Notes from Author: Hi Lovelies! It has been a hot minute since I've updated on this account! :D I decided that I wanted to open my stories up to a larger range of people and remembered really enjoying posting here.

This story is something I'm especially proud of. I really challenged myself by writing a story that was not mainly focussed on romance as well as the main character being a canon character. I'd only ever done OCs before that but I loved how this turned out. While the story on A03 is finished, I still am giving quality of life updates to it. So, every time I publish a chapter here, I'll update it over there too. You're welcome to read it, just know it might be different in a few months. Now, in saying this, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I dreamed this up.

I'll only ever write like this if I need to address something directly, but I do reply to comments when I can too.

Let me know what you think in a comment, or follow, or whatever it is we do on FF now!

Bevenstance

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Chapter One: The Tale of a Martyr

Song Inspiration: Circle with me - Spiritbox: One Take Version

Warnings: Bakugou being Bakugou. There ain't no avoiding his attitude for now.

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Izuku only noticed that something was off when he opened his limited edition, All-Might lunch box. There, squashed in his lunchbox, was a single packet of fruit yogurt. For anyone else it was a miniscule detail: barely even noticeable in the grand scheme of things. However, the food item was significant to Izuku in a very particular way, and for him, it was enough to detach from reality The sight of the snack makes his throat constrict and vision blur over; the axis of his mind altering from that of a child to one of an adult that really should not be here.

Izuku chokes down a breath of air, holding his mouth in his hand as the dizziness filters from his addled mind.

His Mum only ever purchased the yogurt brand when he was in primary school, just as his deadbeat Father began picking up longer and longer overseas contracts. It was a brief moment in time that signified a time when they could still afford to splurge on the little things. He never found out, in the end, what Father did for a job but based on the stories his Mum told, it paid well enough for her to focus on being a Mum. It was a rabbit hole that only added more questions to his investigation list that it did crossing them off and eventually, Izuku didn't really care to keep it up. Maybe it was because his Mum brought him up less and less, and not wanting to stir the tensions in a two person household, the teenager let it go cold. He figured there were still some lingering feelings of abandonment: shadows of a promised life lingering in the photos in the hallway, the tiring moments of waiting for the telephone to ring, and the space beside the doorway that should be filled with nicely made business shoes that weren't there. He couldn't fathom how it felt to have the person you trusted and loved with everything in you just up and vanish like that.

The main point here was that the yogurt represented a point in time when those paychecks were still being sent through; a period of time where they didn't need to worry about their finances.

Izuku twists his head, looking all around himself, taking every colour, shape, sight and sound to memory. It's springtime right now, with fresh buds on the verge of blooming in the tree next to him.. Izuku's eyes bore into the cinderblock bricks that lined the school building and the fading cartoon characters cut and stuck on the front doors and windows. Time erased their names but their smiles remain strong in his mind.

He hadn't paid attention to such characters in years. They weren't in his field of interest as a kid; superheroes were where his fantasies lied. But despite this, they remain familiar. Izuku still can't quite believe what he's experiencing. And as he absentmindedly reaches for them, still seated alone on the bench outside, he catches sight of the small, pudgy looking hand that follows his every command.

Izuku flexes his fingers and waves them quickly, his mind finally catching up somewhat to his surroundings, feeling like he was waking from a dream.

'Is this a dream?'

When he tries to remember anything, of how he got here at this point in time and at this age in his life, he's got nothing to go on. The last thing he can piece together - horrific destruction rattles the back of his mind in sickening flashes and squelches - was the heaviness of his body. Aching that overrode pain receptors, for they had ceased functioning for who knows how long. He remembers feeling annoyed by the rain getting in his eyes, messing up his field of vision. He wanted to get up but there was something holding, or maybe pinning, him down. From what he could gather, Izuku's sure there was some sort of fight but there was little else to go on to explain this.

But he does remember Eri's eyes and moving lips that produce no sounds. Her face is filled with something indistinguishable; his consciousness telling him that they won. Probably.

