Chapter Text
Izuku had an okay life. It wasn’t great, he knew that, and it was by far not normal. He knew that it wasn’t normal. Every single piece of media he managed to sneak and get told him it wasn’t normal. His father never even tried to hide the fact that it wasn’t normal.
If he were normal, he would not be on top of a roof in the pouring rain at an ungodly hour that no sane person would be awake and outside when it was freezing. If he were normal, he would not have to sneak out on the worst nights just to get fresh air rather than the stale air from back home. If he were normal, he would actually get some sun exposure as opposed to the boarded up windows that he could maybe see a crack of sunlight peek through if he angled himself just right.
But Izuku was not normal, and so he stayed on the rooftop in the pouring rain. His father wouldn’t like it, but his father didn’t like anything he did, and this was by far not the worst thing he had ever done, so he was sure he would just get a lecture of some sort and another assignment to complete. Maybe he’d have to spar with Tomura if his father was in a bad mood.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
Shouta hated nights like tonight. He could deal with rain. He could deal with cold nights. He could deal with slow nights. But when you added them all together, they were his worst nightmare. Since he started teaching at UA he had been going on patrol at night slightly less, as Hizashi might have decided that the hero code wasn’t necessary and murdered him right then and there had he decided to go out more than three times a week and completely forgo the already vague sleep schedule he had.
But Shouta had chosen to be a hero, and so going on patrol on the worst nights was part of the job description. So along the rooftops he went, patrolling the inactive streets for any sign of a crime that wouldn’t happen tonight. Not even villains wanted to be out in this weather.
His patrol was nearly over, only five minutes left before he would head back home and write the reports on everything that didn’t happen, then he would climb in bed for the measly two hours he would get before going to school with way too much coffee.
And then he saw a boy.
The kid was small, that he could tell from across the roof, he couldn’t make out anything else, but there was a boy on a roof on a shit night, so he went over to him.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
Izuku had all but known that Eraserhead would find him, this was where he patrolled, and on nights like tonight, there was bound to be less action than normal. He had even heard him when he was still a roof or two away, he probably could have left without notice if he had wanted to. But he stayed where he was.
“The hell are you doing here kid?”
Izuku was somewhat tempted to not answer, just for the sake of it. Besides, if his father found out he had spoken to a hero while he was breaking the rules, he didn’t want to think about what would happen to him.
But he answered anyway.
“Thinking.”
“Why are you sitting out here to think? Go home, it’s freezing.” Eraserhead sat next to him as he said that. He figured that the hero had realized that Izuku had no plans of going home, at least not yet.
“Thinking is easier out here than at home.” Because at home he had to deal with more than he wanted to, at home he was nothing more than some useless, quirkless kid who just so happened to have a powerful father. It was a shame that none of that power ended up going to Izuku.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
Shouta wanted to press that, but knew he shouldn’t, not yet at least. He needed to get this kid’s trust before he even attempted asking anything personal. He tried to think of something logical that could maybe subvert it without avoiding the topic.
“Why not go somewhere else then, somewhere where you’re not getting completely soaked?” He said in his normal monotone.
“Where do you want me to go at three in the morning? Everything is closed around here. Unless you want me to break in somewhere, but that doesn’t seem very pro-hero like of you, Eraserhead.”
Shouta froze. Not many people had even heard of him, let alone would be able to recognize him. That’s what part of the whole underground hero thing was, he stayed out of the limelight, no one knew his face, no one recognized him or begged him for an autograph everytime he went outside. Yet this kid had. The kid was getting more and more intriguing to him.
He didn’t let himself stay shocked for long however.
“You're right, no breaking into places.”
“You’re shocked that I know you.” The kid said it so matter of factly, as if there was no doubt in his mind that he had thrown Shouta off in a way that rarely ever happened.
“A little, sure. Mind telling me how?” Maybe he could get some information out of him, even if it was something simple.
“Nope.” And with that, the kid got up.
