This is the second in a series. You do not have to read the first one (called The Good In Me) to understand, but you might enjoy seeing baby Izuku experience The Horrors if you give it a try. All you really need to know (for now) is that Izuku got himself surprise adopted by Stendhal (aka Stain) when he was four years old.
Enjoy!

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A steady drip drip drip is the only clue he needs to figure out that he's already too late. Izuku clambers down the fire escape, steps quick but silent, and stops on the landing instead of going all the way down. He peaks over the edge, his gloved fingers wrapping delicately around the rusted metal grate.

The alleyway is bathed in red. The hero's head had been practically sawed off, just slowly enough that his still-beating heart had sprayed blood like a goddamn hose. Among the carnage stands Stain, head tilted back like he's greeting the dawning morning, a content smile playing at the corners of his stretched lips. He's really leaning into that "hero killer" moniker he's been given.

Izuku sits back on his haunches, lips pulling down into a frown. Moving slowly, careful not to make a sound, he opens his backpack and pulls a black notebook from within its depths. He flips through it, eyes scanning each page until he finds the right one. He frowns to himself as he reads through the entry.

The marker makes a soft pop as he pulls off the cap and he winces, hoping the killer just a handful of feet beneath him is too caught up in the apparent ecstasy of slaughter to notice. He presses the felt tip against the paper and scores a large, red X across the page. Then, he replaces the notebook in his hand with a big bottle of water, leans over to look down at the hero killer once again, and empties its contents over his head.

Stain sputters an indignant curse, foot slipping in blood as he spins to find his attacker, sword drawn and knife already flying through the air straight towards Izuku's head. He sways an inch to the side to avoid it, feeling the air ruffle his hair as it passes by. Stain's eyes find him, and the tension immediately drains from his frame.

"You said you would wait until I was finished with my analysis!" Izuku whisper-shouts, pointing an accusing finger at the man who has single handedly raised him for over a decade. Stain shrugs, unapologetic.

"You were taking too long. If you want to come on the hunt, you've gotta be faster next time, kiddo."

As he speaks, he sheathes his sword and leaps for the base of the fire escape, pulling himself up easily. Izuku envies his height and upper body strength; he makes it look so easy.

"I need to add more pull ups to my training regime," he mutters, and Stain huffs out a rasping laugh. He ruffles Izuku's hair as he passes, leaving it wet and sticky with blood. Izuku grimaces and uses the sleeve of his tattered old hoodie to try to wipe some of it away.

"You're fine, kid. If you can't get up to a fire escape, then I've failed in raising you."

"You're like two feet taller than me," Izuku whines as he continues to scrub the sleeve across his forehead, which is doing a frankly terrible job of cleaning away the blood that had smeared there. "You've got an unfair advantage. I can barely jump high enough to reach the ladder on a good day."

"We'll work on it," Stain says, tone caught somewhere between a joke and a threat. As he climbs, he leaves a trail of blood in his wake. Izuku does his best to avoid slipping in any of the spots as he follows after him, not wanting a repeat of the incident from last year. He wants to make sure they're miles away from the scene of the crime before anyone calls the cops, and slipping three stories and hitting every rung and platform of the metal fire escape on the way down makes enough noise that someone is bound to come to the alley to see what had happened. Lots of screaming means lots of calls to the cops, which means heroes, which gives Stain an easier time picking his next victim, and so on and so forth. It's a pain, and Izuku would rather avoid it.

"Looks like he put up a fight," Izuku comments once they reach the roof of the building, leaning out over the edge to give the blood soaked scene one final glance before they move on. He ignores the uncomfortable lurch of his stomach at the sight, just like he always does.

"Sure did," Stain grunts, not bothering to look at his own handiwork. He's wiping blood off his boots and hands onto a roll of paper towels he'd fished out of the bag of supplies Izuku had stashed up here for him a few days ago, when planning had first begun to kill this particular hero. He frowns at the new handprint shaped blood smears on the bag.

"You're gonna be in charge of getting the bloodstains out of that," Izuku tells him, and Stain just nods and continues to wipe himself down, carelessly dropping the bloodied trash to the asphalt beneath their feet. Izuku sighs but doesn't say anything about it. What's a little littering in the face of a whole murder, right?

"I really wish you would've waited," he sighs, turning back to look at the alleyway below. "His daughter's birthday is tomorrow."

"Hm. Is that why you were wasting so much time and taking so long to finish your notes?"

Izuku laughs, though it's tight and forced. "You caught me there! I just figured you could give it a week, you know?"

Stain heaves a sigh, rubbing at his temples and smudging the viscera still clinging there. His expression is longsuffering when he looks at Izuku and says dryly, "You could have just said that."

"I know. In my defense, though, I did ask you to wait until I was done."

Stain makes an amused noise in the back of his throat, grinning fondly as he finishes his scant cleanup. "You got me there," he admits, and tosses the roll of paper towels back to Izuku, who catches it one handed and turns to stuff it back into its designated spot in their go-bag. "Next time we'll just have to be better with our communication skills, huh?"

Izuku nods, eyes still trained on the bag as he shuffles the contents around. He listens for the sound of voices or sirens, wondering which unfortunate soul will be the one to stumble upon the gruesome scene this time. He hopes it's not a kid; this one was especially brutal. The hero must've done something especially bad to be punished like that, and for Stain to have moved as quickly as he did. Izuku wonders what Stain had found that Izuku himself had missed during his research.

"We'd better get going," Izuku says, hefting the bag up and over his shoulder. Its considerable weight is familiar, and the raspy drag of canvas against his hoodie and the clank of its contents shifting against one another practically follows him into his dreams now. They make his skin crawl.

"Let me carry that." There's a note of laughter in Stain's voice as he reaches to take the heavy bag from Izuku. There's still blood soaked into the fabric of his shirt, and it leaves a streak on Izuku's hand. He wipes it off on his pant leg, and as they leap from rooftop to rooftop to cross the city to this week's hideout, Izuku can feel the tacky spot rub his skin raw.


Shoutout to my awesome beta, Shae, for not letting me name this TGIM 2: Electric Boogaloo. :)

I'm so excited to finally start writing for the canon timeline! This chapter may be a short prologue, but the story is going to be another long one, so I hope you'll stick around. Please let me know your thoughts, if you liked it!

Feel free to find me on tumblr at daboyau if you ever want to ask questions or chat. I would genuinely love it. You can also join the discord!