A/N: Don't own MHA.

Well, it's finally here; the redo of A Different Deku. I've been toying around with a different origin story, and figured I'd at least give it a shot. Hope you enjoy!

Also, quick note, Stain in this story will be slightly out of character compared to the Stain in the manga. Same thing for Izuku, naturally. I will try to keep them close to canon though.

"You... fucker."

A man dressed up like a superhero barely had the strength to mutter the curse before he was thrown into one of many crates littering the deserted alleyway. Blood from his wounds splattered onto the ground and left tiny red rivers where they leaked.

"Such language is unbecoming of a hero. Not that it matters; your greed was already enough to warrant your death."

Another man, this one with a more sinister style, smiled as he drove a blood coated sword into the hero's chest and straight through his heart. Once the body stopped twitching, he pulled his sword from the freshly killed hero. A wet, sucking-like noise came from the corpse. The man known as Stain grinned.

How he loved that sound.

After quickly wiping his blade on the deceased's costume, he sheathed the sword and prepared to dash away when a feeling in his gut caught his attention. It felt like he was being watched, but there was no one to be seen. He drew his sword back out and prepared to strike.

"Stay in the shadows if you wish. But such cowardice is why you shall be culled."

Out of everything he expected: A pro hero, another villain, a vigilante, maybe even a cop, he was not expecting this.

"I-I'm sorry. I saw you and hid."

A little boy, who couldn't have been more than eight or nine, cautiously peeked from behind one of the crates. Even though he was mostly hidden, Stain could see the child trembling. His eyes were watering, surprisingly still holding back tears. His green hair, quite possibly a bright shade of emerald, was stuck in clumps and soaked in grime and mud.

Aside from the child, nothing was telling Stain that he wasn't alone, so he sheathed the sword once more and knelt down, but kept one hand right by the handle of a small knife just in case.

Caution was of the utmost importance in a life like his.

"I know what you saw, but you should know I won't hurt children. Now tell me, why are you in a place like this instead of at home with your mom and dad?" the murderer asked.

"Dad left shortly after I was born, and Mom died a few years ago. I was sent to an orphanage, but ran off because I wanted to see a hero that was visiting the area. But I got lost, and no one helped me because I'm quirkless."

The little boy fully emerged from behind the crate. Whatever clothes he had were in tatters and in desperate need of a wash, not that they would likely survive being put through a wash cycle. The only other possession the little boy had was an All Might figurine that was missing its left leg and was covered in scratches and nicks. He tightly held it to his chest like he would never see it again if he so much as loosened his grip.

He was very malnourished, almost like he went days at a time without eating.

"You like heroes, huh?" the man asked with a point to the damaged action figure.

"Ju-just All Might. His smile makes me feel better, even if it's just a toy. Do... do you like All Might?"

For whatever reason, the boy walked a little closer to the man he had just watched kill another hero. He stopped when there was about ten feet between them, enough to talk without getting too close.

"Actually, yes. He's a pure hero that the others should strive to be like. He is selfless and brave. Too many heroes nowadays are simply in it for money and fame. But he has earned his fame by doing good deeds without expecting rewards."

Maybe the boy smiled, or maybe it was just a twitch of his lips. But he did something unexpected; he held out the figurine to the masked man.

"Do you want to play heroes? You seem to know a lot about what a hero should be like."

Stain laughed at the child, but not a mocking or derogatory laugh. It was an amused laugh.

"Why would you want to play with me? You've seen me kill a hero, and I threatened to kill you before you revealed yourself. And my appearance alone should send you running. Are you not afraid of me?"

For the first time in a long time, Stain felt like he could connect with someone. Or at least as well as a wanted serial killer could connect with a clearly emotionally damaged child.

"Y-yes, I'm afraid. But you said you wouldn't hurt me, and you like All Might. And you're not the first person I've seen kill another person. That happens a lot around here."

Stain didn't immediately respond; what could he say? This kid was too young to be used to death, yet here he was talking about it like it was a daily part of his life. And he wanted to play heroes with someone who just killed a hero. A dumb idea came to Stain's mind, which quickly became a decent idea once he actually thought about it.

"I have a better idea. What's your name?"

"Izuku, mister. Izuku Midoriya."

"Well, Midoriya, you can call me Stain. Tell me, how would you like to come with me? I can provide you with shelter, food, and train you."

"Train me? For what?" The boy tilted his head and pulled the figure back to his chest.

"To fight back against anyone who might try to kill you in these alleys. Or to weed out the fake heroes of this society; the ones that make All Might look bad by association."

"I-I don't want to kill, but I'll come with you, if you still want."

Once again, Stain smiled.

"Welcome to your new home, kid."

Izuku looked around the abandoned warehouse. For being in such an isolated area, it was surprisingly homey to the kid. It had four walls and a roof, not to mention a mattress, piles of granola bars, canned goods, protein snacks, cases of fresh bottled water and, thankfully, rolls of toilet paper.