There was nothing Shouta could do. He knew deep down that trying to stop him wouldn’t do anything, so he watched the kid jump off the roof, and before he even processed it, he was standing at the edge watching this strange child climb down the side of a building and run off into the night.
Shouta stayed there for a while, just watching where the kid had turned the corner, long after his shift had ended.
--------------------------------------------------
By the time Shouta finally went home, it was a full half hour after he was supposed to, and Hizashi was waiting for him right inside the door. His husband was much more subdued when at home than when he was in hero mode, and now he was wrapped in a blanket with his brows furrowed with worry and holding a towel.
“It’s not like you to be late.” Shouta could hear the worry in Hizashi’s voice.
“I know, and I’m sorry. Something held me up.” Shouta said as he took the towel and started to dry off. He was soaked to the skin because of the damn rain and sitting with that mysterious kid.
“Mind telling me what? Or in the morning?” That was one of the many things he loved about his husband, he never pushed, and he knew when Shouta needed nothing more than to lie down and pass out.
“Morning. Too much to say tonight.” And Hizashi left it at that, no further questions, just the two of them going to bed.
--------------------------------------------------
Shouta was on patrol again, wondering about the strange child again. He wondered where he had come from, and who he was, what the hell he was doing on the rooftop in the middle of the night.
As the end of his shift approached, he wondered if he’d see the kid again. Eventually the last five minutes of his shift had come, and Shouta decided he would go to the same rooftop he had met the kid on two nights ago to see if he was possibly going to be there once again.
As he neared, he saw the strange boy. He wasn't sure if he was glad the boy was okay, or worried because, once again, there was a teenaged boy on a roof in the middle of the night. And as he approached, he could so the boy tense, almost as if he could sense him from across the rooftop.
He wondered what had happened to the boy to make him that aware of his surroundings. Shouta didn't know how old the boy was, but he was his age once, and he also knew that he had not had that much awareness. No one he knew had that much awareness.
"Hey again." Shouta said. The boy didn't respond, almost as if he hadn't heard him, and Shouta was about to speak again when the kid turned around.
"I didn't think you would come back." The boy said as he turned back around to stare off into the city. There was a roughness to his voice this time.
"Well, when I meet a random kid who sits on rooftops in the pouring rain at an hour that not even villains like to be up at, I have to at least be curious, let alone do my job and check on you.” Shouta said as he walked to the edge and sat down next to the boy again. “And, because I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
He wanted to make sure Izuku was alright. He almost laughed at that. No one cared whether Izuku was alright or not, let alone checked. He couldn’t quite figure out what game Eraserhead was playing, but he wouldn’t be tricked by the hero’s small acts of kindness, no matter how much he wanted to revel in them.
“You thinking again?” Eraserhead asked.
Izuku just nodded.
“Thinking about anything specific?”
Izuku shook his head.
“You going to keep giving me answers without actually saying anything.”
Izuku shrugged.
“Any particular reason why?” The hero pressed on. Izuku knew he was trying to get answers from him, but he wasn’t sure what he was baiting him towards.
“Why do you care?” Izuku groaned out. His father and Kurogiri were helping Tomura train his quirk, and Tomura had decided that the best target would be Izuku’s throat.
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
Now that Shouta was next to him, he saw a bandage on the kid’s throat. He didn’t know where it came from, or even how bad the wound under it was, but he knew the kid wasn’t just going to tell him. So Shouta eyed it, trying to see through it at the wound underneath.
“I care, because if there’s a reason, say someone hurt you, I’d not only want to, but be required by my job to help.” Shouta tried to gauge the boy’s reaction. Either he blinked and missed it, or the boy didn’t react.
“You wouldn’t be able to even if you tried,” the boy said, almost as if he had been resigned to the fact that no one would help him. And before he could get another word in, the boy hopped off the roof once again and left.
