Bruised And Broken (DISCONTINUED)

3- Raging fires

Izuku froze at Erasers question, pausing in wrapping his arm where he got shot as a tiny flashback to when he was small.

'Momma? Papa? Can I still become a hero, even if I'm quirkless?' A four year old Izuku asked, his eyes were puffy from crying about not getting a power like everyone else. His father smiled warmly at him and picked the small child up.

'Of course, son. You can do anything if you work hard enough for it.' His mother had smiled brightly at the two, wholeheartedly agreeing with her husband.

Izuku snapped out of it and continued wrapping his arm, thinking of an answer. Truthfully he wasn't even in high school yet so there isn't a way for him to currently be a hero but he couldn't tell Eraser that, he'd stop him from helping people. 

"You're muttering." Eraser said matter-of-fact like and Izuku shut his mouth, cursing himself for developing that habit. He had mostly got it under control though so it shouldn't be a problem in the future. 

"... Why would I want to become one of those who gave up on me?" Izuku asked as an answer, bandaging his side after removing the bullet. And just at that moment his voice changer decided to act up, causing the deeper voice to glitch out for a moment and being replaced with his real voice. His heart sped up, he knew how observant Eraser was and he would probably pick up on the sudden mishap.

"What do you mean by 'gave up on you?" Eraser asked, prodding into Izukus past. And Izuku went 'fuck it all to hell' and just finally said.

"Who would want to search for a quirkless boy? Being quirkless is a defect nowadays and I guess a missing person who doesn't have a power was just forgotten by society." Veridian snapped before walking away, disappearing from Aizawa's line of sight while he stood there in shock.

Veridian let the truth be known that he's, in fact, quirkless. That explained on why he said the heroes gave up on him. Aizawa sighed, knowing he had a long night ahead of him which he planned on using to search up quirkless people through police records.

                        ————<>————

Aizawa groaned as he set his head down on his desk in the teachers lounge at Yuuei, he had spent the past few months going through police files on quirkless people who were young enough to be in Veridians age range but had found no leads yet. He could feel he was close but he was tired and would be getting a new class of brats to teach in a few weeks, adding less sleep to his already messed up sleep schedule thanks to paperwork and grading. Him being on Veridians case wasn't helping either because it consisted of spending extra time doing research into police files.

He just wanted a day off with his cats and some coffee, that's all he wanted at the moment.

Most of the rest of the Yuuei staff had noticed him acting more tired and grumpy than usual and Kayama had decided to finally ask what was up despite the other teachers warning her it was a bad idea. It was a very bad idea. By the time Hizashi had showed up either the staff weren't in the lounge or they were hiding from an annoyed Aizawa behind anything they could. The loud pro chuckled at the scene in front of him and went to explain to the rest of the staff that Aizawa had joined the case of a vigilantie and it was messing with him.

The rest of the staff members gave Aizawa plenty of space the rest of the day.

The sleep deprived pro went home, ready to continue his search through the quirkless people. You'd think it'd be easy finding one quirkless person with the same proportions as Veridian but no, Aizawa had found himself sifting through missing persons cases from eight years ago. He paused as he came across one of a six year old, quirkless boy who he vaguely recognized as Izuku Midoriya who went missing after his parents death. His parents in question were Inko and Hisashi Midoriya, Hisashi used to be the pro hero 'Dragon' before the unfortunate event where he hand his wife were murdered by a villain.

Aizawa looked at the picture of Izuku Midoriya and saw the same kind of look in his eyes he saw in Veridians, that determined 'I can so I will' look. He made a realization that night, if Veridian was in fact Izuku Midoriya, who disappeared at six, then Veridian would be barely fifteen.

Veridian was six when he started being a vigilantie.

Aizawa was frustrated and angry, frustrated that he allowed a child to continue to be alone and angry because of how fucked up this society had to be for a kid to feel like he had nowhere else to go than to be a vigilante because he wouldn't be accepted if anyone knew he was quirkless. He was too young to be risking his life every night fighting villains, even if he could fight better than most quirked people in the hero course, he could hold his own against the number two hero without a quirk for Gods sake. Aizawa sighed and rubbed his face, he hadn't seen as much of Veridian since he gave him that little hint as to who he was and while Aizawa knew better than to start worrying about him he was just a kid.

Meanwhile, the vigilante in question was currently running for his life from a certain flaming garbage hero and, coincidentally, his youngest son. He honestly felt bad for the young Todoroki, having Endeavor as a father must be terrible especially if he wants to push his rivalry with All Might onto his son. 

"Get back here you damned villain!" Endeavor screamed at Izuku who hissed in annoyance, suddenly skidding to a stop before darting into an alley. Strangely Todoroki was faster than Endeavor and was keeping up with Izuku who had not yet noticed the other teen and was taking twists and turns where you would get lost if you didn't have the entire layout of the alleys memorized, which Todoroki probably didn't, you would get lost.

Izuku turned to see the teen and nearly shouted, "Oh for fucks sake." Which startled the young Todoroki and he turned to look at Izuku. Said vigilante was grumbling to himself about how unless he knew the back alleys, which was unlikely, he'd have to practically drag Todoroki through the back alleys to find Endeavor.

"Do you know your way around these alleys?" Izuku asked after taking an annoyed breath. Todoroki shook his head and Izuku sighed, regretting the fact that one; he had to go looking for the flaming garbage and two; he had to show Todoroki back to his most likely abusive father.

"Alright, follow me. Unless you'd rather not trust me and get lost in these alleys." Izuku said, starting to walk back to the way that would lead to the main street. He heard Todoroki hesitate for a few seconds before jogging to catch up with the shorter vigilante, keeping an eye on him in case he tried anything. Izuku could feel the calculating stare that the other teen was giving him, boring a hole into his head.

"Can you stop staring? Please?" Izuku asked, feeling uncomfortable as Todoroki basically stared him down. Todoroki, being shocked that a vigilante asked something, stopped moving completely for a moment. Izuku stopped and looked back at him with a confused and amused look.

"Were you not expecting manners?" Izuku asked, a laugh in his voice as he looked at the confused Todoroki. Izukus amusement was interrupted by an unnecessarily loud yell calling 'Shoto' through a familiar and annoying voice of Endeavor. 

"He's down the alley, take a right. Good luck with him!" Izuku said and disappeared into the nearest side alley, he flinched as he heard Endeavor yell at Todoroki for letting him get away. It was annoying and Izuku decided to leave before he did something he'd regret.

God he hated Endeavor.