'But did we really win?' He doesn't trust his own mind to tell him the truth. 'Are. . . . is Eri okay?'

His fingers pinch his cheek harshly, the only thing he could think to do in the moment as some twisted form of grounding. It stung, his cheek red with anger, but it was real. It was only then that he started believing that the plastic in his hands were real, that the air he breathed was real and that he was now in the body of his younger self.

'Did I. . . . time travel? Holy shit.'

The colour leeches from his face and the tingling in his toes go uncomfortably haywire. And as his mind races to haphazardly join together the fraying ends of logic and reality, Izuku grows feverishly anxious.

"I-If I really have gone back. . . . then maybe I can stop it." Izuku murmurs to himself, staring at the lack of training scars that should be etched all over his body. His anxiety grows tenfold when he takes stock of himself, realising the absence of One for All. Without the quirk thrumming in his veins, even when inactive, he feels like he's missing a piece. Or ten. It's like setting a computer to factory reset: his entire being was now a lanky, pip-sized blank world, his browser, and everything that meant anything was now set to default.

Harrowed, observant eyes of green watch the crowds of children play, innocently unaware of the revelations happening metres away, and imagines a world of different possibilities. His voice remains barely wavering above a whisper as his thoughts jerk repetitively, barrage of warnings. ". . . . maybe I can change the future?"

Izuku's lunchbox is violently smacked out of his hands, bits of rice and corn splattering on the ground. The sound of nasty cackling gives way to the hackles rising on his neck; and in the darkness of closed eyes, the feeling of utter dread settles, sinking into his bones. Like the dent in a couch, it was a familiar foe that he had almost blissfully forgotten.

Children can be cruel. A fact he hadn't been fortunate enough to forget with the passage of time.

His heart pitter patters with anxiety as the bits of white and yellow blur into brown, his cheeks feeling wet. Distinct crackles of fire and friction snap close by and Izuku wills himself to count to ten. Slowly. Intently.

He doesn't want to look in his direction. He feels ill even looking at anyone, let alone Ba-

Bile sits in his chest.

The only thing that saved him from the inevitable beating was the school bell: lunch time had finished. A little flicker of relief is smothered when the lackeys, one tall, one stoutly jumped and pounded the lunchbox, destroying it irreparably.

His stomach twists in knots as he wipes those tears away, their laughter fading into the huddles of chattering youth. Izuku tells himself to stop trying, to let it go because it's only plastic. He's an adult (is he really?) and there's so so much else to worry about. A well cared for veneer gleens menacingly at him, proudly bearing right up to their ears: invisible in the crowning darkness. The bile rises higher.

The teacher berates him for being late to class, though takes pity when spotting the fragments of his lunchbox combined with the wobbly smile on his face. She tells the child to bin it, have some water and find his seat. Quickly now.

'Fuck this shit.' Izuku thinks, feeling the duplicity of both being ignored when watching and jeered at when turning his back. The mere disdain was enough for the not-so-adult to relinquish any childish hope of maybe living a more peaceful existence this time around. But the disgust he felt as an adult, looking back on his childhood, was still alive and shaking its head. Izuku fakes a smile as he walks to the back of the room where the cubby holes were. The lunchbox is placed gently into the bin, waiting expectantly for something.

But a broken lunch box would not heal on its own with no hands to pick itself up with. And, through what feels like the five stages of grief in five anguishful minutes, Izuku comes to the same conclusion, turning away from the bin.

'I'm not going through this again. No way in hell.'

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It's all nice and simplistic to say that 'I'm not going through again' but once he calms down, lightheadedness replacing the space that the anxiety had sat in, Izuku takes the time to reassess the situation. The future - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you ask - wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. His mind learns more towards it being good: few had the luxury of time to work with. He should count his lucky stars.