--------------------------------------------------
As Shouta came home, Hizashi was there at the door once again. When Shouta had told him about the boy the next morning, he was concerned about the kid. Any pro-hero would have been after meeting him the way Shouta had. Hizashi also was skeptical about how the boy could have identified him as Eraserhead immediately.
But when Shouta came in today, Hizashi took one look at him and asked, “Morning?”
“Morning,” Shouta agreed. And then he went to bed.
--------------------------------------------------
It had been a few months. Shouta had seen the kid time and time again, at the end of every patrol. Like clockwork. It went roughly the same every time.
Shouta would find him (or maybe the kid had always found him?), he would try to get some vague answers out of the kid, and eventually he would run off into the night leaving Shouta with more questions than answers. He was interested by this random kid from a rooftop, but he also couldn’t help but be worried for him. There was no way a kid with any semblance of a decent home life would be out on a rooftop damn near every night for months straight.
Sometimes the kid would come up bruised, sometimes with cuts. On the rare occasion, the kid came up with a wrist or ankle that had been put in a brace from either being broken or sprained. Those days, he also usually sported a bandage wrapped around a part of his body that the kid would always avoid touching. Shouta had asked too many questions too fast those nights, and the boy left much quicker.
Hizashi was always there the next morning, where Shouta would explain how this mysterious kid had baffled him the previous night. It was slightly infuriating that everytime he tried to get any real answers from the kid he would just immediately run away, but Shouta had slowly been breaking him down, had managed to get him to stay for longer and longer conversations slowly yet surely.
--------------------------------------------------
It had become routine now that in the last five minutes of his patrol he would go to what Shouta had deemed ‘The Kid’s Rooftop’. Without fail, every single patrol he was on, the boy would be on the rooftop. He didn’t know the kid knew exactly when he was patrolling, but that was far down on his list of questions. A list that in the months he’d known the kid had gotten almost no progress. He had just started to learn that the kid apparently had a brother he didn’t seem to get along with, but that was all he got before running off once more.
“You're later than usual.” The kid greeted him as Shouta crossed the rooftop.
“Yeah, well as it turns out I have an actual job apart from sitting out here and talking to you, and I had to do part of it.” Shouta said while he sat down. There had been a small attempted burglary that he had to stop right before he came to the roof.
“If I’m such a burden to your actual job, I’ll stop showing up.” The kid said, and he seemed sad about it. He was starting to get up before Shouta could respond.
“I didn’t mean it like that kid. I was trying to make a joke. I like our rooftop chats.” He tried not to let his panic at the thought of this strange kid not showing up anymore appear in his voice.
His words apparently worked, and the kid sat back down.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I was a burden to you. I’m one to everyone else.”
Those words grabbed Shouta’s attention fast, and the kid had said it almost as if he didn’t know he was talking out loud. Maybe he didn’t. Afterall, it was the most personal thing he had ever said.
“What do you mean by that kid? Who told you that?” Shouta really shouldn't have pressed it, pressing had never gone well when it came to this kid, but Shouta was too worried about what the kid had said to care about that.
“Everyone. My caretaker. My brother. My father. They always told me about how no one would ever want to deal with someone as useless as me. All of them say the world would be better without me, but any time I tried to get out of the world they would yell at me for trying. Because apparently I couldn’t even do that well.”
Shouta was reeling. He had never gotten that much from the kid, and every word he said was like another punch to the gut. The kid had tried to kill himself before, and from the sound of it, he had tried more than once. Before Shouta could even attempt to ask, the boy kept going, as if now that the gates were open, he couldn't shut them again.
“I mean, it's not like I blame them. I am a burden. Who would want to deal with a quirkless kid. It’s not like I can do anything. I’m useless.” The kid sounded sad. As if he was resigned to a fate that Shouta had no idea about. And he didn’t know how to respond.
“Kid…” Shouta started, but it was like hearing him speak shook the kid out of a trance. He looked as if he had no idea what had happened, but a quick realization of what he had told the hero had come over him.
And before Shouta could say another word, the kid left quicker than he ever had before.