Izuku POV
The sun shone down relentlessly as I waited outside of the UA gate, tapping my foot sharply against the sidewalk as I watched examinees slowly walk through. Some of them shot me strange glances as they left the exam, but most of them pained me no mind at all, too consumed with their own lives to notice anyone else. I was content to just glare back at each of them as they looked at me. It was much too early and the sun much too bright for me to have to be dealing with more than one hormonal teenager at the moment.
Looking down at my phone, I scrolled through an article on the latest in quirk technology and support studies. The subject was something that I had been getting into since that day on the roof. Honestly the intricacies behind support gear really was more fascinating than hero work in most ways, though even as I read the third article on coding, it still felt like some kind of cheap replacement for the original dream that I had.
"Deku...?" The voice was soft with surprise, but there was a harsh undertone there that I knew well enough to immediately set my nerves on edge. I had to force my body to not shift into a fighting stance as my head snapped up to look at the newest arrival.
Fiery red eyes met a set of cold emeralds. "... Bakugo." My voice was a harsh monotone that betrayed none of the fear gripping fiercely at my heart.
The other boy's eyes went wide for a moment at the way that I called him, but he recovered quickly. "What the hell are you doing here, you shitty nerd!?" The teen barked out, the fire in his red lights igniting into a full blaze. "You change schools suddenly without saying a word, and now I found you here outside of the UA entrance exam..." The boy continued to rant and scream at me as he always had, I stopped listening as small sparks made themselves known in the other teen's palm. My body instinctively took a step back so as to create distance between me and the snarling boy and I didn't try to control the reaction.
However, my fear didn't stop my mouth from running wild.
"In case you haven't noticed," I said, cutting the taller boy off mid rant, "I don't owe you a damn thing, Bakugo." The boy's lips curled cruelly at my words as if he was about to refute them with his fist. "I stopped owing you anything the day that this happened," I snarled, my normally monotone voice laced with enough anger that it almost seemed palatable.
My fingers coasted up to my throat and the thick choker that was lining it, resting there. The blond's red eyes snapped down to the new accessory, but he and I both knew that it wasn't what I was talking about. We both knew about the damage just barely hidden beneath it. The older teen shrunk back from me as if I had been the one to burn him and not the other way around.
"I never owed you a thing at all," I decided, my words defiant even as it felt like cold hands were gripping at my throat, choking me as I tried to speak.
My body felt light as I finally voiced the words that had been lodged in my throat for almost a year now. I thought that I might have said more, but someone else joined our little duo, pushing himself past the angry blond and taking a place at my side.
"Hey Izu," the purple haired teen greeted, making sure to keep a careful distance between us even as we stood closely to one another. The other boy knew well enough my troubles with touch, and was always good about accommodating that even when it wasn't strictly bad enough to need it at that moment.
"Hito," I greeted, silently thankful for the space between us. Even though telling Bakugo off was therapeutic in its own way, I didn't know how I would have responded had the other boy tried to touch me, rather it would have been violent or I would have just flinched away. I didn't really care to find out either way.
"Who the hell is this?" Bakugo asked, but neither of us paid him enough mind to give a true answer.
The purple haired boy glanced at the smaller blond one before turning so that his shoulder was to Bakugo, and motioned for me to do the same, cutting the foul teen out of the conversation all together. "Your place or mine?" He asked, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it. "Scratch that, let's do mine," he decided. "I think Mom might start missing you joker than she likes me if you don't come around at some point soon."
I felt my shoulders shake in a silent laugh knowing that what the other teen had said was probably true to some degree. "Your place it is," I agreed.
I didn't look back at Bakugo as we turned to leave. I didn't give the boy the satisfaction of a fearful gaze, but I knew that Hitoshi sent the other boy a gaze with something like hate in it, well as close as people like us could get to showing something like that.
As we walked away Hito started detailing some of the more interesting parts of the exam. I stopped truly listening after he told me about the blue haired boy that interrupted one of the explanations, but he knew that I was gone and kept talking anyways as if to put a balm on my nerves.
