Chapter Text
Izuku played with his pail and shovel at the park in his neighbourhood. His childhood best friend Kasumi Bakugou, or as he called her, Kacchan, scrunched up her brow trying to read the kanji of his name.
“… Deku? Haha! Your name can be read like Deku instead of Izuku.” Kacchan said to mostly herself. She turned to her and Izuku’s other friends with her chest puffed out. In a too loud voice she declared: “that’s the perfect name for a quirkless loser like you! I’m going to call you Deku from now on, ‘cause that’s what you are Deku. A weak stupid deku.”
“That’s so mean Kacchan,” Izuku answered timidly.
“I told you not to call me that anymore! I don’t want a stupid girly baby’s nickname Deku,” she screamed rage boiling up in her. She clenched and unclenched her fists, flexing all her bones trying to let the emotion escape her but only when she let the sound of her quirk focus her did she feel any control. “You’re never going to be a hero,” she told him with a rasp, then laughed just like her mother did when she told a joke that would make Izuku’s mom blush. “You’re a crybaby and super dumb!” Izuku’s eyes welled up with tears as Kacchan laughed at him, pointing out all his flaws to their group of friends, or rather group of bullies. Izuku had plenty of retorts swirling in his mind but as Kacchan flexed her quirk they all got caught in his chest and he flinched.
He heard laughing echoing in his mind as Kacchan seemed to lose interest in his crying.
“Come on, Tsubasa, this loser isn’t worth our time. Let’s go play heroes, I get to be All Might!”
“Kasumi, why do you even want to be All Might? Shouldn’t you want to be one of the girl heroes?” Tsubasa replied.
Kacchan flexed her quirk once again in other’s faces. “If there were a girl hero anywhere as strong as All Might maybe then I’d want to be them. So fuck off!” The other children in the vicinity gasped and Izuku saw a smirk on Kacchan’s face as they ran off to play.
Over the course of the next year Kacchan started to come to school in the boy’s uniform and all the teachers started to call her Katsuki instead of Kasumi. Izuku never did understand it until he faced Kacchan’s quirk once again at elementary school graduation. As he left the ceremony he ended up walking side-by-side, no matter what he would do to avoid her. They walked mostly in silence until they crossed the park that marked the separation of their paths. Izuku stepped in his direction when Kacchan grabbed the collar of his school jacket.
“Get this in your stupid head, Deku. We are both going to Aldera next year and you will not tell anyone that I was a girl,” as the threat continued Kacchan set off a mid-sized explosion. Izuku was scared but knew that Kacchan had very good control of her quirk, if Kacchan wanted Izuku dead he would be. “If I hear anyone finds out because you couldn’t keep your fucking muttering, or your fucking notebooks or whatever creepy nerd shit to yourself,” Kacchan lost her train of thought but caught Izuku’s eye and looked absolutely unhinged. Izuku could only recognize rage but an allistic certainly would have seen how positively terrified she was.
“… but Kacchan, you are a girl?”
“No, I’m fucking not,” he growled “and if you say that again I’ll kill you with my bare hands” Kacchan tugged his shirt in close and ground his teeth together so that Izuku could feel it. Looking aggressively directly into Izuku’s eyes, he set off one final explosion to the side of his head. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears and his head was spinning. As soon as he regained his senses he searched for his bag to headset and with his back against the cool stone wall rocking gently.
