Chapter 12: Apologies and Secret Meetings

Chapter Text

Four days after internships ended, Izuku was relaxing in the common room after classes with his friends and boyfriend (they had made it official after their second date the day before) when Sero approached their group with two gift bags in his hand. Their group watched him closely as he walked up to Izuku and smiled awkwardly. "Hey, Midoriya. I've been talking with Hound Dog for a while trying to figure out how to apologize to you."

Sero rubbed his free hand at the back of his neck. "I wanted to be a better person before I apologized and I'm still working on it. You didn't deserve the way we treated you and I've been learning a lot about the dumb things I believed about quirkless people in our mandatory classes. So I was going to wait longer to apologize and I'm not even going to ask for forgiveness because I don't deserve it, but then my sister, Aoi, had me take her to pick out a gift for you and I was confused about why she wanted me to help pick out and deliver a gift to a guy she'd never met."

Izuku was wondering the same thing, years of people trying to give him gifts that turned out to be a bag containing rocks or a snake for laughs had him on edge at that moment. "You helped her in the park during your internship. She told me what you did for her and I realized that even if I wasn't completely ready to apologize, you deserve to hear that I'm so sorry and thank you for helping my sister."

He held the bags out to Izuku now and bowed. Izuku took them, now that he thought about it, there was a strong resemblance to the girl on that bench. "I didn't even know she was your sister, I never got her name."

Sero straightened his back. "I know. That's what made me realize that you were always a better hero than I'll ever be, you were selfless enough to do way more than you were expected to for a random stranger in the park. You saved my sister from a horrible situation that other people would have blamed her for when you could have just written her off and told her to go to the cops." He pointed at the bags. "The blue one is from her to thank you. The brown one is from me. Kind of an apology gift and also a promise to do better. From now on I'm going to work to be even half the hero you were to her."

Sero bowed again and left the room. Kirishima smiled at Izuku, "It was pretty manly of him to apologize like that. What did he get you?"

Izuku opened Sero's gift first. It was a very soft beanie and a card that said sorry for being an asshole in big red letters on the front that Sero had written a full apology acknowledging every thing he'd said or done wrong to Izuku and a promise to do better. There was a p.s. saying "I heard you and Todoroki are a couple now so I thought you'd enjoy the hero cat cafe that just opened downtown and got you this gift card so you can have a date on my dime". The gift card had several thousand yen on it and a picture of a cat in a Mirko costume on the front.

Shouto seemed very intrigued by the idea of a cat cafe and Izuku made a mental note to take him there soon. He reached into the bag from Sero's sister and cried when he saw the contents. There was a small trophy with the words Number One Hero engraved on the small plaque and framed picture of the girl smiling next to a group of middle schoolers all flashing peace signs, all in custom made shirts reading The Quirkless Hero: Void across the chest. The frame had the words The First Void Fanclub painted across the top.

Mina squealed and took a picture of him crying and holding both items up that she posted on her instagram captioned TFW you get your first present from a fan and tagged everyone in 1A. She also tagged Loud Cloud who commented my little cloud already got his first fan! and tagged Present Mic, Ingenium, Midnight, and Mr Grumpy Face (the profile picture was a very done looking Aizawa). Present Mic and Ingenium both left sweet comments congratulating him and cooing over how cute it was. Midnight left a gif of a sobbing cartoon broccoli with the comment too cute. Mr Grumpy Face commented Oboro I've told you to stop creating social media accounts with my email, also good job problem child . The hero fan accounts were going crazy over the entire thing and Mina got several thousand more followers out of it.

Izuku wasn't going to be besties with Sero any time soon, but maybe the boy wasn't so bad.

That weekend Izuku went home with the promise he wouldn't leave the house without his mother present. There weren't a lot of people still sending death threats to the quirkless kid at UA anymore, but even one was enough to have Aizawa only letting him off campus if he was accompanied by someone. The teacher dropped him off with his mom, Katsuki couldn't walk with him after classes like they usually would if they were going home on Friday because he was staying at Shinso's house for the weekend. (And he still insisted he didn't have feelings for their friend, like he would willingly spend an entire weekend with anyone otherwise)

Izuku hated lying to the first teacher that treated him like a person, but he couldn't really say "oh I'm going out on my own on Saturday because my mom's going on a date and I have a secret meeting with a group of people that everyone hates that I can't trust anyone else to accompany me". Yeah, that wouldn't go over well. So he covered his hair with a beanie, put up his hood, sent a text to his mom to let her know he was leaving, and made his way to the "abandoned building" they held these meetings in.

In reality they had purchased the building years ago in case anyone ever called the police on their gatherings, but it was easier to stay under the radar if they kept the building as run down and unmarked as the rest of the area. Izuku walked into the building, excited to see all his Zero friends. They had started gathering like this twice a year to spend time with people who understand them. Zeroes who had gotten new lives from the Network came to be who they really were for just a bit and share their struggles with living a lie.

They had food, music, games, and conversation all day. These were some of Izuku's favorite days of the year, he loved having people who cared about him but even if they knew everything he went through they couldn't truly understand it. Being surrounded by people who knew what it was like made him feel less alone. Katsuki couldn't understand how much it hurt to watch all the other kids get a quirk and wait excitedly for yours only to have your dreams crash around you. His friends couldn't understand the pain he felt every time he watched a person's eyes fill with pity or disgust when they found out he was quirkless. His mom couldn't understand how much it broke him to watch her cry at every quirkless suicide knowing it could be him. The other Zeroes understood, they had lived it.

This year Izuku was even more excited because he'd be seeing them all in person for the first time since he won the sports festival. Sure they'd messaged him and called, but seeing their faces and knowing how proud they were of their brother would beat a phone call any day. Izuku couldn't wait to hug them and thank them for coming to support him. He was even excited for their teasing about his tear filled instagram picture and his new boyfriend.

Maybe, if he hadn't been so excited he would have noticed the person watching him enter the building alone. Maybe he would have seen them taking a picture of him and texting his location to someone.