He calculates from the teaching lessons, the ways the buildings look on his walk home, and how tame the bullies were, he wasn't any older than six or seven. And it feels about right: he's short, has no muscle mass and is quirkless as ever. (Every time he thinks of the nothingness, there's an indescribably twinge in his chest.) At this age, other than being a hero like any other young boy influenced by the popular, he longed to be tall like his Father. Now, his hope weaves around the memories of his people, praying that they do not meet a gut wrenching end that he goes to sleep fearing about.

The not-so-adult finds comfort in analysing whatever he can. Knowing, and picking apart things in his mind, wouldn't attract the attention of anyone. Not at this age, at least. So on the way home, he starts to plot. Bakugou was a hazardous drum of radioactive acid that had been kicked down a stockbank. And then set on fire. Maybe if they were both on a level playing field, where their minds were as level as their quirk statuses, then there might have been a sliver of a chance to pull him in.

Katsuki, broad shouldered and snarky as his canines that peeked out whenever he grinned, was barely a shadow of the child he once was. Katsuki was more subdued with his rage, possessing introspection through years of anger management and the wearing down of his circle of friends. They're Izuku friends too but he can't make a claim on his improved demeneer like some of the others could. Bakugou, on the other side of the mirror, knew nothing of these concepts and lashed out ferociously when they wouldn't fit the framework in his mind that was deemed acceptable. His actions were clouded by things in his life that he had no chance at managing on his own. And, for all his faults, Izuku couldn't (or, rather he refused to) let himself grow to hate the boy, in spite of the hurt.

Izuku watches patiently and waits. He rests, taking time to absorb the quiet moments of simplicity that comes with being a child. He breathes in through his nose - one-two-three - and breathes out - two-three.

And days later, when he thinks he's compiled enough information to start making his next moves, Izuku confronts a peacocking Bakugou, staring at him with resignation in his blank expression. Bakugou quizzically squints at Izuku's arrival, his pseudo friends eyeing the interaction as their minds plotted in only ways a child could think of.

"You're going to regret this." Is what Izuku eventually says, dejectedly slinging his backpack over his shoulder, ready to walk home alone. It's a spur of the moment thing, much like deciding to get the orange juice over the cranberry juice for lunch, a whim of wanting. "Be better."

Because all he felt inside was a sadness that Bakugou wouldn't be able to understand. He knows better than to fool himself into thinking that this person was his friend - friends, after all, don't hit or leave scars on you - but he knows the person he'll become in the future. And that's his friend. Right now, there's nothing more in his calculating mind that he wants to do than tackle him against the ground and shake him out of this. . . . attitude, pleading to get over himself. To get help. To stay safe and become Katsuki again.

But what child would understand that kind of pleading, from another child no-less, one that he claimed to hate?

"Shut up, you reject!" Kacchan growls, red in the face at the sudden gaul of Izuku standing right there. He swivels around to jab a finger in his chest. "Nobody wants you here!"

An adult wouldn't get away with beating a child in broad daylight. For this not-so-adult trapped in a child's body, trapped in a time where he's perceived as useless, he lets himself have one good punch.

And it feels good for one entire moment.

Kacchan retaliates, striking him down for that outburst. He very well could have protected himself, but Izuku chooses not to - and here's why:

People ruminate. Even when they don't want to, they do. The past is what leads you to who you are now, even if you've dyed your hair, gotten married or divorced, grew a horde of pot plants or cats, or even gone to anger management after one too many incidents at a new school. You can change your clothes like you can change your can choose to leave it behind and disavow it entirely, but it stalks. And it waits. And it sits with you in the dark until you decide to do something about it.

Izuku puts his hope into these words, that they would haunt the path that keeps him steady. He probably shouldn't have said anything to begin with; that whole conversation sounded almost like a goodbye. But if Izuku went ahead with his plans without opening the door to leave the room that was Bakugou's life, he wasn't sure who exactly the boy would become.