My skin felt like it was burning all over in every place that the blond teen had ever touched. Every scar roared back to life as if they were the original wounds that had decorated my skin. My hand found its way back up to my throat, rubbing gently at the skin below the choker as if I could erase it. The purple haired teen paused in his story for a moment to watch what I was doing. While the boy didn't say anything, I knew that he was putting the pieces together. I knew that he had realized just who he had pulled me away from though I had never told the other how I got any of my scars, not really anyways.
It felt nice having someone care.
—-
Aizawa POV
The rat called me into his office after the hero course applicants had all left the premises. Focusing on my breathing, I knocked in the door lightly, and was only mildly surprised when it creaked open seemingly on its own.
I looked down to about the height of my knees and found a chimera staring up at me with that intelligent gaze of his that I always tended to find troublesome.
Today was no different.
"Thank you for joining me on such short notice, Shota," the rat greeted, motioning me inside as he walked further into the room. I shut the door back and followed the hybrid creature.
"What is this about, Nedzu?" I asked tiredly, while moving to the seat across from the principal's desk.
"Tea?" The rat asked, motioning to the cart that was to my left.
"Coffee," I answered just before a teacup of the substance was shoved into my hands.
"Of course," the rat said, smiling in the creepy way that only he could. The chimera took a sip of the tea that he had prepared for himself before placing it down before himself at his desk. "Now, let's talk about your little vigilante problem, shall we?"
I was careful to maintain a neutral expression, not that I thought that it really did any good. "Icarus, I assume."
The rat chuckled lightly in what might have been genuine amusement. "Yes, Icarus," he decided. "A long time ago I had this idea for a villain rehabilitation program that would be hosted at the school, but none of the villains in the area that we know about have actually been ones that would qualify for it age wise," the principal explained.
I nodded, having remembered hearing rumors of such a thing. "But the kid isn't a villain, he's a vigilante. What good would that do him?"
The rat's smile deepened as I spoke. "Well you see, as the program's creator, I can always change it however I see fit. So if I were to decide to include a subsection inside of it that would also cover young, nonviolent vigilantes such as the one that you have, I could do just that," the chimera explained before taking another sip of his tea.
"What do I need to do?"
"Catch him," the rat decided. "Catch him and I'll handle the rest."
We might just make a hero out of you yet, kid.
—-
Izuku POV
I was scrolling through different articles on my phone in the time before dinner when a frantic knock came at the front door. Mom called my name, telling me to go and get it as she had her hands full with whatever new recipe it was that she was trying today, but I was already up and heading there on my own. Only one person ever came here and he wasn't really the frantic type, not unless he had some news.
No sooner than the door was open was a mound of purple swarming past my vision and an envelope shoved into my face. I closed the door before giving my full attention to the practically vibrating teen. The way that Hitoshi was right now was the most anxiousness and excitement that I had ever seen on the other teen, while mildly annoying, it was nice to see him act like a child for once.
"It's here," the other boy said, shaking the envelope in his hand once more. This time when he did that, I finally looked at it and saw that it was a letter from UA.
"Have you opened it yet?" I asked, already knowing what the answer most likely was.
The teen only shook his head no. I sighed tiredly and waved the boy towards my room, shaking my head as the teen followed behind me like a lost puppy, only deterring to say hello to my mother as we went.
The quirked teen and I sat down on my bed. That being one of the only safe spots to sit in the room as most of the others either had some kind of part on it, a blueprint, or some type of book for school or fun.
"Your room is a mess," the other boy observed, taking refuge at the foot of my bed which only had one textbook on it "I like it."
I pointed at the envelope, redirecting the boy's attention and waited patiently for him to open it. The other teen shot me a pointed look for my impatience but obediently tore the envelope open.
My eyebrow twitched as a small disk fell out of the envelope instead of a letter of any kind, though upon better examination one could be seen still stuck in the envelope. I was about to ask whether or not he was sure that this was actually a UA letter and not a trick when a small holographic image appeared between us. A small image of someone that I never wanted to see again.
