool Quirk too, Izuku. Just not as cool as mine will be!"
"Sure." John doesn't exactly care about what superhuman ability he'll get at four years old, but he can stand to indulge the other boy's child-like hopes and fantasies.
"Hey, I know! We could be, like, a hero duo!" Katsuki then begins to walk backward as he addresses John, their little quest for insects left behind. "I'll be the Number One Hero while you'll be my sidekick. Like All Might and Sir Nighteye!"
"Why?" John finds himself asking and he hasn't the slightest idea why.
Katsuki stares at him as if he said something completely stupid. "What do you mean 'why?' Because we're friends, idiot, that's why!"
"I'm your friend?"
"Uhh, yeah? Did you lose your hearing or something?"
"Hm."
Friendship often ends in different ways. For John, it's betrayal, or following strict orders, or keeping the friendship alive whilst doing your job and risking your life because of it.
This friendship hardly risks their lives, though. Midoriya Izuku has never had the kind of self- restriction John Wick had, and Bakugou Katsuki is the first one to be his friend in this new life. The first one since Marcus, really.
Well. Maybe he can afford to have a friend here. For Midoriya Izuku's benefit.
"Okay."
"Let's fucking go then!" Katsuki yells to the sky and off they go, collecting a few more beetles as Katsuki dreams of what his power will be, with John (Izuku) listening beside him.
~
Katsuki gets his Quirk in the middle of the afternoon on his birthday.
Everyone gathers around him with John standing further away, but even then, he can hear the crackles and pops coming from the source standing in the middle of the room.
"Wow!"
"So cool!"
"Awesome!
"You have such an amazing Quirk, Katsuki-chan!"
John can see the happiness glowing on Katsuki's face from where he stands. He's glad for him. But the praises from everyone are starting to become a bit too much for John's tastes.
"Your Quirk is way cooler than mine!"
"You're amazing, Katsuki-kun!"
"With that Quirk, you can be a great hero!"
Personally, John knew what hubris and excessive ego can do to someone. They become too conceited in their skills, overestimating themselves, which leaves them thinking they can bend any rule they want because they believe they're the greatest.
He recalls two people in particular.
Perkins comes to mind first. She broke the Continental's rules when she tried to eliminate him and paid the price for it.
Next is a senior of his from his early days. Formerly one of Ruska Roma's best, that senior had been at the top of his game. He had garnered notoriety, then his reputation had gotten to his head, and he slipped, badly. Badly enough to earn heavy gunshots to the head, point black, by his target's hired hitman. That senior had been one of the only few examples of failure the children of the Ruska Roma were instructed not to follow, and John took to heart the dangers of overconfidence.
Witnessing the children and the teachers crowding Katsuki over a natural part of your biology reminds John of those two people and their ultimate ends. And distantly, he wonders if it'll happen again here too.
"So, what do you think of my Quirk, Izuku? Pretty damn cool, right?" Katsuki later asks him during break time, still on some kind of high from the praises and admiration thrown his way.
The power to create explosions for a kid with a matching personality. There are a lot of things he wants to say about that, but he settles for, "Yeah."
Katsuki laughs triumphantly.
"This totally proves that I'm amazing! The other extras don't have anything on me!"
And Katsuki simply goes on and on while John just listens. (And later blocks out because this is starting to remind him of Santino and his complexes.)
~
It's subtle, but Katsuki begins to change for the worse, in John's opinion.
The boy became a lot more brash and aggressive in later weeks, to the point he's started picking fights—or as Katsuki loved to put it, "challenging the weaklings"—with older kids.
Nobody thought to stop him or admonish him for his behavior, not even the teachers. Katsuki's mom, however, is a different story, but she can only do so much when the blond boy is not at home, something John is aware of.
Therefore, he appoints himself as a buffer, a decision he'll likely regret, but if it's to prevent Katsuki from becoming the next Perkins or Santino, he'll do it. Besides, some of the kids in their class are slowly becoming a little frightened of Katsuki, and practically begging John, Katsuki's (evidently) only close friend, with their eyes to keep him from setting his sights on them as potential competition/punching bags.
After decades of being hired a few times for strengthened security detail, John can't quite say no.
One such instance of him enacting his new job is when Katsuki corners another kid with a minor skin-changing Quirk once school was over for reasons beyond John's understanding. As terrible luck would have it, no other teachers were outside with them. Wonderful.
"You and me, let's fight!" The red-eyed boy declares with a feral smirk and the frightened kid in front of him cowers even more.
John sighs through his teeth and marches forward.