Bruised but satisfied with the pain he pushed for, Izuku sits up and checks that he's alone. By the looks of things, they actually let him go lightly. But it wouldn't be like this for long, if his timeline stayed the same. They left his school supplies alone and that's probably for the best. The boy leaves the school grounds with his jumper sleeves rolled down - he can't avoid hiding the bruises on his knees - and eventually finds his way back home, opening the big green door that opens out into the joint lounge and Mother turns from her cooking to greet Izuku, face drooping once she catches sight of the dirt on his jumper.

"Oh honey, what happened?" She bends down to try and rub the scuffs out, muttering that 'she just got this thing and already it's damaged.' She sighs, resigning to deal with it later. "Were you playing with Katsuki, down by the river, again? I thought we agreed that you would come straight home after school now, Izuku!"

"I was exploring!" He whines, making sure to emphasise the adventure of it all in the waving of his arms. Lying like a child felt uncomfortable at first but he got used to it quicker than he felt comfortable with his Mother. There was something off about the way she acted, now that he was seeing her actions through different lenses. This rendition of her is anxious, tired and helicopters around him at times, moving to act before he could sometimes. Izuku didn't remember feeling this uncomfortable before, and now that he does, he's on edge.

The dark bags under Inko's eyes sag as he stares back, hoping that his act was successful. There's a graduation picture on the wall behind her, shadowing over her shoulders. By all accounts, she'd been a career driven woman who had plans to return to work once he was old enough to be placed in daycare. That was, if things had gone the way she planned.

Much like mental or physical ailments, being quirkless was more than just the person who lived with it. The condition affected where he could go for health checks, his schooling options, down to how people reacted. Inko didn't have it in herself to leave him alone or with the few friends she had remaining, out of fear: for himself or the stigma that attached itself to them, he wasn't sure. Before all of this, she had been a proud and vibrant soul. And maybe in a different life, with a different Izuku, she might have been the same. But this Inko wasn't the person she used to be, or the Mum he remembered so fondly.

She stands back to her full height, sighing once more, deeper this time. Without another word of the incident, she returns to her cooking, her back facing him. Izuku follows, tottering along with his small limbs. Her cutting only becomes more jagged when he holds her pant leg. She puts the knife down, pulling her leg away and looking down at him. "I'm coming to pick you up tomorrow."

Izuku bites his lip, thinking that would stuff up his plans. He hugs her legs now, head on her knees, voice quivering; "B-But I'm a big boy, I can walk home on m-my own!"

"No buts!" She quips, one cleanly manicured finger wagging in the air. "You did the same thing last week and you didn't come home for hours? I was worried sick! I love you baby but you need to listen to me. I'm picking you up tomorrow. End of discussion. "

His Mother turns,resuming the chopping of carrots, cutting off the conversation. And there was no point in trying to push the matter when she was like this. Instead, he turns to leave the kitchen but then glances back, his hands grasping at his backpack handles, pushing them outwards.

"I-I'm going to do my homework now! C-Can I go see Kacchan afterwards?"

Mother keeps her back turned. "No, you'll see him tomorrow. Off you go now."

Izuku frowns but gives in, leaving the kitchen and high tailing it to his bedroom. Making a fuss over something so trivial in the end would make things more difficult down the track. He'd be fine for now but it would have been nice to add just that little bit more to his pack. That could be addressed later. For now, he needed to lay low, to let her guard drop, thinking that he had retired for the night. Or, at the very least, that she thought of him as an unsuspecting child who only went to sleep, a child who didn't know much of the world beyond the suburb he lived in. Judging by her shortness in mood, it wouldn't take long for her to crash.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Izuku gulps down the watery juice his mother had given him, thinking back on what he could remember. It's not much and childhood was more fragmented, to be honest. If it wasn't about heroes, or how he was treated, it would fade to make room for other things: much could be said about his Father's presence. When he asked yesterday, out of curiosity more than interest, she shrugged and waved a hand, suggesting that he might even call tonight.

(He didn't.)