After some time of rest and recovery he was sure that Kacchan was gone. He must’ve gone home. However going home hadn’t been Izuku’s plan, nor had it been in his plans for the last couple months. After years and years of Kacchan’s torture and he knows that it only worries his mother when he comes home all beat up. Izuku let his thoughts wander as he followed his usual path home making some detours to find a hero fight that wasn’t Endeavour’s. He doesn’t really understand why his mom cries when he gets hurt but he hates that he makes her so sad so he’s learned a couple ways around it. Way number one is avoiding Kacchan but he already failed that step today so he gets to have a little fun. Ever since Izuku had made the decision to go into heroics even if he never develops a quirk, one of his favourite outside of the house activity is catching hero fights in person. He doesn’t much care which hero he finds, as long as it isn’t Endeavour. He’s too brutal. Today isn’t the first time he’s come to catch hero fights in the last couple months but he tried to keep this hobby of his to the days where Kacchan beat him in a way that was visually identifiable. He figured if he has to endure the pain of physical assault from Kacchan and then the emotional pain of having to mask in front of his mom, he should get to indulge in his special interest. A subconscious part of him hoped that if he looked as hurt as he felt and the heroes could see it maybe, someday they’d ask. There still is a chance they will. He’s only gone three or four times. And only he’s only seen a hero fight two of those times. But twice? Twice he’d been face to face with a hero with a burn and a black eye and nothing happened. Izuku felt a cold breeze brushing his hair and his attention was brought to his setting.
The cobblestone beneath his feet was wet and the buildings were close together. Neon lights illuminated the signs of the businesses, none of which he recognized. Without looking away from his unfamiliar setting, he pulled out his notebook entitled Hero Analysis for The Future N°11 he jotted down the names and looked around for any street indicators. He knew he should still be in Musutafu given the fact he had only walked for about 45 minutes, according to his phone. He lowered his headphones to get and was bombarded with the sounds of laughter, cheers-ing, music and other social life. He put his headphones back up and began to theorize his location, from all his research on hero patrol routes he’s fairly confident in his knowledge on the local area. If he headed down the road he’d off of and was avoiding Endeavour’s patrol route like usual that would put him in one of three areas two of which were east of his house, so Izuku did the smartest thing a scared boy can do and he headed home.
By the time he got back to the apartment that he shared with him mother, it was dark just as he’d hoped. His mom already sequestered to her bedroom and Izuku left to his own devices. He took the left over katsudon from the fridge, that his mom had made to celebrate his graduation from elementary school, and put it in the microwave as he went to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit. As he looked in the mirror he could finally access the damage that Kacchan had done to him. His uniform thoroughly charred with parts of his collar burnt completely off. A new burn scar on the right side of his neck was sure to come after this all healed up. Luckily there was a break before he started at Aldera so he could luck out and cover it with hoodies for the next couple weeks. Izuku relished in the weeks of solitude he’ll have until term starts in April; he quickly grabbed the hot bowl out of the microwave and sat down at his computer to truly begin his day. A simple routine really. Eat while updating his blog and filling out his hero journal. He was really curious about the place he ended up but that would come when his routine was completed.
As he savoured the katsudon, he marked down each fight each hero had completed and added any debuts, there were rarely any debuts this time of the year with the UA sports festival coming up but Izuku noted that Endeavour has some major deviances to his regular patrol route. Izuku sighed to himself happy that he didn’t run into Endeavour in his wanderlust. Endeavour was never Izuku’s favourite hero, in fact he was far from it. Izuku idolized heroes who put themselves in the way of danger anytime help called for it. He admired heroes who didn’t make anyone afraid of them other than the villains and most of all he valued deescalation. Endeavour seemed to Izuku like a man who valued his reputation and his pride over the lives of others. A bit like Kacchan, he thought wistfully. Thinking of Kacchan Izuku types into the search bar ‘my friend is a boy now?’ and sees results about children having no friends and quickly changes his search criteria. ‘was girl is boy’ he typed in next finding an article about a 13 year old who is agender. As he scrolls down the article he finally finds a word that triggers his next special interest. Transgender. Kacchan is transgender. Izuku adds this new information as well as an entire half page of new terminology to Kacchan’s page in his notebook. Kacchan is just so cool. Izuku then spends the rest of his evening trying to answer the question of wether or not Kacchan would be the first trans hero.
Izuku wakes up sitting at his desk. He takes off his headset to see if his mom was home but it was much more likely that she was at work. As he groggily stretches, his work from last night catches his eye. Something has happened with Endeavour.