"Katsuki, enough." He snatches Katsuki's wrist, and he doesn't return the grateful look the third boy sends him before running off, his eyes only trained on a stunned Katsuki.
"The hell are you doing, Izuku?" John has yet to let go of the boy's wrist.
"Keeping you out of trouble."
Katsuki tries to release himself from his hold, but John has a secure grip.
"I don't need you keeping me out of trouble! I wanted to show that bastard who's the best around here," is Katsuki's retort and it's incredibly irritating how similar he is with Viggo's son. Cocky. Impudent. Never thinking of consequences.
The thought dies as soon as it's birthed. John fully stares at Katsuki, his hand not leaving the other's wrist. Katsuki looks back, but he breaks eye contact to try and pry himself away, but John doesn't budge.
No. Katsuki and Viggo's son aren't the same, he tells himself.
Iosef had been a grown man, pampered for years and years in a kingdom his father had built up because of John Wick.
Katsuki is a four-year-old boy who had recently been given too much freedom to do whatever he wanted because of an ability regarded as amazing by others.
But he'll be tugged in the right direction by his friend. By Midoriya Izuku. Because of Midoriya Izuku.
Yeah. John will make sure there won't be another Iosef Tarasov in this life either.
"Let go, you asshole!"
He feels the heat before he hears the pops and crackles, and John releases his grip, composed and controlled against Katsuki's fiery temperament.
"What gives, huh?!" Katsuki spits.
"You were being an idiot," is his response.
"No, I wasn't! I was telling that kid who's the greatest because he thinks he's all cool for changing his skin and shit. It's lame!"
Were children really this obnoxious at this age?
After a minute of staring at Katsuki and gouging if he actually believes the words he's saying (he does), he turns away. And then he walks.
"Where the hell are you going?!" Katsuki yells after him. John doesn't look back as he keeps strolling to the courtyard where their mothers will surely be waiting for them.
"I'm telling Aunt Mitsuki what you did today."
"What?! No way, why the hell—"
"Because you weren't being a hero."
That sparks another bout of rage and his past life's muscle memory and instincts swiftly possess him to step aside, and an angry Katsuki charges through the spot he left just earlier like a raging bull, hands steaming and crackling. Ah, so he propelled himself with his small explosions. Creative.
Katsuki levels a glare that only four-year-olds can manage and growls like an irate cat, "Heroes are always strong so they always win. I'm strong, so I always win!"
He stalks up to John, but he doesn't falter nor back away, standing firm and unintimidated. "That kid had a weak Quirk, and he was a wimp, so I made sure he knew his place!"
His reasoning is as appalling as it is irrational, but he's a preschooler, and according to the Director, they're naturally difficult things to manage. But from John's experience watching the Director handle toddlers from afar, he knows that preschoolers can be subject to change with particular, effective methods.
So he does the next course of action.
"Does All Might do that to civilians too?" Call it a dirty move, using the other boy's admiration to his advantage, but it's for the best. Katsuki needs to tone his ego down before it kills him one day.
Katsuki loses the scowl, but his brows still furrow together. "What?"
"Does All Might act like you towards other people? Call them wimps for not being like him?"
"I don't—"
He gets straight to the point of it. He'd rather not waste any more words on typical childish behavior that could easily be corrected. "Heroes don't act as you do towards others, Katsuki. Only villains do. And I don't think you're a villain. So don't do that again."
He leaves without anything left to say, because what else is there? He already sounded hypocritical enough for him to kick at himself mentally (because in his previous life, he knew he was a "villain" from the lives he stole without mercy), but he doesn't want Katsuki to end up like anyone he's ever fought back then.
He has the potential to be better.
Later, he hears instead of sees Katsuki catching up to him, walking beside him in silence.
Until, "I'm not a villain, stupid."
John simply hums in agreement. There's nothing else for him to say.
~
It's the day after his fourth birthday when he and his mother go to see a doctor about his Quirk and when it will emerge.
Personally, John doesn't see why they should see a doctor for that. It's only been a day since he turned a year older with no outward signs of supernatural abilities but what does he know? Definitely not the unsaid rules in this society that worship literal licensed heroes rather than rich mafia bosses. Besides, it's his mother who suggested the visit, and John just couldn't say no.
So they go see the doctor.
And frankly, he just wants to go home and nap or something because apparently, an extra joint in the pinky toe is a "bad sign", judging from his mother's expression on her face as the bespectacled, mustached man goes on to explain that John—Izuku—is Quirkless. As if it's a disease somehow.
But John doesn't show any hint of displeasure, anger, sadness, disappointment, or whatever at the news—it's mostly out of habit, not reacting overly expressive to anything, which is likely why it earned him quite a reputation among the less self-controlled people who liked the challenge of getting him to crack under ten minutes.