"THIS IS A PROJECTION!!" the hologram screamed as a small All Might appeared between us, looking as I always remembered him to be, well other than when he turned scrawny that one time. I felt my body recoil at the sight, but the other teen was too sucked in to notice my sudden flinch.
Stating the obvious are we?
The hero announced that he would be teaching at UA for the year, something that made me immensely grateful that I had given up on going there because I wouldn't have been able to stomach seeing the hero in person once more.
The Japanese hero went through and started detailing how Hito had done on the written exam, something that I politely pretended not to listen to. I tuned back in when they started going over the practical exam portion. The other boy had managed to do well enough in the villain points department to get him into the general studies course.
"But we weren't just watching for villian based points," ther hero continued, obviously burying the lead on purpose. "Rescue points were also a factor here! Another fundamental way for UA to evaluate you!
"THIS IS YOUR HERO ACADEMIA!!"
Hitoshi's face light up in a way that I didn't know that it could as a small smile split across his lips. I lunged forward and pushed down my own discomfort to pull the boy into a short hug.
"You did it," I told him, pulling away from the other teen but staying close to him.
"I-I did it!" Hito exclaimed, holding onto the disk as if he were to put it down it would disappear and take his acceptance with it.
We stayed together like that for the rest of the afternoon as Hitoshi stayed for dinner and we made congratulatory cookies before sending the boy home.
—-
Aizawa POV
I scanned the streets slowly, looking for a flash of green among them. The night time crime rate always went down near the start of the school year since more heroes were around the area for pre planning, not that I thought that the child vigilante knew this as I did. Sure enough it wasn't an hour before I saw the flash of a dark green hoodie that I was looking for.
Dashing after the boy, I was impressed with how quickly the vigilante realized that he was being tailed and lured me to a position that was better for Icarus than the one that we were in. I was honestly proud of the boy for doing this with a split second decision, though the vigilante has always been adept at his chosen profession, he's just gotten better at it over the past ten or so months.
I swear if any of these children that I am about to get are even half as good as Icarus then it might just be a year that I actually have students for once.
"Eraser," the boy said, stopping in the middle of one of the roofs in the city.
The boy turned to me slowly, his eyes hidden behind the goggles that he always tended to wear. Though his movements were slow, there was something almost wild in the way that he did so. He looked like someone that was ready to fight or run at the drop of a hat, not that I didn't deserve that stance after what happened the last time that we met.
"Icarus," I greeted, taking a cautious step towards the small boy that only made him shift backwards the same amount.
"What do you want Eraser?" The kid asked, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket.
"UA high school," I told the boy bluntly.
"...What" the vigilante took a step backwards, moving into a more defensive stance.
"UA high. There's a spot for you there you just have to come in with me now and you can be in the hero course," I explained, "become a proper hero."
I knew that the vigilante would resist being taken in even if the end result of ending up in UA would be some kind of balm to the situation, but I wasn't expecting the total shutdown that I got from the boy.
"No." He decided, his voice as stern as steel. "This-this is not happening. No."
He backed up as he spoke, a crazed tone slipping into his voice as he did. The way that the teen was speaking, despite the way that it was faintly veiled by the teen's usual monotone, I could still hear the undertone of anxiety slipping in. The child sounded like he was on the cusp of an anxiety attack that only got worse as I tried to get closer to the teen.
When Icarus ran I let him.
—-
Izuku POV
This can't be happening
No.
No, no, no. No!
Two weeks ago I would have thought about taking the hero up on his offer, but I couldn't now. Not after the week from Hell that I faced just last week. Not after finding out what I did. I'd finally accepted that I couldn't be a hero and here the underground hero was throwing out hope where there was none to give.
Someone like me that is born from poison wouldn't survive in the light and would be much too deadly for a true night. A vigilante is the best that I could hope to achieve.
In the end I just ran until my thoughts blurred into pain.