"Help yourself," the man offered with a point at the food. He had caught his visitor staring intently and drooling rather comically.

Immediately, Izuku tore into a granola bar, which quickly became two and three. Crumbs littered the floor and small splashes washed them away as he messily downed a water bottle.

Izuku couldn't remember the last time he had good, fresh food. Most of the time, his diet consisted of leftovers from fast food containers with the occasional shoplifted snack. But nothing as relatively substantial as the food in front of him.

A few minutes later, the boy finally stopped gorging himself and flopped onto his back, breathing heavily from eating and drinking so fast.

"Rest up. Your training will start tomorrow, so you should catch up on sleep."

Sleeping on hard floors was nothing new to Izuku, so falling into a slumber was a quick process for the boy. As he snoozed, Stain contemplated what to actually do with the child. He could raise him to be a successor, but that would only work if he was willing to follow his ideals. If the kid simply didn't see eye to eye with killing fake heroes to improve society, raising him as a successor just wouldn't work.

However, if he simply trained him and let the kid choose his own path, there was the possibility that he would end up as yet another target that needed to be removed. But there was still the chance that he would aim to be a true hero.

There was also the fact that training the child would take away from his goal of purging the fakes from society. He would still be able to, but the frequency of his appearances would be cut. Then there was traveling. Although he tended to avoid public transportation, perhaps having a child with him would make him blend in, like a father and son on the way to the mall.

There was much to think about.

Izuku was woken by the sensation of being shook and a vaguely familiar voice calling him. Slowly but surely his vision cleared, and the masked man from the previous night was fully visible.

"Wha-? Why am…oh, right." The child stretched and stood up. Stain patiently waited for him to drink a bottle of water and gobble down another two granola bars.

"Your training will be soft at first; you need to recover to normal human levels of weight and muscle before you start trying anything serious. So for now, just run back and forth from there-" Stain instructed with a point to the farthest wall away. "-to there." This time he pointed to the opposite wall. In total, each length was roughly one hundred meters.

"I want you to push yourself a little, but don't go to the point where you can't use your legs. That'll just damage you more than it will help you recover. You can start whenever; I have things to do as well."

Izuku gave a quick "yes, sir!" and promptly began running. Stain watched the first few laps and made two observations.

Firstly, Izuku was soft on his feet. Naturally, running barefoot was relatively quiet, but even still Izuku barely made any noise when he ran. It was almost impressive if Stain was honest with himself. And secondly, the kid was fast for his size. But this made sense, as most of the development would go to his leg muscles if he lived his life almost literally on the run.

Stain switched his attention to the files he had hidden under his mattress and read through each one, deciding who would be best to kill when, and who would be spared for the time being.

His first decided victim was a hero known as "Shape Master". His quirk allowed him to alter his physical structure and appearance, which made him an excellent underground hero. But his problem was he had recently been accused of disguising himself as celebrities and purposefully acting indecent in public, thus giving the real celebrities bad images.

There have also been several videos posted online of him reshaping his fingers to pick locks on cars, vaults, even some houses near his own.

Someone like that did not deserve the title of a hero.

Stain went to his other files and weighted whose death would most likely stagnate the rise of fake heroes.

"I…I'm done," Izuku called out between deep breaths. With a quick look outside to determine the sun's relative position, Stain calculated that Izuku had been running for half an hour straight.

Intriguing.

"Not bad, kid. Now I want you to do push-ups. Same rules as before. And make sure you keep your form."

And Izuku did. Stain stopped him twice to correct his form, but otherwise Izuku did okay. He only managed to go for a few minutes before his arms gave out, but certainly gave it his all.

The process continued for hours. Stain would give him an exercise, and Izuku would do it to the best of his abilities. There were some that he was a natural at, and others that he could barely get right.

But he had the drive to get better.

"Take a break kid," Stain advised with a water bottle. The green-haired child took it and gulped it down greedily.

"For the last exercise, I want to see how well you can defend yourself."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm going to make a series of attacks towards you, and I want to see how well you can fight back or keep yourself out of harm's way. Anything goes, and I won't try to actually hurt you. By doing this I can see how much I'll need to teach you once your body is in shape."

"Oh, okay," Izuku muttered. He nodded and took a sloppy fighting stance.

Stain started with a simple punch aimed for the jaw, which Izuku would have narrowly dodged had Stain gone through with the attack.

Next was a blow aimed for Izuku's stomach, which almost connected. The murderer put forth a series of mock attacks, with mixed results from Izuku.

Overall he did poorly. Not every punch or kick would have hit, but more than enough would have if he was actually aiming to kill the child.

"You did fine kid. There's a lot to work on, but we'll get there."

Izuku beamed at the praise from the killer. It was quite possibly the first time someone said anything nice to him in months, if not years.

"Thank you, Stain! I'll make you proud!"

As weeks passed, Izuku's build noticeably returned to the standard for someone his age. He was also still surprising Stain, such as the time he hurdled over a set of boxes Stain had added to his running routine.