This is also most likely why his mother is glancing at him worriedly whilst speaking with the doctor.
John hasn't blocked out the conversation for the rest of the visit, deeming the information passed between the two adults as important, and has taken to observing the X-ray scan of his small foot.
There's the extra, "uncommon" pinky toe joint. John likes to think he's well versed enough in the human anatomy to think there's nothing inherently wrong with his body, but basing off on his mother's reaction earlier and the doctor's pitying look behind his glasses, he doesn't think they have the same thought process.
Really, how far has humanity evolved since he had last roamed the earth that having a normal (by his standards, at least) extra joint is considered a bad omen?
Well, whatever. It's not John's problem to fix. If this revelation will give him trouble (and he has a hunch it will, considering how cruel people can get over the most inconsequential things) then he'll just have to work around it. Complaining wouldn't get him very far when all is said and done.
After the doctor's visit, his mother attempts to cheer him up with some ice cream down the road. It's unnecessary, really, since John thinks he hasn't expressed any negative emotion under the sun for her to add another destination to today's itinerary, but seeing her look at him with care and concern of a worried parent made him give in and nod.
The brownie fudge chocolate ice cream tastes like a childhood nostalgia he never had.
~
Katsuki, with the explosive pettiness of a four-year-old, slams their table with both hands. John can see hints of a crackling sparkle pop into existence but he remains unbothered.
"The hell do you mean you're Quirkless?!"
The other kids are minding their own business (more like giving him a wide berth as per the teacher's "instructions") so they don't react much to Katsuki's outburst aside from the very few curious glances.
John, meanwhile, just continues to read.
"Oi, don't ignore me!" Katsuki demands, reaching for the little picture book in his hands, one of the typical tactics of getting someone's attention.
John smoothly puts it away before it could receive any nitroglycerin damage. "What?"
"What do you mean 'what?', you're Quirkless, Izuku! That means you're weak and useless!"
Clearly, Katsuki doesn't seem to notice how there's not a single, molecular shit John is giving about that, but he's four, and four-year-olds, understandably, have more emotional thought processes than they do critical ones.
"And?"
Katsuki scoffs, "And that means you can't be a hero, idiot."
"I don't want to be a hero."
John certainly has never even imagined being one, not even after witnessing that video of Japan's Number One Hero saving countless lives with a cheek-aching smile. He had the odds stacked against him in that regard in his past life, taking lives for the benefit of other richer, more powerful
ones. He took a lot of lives even without being ordered to do so as well. Who's to say he won't end up like that again here?
No, John will keep Midoriya Izuku as innocent and free of bloodshed as he could, because Izuku hasn't grown up in a crime organization for decades, promised not to go back to that dark place only to end up there anyway.
Midoriya Izuku hasn't been touched by the underworld, and John Wick would like to keep it that way.
Katsuki stares at him with so much emotion passing through his face, but what settles eventually is a frown-glower combo. "You're lying, of course, you wanna be a hero!"
John is seriously getting tired of this. "I said I don't."
"Why not? Everybody wants to be a hero because heroes are cool and they always win!"
"I don't want to be a hero, Katsuki."
"Liar! You're just being a wimp because you're Quirkless and can't be a hero anymore," Katsuki says, crossing his arms like any other petulant child who has been spoonfed too many ego-fueling compliments. "You can't be my hero partner without a Quirk, stupid."
John decides to go the usual route with guys like this.
"Sure."
Katsuki doesn't seem to like the lackluster response.
"Tch. Whatever! I'm gonna be number one anyway while you'll be stuck as a loser pebble on the side of the road!"
"Yeah."
John goes back to reading afterward, ignoring Katsuki entirely throughout the whole day because he honestly has no energy left to handle him. Yet Katsuki is so relentless and stubborn that it's starting to remind him of Zero but a bit more choleric and prone to swearing, which he definitely does not need at the moment. The teachers were of no help in reigning Katsuki in.
A few hours later on their way home, Katsuki continues to prod at him, "Oi, seriously, don't even think about being a hero, or else I'll clobber you!"
Just ignore him. It's easy. So easy. He had dealt with and survived Zero, had put up with Iosef, and had held himself back from bashing Santino's teeth in at the museum; surely he can survive Katsuki throughout the trek home.
He does. Barely. Because the blond boy is quite the loudmouth, filling their one-sided conversations with more taunts and petty insults.
"Now that you're Quirkless, I'm way more amazing than you!"
"..."
"You can't even stand on the same ring as me!"
"..."