Izuku misses the idea of a Father more than the person himself. The things you should associate with a fatherly figure don't connect like they should: there's no voice to remember or a smell of shirts left behind. Whatever possessions the family of two had of his were trashed overnight and empty spaces on the wall spanned wider than they did once before. He probably would have forgotten what the man looked like, if the picture in his room had also joined the rest of them.. The only thing he saw himself in the man was the sprinkle of freckles that decorated his face, especially across his cheeks. His smile was almost taunting, filling the gap his absence left.

Maybe she left this one there to answer the questions a child might have. But he has none to give now. And, in the greater scheme of things, this picture would most likely disappear as well.

Mother puts him to bed a bit earlier than usual, speeding through the night time routine. She gives him a kiss as she tucks him into his bed, alongside the All Might plushy he insists he can't sleep without. He liked the way his grin glowed in the dark. And in her eyes, he's still her boy.

She keeps the hallway light on and his bedroom door ajar, leaving to finally have some time to herself. Izuku pretends to fall asleep for another hour until he hears the distinctive flick of the light switch and her bedroom door on the other side of the apartment, closing shut.

The moment after he hears this, he sits quickly up in bed, eyes flying open in the dark. Sliding out from under his memorabilia covers, Izuku's bare feet pad quietly on the wooden floors, careful to avoid the places where it squeaked under his weight. Izuku shuts his door as softly as he can while his hands grow sweaty, his heart jumping out of his chest. Tonight was the night he would commence his plan and everything had to go smoothly.

The past week or so had been spent preparing, writing whatever he could remember so that he doesn't forget and thinking deeply about his next course of action. He's surrounded here by things, his treasures of plastic and flesh, those should make him happy. And if he was truly a child, they would. But these lie within a tomb instead of a room. He could pillage this tomb and make quite a pretty penny to save towards a future that was going to be hard. Or he could stay. He could watch his Mother find happiness again and Bakugou flourish into. . . .

But like the dead, these treasures should remain untouched. And Izuku, who was somewhere between a not-so-adult and a not-so-child, was alive. And the living should not stay with the dead forever.

In the nights between his awakening and right now, Izuku lets himself dream.

He dreams of meeting All Might again. Hearing his laughter, cloaked in all that majestic red, white and blue; cheering him on. The times where they would eat - or, well Izuku would eat, All Might would just smile and politely refuse if Izuku offered to share - convenience store sandwiches on the beach. The moments of clarity where Izuku would just take this life all in, with gratefulness. All the late afternoon conversations and all the smiles - it's those things he dreams about. And what he mourns for is that temporary happiness if he had chosen to stay and do it all again.

But if he stays, it would be to the detriment of the future. The seeds of future events had already been planted, before Izuku's birth. Staying here meant wasting the time he'd been given: truly, a once in a lifetime opportunity. He needed to uproot them without any further delays or distractions.

And it was with this realisation that the child - because that's who he was now, living in the present and not who he used to be - cries silently, away from the prying eyes of his Mother and the world that knew him as useless. He cries for the friendships that would be tossed away tonight. If he ever meets them again, their smiles wouldn't reach their ears when he talks to them. Their memories together would remain entombed here, unrealised.

Izuku reaches under his bed, pulling out the backpack he had laboriously prepared over the last couple of weeks. Like a squirrel preparing to hibernate, he stole whatever he could get his hands on. Little things that wouldn't be noticed if they were to wander off somewhere. His Mother never paid attention to the non-All Might branded items, given his obsession with the man; so having a plain red backpack that was stockpiled with essentials and hidden from sight wouldn't be noticed if it went missing too.

Putting it on feels like a handshake. A contract to his commitment. His feet tingle in their socks as he slips them on and then, the shoes he don't fit right but he couldn't take anything with him, less it stirred suspicion.

If losing the love he gained in his last life meant that his family and friends could live in this one, so be it. Izuku was going to rip every weed out from the ground with his bare hands. And when he's done, only then can he grieve these ghosts.

He takes in the downcast golds and anchors of love, selfishly letting himself be in this moment, for just a second more. Then he slips through the window, out into a moonless night.

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