So many reminders that, in a way, the two lived similar lives. Both spent their time in the back alleys, running to and from danger. Both learned how to be as unnoticeable as possible, which Stain learned when Izuku snuck up on him while going through his files.

Of course, there were some bumps in the road. Stain found himself wondering if the kid would still be at the warehouse on the nights he went out.

He also needed to make more runs into town to find food, water, and other resources. Subsequently, he was almost recognized in public twice since taking the child under his wing.

And then there was the fact that Izuku was suffering from a simple case of cabin fever. His new life wasn't boring, but repetitive. He had already asked Stain if he could go with him twice, and at least five times he had asked to simply go into town.

Two and a half months in, Stain finally caved.

"Very well, but you do as I say the entire time. And if I say, 'book it', you run as fast as you can and don't stop, do you understand?"

Izuku eagerly nodded in agreement.

"Then change into something less sweaty and dirty. We head out in five minutes."

The boy quickly dashed to a pile of clothes Stain had nabbed for him since his "adoption" and changed into the cleanest shirt he had. Not surprisingly, it was a mostly blue shirt with red and white stripes, along with the phrase, "I am here!" printed in bold on the front and topped it off with a similarly colored hoodie.

Stain also changed into something less serial-killer-y and stuffed whatever weapons he could into his pockets.

"Take this, just in case." The man held out a simple switchblade to the boy. Midoriya took the knife and pocketed it, clearly eager to do something new for the first time in months.

The mall was much louder than Izuku expected. He had forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by strangers that could barely care less about the random people around them. And the lights.

He thought he was going to go blind from the flashing lights, the changing display screens, and the occasional flash of a phone.

"Just remember, be normal, but don't look like you're trying to be normal," Stain whispered as he quickly put blue contacts in his eyes.

It was at this moment Izuku was reminded how odd it felt seeing the man without his mask.

And contrary to common belief, he did in fact still have a nose; it was just really due to an accident he had before he became Stain.

"And while we're here, you are to address me as 'Dad' or anything along those lines."

"Yeah, Dad," Izuku replied. The nickname came rather easily to him.

"So where are we heading first?"

Izuku tapped his chin as he considered the options. There was a pretzel shop right by them, but doubted Stain would go for something that unhealthy after all the work the two had put in. There was a clothing store nearby, but Stain had already stolen a fresh set of clothes a few days ago.

"Let's walk around. I'm sure we'll find something."

Stain released a slightly annoyed sigh but agreed.

The two passed by store after store. Their first stop was an outdoor gear shop where Stain swapped his old shoes for a pair of boots in a changing room. Meanwhile, Izuku browsed the exercise department, occasionally picking up a weight and performing a few reps before returning it to the shelf.

A few minutes later, the two were walking down the aisles of a Heroes Galore, more often than not stopping to admire a new All Might figurine.

"Wow, an all-new limited edition All Might silver age hat!"

Stain snickered as Izuku tried on a baseball cap that was just a bit too big for him.

"Hey, it's on him," Stain whispered with a glance at some guy a few aisles down. He held a wallet that he certainly didn't have when they left the warehouse and pocketed the cash within.

Izuku was slightly torn between putting the hat back and using a stranger's stolen money to buy it. He didn't want to be a thief on top of being a killer's trainee, but his still-present love of All Might ever so slightly won the moral battle, and he paid for the cap.

On the way out of the store, Stain nonchalantly dropped the wallet by the entrance once he wiped it off as well as he could with his shirt.

Better to make it look like an accident than have someone report a stolen wallet.

The pair hopped from store to store, usually coming out empty handed.

"I'm hungry. Wanna stop for a pretzel before we head back?"

Stain was quiet for a moment, but surprisingly agreed for a snack. Back at the vendor by the main entrance, Izuku got a cheesy pretzel while Stain got a plain one. The man paid for the treats and the two walked towards a table when a man in a black hoodie bumped into Stain.

"Watch it," Stain spat.

"Yeah, whatever," the hooded man replied without breaking a stride. Judging by his voice, he was in his mid to late teens; old enough to know respect but also old enough to be in his rebellious phase.

Stain shot a glare at the back of his head, but quietly joined Izuku by the exit and bit into his pretzel. It tasted good, if a little salty.

"Did you have enough, or are you going to be getting on my back in another few weeks?"

Izuku laughed quietly and bit into his own pretzel, savoring the way the cheese and salt mixed just before the taste of the dough also hit his tongue.

He couldn't remember the last time he had something so delicious.

Stain watched the boy from the corner of his eye, and let out a quick snort when Izuku actually moaned from the flavor rush.

A/N: Well, there we are. The first chapter of the revised ADD.
I can't honestly say I'll be updating regularly. I don't even have much of an idea as to where I'll be going with this, but I'll try to update now and then.

I hope you enjoyed! It would be awesome if you left a review. Have a good day everyone!